What Role for Collaborative Research in Italian Studies?

Traditionally modelled around a ‘lone scholar’ approach, research in the arts and humanities has been shifting in recent years towards collaborative practices more familiar to scholars in the social and natural sciences. How might Italian Studies contribute to and benefit from such a ‘collaborative turn’?

The small size of the discipline coupled with the enormous contribution Italy has made to European and global history suggests that we have much to gain from a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach to the study of Italy and its culture, past and present. Although research within Italian Studies has changed dramatically over the last twenty years, resulting in greater diversity of expertise and the emergence of new fields and methodologies, until recently most Italianists were trained as literary scholars. Their experience of entering new research areas suggests that collaboration with scholars beyond Italian Studies can result in profoundly new understandings of a given phenomenon. By incorporating diverse methodologies, theories and contextual factors, such collaboration enables us to ask new questions and make new discoveries.

Areas that have already benefited from collaborative research – from partnerships with book makers, conservators and printers in early modern studies, through work with exhibitors and museums in all research periods, to oral history, audience and reception studies in the contemporary context – suggest that there is also much to gain by also collaborating with non-academic partners and practitioners. Collaborations of this kind provide a new impetus for our research and challenge us to rethink the purpose, focus and – perhaps most excitingly – the format of our research and its findings. It requires us to communicate our ideas precisely and justify our approach more effectively than when communicating with academics alone. It also provides us with important insights as to how we might produce – or, better still, co-produce – our research and communicate it to an audience beyond the academy. That lesson is especially pertinent in the context of a rapidly changing research and knowledge exchange landscape.

The future success of Italian Studies within that landscape will likely rest on its capacity to exert the relevance of Italy and its culture to issues of major concern. Italy’s geographical position at the centre of contemporary migratory flows to Europe from Africa and the Middle East places it at the forefront of emerging knowledge relating to human migration, intercultural encounters, and their political effects. Complex issues of this kind require multi-angled approaches, achievable only via the close collaboration of multiple partners, academic and otherwise. As exemplified by the AHRC-funded ‘Transnationalising Modern Languages’ project, Italian Studies research can not only make a major contribution to knowledge in this area but also become a beacon for Modern Languages research as a whole, spear-heading a reconceptualization of the field, with consequent implications for the teaching and learning of languages and cultures.

To date collaborative research has developed as the practice of academics and commercial, community or institutional partners but largely without the involvement of students. The next step must be to involve undergraduates and postgraduates alike in the production of research and the development of innovative formats for communicating research findings to audiences and constituencies beyond academia. As creative, adaptable and highly skilled non-experts, our students are uniquely placed to contribute to and benefit from collaboration, and our research is the poorer for their exclusion.