Changing Discourses, Practices and Spaces of Coexistence: Perspectives for the Environmental Regeneration of the Ofanto River Basin

The aim of this article is to explore how spaces of coexistence are created and emulated in river basin planning and management. The starting-point is the recognition of the crucial concept of integration and its different meanings with regard to the need to overcome fragmentation of knowledge and actions. The article provides an in-depth analysis of discourses and practices taking place in the Ofanto river basin, southern Italy, in the light of social-economic and administrative innovation that is spreading through this area. The analysis reveals the emergence of communities of practices, in which local actors' concepts are debated and hybridized. They are giving rise to new spaces of coexistence and a new discourse on the Ofanto river basin environmental regeneration