Mikko Puttonen
Biography
I work as a PhD researcher in general history at the Department of History and Ethnology of the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥, with a special interest in the history of Italy in the 1900s.
I am currently working on a doctoral thesis on the post-World War II transition period in northern Italy, Trentino-Alto Adige/South Tyrol, 1943-1948. My research interests include the history of grassroots experience, the problematics of border regions ( notions of ethnic and national belonging), the 'return to peace', political activism in its manifold forms, and war-peace bridges. I am also interested in political history more broadly and the use of history as a political tool. For example, in my master's thesis I studied recent Italian political history during the political upheavals of the early 1990s.
Research interests
In my dissertation research, I study the transitional period 1943-1948 in the multi-ethnic and crisis-ridden region of Trentino-Alto Adige/South Tyrol in the northernmost corner of Italy. I focus on the difficult peace-building process, everyday experiences and notions of national and ethnic belonging of the people and political activists in the border region. My research is linked to a wider European study of post-war history in border regions.