The Construction “from Below” of the Citizenship in Rural Society of Liberal Italy: Ordinary People and Peasant Community in Correspondence with the MP Michele Capozzi (1836-1917)
Vincenzo Barra, Ph.D.

Abstract
This article focuses on the “democratization from below” of rural societies in Italy during the transition from the Nineteenth to the Twentieth century. With the aim of better understand the social dynamics and the ways in which Italian rural society changed through the complex networks of patronage, the research examined the private correspondence of the MP from Avellino Michele Capozzi (1836-1917) with ordinary people and peasants in 1901. The research highlights how by recovering the concept of peasant community and marginalized voices in the archives and documents, it is possible to overcome the traditional separation between political institutions and society, to study the relationship between rural community and social change during the liberal age, the construction of the electorate and its transformation into individuals and citizen-voters.

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