Conversations With Landscape (Anthropological Studies of Creativity and Perception)

277 Pages·2010·2.86 MB·English

by  Karl Benediktsson

Conversations With Landscape
Edited by
Karl Benediktsson and Katrín Anna Lund
Conversations With LandsCape
anthropological studies of
Creativity and perception
Series Editor: tim ingold, University of aberdeen, UK
the books in this series explore the relations, in human social and cultural life,
between perception, creativity and skill. their common aim is to move beyond
established approaches in anthropology and material culture studies that treat the
inhabited world as a repository of complete objects, already present and available for
analysis. instead these works focus on the creative processes that continually bring
these objects into being, along with the persons in whose lives they are entangled.
all creative activities entail movement or gesture, and the books in this series
are particularly concerned to understand the relations between these creative
movements and the inscriptions they yield. Likewise in considering the histories
of artefacts, these studies foreground the skills of their makers-cum-users, and
the transformations that ensue, rather than tracking their incorporation as finished
objects within networks of interpersonal relations.
the books in this series will be interdisciplinary in orientation, their
concern being always with the practice of interdisciplinarity: on ways of doing
anthropology with other disciplines, rather than doing an anthropology of these
subjects. through this anthropology with, they aim to achieve an understanding
that is at once holistic and processual, dedicated not so much to the achievement
of a final synthesis as to opening up lines of inquiry.
Conversations With Landscape
Edited by
KarL BenediKtsson and Katrín anna LUnd
University of Iceland, Iceland
© Karl Benediktsson and Katrín anna Lund 2010
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Karl Benediktsson and Katrín anna Lund have asserted their right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
published by
ashgate publishing Limited ashgate publishing Company
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Conversations with landscape. -- (anthropological studies
of creativity and perception)
1. human beings--effect of environment on. 2. nature--
effect of human beings on. 3. Landscape assessment.
i. series ii. Benediktsson, Karl. iii. Lund, Katrín anna.
304.2-dc22
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Conversations with landscape / [edited] by Karl Benediktsson and Katrín anna Lund.
p. cm. -- (anthropological studies of creativity and perception)
includes index.
isBn 978-1-4094-0186-5 (hardback) -- isBn 978-1-4094-0187-2
(ebook) 1. environmental psychology. i. Benediktsson, Karl. ii. Lund, Katrín anna.
BF353.C668 2010
304.2--dc22
2010033523
isBn 9781409401865 (hbk)
isBn 9781409401872 (ebk)II
Contents
List of Figures vii
List of Contributors ix
Preface and Acknowledgements xiii
1 introduction: starting a Conversation with Landscape 1
Katrín Anna Lund and Karl Benediktsson
2 Conversations with ourselves in Metaphysical experiences of nature 13
Sigridur Thorgeirsdottir
3 the Limits of our “Conversations with nature” 27
Gabriel Malenfant
4 Landscape as Conversation 45
Edda R.H. Waage
5 time for Fluent Landscapes 59
Oscar Aldred
6 Grief paves the Way 79
Arnar Árnason
7 slipping into Landscape 97
Katrín Anna Lund and Margaret Willson
8 Landscape and aesthetic values:
not only in the eye of the Beholder 109
Guðbjörg R. Jóhannesdóttir
9 the sublime, Ugliness and “terrible Beauty” in icelandic
Landscapes 125
Emily Brady
10 transporting nature: Landscape in icelandic Urban Culture 137
Anna Jóhannsdóttir and Ástráður Eysteinsson
vi Conversations With Landscape
11 Ways of addressing nature in a northern Context:
romantic poet and natural scientist Jónas hallgrímsson 157
Sveinn Yngvi Egilsson
12 a stroll through Landscapes of sheep and humans 173
Karl Benediktsson
13 sentience 193
Anne Brydon
14 the empty Wilderness: seals and animal representation 211
Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir and Mark Wilson
15 aurora Landscapes: affective atmospheres of Light and dark 227
Tim Edensor
16 epilogue 241
Tim Ingold
Index 253
List of Figures
6.1 the cairn in Kúagerði (Photograph: sigurjón Baldur hafsteinsson) 86
6.2 advertisement for road safety (Source: Umferðarstofa) 89
6.3 Crosses at suðurlandsvegur (Photograph: tinna Grétarsdóttir) 92
8.1 on the glacier (Photograph: Þorvarður Árnason) 120
9.1 eruption on heimaey 1973 (Photograph: Ævar Jóhannesson) 128
10.1 Magnús Jónsson: dalbær í hrunamannahreppi, Miðfell
(Photograph: anna Jóa) 142
10.2 Ásgrímur Jónsson: húsafellsskógur, strútur (Photograph: anna Jóa) 147
10.3 Kjarval: Frá Þingvöllum (Photograph: anna Jóa) 149
10.4 Guðbergur auðunsson: Landnáma (Photograph: anna Jóa) 154
11.1 a drawing of skjaldbreiður by Jónas hallgrímsson
(Source: Þjóðminjasafn íslands) 161
12.1 sheep in rofabarð (Photograph: andrés arnalds) 181
12.2 sheep licking salt on the road (Photograph: Guðjón Magnússon) 185
14.1 Film still from interview with Knútur Óskarsson 215
14.2 Film still from the video work the naming of things 220
14.3 Film still from the video work Three Attempts 224
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List of Contributors
Oscar Aldred is an archaeologist interested in landscape, movement and
materiality, as well as the theory and practice of archaeology. he is currently
studying for a phd at the University of iceland, as well as working for institute
of Archaeology, Iceland. He has carried out fieldwork and research projects in
england and iceland, and has published several articles.
Arnar Árnason is a senior lecturer in social anthropology at the University of
aberdeen. his research topics centre on death and the politics of grief. he is also
interested in how landscape is implicated in processes of memorialisation and
forgetting.
Karl Benediktsson is professor of geography at the department of Geography
and Tourism, University of Iceland. His research fields include rural and regional
development, as well as cultural geographies of landscape. he is the author of
Harvesting Development (2002) and has published a number of journal articles
and contributed to edited volumes.
Emily Brady is a philosopher and senior lecturer in human geography at the
University of edinburgh. she has written extensively on environmental aesthetics
and ethics, including the book Aesthetics of of the Natural Environment (2003), in
which she integrates subjective and objective approaches to aesthetic experience.
she is also co-editor of Humans in the Land: The Ethics and Aesthetics of the
Cultural Landscape (2008) and Aesthetic Concepts: Essays After Sibley (2001).
Anne Brydon is associate professor and chair of anthropology at Wilfrid
Laurier University, Canada. she focuses on the anthropology of modernity and
modernism, particularly the dynamics of culture and power, and the aesthetics
of knowledge. her research has concerned nationalism and the cultural politics
of environmentalism in iceland as well as the study of visual arts and material
culture. her current research investigates how visual artists working in iceland are
re-imagining changing social relations with nature, science, and technology.
Tim Edensor is a reader in cultural geography at Manchester Metropolitan
University. he is the author of Tourists at the Taj (1998), National Identity,
Popular Culture and Everyday Life (2002) and Industrial Ruins: Space, Aesthetics
and Materiality (2005). he has written widely on tourism, urban and rural
geographies, mobilities, working-class identities, football and materiality. he is