ABSTRACT
In the opening pages of Tim Creswell’s (2004: 12) book Place: A Short Introduction, the author states that ‘Space, landscape and place are clearly highly interrelated terms and each definition is contested.’ This seemingly simple observation hovers like a compass needle, pointing the way into difficult terrain. The brief journey I propose in this chapter is to visit and dwell awhile upon the two important concepts of place and landscape, and to consider what might be gained by examining the creative tension between them. Consideration of these themes is significant. Landscapes, places and cultures are ineluctably linked. They work on and change each other over time. It would be all too easy, in the age of virtual realities and globalization (Massey and Jess 1995), to miss the fundamental role that landscapes and places play in the development and sustenance of cultural identity. I find it impossible to write about landscape and place only in the abstract. For me, landscapes
and places are best considered from the perspective of the particular. Every place is a result of an ongoing interaction between natural and cultural phenomena. Human expectations and desires for a location and the resulting way that humans live in a landscape shape and are shaped by that location. This reciprocity between people and locations on the Earth’s surface provides the reference point for all considerations of landscapes and places. As the American land historian William Cronon (1996: 22) observed, ‘The material nature we inhabit and the ideal nature we carry in our heads exist always in complex relationship with each other, and we will misunderstand both ourselves and the world if we fail to explore that relationship in all its rich and contradictory complexity.’ Therefore, I will write from the perspective of a place not far from where I live (see
Figure 7.1). The Nooramunga Marine and Coastal Reserve is located on the south-east coast of mainland Australia. Nooramunga is a 30,000 hectare complex ecosystem of tidal waterways, mudflats, mangroves and low-lying sand islands. It is a globally significant migratory bird feeding and breeding area and its sea-grass beds are a vital habitat for local fisheries. I have been visiting Nooramunga for twenty years and it provides a compelling example of some of the differences and similarities between the concepts of landscape and a sense of place. This chapter is divided into four parts. Part one provides a brief survey of some of the con-
tested ideas about landscape. This section is not meant to be exhaustive. There exists a welldeveloped commentary on this subject (see, amongst others, Jackson 1984; Cosgrove and
Daniels 1988; Wylie 2007). Rather, it provides a prelude to later considerations of place. In part two I consider the concept of place. Whereas landscape may be seen as something viewed by the outsider from a vantage point – a landscape gaze if you like – a place is something experienced through immersion by the insider. Places are phenomenal rather than fixed in character. Part three considers the creative tension that arises when landscape and sense of place perspectives and practices are combined. The combination is, I will argue, a synergistic one that takes us ‘Beyond duality, beyond the opposition of mind and matter, subject and object, thinker and thing’ (Coupe 2000: 1). The last section of the chapter provides a brief conclusion that suggests some signposts for inquiry and education practices that venture into the terrain of this creative tension.
