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- Convenors:
-
Lili Di Puppo
(University of Helsinki)
Anna Varfolomeeva (University of Oulu)
Iwona Kaliszewska (University of Warsaw)
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- Chair:
-
Iwona Kaliszewska
(University of Warsaw)
- Discussants:
-
Francisco Martínez
(Tampere University)
Maurizio Totaro (University of Ghent)
- Formats:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Environment
- Sessions:
- Thursday 24 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
This panel addresses the way breakthroughs in the form of rapid economic and social developments reshape human bonds to landscapes. Rather than considering interventions such as mining through the prism of their destructive potential, we are interested in the way they also generate new imaginaries.
Long Abstract:
This panel invites papers addressing the way breakthroughs in the form of rapid economic and societal developments reshape human bonds to natural landscapes. Profound social, economic, and ideological changes such as a globalising economy and rapid development of resource extraction impact the ways in which local communities experience and reimagine their attachment to landscape. Rather than considering human interventions such as a newly built infrastructure and resource exploitation through the prism of their destructive potential, we are interested in the way these interventions also generate new imaginaries. Mining developments can lead to new ways of interacting with a more-than-human landscape. Similarly, a particular landscape can be revived and redefined through the presence of a new infrastructure that gives a different status to a particular locality, making it more visible. On the contrary, a rejection of mining exploitation can trigger the rediscovery of ancient bonds with a landscape, generating a new sense of belonging and a reawakening of ethnic and religious identification.
Possible questions to engage with include: how do newly built infrastructures or industrial sites become embedded into landscape imaginaries? Can we talk about the liberating potential of breakthroughs in human - landscape relations? How does the threat of intervention such as mining exploitation trigger a renewed attachment to landscape but also the search for environmental-friendly innovation? Can the natural landscape inspire new modes of living and, potentially, new ethical codes to navigate times of crisis?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 24 June, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
Since the 90s in the Mari society there is a tendency to divide this people into regional groups. Based on field materials, the author explores the representation of territorial identities in narratives about legendary heroes as well as practices of using folk images in creation of identities.
Paper long abstract:
After the events of the 1990s we can see in the Mari culture the process of actualization of ethnic and regional identities, based on the connection with a certain area, which often have political borders. This fact concerns the crisis of self-representation in Sovietic and post-Sovietic societies ang growing interest in national myths nd traditions. The spatial identities of various Mari groups are expressed in the images of national folklore heroes ("patyrs"), models of their description and reproduction of related oral texts (non-fairy prose). A number of folklore characters have a connection with the oral tradition of a specifec region of the Mari Republic. This phenomenon is reflected in the media, the perception of certain landscape objects (mountains, rivers, stones, etc.) by the locals, monuments, as well as in commemorative and religious practices.The link between folklore images and regional identities is regularly reproduced through scientific, educational and artistic discourses, which are scrutinised in detail by the author. Moreover, representation of identities in the texts of legends is also associated with the construction of a dichotomy "our\their" and ideas of belonging.
Paper short abstract:
In combining two methodological approaches from Sociology and Anthropology I will create a new framework for an understanding of the potential role of landscape in shaping culture.
Paper long abstract:
The aim of this research paper is to discuss if, who, and in which manner constructivist theories, or to speak in a more broader sense, social constructivism affects the shaping of reality, nature and the environment. For this approach I would like to suggest the reader an interdisciplinary way, combining several theories from the field of Sociology as well as Anthropology in order to merge the best aspects of them. I would like to introduce the Sociologist with the concept of "scape" and the Anthropologist with the different forms of constructivism in order to create a common understanding of the field of research. After this short adjustment of the theoretical frame I will further discuss the implications, overlaps and fruitful outcomes of a possible merger of the two different fields.
In times where skepticism and pessimism regarding scientific research are on the everyday agenda, we have to have a closer look on their philosophical grounds and try to figure out how they can help us in better understanding ourselves and others. Time will show if my cultural scape approach is a helpful tool too.
Paper short abstract:
Based on the analytical concept of “minescape" and the ethnographic material collected in New Caledonia, this paper explores how mining can be analysed as cultural and social productive sites.
Paper long abstract:
Recently Oceania's ethnographic literature has investigated indigenous narratives about the relationship between mineral wealth and landscape, particularly in Melanesia and Australia. These studies show us how "traditional" ritual practices can be renewed and/or revisited reflecting the processes of accommodation and resistance to change. Mining and the world of ancestral spirits are not in themselves irreconcilable: their relationship largely depends on the positions that local people take towards mining projects and companies. In this direction, the recent industrial breakthrough of New Caledonian Kanak independentists proves to be a fertile ground through which to observe how mining capitalism is being domesticated and reconceptualised from the complex human-environment relationship. Anthropological analysis of the ways in which peaceful and "productive" coexistence between the mining industry and the spirits of the mountains is negotiated, allows us to look at culture and economy as integrated into nature. Based on ten months of fieldwork in the northern region of New Caledonia, this presentation aims to overcome the idea that mining can be reduced to economic, rational and emotionless spaces (as advocated by a certain mainstream environmentalist discourse). On the contrary, ethnography shows us how these mining spaces become complex socio-cultural terrains and places of relationships characterised not only by a temporal dimension but also by an emotional and sentimental one.