Save Arpa: From Salento a Possible Ecosystem-based Bottom-up Transformation Reflecting the Interplay of Inaction and Participation, Individualism and Community-building

Abstract

The Civic Committee “Save Arpa”, founded in 2018 to contrast an excavation project in the countryside of Alezio, near the Regional Natural Park of Punta Pizzo in Gallipoli, in the western side of Salentine Peninsula, is an interesting case-study owing to its flexible and adaptive structure and as a striking example of the participation and cooperation patterns within the context of investigation. The article aims to highlight a sinusoidal behaviour, apparently reactive to risk factors perceived as an immediate danger to the community. Facing a serious and grave threat or thus perceived, different subjects in competition with each other converge towards a common objective, starting to cooperate; at the same time the activation level of all subjects involved rises significantly. The contingent nature of this activation reveals a process of community-building in a strongly defensive key. Nevertheless, an ecosystem-based and integrated insight is not absent in the Committee’s narration. For this reason, the proposal coming from “L’Albero” Association, supported by the University of Salento, may modify the aforementioned patterns of behaviour towards an ecosystemic coevolution, stabilising on a higher level of participation and cooperation the community-building processes, in order to generate models of social and human development consistent with the expectations and needs of the community.