The international conference “Small Towns and Environment (from the Middle Ages to the Contemporary Period)” is taking place in Castelo de Vide (Portugal) between 14 and 16 March 2019. Its organisation results from a joint initiative by the Small Towns in Time Networks, Castelo de Vide Municipality, IEM, CHAM, IHC, and da École des hautes études hispaniques et ibériques (Casa de Velázquez, Madrid), through the CIDADES Program.

The thematic proposal of this initiative emerges at the confluence of two research fields – the study of small towns and environmental history – that nowadays refer to challenges of undeniable societal relevance.

Small and medium-sized urban settlements, some of which are marginalised by their inland locations and emptied of their populations and functions, numerically account for the majority, both in Portugal and in Europe. As a historiographical object, small and medium-sized towns have only at very precise and discontinuous moments become the preferred subject of study for historians. On the other hand, they are today recognised as pillars of the development models drawn up by economists, architects and planning experts, within the scope of implementing the concept of territorial cohesion, and identified as lead actors in pilot experiences of sustainable environmental preservation.

The organizers of this symposium, anchored in the results of the various scientific, cultural and educational projects they have been developing, call for the relevance of their contributions in support of national and European policies that usually omit the dimension of the past as a contemporary heritage asset.

Thus, historians from Portugal, Spain, France, England, Germany, Norway, Finland, Czech Republic and Brazil, specialists across multiple chronologies, come together to share knowledge, reflections and questions around the following thematic fields:

1.    The impact of small towns on the natural environment.

2.    The impact of the natural environment on small towns

3.    Societal responses to changes in the urban environment and to environmental problems in small towns.

4.    Environmental aspects of small town relationships with the peri-urban zone and/or its hinterland.

Aimed at students, professors and researchers, this event also targets a wider audience, in particular mayors and municipal technicians linked to culture and the environment.

             
Organisation: International Network of Small Towns in Time; Castelo de Vide Municipal Council; IMF – International Monetary Fund; IEM – Institute of Medieval Studies, IHC – Institute of Contemporary History and CHAM – Centre for Humanities, from School of Social Sciences and Humanities, NOVA University; École des hautes études hispaniques et ibériques (Casa de Velázquez, Madrid)
Organisers: Adelaide Millán da Costa (UAb; IEM-NOVA FCSH), Sara Prata (IEM-NOVA FCSH), Patrícia Martins (Castelo de Vide Municipal Council)