Old Geographical Materialities. Recover the Past and the Heritage in the Present of Pheripherical European Rural Spaces: A Research Proposal

Abstract

The past has had a minor consideration in geographic studies the transformation of rural areas, usually dominated by socioeconomic analysis. Incorporating the old and in many cases, the materialities of the past through a reconsideration of heritage to the future of rural space requires an adequate conceptualization and reconsideration of rural materialities and especially of popular housing. In this way, it is intended to decentralize the human and functionalist point of view to give a life of their own to rural cultural and natural materialities in the context of more-thanhuman-geographies. The renewed study of heritage and the historical past acquires a notable value in the present and future of rural areas through: (1) the interpretation of dissymmetrical realities where the old confronts new activities; (2) for adequate and realistic management of rural heritage and the processes of selective recovery of heritage in certain historical places.