"Complex" Arcadia. A Machine in the Garden.
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Date
2024
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Other Conference Item
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yes
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Abstract
In his poetic works, Virgil introduces the pastoral ideal as a subtle critique of the costs associated with building an empire. While celebrating the greatness of the state epitomized by the dominant city of Rome, Virgil presents Arcadia as a contrast to the tumultuous realities of empire-building, symbolizing a peaceful pastoral life threatened by the harshness of statecraft. In his “Eclogues,” we learn that political upheaval has led to the exile of pastoralists from Arcadia, resulting in the loss of their land and livelihood. This literary depiction of the Empire mirrors the complexities of contemporary statecraft and the processes shaping state spatialities across various scales, intertwined with global capitalism and urbanisation.
The prominence of urban Rome and the negotiation over pastoral Arcadia offer a poetic lens through which to examine contemporary territories where extended urbanisation unfolds allowing us to explore how processes of peripheralisation, territorial re-articulation, and the production of unevenness unfold. Moving away from the prominent city of Athens, we venture into the Greek “periphereia” to examine how everyday life and ecologies in peripheral regions are currently shaped by extended urbanisation.
Situated in the peripheral landscapes of contemporary Arcadia, at the peaks of Mount Mainalo in the heart of the Peloponnese, amidst the fir trees of a nationalized forest resource, we explore a historical process of peripheralisation linked to the formation of the Greek nation-state. This has led to the depletion of these regions and the significant decline of the agri-pastoralist society. As these landscapes bear the brunt of the most violent aspects of our contemporary social and ecological crises, are pastoralists once again facing exile from Arcadia? Through the oral histories collected from the region, we will seek a different ending for the contemporary environmental tale of Arcadia.
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unpublished
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Territories of Technology Practices of the Pastoral Workshop
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Software
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Subject
Arcadia; Complex Pastoral; Critical Pastoralism; Ecocriticism; Pastoral practices; Peripheralisation; Extended Urbanisation
Organisational unit
03932 - Topalovic, Milica / Topalovic, Milica
03715 - Stalder, Laurent / Stalder, Laurent
Notes
Session on Juni 14, 2024
Funding
197338 - Switzerland: A Technological Pastoral. The built and the territory (SNF)