The Emerging Mountain Imaginary of the Galician Highlands: A New National Landscape in an Era of Globalization?

Abstract

Mountains have been the object of an intense elaboration of nationalimaginaries. There is a widespread perception of Galicia as a rural and coastal country based on agricultural and seaside landscapes, with mountains being largely ignored. However, a production of local narratives around the Trevinca Massif has recently taken place, which has become quite widespread, with an emerging mountain landscape imaginary of its own around the notion of the Galician Highlands. This paper discusses these developments in the context of both the changing imaginaries of mountains in western cultures and the different Galician landscape imaginaries. The research was carried out by means of semistructured interviewing, which led towards obtaining three narratives elaborated from semiotic clustering. These results allow us to infer that global forces, in particular tourism and promotion, have been essential for explaining the emergence and spread of the Galician Highlands as a socio-spatial imaginary. Another conclusion is the relevance of the disputed conception of "natural borders" coinciding with mountains in the case-study area.

Los paisajes lineales de Josep Maria Panareda y Maravillas Boccio: una apuesta por el diálogo transdisciplinar

“…O debuxiño que o acompaña é moi interesante, pois incorpora ao prototipo paisaxístico de montaña alpina, piramidal -e resulta dubidoso que Pena Trevinca o sexa -, unha estrada, cun sol ao fondo que lembra moito, por certo, os símbolos soviéticos da época (Figura 14.4); o seu contraste coa bandeiriña do club, cuxa representación paisaxística só combina elementos naturais (o cervo e os cumes alpinos) coa bandeira galega (Figura 14.4), rechama. Estamos diante, de feito, de dous dos grandes ideais occidentais de montaña de acordo con Debarbieux e Rudaz (2010) e Paül e Trillo (2022).…”

“…Este Plan Trevinca, frustrado, ampliaba a xeografía do mapa seminal de Martínez-Pacheco. Porén, xa nos anos 1960 comeza o divorcio espacial entre a banda galega e a zamorana, de entrada pola declaración de figuras de protección ao redor do Lago de Sanabria, reforzado coa designación do Parque Natural a finais da década de 1970 e o seu rápido traspaso á Junta de Castilla y León -que o converte nunha das súas «xoias»- Paül, Trillo e Haslam McKenzie, 2019;Paül e Trillo, 2022). Axiña racha o ámbito do mapa e, con el, o «Macizo» e a paisaxe entendida como un todo.…”

“…En efecto, malia a ausencia dunha lectura en chave nacional galega da montaña (Paül, 2019), na liña doutras culturas nacionais (Martínez de Pisón e Álvaro, 2002; Nogué e Vicente, 2004; Debarbieux e Rudaz, 2010), a laboura do club e da revista homónima cabe interpretarse como un intento de dotar á nación galega dun «sentimento da montaña» de seu (Martínez de Pisón e Álvaro, 2002). Un sentimento que, aínda que apagado durante décadas, parece que revive, dun xeito ou outro, nos últimos anos da man de novos protagonistas nas Montañas de Trevinca (Paül et al, 2018;Paül, Trillo e Haslam McKenzie, 2019;Paül e Trillo, 2022).…”

La geografía española actual. Estado de la cuestión

“…AA. vecinas (Paül et al, 2018;Trillo y Paül, 2019;Vila, Paül y Trillo, 2020;Paül y Trillo, 2021b). Recientemente, han incidido también en la problemática de los límites interautonómicos en la gestión de la crisis de la Covid-19; una investigación que ha llevado, en paralelo, a considerar los problemas suscitados en la frontera lusoespañola (Paül y Trillo, 2021a;Trillo, Paül y Vila, 2021;Trillo, Vila y Paül, 2022).…”

On borders and boundaries in Spain: A state of the art

“…The USC group, led by Valerià Paül and Juan-M. Trillo-Santamaría, seeks to transfer the knowledge acquired about the Galician-Portuguese border to the boundaries between Galicia, Castile and Leon and Asturias. One outcome of this interest has been a study of protected natural areas in eastern Galicia and its neighbouring ACs (Paül et al, 2018;Trillo-Santamaría and Paül, 2019;Vila-Lage, Paül and Trillo-Santamaría, 2020;Paül and Trillo-Santamaría, 2021b). Recently, the group has turned its attention to the problem of inter-AC boundaries in the management of the Covid-19 crisis, a research line that has led to a parallel consideration of the problems that emerged on the Portuguese-Spanish border (Paül and Trillo-Santamaría, 2021a;Trillo-Santamaría, Paül and Vila-Lage, 2021;Trillo-Santamaría, Vila-Lage and Paül, 2022).…”