Quand le terrain est raconté

l’ethnographie comme co-construction de la mémoire ouvrière d’une aire post-industrielle italienne

Abstract

In this article, I focus on my role as an anthropologist in the framework of a research project conducted “at home”. I present ethnographic examples that illustrate how my interlocutors and I constructed in a polyphonic way the working-class memory discourses on the Bicocca neighbourhood in Milan. This neighbourhood constitutes both the field of my research and the place where the University where I was trained is located. In these pages, I present the central role of time – and more specifically of the belonging to different social generations – in the construction of alterity within spatial proximity. First, I describe the neighbourhood’s recent history, and the transformations it has undergone. These elements are essential to the understanding of the social memory of this area. Next, I underline the co-construction processes of the past of this “post-industrial” area, showing the limits and difficulties of communication and transmission of knowledge between different generations.