Abstract
Rewilding, or the process of re-becoming wild, is specific to animals or plants that, being in a domesticated or cultivated state, are involved in a process that is the reverse of domestication. The meanings that the academic literature gives to this process are multiple and do not always take into account the role of humans in this return to their original state. The article suggests to consider the different ontologies making sense of the interaction between humans and non-human beings. Here we propose an interpretation of local cultures and the relationship with the wild in Italy using the lens of political ontology, starting from the experiences of some South Tyrolean farmers who pursue a relationship with nature and the natural that refuses hierarchical and domineering market logics. Among other aspects, an attempt was made to investigate the identity of the farmers, their life stories, their relationship with the land of origin and with the other beings that inhabit it, the way of seeing nature and the wild that shapes their daily actions, thus redefining the conventional concepts of agriculture as opposed to the wild, enhancing the idea of cultivation as co-construction of reality, recognizing Nature as the acting co-subject.