Drawing the Post-earthquake in Abruzzo: toward an Atlas of Small Towns

This research investigates the conformation of some small centres in the areas most affected by the 2009 earthquake through the combination of representations, infographics, texts and photographs. The study experiments on the field an analytical methodology, studying the anthropological and morphological characters of this set of small towns in Abruzzo; it is a realization of the nowadays material condition of the settlements as a starting point for every future process of regeneration. The survey also provides an opportunity to investigate some proposals that civil society and local administrations are working out through heterogeneous activities as responses to the phenomenon of depopulation after the earthquake. This research, so, wants to combine the survey of the existing and its forms of decay or abandonment, with the graphic and photographic narrative of grass-roots experiences ranging from local tradition issues and self-subsistence economies to the relationship with past and present migrations. Thanks to the multidisciplinary and multiscale descriptive approach, the study wants to offer a snapshot of the current state that helps to broaden the shared knowledge on a phenomenon which, beyond the contingencies related to the infamous disaster, involves most of the small towns in Italy as well as in Europe.