The Right to Landscape: Contesting Landscape and Human Rights

ISBN-13: 9781409404446 / Angielski / Twarda / 2011 / 338 str.

Egoz, Shelley

Opis

Associating social justice with landscape is not new, yet the twenty-first century's heightened threats to landscape and their impact on both human and, more generally, nature's habitats necessitate novel intellectual tools to address such challenges. This book offers that innovative critical thinking framework. The establishment of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948, in the aftermath of Second World War atrocities, was an aspiration to guarantee both concrete necessities for survival and the spiritual/emotional/psychological needs that are quintessential to the human experience. While landscape is place, nature and culture specific, the idea transcends nation-state boundaries and as such can be understood as a universal theoretical concept similar to the way in which human rights are perceived. The first step towards the intellectual interface between landscape and human rights is a dynamic and layered understanding of landscape. Accordingly, the 'Right to Landscape' is conceived as the place where the expansive definition of landscape, with its tangible and intangible dimensions, overlaps with the rights that support both life and human dignity, as defined by the UDHR. By expanding on the concept of human rights in the context of landscape this book presents a new model for addressing human rights - alternative scenarios for constructing conflict-reduced approaches to landscape-use and human welfare are generated. This book introduces a rich new discourse on landscape and human rights, serving as a platform to inspire a diversity of ideas and conceptual interpretations. The case studies discussed are wide in their geographical distribution and interdisciplinary in the theoretical situation of their authors, breaking fresh ground for an emerging critical dialogue on the convergence of landscape and human rights.

Recenzje

'The Right to Landscape promises to transform "landscape" from a concept in cultural geography and landscape architecture to a concept indispensable to the probing of human nature and human well-being, drawing on and cross-fertilizing such diverse fields as the study of nature, history, anthropology, psychology, politics, and law.' Yi-Fu Tuan, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA 'This book is motivating and inspiring. Although academic, the writing is clear and fluent. It redefines landscape as a vital public good, and the issues addressed are relevant to us wherever we live or work.' Garden Design Journal 'This is one of the most innovative books in the area of multidisciplinary environmental sciences that I have read in recent years. It explores a wide range of topics that include urban, ethical, legal environmental, political and art related themes. It situates landscapes in a multidisciplinary and holistic context. As such, it inspires a diversity of ideas and conceptual interpretations. It offers both fundamental-academic and applied-managerial anchor points. This book should be compulsory background reading for postgraduate students in geography and human ecology. It is an inspiring text for environmentalists and decision makers on landscape and nature conservation. It contributes to a most tempting and legitimate widening of the environmental discourse.' International Journal of Environment and Pollution

O autorze

Shelley Egoz, Senior Lecturer, Lincoln University New Zealand, Jala Makhzoumi, Professor of Landscape Architecture, American University of Beirut, Lebanon and Gloria Pungetti, Research Director, Cambridge Centre for Landscape and People, and Chair, Darwin College Society, University of Cambridge UK