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Project

Approaching patterns of social and sustainable regional development. An interdisciplinary dialogue between past and present on the region of Sagalassos.

The proposed project wishes to initiate an innovative dialogue between archaeology, geography and planning studies in the region of Sagalassos (SW Turkey) in order to deepen our knowledge of diachronic co-evolution of society and nature and tie the Sagalassos project to a parcours of sustainable regional development. As far as the study of the past is concerned, the project wishes to contribute to debates in social archaeology, applying an interdisciplinary research strategy already characteristic of the Sagalassos team. In geographical terms, the research is situated in Sagalassos and its adjoining valleys. In chronological terms, the most logical scale of analysis is proposed, spanning from the Iron Age (10/8th c. BC) to Ottoman times (until 1922), representing a Braudelian longue durée. The intention is to investigate the diachronical pattern of occupation and social evolution in the research area, and evaluate how the carrying capacity and natural assets of the environment affected and were affected by society. In addition to targeted archaeological fieldwork, interdisciplinary research into changing food production and diet, population trends, technology and forest and land use will be continued. Theoretic enrichment is expected from confrontation with models and concepts of social and sustainable regional development as developed by the fields of geography and planning studies. As for the study of the present, the aim is to first better understand processes that guide the development of regions and foster theoretical development in geography and planning. Theoretical enrichment in geography and planning is expected to result from confrontation with the study of historical regional development processes around Sagalassos, as both disciplines, thus far have largely limited their scope to regional development in contemporary capitalist societies. The longue durée perspective in this study will not only help to disclose crucial elements of the path-dependent (i.e. historically rooted) development of a regional nature-culture nexus (understood as the locally particular, fine-grained institutionalisation of 'ways of dealing with the natural environment', including cultural practices, norms and values as well as organisational structures), an analysis of the social, cultural, political, economic and environmental regulation of regional devleopment in pre-capitatlist societies will also provide fruitful insights in alternative, potentially more sustainable pathways of regional development for the future. Second, by also involving insights from sustainable tourism research, cultural resource management and natural resource modelling, these analyses serve as a basis for the development of scenarios of how the Sagalassos region will build upon the touristic, cultural and natural assets available in the region, in particular those produced by the Sagalassos project. The final gola of this las exercise is the development of a methodology for cultural resource management that can also inspire other archaeological projects in contributing to sustainable regional development.
Date:1 Oct 2011 →  30 Sep 2012
Keywords:Regional studies, Sustainable development, Geography, Planning studies, Archaeology
Disciplines:Urban and regional design, development and planning, Applied mathematics in specific fields, Geophysics, Physical geography and environmental geoscience, Other earth sciences, Aquatic sciences, challenges and pollution, Geomatic engineering, Archaeology, Theory and methodology of archaeology, Other history and archaeology