Paper short abstract:

How do people experience environmental change and how do they cope with it by means of narration? The paper focuses on 'environmental' narratives of the inhabitants of a former suburban fishing village whose lived space has experienced several dramatic changes over the last fifty years.

Paper long abstract:

Environment is not an empty scene merely providing physical space for people's actions. The multiple ways in which places and environs feature in oral narratives testify that places are filled with deeply existential meanings. How do people experience environmental change and how do they cope with it by means of narration? The paper focuses on 'environmental' narratives of the inhabitants of a former suburban fishing village - Mangaļsala - whose lived space has experienced several dramatic changes over the last fifty years. Incorporation of the village into the capital city and development of fishing industry in the 1950s considerably transformed the small peninsula and, accordingly, the lifestyle of the isolated community. Another change started in the 1990s when, following the collapse of the USSR, fishing industry gradually declined. In this process, part of the village teritory was overtaken by the Riga Seaport and several companies posing serious threat to the environment. The narrative repertory of the village inhabitants today contain stories of concern and uncertainty depicting Mangaļsala as a shrinking space that is becoming alien for the local people and even threatening.