Members of the Institute of Rural History (IRH) are interested in the historical conditions of life in rural areas and research how they have changed. Our focus is on the diverse modes of action and interpretations with which people appropriated, stabilized or changed economic, ecological, political, social and cultural conditions.
In our research projects we analyse rural areas as socio-natural settings to grasp their specific historical dynamics: we examine people’s relationships with each other as well as their spatial arrangements between proximity and distance, embedded in different settings that are shaped by natural surroundings and ways of transport.
From this perspective, rural space is by no means uniform or homogeneous, as suggested by the notion of an opposition between ‘city’ and ‘country’ so fundamental to Western modernity. It includes villages and scattered settlements as well as small towns and suburban areas, uninhabited areas and industrial zones, zones of densification as well as depopulated areas.
The scholars at IRH therefore understand the term ‘rural’ as internally highly differentiated and multi-relational, comprehensible only by the result of power relations that have their own historical origins and determine both the perception of differences and the unequal distribution of symbolic and material resources.
The Institute currently has two focal points, which are organized in separate research departments: the department of Agricultural and Food History (AgriFood) and the Centre for Historical Migration Research (zhmf).
The Institute cooperates closely with regional and European partner institutions: for example, IRH is a founding member of the Research Network for Interdisciplinary Regional Studies (Forschungsnetzwerk Interdisziplinäre Regionalstudien, first) and serves as the coordination office of the European Rural History Organisation (EURHO).
In addition to basic research, the Institute carries out documentation projects and engages in scholarly communication. Since its foundation, the IRH has combined historical research and the documentation of source material. Important synergies have been achieved through its cooperation with the Lower Austrian Provincial Archives.
In the field of science communication, the Institute is engaged in a cross-border and international academic discourse. The Institute, furthermore, communicates its results to a broad public. The IRH hosts the editorial office of the Rural History Yearbook/Jahrbuch für Geschichte des ländlichen Raumes and the Rural History Newsletter. It also organizes academic conferences and workshops and has its own lecture series, the Rural History Forum.