Alien Wetland: Conflict Stories in the Venice Lagoon

Northern Environmental History Network

NEHN December: Agnese Martini, 'Alien Wetland: Conflict Stories between Humans and Non-Humans in the Venice Lagoon'

In this paper, I explore historical and contemporary environmental narratives about the Venice Lagoon in which water and water beings are represented as alien (Mentz). Conflict stories between land and water from the past shed light on current environmental challenges, reflecting an underlying separation between humans and the wetland ecosystem.The Venice Lagoon is a unique and fragile environment, often described as a “temporary balance” (Iovino) between water and land. Through historical and symbolic figures (Haraway) like the “Marriage to the Sea” ritual and the “Lion in moéca” iconography, the first part of the paper presents Venice’s environmental history as an alien narrative, revealing insights into current ecological threats.The second part of the paper focuses on water beings, such as algae and invasive species, which are perceived negatively by the local fishing community. Artisanal fishermen serve as direct witnesses to the environmental changes of the area and are carriers of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). By employing ecocriticism as discourse analysis tool, I examine their narratives, delving into how they describe non-human entities and the rationale for their classification as “unfamiliar”, “alien”, “killable”.Throughout this analysis, I highlight the strong connection between narratives, environmental imagination, and responses to climate change (Ghosh): how we tell water stories shapes our way of imagining and living our relationships with human and nonhuman companions. In this regard, humanities, cultural heritage, and TEK can be laboratories of imagination and innovation for the Anthropocene, underscoring how one of the main challenges “is to find new ways to re-interpret our relationships with water in aquapelagos” (Cavallo, Vallerani, &amp; Visentin, 2021, p. 3).~Agnese Martini is a research fellow at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, working on the European project “Bauhaus of the Seas Sails”, aimed at reconnecting local communities with water bodies. She holds a master’s degree in Environmental Humanities and a bachelor degree in Philosophy. Currently, she is engaged in disseminating her master’s thesis, an ecocritical analysis of fishermen’s environmental narratives in the Venice Lagoon. She participated as a speaker in national and international conferences in Ecocriticism and Critical Animal Studies.

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Alien Wetland: Conflict Stories in the Venice Lagoon

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Alien Wetland: Conflict Stories in the Venice Lagoon

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