Theme:
6. Contested Pasts & Presents
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Living among the Ruins. Re-Settlement and Identity Formation in Devastated Landscapes and Abandoned Cities
Content:
The importance of rootedness in an individually charged built and/or natural landscape is highlighted in the (post-) modern world as being a key ingredient to mental and bodily well-being and positive identity-formation. What happens, however, if this intimate connection between identity and landscape is broken?
This session will focus on the re-occupation, re-settlement and transformation of abandoned, sometimes 'lost' cities and landscapes in the immediate as well as in the long-term aftermath of devastation and de-urbanisation. These abandoned, devastated or ruined places and spaces are often alive in the memories of their inhabitants and are part of cultural memory that implies negotiating identities, constructing mythical topographies, creating new perceptions and instrumentalizing power relations.
We are interested in both temporalities of re-use and re-settlement: What happens in the immediate aftermath, the weeks and months to follow catastrophe and devastation as well as resettlement a long time after abandonment and oblivion of towns and landscapes? We are especially interested in (re-)settlement, de-urbanization and (re-)shaping of rural and urban landscapes after a – mostly human-caused – apocalyptic experience. How did settlement patterns, daily life management such as critical infrastructures and, cultural perception of the abandoned place change? How was it re-used by different settlers and time periods? How did such dystopian experiences impact people's identity and connection with their environments, not the least in terms of resilience and social change? How were abandoned landscapes and lost cities perceived, how were they integrated in the cultural memory and mental landscapes and how did they recode and instrumentalize these urban and rural landscapes?
A wide variety of cultural and historical contexts is highly appreciated. Presentations that point their relevance for global challenges induced by climate change, global inequality, or war are also welcomed.
This session is affiliated with the research project "Living in the ruins of the city of Teotihuacan (Mexico)", funded by the Gerda-Henkel-Foundation and the DFG-AHRC research project "Devastation, dislocation and (re-)settlement. Breaking/replacing the people-place connection in landscape".
Keywords:
Abandoned cities, Devastation, Cultural landscape, Lost cultures, Aftermath, Recovery
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Thomas Meier (Germany) 1,2
Co-organisers:
Natalia Moragas (Spain) 3
Stelios Lekakis (United Kingdom) 4
Maria Torras Freixa (United States) 5,6
Alessandra Pecci (Spain) 3
Affiliations:
1. Kaete Hamburger Center for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies, Heidelberg University
2. Institute for Pre- and Protohistory and Near Eastern Studies, Heidelberg University
3. ERAAUB-IAUB-University of Barcelona
4. McCord Centre - School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Newcastle University
5. Boston University
6. Gerda Henkel Fellowship
THIS SESSION CAN NOT BE SELECTED AT THIS MOMENT