In Search of Nordic Landscape Geography: Tensions, Combinations and Relations

Abstract

Abstract Through tracing what ‘landscape’ has meant, and the political and intellectual work that ‘landscape’ does, we in this chapter explore the shifting nature of Nordic landscape geography. We thereby aim to introduce readers to the role of the landscape concept within Nordic scholarship and critically engage with contemporary debates over the nature and meaning of landscape. Landscape was an important political concept long before the advent of geography as a discipline in the Nordic countries, though what landscape denoted differed between various national and linguistic settings. Based in our mapping of the concept as it has evolved within geography and related disciplines, we centre on three strands of landscape scholarship today: mediations on a particularly ‘Nordic’ substantive landscape concept, attempts to utilise landscape as a concept to influence planning, and attempts to utilise landscape as a concept to grasp environmental issues. Scrutinising these current traditions leads us to primarily underline the necessity of relational approaches to steer the concept away from a problematic and narrow emphasis on the local scale. Yet, and importantly, various relational approaches take analysis in different directions, leading us to also underscore the necessity of critically scrutinising where particular relational approaches might lead landscape geography.

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