Landscape Biography, A Way Forward

This workshop aims to give the Landscape Biography an important push into the future. It studies a landscape’s or area’s layered stories and how they evolved over time in a constant interaction between people and the physical environment. As such, landscape biographical work integrates knowledge from a range of fields such as Archaeology, Heritage Studies, History, Historical Geography, Cultural Geography, Social Anthropology, Urban and Landscape Studies, as well as Landscape Architecture.

Since its conception in the 70s and further development from the 90s onwards, the Landscape Biography and its approach have changed and been adapted by a diverse group of scholars, local historians, etc. We believe that the approach can be reflected upon and developed further to help assess landscapes in the context of topical issues of our time that increasingly threaten our landscape such as climate change, biodiversity or large-scale mining. In addition, the Landscape Biography is ideally suited to integrate non-human actors (animals, nature), and to provide a way to holistically address matters such as public participation in heritage. During the workshop we will explore how to integrate these into the landscape biographical method.

We regard the workshop as a first step towards the following overall aims:

• Providing an impetus for innovative research methodologies.
• Initiating a much needed guide for (applied) landscape biographical research.
• Exploring relevant new themes and fields of interest.