Identificador: TDX:1494
Autors: Boquera Margalef, Montserrat
Resum:
The relation between the local population and the river has suffered deep transformations along the 20th century, which, unavoidably, it has influenced on the perception and signification that this population kept on giving in the Ebre.At the beginning of century, the river was a useful resource: communication route, source of raw materials, of hydraulic energy, of water for irrigation and domestic use and, even, place of celebrations and ludic ceremonies. There were some professions that implied an important occupation of the fluvial environment: 'llaüters', 'raiers', 'barquers', fishermen and canal guards (or 'canaleros'). They shared a same space and their interests were sometimes opposed. This intense activity in the river inevitably generated a rich sociability and converted the Ebre into one of the main places where the personal relations were developed.Later, some factors, that culminate in the 60's of the 20th century, caused the Ebre's forget: the navigation decadence; the fishing disappearance, that of the basket makers and of the 'canyissers'; the introduction of the running water in home... The river did not exist; for twenty or thirty years the 'riberencs turn away from the river'. People do not speak about the river: it does not have beneficial effects but either it does not have negatives (the reservoirs constructions have reduced drastically the floods). On the other hand, the process involves also an undervalue and a contempt of the Ebre, based on the coming of the pollution consciousness and of environment ruin. In the 90's the river takes value again. It is a different value: now it is a touristic resource. The 'Pla de Navegabilitat' is unsuccessful and their results are debatable, but it will begin this trend, which will be consolidated by different ways. It is a look more active about the Ebre that it is founded in the ludic and landscape potential of the fluvial environment and that will be useful to constructing the germ of the new 'ebrenca' identity.The authentic revival of the lost importance will take place in the year 2000 during the mobilizations against the PHN. The 'Terres de l'Ebre' experienced an answer without precedents that will retrieve old images of the river, some of them reformulated, but it will also take place the appearance of new images. In this last stage, the theoretical postulates, of environmental look, mixed with ancient ideas about the Ebre's role. Old symbols and new symbols cause a new social construction of the Ebre: the 'ebrencs' have noticed that the river is the basic element of its identity. The Ebre retrieves its centrality.The result has been a more respectful look about the river by the native population, which now it is see like a good that must be preserved and transmitted to the future generations. The direct knowledge of the environment, coming from the interaction and of the oral transmission, is substituted for those that proceed of a more extense representation founded in scientific texts. The global environmental context favours this sort of river's conception. For the ancestors the river was a modus vivendi; for the contemporary 'ebrencs' the river is not a resource to explode but to preserve.
Repositori URV