Dataset 5: Visual Materials for Sentieri Immaginari: Ethnography, Design and Collective Planning in Eastern Sicily

This dataset contains visual and design materials created for Sentieri Immaginari, a collaborative ethnographic and civic process concerning the future of the disused railway between Augusta and Siracusa in Eastern Sicily. The dataset includes posters, maps, sketches, workshop visuals, presentation materials, and public communication outputs developed in collaboration with designer and research partner Elisa Raciti. The materials were created to connect ethnographic research and design practice. They helped translate fieldwork insights, public discussions, stakeholder mapping, and collective proposals into visual formats that could support communication, participation, and planning. Rather than functioning only as promotional material, the posters and visual outputs became part of the research infrastructure itself: they invited participation, made the process legible, organised emerging ideas, and helped bring together an operational working group around Sentieri Immaginari. The dataset is valuable for analysing how ethnography and design can work together in participatory research. It documents how collective imagination, public communication, and practical planning were visually assembled in a process oriented toward ecological repair, civic participation, and the reuse of abandoned infrastructure. Why this dataset is valuable The dataset shows how visual materials can become tools for organising participation, not just documenting it. Posters, maps, and design outputs helped make the project visible, communicate its aims, gather actors, and translate complex ethnographic insights into shared public formats. How the data can be reused The material can be used for research and teaching on public anthropology, collaborative ethnography, design anthropology, participatory planning, ecological repair, civic imagination, and visual methods. Ethics & rights note The materials were created in a collaborative research and design context. Design authorship and visual rights remain with the designer and collaborators involved. Public sharing or reuse should only take place after confirmation of permission from Elisa Raciti and, where relevant, from the Sentieri Immaginari group. Reuse should remain academic, educational, and non-commercial, and must credit the collaborative project context.