Klaipėdos universitetas

Ships are no Flying Dutchmen! They need a harbour. Therefore, the development of ship construction is pretty much connected with that of harbour construction, and beyond this, they influence the topography and infrastructure of a harbour. The transition between the Medieval period and the Early Modern Age is a period of great change in the development of larger ships, even in the Baltic. Furthermore, the internationalisation of Baltic trade took place. In Medieval times, ship construction followed conditions in the harbours. In the Early Modern Age, it was the other way round. Now, harbour construction, topography and infrastructure follow the development of ship construction. The paper focuses on the deep impact that larger multi-mast sailing ships had on the development of Baltic harbours.

In this essay, I shall argue that Ethnology can be seen as a scientific approach to the local that promotes a comparative understanding of the “own” and the “other” (and hence of encounters and conflicts) both among humans and between human and non-human subjects, viewed as part of a “local household”. The three approaches are not competing with one another but flowing together, building on and mutually conditioning one another. Their starting point is topography, the thorough description of place; this flows into topology – the interpretation of place with a view to improving the conditions of conviviality – and toposophy, understandings of how lived experience forms our worldview and beliefs grounded in the wisdom of place. In the question of how we express these beliefs in our definitions of the Local, the cycle, in a sense, returns to its starting point.