We are very happy to announce that our board member Marilena Mela, assistant professor of Heritage Studies, has been awarded a prestigious VENI grant from NWO for her project entitled “Unearth, Re-earth: Heritage activism and local knowledge in extraction landscapes under transition”.
The project starts from the premise that the ways people relate to their environments through history, culture, and place can provide essential knowledge amidst the climate crisis. Mela will investigate how heritage ―the collective memories, interpretations, and knowledge systems of the past―is mobilised to resist environmental damage and imagine more sustainable futures. She will examine three landscapes shaped by mining and energy extraction in the Netherlands, Greece, and Chile. These sites of industrial histories and inherited knowledge now become linked to the energy transition through new plans and infrastructures.
By combining fieldwork, archival research, and collaboration with local partners, Mela will research how protest movements and long-lived landscape knowledge inform environmental stewardship today. The project will contribute to empowering place-based approaches to climate and energy transitions.
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