In this first phase, we’ll start by reaching out to local bodies, like the Superintendency, Park Authority, City Council, school teachers, and various local associations, to introduce the project and see who’s interested. The idea is to lay the groundwork and start planning activities that we’ll kick off in the fall.
Over the summer we’ll focus on putting together the first draft of the field activities and some outreach materials to use in university courses (both undergrad and master’s). This will help us see how many students want to join in. At the same time, we’ll work with local school teachers to prepare learning materials for primary and secondary schools that’ll take part in the project. We’ll also get the project website up and running and share some initial info through the web pages of the courses taught by the professors involved. By the end of this period, we aim to finalize and sign all collaboration agreements and secure any permits we need to work on site.
With the new academic and school year starting, we’ll dive into spreading the word: sharing what the project’s all about with both the university community in Bologna and the schools and associations in Ascoli Piceno and Arquata del Tronto.
The first real field activities will be interviews with local residents, led by master’s students in Anthropology. By gathering stories about what it’s been like to see these places abandoned, we’ll get to explore how collective memories show the community’s resilience. Participant observation and documenting how people emotionally relate to their land will help us build narrative paths to reconnect them with it.
We’ll run workshops, meetings, and school-to-work programs with local primary and secondary schools. This way, students will get hands-on experience with the fieldwork done by the Anthropology, Archaeology, and Geography teams, and learn more about why research like this matters.
The Geography team will dig into how the landscape changed before and after the earthquake, looking at settlement patterns and community mobility. By involving locals, we’ll also create community maps that reflect how they see and perceive their territory.
In late spring and summer, master’s students in Archaeology will use landscape and architectural archaeology methods to do surface surveys and study structures in selected areas of Arquata del Tronto. Local school students will also get involved. This work will help us piece together how and when the urban landscape was abandoned and changed, and trace the last phases of settlement.
In the final stage of this first part of the project, the three focus groups (Anthropology, Geography, and Archaeology) will hold wrap-up meetings with university and school students to go over what we’ve learned. This will lead up to a final event with all the institutions, associations, and organizations we’ve worked with, where we’ll also talk about ideas for future ways to enhance and share the value of these places.