Olwig, Kenneth
- Department of Landscape Architecture, Planning and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Research article2016Peer reviewedOpen access
Olwig, Kenneth; Dalglish, Chris; Fairclough, Graham J.; Herring, Pete
In any discussion of landscape characterisation the elephant in the room is the question of just what is landscape? Another way of putting this question is to simply ask: ‘How would you characterise landscape?’ What this implies is that there is a certain circularity in landscape characterisation because, through the very act of characterising landscape, one is also de ning what one means by landscape. The European Landscape Convention’s de nition of landscape as ‘an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors’ suggests a similar circularity because the character of an area, as it results from the action of natural and/or human factors, is dependent upon human perception, which is presumably also, in addition, one of the human factors acting upon the landscape. This circularity, or ‘circulating reference’, to use Bruno Latour’s term, is fundamental to Denis Cosgrove’s analysis of the origin of the modern concept of landscape as scenic space, and his analysis, we would suggest, helps explain some of the questions raised in this special issue concerning landscape characterisation and the future character of landscape .
Landscape characterisation; history; place; nature
Landscape Research
2016, Volume: 41, number: 2, pages: 169-174
Architecture
Human Geography
Archaeology
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01426397.2015.1135321
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/77689