WDM Lecture 2: Landscape as a common good

02 February 17:30-18.30 (CET)  – ZOOM
Landscape as a common good: wellbeing and the historic environment
by Claire Nolan (National University of Ireland Galway)

Respondent: Shabnam Inanloo Dailoo (Athabasca University)

The European Landscape Convention states that landscape is fundamental to individual and social wellbeing. It enjoins stakeholders to establish how landscape is perceived and valued in order to identify and preserve those aspects of place that promote wellbeing. Focusing on cultural heritage in particular, this paper will discuss these themes with reference to qualitative work undertaken in 2016 and 2017 on resident and visitor perceptions of the prehistoric landscapes of Stonehenge, Avebury and the Vale of Pewsey, Wiltshire, UK. It will review the phenomenological methods used to investigate participants’ embodied, in-the-moment and everyday experiences of these heritage landscapes, and thus the intrinsic values they hold for certain individuals.

Based on this research, the paper demonstrates how the disciplines of archaeology, human geography, and psychotherapy can combine to reveal the potential of the (pre)historic environment to facilitate ontological security, existential relatedness and existential possibility. As a result, it presents different understandings of the social value of cultural heritage which may help to protect and develop landscape in ways that support individual and community wellbeing. The paper further recognises that heritage landscapes can only serve the common good in this respect if the preservation and promotion of such places also mediates the other social, environmental and infrastructural needs of the communities that live within them. Consequently, it suggests that deeper reflection on the relationship between self and environment may assist in achieving this balance.

Bibliography

• Council of Europe. European Landscape Convention, Strasbourg: Council of Europe (2000).
• Jones, S. & Leech, S. 2015. Valuing the Historic Environment: a critical review of existing approaches to social value, Manchester: AHRC Cultural Value Report (2000).
• Menatti, L. “Landscape as a Common Good: a Philosophical and Epistemological Analysis”, Quaderni di Careggi, 6(6) (2014), 40-43.
• Nolan, C. “Sites of Existential Relatedness: Findings from Phenomenological Research at Stonehenge, Avebury and the Vale of Pewsey, Wiltshire, UK”, Public Archaeology, 18(1) (2019), 28-51. DOI: 10.1080/14655187.2019.1762151
• Nolan, C. “Prehistoric Landscapes as Transitional Space”, in T. Darvill, K. Barrass, L. Drysdale, V. Heaslip and Y. Staelens, (eds) Historic Landscapes and Mental Well-Being. Oxford: Archaeopress, (2019), 163–178.
• Nolan, C. “Prehistoric Landscapes as a Source of Ontological Security for the Present Day”. Heritage and Society. 2020.
• Reilly, S., Nolan, C. & Monckton, L., Wellbeing and the Historic Environment. Historic England Report (2018), https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/wellbeing-and-the-historic-environment/wellbeing-and-historic-environment/

Participation is free. To attend the online lecture please register on Zoom

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Claire is a public archaeology and heritage studies researcher. With training and a professional background in archaeology, psychotherapy and community mental health, she has a special interest in the relationship between people, places and the past. Informed by this interdisciplinary perspective, Claire’s work is particularly concerned with the intrinsic value of the historic environment and its influence on individual lived experience. Her research is currently focused on the social and therapeutic value of prehistoric archaeology in contemporary Europe.

Dr Shabnam Inanloo Dailoo is chair of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies at Athabasca University and Associate Professor of Heritage Resources Management, where she focuses on matter ranging from buildings and archaeological sites to cultural landscapes and sacred places, and in particular on aboriginal cultural places, worldviews and traditions, where her approach is landscape-wide and values-based with a strong emphasis on community engagement.
http://heritage.resources.athabascau.ca/faculty/sdailoo/