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Rovereto - Sala conferenze del MART

In Timbuktu, There is Nothing! The Consumerist Journey.

Marco Aime

Marco Aime, professor at the University of Genoa.

Travel, understood as a form of encounter, is one of the best schools that human beings can attend. However, the encounter is sometimes difficult and requires a sacrifice that modern travelers often struggle to practice: that of time. The temporal dimension, essential for any form of encounter, is often sacrificed by current travel practices dictated by an agenda that is always too tight. This observation leads to a reflection that seeks to analyze the relationships between tourist-travelers and locals in non-European countries.

Marco Aime teaches Cultural Anthropology at the University of Genoa. He has conducted research in the Alps and West Africa. In addition to numerous scientific articles, he has published over twenty books in both non-fiction and fiction. Among his works are: Le radici nella sabbia (Roots in the Sand, EDT, 1999); Diario dogon (Dogon Diary, Bollati Boringhieri, 2000); Eccessi di culture (Excesses of Cultures, Einaudi, 2004); Timbuctu (Bollati Boringhieri, 2008); Una bella differenza (A Beautiful Difference, Einaudi, 2009); and more recently Gli uccelli della solitudine (The Birds of Solitude, Bollati Boringhieri, 2010), Verdi tribù del Nord (Green Tribes of the North, Laterza, 2012), and African Graffiti (Stampalternativa, 2012).