From industry to local communities: an ecomuseum hypothesis in the Gulf of Augusta

Abstract

The development processes from the post-war era to the present day have privileged an economic growth path that has considered the area between Augusta and Siracusa as a uniform and white paper on which to write on. This model has generated negative externalities whose steep increase could only be made tolerable by the sudden and substantial per capita growth of wealth. It was when wealth started to decrease and unemployment was revealed, due to the emergence of an initial but undisputable deindustrialisation process, that the challenge of identity recovery and the choice of alternative territorial development paths become evident. It is in this scenario that the hypothesis of the establishment of an ecomuseum can be considered strategic in handing over the power of choice to local communities, to cope with the crisis scenarios and to allow them to reinterpret territory and its heritage as a possible development alternative.