(Re-)Valuing and Co-Creating Cultures of Water: a transdisciplinary methodology for weaving a live tapestry of Blue Heritage

Abstract

This article develops a transdisciplinary methodology for valuing and cocreating ‘tapestries’ of Blue Heritage. Given impending threats to the environmental sustainability and maintenance of Cultural Heritage surrounding oceans and freshwaters, it is increasingly urgent to develop a methodology that addresses the significance of the past and its rapport with the continuous future creation and valuing of what we here develop as ‘Cultures of Water’. This idea encompasses water-related practices that occur in various ways across diverse groups and arenas. Therefore, the proposed methodology is informed by several disciplines, notably History, Ethnography, Cultural Heritage, Arts, Design, Planning, and Geography. It emphasises the creation of a continuously evolving and changing tapestry of knowledge, jointly threaded by local populations, governmental and non-governmental institutions at various levels, industries, businesses, and academia. The tapestry is woven by connecting diverse disciplinary methodologies along specific threads, three on content and six on methods and related key questions. This article presents the methodology and reflects on its practicability and potential based on autoethnographic reflections, literature reviews, and first findings from implementing parts of the methodology in northern Portugal.