A new approach to the transition towards ‘modernity’: from rural to industrialised society
The EU-funded INPACT project aims to investigate how the relationship between local communities and their environment changed during the industrialisation of rural areas, through an analysis of material evidence from archaeological and environmental perspectives. The project challenges the concept of ‘modernity’ as a unidirectional transition from ‘traditional’ to ‘modern’ societies, in which rural landscapes and societies are viewed as passive subjects rather than active agents of change. The hypothesis underpinning INPACT is that industrialisation entailed a complex process of transformation within the rural communities concerned, characterised by a far-reaching material and local dimension that has hitherto been underestimated, yet which played a key role in the creation and reproduction of social and gender inequalities, as well as in the transformation of the landscape.