In search of the lost distance. Regenerating places, people and images related to Alpine reinhabitation
Living in a territory means being able to take part in the “functioning of citizenship” related to moving, feeding, saving, buying, participating, taking care, thinking about the future, investing in life plans, assuming social and political responsibility. Living in a territory is the way in which rights related to the status of “resident” become ways of “being or doing” that constitute the well-being of people as citizens. Citizenship is a daily opportunity, dependent on the characteristics of the context. Irreducibly different from the romantic images that described it as isolated, remote, physically separated from the modern world of cities and social change, in the last seven centuries the Alps have built a complex civilization around the multidimensional axis of the “right distance”. Today, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, such “right distance” can be an antidote to the disorganized and individualistic escape of the wealthy classes who can afford it. Re-inhabiting the marginalized places becomes instead the result of a political reversal of the gaze, of a radical and collective change of perspective.
