Tourism potential analysis of the castles of Vinalopó, Spain: an opportunity for social and tourist development of cultural heritage

Within the overall framework of the renewal process of coastal tourist destinations, cultural heritage has frequently been used as a key argument for the introduction and development of strategies for the diversification and differentiation of the traditional tourist product based on sun and sand. This is the situation of the province of Alicante, identified with the Costa Blanca geotourism brand, where there are important economic issues that could contribute to the renewal of this coastal tourist destination. One of the most significant heritage values of this space consists of a series of medieval fortresses located along the axis of the Vinalopó River, which has acted since prehistoric times as a natural route from within the provincial mainland to the coast. It is precisely the argument of this historical, territorial and landscape content that has been used repeatedly in recent years to develop initiatives aimed at the creation of a tourist product, currently inexistent, based on the route of the castles of Vinalopó. This communication aims to analyse the degree of tourism potential of the fortresses located in the towns of Biar, Banyeres de Mariola, Sax, Villena, Novelda, Elda, Petrer and Elche, which constitute the core of municipalities where these medieval fortresses are located, finally pointing out some proposals for the creation of a heritage tourism product.

Culture and World Vision: The Cognitive Mythical Mode

Culture is the system of knowledge, from whose meanings the human being screened and selected their understanding of Reality in the broad sense, and interprets and regulates the facts and data of social behavior. In this sense, culture is a program for social action and acting in humans during the process of socialization and social interaction. The meanings of each culture are the cumulative product of collective and individual thinking, in ecological economic, social and political specific situations, so are the expression of each particular cultural historical conjuncture. Moreover, the universal cognitive structure for the apprehension of cultural reality is the World Vision (WV). Due to its importance and significance as substratum of religious and political belief systems, we will gird our study to mythical cognitive mode or mythical WV.

The business of fashion in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

Fashion is a complex social and cultural phenomenon with strong economic implications. Historical analysis reveals that the mechanisms of creating and spreading fashion have not remained constant, but have varied according to social structures, forms of producing and distributing apparel and social media, while the level of influence of fashion on society has increased in line with economic development. This special issue of Investigaciones de Historia Económica-Economic History Research is dedicated to fashion as an economic phenomenon in the contemporary period. The four articles which make it up show the plurality of the subject areas, sources and methodological approaches in the current research on this topic.

The Conservation of our Built Heritage, in Particular Statues in Aberdeen, Evaluated Through a Social and Historical Context and Their Impact, Through the Use of 3D Scanning

Cultural heritage sites all over the world are at risk due to aggressive urban expansion, development, wars and general obsolescence. Not all objects are recorded in detail although they may have social and historical significance. For example more emphasis is placed on the recording of castles and palaces than on crofters’ cottages or tenement blocks, although their history can be just as rich. This paper will investigate the historic fabric of Aberdeen through the use of digital scanning, supported by a range of media including old photographs and paintings. Dissemination of social heritage through visualisations will be explored and how this can aid the understanding of space within the city or specific area. Focus will be given to the major statues/monuments within the context of the city centre, exploring their importance in their environment. In addition studying why many have been re-located away from their original site, the reasons why, and how we have perhaps lost some of the social and historical importance of why that monument was first located there. It will be argued that Digital Media could be utilised for much more than re-creation and re-presentation of physical entities. Digital scanning, in association with visualisation tools, is used to capture the essence of both the cultural heritage and the society that created or used the sites in association with visualisation tools and in some way re-enacting the original importance placed upon the monument in its original location, through adoption of BIM Heritage.