Assembling the Archipelago: Heritage in Energy Transitions and Climate Action

• Main Author: Mela, Marilena
• Format: eBook
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Routledge 2026; Taylor & Francis
• Edition: 1
• Series: Routledge Environmental Humanities
• Subjects: Aeolian islands; Alternative and renewable energy sources and technology; Anthropology; archipelago; Architecture; Civil engineering, surveying and building; Climate change; climate mitigation; Cultural and media studies; cultural heritage; Cultural studies; Cyclades; Earth Sciences, Geography, Environment, Planning; Energy technology and engineering; energy transition; environmental humanities; Geography; geothermal energy; heritage studies; History; History and Archaeology; Human geography; islands; Landscape architecture and design; landscapes; Library and information sciences / Museology; marine energy; Museology and heritage studies; Pollution and threats to the environment; Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary subjects; Regional and area planning; Shetland; Society and culture: general; Society and Social Sciences; Sociology and anthropology; solar; sustainability; Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, Industrial processes; The Arts; The environment; Urban and municipal planning and policy; Wadden islands; wind turbine; Cyclades; Wadden islands; landscapes; geothermal energy; Aeolian islands; wind turbine; solar; energy transition; marine energy; sustainability; cultural heritage; heritage studies; environmental humanities; islands; Shetland; archipelago; climate mitigation; climate change
• ISBN: 1032871695; 1032854391; 9781032854397; 9781032871691; 1003531210; 1040427111; 1040427065; 9781003531210; 9781040427118; 9781040427064
• DOI: 10.4324/9781003531210

This book explores the potential of heritage to enact sustainable human-environment relationships across geographical differences. It does so by travelling to four archipelagoes: the Wadden Islands in the Netherlands, the Cyclades in Greece, Shetland in Scotland, and the Aeolian Islands in Italy. In the face of planetary socioenvironmental crises, the reliance on sustainable development strategies, including the energy transition, on technocratic, top-down solutions fail to counterbalance global agendas of extraction and growth and address environmental injustices in "peripheral" places. This book stresses the need to "think small," arguing that seeds for meaningful change exist in such places and the geographically and historically situated relationships between people and environments. Islands, interconnected yet autonomous places with unique histories, are good places to start. In four archipelagoes, frictions produced both by climate change and climate mitigation-the fragile consensus around a solar park in the Wadden Sea, conflicts around wind turbine towers in the Aegean, experiments with the tides in Shetland, and volcanic episodes in the Aeolian-come in dialogue with the learning potential of their environmental and cultural heritage. The counterposing of these stories renegotiates established discourses of heritage and sustainability and the associated courses of action in policy and planning. This contribution will resonate with academics, students, policymakers, and activists in heritage studies, environmental humanities, landscape studies, science and technology studies, and sustainability. Readers are invited to participate in the life and troubles of four island landscapes, and to think along on emergent, archipelagic claims towards sustainable and just futures.