INPACT · INdustrialization and the Process of modernity: the ArChaeological Transformation of the rural world (18th-21st c.)

INdustrialization and the Process of modernity: the ArChaeological Transformation of the rural world (18th-21st c.)

The project “Industrialization and the process of modernity: the archaeological transformation of the rural world (18th-21st c.)” (INPACT) aims to investigate how the relationship between local communities and their environment changed as rural areas became industrialized, by analysing material evidence from archaeological and environmental perspectives. The project’s basic hypothesis is that the process of industrialization entailed a complex process of transformation of the rural communities involved, with a far-reaching local and material dimension that has thus far been undervalued but played a key role in creating and reproducing social and gender inequalities and in the transformation of the landscape that continues to this day. This project tackles different current societies’ concerns regarding the relationship between society and landscape. INPACT analyses the significance of industrialization in the process of transformation of past rural societies into industrial ones, and thus dealing with the historical emergence of the modern world. Moreover, the project aims at overcoming the traditional analytical separation between society and landscape involving them in dialectical and complex processes of transformation. Hence it delves into the significance of industrialization in the current environmental problems such as climate change or sustainability, as well as the capacity of societies and landscape to cope with these changes. As an archaeological case study based, it also deals with the history of specific local communities and their relationship with past and current landscapes. INPACT’s overall research aim is to question the concept of ‘modernity’ by analysing the changes in the relationship between rural societies and landscapes during the process of industrialization, in order to better understand how current rural societies came into being. This general approach form the basis of INPACT’s three core research objectives which are: 1) to characterize pre-industrial societies and landscapes as two interrelated phenomena, exploring the impact of industrialization from the 18th c.; 2) to explore the potential existence of social and gender inequalities within early industrial societies from an archaeological point of view; and 3) to build an interdisciplinary framework to analyse the impact of industrialization on pre-industrial societies and landscapes.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union