Paper short abstract:

The French and Spanish Central Pyrenees have undergone herding transformations since the brown bear reintroduction program took place in 1996. This paper focuses on the recent implementation of 'regrouping' sheep herds, using shepherds, protection dogs, and pens to prevent bear attacks.

Paper long abstract:

The European Union launched a brown bear reintroduction program (LIFE project) in 1996 to recover the bear population in the Pyrenees, considered to be almost extinct at that time. The current total population is estimated at around fifty animals along the entire mountain range. However, most of them dwell in the Central Pyrenees. Despite program efforts to make the growing population of brown bear compatible with livestock and farming practices, the project has so far failed to gain farmers' acceptance, and social conflicts have periodically arisen.

This presentation will focus on the implementation of 'regrouping' sheep herds in the Central Pyrenees due to increasing bear attacks. New shepherds have been hired, protection dogs 'reintroduced' and fenced sheepfolds installed with European Union funds to prevent livestock loss.

By conducting a comparative ethnographic approach among the Ariège (France), Pallars Sobirà and Val d'Aran (Spain) districts, our analysis revolves around the contrasts on both sides regarding the environmental conservation narratives and the actual changes lived by farmers and shepherds on the ground. The brown bear is presented as a win-win scenario by conservation advocates, since it allegedly entails the restoration of both Pyrenean natural and cultural heritage values. Framed as an 'umbrella species', its presence is meant to recover dwindling natural habitats, whereas it also implies both the restoration of traditional sheep herding practices that were progressively abandoned since the mid-20th century and the creation of new ones. And yet, protests and uncertainties around the bear are increasingly spreading over these territories.

Paper short abstract:

The nomadic pastoralism takes place in winter, on the plains and in the low hills. Albeit traditional and potentially interesting for sustainable landscape management, it activates social conflicts our research analysed.

Paper long abstract:

To Summer vertical transhumance between plains and alpine pastures, a type of horizontal transhumance is associated during winter, especially for sheep breeding, that takes the name of nomadic pastoralism. Every year, shepherds organize their long journeys sub-divided into steps, on usual paths even if the availability of the grass and the contingent variations of accessibility to fields and roads makes them every time original. Therefore, throughout the year large flocks of small ruminants can graze outdoors: in winter in a nomadic way, along the rivers and in the resting fields, during the summer sedentary on the alpine pastures. Being nomadic, their winter activities interact with a large number of actors and factors: they have to ask in order to accede to the private fields, they try to set good relations with the sedentary farmers and ensure good sanitary conditions for the animals and the inclusion of their activity within nature conservation policies. Social conflicts exist and our research explored them through role-playing games among dwellers. If the nomadic pastoralism is correctly managed, it can represent a form of sustainable landscape management, a cultural heritage of technical and territorial heritage, a positive interaction of man and nature, considering the strategic objective of the Biosphere Reserve CollinaPo included in the MAB UNESCO program.

Paper short abstract:

For many centuries transhumance economy has been the main source of income for highlanders of Silesian Beskidy Mountains. Restoration of sheep breeding in The Beskids in XXI century launched a reflective approach not only to economic development but also definition of cultural heritage.

Paper long abstract:

Redefinition of "hut pastoralism" in the contemporary cultural context helped to design tourist products and services related both to ecolifestyle and promotion of cultural heritage of the region. For example an unquestionable tourist attraction in the Silesian Beskid are annually performed customs and ceremonies connected with sheep farming, especially with their ascent to the mountain pastures in spring and coming back to stalls in autumn. Transhumance that is being reinvented today redefined traditional institution of baca (head shepherd). Nowadays he turns out to be not only a experienced and influential shepered but also a sort of business men and local leader (but in modern sense). One of the most active people who acts for returning pastoral economy in Silesian Beskid is baca Piotr Kohut from Koniaków village. He herds annually more than thousand sheep in the form of hut economy, he conducts the grazing interchangeably on several pastures such as Podgrapa, Barania Hala, Magurka and Ochodzita. He identifies contemporary hut and pastoral economy with "wallachian heritage", talking about "Carpathian community".

The paper is based on years of cooperation and friendship between ethnologists from University of Silesia in Katowice, who has been undertaken a number of events and researches on new pastoral economy in the borderland of Poland and Czech Republic.

Paper short abstract:

The article presents Alpine transhumance in the area of the Friuli Venezia - Giulia (Italy). The history of the use of highlands pastures and dairying is presented, as well as contemporary challenges and heritagization practices.

Paper long abstract:

In the mountain regions, where agricultural activities are constrained by climatic effects of altitude, edaphic factors, scarcity of soil and steep gradients of the land, pastoralism has been the most effective and dominant agricultural activity. Large expanses of grasslands, which ring the valleys above the tree line, could be made accessible for productive activities because of the animals' ability to convert natural plants into nutritive food. In the Alps a combination of cultivation and herding emerged, known as Alpine husbandry or Alpine agro-pastoral system, that consisted of two (or more) spatially segregated spheres of production - fields and meadows near the village, and the alps, i.e. low- and high-altitude pastures with structures for milk processing.

The article presents past and present state of Alpine transhumance in the area of the Friuli Venezia - Giulia (Italy), situated at the crossroads of Romance, German, and Slavic cultures, of constantly changing authority and borders in the Eastern Alps. It ends by showing nowadays challenges of alpine pasture and dairying in the Friuli, that range from intensification and introduction of supplementary agricultural activities to some surviving traditional practices and some new forms of collaborative economy.

Paper short abstract:

In the Finnish North, transhumance has never lost its relevance, although it has undergone significant changes. Transhumance has been and continues to be at the heart of Sámi reindeer herding. Apart from being a viable livelihood reindeer herding has become crucial for Sámi identity formation.

Paper long abstract:

In the Finnish North, transhumance has never lost its relevance, although it has undergone significant changes. Transhumance has been and continues to be at the heart of Sámi reindeer herding. Today, the reindeer roam freely between the four seasonal pastures, spring calving ground, summer ear marking, autumn mating grounds and separation/slaughtering in winter. Compared to the times when the herder would stay with the herd, this is now reduced to contact twice a year, and increasingly supported by technology, i.e. snowmobile, helicopter and GPS collar. Apart from being a viable livelihood that produces meat and fur products, and is an important tourism business, reindeer herding has become crucial for Sámi identity formation and political claim-making. In this sense, the Finnish (and Swedish resp. Norwegian) case gives a positive example of how transhumant livelihood can be revived and promoted

Paper short abstract:

We offer an analysis of an artistic performance commemorating the practice of transhumance. We articulate three different perspectives on transhumance and conclude that movement is key to understanding relations between human and non-human animals

Paper long abstract:

In this paper we offer an analysis of TransHumance, an artistic performance by Théâtre du Centaure which seeks to commemorate the pastoral practice of transhumance. Our analysis focuses on the attention that the performance devotes to movement, and is articulated from three different vantage points, namely from the vantage points of political economy, assemblage theory and philosophical critique. The first of these vantage points shows how the movement of transhumant herds calls for a re-examination of the ways in which non-human animals are transformed into sources of profit and capital. Assemblage theory exposes the limits of this first vantage point and draws attention to a richer understanding of the relationship between human and non-human animals. We argue, however, that this second vantage point also obscures power relations and the individuality of the human and animal agents involved in the transhumant assemblage. We conclude our analysis by developing an alternative, third vantage point. We approach TransHumance as the work of art that it is and propose that the intermittent appearance of a horse's blinking eye forces us to think about movement itself. This, we argue, is key to understanding how transhumance challenges very profoundly contemporary configurations of the relationship between human and non-human animals.

Paper short abstract:

The pastures of transhumant herders in the South of France are mostly protected natural areas. Their managers, however, testify to different objectives, sometimes considered contradictory. Is there, even through a positive mediation of anthropology, the possibility of overcoming these divergences?

Paper long abstract:

Like almost all pastoral herders who own only their animals, transhumant people in Western countries rent their pastures. The majority of them and almost all in the mountains are living and working in natural protected areas (parks, nature reserves, protection zones, firewalls ...). This contributes to the maintenance of biodiversity, fire prevention and landscape safeguard. Thus, their presence, even under conditions, is conceived as necessary, but their positive role on the ground is not fully recognized. Somehow this new representation of their activities involve them in the management of these protected areas and makes them having interlocutions with their scientific bodies. Nonetheless in the application to agro-environmental measures and calls, languages and visions differ on both sides, often to the point of incomprehension and, sometimes, conflict. What are the reasons? Under what conditions are the objectives and interests of the two parties reconcilable? And to what changes do you agree, from one side to the other, to reach the agreement and contribute significantly to the current ecological transition (climate change, agro-ecology )?

From some situations observed in the South of France, this paper will try to see what are, for the benefit of all, the possibilities of a positive evolution of the transhumant sheep farming. We explicitly based on the Philippe Descola's and Arturo Escobar's works to bring out the necessities of the multiple visions in the collective pursuit of the goal of "buen vivir".

Paper short abstract:

Transhumance, as an actor of this relationship and unity Human-being-animal and territory is a major component of the Collective Inconscient, all the representations and beliefs underholding all the culture of the region built up all the amazing beauty of this nature/culture unity. At the heart of the cultural identity, pastoralism and transhumance may be part of future prospect sustainable development in a respectful reciprocity with development of ecotourism. Strategies must be set up, to give to it a sustainable living.

Paper long abstract:

Kelmend is a mountain region belonging to the Illyrian Alps, an agropastoral multimillionaire culture. These mountains offered a refuge to shepherd’s populations enabling preservation of an autochthonous culture in spite of all the invaders and a lot of particularities regarding their way of being, thinking and actions. All this underlies the very rich traditions and culture of this region. These mountains are also a space of circulation, exchange and communication which brings out a specific configuration with a very rich ecosystem. And there, the shepherd with his herd with all its transhumance traditions holds a specific role, having shaped the cultural landscapes in very specific ways, having accumulated traditional knowledge and ways of being, thinking, representing and acting   giving their own imprint and identity. Therefore, is offered to the world exceptional cultural and natural scenic values, within a unique interaction between people and the nature, giving sense to all this environment and all the beauty of the culture which is integrated. All the traditional values shaping Albanian identity are taking their source from this sociocultural dynamic of life which originates in very ancient time. This agropastoral culture is enhancing a geographic, agronomic, cultural and sociological organization that encompasses the basis and the heritage dimension of the pastoral identity of this region and cannot be erased. This intangible ecocultural heritage is a driving force for sustainable regional development. It owned to be part of the highest valued ethnocultural Mediterranean heritage.  Although this ecoculture is actually being threatened by many factors which I will analyse, nevertheless its inhabitants showed all through history resilience and adaptive abilities defending their ecocultural territories and beliefs, willingness to go on living in interaction and harmony, protecting and transmitting  to the world all this heritage And there within this chaotic irruption of modernity, the shepherd remains, with his deep listening attachment and respect towards life, his traditional knowledge, with all his quality of care to the animals, to the environment as well as to the entire society, an emblematic figure as actor of sustainable development creator of peace, harmony and stabilization. The region of Kelmend also began to welcome tourism. Such a fact can also help economic development of the region, but not at any price. It must be conjugated in harmony with this agropastoral traditional activities which is the identity of all this region and which merits all our attention, support and protection.  During my presentation, open to discussions with all of you, I will give some suggestions how we could advance therefore, together with them, within shared competences. 

Keywords: ecoculture, pastoral sociocultural, world heritage, traditional knowledge, shepherd

Paper short abstract:

This paper represents the first systematization of an ethnography based on Molise in the framework of a wider interest in regional/national/global processes of heritagization and monitoring put in place in the last two decades, above all, but not exclusively by the UNESCO framework, Council of Europe and other global contexts of conservation/valorisation policies. The Region Molise, being small and relatively secluded, is particularly fit for advancing some methodological and theoretical issues about the challenging relationships between the sense of local identity and the late modern projection in heritagization contexts according to ‘global hierarchies of value’.

Paper long abstract:

This paper represents the first systematization of an ethnography based on Molise in the framework of a wider interest in regional/national/global processes of heritagization and monitoring put in place in the last two decades, above all, but not exclusively by the UNESCO framework, Council of Europe and other global contexts of conservation/valorisation policies. The Region Molise, being small and relatively secluded, is particularly fit for advancing some methodological and theoretical issues about the challenging relationships between the sense of local identity and the late modern projection in heritagization contexts according to ‘global hierarchies of value’.

The ethnography is focused on bio-cultural heritage and transhumance/traditional pastoralism revitalization as a cultural/tourist path, especially in the of Northern as well as of Southern inner areas of Italy. Moreover, having supported, as the Director of an Academic Centre of Research, the procedure of submission of the ‘civilization of transhumance’ to the UNESCO ICH List and many activities of revitalization and reformulation of this knowledge-practice system in the local, the a. aims at reconsidering the concrete and symbolic/representational usages of this activity in the relatively recent debate on bio-cultural heritage and sustainable territorial and community development, questioning in a very deep way the real participation of the communities to this cultural and somehow political processes.