From biographical forms to environmental consciousness: Gabriele Zanetto and cultural geography as a strategy to reinhabiting places

From biographical forms to environmental consciousness: Gabriele Zanetto and cultural geography as a strategy to reinhabiting places. - The essay is inspired by the peculiar role of autobiographical memory in the approach to research developed by the geographer Gabriele Zanetto. The use of psychological theory allows to define the central role of emotions and biographical events during the cognitive evolution, that is when the individual starts relations with his lived space. In the case of geographical research it is not difficult to find among scholars specific attitudes of "place attachment", which is not limited to geophysical characters, but also involving the whole of social and cultural relations. In Zanetto is very evident the connection between his personal memory collection and the innovative methods related to the recovery of subjectivity in the territorial studies, so as to be among the most attentive Italian geographers to research opportunities offered by humanistic geography. The interest for the subjectivity stimulates useful contacts with the idea of representation, whose semiotic nature is able to express specific communicative functions. In this context, the personal affection of Zanetto for pre-modern landscapes owes much to his personal biography and to cultural opportunities that he was able to process in order to obtain a satisfactory interpretation of the most recent regional developments. This attitude is finally matching with stimulating feedbacks in the new operating paradigms and discourses elaborated by the eco-critical approach.

The essay is inspired by the peculiar role of autobiographical memory in the approach to research developed by the geographer Gabriele Zanetto. The use of psychological theory allows to define the central role of emotions and biographical events during the cognitive evolution, that is whenthe individual starts relations with his lived space. In this context, the personal affection of Zanetto for pre-modern landscapes owes much to his personal biography and to cultural opportunities that he was able to process in order to obtain a satisfactory interpretation of the most recent regional developments.