- 14 November 2025
- Posted by: Twissen
- Categories: Travellers, Trends
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Crotone and Tobruk: Two Mediterranean Laboratories for Sustainable Development and Positive Peace
by Fabio Carbone
Lecturer and Researcher at the University of Northampton (UON) – UK
Director of the Research Centre for Global Economic and Social Development (GESD, UON)
Consultant in Sustainable Tourism Management and Heritage-Led Development in post-conflict reconstruction contexts
This article draws on reflections shared during my keynote address at the 2nd International Conference on Archaeology and Tourism hosted by the University of Tobruk in Libya, under the theme “Investment and Sustainable Development between Archaeology and Tourism:
Prospects and Challenges.” My presentation, entitled “Archaeology Beyond the Past: Slow Tourism, Social Value, and the Faro Convention,” placed two Mediterranean cities in dialogue — Crotone and Tobruk.
Two coastal communities, both peripheral and central at once: ports of history and identity now seeking to redefine their relationship with memory, development, and the future. The central idea is that archaeology, when understood in the broad sense proposed by the Faro Convention (Council of Europe, 2005), is not merely a science of the past. It is a practice of the present, capable of generating social value, cohesion, and, ultimately, what Johan Galtung (1969) called “positive peace” — not the absence of conflict, but the active presence of justice, dialogue, and participation.
Living Archaeology: From Past to Future
Traditionally, archaeology has been understood as a discipline of protection and conservation, a look backward rather than forward.
Yet, the Faro Convention invites us to a radical shift in perspective: cultural heritage is not an assemblage of objects, but a network of relationships. Article 4 of the Convention states that “everyone, alone or collectively, has the right to benefit from the cultural heritage and to contribute towards its enrichment.” Heritage, therefore, becomes a right of cultural citizenship.
In this view, archaeology becomes a language through which communities narrate and recognize themselves. In Crotone, ancient Kroton still speaks, not only through the remains preserved at the Archaeological Museum of Capo Colonna, but through the collective memory of a city struggling to reconcile its past glory with a sustainable future. In Tobruk, Greco-Roman vestiges coexist with the modern memory of twentieth-century conflicts and the ongoing challenges of reconstruction. Here, archaeology is more than material legacy; it can serve as an instrument of civic resilience, reconnecting present-day life to the long history of the Mediterranean as a space of encounter and exchange.
Crotone and Tobruk: Two Mediterranean Laboratories
The comparison between Crotone and Tobruk emerges naturally: both cities stand at a threshold, poised between marginality and rebirth. They are historic ports, crossroads of civilizations, and custodians of extraordinary archaeological heritage, yet neither has fully transformed that wealth into sustainable social and economic value. In Crotone, recent data show an encouraging yet fragile trend. Regional statistics for the first four months of 2025 report 464,240 overnight stays (+10.1% compared to 2024) and 224,000 arrivals (+10.4%). The local airport welcomed 273,240 passengers in 2024, marking a 20% increase over 2023. Cruise tourism has also grown, with 26 ship calls and over 27,000 passengers in 2024, and 31 arrivals already scheduled for 2025.
However, these numbers conceal a deeper paradox. The enthusiasm surrounding the return of cruise ships to Crotone has been widely celebrated as a symbol of revival. Yet, as I have argued elsewhere, cruise companies are not humanitarian organizations; they do not operate for the destination, but through it. Their economic footprint often bypasses the local community, while the environmental and infrastructural pressures they create remain.
For emerging destinations such as Crotone, this kind of growth can quickly become a Pyrrhic victory: impressive on paper, but hollow in substance. Real development, by contrast, lies in building a tourism model that strengthens the local economy, empowers residents, and
sustains authenticity.
From this perspective, Crotone remains in the “exploration phase” identified by Butler (1980): a critical juncture in which the choices made today will determine whether it evolves toward sustainable maturity or falls into dependency and imitation.
The challenge is clear — to grow without surrendering authenticity, to define a vision rooted in identity, knowledge, and community participation. Tobruk, in eastern Libya, faces a similar turning point in a more complex environment.
After years of fragmentation and instability, the city is rediscovering its archaeological, natural, and human heritage as a resource for social reconstruction. Unlike the already established World Heritage sites of Cyrene, Leptis Magna, and Sabratha, Tobruk represents a living laboratory — a place where cultural tourism can be built from the ground up, combining education, international cooperation, and local engagement.
In this sense, Tobruk can become a model of heritage-led recovery, where archaeological enhancement goes hand in hand with civic education and peacebuilding.
Slow Tourism and the Faro Spirit
In both Crotone and Tobruk, the answer cannot be mass tourism. What is needed instead is a measured, rooted, and participatory approach. The paradigm of slow tourism, developed in the early 2000s, provides an ideal framework to translate the principles of the Faro Convention into concrete practice. It is not merely about “moving more slowly,” but about reconnecting travel with meaning, people with place.
In Crotone, this means enhancing experiences rooted in authenticity — local markets, traditional crafts, vineyards, fishing, gastronomy, and walking routes inspired by Pythagoras and Magna Graecia.
Here, the visitor becomes a participant rather than a spectator, engaging with daily life and human stories rather than consuming attractions.
For Tobruk, the same logic applies. Cultural tourism could involve young people, universities, and local guides; it could merge archaeological visits with education, dialogue, and intercultural exchange. Such a model does not only bring visitors — it builds connections. It fosters understanding, trust, and micro-economies that reinforce the social fabric.
In this regard, event tourism would also be a path worth pursuing. Without going into technical or theoretical details here, this form of tourism is useful in giving a destination a special and unique personality, and in promoting it nationally and in international markets in a sustainable way. In the case of the two locations in question, sporting events would be the most suitable, with particular attention to water sports, but not only. Moreover, tourism and historical-archaeological heritage would once again come together, especially in Crotone, which is strongly connected to the ancient Olympics.
As the Faro Convention reminds us, heritage is valuable not because of its monuments, but because of the meanings people attach to it. In this sense, slow tourism is the living embodiment of the Faro spirit: time, care, and reciprocity as tools for sustainable growth.
Here, the visitor becomes a participant rather than a spectator, engaging with daily life and human stories rather than consuming attractions.
For Tobruk, the same logic applies. Cultural tourism could involve young people, universities, and local guides; it could merge archaeological visits with education, dialogue, and intercultural exchange. Such a model does not only bring visitors — it builds connections. It fosters understanding, trust, and micro-economies that reinforce the social fabric.
In this regard, event tourism would also be a path worth pursuing. Without going into technical or theoretical details here, this form of tourism is useful in giving a destination a special and unique personality, and in promoting it nationally and in international markets in a sustainable way. In the case of the two locations in question, sporting events would be the most suitable, with particular attention to water sports, but not only. Moreover, tourism and historical-archaeological heritage would once again come together, especially in Crotone, which is strongly connected to the ancient Olympics.
As the Faro Convention reminds us, heritage is valuable not because of its monuments, but because of the meanings people attach to it. In this sense, slow tourism is the living embodiment of the Faro spirit: time, care, and reciprocity as tools for sustainable growth.
Positive Peace and the Social Value of Heritage
The link between heritage and peace is often overlooked. Yet, as Johan Galtung (1969) emphasized, peace is not the absence of war, but the presence of justice and cooperation. In this regard, participatory heritage valorization can become a concrete instrument of positive peace.
In Tobruk, where memories of war remain vivid, archaeology can provide a neutral, symbolic ground for rebuilding trust and belonging. Young people, in particular, can find in cultural tourism a way to participate in their country’s rebirth, becoming both custodians
and narrators of their own history.
In Crotone, the same idea applies in civic form: tourism as education in citizenship, as a collective rediscovery of territory and pride. As I have often noted in public discussions and local media such as Il Crotonese and WeSud, “true sustainable tourism begins with the principle that the first beneficiaries of heritage must be the residents themselves” (an idea I started with my Paideia Approach to tourism development, in 2013). The value of heritage, therefore, is not measured by visitor numbers, but by relationships: by the social capital (trust, cooperation, shared identity…) that it generates.
The Mediterranean as a Workshop for the Future
Crotone and Tobruk stand as two shores of the same sea. Both face the challenge of turning their histories — ancient and recent — into engines for the future. The Mediterranean today needs visions that unite development and humanity, economy and culture, tourism and peace.
In this broader vision, archaeological heritage becomes a universal language — a shared alphabet through which Mediterranean peoples can begin to speak to each other again. The real goal is not simply to attract tourists, but to build meaning; not to increase flows, but to regenerate communities. Slow tourism, inspired by the principles of the Faro Convention, offers a concrete path toward that goal: promoting a tourism that does not consume but enriches, that does not simplify but educates, that does not separate but connects. Crotone and Tobruk, each in its
own way, remind us that the most important archaeology is not the one that digs into the ground, but the one that digs into people’s hearts.
Please note that the opinions expressed in the article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Twissen.
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