Charismatic encounters: Understanding the role of cetaceans in the coastal and maritime heritage of England and France
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Leeds
Department Name: School of English
Abstract
Bringing together a leading environmental humanities scholar based at the University of Leeds and an environmental anthropologist based at CNRS/Paris Nanterre, this 18-month collaborative research project aims to assess the usefulness of England's and France's whaling histories to their contemporary whale-watching industries. Whale- and dolphin-watching in England and France today may seem at first sight to have little to do with these two countries' respective whaling heritages, in so far as they are generally organized around conservationist principles that run directly counter to the conspicuous abuses of the past. However, in different and sometimes conflicting ways, cetaceans have made a powerful contribution to English and French coastal and maritime heritage: a mixed heritage that is as much symbolic (intangible) as material (tangible), and that involves multiple players -- and indeed multiple species -- in multiple time frames. The project will examine this heritage more closely, building cooperative networks between the different stakeholders involved in it, and enhancing understandings of the conservationist initiatives it now fosters, and the coastal communities it currently serves.
The project will adopt a broadly comparative, cross-disciplinary perspective consisting of three research strands: whaling history, maritime museums, and contemporary cetacean tourism. These strands will come together in an integrated crosscutting approach that imaginatively combines ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, and the interpretative analysis of museum objects and verbal/visual texts. Ethnographic fieldwork will be conducted at two heritage-rich regional sites, one each in northern England (the Yorkshire coast) and in southwest France (the Basque littoral). Broader insights will be drawn from humanities fields (human-animal studies, blue humanities, environmental humanities) that question the distinction between natural and cultural heritage, and that offer a suitably reflexive view of the changing relationship between human and non-human cultures in the context of a more-than-human world.
Outputs will include a data-driven website, designed for general as well as specialist (tourism industry) use; a 40-minute documentary film, based on in situ research at the two main field sites; two co-authored journal articles; and two short policy reports in such areas as marine tourism regulation and coastal heritage management, and prepared in close cooperation with the project's main external partner, the British-based World Cetacean Alliance (WCA). The project will also work together with the WCA to see whether either or both of its two target regions have the potential to qualify, as part of the WCA's new worldwide accreditation programme, as official Whale Heritage Sites (WHS).
The project will adopt a broadly comparative, cross-disciplinary perspective consisting of three research strands: whaling history, maritime museums, and contemporary cetacean tourism. These strands will come together in an integrated crosscutting approach that imaginatively combines ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, and the interpretative analysis of museum objects and verbal/visual texts. Ethnographic fieldwork will be conducted at two heritage-rich regional sites, one each in northern England (the Yorkshire coast) and in southwest France (the Basque littoral). Broader insights will be drawn from humanities fields (human-animal studies, blue humanities, environmental humanities) that question the distinction between natural and cultural heritage, and that offer a suitably reflexive view of the changing relationship between human and non-human cultures in the context of a more-than-human world.
Outputs will include a data-driven website, designed for general as well as specialist (tourism industry) use; a 40-minute documentary film, based on in situ research at the two main field sites; two co-authored journal articles; and two short policy reports in such areas as marine tourism regulation and coastal heritage management, and prepared in close cooperation with the project's main external partner, the British-based World Cetacean Alliance (WCA). The project will also work together with the WCA to see whether either or both of its two target regions have the potential to qualify, as part of the WCA's new worldwide accreditation programme, as official Whale Heritage Sites (WHS).
Publications
| Title | A-Fishing for a Whale |
| Description | A pop-up exhibition organised in partnership with Hull Maritime Museum of British artist Caroline Hack's whaling artworks. Three textile artworks were displayed for two weeks in an empty shop front in Princes Quay Shopping Centre, Hull City Centre. |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Impact | The exhibition ran as part of Hull Maritime Museum's public programme while the Museum is closed to refurbishment and offered an opportunity to reach audiences offsite. The location in the shopping centre has good foot flow and gave a new lease of life to an empty shop. The exhibition was featured in the Yorkshire Post and online platforms, including The Hull Story and Critical Fish. |
| URL | https://maritimehull.co.uk/whats-happening/online-galleries-and-exhibitions/explore-our-maritime-his... |
| Title | Ditty Box by Caroline Hack |
| Description | As part of the Whale Week event in Hull, Caroline Hack was commissioned by Hull Maritime Museum to produce a new artwork inspired by Hull's whaling heritage. Hack created a textile artwork inspired by whalers' ditty boxes. |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Impact | When the commissioned artwork was a work in progress, it was on display at the Whale Week event in Ferens Art Gallery and audience members had an opportunity to learn more about it during the Meet the Artist segment of the event. The new artwork was the focus of a blog post on Hull Maritime Museum website. |
| URL | https://maritimehull.co.uk/whats-happening/blogs/a-ditty-box-by-artist-caroline-hack |
| Title | Le feu de la baleine (Whale Fire) |
| Description | Le feu de la baleine (Whale Fire) is a documentary film, co-produced by French-based 'Charismatic Encounters' team members Jeremie Brugidou and Fabien Clouette, on whales and the different ways in which they are seen by those who encounter them. The film shot in France, is in French but has English subtitles and is therefore accessible to both French- and English-speaking audiences. |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Impact | The film has had three screenings so far, all of them in France: at the Camargo foundation, Cassis, April 2023; at the symposium 'Matières de la Mort', Aix-Marseille University, June 2023; and at MSH Mondes, Nanterre, 'Rencontres du cinéma ethnographique de Nanterre', September 2023. Other screenings, in the UK as well as in France, are currently being planned. |
| Description | Charismatic Encounters was a relatively short project (18 months), and the duration of the project inevitably limited the amount that could be done. However, even within the short timespan several working partnerships (see Engagement Activities above and Impact Narrative below) were established that can be built upon further in the future, while several interesting research discoveries were made. For example, from the oral histories that were gathered on the 'English side' of the project, it became clear that Yorkshire coastal communities have been shaped even more than had been assumed to be the case by the region's whaling legacies, while work with local tour operators confirmed that public interest in cetaceans is growing, as -- possibly as a result of climate change -- are sightings of cetaceans themselves. Work done on the 'French side', much of it revolving around the production of an ethnographic film, similarly demonstrated that public interest in cetaceans and cetacean conservation has never been higher, though work on both 'sides' also confirmed one of the project's working hypotheses, that more integration is needed between the different conservation parties and actors if conservation goals (and their social benefits) are to be achieved. |
| Exploitation Route | As noted above, the partnerships that were established during the project could and should be built upon in the future. There is potential here, both to build on work done at the regional level (especially in Yorkshire) and to extend it to the national level and beyond (a similar project with several European and/or non-European partners would be an interesting case, e.g. in the context of the World Cetacean Alliance's Whale Heritage Sites program). Nicolov, the English-based project RA, now works for the Natural History Museum in London, and one of several possible future projects might involve a consortium of European museums. In short, Charismatic Encounters, which was always intended as a platform for future work, could well become exactly that. |
| Sectors | Education Environment Leisure Activities including Sports Recreation and Tourism Culture Heritage Museums and Collections |
| Description | As noted under Key Findings, the Charismatic Encounters project is perhaps best seen as having built an initial platform for future work on the history of human-cetacean relations, and for showing the educational benefits of this knowledge for a wide range of publics operating across an equally wide variety of scales (local, regional, national, international). Audiences reached by the project, primarily through its engagement activities with partners in the cultural and environmental sectors (maritime museums, conservation charities, ecotourism operators), reported that they had new knowledge about both whaling history and its legacies for local coastal communities, and that they had gained a greater understanding of the need for cetacean conservation. Work with these partners is likely to continue in future, adding to the findings already disseminated on the project's English (WCA) hosted website and through its main output, a French-language documentary film. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2023 |
| Sector | Creative Economy,Education,Environment,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism |
| Impact Types | Cultural Societal |
| Description | Yorkshire Wildlife Trust |
| Organisation | The Wildlife Trusts |
| Department | Yorkshire Wildlife Trust |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Members of the University of Leeds-based research team (Huggan and Nicolov) have met up several times with York-based officers of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust (YWT) and have shared information on whale- and dolphin-watching and other coastal tourism practices. The research team is in the process of collecting Yorkshire-based oral histories relating to the whaling past as well as the whale-watching present and will make these accessible to the YWT in order to help them with their ongoing regional nature-protection campaigns. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The YWT have helped the research team reach out to local stakeholders, e.g. Yorkshire Coast Nature, and have shared updated information on regional coastal tourism practices and their policy implications. |
| Impact | No outcomes yet. |
| Start Year | 2022 |
| Description | Charismatic Encounters blog via World Cetacean Alliance website |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Series of online articles on the project website including interviews, an exhibition review, and history-focused pieces. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://worldcetaceanalliance.org/category/charismatic-encounters/ |
| Description | Interview with That's TV North Yorkshire |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Nicolov was interviewed for That's TV North Yorkshire, a regional television channel, about Whale Week events and the themes of the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Press release - The Scarborough News |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Press release for Whale Week featured on The Scarborough News online platform (shared via their social media - Facebook). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.thescarboroughnews.co.uk/news/people/discover-the-enduring-and-changing-role-of-whales-a... |
| Description | Talk at Scarborough Yacht Club |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Project RA Nicolov was invited to give a talk to members of Scarborough Yacht Club alongside the regional coordinator of Seawatch Foundation. There were around 25 members in the audience and the questions opened up to an informal conversation with many sharing personal experiences. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.facebook.com/groups/scarboroughyachtclub/permalink/10160435507644463/ |
| Description | Whale Week Hull feature The Hull Story |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A feature about A-Fishing-for-the-Whale exhibition and Whale Week event in Hull in partnership with Hull Maritime Museum. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.thehullstory.com/allarticles/hull-maritime-exhibitions |
| Description | Whale Week event with Hull Maritime Museum |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This event was held in partnership with Hull Maritime Museum and a prominent British artist, Caroline Hack. The event was held as part of Hull Maritime Museum's ongoing public program, which will continue to run while the Museum site is closed (until 2025) and is part of the wider Hull City Council 'Hull Maritime' project. The event involved a film screening of Travelling for a Living (1966), a film about the Hull folk revival movement. The second half of the event involved a talk from Hack about her creative practice, and about how Hull and its maritime/whaling collections have been a major source of inspiration for her. Hack was also commissioned to create a new artwork as part of the event which was on display. There was an informal 'meet the artist' before the event and the day ended with questions and discussion. Feedback showed that 66% of people had never engaged with the 'Hull Maritime' project before and 93% said that they had learnt something new. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://maritimehull.co.uk/whats-happening/blogs/hulls-whaling-heritage-through-sewing-and-song-an-i... |
| Description | Whale Week event with World Cetacean Alliance |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This was the third and final Whale Week event, hosted online via our project partner the World Cetacean Alliance with talks from project team members Nicolov, Brugidou and Clouette. There were several online audience members from the USA and Canada, who engaged actively in the Q&A and showed interest in comparing the whale-watching industries in their respective countries. The recording was shared on the World Cetacean Alliance Youtube and has been watched 95 times. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQJBHm8192k&t=11s&ab_channel=WorldCetaceanAlliance |
| Description | Whale Week event with Yorkshire Coast Nature |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | This was the first event out of three organised as part of a new initiative 'Yorkshire Coast Whale Week'. It was held with Yorkshire Coast Nature (YCN), a project partner, and involved a public talk from the YCN Founder and Director, Richard Baines, and the skipper he works with to run whale-watching trips, Stephen Baxter. As a small-scale eco-tourism company based in North Yorkshire, reaching new regional audiences is a priority for ensuring well-attended whale-watching trips and this was the first time they had given talks in Whitby. We filled our capacity with 52 members of the public attending, with opportunities for questions and discussion in between talks and afterwards. The event was held at the Royal National Lifeboat Institute branch in Whitby, a charity with a rich coastal and maritime heritage and a vital hub in the local community, with voluntary donations for the RNLI raised. Our partners at YCN stated how pleased they were with the event and expressed enthusiasm for running another event in 2024 as part of a second Whale Week. Public feedback highlighted the passion and enthusiasm of the speakers, and demonstrated that significant new information about whales and other marine wildlife in Yorkshire had been gathered from their talks. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Whale Week visit to Whitby Museum |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | As part of our so-called 'Whale Week' activities, a private guided tour of the whaling collection (public display and objects held in storage) at Whitby Museum was organized with the Museum's Scoresby Curator. The tour involved project team members, several PhD students from the University of Leeds, and representatives from Yorkshire Coast Nature (the evening event's speakers), plus other members of the public. The activity brought together different individuals who had contributed to the project and Whale Week, offering an opportunity to meet in person. At the end of the guided visit, everyone in the group without exception expressed their enthusiasm with what they had seen, heard and learnt, and the project partners involved reflected on the potential for future collaboration. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |