Archaeological research, or rather the process of fieldwork, is ostensibly driven by data acquisition, yet the logistical realities which lie behind this acquisition are rarely foregrounded. Teams of students and/or professionals require food, water, shelter, and laboratory space, all preferably in proximity to the area being studied. These constraints impose certain types of living conditions in certain localities upon research projects. The Sangro Valley Project has, since 1994, been based in and around the village of Tornareccio (alongside Bomba, San Giovanni, Colledimezzo and Atessa) in the Abruzzo. The village is small, typical of the Apennine communities. The Catholic church, Forza Italia, and familial bonds are powerful social forces. The village square, the church, and the three bars (Pietra Viva, Marie Claire and the Bar dello Sport) are the hubs of the community.

As a social unit, the Project group (loosely defined; senior academic personnel, doctoral research associates, visiting specialists, the field hierarchy, undergraduate volunteers, Italian archaeologists and students) is in part forced to operate within these social hubs. Down-time (during siesta, in the evening after dinner, at the weekend) is co-ordinated around these places. As such, they become very strongly associated with the opposite of the actual physical reality of fieldwork. These are places where one spends the evening, rather than the day; different clothes are worn, hierarchical field relationships collapse, Anglophone-Italian linguistic barriers break down, different activities take place (dancing versus picking; sitting versus standing; playing cards versus drawing sections) and, importantly, alcohol is consumed instead of water. The Bar is essentially the Other of the Field, where the field is created through defining what it's not.

The bar not only defines what the field is, it also delineates between communities. The variety of practices available at these places allows differentiation through the formation of different suites of practices, and this is where the significance of the Bar Sport is relevant. The Bar Sport is small (seating up to twenty), whereas Pietra Viva can hold hundreds. Furthermore, families, and indeed the entire village, can gather at Pietra Viva ('PV', colloquially); Bar Sport is the haunt of the younger, male members of the village, alongside the older Communists (Marie Claire is popular with supporters of Forza Italia, and young men from out of town). Consequently, choosing to spend one's time at Bar Sport makes a statement about oneself; because the entire team cannot be acccommodated, drinking here implies a social cleavage. In practice, it tends to be those members of the team who, whilst still junior, have been associated with the Project the longest who gather here. There also exists a divison between interior and exterior. The interior of the bar could be construed as intimidating; crowded, small, invariably filled with cigarette smoke, often with the local drunk, and thick with the local vernacular. Older hands have been known to gather here, drinking the local grappa at the bar rather than beer outside, talking to the locals in dialect (which again creates a barrier). It is in some sense a retreat, but that retreat itself is self-defining. Identity - as established fieldhand, as more integrated within the community, as somehow possessing of abilities which differentiate from younger undergraduates (i.e. speaking in dialect, drinking the powerful spirit) - is forged through these processes. It is this conjunction of specific practices with a certain locale, with corresponding physical limitations, that permits this articulation of identity. Consequently, this identity comes to reside in this space; this is the transformation into place.