TheTerroirof Culture

Abstract

Current fears regarding the disappearance of long-term cultural traditions in the face of globalization have led anthropologists and policymakers alike to engage in activities aimed at promoting “cultural survival” and preserving heritage evocative of nineteenth-century salvage anthropology. Yet there are important ways in which cultural traditions persist in specific locales, where practices are enacted and expressed at the intersection of culture and region. Borrowing a term from the wine and food world, where the maintenance of traditions is of great concern, we might call this intersection “terroir.”Invoking terroir, this article argues that archaeology, with its long-term perspective on culture change and the ways in which cultural traditions persist over time, may contribute to reframing current discourse over heritage preservation. Drawing on research in the Black Sea region of Turkey where a particular and distinctive “Black Sea culture,” specific to place much like terroir, has persisted over millennia in spite of potentially disruptive socio-political changes, this article suggests that a long-term view of culture as embedded within a place offers a critique of contemporary fears about the negative effects of globalization on the survival of local tradition.

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