Knowledge from Below in the Venetian Lagoon: Traditional Indigenous Knowledge on Water Environments as Innovative Sustainable Solution to the Challenges of Modernity

In the European Western vision, aquatic spaces are perceived as extraneous to humans and mostly dangerous. However, water environments are special, rich spaces necessitating peculiar knowledge to be profitably habitable by humans. Among the many complex human-environment- nature entanglements, in Upper Adriatic Sea, local fishermen perceive water as domestic areas and have developed special knowledge “from below” that brings attention to waters and seabed. The paper intends to investigate if and how the improvement of the Knowledge from Below can contribute to developing sustainable solutions in fishing sector.