This book, a compendium of 28 papers selected from two recent conferences on the topic, focuses on aspects of rural landscape, broadly related to issues of language, representation and power. These are issues that have not been addressed on a pan-European landscape level before.The aim is to offer a deeper interdisciplinary understanding of historical and contemporary processes in European landscapes.

The book contributes to the relatively extensive study of landscapes by exploring the interfaces in the landscape. Instead of taking a viewpoint of some of the disciplines we try to map the links between them, indicate points for common understanding and cooperation. These interfaces happen between different cultures, between natural and human sciences, past and present, lay people and experts, time and space, preservation and use, ecology and semiosis. It compares how different cultures interpret landscapes, how cultural values are assessed, explores new tools for assessment, picks up the...

This book, a compendium of 28 papers selected from two recent conferences on the topic, focuses on aspects of rural landscape, broadly related to issues of language, representation and power. These are issues that have not been addressed on a pan-European landscape level before.The aim is to offer a deeper interdisciplinary understanding of historical and contemporary processes in European landscapes.

Seasonality is so obvious that we very often forget about it when doing landscape research. Seasonality is the interface where humans and nature really interact. Seasonality is expressed both in the natural rhythms of the landscape as well as in human lifestyles. Seasonality creates varying patterns of use and appears in spatial practices, paintings, human behaviour. Also, seasonality itself changes together with societal changes in agricultural societies, summer used to be the working season and winter the resting one; now we are more and more used to summer holidays

Landscapes...