Title: Places, Stories and Memories
Subtitle: Narrative Approaches in Geographical Research
Subject Classification:  Society and Culture, History, Sociology  
BIC Classification: JF, JH, HB
BISAC Classification:
Binding: Hardback, eBook
Planned publication date: Dec 2026
ISBN (Hardback): 978-1-80866-006-1
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-80866-007-8

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Description

This book offers a critical exploration of the role of narratives in geographical research, highlighting both their epistemological potential and the methodological challenges they raise. Engaging with the so-called narrative turn in the social sciences, the book reconsiders the heuristic value of stories as forms of knowledge production, and as agents in the processes through which territories, identities, and collective memories are constructed and interpreted.

In this perspective, narrative is understood as a relational and performative practice capable of activating processes of shared interpretation, generating collective meaning, and mobilizing resources for community-oriented projects.

Adopting a transdisciplinary perspective, the book combines epistemological reflection with field-based research and pays particular attention to biographical methods, oral histories, and participatory forms of storytelling. The empirical component is centred on the stories and memories related to tobacco culture in the Salento region (Apulia, Southern Italy), a socio-cultural landscape shaped by tobacco cultivation and manufacturing throughout the twentieth century. These stories are translated into different storytelling formats – including documentary film, written narratives, podcasts, photographic storytelling, and participatory theatre – demonstrating how geographical research can operate across multiple narrative media. This multimodal approach highlights how storytelling can document and interpret marginal cultural worlds at risk of disappearing while fostering public engagement and community participation.

This methodological experimentation draws on the experience of the Placetelling School at the University of Salento, The book contributes to ongoing debates on narrative methods, qualitative research, public geography, and the co-production of social and geographical knowledge.

Biography

Author(s):  Patrizia Domenica Miggiano is a geographer and tenure-track researcher at Pegaso University in Naples, Italy. She holds a PhD in Human and Social Sciences from the University of Salento, Italy. She coordinates the Research Group "Geographies of Memory and Oblivion" of the Italian Geographers Association (A.Ge.I.). Her research focuses on narrative, visual, and creative methods in geographical research, memory studies, and the ethical dimensions of participatory and community-based approaches.

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