Mapping territorial commons in rural Europe

The ambition of the present document is to map the diverse realities of heritage communities in rural and marginal areas. We focus more specifically on projects related to the development of integrated, inclusive and sustainable cultural tourism that contribute to generating social innovations.

We begin with a brief review of the concepts used, the history of the commons and the place of the commons in Europe at the start of the 21^st century, which is seeing the consolidation of a comeback that began in the 1970s, after they had been erased from the legal and administrative landscape, and even from collective memory, for almost two centuries in favour of forms of exclusive ownership, whether private or public.

We then present brief monographs of inspiring examples that illustrate the diversity of the territorial commons. The focus is on the SECreTour pilot projects and the INCULTUM project that preceded it.