The Culture-Centered Development Potential of Communities in Făgăraș Land (Romania)

Abstract

Făgăraș Land (Romania) is a very old administrative formation with its own identity, preserved from the beginning of the Middle Ages. The mapping of the intangible cultural heritage (ICH) highlighted the groups of caroling lads as the main strategic heritage resource, but also the existence of many other ICH resources that can be exploited towards the sustainable development of the area. These include local soups, an ICH gastronomic resource that can help build the area’s tourism brand. All resources, together with the peculiarities of the local medieval history, the memory of the anti-communist resistance in the Făgăraș Mountains and the religious pilgrimage to the local Orthodox monasteries, support the configuration of Făgăraș Land as a multidimensional associative cultural landscape. The content analysis of the information on ICH available on the official websites of the administrative territorial units (ATUs), correlated with the data from the interviews with local leaders, highlighted the types of local narratives regarding the capitalization of cultural resources and the openness to culture-centered community-based development, namely glocal, dynamic local and static local visions. The unitary and integrated approach of tourist resources, tourism social entrepreneurship, support from the local commons and a better management of the local cultural potential are ways to capitalize on belonging to the Făgăraș Land cultural landscape, towards sustainable community development of the area.