Paper short abstract:

Nostalgia for a traditional rural world can be understood as a critical reaction in the face of a social and economic crisis.In the case of the new ecological "back-to-the-nature" movement, the reference to an idealized past is indeed the basis of new alternative ways of living: the "Return Utopias"

Paper long abstract:

We are observing today in France a new wave of return to the countryside and to its associated activities. These "back-to-the-nature" movements, also called "Return Utopias", bring with them the will to re-appropriate traditional knowledge and to establish a specific way of life, based on the idea of sustainable self-sufficiency and aspiring to a self-managed and collective social organisation.

This research project in anthropology intends to study the influence of nostalgia in the implementation of this utopian project, whether the appeal of an idealised past is generated by personal motivations and justifications (which can be spiritually orientated towards a "better life" or motivated by the wish for a break) or by the will to build a new form of modernity-criticism.

In order to set up a comprehensive analysis of the "returners" daily life (by focusing on three specific aspects of their life: the food practices, the education of children and the work organisation), I plan to study nostalgia as a vector of utopias. In this way, I intend to demonstrate that nostalgia, often considered as a backward-looking approach of the social world, is in fact a multiple phenomenon that can be contradictory and often be brought about by utopian philosophies and critical drives facing contemporary disappointments, frustration and anxieties in these times of crisis.

Paper short abstract:

Ecovillages are utopian communities where new solutions to the contemporary social, political, economic and ecological crisis are daily experimented, gleaning visions and practices from a pre-industrial heritage to achieve a more just and sustainable life than the one proposed by the modern idea of progress

Paper long abstract:

The recent financial and economic crisis has raised many social, ethical and environmental issues that some Western citizens have decided to face with an extreme choice: giving up everything and moving to the country to create or join an ideal community.

My paper focuses especially on the ecovillage network, a movement of intentional and sustainable laboratories where new ways of inhabiting, building, provisioning and communicating are daily experimented, in order to diminish the ecological footprints as well as the frustrations and the injustices connected with the capitalistic system.

Anthropology has barely looked upon the wide reality of ecovillages as yet, regardless of the amount of interesting theoretical bridges between them, such as the problematization of human-nature relationship, the active role of boundaries in rethinking society, the engagement in finding solutions for a more fair and sustainable world.

Arose from an ongoing research in three Italian case studies of intentional communities, my paper will try to highlight these fruitful interconnections analysing non-scientific literature about ecovillages, together with anthropological perspectives about solutions-oriented social movements and networks, re-conceptualizations of the inhabited space and the relation with nature and the surrounding environment.

I argue that this kind of utopian experiences use traditional knowledge, values and practices to re-conceptualize the Western narrative concerning well-being, progress and development. An example could be the achievement of an ethical economy based on self-production, sharing and recycling, in open contrast with the rules of the global consumerism.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how traditional architectural and housing knowledge is perceived, used and presented in different examples of sustainable rural architecture built nowadays in Croatia.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores how traditional architectural and housing knowledge is perceived, used and presented in different examples of sustainable rural architecture built nowadays in Croatia. The author analyses the examples of natural building, modern architecture, the plans for reconstruction of houses destroyed by floods and the rebuilding of traditional houses, which draw on certain elements of traditional architecture and housing (presence of architectural details, usage of local building materials, functional space organization, respecting rural ambient, etc.). The author discusses what aspects of tradition are recognized as the most suitable and applicable in contemporary attempts at creating sustainable buildings, i.e. providing a sustainable way of living. The author analyses how these ideas and perceptions of tradition appear and function in different economic, social and cultural contexts, how knowledge about traditional architecture and housing is gained and combined with knowledge about modern technology, materials and renewable energy sources. The author also touches upon the role of experts, especially ethnologists and architects, in these phenomena.

Paper short abstract:

The paper presents how women and their energy, knowledge, teaching skills, feelings for different generation needs, and wishes to preserve, research and modify a local tradition can be an important generator for achieving goals of sustainable development in rural communities.

Paper long abstract:

In a world of continuously changing life circumstances in which many rural communities are constantly seeking opportunities for achieving sustainable development, cultural heritage practices and reviving tradition customs have also acquired new roles and meanings. There are many themes, elements, skills, knowledge and other sources of our predecessors which can be used and modified according to a sustainable policy. The problem is that many local residents, economists and politicians do not understand cultural heritage and tradition as a potential for further development. Researching the past, reviving traditions, preparing exhibitions or modifying past skills is mostly recognised as an art or amateur activity for leisure, expressing social identity or enriching tourist programmes. The question arises of how to make local stakeholders aware of economic potentials of culture heritage and tradition in order to ensure new sustainable products.

The answer lies in activities prepared by local heritage associations or NGOs whose purpose is not only to research or revive traditions of ancestors, but also to modify and use them according to contemporary needs, ideas, wishes, and technologies. The paper presents the activities of the Association of Housewives from Planina pri Ajdovščini (Slovenia), which during the ten years of work, research and collaboration with different scientists (an ethnologist and cultural anthropologist, photographers, a designer, etc.) has managed to develop an interesting lifelong learning method (through an amateur stage performing) and concrete local products (e.g. new recipes and other products based on tradition and innovation), which are suitable for further development of the area.

Paper short abstract:

In a semi-subsistence type of farming specific to highland Romania, pasture and hay-meadow management is organised as creative resistance to the bureaucratic agri-ecological pedagogy of the Common Agricultural Policy.

Paper long abstract:

In a semi-subsistence type of farming specific to highland Romania, the survival of mountain farmers depends on agri-environmental payments available under the Common Agricultural Policy, which have become a key source of income for households in marginal rural communities. By following pasture and haymeadow management in semi-subsistence households in a highland northern Romania village, the paper examines the struggles of local peasants to adjust their traditional practices and economic strategies to the system of agro-environmental subsidies. A disconnection arises between locals' knowledge and policy makers' pedagogy, paired with an area of miscommunication between local farmers and bureaucrats and reciprocal misunderstanding of the roles, the instruments, the rationality and goals of each. The paper explores how these disconnections instigate farmers to identify 'grey areas' where they can act out their resistance to those aspects of the regulations perceived as intrusive, abusive and/or unnecessary. Various forms of adaptation arise from this attempt to mediate the two types of land management norms and hybrid forms of management begin to shape. The analysis focuses on those cases in which the farmers are willing to have a limited participation to the subsidy-based agricultural system but without giving up their decision-making prerogatives and the use of their specific knowledge.

Paper short abstract:

The paper focuses on the history and the present state of dairying in the mountain pastures in the Eastern Alps and examines different recent measures on the certification of authenticity which aim to link the traditional knowledge with sustainable development.

Paper long abstract:

Dairying in the mountain pastures in the Eastern Alps has a long tradition. The archaeological findings demonstrate that cheese-making technology was already known in the Roman period. It was documented in the Middle Ages and became even more significant within the Modern Age physiocratic efforts. In the last decades of the 19th century the individual production of butter and cheese was substituted by a more profitable common dairying and later on cooperative dairying. In the second half of the 20th century, milk processing in the mountain pastures started to disappear as a result of general abandonment of the mountain pastures and the transport of milk to valley dairies. Due to the efforts of individuals, dairying and related knowledge has been preserved in some mountain pastures until the 21st century. It has even been encouraged by different measures, for example trademarks or protected designation of origin on the national and European level. Despite the attempt to emphasize the authenticity of cheese varieties in the certification process, the irony is that at the same time the process of standardisation and unification takes place because of the precise production protocol in order to guarantee a standard. The certification process is therefore ambiguous. Some of cheese producers consider it as an opportunity for promotion and quality guarantee; however, some of them are more inclined to produce other varieties of cheeses and milk products which are not awarded trademarks and protected designation of origin, but are nevertheless authentic.

Paper short abstract:

Kopacevo is a wetland village with a unique type of fishing being developed. Due to the unnecessary late 20th century restrictions, the last generation of fisherman, holders of these skills, disappears nowadays, invoking an urgent protection as a valuable cultural heritage and a tourist attraction.

Paper long abstract:

Thirty-odd years ago, access to the Kopacki Rit area was limited, encompassing the local population who were prohibited from fishing without cogent reason, although being its millennial cultural and natural environment. Nowadays, this fact is an obstacle to a sustainable socioeconomic development, particularly to the rural tourism and the Hungarian minority's cultural area preservation. Traditional knowledge is disappearing, especially the very unique fishing technique and fishing tool manufacturing.

Simultaneously, a ban on fishing, navigation, and other traditional activities constitutes an ecosystem threat.

The wetlands formed by the meandering rivers of the Danube and the Drava for over 1,000 years, as documented by fishing, were preserved due to a coexistence of the man and the nature. Without maintenance, the meanders are disappearing in a natural cycle of riverbank erosion and herbal sediment deposition, so the area has lost more than 2/3 of its waters, according to local estimations. This is a threat to entire eco-chains, as a new meander creation is prevented by the waterways' hydrotechnical regulation.

A public institution managing the area unfortunately plans to rehabilitate the ecosystem while dredging the canals in spite of an injunction on all interventions in the nature, being the main reason for the fishing ban affecting the locals.

The Kopacki Rit Traditional Fishing Society has collected a rich documentary and artifactual materials whereas seeks to protect the related skills as a cultural property while restoring a right to limited fishing as a cultural tourism potential and an environmental monitoring and protection measure.

Paper short abstract:

An employment and hobby realization possibilities are very important for rural development. Traditional craft skills are used in both of these areas. A good opportunity for the promotion of traditional knowledge is event "Meet your master!"

Paper long abstract:

An employment and hobby realization possibilities are very important for rural development. Traditional craft skills as part of the intangible cultural heritage are used in both of these areas. Both society’s and individual’s interest to pay attention to a heritage of traditional culture is promoted by a desire to fulfill one’s own cultural identity in nowadays cosmopolitical world. This allows traditional knowledge to find their place in rural tourism and the activities of individual producers, etc. A good opportunity for the promotion of traditional knowledge is event "Meet your master!".

The interest about traditional craft is increasing in Latvian society. It is individual’s initiative and a desire to develop special skills, a desire to find out more about traditional cultural heritage and as well as a result of activities and events (festivals, summer schools, workshops etc.) organized by state institutions (for example, Latvian National culture centre) and social organizations (different non-governmental organizations, interest groups). One of such activities which has been happening every spring since 2009 and is widespread unit of seperate workshops in Latvia is „Meet your master!” The idea of this event is to inform society about a human, his knowledge and skills which have been maintained and inherited from generation to generation. A large part of the activities take place in rural environment. Every year the number of masters and people interested in this activity is increasing.