How can we examine our land and its spaces, encompassing the visible and the invisible, the enduring and the fleeting, the physical and the mythical, the visual and the sensory, through a lens that transcends contrasts?

Amid the current era characterised by selective historical narratives and biased political agendas of nation-states, this research aims to redefine the perspective through which we explore the stories of the coastal districts of Karnataka and Kasaragod. This will be achieved by delving into archival human documents, travelogue texts, cartographies, and visual materials, thereby uncovering blind spots in dominant narratives. The goal is to critically reinterpret the narratives from a local perspective and voice.

This study positions itself within the broader Indian Ocean World, relying on the human-environment interaction as a method to explore the land across time. The proposal introduces a repository platform with a non-linear framework designed to present and narrate historical global and regional connections, the current multiplicity of narratives and the living heritages to both inquisitive locals and curious travellers.