Why Coasts Are Good to Think With: A Cultural History

From the moment Homo sapiens arrived at the eastern shores of Africa roughly 150,000 years ago, we have been an edge species, gathering the riches that abound where land meets salt water. Today it seems that the physical assets of coasts are not as important as their cultural resources. It has been said that "every person born in this world has a coast, an edge, a boundary." This applies today even to those who live deep inland, who have never been near the sea, for coasts now loom large in modern imaginaries, larger than ever before in human history. They are a source of both individual and collective identities, a vital element in the way we think about ourselves and about others.

The other papers in this session will be considering the physical, economic, and political dimensiosn of coasts. Mine will deal with their changing meaning over time, especially in North America and Europe, where today coasts perform a variety of symbolic functions that were unknown two hundred years ago. We are still an edge species, but in a very different sense than were our ancestors. Back then, people valued the coast's tangible productive opportunities, while we approach it as consumers of its intangible qualities. It has become a boundary, but also a horizon, allowing us access to imagined times and spaces available nowhere else. A part of modern mythical geography, coasts play an unprecedented role in creating meaningful landscapes for groups as well as individuals worldwide. In the modern era we have transformed coasts beyond recognition, but, in doing so, we have made them (and ourselves) more vulnerable than ever before.