This project investigates the role of cultural heritages in promoting local economic development and sustaining social and environmental resiliencies in the context of Small Island States (SIS), Small Island and Developing States (SIDS), and Sub-National Island Jurisdictions (SNIJs) located in Europe and in Indian Ocean Africa. The research focuses on the SIS of Malta, the SIDS of Comoros, Mauritius and Seychelles and the SNIJs of the French islands territories of Reunion and Mayotte.
This research enables disciplinary bridges to address socioeconomic and environmental vulnerabilities in insular and archipelagic contexts in the face of climate change. Being extremely vulnerable to climate change due to their small territory and particular exposure to sea-level rise, small islands and archipelagos became crucial case studies for its consequences in a global scenario. While climate change affects cultural and natural contexts, heritage management and indigenous cultures may provide solutions through traditionally established cultural systems that integrate ecological preservation and social development.
The results of this research are aimed to inform operational programs in the context of SIS, SIDS and island SNIJs promoting the integration of heritagization processes and indigenous knowledge systems in actions for sustainable futures. Furthermore, this research addresses the pressing challenge, at a European and global level, of developing expertise to promote effective mitigation of the social, economic and ecological consequences of climate change.
Through an innovative interdisciplinary methodology this proposal aims at advancing knowledge and contribute, overall, to the role of Malta, a European Union (EU) Small Island State, and of ISSI, in the commitments pledged by the EU in the context of the United Nations Actions for Sustainable Development and its Development and Cooperation policy, as well as the mission areas related to the oceans, climate change and societal transformation of the Horizon Europe 2021-2027 Framework.