Una comunità in trasformazione, un patrimonio che cambia: il caso Siponto tra archeologia, partecipazione e dialogo interculturale

This article examines the project Cultural Heritage and Changing Communities, developed at the archaeological site of Siponto within the broader ArchaeoSipontum research programme. The project combines archaeological research, education, heritage protection and public engagement, exploring how an archaeological site can become meaningful to communities marked by mobility, cultural plurality and unequal forms of access to heritage. The article is structured around three complementary perspectives. The first presents Siponto as a laboratory of global and public archaeology, outlining the relationship between archaeological research, the local community and the contemporary transformation of the territory. The second analyses the project from an archaeological and methodological perspective, focusing on participation, reciprocity, interdisciplinary collaboration, the plurality of languages and the role of archaeological materiality. Activities such as photographic workshops, symbolic passports, life stratigraphies, travel maps and collaborative storytelling show how archaeological methods can create shared spaces of interpretation and weaken exclusive forms of belonging. The third contribution examines participation from a sociological perspective, addressing asymmetries, vulnerability, trust, discontinuity and the conditions that make shared knowledge production possible. The Siponto case study demonstrates that participation is neither a supplementary activity nor a simple extension of access. It is a process capable of transforming research questions, mediation practices and the meanings attributed to heritage. Through the encounter between scientific knowledge, personal experience and material traces, the archaeological site becomes a relational and civic space in which different memories, including those not directly inherited, can contribute to the construction of a shared heritage community.