In this paper we seek to develop the concept of dwelling as a means of theorising place and landscape. We do this for two interconnected reasons. First, dwelling has come to the fore recently as an approach to nature, place, and landscape, but we argue that further development of this idea is required in order to address issues relating to romantic views of places, authenticity, localness, and the way we ‘see’ landscapes. Second, we turn to the notion of dwelling to develop interconnected views of the world which can still retain a notion of place, a key but problematic concept within geography, landscape studies, and environmental thinking. In particular, we seek to develop ideas of place within the context of actor network theory. We explore the notion of dwelling in Heidegger and as adapted by Ingold, and we trace how dwelling has been deployed subsequently in studies of landscape and place. We then develop a more critical appreciation of dwelling in the context of an orchard in Somerset which we have researched as a place of hybrid constructions of culture and nature.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BakhtinM M, 1981The Dialogical Imagination (University of Texas Press, Austin, TX).
2.
BenderB, 1998Stonehenge: Making Space (Berg, Leamington Spa, Warwick).
3.
BraunBCastreeN (Eds), 1998The Production of Nature at the End of the Twentieth Century (Routledge, London).
4.
BrowningF, 1998Apples: The Story of the Fruit of Temptation (Allen Lane, London).
5.
BuellL, 1995The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing and the Formation of American Culture (Belknap Press, Cambridge, MA).
6.
CaseyE S, 1993Getting Back Into Place: Towards a Renewed Understanding of the Place – World (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN).
7.
CaseyE S, 1998The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA).
CrononW (Ed.), 1996Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature (W W Norton, New York).
15.
CrouchD, 1996, “Making sense of our place: A Critical review of parish maps”, in From Place to PLACE: Maps and Parish Maps Eds CliffordSKingA (Common Ground, London) pp 53–66.
16.
CrouchDMatlessD, 1996, “Refiguring geography: The parish maps of Common Ground”Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series21236–255.
17.
DanielsS, 1992, “Place and the geographical imagination”Geography7310–322.
18.
DoelM, 1999Poststructuralist Geographies, the Diabolical Art of Spatial Science (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh).
19.
EhrenfeldD, 1992, “Places”, in Finding Home: Writing on Nature and Culture from Orion Magazine Ed. SauerP (Beacon Press, Boston, MA) pp 31–37.
20.
EisenbergE, 1998The Ecology of Nature: Humans, Nature and Human Nature (Picador, Basingstoke, Hants).
21.
GuignonC C (Ed.), 1993The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge).
22.
HarrisM S, 1998, “Being homesick, writing home”, in Fresh Tracks: Writing the Western Landscape Ed. BantingP (Polestar Books, Victoria) pp 253–264.
23.
HarveyD, 1996Justice, Nature, and the Geography of Difference (Blackwell, Oxford).
24.
HinchliffeS, 1999, “Cities and natures: Intimate strangers”, in Unsettling Cities: Movement/Settlement Eds AllenDMasseyDPrykeM (Routledge, London) pp 137–180.
25.
IngoldT, 1993, “The temporality of landscape”World Archaeology25152–174.
26.
IngoldT, 1995, “Building, dwelling, living: How people and animals make themselves at home in the world”, in Shifting Contexts: Transformations in Anthropological Knowledge Ed. StrathernM (Routledge, London) pp 57–80.
27.
KoziellS P, 2000, “A tale of two apples”Resurgence number 198, 44–45.
28.
LawJHassardJ (Eds), 1999Actor Network Theory and After (Blackwell, Oxford).
29.
LeggPBindingH, 1998Somerset Cider: The Complete History (Somerset Books, Tiverton).
MalpasJ, 1998, “Finding place: Spatiality, locality and subjectivity”, in Philosophies of Place, Philosophy and Geography III Eds LightASmithJ M (Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MD) pp 21–44.
32.
MarshallP, 1992Nature's Web: Rethinking Our Place on Earth (Cassell, London).
33.
MassinghamH J, 1988, “Apples”, in A Mirror of England: An Anthology of the Writings of H J Massingham (1888–1952) Ed. AbelsonE (Green Books, Bideford, Devon) pp 161–167.
34.
MilesA, 1999Silva: The Tree in Britain (Ebury Press, London).
35.
MuirR, 1999Approaches to Landscape (Macmillan, Basingstoke, Hants).
36.
MurdochJ, 1997, “Inhuman/nonhuman/human: Actor network theory and the potential for a non-dualistic and symmetrical perspective on nature and society”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space15731–756.
37.
O'NeillPWhatmoreS, 2000, “The business of place: Networks of property, partnership and produce”Geoforum31121–136.
38.
SeamonDMugerauerD, 1985Dwelling, Place and Environment: Towards a Phenomenology of Person and World (Martinus Nijhoff, Dordrecht).
39.
SibleyD, 1999, “Creating geographies of difference”, in Human Geography Today Eds MasseyDAllenJSarreP (Polity Press, Cambridge) pp 115–128.
40.
SindenD, 1989, “Orchards and places”, in Orchards: A Guide to Local Conservation (Common Ground, London) pp 28–48.
41.
SmithJ MLightARobertsD, 1998, “Introduction: Philosophies and geographies of place”, in Philosophies of Place, Philosophy and Geography III Eds LightASmithJ M (Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MD) pp 1–19.
42.
StoneP, 1994Orchards in Somerset—The County Council's ApproachSomerset County Council, County Hall, Taunton, Somerset TA1 4DY.
43.
SprinA W, 1998The Language of Landscape (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT).
44.
SutherlandPNicholsonA, 1986Wetland: Life in the Somerset Levels (Michael Joseph, London).
45.
TallD, 1993From Where We Stand: Recovering a Sense of Place (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD).
46.
ThriftN, 1996Spatial Formations (Sage, London).
47.
ThriftN, 1999, “Steps to an ecology of place”, in Human Geography Today Eds MasseyDAllenJSarreP (Polity Press, Cambridge) pp 295–322.
48.
Von MaltzahnK E, 1994Nature as Landscape: Dwelling and Understanding (McGill – Queen's University Press, Montreal).
49.
VycinasV, 1969Earth and Gods: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Martin Heidegger (Martinus Nijhoff, Dordrecht).
50.
WassermanDWormersleyMGottliebS, 1998, “Can a sense of place be preserved?”, in Philosophies of Place, Philosophy and Geography III Eds LightASmithJ M (Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MD) pp 191–213.
51.
WhatmoreS, 1999, “Hybrid geographies: Rethinking the ‘human’ in human geography”, in Human Geography Today Eds MasseyDAllenJSarreP (Polity Press, Cambridge) pp 22–40.
52.
WhatmoreSThorneL (2000), “Elephants on the move: Spatial formations of wildlife exchange”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space18185–203.
53.
WhittL ASlackJ D, 1994, “Communities, environments and cultural studies”Cultural Studies85–31.
54.
WolchJWestKGainesT, 1995, “Transspecies urban theory”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space13735–760.
55.
ZimmermanM E, 1993, “Heidegger, Buddhism and deep ecology”, in The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger Ed. GuignonC (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) pp 240–269.
