Human Mobility and Cultural History: The Italian Case as an Explanatory Model

在社会科学领域，主流移民理论因其解决这一现象复杂性的能力不足而受到批评。通过跨学科的方法将历史和移民理论联系起来的必要性也受到了移民历史学家的欢迎。在另一方面，文化历史学家最近提倡一种能够超越“本土”与“移民”文化二元概念限制的移民方法。最后，人们普遍认为，关于移民和人类流动的研究工作需要质疑社区和“本土”文化的传统观念和定义。在这些前提下，拟议的研究活动将建立一个国际学者网络，他们将为未来的一个项目确定理论原则，该项目将研究穿越意大利半岛的移民流动的影响，该影响可追溯到公元前一千年。更一般的目标是发展新的跨学科的解释镜头，可以提供一个模型，以广泛的全球视角研究每个社会和背景下人类流动所产生的社会文化变革。这些活动将特别集中于意大利的情况，这是一个地理上界限明确的半岛，自古以来一直处于人口流动的十字路口。我们将着眼于人口流动对半岛人文景观的影响，而不假设在任何特定时期存在现存的当地文化或“意大利”文化。意大利流动的历史已经在特定时期得到了很好的研究和记录，这将为我们的项目带来成熟的专业知识和研究数据。这一建议具有创新性，原因如下：在这里，人类流动性被视为自变量，而我们关注的是其影响、影响和感知。通过这种方式，我们的目标是研究这种方法如何改进我们对人类流动性和社会在任何特定历史时期的转变/反应的相互影响的理解。通过在不断流动的框架内定位地点的概念，我们认识到它既是一个地理位置，也是一个文化、身份和归属的问题，从而探索像地点和移民这样的概念在多大程度上是文化结构。3. 该倡议来自一个由社会、政治和文化历史学家组成的核心小组，他们将在跨学科的对话中阐述理论和概念。所有参与者，尤其是两位pi和一位研究促进者（他在这个项目的定义中发挥了核心作用），都相信“桥梁建设可能最好通过一系列共同问题的跨学科研究项目的发展来进行，不同学科的学者可以从他们特定的认识论框架中得出不同的见解”（Brettel和Hollfield 2000: 16）。其目的是通过共同的想法创造一种上游影响，这将确保最终的工作超过其各部分的总和。未来的参与者所涵盖的时间跨度将追溯到公元前一千年，提供了一个前所未有的历时性视角，在这个视角中，方法和方法将被讨论和测试。

Within the social sciences, mainstream migration theories have been criticised for their insufficient capacity to address the complex nature of the phenomenon. The necessity to bridge history and migration theory through a cross-disciplinary approach has also been welcomed among migration historians. On another front, cultural historians have recently advocated an approach to migration capable of transcending the limitations of a dualistic notion of 'native' versus 'migrant' cultures. Finally, there is general agreement that research work on migration and human mobility needs to question traditional notions and definitions of communities and 'native' cultures.Following these premises, the proposed research activity will establish a network of international scholars who will define the theoretical tenets of a future project on the impact of migratory flows crossing the Italian peninsula stretching back to the first millennium BC. The more general goal is to develop new interdisciplinary interpretive lenses which can provide a model for the study of socio-cultural transformations generated by human mobility in every society and context in a broad global perspective. The activities will specifically focus on the case of Italy, a geographically well-defined peninsula, which from ancient times has been at the crossroad of demographic movements. We will look at the impact of mobility on the human landscape of the peninsula, without assuming the long-term existence of an extant local or 'Italian' culture at any given period. The history of Italian mobility is already well studied and documented for specific periods and this will bring established expertise and research data to our project. This proposal is innovative for the following reasons:1. Human mobility is considered here as the independent variable and we focus instead on its impacts, effects, and perceptions. In this way, we aim to investigate how this approach can refine our understanding of the reciprocal effects of human mobility and the transformations/response of a society at any given historical time.2. By positioning the concept of place within a framework of constant mobility, we recognise it both as a geographical location and an issue of culture, identity and belonging, thus exploring the extent to which concepts like place and migration are cultural constructs. 3. The initiative comes from a core group of social, political and cultural historians who will work on the elaboration of theories and concepts in a dialogue across disciplines. All participants and particularly the two PIs and and Research Facilitator (who has played a central role in the definition of this project), share the conviction that 'bridge building might best proceed through the development of interdisciplinary research projects on a series of common questions to which scholars in different disciplines could bring distinct insights drawn from their particular epistemological frameworks' (Brettel and Hollfield 2000: 16). The aim is to create an upstream influence through shared ideas which will ensure that the resulting work is more than the sum of its parts.4. The timespan covered by the prospective participants will stretch back to the first millennium BC, providing an unprecedented diachronical perspective in which approaches and methodologies will be discussed and tested.