CITY AND COUNTRIES IN THE POSTWAR ITALIAN AGRARIAN HISTORY AND ETHNOANTROPOLOGY

After the end of WWII, a strong >> urban turn << took place in the social sciences throughout Europe, following the decades of the relative domination of agrarian and ruralist ideologies (often culminating in the fascist period). In this framework, Italian social sciences represent a paradoxical, and perhaps unique, case. Italian scholars have traditionally celebrated urbanism as a defining Italian national trait and the repudiation of fascist agrarianism (strapaese, etc.) was quite clear, but agrarian problematics nevertheless became a prominent, even central problematic of Italian historians till the beginning of the 1980. This focus on agrarian questions, which included rethinking of the urban-rural relations, was clearly related to the revolutionary mobilization of the landless peasants and the hegemony of Marxist social thought. While rural sociology was a kind of latecomer in Italy, Italian historians and ethnoanthropologists could rely on the charismatic figure of Antonio Gramsci who in a decisive manner influenced and inspired their thinking of the rural-urban problematic. The central focus on rural (or rural-urban) problematics, however, does not imply a ruralist bias or some residual agrarian ideology) in the work of these historians and ethnologists. The rural as they viewed it was, as it were, >> less rural << than elsewhere (e.g., in France). Even ethnoantropologists who were closer to the themes of locality and identity and had more direct experience with agriculturalists, never thought about turning peasants into essentialized representatives of the nation.