Giulia Bizzarri: Defining, constructing, inhabiting rural spaces. Observations on material and social changes through the 19th and 20th centuries in Southern Europe

Studies on rural landscapes, as well as the historic-archaeological interest towards how rural societies have changed and developed over the Modern period and the recent past have increased over the last two to three decades for most European contexts. This analysis compares different contexts, through a (building/rural) archaeological and a social micro-historical approach, to grasp the dynamics around the negotiations, redefinition of spaces and access rights from a local point of view, while relating it to broader processes of urbanisation, industrialisation and rationalisation of agricultural productivity. The discussion will focus on the late 19th and early 20th centuries, widely considered a time of industrial growth imposing itself on most rural contexts across European countries and prompting their increasing abandonment. 

The study aims at providing a new historical depth to practices and interactions, considering how material traces, and the built environment, with its functions, arrangements, its role within social interactions, can enhance the understanding of that very relationship. Such elements will allow to delve into questions about rural heritage and the study of areas, which have been considered marginal, perhaps because “non-urban”, and develop new perspectives onto the changes taking place in rural contexts over the last century.

***

Giulia Bizzarri is a contemporary historian and archaeologist based in Genoa, Italy. She studied History and Archaeology at the University of the Islands and the Highlands in Inverness, Scotland, and earned her master’s degree in Prehistory and Historical  Archaeology at the University of Vienna. In 2024 she graduated with a PhD in Environmental History and Archaeology at the University of Genoa, with a study on late 19th century rural landscapes and heritage focussing on contexts in northwestern Italy and the French Pyrenees. Her studies and current projects focus on social history and post-medieval archaeology, the built environment as a means to interpret shifts in social relationships and practices, and the relationship between urban and rural contexts. She also organises workshops on contemporary history and post-medieval archaeology for schools across northern Italy.