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Accepted Paper:

"I began to go to the sea right since I was six years old…" - Life stories: memories and identities of fishing communities in Portugal  
Leonor Bettencourt (CIS-IUL / ISCTE-IUL) Paula Castro (ISCTE-IUL & CIS-IUL)

Paper short abstract:

This study explores, through interviews, how life stories help make sense of place, professions and relationships in coastal communities, in a context of changing rights and obligations, due to the new marine and land policies of Natura 2000.

Paper long abstract:

This study explores, through interviews, how life stories help make sense of place, professions and relationships in coastal communities, in a context of changing rights and obligations, due to the new marine and land policies of Natura 2000. Interviews asking for Life stories are a way to safeguard the cultural elements of fishing communities (e.g. informal practices, local knowledge, traditions, vocabulary), and not just a way of recovering strictly professional fishing actions. Getting people to revive their memories about past fishing activities and conviviality in place is thus also an attempt to maintain the unique identity of these places as fishing communities. And it can also be a means to bring to the fore peoples' concerns and perspectives about the undergoing transformations of the community, consequently helping their adaptation to a changing environment. We focus on memories and sense-making processes of fishers and seafood collectors and their families from three Natura coastal territories of the Southern Portuguese coast: a) Arrifana (n=4); b) Carrapateira (n=5), and c) Vila Nova de Milfontes (n=3). We systematize their memories of lived experiences, valuing present cultural expressions, and exploring possible insights about how communities foresee their future in the coast and that of the marine heritage. These memories reveal the importance of the process of continuity for the identity of a place and its communities.

Panel P01
Riding the waves: politics, memories and sense making in contemporary maritime cultures
  Session 1