Down by the water: contesting current understandings of maritime identities conference Panel

Kuvaus

Organisers: Verónica Walker Vadillo (University of Helsinki) – Emilia Mataix Ferrandiz, (University of Helsinki/University of Münster) – Tânia Casimiro (Nova University Lisbon) Format: Standard paper session and roundtable

Waterways have been key factors in the development of societies from prehistoric times to nowadays, particularly due to their role as vectors for cultural interactions, material exchange, and transmission of knowledge. The fluidity of these highways of transport and communications is tightly linked to the presence of meeting points: spaces with unique geographical and/or ecological characteristics that acted as nodal points between different communities. Meeting points are thus defined as spaces of intense social contacts, where physical geography and ecology shape and are shaped by human action.
The subject is challenging, not only due to the untraceable nature of some activities (e.g. those carried out on board of a vessel) or the scarcity of material remains, but also due to the existing gap between theory and practice. Reluctance to use interdisciplinary approaches has prevented the field from engaging in fruitful discussions across disciplines to find new pathways to research. This lack of engagement extends to other sub-disciplines within the field of archaeology; for example, historical ecology has run a parallel theoretical
and methodological evolution but with little input from maritime archaeology and vice-versa.
We contend that an interdisciplinary perspective with a focus on human-environment interactions is necessary to set forth more nuanced theories regarding the relation between social systems and their environment. We need to redefine the theoretical and methodological frameworks to be used, and extend
bridges with other disciplines to better understand what kind of interactions took place down by the water. We invite researchers to present innovative approaches to the study of human-environment interactions in watery spaces, a definition that widens the range of maritime archaeology. We welcome proposals from the fields of iconography, law, computer modelling, ethnography, geography, history, linguistics, environmental sciences, and other related fields. The organizers are particularly interested in papers seeking to incorporate
perspectives from indigenous studies, traditional ecological knowledge, and related fields that seek to contest Western models.

Aikajakso	22 huhtik. 2022
Tapahtuman otsikko	Nordic TAG
Tapahtuman tyyppi	Konferenssi
Sijainti	Oslo, NorjaNäytä kartalla
Tunnustuksen arvo	Kansainvälinen