La Rasgioni - a dialogical tool
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The methodologie has been inspired by a public practice of conflict mediation used until a few decades ago in Gallura (NE Sardinia, Italy), named La Rasgioni (The Reason).
Traditionally, La Rasgioni was used in Sardinia as a public mediation process for reconciling two parties whenever a conflict, often regarding property or livestock, could not be solved in other ways. Five people were involved in the process of reconciliation: two alligadori (lawyers) who represented the interests of each party; three rasgiunanti (judges: two nominated by each side, and the omu di mezu, arbiter, chosen by both). Once the Alligadori had presented their speeches, the rasgiunanti examined relevant documents and afterwards were called to pronounce their final verdict. Two solutions were possible: dizisa if the request of one of the parties was accepted; or arrangiu when a compromise solution was suggested. Everyone could attend the debate, thus turning private conflicts into collective public events in order to create learning opportunities for the whole community.
In order to engage stakeholders and promote social learning, in 2015, The Rasgioni: the court of water, was introduced for the first time in Arborea in the framework of the EU project CADWAGO to bring out issues related to sustainable water management by engaging together institutions, economic operators, environmentalists and citizens. The traditional form of conflict resolution was then used to translate the complexity of water-related conflicts in a modern key by adopting theatrical techniques (Ruiu M.L et al, 2017).
This event had two main objectives: (i) to explore the potential of a creative re-interpretation of the traditional local practice to mediate environmental conflicts and controversies and to facilitate governance learning between representatives of formal institutions and of farmers’ interest in the context of agricultural water governance; (ii) to explore how the outcomes deriving from this new process, interpreted through the lenses of the CADWAGO project framework, could help to identify barriers and generate opportunities from enhanced governance learning.
The Sardinian initiative showed that “water governance represents one of the thresholds - scientific, technological, symbolic and political - beyond which the validity of the generalist model of European agro-environmental policies falls. In this, the search for metaphors and narratives that can effectively communicate complexity could play a crucial role, maybe learning from old practices of a vanished world.
Following the scheme already used in the past, on June 27th, 2022, La Rasgioni: the court of change, was organized again in Arborea focusing on the conflict between climate change and sustainable development, and hence not between “parties”.
Representatives of the Institutions (e.g. Regional Agriculture Department, Municipality of Arborea, Regional Agencies of the Hydrographic District, Environmental Protection and Laore, Sardinian Water Authority, Land Reclamation Consortium of Oristano, University of Sassari and Cagliari), local production realities (3A, Coop. Producers Arborea, Livegreen, Bonifiche Ferraresi, Cooperative Fishermen Sant'Andrea), environmentalists and citizens were invited to "reason" about future scenarios. As Emina di mezu, the lawyer Veronica Dini, expert in environmental mediation, Alligadori, Professor Pier Paolo Roggero, Director of the Department of Agricultural Sciences of the University of Sassari, Rasgiunanti the researchers of the international Sustain Coast PRIMA project, in Arborea to attend a Summer School on Environmental Conflict Mediation.
Previous Rasgioni
The model successfully tested in Arborea was exported in Sassari (Sardinia, Italy) where on June 16th 2017, to celebrate the World Day to combat Desertification, La Rasgioni: the drought court was held with the aim of sensitizing to lesser perceived issues such as climate change, consumption and degradation of the land, hidden connections about daily practices and the deterioration of resources. On one side the Institutions, on the other Entrepreneurs and Associations.
In 2017, La Rasgioni reached UK where Loughborough University (UK) researchers, partner of the CADWAGO project, get the potential of La Rasgioni and successfully adapted it to local issues by performing “the Reasons in the Fens”.
In 2019, building on The Reasons in the Fens, in the framework of “My mark: My city”, an initiative by UN-Live and the Museum for the United Nations in collaboration with researchers from the Storytelling Academy at Loughborough University and Hope Raisers, a NGO based in the Korogocho informal settlement in Nairobe, “The Reasons for Nairobi” reached Kenia.
Fields of application
The method could be applied in areas where it is necessary to mediate contrasting positions between different stakeholders.
Reference:
Ruiu, M.L.; Maurizi, S.; Sassu, S.; Seddaiu, G.; Zuin, O.; Blackmore, C.; Roggero, P.P. Re-Staging La Rasgioni: Lessons Learned from Transforming a Traditional Form of Conflict Resolution to Engage Stakeholders in Agricultural Water Governance. Water 2017, 9, 297. https://doi.org/10.3390/w9040297
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