Confini geografici, barriere psicologiche e fruizione dell’ambiente

Gorizia appears, at the same time, as a “material metaphor” of some of the ideas debated in this conference, and as an “ecological laboratory” for the study of the psychological effects of the political changes taking place in Europe. The aim of the paper is to present the perception people have of the border in the town area, at the moment in which some historical changes are occurring. The aim of the research, performed in the period following the entrance of Slovenia in the UE, but before its admission into the Schenghen area, was to check the effects of the demolition of the boundaries on the way the inhabitants perceive their environment. During two years (2005 and 2006) questionnaires were submitted to people living in Gorizia and Nova Gorica, belonging to different age groups and, therefore, endowed with different - both personal and historic-political - experiences. People of all ages, but primarily the young, would like to change some socio-cultural aspects of the town: “people”, “mentality”, “interpersonal relationships”. Some maintained, also among the elderly, that “more space should be granted to young people”. The elderly and intermediate age people would modify some physical-logistic aspects of the town: sidewalks, pedestrian zones, parking lots. Questioned about the surroundings of the town, the citizens of the Italian area tended to neglect the places located in Slovenia, while the residents on the Slovenian side did not mention the Italian places. The salient elements of the landscape, that behave as symbolic anchoring points, reveal how culture mediates between people and environment, attributing meaning to “reality”. Although all the people interviewed know the trans-border bus that daily connects Nova Gorica and Gorizia, half of them (the younger), both Italian and Slovenian, don’t know the name of the "terminal": for some it is in Gorizia, for others in Nova Gorica. On the basis of some informal comments advanced by the interviewees, it seems that a significant role in overcoming the barriers between the two towns and in approaching the citizens - whom, despite the geographical proximity, seem to entertain few relationships and "to know each others little" - could be played by cultural events like concerts, festivals... to which the border area between the two towns – Piazza Transalpina - could be deserved. The square is outlined as a “green area of leisure”, for cultural events "to share". Culture, a "porous array of intersections", is intended as a meeting point. The kingdom of culture is distributed along the borders, and borders go by everywhere, through every aspect of Culture. “Every cultural act lives essentially on the borders; when abstracted from the borders it loses its ground, becomes empty, arrogant, degenerates and dies”.