Romantic scenery, boat cemetery, national disgrace of Texas: The Canal of Sv. Jernej/San Bartolomeo as a contested liminal landscape

Assoc. Professor Alenka Janko Spreizer, University of Primorska, Koper (Slovenia)

Monday, March 2

Celetná 20, Room 138, 14:10

The lecture will be based on anthropological approaches to the studies of landscapes and seascape as an aspect of the cultural landscape. Janko Spreizer will start with the working definition of McCall Howard, Wickham-Jones, C., Ingold, and Arnason in accordance with understanding the seascape as a holistic term that describes the depth and complexity of human relations with the sea, the modes of human habitation of the sea, the importance of the sea in maintaining livelihoods, and connections between land and sea. In this lecture, the epistemological background of contested liminal landscape will be examined as a starting point for exploring the images and metaphors of these sites.

Once a part of saltpans, a transport route and a stream that provided the saltwater for salt producing, the canal now represents a scenic place for leisure and it is known as a protected area. As a part of the Sečovlje Saltpans Natural Park, the canal has been poorly managed and is a liminal site of non-regulated berths for (p)leasure vessels. Used for many contested activities which at the same time contribute to the environmental vulnerabilities and destruction of the natural and cultural heritage, the canal is a site of permanent frictions between locals and other users of the place and is represented as Texas, ecological and national disgrace, as well as a boat cemetery.