A Visionary Plot: Cascina Carpaneda Bene Comune

Within contemporary territories, the concept of peri-urban defines a blurry threshold between the urban and the rural, closely tied to food. These margins illustrate some of the most pressing socio-ecological challenges associated with the impacts of the development model and various forms of injustice. Conversely, they also represent valuable material and non-material resources that require protection. In these hybrid territories, beyond urban-rural and production-consumption dichotomies, new economic, social and ecological models are being developed.

Peri-urban spaces can serve as a catalyst for new forms and models of “narr-action” within contemporary societies. Recognizing their potential as experimental laboratories, the contribution focuses on the case of abandoned public farmhouse Ca’ Carpaneda, in Vicenza (Italy). An informal assembly – Assemblea per Cascina Carpaneda Bene Comune – initiated a grassroots process advocating for the plot’s recognition as a “common” and, thus, to be granted to local activists and local communities to become an “House for Agroecology” and the door of a future Agricultural Park of the City of Vicenza.

The contribution highlights the citizen science project developed by the assembly in collaboration with other local stakeholders: CARPINO (CARPaneda for INclusion and Observation of biodiversity changes). The project aims to identify strategies to protect the peri-urban area of Carpaneda by examining its socio-ecological conditions through a transdisciplinary approach. During the summer of 2024, an artistic laboratory, a school of oral history, and a science camp were organized. CARPINO serves as a tool to envision the area’s future and supports local activists in their dialogue with institutions toward the shared management of the rural public land and farmhouse in Carpaneda.