The ‘Glocal’ Community of Matera 2019: Participative Processes and Re-Signification of Cultural Heritage

The ‘local’ community of Matera has been studied in a pioneering work by Lidia De Rita, who focused on the unique configuration of its neighborly relations, defining “psycho-groups”, featured by their not codified laws and affected by topographical defects in the formation of normal groups. In the second half of the 20th century, Matera radically changed its status: from a “national shame”, it was declared a “World Heritage Site” by UNESCO; in addition, it was definitively crowned in the hearth of the European scenario, thanks to the European Capital of Culture program (ECoC). In this rapidly evolving background, this work aims to investigate the re-signification of this ‘glocal’ community by means of three crucial variables—culture, participation, and sense of community and identity—as experienced across the complex pathway leading to Matera 19 (M19). In order to analyze the psychosocial value of the Cultural Heritage of the Mega Event M19, as it was socially constructed and perceived, both “front stage” (opening and closing ceremonies) and “backstage” (through interviews with key actors) positioning were analyzed by means of critical discourse analysis. The emerging social-epistemic rhetoric revealed a kaleidoscope of meanings, where the opportunities offered by M19 dealt with a missed fulfillment of needs and with the fact that the unicity of Matera still has to deal with its unresolved fragilities.