MoHu Projects

“Communities in the Early Middle Ages” is a five-years research project financed by the Ecole Française de Rome (2018-2022). It focuses its attention on small communities that are based on common practices on a local or regional scale, looking for their constituent elements. The exogenous notion of community makes it possible to orient our research not towards its essence, but towards the modalities of its implementation (i. e. through the lived space, collective memories, circulation and mobility through space) and to assess if the expression of its identity is conscious or if it is instead created or manipulated by an outside agent (i.e. group of people paying the same tax, or having to fight together).

Recent historiography reveals two main strands of research: the first one is interested in identifying the formation of religious communities within society; the second is interested in the process of  the institutionalization of communities. If communities never represent moral persons before the 12th century, nevertheless certain historians do not hesitate to define communities certain villages or group of villages from the Early Middle Ages, in relation to the territory and the emergence of the seigneurial lordship. W. Davies uses the concept of community territory to emphasize the fact that peasant ownership is not a series of isolates plots but constitutes a network of interrelations.

The scientific interest of such a study is based on the discussion of concepts from the social sciences such as the flexible notion of community of practice (E. Wenger): the members of a community are gradually trained through their participation more and more complete with the group activities. Their interactions with experienced members gradually transform them into full members, capable in turn of forming new members. We will also consider the modes of construction but also of dissolution/destruction of communities: construction by the norm, by processes of exclusion and inclusion, by the constitution of a hierarchy. Finally, we will tackle the crucial question of ideal communities: the study of the discourses that legitimize the community will shed light on the way it represents itself, reproduces itself, transmits its own memory and guides the construction of the identities of the subjects that compose it.

The project has brought together several conferences, which are currently being published by Brepols editions (Collection Haut Moyen Age).

Laura Lo Presti

Addressing the contemporary European migration crisis from the vantage point of its maps, this research project explores the mediated landscape of institutional, mass-media, artistic, and mobile mappings that concern migration and cultural diversity issues. Drawing from fields of mobility studies, visual culture studies, and post-representational map studies, this interdisciplinary work reflects on the cultural and affective ecologies and the technological and political digitalities through which cartographic images represent and perform the condition of im/mobility experienced by migrant subjects. Adopting digital ethnography and visual analysis of cartographic media content, the project pays particular attention to the many unpredictable ways in which maps, as visual landscapes of human mobilities, elicit and embody a plethora of discourses, actions, and feelings about the migration crisis, its forms of hierarchized mobilities, and alternative imaginings of solidarity and hospitality.

Yafa El Masri

A growing number of academics across the globe now share the conviction that the mainstream notion of development needs to be deconstructed to open a way for cultural alternatives that nurture and respect different forms of life on Earth (Kothari et al, 2019). The concept of post-development, which is squarely rooted in solidarity, has appeared as a way to defend the local against the global, giving value to community economics, human wellbeing and local traditions (Mathews, 2017). And while refugees have long been silenced by the humanitarian government and widely portrayed solely as recepients of humanitarian aid (Agier, 2011: Rajaram, 2002: Silvermann, 2008), this study rather explores innovative post development approaches to managing space and livelihood practiced by refugees, and even identifies the expansion of solidarity-based initiatives to the refugee hosting communities. This study attempts to demonstrate how refugees are agents of their own space and post development through a strong base of solidarity, rootedness and collective emplacement. This study takes Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon as case of observation, utilizes postcolonial methods and Donna Haraway’s feminist concept of situated knowledge, to reflect on my own positioned rationality of growing up as a stateless Palestinian refugee in Lebanon’s refugee camps. Using long term participation observation, auto-ethnography and interviews in Lebanon and Europe’s Palestinian refugee community, the study finds that solidarity-based dynamics (cooperation values, food sharing and gift economies) tend to be increasingly replacing the shrinking humanitarian development aid and market activities within Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. Then, if “grassroots solidarity can transform the world” and if “Another world is possible”, and possibly another world is even necessary, along these lines, can refugees help change the world?

Keywords: Refugees, Livelihood, Post-Development, Pluriverse, Refugee Agency

Silvia Bruzzi

The research project aims to examine human mobility phenomena that have crossed the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, from the late 19^th century to World War II, focusing on the histories and experiences of Eritrean and Libyan women. Adopting a gender perspective and crossing visual sources (postcards, family photographs, newsreels, ethnographic documentaries) and written sources (legal literature and judicial archives in Arabic and Italian), the research will show that female actors are essential to understand the circulation of ideas, images and subjects across Italy, Eritrea and Libya. The scopes of the research are twofold. On the one hand, the analysis will highlight the impact of mobility phenomena (of ideas, images and people) on the social and legal status of Eritrean and Libyan women in the colonial context. On the other hand, it will trace and reconstruct the transnational trajectories of “exceptional normal” women who have crossed this space, subverting or inhabiting the social and legal norms.

Ottavia Mazzon

The project «LiVE» studies the paradigms of mobility through two different but closely connected perspectives: mobility of physical objects (namely books) and mobility of texts. The aim is to map the impact that the Library of St Mark’s collection of Greek codices had on other European book collections in the 16th century, a crucial time for the affirmation of ancient Greek as part of the European élites’ cultural heritage and the formation of many Renaissance collections of Greek books. «LiVE» will provide the first critical edition and English translation of the earliest loan registers of the Library of St Mark, recording the book loans that took place between 1545 to 1559. Starting from the identification of the manuscripts that were effectively borrowed, the research will focus on tracing the copies that were produced, following the library loans with the objective of reconstructing their history, from the circumstances of their production to their present conservation site.

General William T. Sherman’s armies visit to Georgia and South Carolina during the American Civil War is well-known throughout the Southern states. His march is remembered primarily through the plundering and devastation by his five armies in Sherman’s quest to end the war. What has been poorly investigated is the relationships between the individual paths of the armies and the environment. This geohistorical research aims to create a detailed GIS reconstruction of the individual routes of the armies in relation to 1) existing transportation routes at the time of the Civil War, 2) the wetlands environment and 3) episodic meteorological events. Comparisons of the existing transportation routes and routes the armies traversed as strategic choices are conducted.

The research methods includes both qualitative and quantitative analysis of data gathered from different sources – historical maps, memoirs, newspapers, diaries, photos and field surveys

Margherita Cisani

Human mobilities change in close connection with landscape transformations, along different scales, speeds and with uneven patterns. This correlation is reciprocal: landscapes are produced by mobilities, reflecting political negotiations and workings of power, but mobilities are also affected by landscapes, in a complex process of landscape co-creation through motion, which involves place attachment, landscape awareness and enskillment. This research is devoted to the analysis of this dual relationship and it focusses specifically on low-carbon human mobility practices, such as bicycle tourism practices. Such landscapes in motion will be analysed through the integration and the analysis of direct experiences and digital information, in order to explore the multi-dimensional facets of landscapes in human mobilities.

Andrea Martini

Until now, historiography has underestimated the presence and the role played by women in the history of Italian universities. In particular, no comprehensive research has been conducted about the case-study of Padua. My project aims at filling this gap by conducting a survey of the female presence in the university (with the support of the open-access database Nodegoat) and by co-editing a book, with my tutor Carlotta Sorba, which offers the first women history the University of Padua. By combining a quantitative and qualitative approach, the research project will reconstruct the identity of female scholars of Padua university and their role in the European circulation of knowledge. Moreover, the research wants to scrutinize the biography of some female students, and, finally, observe how the so-called process of massification of the university education affected the female presence in Padua.

Alessandro Favatà

The research project investigates the trans-national networks existing between the Italian peninsula and the New World during the 17th century. The analysis of the diffusion and success of specific consumer goods appears to be one of the most appropriate and comprehensive methods for studying these phenomena. Combining a micro and macro-historical approach, the research will focus on the different moments of the sugar commodity chain, from its production to its consumption. A great importance will also be given to the flow of men, credit and information that accompanied and sustained the life of the crop. By analysing travel reports, correspondences, customs registers, culinary and medical recipes, account ledgers of merchants and Libri di commercio e di famiglia  [provide translation, e.g. Trade and family books], the project will investigate how the Italian peninsula and its inhabitants came in touch with this product and the evolving social impact that sugar had on consumption practices.

Francesco Catastini

The main objective of this research project is to trace the history and the transformation over time of Italian quality crafts, taking Veneto and Tuscany as case studies, and to explore how specific form of mobilities (trade flows and transfers) shaped these activities.
Italy appears to be the European country with the highest percentage of craft enterprises in total manufacturing activities. To understand this type of enterprise, its rootedness, and its territorial distribution in specialized districts of more or less longue durée, it is essential to use the historical perspective, combining it with the territorial, social and cultural dimension. My project focuses on a particularly significant territory for Italian craftsmanship of excellence, Tuscany, and on specific sectors (leather goods, jewellery, and footwear). These sectors represented, and still represent, reference points of excellence at a global level, whose practices (ideas, goods, and people) have been the subject of mobility phenomena. The aim of this research project will be to identify processes and procedures that led to the development of iconic products at a global level. In this sense, this work contributes to confer historical depth to the selected artisan production. To achieve these goals, the project combines an analysis of the existing scientific literature with statistical economic reconstructions and in-depth studies of individual business cases.