Ragūna no budō-orību saibai: Dentō to rikiddo-modaniti

This contribution focuses on agriculture in the water city of Venice and in its “lagoon countryside” in the past and at present. More specifically, we concentrate on two Mediterranean plants, vines and olive trees, together with the related production of wine and olive oil. Through historic sources, we trace the diachronic development, the socio-environmental characteristics and the traditional practices of olive trees and vine growing, showing how they were conditioned by the watery context. Indeed, the condition of insularity, the salinity and the sandy nature of soils concurred to conform a “brackish terroir”, where original adaptive forms of managing vineyards and olive groves took shape. Thanks to the analysis of aerial and satellite photos, fieldwork and interviews with various actors, we consider the survival or renewal of traditional viticulture and olive growing, but also some new forms appeared in the last years as an effect of the economic, social and cultural dynamics of wine and olive oil globalized consumption, as well as a spill-over of the progressive touristization of Venice. This way, we show how viticulture or olive growing in the Lagoon of Venice are today in a condition of “liquid modernity” (Bauman, 2000): a fluid situation where traditional forms cohabit with new tendencies in wine and oil production chains.