Culture-production-place and nature: the landscapes of somewhere

Abstract

The sustainability of local landscapes is subject to multiple interpretations of what it is to be ‘sustainable’, at what scale and in whose terms. In the face of global economic pressures for production, extraction and tourism, our attention is drawn to how we can re-imagine and conceptualise the local with a lens that integrates culture-production-place as integral within Nature, providing opportunities for a different view of what is possible. Using a critical system’s approach and incorporating diverse scales, human and non-human equity, and the tension inherent in multiple worldviews among stakeholders, we evaluate the narratives of three case studies. We focus on the social–ecological imaginaries that underpin attempts to create the ‘landscapes of somewhere’.