Outbacks: the popular construction of an emergent landscape

Abstract

What is an ‘outback’? Why is the term being applied to landscapes bearing little resemblance to the Australian interior? Based on a survey of the rising international use of this term, and a case study from Ohio, it is suggested that outbacks are discursively produced: (a) where post-industrial relationships between an urban place and its much larger, contiguous periphery have matured; (b) where economic shifts have resulted in patchy but recognizable re-naturalization of erstwhile fields or industrial badlands; (c) by rural groups, who recognize and promote the ‘environmental power’ of their changing landscapes; and (d) when proximate urbanites consume these landscapes as accessible, nostalgic, multi-use recreational getaways. The outback concept, then, offers a framework for exploring a new type of re-greened, post-industrial landscape through its discursive production by citizens, in a way that encompasses multiple forms of social, economic and ecological change. Where landscape scholars tend to explore these issues in isolation, simultaneous ‘outbacking’ of different landscapes around the world draws attention to popular articulation of commonalities in rural experience.

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