Crisis of landscapes, landscapes of the crisis: notes for a socio-ecological approach

PARASCANDOLO, FABIO

2016-01-01

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Abstract

The paper focuses on the relationships between landscape and the multi-faceted crisis of our times. We live in a time of crises for Western citizens (cultural, ecological, political, institutional and social crises). The landscape crisis is actually entangled in a bundle of planetary crises, and this paper represents an attempt to outline a relational and genetic approach to this subject. Landscape crisis is rooted in an underlying territorial crisis, and the case of the crumbling of the Italian code of space is taken as an example. The premodern Italian landscape has been dismantled by the irruption of a growth-first paradigm and a commodification of the social system. In a globalising process, surrounding territories have lost importance for localised communities. Contextually, mechanized monocultures and industrialized metropolitan areas have reshaped the geographical features of territories, in Italy and on the world scale. The landscape issue cannot therefore be detached from an overall process of change from traditional to modern territorialities. This approach to landscapes and landscaping aims to provide some basic tools to deconstruct the reasons for the present crisis from their foundations, in the conviction that the landscape cannot be “saved” alone. In fact, it is not possible to attain liveable landscapes without preserving at the same time our territories, our living planet and the natural commons essential to life.