Research Yonca Erkan

Abstract

ELEMENTAL investigates the impacts of constructing the 1554-kilometre-long Maya Train tracks [Yucatec Maya: Tsíimin K'áak; Spanish: Tren Maya], traversing Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. Currently under construction, this large-scale infrastructure affects a fragile geological system and forests that shelter freshwater sources on which many depend. This research aims to explore how official discourses projecting a future imaginary of progress and economic growth are contested by local communities, including other-than-humans, such as water bodies. In collaboration with civil society groups, this research will engage with narratives of resistance against extractivism, especially as expressed through art and cultural activism. Drawing on notions of 'the planetary' and polychronic temporalities, co-created mappings of inhabited past-present-future imaginaries will be employed to determine narratives of exploitation, environmental degradation and past broken worlds that inform current and emerging practices of multigenerational care and solidarity within the habitat of many—humans and nonhumans alike. Herewith, the project seeks to relate critical heritage and post-humanist perspectives to environmental justice. The project aims to present the concept of 'elemental heritage' as an approach for advocating affective methodologies that critique heritage paradigms perpetuating exploitative practices, while, at the same time, imagining ways beyond these paradigms.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Erkan Yonca

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Cultural Heritage Sciences (ARCHES)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

As recurrent flood disasters and countless policy plans demonstrate, we are in desperate need of more 'water-resilient' cities. This calls for changes in policy, infrastructures, but also in the way we interact with our natural and 'blue' environment. One of the roles the academic community has is to provide the fundamental knowledge to underpin well-informed decision making and to raise awareness within local communities. Gathering and analyzing the required data, however, is hindered by the lack of a common spatial infrastructure, which allows mapping the long-term evolution of urban waterscapes and analyzing the complex socio-ecological interactions that made them a product of centuries of human reconfiguring of river floodplains. Artemis-UA will create this open mapping infrastructure for research on cities and their blue infrastructure, in a long-term historical perspective (16th-20th centuries). It will do so based on a unique data-source, which sets us apart internationally: the extremely rich (but dispersed) historical map collections that Belgian archives hold and which document - often handwritten and in incredible detail - the human use and reconfiguration of (urban) rivers, river wetlands, water wells, sewers, drainage ditches etc. from the sixteenth century until today. Designed as the UA-contribution to the Artemis FWO-Medium Scale Research infrastructure (initiated at UA, but only funded at UGent), Artemis-UA unites specialists at the Centre for Urban History (CUH), the Centre for Research on Environmental and Social Change (CRESC), AntweRp Cultural HEritage Sciences (ARCHES) and the Urban Studies Institute (USI). These UAntwerp research groups are at the forefront of international and interdisciplinary research on urban waterscapes, its management and inherent risks and opportunities. Artemis-UA will focus on a study area that is in the heart of many of their research projects: the Scheldt valley, which was recently proclaimed as National Park and is part of the UNESCO Global Geopark Schelde Delta. For three cities within the Scheldt valley - Antwerp, Dendermonde and Lokeren - Artemis-UA will realize a 'blueprint' by 1) collecting relevant handwritten/local maps covering these cities and their (peri-)urban areas over the long-term, processing & enriching these maps by 2) crowdsourced georeferencing and 3) automated landscape feature extraction and 4) publishing the derived spatial data publicly via an Open Mapping Infrastructure. The long-term focus, the vast collection of ca. 300 highly detailed maps and the publication of both exactly located maps and derived 'research ready' geodata turn Artemis-UA into a truly groundbreaking and unique infrastructure. Artemis-UA will elevate the University of Antwerp to an internationally renowned knowledge hub for historically-informed analysis and decision-making on urban water challenges, further strengthening the leading position of UA-research in the (socio-)environmental analysis of rivers, river estuaries and flood management. More specifically, mapping and reconstructing long-term changes in the urban waterscape has huge valorization potential for any research on 1) urban planning and urban development; 2) inclusive water governance; 3) the unequal exposure to and awareness of water-related risks and 4) the integration of water heritage into climate adaptation strategies.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Jongepier Iason
• Co-promoter: Crabbé Ann
• Co-promoter: De Block Greet
• Co-promoter: Erkan Yonca
• Co-promoter: Soens Tim

Research team(s)

• Centre for Urban History

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

There are different trajectories of deindustrialization leading to abandonment and neglect. Deindustrialization and industrial heritage are two terms coined in and around the same period in 1970s. Although both are a by-product of industrialization, deindustrialization studies and heritage studies often do not come close, they prosper in their own silos. On the one hand deindustrialization studies focus on the narratives of displaced workers and their experiences/suffering without a direct link with the place, while on the other hand, heritage studies are concerned solely with the physical remnants of the industrial complexes. Concerned with the physical remnants of the industrial complexes, the adaptive reuse approaches permit conservation through development– utilization and integration of redundant industrial areas in the contemporary urban landscape. Although adaptive reuse of industrial heritage is a culturally sustainable option in urban transformation and heritage is a potential resource for the urban and regional development, the implementation is often problematic in the sense that the industrial sites after adaptive reuse are stripped from being memory places of worker's, instead they are sterilized, creating a disconnect with its context, both in terms of deindustrialization history, and meaning. In that sense, the adaptive reuse of industrial heritage often fails to meet sustainability criteria that prioritize people's needs in social and cultural terms, focusing mainly on the economic dimension and paying little attention to the environmental concerns. This PhD thesis wants to investigate different deindustrialization trajectories to understand if they have an impact on defining the adaptive reuse processes. This approach rejects taking the abandonment as the starting point of transformation for adaptive reuse, but rather wants to look at the entire history of the building, including the contextual background preparing its construction, dynamics of the deindustrialization processes, the abandonment processes and the adaptive reuse as a whole. By doing so, it hopes to identify patterns or links between deindustrialization processes and adaptive reuse strategies.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Erkan Yonca
• Fellow: Hamilton Fiona

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Cultural Heritage Sciences (ARCHES)

Project type(s)

• Research Project

Abstract

CONSIDER "Sustainable Management of Industrial Heritage as a Resource for Urban Development", aims to develop sustainable management model (SMM) for industrial heritage sites (IHS) for the benefits of the local communities as a resource for strengthening collective identities, improving the urban landscape, promoting ecofriendly solutions, and contributing to the urban economy and a sustainable future of the city. The innovative side of this model is in its inclusive approach to the problem (regionally, sectorial, taking into consideration gender aspects, and its highlight on the exchange of knowledge, technology and labour). This novel collaboration will be improved by through synergies, networking activities, organisation of workshop, summer school, webinars, and final conference to facilitate sharing of knowledge. The circular knowledge exchange is based on systematic and triple-helix approach between academia (universities), policymakers (municipalities), and practitioners (SME/NGO) that will contribute both in identifying problems and developing guidelines for their improvement. This research brings novelty in respect of geographic regions that previously were not sufficiently investigated and inventoried thus providing the basis for further comparative research undertakings and sustainability of the Project outcomes in creation of new knowledge.

Researcher(s)

• Promoter: Erkan Yonca

Research team(s)

• Antwerp Cultural Heritage Sciences (ARCHES)

Project website

Project type(s)

• Research Project