THE ACTIVITY OF UNESCO REGARDING THE ELEMENT OF RECOVERY OF THE CULTURAL IDENTITY: THE EXAMPLE OF AEOLIAN ISLANDS

Abstract

The recent interest aroused by Cultural Geography, which expressed a great attention and a study's excitement on "cultural facts", is linked to changes due to several factors in different territorial ambits where human groups’ identities are expressed. The globalization process produced different effects in various cultural regions, which lead to a homologation phenomenon, with consequent assimilation and lost of cultural identity, or to strong defensive reactions for their own specificities. In such a context, a particular attention towards "cultural signs" impressed on man by his environment, in order to protect every residual element that symbolizes the specific individuality which is again the historical connection between human beings and their past. So, the interest of UNESCO for World Heritage List properties, receivers of protection and preservation programs, has to be interpreted in this sense. A clear example of the above said comes from the attention turned to Aeolian Islands, recently declared "World Heritage Property", with the main purpose of volcanic identity safeguard, as fundamental landscape component, and of knowledge of Aeolian cultural properties, as expression of cultural identity and place belonging, of hereditary transmission and historical sedimentation, of representative contextuality and complexity.