The Maritime Cultural Heritage: discourse, practices and uses
Chairs: Lucrezia, Lopez, Rubén Lois González, María Ángeles Piñeiro Antelo (University of Santiago de Compostela)
Cultural heritage has an important role because of its enormous social value for the community, its contribution to engender a sense of identity and its economic value by means of the tourism activity (Antonova & Rieser, 2018). It interprets the relationship between people and their environment, thus it is a spatial phenomenon.
Coastal communities are bound to knowledge, traditions, beliefs and professional skills that can be related to exploiting, trading and preserving marine and maritime resources (Howard & Pinder, 2004). Over centuries this cultural heritage proved the relationship between the people and the sea and today it can be defined as "Maritime Cultural Heritage" which "could be understood as all those cultural material goods (in water and on land) and immaterial (such as representations, perceptions, discourses, practices, material culture, customs, traditions, imageries, cultural landscapes) that are expressions of the maritime culture, of the maritimity, of the maritime differential fact and of the relation among man, sea and his surrounding; when possessing a cultural, emotional, or use value, among others" (Baron, 2008, p. 53). Coastal towns have their cultural artefacts, which engender different identity discourses, uses and governance, so their maritime cultural heritage should support local sustainable development strategies (Carbonell, 2014).
Considering all that, this session welcomes contributions from all over the world engaged in sharing, communicating and recovering heritage-related issues in different maritime contexts (Mediterranean, Atlantic, and so on). Given these premises, we invite contributions sharing the following aims of the session:
1. To advance an innovative approach to study the maritime cultural heritage;
2. To understand social, cultural and economic dynamics related to the use and management of the maritime cultural heritage;
3. To analyse and compare maritime cultural heritage discourses;
4. To point out differences and similarities among the Mediterranean and the Atlantic towns, which, even geographically different, share a territorial discourses associated to the "sea";
5. To analyse the initiatives of the coastal communities to recognize and reappropriate their own cultural legacy, turning it into narratives of the places to enhance the use and governance of the past.
Convenors will select the contributions submitted to this session for the publication of a Special Issue of a scientific review.
Essential bibliography:
Antonova, A. S. & Rieser, A. (2019). Curating collapse: performing maritime cultural heritage in Iceland's museums and tours. Maritime Studies, 18, 103. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40152-018-0128-2
Baron, A. T. O. (2008). Constructing the Notion of the Maritime Cultural Heritage in the Colombian Territory: Tools for the Protection and Conservation of Fresh and Salt Aquatic Surroundings. Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, Office of Legal Affairs, United Nations.
Carbonell, E. (2014). Maritime Heritage and Fishing in Catalonia. Coll. Antropol, 38(1), 289- 296.
Howard, P., & Pinder, D. (2003). Cultural heritage and sustainability in the coastal zone: experiences in south west England. Journal of Cultural Heritage, 4(1), 57-68.
Lopez, L., Piñeiro Antelo, M. A., & Gusman, I. (2018). The Portuguese Coastal Way and Maritime Heritage. An Outstanding Debt with the New Technologies. In Calabró, F., Bevilacqua, C. & della Spina, L. (eds.): New Metropolitan Perspectives Local Knowledge and Innovation Dynamics Towards Territory Attractiveness Through the Implementation of Horizon/E2020/Agenda2030 - Volume 1. Springer International Publishing AG, Cham, pp. 165-172.