Developing dwelling as an approach to landscape and place: The cases of long-distance transhumance and Easter processions

Abstract

Approaches to place and landscape have concerned geographers, at least throughout Modern history. In geographical place and landscape writings, notions of dwelling have been taken up and developed since the 1970s to indicate the lived and practised character of the relationships between human beings and their environment. Dwelling has experienced a controversial history in geography, and bears some negative or limiting connotations: it would be backward-looking, exclusionary, static, nostalgic, and hindered by the idea of rootedness and the authentic / non-authentic life split.This thesis critically considers in what ways seminal dwelling literatures (those written by Martin Heidegger and Tim Ingold) might be problematical and / or enriching for place and landscape writing. In this thesis I argue that the theoretical complexity of seminal dwelling literatures is often overlooked while I also argue that some understandings of the relational, the incomplete, and the contingent are largely missing or problematically conceptualised in seminal dwelling literatures.Taking into account this reflection on the theoretical background of dwelling, the thesis explores possibilities for integrating dwelling in a framework inspired by non-representational theory (NRT). Such links are made in the thesis’ case studies: communities practising (a) long-distance transhumant herding in rural Spain (in which herders and herd journey biennially for about four weeks in response to environmental changes caused by the seasonal cycle), and (b) Easter processions in central Seville (in which brotherhoods celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ). Place and landscape practices are accessed through ethnographical engagements, in which herding - and processional landscapes become the lived contexts for reflection. In the case studies, dwelling is redeveloped through a framework that prioritises posthumanism, relationality and openness, as well as issues of rhythmicity, and nearness (as people care for - and attune to happenings). In long-distance transhumance the rural, the ecological and the practical are privileged, whereas in Easter processions the urban, the spiritual, and to the sheer beauty of life are emphasised. As such, the case studies offer distinct perspectives on the possibilities for developments of dwelling in place and landscape writing, while the case studies share denominators such as journeying, seasonality, embodiment, and practice richness.

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