Charismatic encounters: Understanding the role of cetaceans in the coastal and maritime heritage of England and France

这个为期18个月的合作研究项目汇集了利兹大学的一位领先的环境人文学者和CNRS/Paris Nanterre的一位环境人类学家，旨在评估英国和法国的捕鲸历史对他们当代的鲸鱼观赏业的有用性。乍一看，今天在英国和法国观赏鲸鱼和海豚的人似乎与这两个国家各自的捕鲸遗产没有什么关系，因为它们通常是围绕着与过去明显的滥用行为背道而驰的环保主义原则组织起来的。然而，鲸目动物以不同的、有时是相互冲突的方式为英国和法国的沿海和海洋遗产做出了巨大贡献：这是一种既具有象征意义(非物质)又具有物质意义(有形)的混合遗产，涉及多个参与者--甚至是多个物种--在多个时间框架内。该项目将更密切地研究这一遗产，在参与其中的不同利益攸关方之间建立合作网络，并增进对它现在促进的保护倡议以及它目前服务的沿海社区的了解。该项目将采用广泛比较的跨学科视角，包括三个研究方向：捕鲸史、海洋博物馆和当代鲸类旅游。这些方面将以一种综合的横向方法结合在一起，富有想象力地结合民族志田野调查、档案研究以及对博物馆文物和语言/视觉文本的解释性分析。将在英格兰北部(约克郡海岸)和法国西南部(巴斯克沿岸)两个遗产丰富的地区遗址进行民族志实地考察。将从人文领域(人-动物研究、蓝色人文学科、环境人文学科)中汲取更广泛的见解，这些领域质疑自然遗产和文化遗产之间的区别，并对人类和非人类文化之间不断变化的关系在一个比人类更重要的世界中提供了适当的反思性观点。产出将包括一个为一般和专门(旅游业)用途设计的数据网站；一个40分钟的纪录片，以对两个主要实地地点的实地研究为基础；两篇合著的期刊文章；以及与设在英国的世界鲸目动物联盟(WCA)密切合作编写的关于海洋旅游管理和沿海遗产管理等领域的两份简短政策报告。该项目还将与世界鲸鱼协会合作，看看其两个目标区域中的一个或两个是否有潜力作为世界鲸鱼协会新的全球认证计划的一部分，成为正式的鲸鱼遗产(WHS)。

Bringing together a leading environmental humanities scholar based at the University of Leeds and an environmental anthropologist based at CNRS/Paris Nanterre, this 18-month collaborative research project aims to assess the usefulness of England's and France's whaling histories to their contemporary whale-watching industries. Whale- and dolphin-watching in England and France today may seem at first sight to have little to do with these two countries' respective whaling heritages, in so far as they are generally organized around conservationist principles that run directly counter to the conspicuous abuses of the past. However, in different and sometimes conflicting ways, cetaceans have made a powerful contribution to English and French coastal and maritime heritage: a mixed heritage that is as much symbolic (intangible) as material (tangible), and that involves multiple players -- and indeed multiple species -- in multiple time frames. The project will examine this heritage more closely, building cooperative networks between the different stakeholders involved in it, and enhancing understandings of the conservationist initiatives it now fosters, and the coastal communities it currently serves. The project will adopt a broadly comparative, cross-disciplinary perspective consisting of three research strands: whaling history, maritime museums, and contemporary cetacean tourism. These strands will come together in an integrated crosscutting approach that imaginatively combines ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, and the interpretative analysis of museum objects and verbal/visual texts. Ethnographic fieldwork will be conducted at two heritage-rich regional sites, one each in northern England (the Yorkshire coast) and in southwest France (the Basque littoral). Broader insights will be drawn from humanities fields (human-animal studies, blue humanities, environmental humanities) that question the distinction between natural and cultural heritage, and that offer a suitably reflexive view of the changing relationship between human and non-human cultures in the context of a more-than-human world. Outputs will include a data-driven website, designed for general as well as specialist (tourism industry) use; a 40-minute documentary film, based on in situ research at the two main field sites; two co-authored journal articles; and two short policy reports in such areas as marine tourism regulation and coastal heritage management, and prepared in close cooperation with the project's main external partner, the British-based World Cetacean Alliance (WCA). The project will also work together with the WCA to see whether either or both of its two target regions have the potential to qualify, as part of the WCA's new worldwide accreditation programme, as official Whale Heritage Sites (WHS).