Abstract
In this paper we reject the nature–culture dichotomy by means of the idea of affordance or possibility for action, which has important implications for landscape theory. Our hypothesis is that, just as the idea of affordance can serve to overcome the subjective–objective dichotomy, the ideas of landscape and ecological niche, properly defined, would allow us to also transcend the nature–culture dichotomy. First, we introduce an overview of landscape theory, emphasizing processual landscape theory as the most suitable approach for satisfying both cultural and naturalist approaches. After that, we introduce the idea of affordance and we analyze a tension between sociocultural and transcultural affordances (affordances that depend on cultural conventions and affordances that depend on lawful information and bodily aspects of agents). This tension has various implications for landscape theory and ecological niches. Our proposal is that sociocultural and transcultural aspects of affordances could be systematically accommodated if we apply niche construction theory (the theory that explains the process by which organisms modify their selective environments) as a methodological framework for explaining the emergence of ecological niches. This approach will lead us to an integrative account of landscapes as the products of the interaction between human and environmental elements, making it a clear example of a concept that transcends the nature–culture dichotomy.
Highlights
In this paper we reject the nature–culture dichotomy by means of the idea of affordance, which has important implications for landscape theory
Before starting to develop our main idea on how to overcome the nature–culture dichotomy thanks to ecological psychology and niche construction theory (NCT), it is important to discuss another important aspect of Affordances and Landscapes this paper: the idea of landscape
Given that our aim in this paper is to illustrate how landscape theory can benefit from the conceptual tools of ecological psychology and NCT, we discuss the role of landscape within both theories
Summary
In this paper we reject the nature–culture dichotomy by means of the idea of affordance, which has important implications for landscape theory We propose that this can be achieved by applying niche construction theory (NCT) as a framework for explaining how sociocultural and transcultural factors (including affordances) affect each other in the shaping of landscapes and the evolution of human beings. The definition of landscape changed from something considered as natural scenery interpreted from an artistic or pictorial perspective (Jackson, 1984; Pungetti, 1996) to a more comprehensive and inclusive conception (everyday areas) Despite this progressive development, the mainstream analyses of landscapes have remained committed to a purely cultural approach and to either horn of the objectivismsubjectivism dilemma (Lothian, 1999). Landscapes are to be considered a product of the interaction of humans and their environments, against the contemplative stance
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