Troubled Waters, Stormy Futures: heritage in times of accelerated climate change

2013-2014年的冬季风暴在英国开创了沿海破坏的新先例，迫使政府、遗产机构和当地社区认真考虑未来对沿海遗产的管理。相关组织似乎对这些事件毫无准备，社区可能对所发生的事情以及他们自己的情绪反应感到惊讶。8200多英里外，在太平洋上的低洼岛国基里巴斯，由于气候变化和海平面上升威胁到家园和遗产，超过10万公民面临永久搬迁的可能性。基里巴斯本身令人不安的是，它也呈现出一种令人不安的集体未来图景。在这个项目中，通过探索当前和潜在的气候变化时期遗产的损失，这些不同的环境被汇集在一起。在英国，我们的项目合作伙伴，国民信托，拥有742英里的海岸线，面临着关于他们的海岸适应战略的艰难谈判。本研究将通过三个案例研究来考虑遗产组织和社区面临的挑战；其中两个是国家信托基金遗址：北威尔士的Porthdinllaen和康沃尔的Durgan村，这两个村庄分别面临日益增加的潮汐洪水和海岸侵蚀的风险。基里巴斯的第三个案例研究考虑了一种更为紧迫的情况，探讨了可能全面丧失对遗产、地方感、宗教信仰和文化特性的看法的社会和个人影响。在每个不同的地点，我们将探索社区、遗产和政府对当前挑战的反应，以及应对暴风雨未来的策略。收集到的数据将与项目合作伙伴威尔士国家图书馆和康沃尔视听档案馆一起存档，为这项研究和受到威胁的社区提供遗产。更直接的是，我们希望为这些社区和比较社区提供改进的沟通和协商程序。尽管人们对“遗产”的普遍想象可能包括具有公认历史价值的建筑或资产，但遗产组织和威尔士政府等管理部门越来越意识到，更“普通”或“日常”的东西也可能对社区有价值，它们植根于当地历史和生活的质感。更广泛的遗产定义可以包括公交候车亭、海岸小径，甚至是一棵特定的树，因为它们对体验它们的人有意义。为了加深我们对“地方感”的理解，我们将把遗产作为一个概念和一个与有形和无形（价值观、信仰、实践）相关的过程进行多层次的解释。这一战略对于充分认识气候变化以微妙和创伤的方式扰乱社区生活和身份，并可能带来痛苦的转变至关重要。这个跨学科项目邀请与澳大利亚诗人Mark Tredinnick合作，他将访问基里巴斯，以更抽象的方式对气候变化对“地方”的影响做出诗意的回应。这项研究声称，艺术和人文学科在气候适应辩论中占有更大的利益，这些辩论主要由自然和社会科学家主导，我们将采用一种创新的方法来参与和传播我们的研究。将有诗歌、电影、对话和社区故事，以及学术和定性分析。艺术反应将有助于在这些地点以及更广泛的文化背景下连接和阐明对过去的看法和对未来的想象。我们的剪辑影片免费提供给相关组织，可以放大和弥合多种声音，促进本地和国际跨文化对气候变化对遗产、社区和地方感的影响的理解。

The winter storms of 2013-2014 set new precedents of coastal damage in the UK, forcing government, heritage bodies and local communities to seriously reconsider the future management of coastal heritage. Relevant organisations were seemingly unprepared for these events, and communities were possibly surprised by what had happened, as well as by their own emotional response. Over 8200 miles away, in the low-lying island nation of Kiribati in the Pacific Ocean, over 100,000 citizens face the possibility of permanent relocation due to climate change and sea-level rise which threaten homeland and heritage. Troubling in itself, Kiribati also presents an unsettling visualisation of a collective future. These diverse settings are brought together in this project through the exploration of current and potential loss of heritage in times of accelerated climate change.In the UK our project partners, the National Trust, own 742 miles of coastline and face difficult negotiations regarding their Coastal Adaptation Strategy. This research will consider the challenges facing heritage organisations and communities by focusing on three case studies; two of these are National Trust sites: Porthdinllaen (in North Wales) and Durgan Village (in Cornwall), with these two villages at risk respectively of increased tidal flooding and coastal erosion. The third case study in Kiribati considers a more urgent situation, exploring the societal and personal effect of potential whole-scale loss on perceptions of heritage, sense of place, religious beliefs and cultural identity. At each distinct site we will explore community, heritage and government responses to current challenges, as well as strategies for a stormy future. The data collected will be archived with project partners National Library of Wales and Cornish Audio Visual Archive, providing a legacy for this research and the communities under threat. More immediately, we hope to inform improved communication and consultation processes for these and comparative communities in future.Whereas popular imaginings of 'heritage' are likely to include buildings or assets with acknowledged historic value, there is an increased awareness among heritage organisations and administrations such as the Welsh Government that the more 'ordinary' or 'everyday' can also be valuable to communities, embedded in local history and the texture of lived lives. Broader definitions of heritage could include a bus shelter, coastal path, or even a particular tree, because they have meaning to the people who experience them. In order to deepen our understanding of 'sense of place', we will use a multi-layered interpretation of heritage as a concept and a process relating both to the tangible as well as the intangible (values, beliefs, practices). This strategy is essential to fully appreciate the subtle and traumatic ways in which climate-change disrupts community lives and identities, with potentially painful transitions ahead.This interdisciplinary project invites collaboration with the Australian poet Mark Tredinnick, who will visit Kiribati and offer a poetic response to the effects of climate change on 'place' in more abstract terms. This research claims a greater stake for arts and humanities disciplines in climate adaptation debates, mostly dominated by natural and social scientists, and we will adopt an innovative approach towards engagement in and dissemination of our research. There will be poetry, films, conversation and community stories as well as scholarly and qualitative analysis. Artistic responses will be useful in connecting and articulating perceptions of the past and imaginings of the future at these sites, and in a broader cultural context. Our edited films, freely available to relevant organisations, may serve to amplify and bridge multiple voices, forging local and international cross-cultural understanding of the effect of climate change on heritage, communities and sense of place.