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11
- Convenors:
-
Roger Norum
(University of Oulu)
Colin Coates (Glendon College, York University)
Claire Campbell (Bucknell University)
Claudia Leal (Universidad de los Andes)
Send message to Convenors
- Formats:
- Poster
- Streams:
- Posters
- Location:
- Linnanmaa Campus, Foyer near reception
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 21 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
The poster sessions are meant to provide everyone with the opportunity of presenting their work, without overburdening the programme, and will accommodate those who do not wish to present orally. Posters must conform to the same basic requirements as outlined for the panel sessions. Posters will be on display throughout the Congress, with dedicated slots when poster presenters will be available at their respective display to discuss their topic with colleagues. Junior scholars are especially encouraged to participate with a poster presentation.
Long Abstract:
The posters will be accessible throughout the Congress period, with dedicated time slots when poster presenters will be available to virtually discuss their topic with colleagues.
A poster proposal must consist of:
- poster title
- the name/s and email address/es of author/s
- a short abstract of fewer than 300 characters
- a long abstract of fewer than 250 words
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 21 August, 2024, -
Healing in ancient Mesopotamia – the reliance on aquatic elements in magical-medical practices
Ana Satiro
(CHAM - Centro de Humanidades)
Isabel Gomes de Almeida
(CHAM - Center for the Humanities (FCSH))
Cristina Brito
(CHAM - Centre for the Humanites, NOVA FCSH)
Paper short abstract:
The present paper proposes to examine Mesopotamian therapeutic texts from the II and I millennia BC., highlighting the role of aquatic agents within the healing practices of ancient Mesopotamia.
Paper long abstract:
The ancient Mesopotamian corpora regarding healing practices clearly show how fauna, flora, and other natural elements were closely examined, transformed, and exploited, becoming materia magica and materia medica (i.e., ingredients required for remedy preparation). Naturally, not only the specialists who developed them but also the patients who received them became deeply dependent on these elements. Given the rich aquatic environment that characterized the Mesopotamian territory, the magical-medical repertoire comprised diverse references to aquatic elements. In this regard, we have been trying to intertwine the postulates of History of Religions and Environmental History to be applied to the study of ancient Mesopotamian healing practices. As such, with this paper we aim to present some considerations on the referred dependency, particularly focusing on aquatic elements (e.g., crabs, turtles) changing the traditional analytical focus which highlights the human specialists/patient’s relationship, to the human/non-human one.
Creative responses to climate change: an environmental sustainability assessment of the Indian screen industries
Tanya Goyal
(Jawaharlal Nehru University)
Paper short abstract:
The screen industry holds immense power to combat climate change globally. While India reigns as the film production giant, its environmental impact remains overlooked. This paper assesses the sustainability of India's screen industry and its potential in driving a greener future.
Paper long abstract:
Climate change and environmental sustainability are pressing global issues today, and the screen industries have a significant role to play in raising awareness and promoting sustainable practices through their storytelling (Mahajan, S. & Suri, S., 2023).
India has a longstanding reputation for its acclaimed screen industry and in particular, continues to be by far the world’s largest producer of films (S.G. Dastidar & C. Elliot, 2019). But we tend to forget about what happens behind the scenes to create the digital magic and why one was filming in the first place. The production of screen sets has been leading to a significant carbon footprint, making the industry one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions that is the major cause of climate change (Mahajan, S. & Suri, S., 2023).
However, recent efforts have been made to promote sustainable production and consumption in the screen industries, through initiatives such as carbon footprint calculators and sustainable production guidelines. This paper provides a sustainability assessment of the screen industries in India, examining the challenges and opportunities associated with promoting sustainable practices, as well as the role of the creative sector in raising environmental awareness and promoting social change. Drawing on case studies from the Indian film industry, the paper demonstrates the potential for the screen industries to drive positive change towards a more sustainable future.
Paper short abstract:
Indigenous youth-led participatory film project which investigates how efforts to revitalize the land and remove invasive plants are interconnected with the work of restoring traditional foodways and cultural relationships to the land.
Paper long abstract:
Access to the land is an essential part of the health and food sovereignty of Indigenous peoples. Colonization sought to disconnect Indigenous peoples from their ancestral territories and food systems, by placing them on reserves, disrupting the transmission of knowledge between Elders and youth, and prohibiting traditional agroecological practices. Meanwhile, settlers from Europe were creating ‘Europeanized’ landscapes, by introducing plants from their homelands, which spread and colonized new ecosystems, making it increasingly difficult for native plants to survive. In the present day, there are numerous communities working to remove invasive plants and restore traditional foodways, effectively revitalizing the land and their cultural relationships to it. On Vancouver Island, invasive species have spread rapidly and are outcompeting native plants, with negative consequences for the health and food sovereignty of local Indigenous people. This research empowered youth from Sc’ianew Nation, an Indigenous community in Canada, by engaging them in the creation of a participatory short film, which investigated the impacts land revitalization projects are having for their community. Youth were trained in filmmaking techniques, and they interviewed Elders and Knowledge Keepers. The study found that land revitalization work is connecting people on-reserve, it is strengthening partnerships with likeminded organizations off-reserve, and it is creating space for native plants, including medicinal and food plants to flourish, which also benefits non-human kin. This study contributes to a growing body of scholarship which uses participatory and visual methods to make knowledge more accessible and useful to research communities.
Paper short abstract:
The poster offers insights into the entanglement between pigeons and human beings from an anthropological perspective and invites interdisciplinary reflections on the blurring line between nature and culture.
Paper long abstract:
Starting with a historical review of pigeon racing as a folk sport in late-eighteenth-century Belgium, the poster draws attention to the entanglement between pigeons and human beings from an anthropological perspective. Crafted by the arts of noticing, anthropology is distinguished by its way of working: thinking and learning through correspondence with other lives, not only of human beings but also of non-human beings. Aligned with this methodology, my anthropological study with Belgian pigeon fanciers, and consequently with pigeons, offers insights into the stories they tell about nature and culture. An ethnographic journey into the industry of pigeon racing, the study reveals the discourse on the particularly prized racing pigeon that prevailed in the field, which is fundamentally established on the anthropocentric separation between racing pigeons and feral pigeons, between culture and nature. While naming and the records of bloodlines mark every single racing pigeon out as a proper agent in the accounts of history, feral pigeons are grasped in the general singular, leaving no remarkable traces. However, a case of a boundary-crossing pigeon, a racing pigeon on the run interacting with feral pigeons on the street, may challenge received opinion and invite interdisciplinary reflections on the blurring line between nature and culture.
The merpeople culture in ancient China from the perspective of the relationship between human and nature
Ru Wang
(Minzu University of China)
Xuan Wang
Chenxi Guo
Yiran Qiao
(Minzu University of China)
Xuecheng Gu
wan lijinfang
(Minzu University of China)
Paper short abstract:
There are fascination and complexity surrounding the evolution of merpeople in ancient China, throughout which the transformation of merpeople has progressed from simplistic duality to multifaceted diversity. The history of the merpeople reflects the relationship between human and nature.
Paper long abstract:
There are fascination and complexity surrounding the evolution of merpeople culture in ancient China, throughout which the transformation of merpeople has progressed from the state of simplistic duality to that of multifaceted diversity. The journey began with merpeople patterns on painted Neolithic-era pottery, which paved the way for the history merpeople. In the pre-Qin period, The Classic of Mountains and Seas depicted a plethora of merpeople’s images, each unique in name, appearance, and supernatural abilities. The merpeople culture encapsulates humans’ desire to resurrect after death as mortals, communication between heaven and earth, and a body devoid of ailments. The seamless integration of the human and piscine elements poignantly illustrates the unity and harmony between ancient people and nature. The Wei and Jin dynasties further highlighted this harmonious relationship, during which images of merpeople weaving and shedding tears were drawn as gestures of gratitude towards humans. The Tang and Song dynasties saw the merpeople evolve into enticing and beautiful female sea creatures that mingled with humans — a transformation that bears significant similarities to the seductive figures of sirens found in Western medieval churches. This evolution of merpeople’s image in the time reflects the human aspiration for a close bond with nature. The Ming and Qing dynasties saw a return to the benevolent and virtuous images of merpeople, juxtaposed with the enticing and calamitous sea women brimming with malevolence. The portrayal of these contrasting images mirrors the ambivalence of humankind towards nature, embodying both the fear towards and longing for nature.
Paper short abstract:
U.S. encroachment into Indigenous national territories in the Upper Mississippi and Headwaters region began at the water in the early nineteenth century. Rather than land hunger, the U.S. first sought to implement an imperial mission to control the riverine and marshland flows of goods and peoples.
Paper long abstract:
In the early nineteenth century, the Upper Mississippi and Headwaters were defined by political and hydraulic fluidity. Though the watershed was claimed by the United States, the region was staunchly controlled by several Indigenous nations and polities, such as the Dakota, Ojibwe, Ho-Chunk, and Menominee peoples, with mercantile support from the British Empire. Likewise, the region was also defined by a certain degree of aqueous ambiguity. During seasonal floods, the edges in a watershed blurred and overlapped, thus facilitating or hindering travel as portages became lakes and wetlands. By reviewing four military-scientific expeditions commissioned on behalf of the United States, this poster offers two arguments. First, the poster affirms the prior work in water history by demonstrating how water is an ever-changing and powerful force in history. Rivers are not a constant flow of water, but shift from flow, to lake, to wetland, and back again. Moreover, seasonal cycles, as with the Upper Mississippi’s high, low, and frozen waters, circumscribed historic human action. In other words, Euro-Americans were confronted with an aqueous landscape on the Upper Mississippi that challenged U.S. encroachment and facilitated Indigenous sovereignty, subsistence, and movement. The poster's second argument is that U.S. expansionism adapted to the Upper Mississippi and Headwaters, prioritizing imperium over the flows of peoples and goods on the water as a primary goal for the region at first. Though Euro-Americans still retained land dispossession as a broader goal, U.S. encroachment began at the water.
Manly nations through nature
Mikko Saikku
(University of Helsinki)
Paper short abstract:
At the turn of the twentieth century, many “young” nations, such as the United States and Finland, placed special emphasis on pristine landscapes and the image of the wilderness hunter when developing ideas about the national character. These in turn were deeply related to ideals of manliness.
Paper long abstract:
My poster aims to provide novel insights to the historical relationship between the concept of wilderness and the birth of conservation movements in North America and northern Europe. Juxtaposing turn of the twentieth century North American and Nordic ideas and images about nature, landscape, wilderness, and masculinity can shed new light on the notions of nationalism and conservation between the two regions.
The history of hunting for sport provides an important, but in many ways neglected viewpoint to the core of national cultures and history of class relations. In the feudal societies of Western and Central Europe, hunting rights were gradually severed from land ownership. Typically, only the royalty and nobility were allowed to hunt big game, and smaller landowners and peasants were forced to become assistants in the hunt, which turned into an elaborate display of aristocratic power. The Nordic experience proves quite different from the rest of Europe. The great national importance attributed to wild landscapes, hunters, and pioneer settlers in both North America and the Nordic countries seems to share common roots, especially when contrasted with the general European experience.
By the turn of the twentieth century, many North Americans and Nordics of the upper and educated classes found recreational hunting and fishing as a new pastime. Big game hunters, sport fishermen, and their organizations were consequently in the forefront of conservation efforts for their game and its natural environment. Somewhat ironically, people fascinated by killing individual animals could ensure their survival as a species.
Paper short abstract:
In the Mediterranean biome of Israel, we undertook landscape surveys around depopulated Palestinian villages from pre-1948, to document abandoned orchards and trees planted by the Palestinian farmers. We recorded arboreal biodiversity and spatial distribution as a step towards their protection.
Paper long abstract:
In Israel, relict cultivated trees still grow in the environs of Palestinian villages that were depopulated following the 1948 war. We undertook surveys of arboreal biodiversity and spatial distribution around several villages in the Mediterranean phytogeographic zone – identifying every tree encountered to species (within a radius of up to 1 km from the village), logging its location with GPS, and measuring trunk circumference to assess its antiquity.
The resulting data were then plotted using GIS on maps of local topography, geology, soil type and cultural remains. Our findings indicate that, although untended, a broad spectrum of species – mainly fruit trees – still thrive in these localities. Except for the olive which is indigenous, most represent introduced species. They provided a source of food, items that could be traded, as well as raw materials for building or ornament manufacture, and for medicinal purposes etc.
Spatial patterning of trees closely followed natural features - topography, soil type, water retention, reflecting the extensive indigenous knowledge of the Palestinian farmers. These trees are now remnants of a defunct anthropogenic ecosystem but still comprise an integral part of the Mediterranean landscape contributing to the biodiversity of the modern landscape. Our surveys have provided baseline information with which to promote the preservation of this important arboreal heritage.
Paper short abstract:
The project Animal Biographies aims to create a pan-European network focused on the interactions between humans and other animals in the construction of early modern empires, grounded on 5 pillars of analysis that cross environmental history and humanities, animal history and animal studies.
Paper long abstract:
Rhinoceros and elephants in a parade in Lisbon. Sperm whales hunted off Brazil. South American and African monkeys and parrots in noble houses. Unicorn horns in Natural History cabinets. These are just some of the non-human animals that made up the early modern history of Portugal and its empire. Notwithstanding, these are still largely invisible actors in Portuguese historiography and academia. The project Animal Biographies: A network of agencies in the making of early modern empires aims to create a pan-European network focused on the interactions between humans and other animals in the construction of early modern empires. Falling within the scope of environmental history and humanities, animal history and animal studies, the project echoes today's environmental and societal issues. It is grounded on 5 complementary pillars of analysis:
1) Moving animals - animals as a driving force for human activities, plus issues related to the transport and keeping of animals; 2) Consumption and commerce - extraction, transformation and commercialization of animals and products; 3) Represented and symbolic animals - the cultural role of animals and the various ways in which they have been understood and perceived by humans; 4) Knowledge and Natural History - production of European and non-European discourses on animals (real, mythological, living or preserved); 5) Animals and health - animals and their by-products in the production of medicinal and therapeutic substances and animals as causes of disease.
Thinking Human Environmental Learning from an Interspecies Perspective: Current Research in the HESCOR Project
Dominik Ohrem
(University of Cologne)
Roman Bartosch
(University of Cologne)
Carolin Schwegler
(University of Cologne)
Shumon T. Hussain
(University of Cologne)
Kate Rigby
(University of Cologne)
Paper short abstract:
The poster will showcase current research on human environmental learning from and with other animals, conducted in the context of HESCOR (Human and Earth System Coupled Research), a cross-faculty initiative at the University of Cologne.
Paper long abstract:
The HESCOR (Human and Earth System Coupled Research) project is a cross-faculty initiative at the University of Cologne, investigating human and earth system interactions from various perspectives in order to model future cultural evolution and thereby initiate a new direction for transdisciplinary environmental research integrating humanities and science disciplines. One central challenge for the environmental humanities approaches in HESCOR will be theorizing - and eventually parameterizing - the nexus of human environmental perception and cultural learning in a (deep) historical perspective. The poster will feature a brief overview of the overall HESCOR initiative and showcase one of its current research foci: human environmental learning from and with other animals.
Paper short abstract:
This study investigates how toxicity has caused/provoked a reaction in terms of cultural practices. It emphasizes the historical heritage reflected in both musical compositions (from folk to punk-rock and rap) and music videos in which the primary focus is lindane toxicity.
Paper long abstract:
Lindane is currently a toxic waste spread throughout the Iberian Peninsula, as since the 1940s, it kept on moving from manufacturing areas such as O Porriño, Ansio or Sabiñánigo; to places like Amorebieta, Madrid, Barcelona, or Flix where it would be manufactured into its final product; and finally transported as a waste to Viana, Igúzquiza, Cabria, Vitoria-Gasteiz or Borobia.
This study investigates how toxicity has caused/provoked a reaction in terms of cultural practices. It emphasizes the historical heritage reflected in both musical compositions (from folk to punk-rock and rap) and music videos in which the primary focus is lindane toxicity.
The study examines: a) how the historical perspective is incorporated into these cultural practices (slow violence and environmental struggles that have been developing for more than five decades); b) how time is musically represented in the toxic discourse of lindane; and c) how "cognitive justice" and forms of citizen science are conveyed through musical language.
To conclude, the study introduces the concept of "toxic dissonance," understood as a language that makes gradual violence and spectral toxicity evident. The study goes well beyond the discipline of history to incorporate approaches from environmental humanities and intermedial ecocriticism, as well as addressing topics relating to postnormal science.
Paper short abstract:
How did technological change and continuity both enable and constrain indigenous fishing in Oceania during the nineteenth century? These technological shifts and adaptations in fishing gear reflect wider cultural, political and economic forces active in the region.
Paper long abstract:
During the nineteenth century, native fisheries of Pacific island groups underwent significant change and upheaval as colonial pressures and the expansion of commercial fisheries changed the nature of human marine resource extraction in the region. Trade networks, shifting migration patterns and the exchange of marine knowledge changed the material culture of indigenous fisheries. In many instances, traditional materials for producing hooks, lines and spears were traded for new articles. Cotton webbing for nets replaced coconut fibre, iron replaced wood components on spears and by the close of the nineteenth century 'whaleboats' replaced canoes in some island groups. Labour exchange also brought material change across Pacific native fisheries.
This process of material change was not linear nor universal. Some forms of traditional fishing and equipment manufacture persisted and adapted to the changing Pacific world. Fishing equipment was often produced with an amalgamation of new and traditional materials. Beyond strictly material technology, as in the case of the Kingdom of Hawaii, certain traditional fishing regulation measures (tabu) were formalised in law and thereby adapted to Euro-American practices while retaining, for some time, the fundamentals of the traditional marine management system.
How did technology and knowledge exchange and interchange enable or constrain fishing practices in Oceania throughout the nineteenth century?
Paper short abstract:
The main goal of TRASH is to understand how marine debris was perceived by the early modern Iberian societies and if an early starting point of water bodies contamination around cities can be identified. Focusing on Atlantic geography, it also relates with issues of blue globalization.
Paper long abstract:
After the 15th century there was a significant increase in nautical activity that changed medieval navigation patterns. The flow of a larger number of ships, people and goods impacted ports and port-cities, adding pressure on maritime environment and shorelines. This growth demanded the attention of local authorities to epidemic and public health problems. In fact, current historiography regarding pollution is linked to public health problems, plagues and diseases caused by dirtiness. TRASH focuses on maritime and aquatic dirtiness as a consequence of increased people movement. Building of embankments on riverside together with manufactures, such as metal foundries, shipyards, tanning, fishing, and other coastal activities brought an increase of toxicity in surroundings, and the rise of urban waste flushing and debris from ships on call created threats to navigation. At the same time, nearshore shipwrecks and consequent debris, animal, and human bodies introduced, for the first time in history, a large quantity of heavy metals and nutrients into the aquatic environment, leading to the eutrophication of waters. Focusing on Atlantic geography, with this project we look for traces of maritime pollution and levels of awareness in European and colonial societies of the 15th-18th centuries. The goal is to understand how marine debris was perceived by local governance and population, what were the impacts, and how problems were managed. TRASH is an interdisciplinary approach between history and archeology methods, through the analysis of wreck remains and environmental samples, while contributing to the discourse of the first/blue globalization.
Nature protection and nature education in Estonia before and after WWII: disruptions and transitions
Silvia Lotman
(Tallinn University)
Paper short abstract:
In the proposed poster presentation I will explore how Estonian nature protection thought was distrupted during WWII (nature protection law from 1935 was cancelled) and what parts of it were transferred into 1957 soviet Estonian law. The study will follow leading figure of the period: Eerik Kumari.
Paper long abstract:
In the proposed poster presentation I will explore the development of Estonian nature protection lines of thought in sovier occupation period. Although Republic of Estonia had established its first Nature Protection Law in 1935, it was cancelled after WWII by soviet occupational government. The soviet occupational government of Estonia adopted its own Nature Protection Law only on 1957. The study will follow the ideological views and detailes that were transferred over the distruptive times to the new regulations.
The poster will focus on one of leading figures of nature protection in that time: Eerik Kumari was active nature protection figure in times of Republic of Estonia as well as after war under occupational government. I will follow the outstanding person and institutionalisation of his toughts in the distruptive times. I will also elaborate on the engagement of wider society into nature protection as well as role of nature education in these times. I will compare processes in Estonia with the processes of same period in other parts of Soviet Union as well in West.
The study is supervised by prof Ulrike Plath and PhD Kadri Tüür in Tallinn University.
Paper short abstract:
This paper focuses on the seemingly "abandoned" company town of Serra do Navio, located in the Brazilian Amazon, exploring its process of creation, abandonment, and its afterlife as heritage, spanning from the 1950s to the present.
Paper long abstract:
This research aims to investigate Serra do Navio, a mining company town located in the Brazilian Amazon (Amapá State). This once-model village acts as a case study of the heritagization processes that abandoned industrial places are submitted worldwide. After being established in the 1950s to accommodate workers employed in the mineral extraction activities in the Amazon, Serra do Navio was progressively abandoned by its residents in the 1990s. In 2010, despite the severe environmental damage caused by mining in the region's landscape and environment, the city was declared heritage by the National Heritage Institute (IPHAN). To interrogate this polemic recognition, overly focused on the modernist architectural legacy, this research plays with the ambiguity of utopia and dystopia. It applies those concepts to discuss the past and present life of the Company Town Serra do Navio, once deemed a utopian modernist city and nowadays struggling to maintain its formerly praised socio-economic legacy. To investigate this, the work combines both archival and ethnographic research to analyse the former mining enterprise of Indústria de Comércio de Minério (ICOMI). This industrial settlement went from being the first mining company town to settle in the Brazilian Amazon region to an afterlife as a national heritage. Through these investigations, this paper illuminates the failure of Brazilian developmentalist projects while it sheds light on the possibilities and challenges brought by deindustrialization beyond the abandonment status.
Paper short abstract:
Recurring to different early modern written sources we compared the listing of marine species for Portugal mainland and archipelagos. We aim at addressing the pertinence, preferences and motivations of such productions for the developing field of history of ichthyology.
Paper long abstract:
Knowing local marine environments and animals as well as the availability of resources was of utmost relevance for early modern nations, namely for feeding a growing Europe following the so called ‘fish revolution’. Information about halieutic species was obtained by different actors and was kept in different records ranging from letters, written surveys and inquiries, natural history treatises, to travel literature and poetry. These different typologies of sources give indicate patterns of circulation of the information and contacts among different countries in order to access to information both of commercial and natural/scientific character. Addressing these historical sources, in a comparative manner, allows to understand the most valued species, the origin of the catches and the markets they supplied, or even peoples’ preferences and taste. At the same time, historical species’ distribution range, seasonality and the state of marine ecosystems and populations can also be inferred. In this paper we will approach such questions and we will compare data between regions regarding marine species, the knowledge provided about them and its contribution for the construction of the history of ichthyology.
Urban density as health-related environmental factor in the 1970s
Annukka Sailo
(University of Oulu)
Paper short abstract:
This poster explores health-related views on urban density in the 1970s, a major change in the previously unquestioned idea on the connection between high density and ill health, and the reasons for this change.
Paper long abstract:
This poster explores health-related views on urban density in the 1970s, a major change in the previously unquestioned idea on the connection between high density and ill health, and the reasons for this change.
Since the birth of epidemiology in the 19th century, high population and dwelling unit density have been considered harmful for human health, particularly due to the spread of infectious diseases. Later the negative effects were connected to non-communicable diseases and mental problems as well, and these strong views influenced for instance urban planning and housing policy. The 1970s brought a substantial change in health-related views on urban density, and the automatic connection between high density and ill health became questioned. This change was inspired by new cross-disciplinary research (particularly environmental psychology and urban sociology) and by new environmental and societal thinking and public health priorities.
Why call by name if they did not understand? Naming equids in Portugal between the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period
Afonso de Sousa
(Institute for Medieval Studies (IEM), Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra (FLUC))
Paper short abstract:
The practice of attributing proper names to equids, which is documented throughout the Portuguese medieval period, associated with the medieval belief that horses were not perceived to recognise a name as such, raised a question: Why call them by name, if they supposedly did not understand it?
Paper long abstract:
Our intention with this poster is to show the logic behind the attribution of proper names to equids. This practice, which is clearly documented throughout the Portuguese medieval period, associated with the medieval belief that horses were not perceived to recognise a name as such, raised a question that serves as the starting point for the analysis we intend to present: Why call them by name, if they supposedly did not understand it? Based on a hitherto unpublished source compiled during the reign of King Manuel I of Portugal (1495-1521), exhaustive in detail and information about the equines in the royal stables, we have identified and substantiated seven different logical templates for giving an equine a proper name. From these, we have concluded that this practice of naming animals shows us, on the one hand, the imminently practical nature of identifying/distinguishing a particular equine and, on the other, a possible attempt to grant them some individuality, based on the affective bond between man and animal and, perhaps, even a certain anthropomorphisation of particular equids.
From endemic to metal wings: Lake Amik as a witness to the Turkey earthquake 2023
Zeynep Correia
Paper short abstract:
This exposition places Lake Amik at the forefront, elucidating the complex relationalities among the lake, the city, and the nation. It seeks to unravel the lake as a witness to the Turkey earthquake 2023.
Paper long abstract:
Once a thriving habitat rich in numerous endemic species, Lake Amik, the very area where Hatay Airport stands today, underwent a gradual desiccation. This process bore witness to the disappearance of its endemic species concurrent with change in various aspects of life within the city of Hatay and the country. Then, in 2023, a formidable earthquake struck Hatay Airport, resulting in the fracturing of its infrastructure and the transformed the city into an island, compounded by the destruction of highways. This poster aims to shed light on the environmental history of a Turkey, tracing it through the lens of a lake, primarily within the context of its southern border city, but also within a broader perspective. In the light critical realist philosophy of science, this poster aims to uncover the relationalities among the lake, the city and the country,
Environmental history on the couch: how can psychoanalysis contribute to our understanding of human interactions with nature?
Billy Holt
(University of Bristol)
Paper short abstract:
I intend to explore how a psychoanalytic approach might contribute to the field of environmental history, considering how critical use of its concepts could improve understanding of the human subjectivity and perception which is at the heart of human interactions with nature.
Paper long abstract:
Since the beginnings of the discipline of psychoanalysis in the nineteenth century, analysts have engaged with analysands struggling with the problems of the present they inhabited. For the early profession, new forms of urban modernity, visual arts, or mechanised warfare ended up as subjects on the couch. For contemporary analysts, climate anxiety is emerging in the conscious and subconscious of analysands struggling with the lived reality and imagined future of environmental breakdown.
Psychoanalysis begins with a fluctuating subject underwritten with a subconscious containing conflict and contradiction as inevitable dynamics. It is aware of the difficulty of being in the world, and the ways in which the subject seeks to reorder that same world as a means of achieving relief. Our homes and everyday spaces have long been the site and subject of psychic life. The same theories and analytic approach might be applied to spaces of nature from gardens to ‘wilderness’.
Psychoanalysis is also concerned with the developmental stages of human subjectivity, and the transformation of our models and conceptual capacities to understand the world we perceive. Animals, plants and ecosystems all have both conceptual existence in the human subject, as well as their own ecological realities. Misalignment can result in significant and harmful consequences for human and non-human life.
Environmental History has a focus on human interactions with nature. Psychoanalytically informed approaches human subject, to the interplay of contradictions, projections, transferences, and desires, could provide interpretative value to the study of the nature that emerges from these interactions.
NEMUS - the Network for the Environment in Medieval Usages and Societies
Tiago Viúla de Faria
(Instituto de Estudos Medievais - NOVA University Lisbon)
Paper short abstract:
The poster introduces NEMUS, a digital collaborative platform in medieval environmental studies. It seeks to address the gap between distinct, yet overlapping, scientific disciplines and facilitate interdisciplinarity and collaboration across the so-called 'hard' and 'soft' sciences.
Paper long abstract:
NEMUS, the Network for the Environment in Medieval Usages & Societies, is a digital platform for scholars of medieval environmental studies to engage, discuss, and pursue collaboration. Its expanding core of researchers works on Portuguese topics with a strong international outlook. The Network's main contribution is to address the gaps (often too wide) between distinct, yet overlapping, scientific disciplines concerning the medieval environment. It aims to
facilitate the development of interdisciplinarity, the gestation of new ideas, and, so we hope, enhanced collaboration across the so-called 'hard' and 'soft' sciences.
