Abstract
The project aims to 'rethink' Made in Italy. Starting from the reconstruction of the factors that allowed Made in Italy to gain international fame, the project aims to demonstrate that this success was determined not only by the quality of the products but also by the ability to create an effective idea capable of driving exports of Italian products. It was a process that combined high craftsmanship, tradition of excellence and a sense of beauty, constructing a realistic imagery that re-proposed to the foreign consumer the myth of Renaissance excellence, synonymous with prestige and artistic craftsmanship. Made in Italy, despite the fragility of its agricultural and industrial production, has thus managed to develop its own originality which, in the boom years, generated a 'low-intensity myth' that has become the 'reputational capital' of Made in Italy, an important lever of competitiveness as much as a generative factor of Italian Sounding. Rethinking Made in Italy aims to propose a new key to interpreting the phenomenon. At the heart of the research there is the reconstruction of the role played by techniques and professions in the construction of the reputational capital of Made in Italy. This research will investigate 'savoir-faire' as well as training paths and professional action within the sector of activity, analysing the evolution of skills and professions. This investigation aims to verify whether and to what extent food and beverage jobs played an important role in the diffusion of good practices concerning product quality and food well-being, enhancing the peculiar Italian characteristics, in the national and international context. At the centre of the research will be the history of chefs, pastry chefs, gastronomes and oenologists, and other food professions. Alongside the study of these professions, the research will analyse the role of journalists, writers, documentary filmmakers, advertisers, trendsetters, influencers, and bloggers who, with their communication activities, facilitated the spread of the appeal of Italian imagery abroad, helping to change the stereotypes that saw Italian products as a symbol of backwardness, lack of elegance, low quality and crude, unkempt taste. This approach is not the reversal of the historiographical framework used to date but aims to offer new keys to interpreting the phenomenon. It allows to (re)contextualise the motivations for success. The intangible factors (history, art, beauty, cinema, music, sunshine) obviously remain among the elements of the claim, but they are supported by arguments that are more directly traceable to the dynamics of economic and social history. Achieved Objectives & Research Activities The Bologna Unit carried out extensive research activities focused on the analysis of textual and visual sources related to the construction and representation of Italian food culture, with particular attention to media, culinary discourse, and the social actors involved in shaping the image of Made in Italy. ● Organisational and Methodological Setup: During the initial phase under the scientific coordination of Prof. Alessandra Cantagalli, the Unit successfully established its research foundation by recruiting two research fellows in accordance with the project's financial restructuring criteria and completing the preliminary identification and mapping of archival and visual sources. ● Archival Investigation of La cucina italiana: Research focused heavily on a systematic, in-depth examination of the influential Italian magazine La cucina italiana to investigate the representation of Italian culinary traditions, the construction of regional identities, and 20th-century social narratives surrounding food consumption. ● Database Development and Consolidation: The Unit built a structured research database to organize materials collected from the magazine through comprehensive data cleaning, metadata standardisation, descriptor harmonisation, and internal consistency verification, resulting in a fully operational tool for qualitative and quantitative analysis. ● International Scholarly Dissemination: The Unit actively engaged with the international academic community through major conference contributions: ● A session titled "Where is Italy? In search of Italian food typicality between the Thames and the Po" was accepted for the 15th European Social Science History Conference (Leiden, 2025). ● In collaboration with the Parma Unit, a paper titled "From Great Italy to Gastrodiplomacy: migrants, entrepreneurs, chefs and institutions during the XX century" was presented at the 10th International Convention on Food and Drink Studies (Tours). ● Contribution to public history and local debate on culinary nationalism at the Anthropology Festival in Bologna with the presentation "Decostruire il gastronazionalismo. Per una resistenza culinaria". ● Digital Strategy and Public History Implementation: During the final phase, the Bologna Unit took a central role in the project's digital dissemination by implementing and launching the official project website (https://www.rethinkingmadeinitaly.eu/) as a dedicated Public History platform to guarantee long-term visibility and accessibility of the research outcomes. Scientific Outputs & Publications ● "Communists at Table. Food, Activism and Eating Together at the Feste dell’Unità in Italy" (forthcoming in the international journal Food & History): An interdisciplinary study utilizing menus and visual materials to explore collective eating, political identity, and social mobilisation. ● "La rappresentazione della figura femminile sulle pagine de La cucina italiana" (accepted in the open-access journal Clionet): An article analyzing how culinary media shaped gender roles and domestic ideals in twentieth-century Italy. ● Contributions to the journal Cinema e Storia: Research papers exploring the representation of cooks, culinary practices, and food culture within Italian cinema and media.
Dettagli del progetto
Responsabile scientifico: Alessandra Cantagalli
Strutture Unibo coinvolte:
Dipartimento di Storia Culture Civiltà
Coordinatore:
Università degli Studi di PARMA(Italy)
Contributo totale Unibo: Euro (EUR) 94.982,00
Durata del progetto in mesi: 24
Data di inizio
30/11/2023
Data di fine:
28/02/2026
