The emotional reading of the territory. A particular case in the Galician Atlantic

Abstract

The aim of this article sets out an emotional reading of a territory in the Atlantic Galician coast, as a methodological tool for having a greater understanding of it. By means of its analysis and with the intention of rounding out the knowledge of its character, we read its traces through the emotion that provokes its mutable experience. Finding the roots of the emotional construction of a particular place an argument for reasoning, as effective as the one guided by the scientific impulse when it tries to clarify historical and scientific information. The life lessons from its architecture, order and evocative power, are sought with the rational and analytical knowledge and provoking the emotions attached to it. Therefore, a reflection on the stone and water as the geographical elements that characterize and symbolize the territory for a community who coexist with them. Their aptitude to organize multiple landscapes and awakening emotions, whenever they are read and conquered, shape the construction of the current territory. Since our purpose is to look for new meanings to understand a significant territory, the pertinence of the use of an emotional language walking with the rational one, is taken under consideration.