Landscapes of a New Cultural Economy of Space - by Theano S Terkenli & Anne-Marie D'Hauteserre (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Making sense of new cultural economies, it is argued, needs consistent attention to the resonances of individual lives. Otherwise, a discussion of cultural economies remains suspended in a detached virtualism (Miller, 2000). The idea of the remaking of geographies and cultural economies remains, necessarily, a consistent search to make the subject dynamic in its resonance with the contemporary world. In recent debates concerning the reframing of the cultural economies of geography, there is an evidence of increasing acknowledgement of the overlooked importance of subjectivities within geographical explanation. This has often been difficult when trying to attend to the large scale apparent dynamics of change. The shift of geographies to focus upon cultural economies combines two profound threads that inform this chapter: the acknowledgement of the breadth and inclusivity of what economies are and the refusal mutually to isolate the cultural and the economic. Thus the economic becomes engaged and even framed in relation to the cultural, and vice versa. Such an appraisal makes more robust the limits of 'either - or' claims from these two grounding components of geographical thinking and its representation of the world. These themes are sustained in different ways across the chapters of this book. This chapter seeks to build a critical discourse concerning space, embodied practice and lay knowledge. It does this in order to address the mechanisms through which individuals are engaged in the processes of new cultural economies.

From the Back Cover

This book seeks to contribute to theoretical advances, analytical approaches and applied studies in the broader inter-disciplinary field of contemporary landscape transformation research.

The purpose of the book is to tie together various perspectives, insights and constructions pertaining to contemporary landscapes and landscape representations from different theoretical and methodological positions as well as from diverse geographical and historical contexts in order to elucidate and illustrate processes of cultural transformation inscribed in space. The unifying theme, as well as the main goal and prospective contribution of this book, then, lies in the exploration of these developing forces and characteristics of the new cultural economy of space in the contemporary landscape(s). The primary objective of bringing together in this book geographical perspectives from various subdisciplinary fields is to examine and discuss ways in which the complexities of this newly-emerging cultural economy of space are applied on various sorts of landscapes, i.e. urban and rural landscapes, landscapes of everyday life, landscapes of tourism and recreation, postcolonial and hybrid landscapes, landscapes of economic production, landscapes of the street and of public life, "national landscapes" and so on. The overarching question, thus, is: how do these processes work in different geographical contexts and contribute to place and landscape creation?

Our intention is to create a space for the development of landscape discourse(s) that accommodate(s) both theory and empirical findings as well as methodological issues and practical applications pertaining to the contemporary landscape(s), by examining trends, structures, technologies and practices defining and articulating this new cultural economy of space. Another goal is to identify and facilitate innovative debate and engagement between geography and other sciences researching landscape(s). It is hoped that this endeavor will generate many more questions and areas of inquiry pointing to new directions currently developing in the study of landscape(s) than the questions on the basis of which this task was undertaken here in the first place.

Review Quotes

From the reviews:

"The strength of this book is the indepth and multiple perspectives investigation of landscape transformation ... . The book is reader-friendly and its chapters are well-structured around the four processes of landscape transformations. ... Overall, this is a well-written and easy-to-read book ... . The book links disparate research being done in the field and provides a comprehensive guide and useful source of references to graduate students, university faculty, tourism professionals, and policymakers." (Marianna Sigala, Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 34 (3), 2007)

"Landscapes of a New Cultural Economy of Space helps to link recent discussions of the cultural economy of space and globalization with the well-established literature on landscape in cultural geography. ... The stated goal of this edited volume is to explore how culture and economy intersect in the creation of contemporary places and landscapes. ... a good starting point for researchers seeking to explore the contours of landscapes shaped by the new cultural economy." (Michael W. Longan, The Professional Geographer, Vol. 60 (1), February, 2008)