Civic participation in rural areas during the pandemic: reflections on the Community Castles Project

The present study investigates a place-based initiative (the Community Castles Project) developed in the rural North-West of Italy during the Covid-19 pandemic. The project was built around the concept of physical places (two medieval castles) that can become community centers for cultural, recreational and environmental decision-making activities. This chapter focuses on the narrative of the project and its main objective is to identify which actors and processes are relevant to fueling civic participation for the ecological transition of rural areas. The data used to discuss key learnings were collected through in-depth interviews, focus groups, examination of project documents and observation of meetings. The analysis of the data revealed that civic initiatives can be activated by external facilitators, but the early and active participation of community leaders is needed to achieve civic involvement and support the project. Local leaders can network with each other by means of a community board, which becomes a tool within their transformative and generative capacity is built to inspire and involve others in collective initiatives. This chapter contributes to the literature on civic participation in rural communities by presenting a perspective that is new to rural development practices, due to its being developed during the pandemic.