Domestic Landscape Research Articles

The Invention of Sacred Places and Rituals: A Comparative Study of Pilgrimage

During the last twenty years around the world there has been a rapid increase in the number of people visiting long established religious shrines as well as the creation of new sites by those operating outside the boundaries of institutional religion. This increase is intimately associated with the revival of traditional routes, the creation of new ones and the invention of new rituals (religious, spiritual and secular). To examine this process, I will focus on the European region and two contrasting destinations in particular—the Catholic shrine of Lourdes, France, and the pre-Christian shrine of Avebury, England—drawing on my personal involvement in travelling to both destinations and being involved in ritual activities along the route and at the two destinations. In the discussion section of the paper, I will explore the relevance of these two case studies to the analysis of power, agency and performance and the ways in which they expose (a) the role of institutions and entrepreneurs in creating rituals and sacred places and (b) the relationship between people and the domesticated landscape.

Participatory Mapping of Mid-Holocene Anthropogenic Landscapes in Guyana with Kite Aerial Photography

The nature and degree of human modifications of humid tropical forests in Amazonia have been widely debated over the past two decades. Many regions provide significant evidence of late Holocene anthropogenic influence by settled populations, but the antiquity of human interventions is still poorly understood due to a lack of earlier archaeological sites across the broad region, particularly pertaining to the mid-Holocene. Here we report on Amerindian occupations spanning the period from ca. 6000-3000 BP along the middle Berbice River, Guyana, including early evidence in Amazonia of cultural practices widely considered indicative of settled villages, notably terra preta or “black earth” soils, mound construction, and ceramic technology. These more settled occupations of the mid-Holocene initiated a trajectory of landscape domestication extending into historical times, including larger-scale late Holocene social formations. Collaborative research with local indigenous communities, including archaeological excavations, landscape mapping using kite based aerial photography, and three-dimensional photogrammetry, was designed to promote the decolonization of archaeological knowledge production and encourage indigenous ownership of Amerindian history and cultural heritage in Guyana.

역사적 사건을 기념하는 현대 메모리얼 공간 구성요소 분석

The modern memorial space seeks to remember the tragedy of history and those who are forgotten in the past. The ultimate goal is not that to permanent the memories, but they reinforce and inspire today's values through individual's communication and commemoration. This study examines the characteristics of modern memorial space in Korea based on implications derived from previous studies. The contents of the analysis are classified into compositions of the space, visitors’ experiences, monuments, etc. and states opportunities and possibilities of development. It is official that the physical characteristics and what they imply are changing gradually among memorial spaces in Korea. Nonetheless, the method applied in such memorial spaces was no different from construction methods applied in former days as well as placing elements on a external space habitually. Although it was first established in the 1960s, the fact that there is no clear change in the domestic memorial space even though time has passed by is not a proper response to the attitude of the visitors nowadays as well as to the dark tourism. Moreover, it is ironical that the way of remembering history of freedom such as independence movements has not escaped the authoritative layouts. Memorial spaces will continue to develop and grow. This study states that it is now necessary to consider embodying sensuous and rich memorial space, starting from the process of planning and designing and also to provide comprehensive clues in actual designs of memorial spaces in domestic landscapes in the future.

A new local scale prediction model of Amazonian landscape domestication sites

Amazonia has drawn the interest of researchers over the last few decades as a region with evidence for extensive ancient/past indigenous landscape domestication. Among the major issues surrounding the nature of landscape domestication of pre-Columbian Amazonians, its scale is critically connected with other major problems in the history of Amazonia such as forms of urbanism, land engineering and agriculture. In recent years, some research in historical ecology has focused on developing methods to calibrate landscape domestication by interpreting the effects of human activity on the formation of the modern Amazonian landscape. This paper presents regional-scale research in the Floresta Nacional de Caxiuanã (FNC) to provide a method to trace and calibrate long-term forest management. With the data collected from the FNC and satellite images, the relationship between soils, an Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) and landscape domestication are explored. The data are interpreted as indicating that zones of anthropogenic enrichment of the soil due to forest management over the last 2000 years have a positive correlation with high EVI values. The research methods have potential to be applied broadly in tropical rainforest environments where pedestrian survey is difficult to undertake.

Household garden plant agency in the creation of Classic Maya social identities

This paper explores how the plant agency paradigm, also known as ‘plant thinking’, can be applied to understanding the household gardens of a modest residential group at the Classic period Maya site of Yaxuna. Informed by a relational approach to social identities, as well as new documentation of plant intelligence, ‘plant thinking’ opens up consideration of agency to multiple agents, some of which are non-human. The daily practice of tending household gardens provides a rich arena for exploring the connections or networks that existed between ancient Maya people of the Classic period, their domestic landscapes, and the other entities that inhabited these same spaces. Economically useful plants domesticated in the Maya area, such as chaya and chili, made demands on Maya people that shaped daily life. Spatial arrangements visible in excavated features at a Late Classic household group provide a space to explore human-plant interactions and the influence of demanding plants upon their human caretakers.

The Unstable Object: Glifo, Blow and Sacco at MoMA, 1972

Summary This article discusses three radical objects—the Glifo shelf from 1966, the Blow chair from 1967 and the Sacco chair from 1968—that were all exhibited at Museum of Modern Art’s ground-breaking architecture and design exhibition Italy: The New Domestic Landscape in 1972. The article proposes that these early postmodern objects should not merely be considered a new stylistic development, a new aesthetics or as expressing new conceptions of sociopolitical ideologies; rather, they can be considered as instigating a new epistemological status of objects. A close reading reveals how the structural element of Glifo, Blow and Sacco is hard to trace and how these objects’ physical limits seem to soften or even dissolve. By engaging with the writings of Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida and Manfredo Tafuri, this article claims that the poststructuralist landscape of ideas has a material counterpart in some objects from the late 1960s and then discusses the political and intellectual implications of such unstable objects.

Archaeology of Domestic Landscapes of the Enslaved in the Caribbean

Archaeology of Domestic Landscapes of the Enslaved in the Caribbean

Geometry by Design: Contribution of Lidar to the Understanding of Settlement Patterns of the Mound Villages in SW Amazonia

Recent research has shown that the entire southern rim of Amazonia was inhabited by earth-building societies involving landscape engineering, landscape domestication and likely low-density urbanism during the Late Holocene. However, the scale, timing, and intensity of human settlement in this region remain unknown due to the dearth of archaeological work and the logistical difficulties associated with research in tropical forest environments. A case in point are the newly discovered Mound Villages (AD ~1000–1650) in the SE portion of Acre State, Brazil. Much of recent pioneering work on this new archaeological tradition has mainly focused on the excavation of single mounds within sites with little concern for the architectural layout and regional settlement patterns, thus preventing us from understanding how these societies were organised at the regional level. To address these shortcomings, we carried out the first Lidar survey with a RIEGL VUX-1 UAV Lidar sensor integrated into an MD 500 helicopter. Our novel results documented distinctive architectural features of Circular Mound Villages such as the presence of ranked, paired, cardinally oriented, sunken roads interconnecting villages, the occurrence of a diversity of mound shapes within sites, as well as the exposure the superimposition of villages. Site size distribution analysis showed no apparent signs of settlement hierarchy. At the same time, it revealed that some small groups of villages positioned along streams exhibit regular distances of 2.5–3 km and 5–6 km between sites. Our data show that after the cessation of Geoglyph construction (~AD 950), this region of SW Amazonia was not abandoned, but occupied by a flourishing regional system of Mound Villages. The results continue to call into question traditional views that portray interfluvial areas and the western sector of Amazonia as sparsely inhabited. A brief discussion of our findings in the context with pre-Columbian settlement patterns across other regions of Amazonia is conducted.

Pre-Columbian soil fertilization and current management maintain food resource availability in old-growth Amazonian forests

AimsThe extent and persistence of pre-Columbian human legacies in old-growth Amazonian forests are still controversial, partly because modern societies re-occupied old settlements, challenging the distinction between pre- and post-Columbian legacies. Here, we compared the effects of pre-Columbian vs. recent landscape domestication processes on soils and vegetation in two Amazonian regions.MethodsWe studied forest landscapes at varying distances from pre-Columbian and current settlements inside protected areas occupied by traditional and indigenous peoples in the lower Tapajós and the upper-middle Madeira river basins. By conducting 69 free-listing interviews, participatory mappings, guided-tours, 27 forest inventories, and soil analysis, we assessed the influences of pre-Columbian and current activities in soils and plant resources surrounding the settlements.ResultsIn both regions, we found that pre-Columbian villages were more densely distributed across the landscape than current villages. Soil nutrients (mainly Ca and P) were higher closer to pre-Columbian villages but were generally not related to current villages, suggesting past soil fertilization. Soil charcoal was frequent in all forests, suggesting frequent fire events. The density of domesticated plants used for food increased in phosphorus enriched soils. In contrast, the density of plants used for construction decreased near current villages.ConclusionsWe detected a significant effect of past soil fertilization on food resources over extensive areas, supporting the hypothesis that pre-Columbian landscape domestication left persistent marks on Amazonian landscapes. Our results suggest that a combination of pre-Columbian phosphorus fertilization with past and current management drives plant resource availability in old-growth forests.

A paisagem da Baía de Guanabara através do filme Luz Del Fuego

O trabalho discute a paisagem da Baía de Guanabara a partir do filme Luz del Fuego (1982), de David Neves. Partindo da compreensão que a Baía conforma um espaço de memória coletiva que não se dá apenas no tempo passado, mas também no tempo presente, buscamos compreender a atual relação da população fluminense com a Baía. Denis Cosgrove (1989) nos auxilia, identificando múltiplos tipos de paisagens simbólicas, dentro delas: paisagem da cultura dominante e paisagem alternativa. O filme analisado narra a história da dançarina Dora Vivacqua, importante mulher para a libertação feminina no Rio de Janeiro. E possui um olhar particular sobre a Baía, moradia e cenário da morte da protagonista. Durante a narrativa fílmica é necessário olhar não apenas sobre a ótica da paisagem da cultura dominante, mas também sobre a paisagem alternativa, descrita por Cosgrove, como também um problema de gênero, onde muitas vezes existe o apagamento de narrativas femininas. As mulheres fazem parte da cultura excluída da paisagem pública, já que o uso da paisagem pela mulher por muito tempo se deu pela paisagem doméstica. O que Luz del Fuego rompe drasticamente, dando um uso inesperado para uma ilha da Baía de Guanabara na década de 1960.

Reimagining the American Landscape: Queer Topographics in Nina Berman'sHomeland

This article argues that Nina Berman'sHomeland(2008) is a rearticulation of the US domestic landscape following 9/11. The book excavates and shapes cultural memory through image and text by examining how parts of the country responded to the 2001 events. Considering howHomelandcaptures what I callqueer topographicsof US culture, I suggest that the spaces of the everyday are mediated by Berman's framing and use of “narrative” essays, disrupting the heteronormativity of a populist rhetoric that seeks to exclude difference.Homelandultimately offers viewers the opportunity to further redefine the US landscape through queerness.

Material Witnesses: Domestic Architecture and Plantation Landscapes in Early Virginia by Camille Wells

Material Witnesses: Domestic Architecture and Plantation Landscapes in Early Virginia by Camille Wells

Material Witnesses: Domestic Architecture and Plantation Landscapes in Early Virginia by Camille Wells

Material Witnesses: Domestic Architecture and Plantation Landscapes in Early Virginia by Camille Wells

Методы и алгоритмы оценки ландшафтного разнообразия в морфологическом аспекте на примере центральной части дельты реки Волги

The article presents a methodology for assessing landscape diversity, which allows to obtain a comprehensive numerical characteristic of the geographical environment, integrating the properties of its stability, which determines the characteristics of economic use. The identification and analysis of the landscape diversity of natural-territorial complexes is an urgent task that is in the center of attention of ecological and geographical research. On the basis of digital landscape maps, the results of experimental studies of system relationships of functioning of natural-social-production systems and structural-genetic landscape studies for the first time landscape diversity of the central part of the landscape of the Volga River delta was made. In this paper, we analyzed a number of basic landscape metrics used in assessing landscape diversity for the territory of the central part of the landscape of the Volga River Delta. Among them: the average area of landscape sections, the index of landscape fragmentation, the index of landscape complexity, the coefficient of landscape fragmentation, the index of landscape mosaic, the index of relative wealth, the Menninik index. To create schemes of landscape diversity, the method of nets in the form of hexagons, which is hardly used in domestic landscape mapping, was tested. The study and assessment of the landscape diversity of the indigenous tracts of the central part of the Volga River Delta proves that such a study makes it possible to choose the right decisions when organizing the territory. It takes on leading significance in the justification of economic activity and is a necessary component of design. Studies have shown that the largest number of undisturbed natural territorial complexes is found in areas with a high degree of landscape diversity. Many of them territorially coincide or are close to sites with the status of specially protected natural areas.

¿ESTÉTICAS HABITACIONALES DE LA EMERGENCIA?: UNA REFLEXIÓN SOBRE LAS CASAS EN ARGENTINA EN TIEMPOS DE COVID-19.

This paper proposes the notion of housing aesthethics of emergency to highlight the way in which people develop material tactics of certainty through modifying their homes in times of crisis, in this case, related to the Covid-19 virus. To this end, I present some vignettes of my own ethnographic research conducted in the Municipality of Morón (Buenos Aires, Argentina) and references from social anthropology —and beyond— to articulate reflections on housing and the future. Thereby I introduce questions about people’s daily changes and their practical translations. Specifically, how they find certainty ‘in the provisional’, composing specific domestic landscapes. This essay seeks to enhance understanding of how aesthetic production —understood in broader terms— constitutes a mode of living in times of crisis.

Fidesz, the state-subsumption of domestic business and the emergence of prebendalism: capitalist development in an ‘illiberal’ setting

ABSTRACT The Hungarian coalition government (Fidesz-KDNP), dwarfed by the much larger Fidesz party, has not only dominated the domestic political landscape since 2010 but also embarked on a widespread organised project of corrupt practice for the purposes of self-reproduction. These factors combine to make Hungary a highly unique politico-economic case amongst its post-socialist European peers. This article investigates a critical aspect of this phenomenon, namely, how far Fidesz has subsumed domestic business through an enlarging state–business relationship, described here by the Weberian term ‘prebendalism’. Using insights from data captured from elite interviews conducted in Budapest in 2017, this research discusses the origins of Fidesz longevity and the successes of the prebendal network in determining current and potential paths of capitalist development. Subsequently, it is argued that institutionalist approaches to capitalist development can maintain efficacy but must acknowledge the critical importance of political agency in determining such outcomes. Consequently, scope is provided for future research to investigate continued corrupt practice, prospects for changes to the external dimensions of the national political economy and regime strategies in Hungary and cognate ‘illiberal’ regimes, advancing nascent studies of comparative capitalism that have moved beyond focus on Eurozone and/or so-called advanced economies, to encompass developing markets.

Domesticating Gertrude Stein, or, “banal queerness”: reading “Lifting Belly” alongside What Happened and A Play Called Not and Now

ABSTRACTReading Gertrude Stein’s long poem “Lifting Belly” alongside her plays What Happened and A Play Called Not and Now, this essay identifies banality and queerness as formal elements of Stein’s writing, and contends that this emerges from her persistent interest in domesticity. Despite the thematic and formal resonances between these texts, few critics read Stein’s drama and poetry together. Juxtaposing them allows me to demonstrate that, for Stein, domesticity produces a new kind of form. Repetitive, elliptical, and fragmented, these texts take their shape from Stein and Toklas’s domestic landscape, incorporating both the objects and conversations that fill it. The result is a text fundamentally shaped by the familiar rhythms and intimate spaces of everyday life, but encompassing, too, the unevenness, confusion, and uncertainty that can interrupt and invade that life. In addition to providing a new account of the role of domesticity in Stein’s experiments in literary form, this essay advances existing conversations about Stein’s queer modernism, and suggests another way of valuing Toklas’s contribution to Stein’s work: as a co-creator of domestic space.

Material Witnesses: Domestic Architecture and Plantation Landscapes in Early Virginia

Material Witnesses: Domestic Architecture and Plantation Landscapes in Early Virginia

A Domestic Space: The Central and Eastern Carpathians in the Polish Tourist and Local Lore Discourse, 1918–1939

The article presents various ways of ideologization of the Central (Boyko and Lemko regions) and Eastern (Hutsul region) Carpathians in interwar Poland. After the Polish-Ukrainian War (1918–1919), that part of the Carpathian mountain range was situated in the Second Polish Republic. In contrast to the Tatras, which played the role of Polish national landscape, the Carpathians were alien to Poles in terms of ethnicity and culture. Thus, the Polish authorities, as well as touristic and local lore organizations, sought and largely managed to transform these mountains into a domestic landscape, which was no center of national identity but constituted an important spot on the mental map of the Polish national community, recognized as an undeniable part of Polish statehood. The article shows how the exoticization of the Carpathians, state holidays, and the development of state-funded mass tourism resulted in the increased sense of familiarity between Polish lowlanders and highlanders and, consequently, the symbolic inscription of the Carpathians into the Polish domain and common imagination.

Historical landscape domestication in ancestral forests with nutrient-poor soils in northwestern Amazonia

Past human modification of forests has been documented in central, southwestern, and eastern Amazonia, especially near large rivers. Northwestern Amazonia, and interfluvial forests there in particular, are assumed to exhibit little past human impact. We analyzed soils and floristic structure and composition of interfluvial forests located in the Içana River basin, northwestern Amazonia, to assess their degree of past human modification. Ancient Baniwa village sites, abandoned centuries ago, have given rise to “ancestral forests” with as much as 57% of all trees/palms belonging to a group of species managed currently by the Baniwa, compared to only 10% of such species in old-growth forests that are not remembered as having been inhabited or managed in Baniwa oral tradition. Participatory mapping and direct observations revealed ancestral forests to be widely distributed throughout the region, whereas old-growth forests are rare. Managed species in ancestral forests contributed 5-fold more to total tree/palm biomass than in old-growth forests. Human management has produced lasting changes in floristic composition, maintained total tree/palm biomass, and improved soil quality. This is the first study to demonstrate past human modification in Amazonian interfluvial forests, while explicitly isolating historical human management from edaphic effects on floristic structure and composition. Despite environmental limitations on human population size, posed by nutrient-poor black water rivers and acidic, sandy soils, indigenous peoples of northwestern Amazonia left a clear, lasting cultural legacy in ancestral forests. Given legal changes that threaten indigenous peoples' land rights currently under debate in Brazil, we call for a reconsideration of biodiversity conservation policies and indigenous rights in areas that show enduring legacies of management by indigenous populations.