Helga Sanità

Helga Sanità

Research Fellow

+39 3454461383
Naples
helgasanita@cnr.it

Professional profile

Anthropologist | Intangible Cultural Heritage specialist | Mediterranean Diet specialist | Ritual and Festive Heritage | Food traditions | Contemporary Art

Helga Sanità holds a Ph.D. in Ethno-Anthropology, Literature, and Symbolic Practices and conducts research on the processes of heritage-making of Intangible Cultural Heritage within the UNESCO context. At the University of Naples "Suor Orsola Benincasa," she teaches Anthropology of Heritage and Cultural Anthropology, and she directs research activities at MedEatResearch – Center for Social Research on the Mediterranean Diet. She is the curator of the "Artists" section of the Mediterranean Diet Virtual Museum, for which she conducted ethnographic interviews that were awarded the 2016 International Europa Nostra Award, the honor conferred by the European Commission and Europa Nostra Association for outstanding scientific projects and best practices in the fields of conservation, research, education, training, and awareness-raising on cultural heritage.

At the CNR ISPC, she carries out research within the program "Cultural Heritage and Creativity in the Green and Digital Transitions for Inclusive Societies."

She is a member of the Short List of Experts for UNESCO projects of the Chair of Intangible Cultural Heritage and Comparative Law at the University of Rome "Unitelma Sapienza." For the ICCD (Central Institute for Cataloguing and Documentation), she inventoried 100 intangible entities (MODI 4.00) related to the food culture memories of Campania, which have been included in the Geoportal of Food Culture of the Italian Ministry of Culture (MIC).

She is Principal Investigator (PI) and Scientific Director of the Research Project for the creation and submission of the “Wheat Festivals” Dossier for the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List (https://festedelgrano.net/en/). She also serves as the Scientific Coordinator for the heritage communities of the Network of Wheat Festivals in Campania and Molise.

She serves as Scientific Advisor for the Campania Region and President of the Scientific Committee for the creation and submission of the UNESCO ICH Nomination Dossier “The Ritual of Italian Espresso Coffee.”

Within the digital enhancement project ARCCA_DiA – Expansion of the Architecture of Knowledge of Campania, she created cataloging records on places and traditions related to the Mediterranean diet in Campania.

She directed the ethnographic research campaign for the creation of the Virtual Museum of the Alberello Vine of Pantelleria.

She has served as Scientific Consultant for strengthening the heritage enhancement strategy of the Seven-Year Rites of Guardia Sanframondi (BN).

She coordinated the project on traditional enogastronomic products and food memories of the Basilicata region, E-nutrition Basilicata, a digital platform focused on food education that promotes the creation and open-access dissemination of content on food traditions, in collaboration with the University SOB, Forcopim, and the Mattei Foundation.

She collaborates with the Studio Trisorio Contemporary Art Gallery and is head of the Organizational Secretariat of Artecinema, an international film festival of documentaries on contemporary art.

Among her other publications, she is the author of the monographs Campanili di grano. Patrimoni festivi nell'Appennino meridionale, Il Mulino, 2021; La Festa di Piedigrotta. Il mito di un ritorno, L’Ancora del Mediterraneo, 2010.

MUR Italian Scientific-Disciplinary Sector

  • SDEA‑01/A Demo‑Ethno‑Anthropological Disciplines

Publications

Highlight

H. Sanità, E. Dalla Longa, A. Pagano, (2025), Al caso, al carro, e…Il Laboratorio Metaverso per il Patrimonio Intangibile e le Comunità. Visual Book, prodotto nella cornice del progetto Casa delle Tecnologie Emergenti del Comune di Napoli “Infiniti Mondi – Napoli Innovation City” (Finanziato dal Ministero delle Imprese e del Made in Italy (MIMIT), Direzione generale per i servizi di comunicazione elettronica, di radiodiffusione e postali CUP B67F23000000008 | CNR ISPC, Cnr Edizioni, Roma.

A. Marasco, A. Pagano, H. Sanità, et. al. (2026), Designing Cinematic Storytelling for Sustainable Cultural Tourism: The Anime Experience, in De Paolis, Arpaia, P., Sacco, M. (eds) Extended Reality. XR Salento 2025. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 15741. Springer, Cham. Print ISBN 978-3-031-97774-9 – Online ISBN 978-3-031-97775-6 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-97775-6_7

H. Sanità (2023), Folklore y Lucro en la reflexión de Luigi M. Lombardi Satriani. Revista andaluza de antropología, número 24: “La antropología en Italia. Homenaje a Luigi M. Lombardi Satriani”, julio de 2023, pp. 49-62. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12795/RAA.2024.i24.04

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