Food Festivals And Local Development In Italy

What does the proliferation of food festival tell us about rural areas? How can these celebrations pave the way to a better future for the local communities? This book is addressing these questions contributing to the ongoing debate about the future of rural peripheries in Europe. The volume is based on the ethnographic research conducted in Italy, a country internationally known for its food tradition and one of the European countries where the gap between rural and urban space is most pronounced. It offers an anthropological analysis of food festivals, exploring the transformational role they have to change and develop rural communities. Although the festivals aim mostly at tourism, they contribute in a wider way to the life of the rural communities, acting as devices through which a community redefines itself, reinforces its sociality, reshapes the perception and use of the surrounding environment. In so doing, thus, the books suggests to read the festivals not just as celebrations driven by food fashion, but rather fundamental grassroots instruments to contrast the effects of rural marginalization and pave the way to a possible better future for the community

Food and wine events have gained popularity internationally. Their importance in local economic development has grown, especially in Europe, as they are seen as a source of income for local economic systems, a way for creating new job positions and effective tools for promoting and increasing typical product awareness and demand. This book for the first time illustrates the positive and negative impacts of food and wine events from a stakeholder perspective by highlighting several critical aspects such as: (1) advantages and disadvantages of food and wine events; (2) best practice adoption for maximising benefits flowing from event creation; (3) community involvement and knowledge diffusion; (4) effectiveness in promoting local products and creating consumer awareness about products; (5) factors that promote or inhibit the success or achievements of wine and food events. Although the volume primarily focuses on events in Europe, comparisons are made to other regions in the world. Case studies are integrated throughout to illustrate the system of economic and social impacts linked to food and wine events, as well as best practices to achieve effective event management and maximize expected results. Written by leading academics, this timely and important volume will be valuable reading for all students, researchers and academics interested in Events, Tourism, Hospitality, Gastronomy and Development Studies.

Food, Festival and Religion explores how communities in northern Italy find a restorative sense of place through foodways, costuming and other forms of materiality. Festivals examined by the author vary geographically from the northern rural corners of Italy to the fashionable heart of urban Milan. The origins of these lived religious events range from Christian to vernacular Italian witchcraft and contemporary Paganism, which is rapidly growing in Italy. Francesca Ciancimino Howell demonstrates that during ritualized occasions the sacred is located within the mundane. She argues that communal feasting, pilgrimage, rituals and costumed events can represent forms of lived religious materiality. Building on the work of scholars including Foucault, Grimes and Ingold, Howell offers a theoretical “Scale of Engagement” which further tests the interfaces between and among the materialities of place, food, ritual and festivals and provides a widely-applicable model for analyzing grassroots events and community initiatives. Through extensive ethnographic research and fieldwork data, this book demonstrates that popular Italian festivals can be ritualized, liminal spaces, contributing greatly to the fields of religious, performance and ritual studies.

This book examines contemporary food systems in Italy, paying particular attention to the landscape, innovative local practices and local cultural history. It illustrates the utility of the value chain concept in navigating the complexities of comparative advantage in an advanced market setting. It establishes the connection between the landscape and individual food practices, and how they have responded to the commodification of the agri-food system, maintaining a distinctive local character while ensuring development and a healthy diet. It explores how community gardens are now a consolidated part of Italian urban experience, as well as the multiple policy frameworks which govern these activities. The book then explores a wider range of food procurement channels, from food cooperatives to buying groups and institutional partnerships, including the strategies employed by large retail groups to respond to the growing environmental sensitivity of their customers. Multifunctional implications of antimafia activities involving social agriculture are also explored. Finally, the book ends with a survey of European and domestic Italian policies aiming to protect and promote healthy food practices while preserving the integrity of the landscape. This is fascinating reading for anyone interested in quality food and the territory, as well as academic readers from such disparate disciplines as sociology, urban studies, anthropology and Italian studies.

Food and Wine Festivals and Events Around the World is a pioneering text that recognises the importance of this rapidly growing aspect of the tourism industry. Food and wine festivals and events play a significant role in rural and urban development and regeneration and the impacts of these events can be far ranging at a social, political, economic and environmental level. This innovative book recognises the development of food and wine festivals as a part of regional and national tourism strategies and uses international case studies to illustrate practice and contextualise theory. Bringing together an international contributor team of experts, this is the first book to study this profitable and expanding area of the tourism industry and provides a unique resource for those studying in the fields of tourism, event management and culinary arts.

Wine tourism or enotourism or oenotourism or winery tourism or vinitourism is a special interest tourism that empowers local culture and spawns business opportunities for the local community. The comprehensive Routledge Handbook of Wine Tourism offers a thorough inquiry into both regular and emerging issues of wine tourism. Modern wine tourism extends beyond the mere cultivation of grapes and the production and selling of wine. The Routledge Handbook of Wine Tourism examines the complex interplay of market profiling, sustainable regional development, and innovative experiential marketing constructs which, when successful, contribute to the growth and sustainable evolution of global wine tourism. This handbook examines how the success of various enotourism events such as vineyard visits, winery tours, wine festivals and wine trails can stimulate the development of wine-producing regions and territories. Incorporating the latest philosophies and research themes, this handbook will be an essential reference for students, researchers, academics and industry practitioners of hospitality and tourism, gastronomy, management, marketing, cultural studies, development studies, international business and for encouraging dialogue across disciplinary boundaries.

The book explores, through a reflection on food, the complexity of the concept of well-being. It starts from the consideration that food is a fundamental element for human well-being, and for well-being of the planet as a whole. Not only does food guarantee the survival of human beings, it is also a cultural expression. With regard to the Italian socio-cultural context, the contributors explore how food relates to aspects such as history, tradition, new food styles, health, and the old and new technologies used to produce food. The studies in the book do not simply analyse indicators to illustrate the Italian situation in the "here and now". As part of the tradition of studies on social indicators, they provide valid and well-founded indications to contribute to an improvement in the quality of life for years to come. This work on the theme of food represents a very useful contribution to the general reflection on well-being and its statistical, sociological, and multidisciplinary study, due to the importance historically given to food in Italy and the socio-cultural implications of food in various life contexts.