Digital tools and neglected waterways heritage: re-evaluating minor rivers and canals between participation and research needs

The EuWatHer project (European Waterways Heritage) aims to promote the knowledge and rehabilitation of the unique cultural heritage of minor waterways and historic canals in 4 European pilot regions. The project is aimed at co-designing with people to generate a body of data that could reveal the cultural heritage of minor waterways, in order to promote associated ways of communicating with digital tools this heritage to a range of audiences.

Transcript

1. Digital tools and neglected
   waterways heritage: re-evaluating
   minor rivers and canals between
   participation and research needs.
   World Canal Conference 2016
   Inverness, Scotland
   Francesco Visentin & Francesco
   Vallerani
   Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
   22th September 2016
   

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2. Eu.Wat.He: Who we are?
   The EuWatHer project, founded by JPI Cultural
   Heritage programme, is an ongoing project
   developed by:
   1) Ca’ Foscari University (project leader)
   2) Brighton University
   3) Leiden and Amsterdam Universities
   4) Girona University
   

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3. Brighto
   n
   Leide
   n
   Venic
   e
   Giron
   a
   Italy

   Battaglia Canal/Lower
   Bacchiglione and Sile river
   (Venice)
   Spain
   Catchment of the Ter
   (Girona)
   England
   Rochdale and Ashton Canals
   (Manchester)
   Netherlands
   Laag Holland/
   Hollandse Plassen
   (Amsterdam)
   Where Eu.Wat.Her is develop?
   

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4. Eu.Wat.Her: the project?
   Eu.Wat.Her is the acronym of European
   Waterways Heritage, a project aims to enhance
   the understanding of the cultural history of
   European waterscapes as it may still be found
   in the landscape itself, that is in both tangible
   and intangible waterscapes heritage by having
   an impact upon the complex dynamics of
   territorial competitiveness
   

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5. Starting Questions?
   • Which relationship between waterscape and
   the local river-communities?
   • Can river-tourism be an option for a post-
   industrial revaluation and how?
   • How to communicate the waterscapes
   heritage?
   

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6. Context and starting assumptions
   • The reorganisation and control of water
   flows are among the most significant
   aspects of the human transformation of
   the natural environment (N. Smith 1975,
   T. Glick 1996, V.L. Scarborough 2003)
   • The interactions between natural
   support and anthropic intervention
   produce particular types of landscape
   (S. Schama 1975, E. Swyngedouw 2007)
   • Landscapes as the result of the
   intellectual and material transformation
   (D. Cosgrove and S. Daniels 1988)
   

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7. Theoretical Approach
   ‘Landscape’ is best seen as both a
   work (it is the product of human
   labour and thus encapsulates
   the dreams, desires and all the
   injustices of the social system
   that make it), and as something
   that does work (it acts as a
   social agent in the further
   development of a place
   (D. Mitchell 1998, p.94)
   Key Elements:
   “The ‘world’ is a process of perpetual
   metabolism in which social and natural
   processes combine in an historical-
   geographical production process of socio-
   nature”
   (E. Swyngedouw 1999, p.447)
   Natural base
   Technonatural
   transformation
   Hydro-social
   Landscape
   

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8. The network of secondary, or “minor”,
   regional hydrography
   emotional relationships 

   between human being and water-places
   

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10. Is tourism an option for a post-industrial
    revaluation?
    The presence or absence of river-tourism activities along
    a waterways can tells us what kind of relationships a
    society has with the hydrographic networks of its territory
    and which kind of cultural dialogue entertains with it
    

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11. Results
    - Collecting and unlocking
    information on
    - tangible and intangible
    - water related cultural heritage.
    Developing a database
    

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12. Meeting local Community
    • 8th April 2016 (Venice)
    • 7th May 2016 (Quarto d’Altino)
    • General Workshop
    • Dedicated Workshop
    • Local Interviews
    • Dialogues with experts or
    individuals
    

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13. How to communicate this water-heritage?
    Recording and situating community stories
    thus bridges the historical practices of
    unearthing contingent social, political,
    economic and technological complexities of
    context, and a prefigurative interpretive stage,
    following Ricoeur (1984), of understanding
    the structures of river and fluvial life that
    enable narrative and make storytelling
    possible.
    

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14. Through Storytelling
    Example of video interview about the daily
    activities of a boatmen:
    “a real boatman has to deal with hundreds of
    activities: from driving a boat to cook a meal,
    from sawing a sail to recognise dangerous
    water flow and depth of the river course…..”
    

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15. …and how to translate this water-heritage?
    

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16. Through applications: The last
    Boatman – Riccardo Cappellozza
    

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17. Example of small storytelling
    1) The history of the Battaglia Canal.
    Why a river port was built and developed exactly in
    Battaglia Terme?
    2) Which kind of goods was carried on the barges and
    why?
    The importance of Trachyte volcanic stone as building
    material (the example of streets and squares of Venice).
    But also: sand, wood, beet sugar, wheat and corn
    flowers…etc
    

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18. The challenge
    • The Eu.Wat.Her project seeks to explore the
    interplay between geospatial technologies
    (geo-ict), civic engagement and cultural
    heritage and tourism.
    • The EuWatHer core methodological approach
    addresses these gaps by deploying a co-
    design approach that allows researchers to
    work with people (local and visitor,
    stakeholder and public sector, etc)
    

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19. Conclusion
    Next steps of the Eu.Wat.Her:
    • Reinforcing the network with stakeholders
    • Arranging and filling the database
    • Organising the next workshop activities
    • Designing the draft-itineraries to share
    with the stakeholders
    

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20. The end
    Thank you for your kind attention
    Francesco Vallerani, Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia
    ramusa@unive.it
    Francesco Visentin, Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia
    francesco.visentin@unive.it
    

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