Landscape and its possible “new” relevance: ethics and some forgotten narratives on human mobility

Abstract

Abstract. This article aims to provide a reinterpretation of the concept of landscape and to investigate, in some respects, its possible “new” relevance. More specifically, the analysis of “new” theoretical resources of landscape – “new” as they are yet to be explored – is linked here to an alternative interpretation of some neglected pathways of its history. I argue that the possible “new” relevance of landscape also lies in some forgotten ethical narratives on mobility that it has inherited from its chorographic roots, which I outline by re-reading some ancient and 16th-century sources. In fact, I try to show that, by virtue of this chorographic legacy, landscape may represent today a critical and destabilizing perspective, able to undermine the striated and hegemonic certainties of modern thought through the lens of human mobility and its association with an ethical conception of happiness. The final section of the article is dedicated to the theoretical contributions that the chorographic side of landscape can provide to some contemporary reflections on mobility and to geographical ideas of ethics. These theoretical contributions are regarded as an integral part of the possible “new” relevance of landscape.