Paper short abstract:

Focusing on three mountain villages in central Sardinia, we outline a brief cultural history of local economies with particular attention to depopulation, heritagisation, and tourism, using a methodology that combines ethnographic and historical research techniques.

Paper long abstract:

Nature-based tourism and the processes of heritagisation represent well-established objects of study within the social sciences. When reviewing the literature on this topic, it is possible to realize that a consistent part of it has to do with mountain areas, particularly in contexts with a historically established tourist tradition, such as the Alps, the Pyrenees, or, more recently, the Andes. However, less attention has been devoted to the Mediterranean mountains, such as those in Sardinia. Today the mountains of Sardinia are being rediscovered. In particular, with the development of the so-called nature-based tourism, the mountains and their villages are attracting numerous visitors and sports enthusiasts searching for hiking, local products and cultural traditions. It is about the current interest in a new environmental sensitivity and climate crisis, as well as the local cultural heritage. At the same time, however, the mountain villages of Sardinia face severe depopulation problems, a process that dates back to the 1960s and has determined profound changes in these territories. Using a methodology that combines historical research and ethnographic techniques, in this paper, we propose to outline a brief cultural history of local economies from the nineteenth century to the present, focusing on three significant cases: Aritzo, Mamoiada and Fonni.