Responsabilità sociale per il paesaggio. Un quadro riflessivo per le comunità alpine

Social responsibility for landscape. A re!ective framework for Alpine communities - !e notion of landscape provides an important theoretical and practical framework, able to highlight relevant aspects and trends characterizing the complex socio-economic, political, and cultural dynamics of our globalized era. In fact, globalization phenomena can even be observed at the level of our individual and social lives through the transformation of our landscapes, surroundings, and territories. To tackle the question “Whose Alps are these?” is foremost to highlight their ethical and political relevance by slightly modifying the query to: “To whom ought the Alps belong?” or “Who ought to be responsible for the Alps?” !e basic thesis of this article is that a conversion from is to ought has important theoretical and practical consequences for understanding the role played by landscape in the contemporary transformation of the places we inhabit. Indeed, landscape is a social construction involving individual and social freedoms and responsibilities. However, as underlined by the philosopher Hans Jonas, modernity upsets the equilibrium between these concepts and produces an irresponsible spread of freedom, which in turn has serious consequences for landscape and territorial planning and management. Such problematics require a reestablishment of humanity’s ethical and political duty to counterbalance indiscriminate freedom with responsibility. !e many cases of democratic and public participation processes currently taking place in the Alps may be interpreted as an e"ort to move in this direction.