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The article analyses the recent status and development of permanent inhabitants and second homes in the UNESCO World Heritage (WH) Dolomites area in the Italian Alps. First, the results show that a growth of permanent population is ongoing selectively in the urban and periurban areas, confirming earlier research in the Alpine arc and showing that agglomeration advantages are taking place. Second, the results show that these processes are parallel to a shifting use of second homes, announcing a transformation from an export-based to a residential economy in which second homes seem not to be homogeneously complementary to the tourist sector. Third, the Dolomites are not a homogenous region: despite the joint application process for WH site involving five provinces, demographic and economic differences can be highlighted along the provincial borders. This proves that demographic development is strongly path- dependent and conditioned by institutional settings and legislation. Therefore, ongoing strong agglomeration advantages and institutional differences are more decisive for the economic and demographic transformation in the Alps than single strategies carried out by local tourism consortia or enterprises. This brings to a relativization of the emerging debate about new migrants: regions with stable economic structures profit by gaining permanent residents, while regions with declining structures up to now attract mainly multilocal residents.

One of the most significant demographic trends in the Alps is the out-migration of young people. Nevertheless, in certain areas, young people are deciding to return to their valley of origin after completing their higher education. Through research in a valley of the Eastern Italian Alps, this paper addresses this complex phenomenon, by analysing the relationships between the education level of young people, their choices to stay, return to, or leave the valley and the reasons behind these choices. Job opportunities, quality of life, and sense of belonging were identified as key factors. The research also considered the necessary policies to minimise brain drain and maximise brain gain.

The aim of this contribution is to correlate the demographic dynamics that can be observed in the Alps area, with those of management, transmission and valorisation of the local historical memory; in particular, this work focuses on the Piedmont town of Macugnaga, where an ethnographic research was conducted. Moving from the main theoretical, demographic and geographic proposals that concern the phenomena of repopulation of the alpine area, and from anthropological reflections on the subject of memory, there arose the need for a dialogue between the two perspectives and to adopt a multi-level method that would integrate the macro approach of demographic reconstructions with the “ground level” approach of ethnography. The increasing number of new inhabitants in the Alps raises the question of who could legitimately call themselves “mountain dwellers” and how these dynamics of belonging manifest themselves. One of the most significant ways in which belonging to the community is expressed, is through the participation in the management and transmission of the local historical memory. It will be shown how in this case study, the history of the community, characterised by early immigration movements, gave rise to the coexistence of different transmissible memories that concern different aspects of the local history. In addition, the current composition of the population is characterised by the simultaneous presence of people who express different and varied ways of living in the mountains.