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ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the theoretical and methodological configuration of what we define as the ‘Remote Habitability Method’ (RHM). This place‐sensitive epistemological and research‐making approach aims at understanding what makes remote places inhabitable. While quantitative, economic growth‐oriented approaches have long set research and policy agendas regarding marginalised areas, we argue that more fine‐grained, fieldwork‐based approaches are needed to understand the process of being left behind, as well as the patterns of actions, interactions and affections that shape the infrastructures of daily inhabitation in these remote areas. First, we situate the contribution of the RHM in the extensions of the geographical debates on the habitability and social infrastructure of cities in remote, left‐behind places. Then, we exploit it to investigate the case study of the Italian institutional geography of marginal areas, that is, the ‘ aree interne ’ (inner areas), to showcase the potential of the RHM as an epistemological and methodological lens. To do so, we draw upon archival research, semi‐structured interviews and empirical materials collected during the multisite fieldwork we conducted in the municipalities that comprise the Gran Sasso‐Valle Subequana inner area.
Grazioli et al. (Mon,) studied this question.