Alessandra Miglio

Born in Rome in 1997, Alessandra Miglio studied at ENSA-Marseille and obtained her State Diploma in Architecture with a “research” specialization in June 2023, defending a thesis on the collective subsistence practices of farmers in the former ZAD (zone à défendre, or “zone to defend”) of Notre-Dame-des-Landes. Thanks to the connections she forged with certain figures in the agricultural and land-use planning sectors during her field research, she became aware of the difficulties French farmers face in accessing housing. It was this issue that she then used as the basis for her thesis project.

During the exploratory year dedicated to seeking doctoral funding, Alessandra presented her master's thesis to French and international scientific communities at two research conferences. She gave her first presentation in May 2024 at EAV&T Paris-Est as part of the Perspectives Rurales (ERPS) network's symposium “Catalyzing Worlds: Towards a Deepening of Territories through Agriculture,” entitled “Building Autonomy from a Conflictual Territory.” A second presentation, in English, took place the following month in Brussels as part of the “Building Movement, Achieving Transformation” symposium organized by the European network AESOP Sustainable Food Planning. These experiences led Alessandra to forge links with other researchers working in France and internationally on issues of agriculture and land use planning, which has already enriched her research horizons.
Obtaining a doctoral contract funded by ADEME then enabled her to begin her thesis in October 2024, entitled “Peasant housing in the face of transition. A study of the current challenges of agricultural housing, overlooked between agri-food reterritorialization and land sobriety.” For Alessandra, the doctorate represents, on the one hand, an unparalleled opportunity for intellectual and critical exploration of the complex phenomena currently underway in peri-urban and rural areas. On the other hand, her thesis aims to address the current challenges of rural housing from an operational perspective, with a view to putting the knowledge produced at the service of public action.

Her research is conducted in collaboration with numerous actors involved in the agricultural housing experiments studied (architectural firms, associations, professional networks, local authorities, social landlords, etc.). It is also part of a vast cooperation network working at the national level to develop solutions to the problem of housing in the transfer of farms, and more broadly for food justice and the preservation of agricultural land in the face of threats linked to soil artificialization and land concentration in the hands of the agro-industrial complex.