Charlotte Andrews (University of Cambridge)

Contrary to Bermuda's image as a pristine romantic paradise and sophisticated international business centre, this tiny mid-Atlantic community is currently in 'crisis'. A dysfunctional public education system, lasting racial inequity and tension, inter-generational disconnect, the breakdown of the family and drifting communal values all factor in an inescapable sense of social rupture on the Island. Bermudian youth-and
those 'at risk' and 'disenfranchised black males' in particular-are seen as the greatest casualties of this situation and are thus the target beneficiaries for positive change.

In the urgent search for remedies to this 'crisis', existing and new maritime youth development initiatives have come to the fore as promising mechanisms for fostering Bermudian identity and individual self-esteem. This paper explores the self-identity emerging for young Bermudians, or hoped to be, via these seafaring interventions and programmes. My focus is the more abstract and embodied connections to environment, space and history that are heavily involved in these instances of personal and shared
identity-making.

Implicit in this discussion is the argument that these maritime engagements ought to be understood as heritage processes. Without inappropriately forcing the relationship between heritage and identity, I will suggest how such socially and culturally relevant inclusions broaden our conceptualisation of heritage and displace conventional logics which tend too much to guide theory and practice, and which are extra entrenched and
dominant in the maritime territory of the heritage milieu.