Remembering Ypres. Post- War Reconstruction, Land and the Legacies of Shock and Conflict

Abstract

We consider the case of the Flemish city of Ypres and its reconstruction after World War I to analyze the legacies of war, as a violent shock to social- ecological systems for the meaning and organization of land. We argue that these legacies can only be understood when considering the multiple meanings of land, including its association with identity, and when distinguishing between the effects on the land itself, on the community inhabiting that land and the governance system in that community. We demonstrate that war, in its diversity of effects reinforces some path dependencies while erasing others and creates space for reinvention. If a city and its countryside are entirely devastated, as with Ypres, actors in governance come and go, old institutions lose their binding powers, some stories and forms of knowledge remain persuasive and locally rooted, while others whither. The necessity to decide on the future, in a landscape that requires rebuilding, triggers debate, discursive production and options for reinvention. We reflect on the lessons of Ypres for other communities forced to contemplate reconstruction.