Mapping Memory in Selinunte

How do spatial engagements with cultural heritage differ and overlap between archaeologists, community members, and tourists in the Archaeological Park of Selinunte? What do these engagements tell us about how people use heritage?

Heritage mapping in this project is a method that utilizes GIS and ethnography to map present and past interactions with heritage onto space. The method facilitates collaboration with community members and other stakeholder groups to overlay official archaeological and historical narratives of the past, personal experience, and local knowledge onto space. 

In this project, heritage mapping was used in the form of site walk-abouts with participants, interviews, and a memory-mapping activity within the site and the local town. This project illustrates how different stakeholder groups understand and engage with the same site in different ways. The Archaeological Park of Selinunte contains the ruins of a large ancient Greek city in Sicily, Italy. In its local town, Marinella di Selinunte, the archaeological space acts as an integral cultural and economic nucleus in the community. The overarching purpose of this project is to investigate how individuals utilize heritage space to understand the world around them, particularly amid rapid societal, environmental, and political change in Sicily and the broader world.