Landscapes move – and challenge borders

Landscape Research, vol. 51, pp. 493–511

Abstract

This contribution explores the possibility that cultural landscapes can move and what the consequences of this might be for (our thinking about) borders, in particular the borders between nation states. Mainstream landscape research assumes that each cultural landscape has a unique, exclusive and inalienable relationship with a specific area. However, since the 1980s, with the increasing influence of humanistic and new cultural geographies in landscape research, this assumption has been regularly questioned. If cultural landscapes are understood not only as physical manifestations of human ecosystems and cultures, but also as “ways of seeing” and “landscape ideas”, then people also carry landscapes with them in their minds and hearts and can physically realise them elsewhere. In the following review paper, both views are explored through a series of case studies. The relationships between (moving) cultural landscapes and borders receive special attention.

Authors 1

1. Jan C. A. Kolen corresponding Aachen Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University