The presentation below is the result of the collective transdisciplinary work developed by the team of researchers of project ‘”Travessa das Peras” – Fabricando patrimónios’ (‘Pear Lane’ – Fabricating Heritage) during the first IN2PAST Doctoral School, the ‘In2Future Boot Camp: Towards an Ecology of Heritage Practices’, held in Évora between May 18 and 24, 2024, in partnership with Festival Imaterial and Évora 27 – European Capital of Culture, and which brought together 33 PhD students from the seven research units that make up the IN2PAST consortium.

Drawing on their Biochemistry, Anthropology, History, Archaeology and Architecture backgrounds, and in order to respond to the challenge of (re)thinking techniques and devices of archiving, or of cultural transmission, which constitute heritage, an idea underlying the notion of anarchive, the team chose to observe how Nature, and in particular non-human biotic species, are preserved in the toponymy of the city of Évora. The project was developed from scratch in less than a week.

Once they had selected Travessa das Peras, close to the boot camp venue, they began to idealise it: ‘There must be many old houses with older residents who will surely know the “history of the lane” and why it has this name! Are there lots of pear trees? Did a lorry load of pears fall there one day? Was ‘Peras’ a family name?’

The team concluded that ‘the information on the species “pear” in this lane, named after the fruit at least since 1874, suggests that the interspecies relationship between humans and pears, pear trees and other species related to the fruit tree that once existed in this place, is now characterised by an interspecies relationship between humans, the memory of this toponymy and the geological elements.’

And proposes the creation of an anarchive of this lane ‘as a symbolic example of the patrimonialisation of the changing interspecies relationships, which have taken place between the different social, biological, spatial and geological temporalities” that they have identified throughout the process.

‘Travessa das Peras’ was first presented in public at the Garcia de Resende Theatre, in Évora, on May 24th, 2024, as part of the boot camp/Festival Imaterial’s session ‘Heritage Anarchives in Évora: Towards an Ecology of Practices’.