Heritage Ecologies: culture, resilience and development in Island States

This proposal investigates the role of cultural heritages in promoting local economic development and social and environmental resiliences, in the context of Small Island States (SIS), Small Island and Developing States (SIDS) and Sub- National Island Jurisdictions (SNIJs) located in Europe, the African continent and in the Indian Ocean.

Small islands are extremely vulnerable to climate change due to their small size and exposure to sea level rise, affecting their social and economic development.

Crossing anthropology, heritage, environment, development and island studies, this research aims at integrating institutional heritagization processes and indigenous knowledge systems in actions for sustainable futures.

This project will be hosted by the Islands and Small States Institute (ISSI) of the University of Malta, one of the few European entities in island studies and insular development, and supervised by Dr Stefano Moncada, specialist in development economics, climate change and sustainable development, and by Professors Lino Briguglio and Godfrey Baldacchino, world leading scholars in small states and islands studies.

Addressing the challenges, at European and global level, of informing effective responses to mitigate social, economic and ecological consequences of climate change, this project will focus on the SIS of Malta, the SIDS of Comoros, Mauritius and Seychelles and the SNIJs of the French island territories of Reunion and Mayotte.

Through an innovative interdisciplinary methodology, this research contributes with ethnography and cultural studies to sustainable development theories and brings socio-economic resilience analyses to heritage studies.

This research will contribute, overall, to the role of Malta and of SIS in the UN actions for Sustainable Development, the EU Development and Cooperation actions and the Missions of the Horizon Europe 2021-2027 Framework.