Dr Paola Filipucci
- Partner - Cambridge Heritage Research Centre
- Affiliated Lecturer - Department of Social Anthropology
- Fellow and College Lecturer - Murray Edwards College
Contact
About
I am a social anthropologist and a Senior College Lecturer in Social Anthropology at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, and an affiliated lecturer in the Department of Social Anthropology, where I contribute teaching on kinship and on the anthropology of Europe. My undergraduate studies were in archaeology at the University of Sheffield, followed by a Masters and doctorate in Anthropology at Cambridge. My archaeological background feeds into my anthropological research interests, that include social memory, perceptions of the past and history, heritage, as well as landscape and materiality. I have conducted ethnographic research on these various topics in Italy and more recently in France and Belgium/Flanders, focusing on conflict and post-conflict scenarios through a focus on the First World War battlefields of the Western Front. I am also member of the Heritage Research Centre at the Department of Archaeology, Cambridge and have taught in the Heritage MPhil programme in Archaeology, as well as to undergraduate teaching on anthropology for archaeologists. At Murray Edwards, I combine an academic role as Director of Studies and supervisor with student welfare responsibilities through the role as Deputy Senior Tutor of the College.
Research
My current research centres on the former battlefields of the Western Front, and on how war is remembered and commemorated there in the 21st century. I am particularly interested in investigating the long-term social memory of the First World War among the populations who inhabit the former Western Front areas and were temporarily displaced by the conflict; and the relationship between this and the public and private remembrance of the military victims and events of the war. Another particular concern is the role of physical remains and material culture in commemoration and in social and personal memory. My ethnographic research currently focuses on the battlefield of Verdun (France) in the context of an E.U. sponsored project entitled ‘Cultural Heritage and the Reconstruction of Identities after Conflict’ (CRIC – see below). In collaboration with Prof. Jean-Paul Amat (Université de Paris IV) and Prof. Edwige Savouret (CEGUM-EA 1105, Université de Metz) I investigate the transformation of the Verdun battlefield from a site of memory in the 20th century, to a site of ‘cultural heritage’ in the 21st century. In an earlier phase of ethnographic research I concentrated on the Argonne, a forest area to the West of Verdun where I investigated local understandings of the past and the civilian memory of war. My research on conflict landscapes is also in part archaeological through my membership of No Man’s Land, a group specialising on Great War archaeology. Our main project at the moment is the Plugstreet Project (see below), consisting of the excavation of a segment of the 1914-‘18 frontline in the Wallon region of Belgium. This has recently included the retrieval, identification and reburial of the remains of an Australian soldier missing in action in 1917. In the context of this project I have also investigated ethnographically the local civilian memory of the Great War and the experiences of those involved in the excavation, DNA identification and reburial of the soldier's body, including archaeologists, families of the missing in action and others. Overarching themes in this last piece of research are the memorial role and figure of the war dead, and the relationship between anthropology and archaeology, both of which I am currently developing.