The academic year started intensely for the ReSEED Team. From 6 to 8 September, the Faculty of Economics from the University of Coimbra hosted the IV International Congress, which joined two events: the XI Meeting of the Rural History Network in Portuguese (Rural Report) and the XVIII Agrarian History Congress, led by the Spanish Society for Agrarian History Studies (SEHA). More than 300 authors from 17 countries sent their works for the congress and more than 200 attended it in person. The ReSEED Team took part in the Organising Committee, presented diverse papers, led guided visits and moderated debates.
The closing session of the IV International Congress. From left to right: Gabriel Jover, Margarida Sobral Neto, Álvaro Garrido, Dulce Freire and Carlos Manuel Faísca.
The theme of the event, Food Sovereignty, was also fully in line with the project’s goals. The congress highlighted the relevance and the need for an interdisciplinary perspective on this subject. Researcher Leonardo Aboim Pires states:
“It was very important to discuss how interdisciplinarity can be a way forward for this type of study. I would highlight the sessions on archaeobotany, but also others with themes equally connected to the project, such as food heritage, agricultural production in institutional contexts such as monasteries, or the use of new tools such as Geographic Information Systems in historical research.”
From Coimbra to Cluj-Napoca
A few days later, the ReSEED team landed in Cluj-Napoca (Romania) for the VI Biennial Conference of the European Rural History Organisation (EURHO), the Rural History 2023. From 10 to 15 September, the researchers presented some results of the ReSEED Project and reconnected with colleagues who crossed our research path at different moments of this almost 5-year journey, as collaborators, members of the team or just important partners for scientific discussions.
ReSEED members and ex-members. From left to right: Francesco D’Amaro, Carlos M. Faísca, Inês Gomes, Dulce Freire, Alberto G. Remuiñán and Leonardo Aboim Pires.
Almost 400 researchers took part in the event. Alberto González Remuiñán sums up the main topics under debate:
“There were different approaches, which made the congress a trans- and multidisciplinary event. Agricultural innovations, sustainability, mobility, social inequalities and challenges such as wars and diseases, land ownership, the evolution of agricultural landscapes, and others. They were addressed from social, economic and commercial approaches, in the long term or at specific moments, at transnational and local scales, in a more theoretical or practical way. It was a very fruitful week of discussions.”
Researcher Alberto G. Remuiñan presenting the paper “Growing maize and saving water: Recovering peasant and expert knowledge”.
From Cluj-Napoca to Coimbra
In Cluj-Napoca, it was announced that the next Rural History Conference will take place at the University of Coimbra in September 2025. After the experience of this year, hosting the IV International Congress, this is another step, reinforcing its vocation for hosting major scientific events and its connection with agrarian and rural history studies. According to Dulce Freire, ReSEED’s Principal Investigator and EURHO’ vice-president:
“The approval by EURHO’s General Assembly for this congress to be held at the University of Coimbra stems from the inclusion of Portuguese researchers in this research network since its creation in 2013. It also demonstrates the international recognition of the scientific work that has been carried out in the field of rural and agrarian history here by a growing group of researchers”.
