Alcobaça’s Agro-Landscape Hinterland: New Rurality and a Sustainable Approach to Tourism

Abstract

AbstractTo start with, we identify the historical and sociological framework of the Alcobaça area, which has Cister in its epicentre. The ordering of the landscape, structuring of the settlement, productive landscape and religious and agro-industrial architecture are essential landmarks in the centuries—old Cistercian legacy, links that modern times have weakened but can be re-appropriated and naturalised to generate new social dynamics. Without forgetting those determinant historical cornerstones and the opportunities they create, this paper aims at focusing its analysis on the economic and cultural events seen in the agro-landscape of Alcobaça in the transition to the so-called “new rurality” phenomenon, which took place in the Portuguese rural world at the turn of the twenty-first century. It discusses the impact of the shift on the concept of “countryside” as an area of restricted production to one of “countryside” as a common symbolic space. An analysis is made of this shift, characterised by a “convening role” where goods and services establish a framework of reference for the area by stimulating new economic expressions, with tourist activity holding a prominent position. Inextricably linked to this process is the growth of an “aesthetics of the landscape”. Its mechanisms are founded in highly diverse historical and cultural facets: from the most traditional, such as subsistence farming, cuisine and wine tourism, historic, religious and ethnographic routes and symbolic events (celebrations and pilgrimages), to renewed forms, such as new themed celebrations (constructions that exemplify the place), extreme sports or participatory/activist ecology. It is also intended to evaluate the re-appropriation of natural and cultural heritage as a device for promoting a sustainable development model for a region under the effects of a shift caused by “new rurality”. In this context, the potentials and dynamics of this model are described, the pillars of which are based on preservation of heritage and cultural tourism.KeywordsAlcobaçaRuralityAgro-landscapeSustainable developmentCultural tourism