Contribution short abstract:

Using family archives as a method and form of representation, we will tell the story of three generations of farmers working on agricultural land in the alpine valley Vinschgau/ Val Venosta, Italy, that has long been pictured as isolated and backward.

Contribution long abstract:

Our presentation will focus on the changing use of agricultural land in an alpine valley in present-day Italy that has long been pictured as isolated, poor and backward. Until its annexation by Italy after World War 1, the German-speaking Vinschgau/Val Venosta was a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire and considered the breadbasket of Tyrol. The combination of its unique inner-alpine dry climate with the abundance of water for irrigation and the constant dry wind coming down from the top of the valley made it the perfect place to grow grain. The collapse of subsistence farming in the mid-20th century ended this period. It was followed by an increase in dairy production and a short period of intensive vegetable cash-cropping that alleviated many of the valley's smallholders from generations of extreme poverty, but soon led to pest problems because of a lack of knowledge of suitable crop rotations. After the advent of new apple varieties adapted to the high altitude in the 1980s, in the span of a generation, Vinschgau has become the largest consecutive apple growing region in Europe. Its inhabitants now constitute one of the richest populations of small-scale farmers in the world. By using family archives as a method and form of representation, we will tell the story of three generations through text and images that ask for more complexity and grey areas than the dominant narratives of this mountain area.