However, studies on the formation of identity through space have been primarily handled in the frame of urban studies until recent years. Yet, the various identity-making practices have certainly had significant influences on and through the rural built environment. In this symposium, we re-open the discussion of the making of identity in rural areas, which have dramatically changed under different political, social, and economic conditions from the turn of the 20th century until today, and potential contested spaces as traces of this process. We thereby seek a better in-depth understanding of spatial dynamics related to the specific cultural and social spheres of 20th century’s rurality.

First and foremost, we ask these key questions:

- What role do the social conflicts and power differences play in the production and re-production of rural space?
- What kind of social, cultural, economic, and legal agents are involved in the process of the making of identity in rural built environments?
- How is the architecture manufactured – both physically as well as ideologically in the scope of these specific programmes?
- What kind of spatial conflicts occur when the superimposed identity-making procedure targets and collides with a rural community with pre-existing (self-)identifications?

Following this line of thought, the dynamic connection of spatial materiality, ideologies, and politics impacts everyday life. It is this complex relationship that we aim to discuss in the frame of case studies focusing on early-20th-century rural space as well as its situation today. The case studies will refer to different regional and cultural contexts that allow us to gain a better understanding of spatio-temporal specificities of identity-shaping operations and their comparability in time, geography, and culture.

To provide a platform of exchange and communication on this subject, we bring together experts from fields such as architectural history, archaeology, heritage studies, anthropology, and history contributing on:

- „re-materialization“ of social and cultural space theories
- subjectification through space
- contestations between the governing and the governed in terms of rural space
- internal colonization and the rural built environment
- the rural as a palimpsest; rebuilding the rural space, i.e. on the turn of the 20th century until today.

Time zone CEST (UTC+02:00)