Defining Landscape Democracy

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 ‘This international collection of papers has its roots in multiple interpretations of
democratic principles. All its authors share the view that people who are affected
by design and planning decisions should be included in the process of making those
decisions. In sum, the authors expand the traditional boundaries of landscape
thinking in theory and practice to make this an invaluable contribution for all
audiences.’
Henry Sanoff, North Carolina State University, USA

‘The world we inhabit is increasingly created by developers unconcerned about

justice, facilitated by governments fiddling while democracy smoulders. This
anthology searches for ways to reverse this trend. The contributors pose questions
seldom raised in the making of the city. By asking the right questions they provide
uniquely hopeful alternatives that show how to bend the arc of the universe towards
justice.’
Randolf T. Hester, University of California and Center for Ecological
Democracy, USA

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 Defining Landscape
Democracy
A PATH TO SPATIAL JUSTICE

Edited by

Shelley Egoz

Karsten Jørgensen

Deni Ruggeri
School of Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Landscape and Society, Norwegian University
of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway

Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA

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 © Shelley Egoz, Karsten Jørgensen and Deni Ruggeri 2018

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders but if any have been overlooked please contact the
publisher.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the
prior permission of the publisher.

Published by
Edward Elgar Publishing Limited
The Lypiatts
15 Lansdown Road
Cheltenham
Glos GL50 2JA
UK

Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc.

William Pratt House
9 Dewey Court
Northampton
Massachusetts 01060
USA

A catalogue record for this book

is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018931778

This book is available electronically in the

Social and Political Science subject collection
DOI 10.4337/9781786438348

ISBN 978 1 78643 833 1 (cased)

ISBN 978 1 78643 834 8 (eBook)

Typeset by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire

02

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 In memory of Eirin Hongslo

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EGOZ_9781786438331_t.indd 6 29/05/2018 16:17
 Contents

List of contributorsix
Forewordxv
Prefacexxii
Acknowledgementsxxiii
Introductionxxiv

SECTION A  FRAMING THE DISCOURSE

  1 Democratic theories and potential for influence for civil society in

spatial planning processes 3
Lillin Knudtzon
  2 Landscape democracy: more than public participation? 16
Michael Jones
  3 Landscape architecture and the discourse of democracy in the Arab
Middle East 29
Jala Makhzoumi
  4 Exploring the concept of ‘democratic landscape’ 39
Benedetta Castiglioni and Viviana Ferrario
  5 Shatter-zone democracy? What rising sea levels portend for future
governance50
Charles Geisler
  6 Making the case for landscape democracy: context and nuances 61
Shelley Egoz, Karsten Jørgensen and Deni Ruggeri

SECTION B  CONTEXTUALISING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

  7 Towards democratic professionalism in landscape architecture 73

Paula Horrigan and Mallika Bose
  8 Landscape assessment as conflict and consensus 85
Andrew Butler
  9 Invisible and visible lines: landscape democracy and landscape
practice96
Richard Alomar

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 viii  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

10 Enacting landscape democracy: assembling public open space and

asserting the right to the city 106
Joern Langhorst
11 Public space and social ideals: revisiting Vienna’s Donaupark 119
Lilli Lička, Ulrike Krippner and Nicole Theresa King
12 Storytelling as a catalyst for democratic landscape change in a
Modernist utopia 128
Deni Ruggeri
13 Democracy and trespass: political dimensions of landscape access 143
Tim Waterman
14 Rural landscape governance and expertise: on landscape agents and
democracy153
Jørgen Primdahl, Lone Søderkvist Kristensen, Finn Arler, Per Angelstam,
Andreas Aagaard Christensen and Marine Elbakidze
15 Managing cherished landscapes across legal boundaries 165
Morten Clemetsen and Knut Bjørn Stokke
16 Landscape as the spatial materialisation of democracy in Marinaleda,
Spain178
Emma López-Bahut and Luz Paz-Agras
17 Planning the cultural and social reactivation of urban open spaces in
Greek metropoles of crisis 189
Eleni Oureilidou
18 Landscape democracy in the upgrading of informal settlements in
Medellín, Colombia 200
Eva Schwab
19 Learning from Occupy Gezi Park: redefining landscape democracy
in an age of ‘planetary urbanism’ 210
Burcu Yiğit-Turan
20 Democracy and the communicative dimension of public art 222
Beata Sirowy

List of reviewers234
Index235

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 Contributors

Andreas Aagaard Christensen is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of

Copenhagen, Denmark and vice president of the International Association for
Landscape Ecology (IALE). His research interests include the management and
ecology of rural environments and in particular the management of agricultural
landscapes in the industrialised West and its former colonies. Recent research
focused on socio-ecological landscape change through application and further
development of social theory and associated explanatory models.
Richard Alomar is an assistant professor at Rutgers University, New Jersey,
USA. He has an undergraduate degree in agronomy from the University of
Puerto Rico at Mayaguez and an MLA from Louisiana State University, USA.
Richard’s general research focus is on land stewardship in urban underserved
communities with a specific emphasis on the visual analysis of urban landscape
elements.
Per Angelstam is professor of forest and natural resource management at the
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden, and an entrepre-
neur focusing on rural and regional development in Sweden and internation-
ally. He focuses on sustainability science by knowledge production about both
social and ecological systems in landscapes and regions, as well as collaboration
with practitioners to encourage evidence-based learning at different levels of
­governance, planning and management.
Finn Arler is professor of planning and ethics at the Department of Planning
at Aalborg University, Denmark, and head of the university’s Center for Ethics
in Practice. His work focuses primarily on issues of sustainability and environ-
mental ethics, including biodiversity, climate change, energy policy, economy,
land area use and landscape democracy. His current project is about ethics and
energy in Danish energy planning and policy since 1970.
Mallika Bose is associate professor of landscape architecture at Penn State
University, Pennsylvania, USA. Mallika is trained as an architect specialis-
ing in environment-behaviour studies and actively pursues research in public
scholarship and community engaged design/planning; built environment and
health; gender and development; and design/planning pedagogy. She is the co-
editor of Community Matters: Service-Learning in Engaged Design and Planning
(Routledge, 2014), which received the 2015 Great Places Book Award from the
Environmental Design Research Association.
Andrew Butler, PhD, is a researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural
Sciences, Ultuna, Sweden. After studying landscape architecture at Leeds

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 x  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Metropolitan University, UK, he worked in practice for several years in the

UK and Sweden, focusing on landscape assessments. This work informed his
academic career, addressing the assessment stage as a formation of discourse in
landscape planning. The writing of his chapter was supported by his time at the
Norwegian University of Life Sciences as Associate Professor.
Benedetta Castiglioni, PhD, is associate professor of geography at the
University of Padua, Italy. Key themes in her research are the relationship
between people and the landscape, the social questions concerned and the use
of landscape as a ‘tool’, especially in education. She conducts her main case stud-
ies in the Veneto region in Northeastern Italy, related to the urban sprawl in the
plain, hill and mountain areas.
Morten Clemetsen is a landscape architect and professor of landscape plan-
ning at the School of Landscape Architecture, Norwegian University of Life
Sciences, Ås, Norway. He has a professional background as consultant in land-
scape assessment, planning and management, mainly in rural and agricultural
contexts. His main area of interest is currently landscape as a resource in local
curricula and entrepreneurship for community development and integrated
sustainable tourism.
Shelley Egoz, PhD, is professor at the School of Landscape Architecture,
Faculty of Landscape and Society at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences,
Ås, Norway, at which she is also founder and head of the Centre for Landscape
Democracy (CLaD). Shelley’s research, publications and teaching interests
revolve around landscape justice, including the co-edited volume The Right to
Landscape: Contesting Landscape and Human Rights (Ashgate (now Routledge),
2011).
Marine Elbakidze is an associate professor at the Swedish University of
Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden. She focuses on understanding and ana-
lysing the dynamics of social–ecological systems in different contexts by apply-
ing an interdisciplinary approach that includes ecological, social and cultural
dimensions.
Viviana Ferrario, PhD, is associate professor of Geography at the IUAV
University of Venice, Italy. Her main scientific interest is in landscape change
and its drivers, with a focus on urbanisation, agriculture, heritage and renew-
able energy. She has been using the Eastern Alps and Italian Northeastern agro-
urban areas as her main case study.
Charles Geisler is emeritus professor of development sociology, Cornell
University, Ithaca, NY, USA. He has studied land-displacement and dispos-
session in Japan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, the Dominican Republic, Scotland,
Vietnam and the United States.
Paula Horrigan is emerita professor of landscape architecture at Cornell
University, Ithaca, NY, USA, and works to advance democratic placemaking
in landscape architecture and democratic civic engagement in higher educa-

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 Contributors  · xi

tion. She is co-editor of Service-Learning in Design and Planning: Educating at the

Boundaries (New Village Press, 2011) and Community Matters: Service-Learning
in Engaged Design and Planning (Routledge, 2014) and is a fellow of both the
American Society of Landscape Architects and the Council of Educators in
Landscape Architecture.
Michael Jones is emeritus professor at the Department of Geography,
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway. His
PhD is from the University of London (1972). His publications cover landscape
topics, including landscape history, landscape and planning, agricultural policies
and landscape, environmental management, the ‘cultural landscape’ concept,
and landscape democracy, as well as the history of cartography and historical
legal geography.
Karsten Jørgensen is professor of landscape architecture at the School of
Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Landscape and Society at the Norwegian
University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway, and holds a Dr.Scient. degree from
the Norwegian University of Life Sciences from 1989 in landscape architecture
theory. He was the founding editor of JoLA – Journal of Landscape Architecture
from 2006 to 2015. Karsten Jørgensen has published regularly in national and
international journals and books.
Nicole Theresa King is a landscape architect, artist and researcher. King was
architect-in-residence at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture in Los
Angeles, USA. She received the START scholarship for young architects and
designers by the Austrian Federal Chancellery in 2017. King is interested in
manifestations of urban landscapes in aesthetic and sociopolitical terms, and
sees gardens as living archives of utopian and dystopian dreams.
Lillin Knudtzon is a sociologist from the University of Oslo, Norway, and a
PhD candidate at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Norwegian
University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway. She has extensive experience of applied
social research and evaluation of subjects such as democracy and representative
organisations for youth, social housing, public participation, universal design
and sustainable public management.
Ulrike Krippner, PhD in landscape architecture, is senior scientist at the
Institute of Landscape Architecture at BOKU Vienna, Austria, where she
teaches landscape history. Her research focuses on the recent history of land-
scape architecture. Ulrike Krippner has published on twentieth-century
landscape architecture in Austria and on women in landscape gardening and
landscape architecture.
Lone Søderkvist Kristensen holds a PhD in countryside planning and manage-
ment and is associate professor at the Department of Geosciences and Natural
Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Her research
interests include landscape changes in agricultural landscapes, farmers’ land-
scape behaviour, and rural policies and planning. Currently she is involved in
projects on collaborative and strategic forms of landscape planning.

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 xii  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Joern Langhorst is associate professor of landscape architecture at the

University of Colorado Denver, USA, and a fellow of the Colorado Center for
Sustainable Urbanism. His research and teaching focus is on the relationships
between space and social and cultural processes, with a particular emphasis on
questions of social and environmental justice, marginalisation, resistance, and
the contestation of public space. He regularly consults on the redevelopment of
post-industrial landscapes and disaster recovery.
Lilli Lička is professor of landscape architecture at the University of Natural
Resources and Life Sciences at BOKU Vienna, Austria. Her projects focus
on public open spaces, housing and corporate landscapes. She co-curates an
online collection on contemporary Austrian landscape architecture and heads
the LArchiv Archive of Austrian Landscape Architecture. Lilli was Principal of
koselička Landscape Architecture, 1991–2016, and opened the LL-L landscape
architecture firm in 2017.
Emma López-Bahut, PhD, is an architect and lecturer at the School of
Architecture of A Coruña, Spain. She holds a master’s degree in architectural
design from the University of Navarra, Spain. In 2017 she was visiting profes-
sor at Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA. One of her research interests is
‘bottom-up’ processes in the field of architecture, from landscape to housing;
she has published and presented on this topic.
Jala Makhzoumi advocates an expansive, developmental landscape design
approach that mediates socio-economic betterment with ecosystem health and
community empowerment with landscape heritage conservation. Her profes-
sional expertise includes ecological design and planning, sustainable urban
greening and post-war recovery. Jala is president of the Lebanese Landscape
Association (LELA) and co-founder of UNIT44, a Lebanon-based practice
offering services in architecture, landscape architecture, ecological planning and
urban design.
Don Mitchell is professor of cultural geography at Uppsala University, Sweden,
and distinguished professor of geography emeritus at Syracuse University,
NY, USA. He is the author of several books – most recently They Saved the
Crops: Landscape, Labor, and the Struggle Over Industrial Farming in Bracero-Era
California (University of Georgia Press, 2012) – and many articles on landscape,
labour, public space, and theories of culture. Along with the late Neil Smith he
is the general editor of Revolting New York: How 400 Years of Riot, Rebellion,
Uprising, and Revolution Shaped a City (University of Georgia Press, 2018).
Kenneth R. Olwig is emeritus professor of landscape planning at the
Department of Landscape Architecture, Planning and Management at the
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Alnarp, Sweden. He has
previously taught, among other places, at the Department of Geography, at
NTNU, Trondheim, Norway. He is the author and editor of a number of books,
including Landscape Nature and the Body Politic (University of Wisconsin Press,
2002).

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 Contributors  · xiii

Eleni Oureilidou is an architect and landscape architect and a PhD candidate at

the School of Architecture, AUTH, Thessaloniki, Greece. She has published her
research on social-led regenerations, working in parallel for renowned offices
in London (Martha Schwartz Partners) and Greece. Currently she serves the
Humanitarian Sector as an architect in the shelter and settlement department
for displaced populations (Norwegian Refugee Council).
Luz Paz-Agras, PhD, is an architect and lecturer at the School of Architecture
of A Coruña, Spain. She holds a master’s degree in contemporary art from the
University of Santiago, Spain, and held a postdoctoral research position in the
Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, UK. Since 2004,
she has been working on architectural projects and as an exhibition curator,
receiving international recognition.
Jørgen Primdahl is professor of countryside planning at the Department of
Geoscience and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen,
Denmark. His research includes rural landscape management and change,
countryside governance, urban fringe dynamics, and landscape strategy-­
making. Recent publications include Landscape Analysis (Routledge, 2017, with
Stahlschmidt, Swaffield and Nellemann) and European Landscapes in Transition
(Cambridge University Press, 2018, with Pinto-Correia and Pedroli).
Deni Ruggeri, PhD (Berkeley), is associate professor of landscape architec-
ture and spatial planning at the School of Landscape Architecture, Faculty
of Landscape and Society at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås,
Norway. His research focuses on citizen engagement in planning and design,
sustainable urban design and place identity and attachment in residential neigh-
bourhoods and master planned communities. He has practised landscape archi-
tecture and community design internationally and has published extensively on
participation and community design.
Eva Schwab, PhD, is deputy head of the Institute of Urbanism at TU Graz,
Austria. Her research focuses on socio-spatial urban research, the politics of
public space production and socio-cultural aspects of open space use. Her meth-
ods are interdisciplinary, employing a qualitative approach using ethnography
and spatial research.
Beata Sirowy, PhD (2010), is senior research fellow at the Department of
Urban and Regional Planning at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås,
Norway. Her educational background consists of both philosophy and architec-
ture, and her research interests lie at the intersection of these disciplines. She
has worked mainly with the philosophical traditions of phenomenology and
hermeneutics, drawing their implications for architecture and spatial planning.
Knut Bjørn Stokke is a human geographer and associate professor at the
Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Norwegian University of Life
Sciences, Ås, Norway. He has long experience of research and education within
the field of regional and local planning for different types of landscapes, particu-
larly in rural and coastal contexts.

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 xiv  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Tim Waterman is senior lecturer and landscape architecture theory co-­

ordinator at the University of Greenwich, London, and a tutor at the Bartlett
School of Architecture, University College London, UK. He writes for a wide
range of professional and academic publications on the subjects of power,
democracy, taste, foodways and everyday life.
Burcu Yiğit-Turan is assistant professor at the Division of Landscape
Architecture in the Department of Urban and Rural Development at the
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden. She studies land-
scape architectural history, theory and criticism of the twentieth century and
onwards from critical social and cultural perspectives. Her recent works have
concentrated on the cultural landscapes of planetary urbanism and emancipa-
tory planning and design practices.

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 Foreword

The landscape path to spatial justice: questioning, rather than

fixing, the definition of landscape democracy
This book, as the title suggests, is concerned with definition: not definition in
the sense of being definitive, but as an exercise in definition through practice –
­practice that provokes questions that demand ongoing searches for provisional
definition rather than once-and-for-all answers. Thus, as Andrew Butler puts
it in his chapter, ‘Landscape assessment as conflict and consensus’, any truly
democratic participation in landscape assessment ‘would move away from
defining an ultimate definition of a landscape to focusing on common ground
and developing shared meanings’ of landscape as ‘an entity developed through
everyday practices created in the public spaces provided by landscape.1 ... Such
an approach can only be sustained if the assessment is recognized as a learning
process rather than just a means for informing decision-making’ (p. 91). The
book undertakes this exploratory exercise in definition by providing a forum
where landscape architects, architects, planners and geographers reflect upon
the meaning of the relationship between landscape, democracy, space and jus-
tice in relation to their professional practice. This reflection is important because
it raises significant and difficult-to-answer questions concerning just what
is meant by these key, and somehow related, concepts that play a significant
role in defining vital elements of what might be considered a good society. It
is especially important at a time when more and more of us live in environ-
ments that have been affected by landscape planners and designers who work
largely behind the scenes in planning offices and architectural studios (often for
­powerful developers and politicians), creating the scenes within which we act.
How democratic is the landscape they plan and design, and do these land-
scapes provide a path to ‘spatial justice’? These are the key questions asked in
this book – by those who work inside the system as designers and planners,
those who examine it from the outside as analysts and social theorists, and fre-
quently those who are both. When the answer is ‘no’, as it often is, it seeks to
both understand why, and raise further questions that will help us think about
what to do about it.
Asked to reflect on the connection between landscape and democracy, the
authors confront the questions in differing ways, sometimes directly, sometimes
indirectly: to what degree is their profession ‘democratic’, and what relation
does it have to the elusive concept of spatial justice? 2 The concepts of land-
scape, democracy, space and justice do not admit easy definition and are highly
contested. Given that the editors and contributors are primarily landscape
architects and planners, ‘landscape’ is naturally defined in relationship to their

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 xvi  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

professional practice. Landscape is thus first and foremost something that can
be evaluated, planned or designed as a physical space, rather than, for example,
a political landscape – a social, political and legal phenomenon (Olwig 2013)
whose material place may challenge spatial definition in the normal Euclidean
sense of the space of the map and plan (Olwig 2011). This means that, with
some exceptions, the ‘landscape’ treated in this book is only marginally the
‘landscape’ of many landscape historians, archaeologists or geographers, who
are usually concerned with substantially non-planned or non-designed places
that are the historical expression of their shared polities and their representative
and governing institutions and economies, as well as the oppressions, forms
of exploitation, exclusions and violence that such institutions and economies
license (Mels and Mitchell 2013; Mitchell 2007); in other words, the ‘political
landscape’ (Olwig and Mitchell 2008).3
Historically, in fact, a landscape was a prototypical democracy defined as a
people and their place, as governed and shaped by customary law, and as formed
by representative institutions that were concerned with things that matter, and
hence not as defined by landscape planners and architects as things as matter
(Olwig 2013). For researchers engaged with the historical landscape, the ques-
tion of democracy is likely to be intertwined with the evolved customs, laws, and
forms of governance of these places (however inclusionary and exclusionary),
and not something related to the design or planning of a given enclosed space
in accordance with, for example, the wishes of individual stakeholders who are
often property owners or who have an economic proprietorial stake in the land.
This issue is raised particularly in the chapter by the geographers Benedetta
Castiglioni and Viviana Ferrario called ‘Exploring the concept of “democratic
landscape”’. It focuses on an area of Northern Italy that in many ways seems
to represent the direct opposite of a planned and designed landscape, even if,
ironically, it is in the region where, some would argue, the idea of landscape
as a planned and designed space originated with the pioneering work of the
Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio (Cosgrove 1993). These un-designed
places are governed relatively democratically and valued as the landscapes of
home by many ordinary citizens who, due to industrialization and the availabil-
ity of affordable suburban housing, have enjoyed an improved standard of living,
whereas the Palladian landscape was created through enclosure and the dispos-
session of the commoners in the interest of the wealthy (Olwig, K.R. 2016).
Another way of expressing the issue raised by Castiglioni and Ferrario can
be illustrated by two different examples. One concerns a space called the Sheep
Meadow in New York’s Central Park, originally designed in 1858 by the pio-
neering landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted (with Calvert Vaux) as an
intentionally ‘democratic’ space, adjoining prime real estate, for urban recreation
and for urbanites to experience grazing sheep and milk cows (but which is now
mowed by groundskeepers). After responsibility for the design and management
of Central Park was handed from the formally democratic, public City of New
York to the private, wealthy-benefactor-controlled Central Park Conservancy
in 1998, it has been managed as scenery for passive recreational use, and largely
closed for democratic uses such as protests and demonstrations (as ‘the Official

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 Foreword  · xvii

Caretaker of Central Park’, the Conservancy bans outright all ‘organized sports
and gatherings’, despite the Meadow’s history as an ‘iconic gathering spot for
New York’s counterculture, including anti-War protests, peace rallies, love-ins,
be-ins, draft card burnings, Earth Day celebrations, and popular concerts’).4
The other example is meadowlands created by the activity of sheep and shep-
herds on a historically unmapped and undivided commons according to cus-
tomary law in an ordinary everyday working environment, as in England’s Lake
District (which is simultaneously a recreational space pioneered by working-
class ramblers, and an exclusive, outstanding, scenic space for many well-heeled
holiday property owners) (Olwig, K.R. 2016). Both might be perceived as an
expression of ‘landscape’, and both are seen as expressing democracy, but in
what sense do they share the same meaning as ‘landscape’ and how do these
differing ideas of landscape relate to justice and space? The book thus opens
the question of to what degree the concept of landscape, and the accompanying
concept of democracy, as generated by professional landscape architects and
planners who are intentionally engaged in doing landscape as a planned and
designed space, is compatible with places whose value as landscape is difficult to
calculate in such intentionally spatial, planning and aesthetic terms.
This book is, as noted, concerned not only with the definition of landscape,
but also with landscape’s definition in relation to democracy, justice and space.
Although a number of the authors undertake definitions of democracy and jus-
tice in relation to landscape (if not space),5 democracy and justice, of course, are
nevertheless enormous topics and the subject of volumes of books and scholarly
disciplines, and in the end many of the authors’ takes on democracy follow the
conception of landscape expressed in the European Landscape Convention
(ELC).6 The ELC, as a European convention, is largely rooted in Western
notions of democracy and it advocates public participation in the professional
evaluation, protection, management and planning of landscapes. This makes
sense, of course, given that these are the societies to which the ELC largely
applies and the countries in which Western landscape architects and planners
practice their profession. This is well illustrated in the chapter by the geographer
Michael Jones, ‘Landscape democracy: more than public participation?’, which
traces the strengths and weaknesses of different forms of public participation in
the planning process, based upon his long personal experience in Trondheim,
Norway.7 The reflections of the landscape architects and planners in Western
societies are of relevance to both professionals and laymen living in these socie-
ties, who presumably will comprise the primary readership of the book. A valu-
able aspect of this book, however, is that it also includes articles by authors who
do not share these assumptions.
It is common in Western Europe and the Americas to refer to the concept of
democracy practiced in these areas as ‘liberal democracy’. This term reflects the
historical fact that it was the ‘liberal’ economic and political movements of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that overthrew the monarchies of the time
and introduced modern Western democracy. They also, however, enclosed the
common lands of Europe and America, and took them from the commoners
and the native populations – even as they used the fruits of such enclosure,

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 xviii  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

d­ ispossession, and, indeed, enslavement to construct the landscaped parks and

stately manors that comprise at least one vision of the landscape ideal (Said
1993). Liberal democracy, such as that famously championed by America’s
Thomas Jefferson, was, despite his own slaveholding and patrician practices,
strongly linked to the individualism expressed in the notion of ‘one man – one
vote’, and the idea of individually owned bounded properties, which initially
defined who could and who could not vote, the latter including Jefferson’s slaves,
who were themselves property (Olwig 2005).8
One critic of this notion of democracy is the landscape architect Tim
Waterman, who writes in his chapter, ‘Democracy and trespass: political dimen-
sions of landscape access’: ‘To know one’s place in a democracy is to know
that one’s place is often on the other side of someone else’s fence. Trespass is
necessary to the defence of democracy, as is the idea of utopia: the dream of a
better world beyond those boundaries’ (p. 147). An example of how landscape
architects and planners have been concerned with crossing someone else’s
fence to achieve a better world is provided in the chapter by Richard Alomar,
‘Invisible and visible lines: landscape democracy and landscape practice’, which
is about the Afro- and Latino-American gardens in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
and East Harlem and Lower Manhattan, New York. Other examples include:
Joern Langhorst’s ‘Enacting landscape democracy: assembling public open
space and asserting the right to the city’; ‘Landscape as the spatial materialisa-
tion of democracy in Marinaleda, Spain’, by Emma López-Bahut and Luz Paz-
Agras; and Eva Schwab’s ‘Landscape democracy in the upgrading of informal
settlements in Medellín, Colombia’. However, the most trenchant critique, as
might be expected, comes from authors from ‘non-Western’ societies, nota-
bly in this case from the Middle East, where there are still nomads, various
forms of extended family that supersede the individual and the individualized
nuclear family, and centuries-old commons where enclosure has not yet entirely
prevailed, despite the efforts, for example, of the current Turkish regime’s
a­ uthoritarian developmentalism.
Indeed, the view from within Turkey – as from within other authoritarian
developmentalist regimes – is important because the struggles over the political
landscape there disallow simple bromides about the wonders of liberal democ-
racy. In her chapter, ‘Learning from Occupy Gezi Park: redefining landscape
democracy in an age of “planetary urbanism”’, the Turkish landscape architect
Burcu Yiğit-Turan, now based in Sweden, argues that the terminology relating
to landscape democracy in policy and scholarly texts is based upon the ‘con-
cepts of participation, consensus and conflict reduction’ which are rooted in the
‘conventional liberal conception of democracy’ (p. 210). She then goes on to
argue that ‘neo-liberal politics, and consequently urbanism, exerts sophisticated
control over the meaning of any spatial development; it manipulates every pos-
sible medium to propagate the message that there is no alternative to that which
it proposes, and uses participatory planning mechanisms to legitimise its envi-
sions’ (p. 211; for similar arguments in ‘Western’ contexts, see Almendinger and
Haughton 2012; Mitchell et al. 2015). The Turkish government’s appropriation
of a public park in the service of neo-liberal interests exemplifies, for Yiğit-Turan,

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 Foreword  · xix

how landscapes have been transformed ‘at a planetary scale during the past cen-
tury, and this change has gained pace in recent decades, with all social and eco-
logical layers of the planet having been altered by neo-liberal models of urban
development, changing social, mental and environmental ecologies on Earth’
(p. 212). It is ‘through this “development”, [that] the links between people and
landscapes have been severed. People have lost any power for making and con-
necting with landscapes, losing their biological, physical, social and symbolic
relationships with them – that is, their “right to the landscape”’ (p. 213).9
In another chapter, ‘Landscape architecture and the discourse of democ-
racy in the Arab Middle East’, the landscape architect Jala Makhzoumi, of the
American University of Beirut, pursues a similar critique of Western liberal
democracy, arguing that landscape democracy is necessarily ‘concomitant
with the call to de-link democracy from its Western association and enable
bottom-up, culture and place specific discourses’ (p. 31). Makhzoumi argues
that ‘“Landscape” contextualizes the abstract, universal ideal of democracy, just
as “democracy” serves to emphasize the political dimension of landscape’ (p.
31). She illustrates this with a case focusing on the de-facto state enclosure of a
rural commons to make space for intensive forestry, and argues for the need to
recognize indigenous notions of conservation if democratic land management
is to succeed. In this case there is a happy ending, but in others the enclosure
of indigenous commons in the name of conservation has resulted in a form of
land grabbing that integrates former commons into an enclosed and layered
planetary space of property, stretching from the local to the global (Olwig,
M.F. et al. 2015).
Yiğit-Turan’s and Makhzoumi’s chapters thus raise the question of to what
degree the practice of Western European and American landscape planners
can divorce itself from the spatial, proprietorial premises of liberalism and its
globalized variant, neo-liberalism? A key premise of liberal democracy was the
enclosure and privatization of the commons so as to create the individualized
private property regime that is foundational to liberalism (Blackmar 2006).
This meant the transformation of places governed by use rights into uniform
Euclidean spaces governed by property rights, including the property rights of
the state, that are bounded within the space of the cadastral map, as carved
out at various spatial scales from the local to the global (Blomley 2003). This
criticism problematizes whether design and planning, in practice, are capable
of working outside the box of the scaled space of the map writ large as a ‘plan’, a
small-scale form of map, and whether participatory design and planning is nec-
essarily bound to the stakeholders who have pounded their proprietorial stakes
into an earth upon which this map has been engraved? This book indeed raises
many questions – questions that are difficult to answer, but no less important
for that.
Kenneth R. Olwig, Copenhagen, Denmark
Don Mitchell, Uppsala, Sweden
April 2018

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 xx  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Notes
1. Or, as in the case of locations where there are few or no public spaces, as described in the chapter by Eleni
Oureilidou, ‘Planning the cultural and social reactivation of urban open spaces in Greek metropoles of
crisis’.
2. A good example of an approach taken from the ‘inside’ is the chapter by Paula Horrigan and Mallika Bose,
‘Towards democratic professionalism in landscape architecture’.
3. An exception is Charles Geisler, in his chapter, ‘Shatter-zone democracy? What rising sea levels portend for
future governance’, which is concerned with the conflicts arising between the physical landscape of rising
sea levels and the planned landscape of property and governance.
4. See http://www.centralparknyc.org/things-to-see-and-do/attractions/sheep-meadow.html. The treat-
ment of Central Park as a kind of inviolable artwork, within which play is repressed, is relevant to the more
general issue concerning the relationship between democracy and public art addressed in the chapter by
Beata Sirowy, ‘Democracy and the communicative dimension of public art’.
5. For example, Jørgen Primdahl et al., in their chapter on ‘Rural landscape governance and expertise: on
landscape agents and democracy’, and in Lillin Knudtzon’s ‘Democratic theories and potential for influ-
ence for civil society in spatial planning processes’.
6. For example, Morten Clemetsen and Knut Bjørn Stokke, in ‘Managing cherished landscapes across legal
boundaries’.
7. See also Deni Ruggeri’s chapter, ‘Storytelling as a catalyst for democratic landscape change in a Modernist
utopia’.
8. On liberal democracy, see also Lillin Knudtzon’s chapter on ‘Democratic theories and potential for influ-
ence for civil society in spatial planning processes’.
9. For a contrasting questioning of the role of democracy in park planning, see the joint chapter by Lilli Lička,
Ulrike Krippner and Nicole Theresa King, ‘Public space and social ideals: revisiting Vienna’s Donaupark’.

References
Almendinger, P. and Houghton, G. (2012). Post-political spatial planning in England: A crisis of
consensus? Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 37, 89–103.
Blackmar, E. (2006). Appropriating the commons: The tragedy of property rights discourse. In
Low, S. and Smith, N. (Eds), The Politics of Public Space, New York: Routledge, pp. 49–80.
Blomley, N. (2003). Law, property, and the geography of violence: The frontier, the survey, and
the grid, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 93, 121–141.
Cosgrove, D. (1993). The Palladian Landscape: Geographical Change and its Cultural Representations
in Sixteenth-Century Italy, University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.
Mels, T. and Mitchell, D. (2013). Landscape and justice. In Schein, R., Johnson, N. and Winders, J.
(Eds), The Blackwell Companion to Cultural Geography, new edition, Oxford: Wiley- Blackwell,
pp. 209–224.
Mitchell, D. (2007). New axioms for reading the landscape: Paying attention to political economy
and social justice. In Wescoat, J. and Johnston, D. (Eds), Political Economies of Landscape
Change: Places of Integrative Power, Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 29–50.
Mitchell, D., Attoh, K. and Staeheli, L. (2015). Whose city? What politics? Contentious and non-
contentious spaces on Colorado’s front range, Urban Studies, 52, 2633–2648.
Olwig, K.R. (2005). The landscape of ‘customary’ law versus that of ‘natural’ law, Landscape
Research, 30(3), 299–320.
Olwig, K.R. (2011). Choros, chora and the question of landscape. In Daniels, S., Richardson, D.,
DeLyser, D. and Ketchum, J. (Eds), Envisioning Landscapes, Making Worlds: Geography and the
Humanities, London: Routledge, pp. 44–54.
Olwig, K.R. (2013). Heidegger, Latour and the reification of things: The inversion and spatial
enclosure of the substantive landscape of things – the Lake District case, Geografiska Annaler,
Series B: Human Geography, 95(3), 251–273.

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 Foreword  · xxi

Olwig, K.R. (2016). Virtual enclosure, ecosystem services, landscape’s character and the ‘rewild-
ing’ of the commons: The ‘Lake District’ case, Landscape Research, 41(2), 253–264.
Olwig, K.R. and Mitchell, D. (Eds) (2008). Justice, Power and the Political Landscape, London:
Routledge.
Olwig, M.F., Noe, R.K.C. and Luoga, E. (2015). Inverting the moral economy: The case of land
acquisitions for forest plantations in Tanzania, Third World Quarterly, 36(12), 2316–2336.
Said, E. (1993), Culture and Imperialism, New York: Vintage.

EGOZ_9781786438331_t.indd 21 29/05/2018 16:17

 Preface

The Centre for Landscape Democracy (CLaD) established in 2014 at the

Norwegian University of Life Sciences is a cross-disciplinary international
centre for the creation and dissemination of scientific knowledge, creative inter-
pretations and innovative solutions within the theme of landscape democracy.
Its mission is:

To lead, host and provide a conceptual framework in order to motivate high

quality research discourses and practices associated with democracy, rights and
public engagement in landscape functions, patterns and change.

The making of this book is a response to the above aspirations. The discourses,
discussions and deliberations presented by the authors are underlined by a con-
viction that landscape, in its wider conceptual sense, is the life support system
for human and ecological communities. Physical, mental, emotional, economic,
social and cultural wellbeing depend in large part on inclusive planning and
management of landscape. The general axiom is that one can own land, but
landscape is a common good and resource that should afford equal access rights
to all. Seen in this way, a right to landscape is a universal human right and the
intellectual discourses on the concept of landscape democracy are paving the
road toward spatial justice. At the same time constitutional ideals of democ-
racy, human rights, equality and freedom have a tangible landscape dimension.
Democracy as an ideal is rooted in free debate in public space; landscape can
be understood as the spatial materialisation of democracy (or oppression). At
this time of global environmental and economic challenges driving increasing
social tensions, there is an urgent need for an ongoing discussion about the role
of landscape in society. The relevant insights and knowledge included in this
anthology are one small step towards spatial justice.
The Editors
Ås, Norway
April 2018

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 Acknowledgements

There are many colleagues who have made this project possible. First, we would
like to thank the leaders of the Faculty of Landscape and Society at the Norwegian
University of Life Sciences, Eva Falleth and Inger-Lise Saglie, for their trust and
support in the establishment of the Centre for Landscape Democracy (CLaD)
in 2014. Many other colleagues at the Department of Landscape Architecture
and Spatial Planning were enthusiastic about CLaD and contributed time and
energy toward the making of an international body for producing knowledge
on landscape democracy. We feel especially grateful to our deceased colleague,
Eirin Hongslo (1973­–2017), who was instrumental in securing funding for the
CLaD project from the Norwegian Research Council.
We thank Don Mitchell and Kenneth Olwig for taking the time to write the
Foreword to this book and the blind reviewers of our book proposal for their
critique, insights, sound advice and support. We would also like to acknowl-
edge the contribution of our colleague Tim Richardson in formulating our
joint book proposal. Tim, regrettably, had to back off from his role as co-editor
because of other academic administration commitments that had come along
unexpectedly.
All chapters in this volume have been rigorously reviewed ‘double-blind’.
We extend our gratitude and appreciation to our community of landscape
researchers for their time and sharp intellect – please see the list of contributing
reviewers at the back of the book. Such academic dedication and generosity is
what enables the production and dissemination of important knowledge for
society.
The Editors
Ås, Norway
April 2018

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 Introduction

This anthology, Defining Landscape Democracy: A Path to Spatial Justice, pre-

sents a collection of essays that explore the concept and processes of a relatively
newly formed term. As with all new concepts, it is not always evident what the
term actually means. One way to clarify is to elicit a discussion that includes a
variety of approaches, reflections and understandings of an emerging ontology
in landscape studies, one which extends into a political realm and acknowledges
a particular dimension of an aspired social existence: democracy as it relates to
landscape.
We acknowledge that the extent of this collection is not exhaustive or repre-
sentative of all possible angles or examples of landscape democracy. The major-
ity of the authors in this book are landscape architects, yet there are several other
contributors from spatial planning, cultural geography, philosophy, sociology,
landscape management and architecture – all of whom share a mutual interest
in social justice. The scope of these case studies is international and includes
Central and Southern Europe, the Middle East, South America, the USA and
Scandinavia. This variety of geographies, areas of knowledge, and perspectives
is critical to forming the concept of landscape democracy that will continue to
evolve into a universal concept of spatial justice.
The contributions to this book thus seek to frame, and at the same time propel
forward, an interpretation of what landscape democracy means, but also how it
can be imagined, performed, critiqued, and expanded to affect global environ-
mental change for ‘a new democratic engagement occurring across space, time,
and generations’ as articulated by Charles Geisler in this volume (pp. 54–55).
We have divided the book into two parts. Section A frames the discourses
and includes several ponderings and theoretical observations on landscape
democracy. Section B presents case studies to contextualise the various abstract
notions in real space and landscape, discussing these in relation to a number of
different perspectives, both theoretical and from a practice angle. Nonetheless,
each chapter stands as an independent piece telling its own story, understanding
of landscape, and visions for landscape democracy.

Section A: Framing the discourse

In her chapter, ‘Democratic theories and potential for influence for civil society
in spatial planning processes’, sociologist and spatial planning researcher, Lillin
Knudtzon, introduces us to democracy in spatial planning processes through an
overview and analysis of four fundamental types of democratic systems, their
robustness, and the challenges associated with each approach to governance.
She codes these: L (liberal), P (participatory), D (deliberative) and R (radical).

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 Introduction  · xxv

For each category, she clearly highlights the role of the individual versus that of
the collective. Most importantly, she does not stop at describing what is already
known, but enters the realm of utopia by laying out a model for a healthy demo-
cratic process able to direct change toward outcomes that represent the diverse
perspectives of all people. Radical, bottom-up approaches, even those engaged
in tactics that go beyond the traditional governmental sphere, are integrated
into this process.
What happens after landscape change decisions are made? This question
is partly addressed in the following chapter by geographer Michael Jones.
‘Landscape democracy: more than public participation?’ goes along the lines
of Knudtzon’s democratic landscape change process model. It offers a richly
argued critique of participatory landscape design and planning. Jones’ findings
from the Trondheim metropolitan region in Norway illustrate how democratic
institutions and power relations are reflected in the construction and re-­
construction of the Norwegian landscape. He describes the conflicts between
top-down decisions and the radical re-appropriation of public space to construct
new community landscapes for the benefit of all. These cases and experiences
inform a theoretical model explaining the type of landscape transformations
different institutions may be able to generate, and the actors involved in these
landscape changes.
Beirut-based landscape architect Jala Makhzoumi presents a pertinent
approach to landscape democracy. In her chapter, ‘Landscape architecture and
the discourse of democracy in the Arab Middle East’, Makhzoumi introduces
readers to the problematic of a colonial concept of democracy, illustrated by the
processes of top-down so-called democratisation imposed by the West in Arab
Middle-Eastern countries. While providing the explanation for why democracy
is often resented and not openly embraced in these countries, she argues for the
role of landscape in working towards a local democracy. Public space and parks
represent the locus for the daily, everyday performance of democracy; these are
places where democracy could be learned and practised in the long run. As the
landscape is a quintessential cultural construct, it becomes the ideal vessel for
the values and beliefs of residents. It is both the outcome of social processes
and a structuring element for new processes of social construction. Landscape,
as she suggests, ‘contextualises democracy’. This entails overcoming challenges,
which Makhzoumi says are unique and contextual, and can only be managed
through a landscape approach to envisioning change, which includes its physical
transformation as well as the governance processes needed for its maintenance
and survival.
Another chapter that focuses on the instrumentality of understanding the
cultural agency of landscape is Italian geographers Benedetta Castiglioni and
Viviana Ferrario’s ‘Exploring the concept of “democratic landscape”’. They
describe a way of identifying a democratic landscape from the perspective of the
landscape as a physical and visual expression of a particular society, its values,
beliefs and attitudes. Their chapter begins with a discussion of the European
Landscape Convention and its democratising definition of landscape as inclu-
sive of any landscape, whether the everyday, degraded, or outstanding. This is

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 xxvi  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

reflected in a renewed effort on the part of policy-makers to engage communities

through participation in decision-making and policy-setting. The authors argue
that this might result in an ‘exercise in democracy’, that is, a way to redefine
citizenship (and ownership) of the landscape. The Venetian region in Italy offers
a case in point, while also exemplifying a landscape seen by many as aesthetically
compromised, no longer beautiful, and thus badly managed. The authors’ analy-
sis reveals that the disorderly looking landscape is in effect representative of the
changing values and landscape attitudes of the people of the region. Moving
away from the common association that only a visually pleasing landscape
represents a well-functioning and just society, the authors argue that there is a
need to dig deeper into immaterial components of the landscape to evaluate its
democratic character.
At a different landscape scale, and presenting a planetary perspective on the
consequences of the environmental crisis on society and democracy, develop-
ment sociologist Charles Geisler’s chapter, ‘Shatter-zone democracy? What
rising sea levels portend for future governance’, tackles some complicated
unknowns. At the global scale, the overwhelming challenge is to redefine
humans’ relationship to the landscape in all coastal areas, where the social
effects of climate change and rising sea levels are likely to have the most dra-
matic consequences. The author suggests that the solution may need to be a
paradigm shift that deeply alters established relationships between people and
nature, and between land and sea. But he warns of a major risk: in light of these
unprecedented challenges, the solution may become centralised, top-down
and removed from the experience of residents and individuals, and landscape
democracy may become politically inconvenient.
The political nature of landscape is also stressed by landscape architects
Shelley Egoz, Karsten Jørgensen and Deni Ruggeri in their chapter, ‘Making the
case for landscape democracy: context and nuances’. They argue that, in order
to make a case for landscape democracy, one would need to acknowledge the
political potency of landscape and its universal value. The main axiom is that
landscape is a life-supporting system of material and emotional needs and a
common resource. Democracy itself is an elastic concept and does not always
deliver equality and social justice. Landscape democracy is a complex concept
influenced and shaped by multiple variables requiring mindfulness of context
and nuances. Yet the main message is that while each situation has to be handled
according to specific social and cultural manners, the underlying doctrine must
remain an ethical commitment to justice in terms of social equality.
The above six chapters offer some theoretical approaches. Section B provides
an array of examples in an attempt to contextualise how these ideas relate to a
multitude of situations, whether it is conundrums in the professional arena of
activating a democratic versus an undemocratic top-down process, or stories
about places where such processes have taken place, including authors’ reflec-
tions and insights about their interpretations of landscape democracy.

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 Introduction  · xxvii

Section B: Contextualising landscape democracy

In the first chapter of this section, ‘Towards democratic professionalism in land-
scape architecture’, landscape architect Paula Horrigan and architect Mallika
Bose discuss the democratic professionalism of landscape architecture, in rela-
tion to the social trustee and radical critique models of professionalism, and
their blend, democratic professionalism, as studied and taught in academia. Six
landscape architecture educators whose teaching and scholarship centres on
democratic design praxis contribute to the understanding of democratic profes-
sionalism’s pathways, positionality, praxis and purposes.
The role of professionalism in landscape democracy is explored further by
landscape planner Andrew Butler, who, in his chapter, ‘Landscape assessment
as conflict and consensus’, raises the question of what it means for landscape
assessments to deal with landscape as a democratic entity, through studying
both the process and the final assessment documents, and asking how they may
provide transparency in landscape planning processes. Landscape assessment
has the potential, he claims, to contribute to democratic landscape planning
by providing a medium for questioning the values of landscape, and discussing
landscape and democratic processes.
The democratic process as it relates to design and landscape architecture is
also what landscape architect Richard Alomar addresses in his chapter, ‘Invisible
and visible lines: landscape democracy and landscape practice’. How, he asks,
can landscape architects achieve more equitable and democratic outcomes
through their work? The chapter presents three urban projects where invisible
and visible lines serve as a point of departure for a review of the design process.
The lines may divide social classes, define properties, or delineate infrastructure
and jurisdiction, and working in this landscape requires an approach that allows
a broad inclusion of people and methods of engagement, in contrast to the tra-
ditional role of the expert that produces top-down designs based on accepted
planning regulations.
In ‘Enacting landscape democracy: assembling public open space and assert-
ing the right to the city’, another landscape architect, Joern Langhorst, illustrates
how most theoretical perspectives on the relationship between the spatio-­
material and the democratic, foreground highly diverse, contested and uneven
urban processes’ formation and transformation. Langhorst argues that various
systems of neo-liberal restructuring are threatening democracy. He proposes
adopting the concept of ‘assemblage’ as a methodology by ‘[c]onceptualizing
public urban space as being continuously “assembled”, and operating in fluid
environments with various human and non-human actors that intersect and
interact’ (p. 108). This, says Langhorst, has the potential to enhance under-
standing of the relations between the actual and the possible, as well as the
various ways that urban inequality is produced and experienced. In addition,
assemblage can be imagined as collage, composition and gathering, offering
generative and actionable ontologies and epistemologies.
Landscape architects Lilli Lička, Ulrike Krippner and Nicole Theresa King
investigate a historical context of social democratic ideals in their chapter,

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 xxviii  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

‘Public space and social ideals: revisiting Vienna’s Donaupark’. They examine
the role of parks as urban public spaces that mirror the dynamic histories of plan-
ning approaches, design concepts and ideologies. They conclude that although
common characteristics of landscape democracy, such as citizen participation
in decision-making and a bottom-up process, were not embraced in this case: it
is ‘a huge success in terms of “social green”’ (p. 126), adapting well to changing
social needs over time. Their analysis highlights that what we might often define
as practices for landscape democracy is not necessarily the only way to achieve
landscape democracy.
On a community scale, and focusing on people’s interaction and participa-
tion, landscape architect Deni Ruggeri demonstrates in his chapter, ‘Storytelling
as a catalyst for democratic landscape change in a Modernist utopia’, how story-
telling can enhance participation and engagement in a community development
process. Through a case study of the Italian new town of Zingonia, the relevance
of residents’ stories as tools for achieving sustainable, democratic change is
revealed, moving a community from inaction and despair toward hope, through
democratic, collective action.
Movement in a different sense is the physical crossing of boundaries as a
democratic right that is discussed by landscape architect Tim Waterman in his
chapter, ‘Democracy and trespass: political dimensions of landscape access’.
Waterman views legislation against trespassing, and the barriers to physi-
cal access to landscape that it creates, as ‘a sign of the breakdown or denial of
democracy in the public sphere’ (p. 143). Democracy, he argues, is based on
values of egalitarianism; enclosure is undemocratic and those who are denied
access have a right to resist it. In highlighting mass trespassing events in 1930s
England and the more recent Occupy movement, Waterman makes the case
that ‘[t]respass is necessary to the defence of democracy, as is the idea of utopia:
the dream of a better world beyond those boundaries’ (p. 147).
A group of Scandinavian countryside planning researchers, Jørgen Primdahl,
Lone Søderkvist Kristensen, Per Angelstam, Andreas Aagaard Christensen and
Marine Elbakidze, in collaboration with philosopher Finn Arler, add to this argu-
ment in their chapter, ‘Rural landscape governance and expertise: on landscape
agents and democracy’. They claim that landscape democracy must go further
than the present highly individualised and market-oriented landscape manage-
ment, which has resulted in an increasing number of economic, environmental
and social problems. According to the authors, the three key agents – the indi-
vidual manager, the public agency and the local community – have to find new
modes of collaborating constructively. The aim is to reach a level of trust and col-
laboration that enables the evolution of local dialogue-based institutions, such
as territorial co-operatives or similar kinds of collaborative landscape initiatives.
More insights on countryside landscape management and boundaries are
presented in the chapter, ‘Managing cherished landscapes across legal bounda-
ries’. Landscape architect Morten Clemetsen and geographer Knut Bjørn
Stokke investigate, through case studies from Western Norway, how manage-
ment regimes of protected nature and landscapes depend on the stakeholders’
democratic agendas and perceived legitimacy. They suggest that education of

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 Introduction  · xxix

landscape planners should enhance skills and values so candidates may work
as ‘integration actors’ and promote democratic and transboundary landscape
management. Their theory lays the foundation for an integrated, network-based
democratic landscape governance system. In this way, the authors begin to
answer the question left open by the previous chapter.
The following three chapters are based on case studies in which the authors
themselves were involved, and argue that landscape democracy has in effect
been realised in one way or another.
The first is the chapter, ‘Landscape as the spatial materialisation of democracy
in Marinaleda, Spain’, by architects Emma López-Bahut and Luz Paz-Agras.
They apply the work of contemporary critical theorist Nancy Fraser regarding
three scales of justice: the distribution of resources, recognition of individual
rights and political representation, and analyse the development processes in
Marinaleda against those criteria. They conclude with the uplifting message that,
although never stated as a goal, a bottom-up democratic process ‘transformed
the town and its urban and agrarian landscape through a genuinely democratic
process, representing a tangible expression of their society’ (p. 187).
Also addressing bottom-up processes is architect Eleni Oureilidou’s chapter,
‘Planning the cultural and social reactivation of urban open spaces in Greek
metropoles of crisis’, describing bottom-up initiatives for landscape democracy.
The biggest challenge of public spaces in Greece is to correspond to social
changes caused by the economic recession, immigration, and identity fragmen-
tation. Bottom-up initiatives have to take into consideration the complexities
of multi-ethnic neighbourhoods. In such cases, urban open spaces may work as
incubators of cultural co-habitation and self-organisation. The author describes
her involvement with a team project, ‘Kipos3-City as a resource’, in the city of
Thessaloniki, mapping vacant spaces within a densely populated urban fabric to
identify areas suitable for urban agriculture. The process involved social capital
and fully embraced the community as an equal partner.
Social capital is also a key factor in the chapter, ‘Landscape democracy in
the upgrading of informal settlements in Medellín, Colombia’, by landscape
architect Eva Schwab. Informal settlements’ governmental upgrading initiatives
focused on spatial and infrastructural improvements based on participatory
planning and design processes. Public open spaces proved to be key interven-
tion sites of urban upgrading programmes, as they triggered wider social and
physical change in the areas.
The last two chapters explore further angles on the role of public spaces in
democracy.
The Occupy Gezi Park events in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2013, started as a protest
against the privatisation of a public park; it became an iconic series of events
addressing people’s demand for democracy and for the right to landscape.
Turkish-born landscape architect Burcu Yiğit-Turan claims in her chapter,
‘Learning from Occupy Gezi Park: redefining landscape democracy in an age of
“planetary urbanism”’, that there is no such thing as an innocent reading of the
production of a landscape. She describes how the Occupy movement revealed
the way in which fragmented pieces of neo-liberal economic forces came

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 xxx  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

together in a transformative way to destroy a people’s cherished landscape. She

argues that where there are conflicting interests, a mitigating consensus process
will not deliver justice. Rather, it is exactly such expressions of conflict as those
that were encountered in Gezi Park that are essential for the revelation of, and
for achieving, political justice that might bring about progressive change.
In the last chapter, ‘Democracy and the communicative dimension of public
art’, architect and philosopher Beata Sirowy presents the problematic of making
decisions about the type of public art in cities. Discussing recent public dis-
courses in Norway, Sirowy describes the tensions between an artist’s freedom
of expression and the public’s acceptance of an art creation that is presented
in public space. The author shows how public art, like any other intervention
in public space, may strengthen or limit the role of public space as an arena for
collective action, depending upon whether it sustains ownership and sense of
belonging, or reinforces alienation. She then suggests that in order to embrace
democracy in this context, the criteria for selecting art to be exhibited in public
space should adopt a hermeneutical theoretical perspective inspired by German
twentieth-century philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, whose ‘perspective [on]
the meaning of a work of art is neither once and for all determined by the author
and waiting to be deciphered, nor freely constructed by the observer. It is, rather,
negotiated between the observer and a work of art’ (p. 231).
Overall, this collection presents varied perspectives on landscape democ-
racy, and we hope this is just the beginning of a continuing discussion that will
become another path to spatial justice.
The Editors
Ås, Norway
April 2018

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 Section A

Framing the discourse

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EGOZ_9781786438331_t.indd 2 29/05/2018 16:17
 1
Democratic theories and
potential for influence for civil
society in spatial planning
processes Democratic theories and spatial planning processes

Lillin Knudtzon

Introduction
As the landscape convention bides countries to plan democratically, there is a
need to decipher what democracy can imply. This chapter focuses on the place
of civil society in four contemporary theoretical approaches to democracy, dis-
cussing the consequences of each for processes of land-use decisions.
Planning and design processes involve a spectrum of actors, with designers,
(landscape) architects, real-estate developers, public planners and politicians
being core part-takers. They may agree in principle that a process should have
democratic legitimacy, but may have diametrically different ideas of what
that implies in practice. Elaborating on ideals for democracy may clarify the
theoretical terrain and facilitate communication in a policy area with immanent
contestations.
What does democracy imply? Following the Greek words demos (people)
and kratos (ruling), this text centres around inclusion of civil society in planning
processes: who are ‘the people’, and what does their ‘ruling’ imply within each
approach to democracy? I describe what potential each holds for inclusion of
civil society at different stages of a planning process, distinguishing between
liberal, participatory, deliberative and radical understandings of democracy. As
the liberal (with its core role of the people voting) is dominant in many Western
societies today, I demonstrate that the others represent alternative perspectives
pointing to richer processes but in alternative ways at different stages. The par-
ticipatory gives prevalence to local and direct power, preferably in initiating
phases. The deliberative seeks construction of a best possible knowledge base
through discursive representation as well as well-reasoned solutions. The radical
challenges the hegemonic power and seeks mobilization of marginalized voices.
The chapter starts with a short background on challenges for public participa-
tion followed by a review of the four approaches to democracy. The next section

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 4  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

presents a model of ten generic stages of a planning process, and discusses con-
crete and practical consequences on public inclusion depending on conceptions
of democracy. The chapter concludes by highlighting implications of democratic
models for public planners seeking stronger democratic legitimacy.

Challenges of participation as democratic inclusion

Over recent decades, the ambition of public participation has become a popu-
lar answer to a challenge of more democratic inclusion, and has made its way
into appropriate legislation. This is also the case in the European Landscape
Convention, as article 5c bids each party:

... to establish procedures for the participation of the general public, local and
regional authorities, and other parties with an interest in the definition and
implementation of the landscape policies ... (CoE 2000, p. 4)

The associated Guidelines provide further ambitions and recommenda-

tions for public inclusion (Jones and Stenseke 2011). Still, including phrases
in legislation does not necessarily have large impacts in practice. Numerous
texts problematize inclusiveness of actual planning processes related to different
dimensions. Classical lines of exclusion are gender, social class, age, race and
ethnicity. These are well recognized in democratic theory and may be labelled
external as they concern how people are kept outside political processes (Young
2000, pp. 52–55). Exclusions can also be more subtle or internal as ‘they con-
cern ways that people lack effective opportunity to influence the thinking of
others even when they have access to fora and procedures of decision-making’
(ibid., p. 55). Another version of this is cognitive closure, as described by Hanssen
and Saglie (2010), where the dominant discourses in planning exclude certain
­arguments, perspectives or understandings.
In the planning arena, differences in power might follow difference in
­economic interests. Actors with economic interests in developments might
oppose interference from civil society as it may imply a risk of prolonged
decision-­making processes and diminishing profit. Unintended shortcomings of
participatory ambitions in planning are aptly summed up by Jean Hillier (2003,
p. 157):

The commitment to increase participation in planning practice has tended to

overlook populist mobilization of public opinion, often favouring networks of
articulate, middle-class property owners to the exclusion of the voices of the
marginalized and of planning officers. In such instances, public involvement is
‘skewed’ and ‘public opinion’ distorted.

Still, while acknowledging possible pitfalls of public participation, theo-

reticians and researchers keep promoting democratic inclusion in planning
(Forester 2009; Hillier 2002; Jones and Stenseke 2011; Sager 2013). I will join
forces with them, pointing to different potentials for influence for civil society
depending on understandings of democracy.

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 Democratic theories and spatial planning processes  · 5

A brief review of democratic theories and their respective

accounts of civil society
Democracy can be categorized as a contested concept (Cunningham 2002).
There are numerous ways to label and group models of democracy. Mine largely
follows common categorizations (Held 2006; Purcell 2008) but is adapted by
placing civil society1 as a distinguishing feature.
To highlight main differences for civil society in decision-making in planning,
I start by presenting the distinct divide between a liberal and a republican tradi-
tion (Habermas 1996; Held 2006). Within a liberal understanding, primacy is
given to the individuals’ rights and freedom from the state, whereas in the repub-
lican tradition exchange of arguments and active citizenship are core values.
In the liberal understanding, individuals are the only relevant entities, whilst
the republican is oriented towards collectives and communities, with Rousseau
advocating the ideal of identifying a ‘general will’2 that all citizens should be
bound by.
The republican tradition has branched in several directions, where participa-
tory democracy and deliberative democracy have especially influenced plan-
ning theory over recent decades. As there are different versions of these, and
as communicative and collaborative planning theory often merge aspects from
both, core elements for the reasoning in this text will be specified. In addition to
these, a radical perspective on democracy is included. Some radical approaches
to democracy have seen civil society as part of the state and as reproducing a
repressive structure (Scott and Marshall 2009, p. 83). Later approaches, such as
Chantal Mouffe’s, see participation of citizens as essential. Her version explicitly
‘shares the preoccupation of various writers who want to redeem the tradition
of civic republicanism’ (Mouffe 2005b, p. 19). All three versions, opposing the
liberal approach, may be labelled radical due to their quest for an expansion
of arenas for democratic processes and their challenge of the established lib-
eral construct and its thin democracy (Vick 2015, p. 206). However, the term
‘radical democracy’ is in this text reserved for an approach that goes further in
advocating the need for disclosure of differences of interests.
Hence, I put forward four ideal typical3 versions of democracy – liberal, par-
ticipatory, deliberative and radical – and stress the place of civil society within
them. For each I focus on core values, citizens’ role in a democratic process,
view on legitimacy of decisions and the natural place of public participation in
planning.

Liberal democracy: indirect power through voting

The term ‘liberal’ appears in contrasting ways within literature and everyday
language. Here it is not used in the common (North American) understanding
as being politically progressive and inclusive, but, rather, connected to classical
liberal political theory founded on liberalism (Held 2006, p. 59). This approach
to democracy is also called ‘aggregative’, due to its basic view of a right decision
as the aggregation of individual votes.

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 6  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Schumpeter’s (1942) assessment of democracy as a method for making deci-

sions remains a core within a liberal understanding of democracy. The primary
roles of the ‘demos’, or citizens, are as voters in elections and as rights holders,
whereas elected representatives make the calls between elections. Decisions
made by representative bodies are a priori legitimate as long as no basic individ-
ual rights to freedom and property are violated. Citizens’ option to not vote for
politicians in further elections, should they disagree with decisions, is a crucial
element giving citizens some power.
Applying this democratic theory to a planning context implies that public
participation should consist of enabling legitimate stakeholders in general and
neighbouring property holders in particular to secure their (primarily eco-
nomic) interests, as their interference and defence of their properties’ value is
considered legitimate. Written inputs to hearings, as well as protesting, lobbying
and activism from civil society are all actions in line with this understanding of
democracy, as a right to protecting your own interests is a main characteristic.
Politicians have an incentive to listen to (powerful) citizens to secure re-election.
Although this understanding of democracy is rarely advocated as an ideal in
planning theory, some advocate the market as a better indicator of civic opinion
in planning than participatory efforts (Pennington 2002). Furthermore, a mini-
malist approach may in practice be a customary solution in actual processes, as
it can be seen as time efficient and possibly requiring less effort from planners.
Property developers seeking to minimize interference will often hold this view
of democracy.

Participatory democracy: local and direct power

Participatory democracy implies that people have genuine influence in
­decision-making (Pateman 1970), and advocates a transformation to further the
principles of direct democratic decision-making (Vick 2015). Decisions need
to be grounded in broad public participatory processes where those affected are
consulted and preferably given decisive power, ideally resulting in an outcome
based on locally based consensus. This builds on a deeply different view of the
citizen compared with the one represented by liberal democracy. Citizens are
seen as resources to develop well-founded and viable solutions that are accept-
able to those who are affected.
Participation by all who are affected is a practical problem when the number
of people rises (the problem of scale). Hence, a participatory approach may
work best on small-scale polities. Detailed planning may be at a scale where a
participatory approach is closing in on being practically feasible. Face-to-face
involvement in meetings and workshops, and development of locally adjusted
solutions after broad recruitment to reach all affected, are participatory
approaches matching this view. Several planners have advocated these ways of
practical working (Forester 2009; Innes and Booher 1999).
Participatory democracy implies a strong position for civil society, and
addresses imbalances of power, particularly focusing on the exclusion of women
(Pateman 1989). However, it risks not addressing these issues properly in prac-

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 Democratic theories and spatial planning processes  · 7

tice, thereby assuming communities as one-dimensional. The outcomes may

be challenged by others in a pluralistic society, and might therefore still imply
protests or activism, hence breaking with the idea of consensus-based solutions
found in participatory democracy.
As participatory democracy shifts the decisive power from elected politi-
cians to locally based process participants, it risks becoming elitist, as citizens’
strength of voice will vary. A strong preference for the local scale may also lead
to disregard of matters of national or global importance, such as some environ-
mental impacts (Strand and Næss 2017).

Deliberative democracy: power through argumentation

Within deliberative democracy, citizens are seen as political beings oriented
towards the best outcome and as producers of arguments. Decisions are only
legitimate when well-reasoned (Gutmann and Thompson 2004). Reasons
should be acceptable to free and equal persons seeking fair terms of co-­operation
(ibid., p. 3). The processes should be inclusive (Dryzek and Niemeyer 2010)
so everyone may be allowed to challenge them. Habermas’ (1996) theory of
communicative action and his defence of the republican tradition have been
influential. Democracy becomes a way to explore and find good solutions for
the society at large, and the civil society is of paramount importance to achieve
this. The legitimacy of the outcome is dependent on the justification to those
affected.
Within this framework, the purpose of exchanges of arguments is to get all (or
most) important aspects of an issue scrutinized and included in a decision pro-
cess where new insight and preference formation is achieved through dialogue.
To counter the problem of scale, this can be done through representation of
discourses4 rather than people: discursive representation.
Communicative planning theorists draw on Habermas and emphasize
the formation of meaning through dialogue. However, they explicitly do not
embrace a notion of power-free consensus (for example, Forester 2009; Healey
1993; Sager 2013).
For planning, deliberative democracy implies that civil society, both people
and organizations, are actively mobilized to ensure all relevant discourses are
represented and that potential new insights and perspectives surface. As this
position acknowledges pluralism, claims should be considered and answered in
land-use decisions, but not necessarily met.
Although the main way of influencing is through argumentation, activism can
also be an important supplement of action (Young 2001, p. 678).

Radical democracy: transformative power

Finally, there are the radical perspectives voiced by theoreticians such as Jacques
Rancière and Chantal Mouffe. Based on a diagnosis of hegemonic status for
neo-liberal values, profound power imbalances and irreconcilable differences in
today’s Western societies, Mouffe warns against concealment of power and real

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 8  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

interests through consensus-oriented processes. She stresses that the political

aspect of decisions implies deep and irreconcilable contestations, meaning that
consensus represents concealment of power structures (Mouffe 2005a).
Detailed planning will often have the potential to become political in this
sense (Hillier 2002). Radical planning should, then, confront power through
agonistic5 processes where profound differences of interests are recognized and
respected (Pløger 2004). The social constructedness of knowledge is impor-
tant and implies a temporality and plurality of knowledge (Rydin 2007). Civil
society’s role is to expose pluralism and differences in interests. The approach
is positive to direct action as a way to express both passion and standpoint.
Coalitions of marginalized and disadvantaged groups should work with strate-
gies to counter current hegemonic power relations (Purcell 2009, p. 159). As
Mouffe says, ‘[a] healthy democratic process calls for a vibrant clash of politi-
cal positions and an open conflict of interests’ (Mouffe 2005b, p. 6), intended
to lead to ‘a profound transformation of the existing power relations and the
establishment of a new hegemony. This is why it can properly be called “radical”’
(Mouffe 2005a, p. 52).

A generic planning model and democratic openings for civil

society
Although sharing important similarities across nations, physical planning does
have distinct national features depending on factors such as political tradition
and property regimes. Furthermore, features of the land considered for develop-
ment are influential, implying that planning a public park will require different
actions from everyone involved than deciding on the use of a privately owned
lot in the outskirts of an industrial park. Is it desirable, possible or meaningful to
draw up a generic model of local (detailed) planning? I propose that the answer
is yes, as it makes it possible to concretize and compare the otherwise abstract
issues.
I propose that a planning process can be divided into ten stages, as seen in
Table 1.1, where the main actors and their roles are indicated. The model is
loosely based on the Norwegian system, but includes more stages. Planning sys-
tems in different countries might have many or few of these stages. The model
comprises public planning monopoly and private right of initiating develop-
ment. Applicability of stages may vary if the land is privately or publicly owned.
In the following paragraphs, I will discuss the potential influence of civil soci-
ety under each stage and relate it to the approaches to democracy, abbreviated
in Table 1.1 as L (liberal), P (participatory), D (deliberative) and R (radical).
Stage 0 is included to stress that new initiatives relate to higher tier plans and
infrastructure frameworks. This normally involves compliance with, fulfilment
of or adjustment to the overarching expectations, or to apply for exemption
from them. Compliance normally guarantees democratic legitimacy for the
process. However, from a perspective of seeing the local as the paramount level
for decision-making (as the participatory and radical approach might do), over-
arching plans and instructions may be seen as unwelcome restrictions.

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 Democratic theories and spatial planning processes  · 9

Table 1.1  Planning stages, main actors and potential for civil society influence depending
on democratic approach

Planning stages Main actors L P D R

0. Master plans and requirements impose limitations and directions

1. Initiative – forming of
 ideas
2. Discussions of broad
  set of frames
3. Initiative made public /
 invitation to civil society
to take part
4A. Response or input by
  civil society
4B. Collaboration and
 drafting of
plan/agreement
5. Drawing up full
 proposal
6. Municipal handling
  and alterations
7. Political consideration –
 leading to approval for
hearing or rejection/
amendments
8. Hearing of proposed
 plan – response by
stakeholders
9. Political consideration
  and decision
10. Approval or appeal
Initiative by either Public Planning Office (PPO) or – X O X
  Property Developer (PD)a
Public planning officers and initiators (PPO or PD) – X O –
Initiators (PPO or PD) and/or Public Planning Office – O O O
State / national / regional / local level public bodies X – X X
Civil organizations with diverse mandates / local
  community / neighbours
Initiators (PPO or PD) with consultants / architects – X O –
State / national / regional / local level public bodies
Civil organizations with diverse mandates / local
  community / neighbours
Public planning office
Politicians
Initiators with consultants/architects – O – –
Public Planning Office – O – –
Initiators (PPO or PD) with consultants/architects
Elected representatives/politicians O – – O
State / national / regional / local level public bodies X – X O
Civil organizations with diverse mandates / local
  community / neighbours
Elected representatives/politicians (Others through O – O X
 lobbying/interference)
Higher level government (approval) – – – O
Higher level government (appeal)
Initiators (if proposition is denied)
Civil society / neighbours (appeal)

Note: a. ‘Property Developer’ comprises private companies, publicly owned companies and local communities.

Key: L = Liberal; P = Participatory; D = Deliberative; R = Radical; O = Possible stage for civil society
engagement; X = Central stage for civil society engagement.

Stage 1 is making the initiative, having an idea and formally opening a planning
case. Public planners have traditionally done this, but in some countries, private
developers as well as local communities may put forward planning applications.
Consultancy firms and/or architects can be involved as technical expertise. Civil

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 10  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

society is not traditionally part of this phase. Plans initiated in a local community
by the people who will use the area can be truly participatory and radical in a
democratic sense. However, neighbourhood plan initiatives may also originate
from a desire to exclude groups.
Stage 2 is where the initiative is adapted to frames set by strategic plans and
formal requirements. If the initiators are external, they meet the appropriate
public planning authority and negotiate. Representatives for other public agen-
cies may set further specifications or constraints. Civil society is often excluded
from this phase, in line with a liberal approach. Particularly the participatory
approach, but also the deliberative, would endorse wider inclusions at this stage.
Radical democracy, however, voices scepticism of co-optation and of nego-
tiations that may close a process prematurely. Stage 2 may to a large degree be
defining for the project, as main lines are drawn and fundamental decisions are
made, limiting the possible input from the upcoming stages (Nordahl 2006).
Stage 3 is the announcement of the initiative. It may set off genuine public
participation and deliberation. However, mandatory requirements are often lim-
ited to public information and/or letters to legal neighbours. Institutionalized
consultation parties (for example, government agencies, NGOs and formal
interest groups) might also be informed. Within a participatory framework for
planning, those affected should actively be invited in. Active inclusion is in line
with a deliberative and radical understanding of democracy also, but the liberal
approach is content with information only.
Stage 4 is here given two different versions: A or B dependent on the nature
of the initiated engagement. At this point, the proposed development is not yet
fully designed. Stage 4 might take the form of exchanges of viewpoints, either in
writing or in meetings (4A), or it can be in a format where the public influences
directly, gives ideas and draws up alternatives in (for example) workshops, thus
closing in on a participatory approach (4B).
4A may hold deliberative qualities, where arguments are generated and then
met with acceptance or with counterarguments. However, a more normal pro-
gress is stakeholders submitting their concerns in writing without any dialogical
process. Public authorities (at state, regional or local level) are routine partakers
who normally feed in assessments and requirements at this time. Neighbours,
local organizations and different interest organizations might also provide
­perspectives and issues of concern.
Scarce information about a proposed plan might yield few responses or reac-
tions. A result may be that unaddressed contested issues could erupt later in the
process.
Within a liberal approach, where civil society’s role is to pursue individual
interests, sending notifications directly to neighbours and other legal stakehold-
ers will suffice. This implies a risk of a lack of spokespeople for interests that are
not private and individual. Within a deliberative approach, there is an ambi-
tion to have special focus on such interests through discursive representation.
Mobilizing counter hegemonic voices at this stage is paramount for a radical
approach.
4B represents an ambition of engaging civil society directly in forming the

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 Democratic theories and spatial planning processes  · 11

proposal and seeking consensus on the outcome. In a successful version of this,

with initiators, planners, public agencies, technical expertise, politicians and a
comprehensive selection from civil society collaborating in finding solutions,
stages 5 and 6 become incorporated. Stage 7 is the logical end-stage where final
approval is granted.
A radical approach to democracy opposes the striving towards consensus,
as it is seen as likely to support hegemonic positions and legitimize the exist-
ing relations of power instead of challenging it (Mouffe 2000; Purcell 2008).
The liberal approach opposes the shift of power away from elected politicians
implied by 4B.
In stage 5 (following 4A), the proposal is concretized and designed by tech-
nical expertise (consultants/architects working with/for the initiator). If the
initiator is a private developer or the community, this might be done in dialogue
with public planning officers who can advise on regulations and requirements
(integrating stage 6).
Depending on legislation, the proposal might be obliged to present input
from stage 4A and comment on how these are considered and potentially incor-
porated into the plan. This might embody deliberation where addressed issues
are discussed and countered with arguments.
Within a deliberative approach to democracy, all relevant discourses should
be addressed and incorporated as a part of the legitimation of the basis for deci-
sion. This is not crucial in the liberal approach, as it does not require a link
between arguments and decisions.
Stage 6 is the processing of the plan through the professional system in the
municipality, ultimately resulting in a concrete plan proposal to the politicians.
The main actors are the public planning officer (PPO) and initiators mould-
ing the proposal to existing requirements, politicians’ expectations and realistic
scenarios of development. The openness of this process has implications for the
public’s awareness of the emerging proposal and interests connected to it.
Stage 7 consists of local political consideration and temporary endorsement
of the plan to put it forward for comments in a hearing. Approaching politicians
in connection to this stage – lobbying to make sure they are aware of interests
and standpoints – may be an efficient channel of influence for developers. It
may also be used by civil society if the public is amply aware of the content of
the upcoming proposal. Lobbying is normally to impose already established
positions, not to undertake explorative deliberation. Hence, use of this channel
of influence is mostly in line with liberal and radical democracy.
Stage 8 is the official hearing of a fully drawn proposal. It can take the form
of a classical liberal democratic hearing where stakeholders are informed and
invited to state their views. As the physical dimensions and consequences of
the proposal are now easier to grasp, this is the stage where civil society often
becomes aware and aroused for the first time. At this point any adversarial
nature of the process may become apparent. Actors may position themselves
as adversaries with different positions in a struggle. The issues will then (if not
already) become political in Mouffe’s sense, with clear lines of disagreement.
A deliberative dimension may be present if this is civil society’s first

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 12  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

o­ pportunity to influence through argumentation or if the land use is not very

contested. Information and arguments are supplied to further new insight and
deeper understanding. A deliberative approach seeks to resolve disagreements
by revealing the strengths and weaknesses of arguments. Within a radical frame-
work, the issues should be debated in agonistic confrontations where consensus
is not the goal. However, compromises can be acceptable within this framework
(Mouffe 2000, p. 102).
A radical democracy implies that the planning process will gain legitimacy
if differences are transparent and diverging options or opportunities for the
coming physical results are made visible. This is in line with a liberal democratic
approach where different conflicts of interest are acknowledged and expected to
be handled through a majority decision by elected politicians.
Stage 9 is the final local political consideration. Civil society actors may use
tools such as protests, petitions, media and lobbying to influence politicians.
Lobbying conforms with a liberal tradition, but it is not inherent in either par-
ticipatory or deliberative democracy. In radical democracy, however, any way
to voice your view is appropriate as the approach specifically welcomes passion
and mobilization of marginal voices.
Stage 10 follows decision-making. If the plan proposal is rejected, the
initiator may in some planning systems appeal the decision, or adjust their
proposal to try again (returning to stage 5). There may also be additional
levels of state or national approval. Furthermore, some countries may grant
a right of appeal to different actors, such as civil society or public bodies, if
they disagree with the approval. However, at some point, a final decision to
proceed or not must be made, although the radical perspective promotes
temporality on solutions.

Conclusion
To be legitimate, land-use decisions need to be democratically grounded.
Through the review above of the consequences of democratic ideals on the
stages in planning processes, I have discussed how diversely democratic legiti-
macy may be understood in practice. Different actors in a land-use decision
process may have opposing anticipations. The distinction between ideal typical
versions of democracy enables analysis, discussion and evaluation of the legiti-
macy of a concrete planning process across frames of reference. It also highlights
alternative positions for public planners to explore, when deciding on appro-
priate actions for a specific planning process. Suitable actions may depend on
context, such as institutional frames, civic culture, type of development, and
level of existing and potential conflicts.
Two especially potent factors are the ownership of the land in question
(public or private) and the importance of the planned landscape for the public.
Private ownership may limit potential civic involvement formally depending on
a country’s legislation, but it may also restrain participation through more subtle
mechanisms if private developers are in charge of designing the process. As for
the importance of the landscape for the general public, resources may be well

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 Democratic theories and spatial planning processes  · 13

spent on securing wider involvement and embracing politically heated engage-

ment if the area in question is of high public value.
I have argued that the liberal democratic type is a minimal approach to civil
society involvement. For the public planner it implies making information avail-
able, sorting input, and leaving the weighing and considerations to elected rep-
resentatives, granting citizens mainly indirect power. A public planner may seek
to supplement this by drawing on the approaches from the republican tradition
of active citizenship and ‘the people’ seen as a resource.
The participatory approach implies identifying and actively mobilizing those
affected by a proposed change to seek agreed solutions. It requires skills in
facilitating consensus and compromise in organic and creative processes. Such
processes could gain high local legitimacy, but are time-consuming and might
be unrealistic in a world of diverse and polarized interests. When implying
genuine redistribution of power to a (non-elected) local level, it may challenge
established political structures.
The deliberative approach seeks a foundation for judgement and prefer-
ence formation in informed and inclusive dialogues. The inclusiveness and
the quality of the argumentation and considerations are the most important
aspects for legitimacy. Hence, the public planner must secure transparency
of considerations and make sure actors who can bring discourses to the table
are included. The approach does not challenge the decisive power of elected
politicians.
Within radical democracy the role of the planner is to ensure transparency
to enable civil society to mobilize diverse interests and influence through direct
action and lobbying. Redistribution of power and challenging the hegemonic
structures is inherent.
In a society with increasingly different publics, with pluralistic and contra-
dictory interests, and the traditional class lines of power and interests being
blurred and multifaceted, the liberal approach to a democratic planning pro-
cess becomes too thin. Hence, there is a need to supplement and incorporate
approaches from the participatory, deliberative and radical understandings
of democracy. Embracing any other approach to democracy than the liberal
implies that the planner no longer only expedites the technical and administra-
tive process and acts as bureaucrat for the politicians, but is also a facilitator for a
deeper and fuller democratic process.

Notes
1. Civil society refers to public life as contrasted with the family and the state, comprising public participation
in voluntary associations, mass media, and as voiced citizens (Scott and Marshall 2009, p. 83).
2. The ‘general will’ should be distinguished from the ‘will of all’, as the first is a judgement about the
common good and the second ‘a mere aggregate of personal fancies and individual desires’ (Held 2006,
p. 46).
3. ‘Ideal typical’ implies that they are constructs made to communicate the essence of each type.
4. A discourse may be defined as ‘a shared way of comprehending the world embedded in language’ (Dryzek
and Niemeyer 2010, p. 31)
5. The distinction between agonism, understood as struggle between adversaries, and antagonism, understood
as struggle between enemies, is crucial (Mouffe 2000, pp. 102–103).

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 14  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

References
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670–690.

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 2
Landscape democracy: more
than public participation? Landscape democracy and public participation

Michael Jones

Introduction
‘Landscape democracy’ is associated with public participation under the
European Landscape Convention (ELC) of 2000 (CoE 2000a; 2000b; 2008).
Studies indicate that participatory processes are often steered top-down (Jones
and Stenseke 2011a). The ‘ladder of participation’ suggests that bottom-up par-
ticipatory processes are more genuine, legitimate and effective (Arnstein 1969;
Jones 2007; 2011). However, landscapes may reflect developments that give little
or no consideration to public participation, for example major infrastructure con-
struction, housing and business redevelopment, decisions of major corporations,
cumulative small-scale market forces, or the aftermath of fires and environmental
hazards. In democratic society, decisions are ultimately made by elected bodies,
for example parliaments, town councils or other representative bodies, which
may choose to ignore public participation. A complication is the increasing
importance of transnational agreements, criticized as being without or only to a
limited degree under democratic control, for example the European Economic
Area (EEA), World Trade Organization (WTO), Trade in Services Agreement
(TISA) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Public
protest may result where groups of citizens feel their welfare or interests are not
taken into account, for example action groups against urban development pro-
jects, action-oriented local community initiatives opposing official plans, envi-
ronmental activism, and other types of protest. Successful protest actions provide
an alternative bottom-up outcome to top-down participatory planning.
I aim to contribute to a theoretical understanding of how participatory pro-
cesses and protests are reflected in the landscape in relation to alternative ideas
of democracy. Examples are taken from case studies undertaken in Trondheim
over 40 years with colleagues and/or master’s students examining landscape
issues in planning. Trondheim is Norway’s third-largest town (population in
2015 185,000), but protests are small-scale compared with mass protests seen
in larger European cities. I relate planning in protest situations, communicative
planning, and new public management to broader notions of democracy.
An autobiographical approach illustrates how my ideas have evolved through

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 Landscape democracy and public participation  · 17

engagement with landscapes and their inhabitants. A scholarly autobiography

narrates elements of one’s life as part of the research process (Moss 2001;
Purcell 2009; Jones 2012). Personal life stories both reflect and affect devel-
opment of knowledge. The personal element influences information collection
and research content. Everyday experiences and emotions affect values and
preferences in the research process. I illustrate how my personal life and career
experiences have influenced my geographical research and led to my interest in
landscape democracy.
I understand landscape as people’s physical surroundings in relation to the
perceptions, representations and practices of inhabitants and others associated
with the area, mediated by legal and other institutions regulating how people
shape their surroundings. This article focuses on how democratic institutions
influence landscapes in a Norwegian context.
Democracy is understood as ‘the idea that political rule should ... be in the
hands of ordinary people’ as well as a ‘set of processes and procedures for
translating this idea into practices of institutionalized popular rule’; democracy
demands that ‘decisions should be made in the open and should be based on
consent, and that institutions and organizations should be accountable’ accord-
ing to the principle that ‘legitimacy of rule depends on authorization by ordinary
people affected by the consequences of actions’ (Barnett and Low 2004, pp. 1,
7–8). Democracy requires citizen access, influence and participation in political
processes (Dalton et al. 2003, pp. 253–256). Opposition and dissent should
engage with power rather than simply resisting it (Barnett and Low 2004, pp.
7–8). For Low (2004, p. 144), ‘there is no basic blueprint for democracy that is
valid for all times and all places’; democracy necessarily involves communica-
tion and contestation between citizens and power.

Protests against urban development projects in Trondheim in

the 1970s
Soon after moving to Trondheim in 1975, I became involved in a protest
action to save a small mid-nineteenth-century suburb, Ilsvikøra, threatened
by redevelopment. Ilsvikøra comprises 27 wooden, working-class houses sur-
rounded by late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century industry and harbour
installations. The original inhabitants were urban fishermen and timber-yard
workers, whose descendants still live there. A 1950s plan required demolishing
the houses for industry. Architect Lars Fasting, head of the city’s Antiquarian
Committee, presented an alternative conservation proposal in 1974 (Fasting
1976, pp. 195–204). In early 1977, an exhibition arguing for conservation was
mounted by Fasting and architecture students Dag Nilsen and Gunnar Houen,
historian Dagfinn Slettan, my wife ethnologist Venke Olsen, and myself. We co-
operated with the newly established Ilsvikøra residents’ association. An elderly
resident told of growing up there and the strong feeling of identification with
Ilsvikøra. Venke Olsen and I mounted part of the exhibition comparing Ilsvikøra
with a successful conservation area, Footdee in Aberdeen, Scotland, which we
had visited following my first visit there on a field trip during the Institute of

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 18  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

British Geographers’ annual conference in 1972. Like Ilsvikøra, Footdee was a

community of urban fishermen and industrial workers whose houses were sur-
rounded by industry and harbour works in Scotland’s oil industry capital (Jones
and Olsen 1977). The exhibition was reported in the local press. Ilsvikøra fea-
tured in a television programme with well-known local musicians. New national
legislation in 1976 favoured conservation rather than total renewal. The conser-
vation proposal was accepted by the city council later in 1977 and approved by
the Ministry of Environment in 1978, resulting in funds from the State Housing
Bank for rehabilitation. Ilsvikøra became Trondheim’s first urban conservation
area (Stugu 1997, pp. 170–171; Betten 2002; Kittang 2014, pp. 147–149).
Simultaneously, a proposed major road along the riverside threatened
another area of wooden housing in Trondheim’s oldest suburb, Bakklandet. The
road plan, introduced in the city’s structure plan in 1965 and approved by the
city council in 1975, resulted in strong protests, including house occupations,
led by a residents’ association established in 1971. Local architects presented an
alternative plan for conservation, which the city planning committee rejected.
The local branch of the National Trust of Norway included Bakklandet in a
series of debates on cultural heritage, initiated by Venke Olsen. Prominent local
musicians held a concert in support of the protests (Stugu 1997, pp. 159–169,
171–177). The strong protests and media debate led to the road plans being
shelved in 1983, although the city council did not approve a conservation plan
for Bakklandet until 1994 (Kittang 2014, pp. 154–181). Despite subsequent
gentrification, Bakklandet became a showcase for urban conservation.
Inspiration from these actions contributed to my formulation of a notion of
landscape values. Collating existing literature, I distinguished between economic
value and various non-economic values – scientific and education values, aes-
thetic and recreational values, and identity and orientation values – attached by
people to landscape features. This classification was presented at the Permanent
European Conference for the Study of the Rural Landscape (PECSRL) in 1977
and later developed further (Jones 1979; 1981; 1993; 1999; 2009).
To understand outcomes of planning and protest in the landscape, I used two
classical models from social anthropology (Lloyd 1968), the harmony (or equi-
librium) model and the conflict (or direct action) model (Jones 1981; 1993;
1999). The harmony model assumes that a balance or equilibrium can be found
between various established interests and disagreements solved by institutional
means. The conflict model focuses on incompatibilities between different values,
resulting in contestation between established and non-established interests, the
latter often working through action groups outside the established institutional
structure.

Examples of landscape and planning in Trondheim 1983–2007

Between 1983 and 2007, I organized the master’s course ‘Landscape and
Planning’, examining planning conflicts and debates concerning landscape.
Many of the 25 studies involved the urban landscape of Trondheim. The research
questions were: Whose values shape the landscape? What weight is given to

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 Landscape democracy and public participation  · 19

the existing landscape in planning? Who deliver the premises for landscape
­planning – residents, planners, landscape specialists, business or politicians? The
studies involved fieldwork, and analysis of planning maps and documents, policy
documents, historical sources, and media coverage. Semi-structured qualitative
interviews were conducted with residents, landowners, planners, environmental
and cultural heritage managers, landscape experts, business interests, and politi-
cians (Jones 1999; 2009).
One conflict involved the oil company Statoil’s establishment of a research
centre at Rotvoll in an area singled out in expert reports as a high-value land-
scape aesthetically and for its cultural heritage as an historical estate. In 1991
an action group established an ‘environmental camp’ in a protest aiming to pro-
tect the existing cultural landscape. I lectured at the camp on landscape values
associated with the area (Jones 1991a). The police subsequently removed the
camp. The actionists initiated an inquiry, where I was among several academics,
environmental managers and politicians invited to give their views on Rotvoll’s
varied landscape values (Jones 1991b). Notwithstanding this, the research
centre opened in 1993 (Jones 1985; 1999; 2009).
Other conflicts involved protests over plans producing significant landscape
changes. One case concerned the construction in Bakklandet of an apartment
building in an area of high cultural heritage value overlooking the Nidelva river;
protests were unsuccessful and the building was completed in 1997. Another
case in the 1990s concerned a planned railway freight terminal at Leangen,
where residents formed an action group protesting against the potentially det-
rimental effect on the adjoining landscape of small houses, gardens, parks, a
cemetery, and educational institutions. The railway authorities later abandoned
these plans, and searched for an alternative location (Jones 1999; 2009).
A fraught conflict in the 1990s concerned Svartlamon (Reina) with working-
class wooden housing from the 1870s. A 1951 plan designated it for industrial
development. Many houses were demolished in the following two decades. In
the 1980s, young people squatted in the 30 remaining houses. Artists, musicians
and students sought cheap accommodation and an alternative lifestyle. They
eventually received temporary rental contracts. Between 1996 and 2001, plans
to evict them and demolish the houses led to strong protests. The cultural herit-
age authorities opposed the plans. Residents formed an action group, which
established a ‘Freedom Park’ hindering a car firm’s planned expansion. Two
nationally prominent Trondheim artists, Håkon Bleken and Håkon Gullvåg,
painted a mural on a gable wall overlooking the park and donated it to the
city to mark Trondheim’s millennium in 1997. They painted a vignette on each
house, providing an argument that the houses were not only historically but
also artistically valuable. Continued protests led to increasingly wide and strong
public engagement. Although not directly involved in the conflict, I joined
protesters in the workers’ mayday parade in 1998. A small contribution to the
debate was my letter in the local newspaper suggesting that the city council
would be committing ‘topocide’ or at least ‘domicide’ – the destruction of place
and home in the terminology of Canadian geographer J. Douglas Porteous
(1988; Porteous and Smith 2001) – if demolition went ahead (Jones 1998). A

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 20  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

construction technology professor replied that planning decisions were political

and should be respected, as ‘this is the way democracy functions’ (Hugsted
1998). Nonetheless, arguments against what many considered an outdated
plan were eventually successful. In 2001, the city authorities retracted the old
plan and passed a new one. The car firm moved elsewhere. Svartlamon was
designated an experimental area for urban ecology and cheap housing run by its
inhabitants. A business and culture foundation was established in 2006 to attract
culture-based enterprises. The landscape subsequently reflected an alternative
lifestyle with experimental architecture, organic gardening, music festivals, and
local self-mobilization (Jones 1999; 2009).
Summing up the 25 studies, I concluded that residents had with few excep-
tions limited influence on planning outcomes. Landowner interests came more
to the fore. Economic values were frequently given more weight than non-
economic values. The strongest protests occurred against powerful business
interests allied with public agencies in promoting decisions that would result
in significant landscape changes. Yet public agencies did not speak with one
voice; disagreements could occur between agencies with differing responsibili-
ties. Different economic interests could also be mutually incompatible in their
­landscape requirements. The outcome of the harmony model tended to be
minor adjustments to plans; the outcome of the conflict model tended to be
delays, while major changes in plans only occurred exceptionally (Jones 1999;
2009).

Participatory landscape planning: ideal and reality

The harmony and conflict models can be recognized in the debate between
Jürgen Habermas’ (1983 [1990]) theory of communicative action and Michel
Foucault’s (1984 [1987]) critique that communication is unavoidably influ-
enced by power relations and contestation. Habermas’ theory presents ideal
conditions for communication; Foucault argues that conflict and struggle pro-
vide a necessary corrective to existing social institutions.
The dichotomy between these ideas is complicated by tension between the
dialogic ideals of communicative planning theory (CPT) (Habermas 1983
[1990]) and the neo-liberal realities of new public management (NPM) (Lane
2000). Trondheim planning professor Tore Sager (2009) finds that both
CPT and NPM are responsive to users’ needs, involvement and satisfaction,
but in differing ways. CPT emphasizes discursive practice in a liberal, plu-
ralistic society, with open participatory processes involving a broad range of
affected groups. NPM prefers participation in the form of communication with
stakeholders and information to the public, while emphasizing market choice.
Whereas CPT is amenable to a bottom-up approach, NPM is top-down by
inclination.
CPT and NPM provided a framework for understanding differing planning
outcomes after fires on 7 December 2002 destroyed historic buildings in central
Trondheim and in the Old Town of Edinburgh in Scotland. Anne Sofie Lægran,
a PhD candidate at the Department of Geography in Trondheim who was under-

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 Landscape democracy and public participation  · 21

taking fieldwork in Scotland and living in Edinburgh, suggested comparing the

fires’ consequences in the two cities; this resonated with me as I had both family
links and research interests in Scotland. In autumn 2003, groups of master’s
students studied each city’s planning during the first year after the fires. People’s
expectations concerning possible outcomes of redevelopment were investigated
through guided field visits and qualitative interviews with planners, architects
and representatives of interest organizations. Debates in both cities illustrated
tension between recreating the landscape’s lost features and creating something
new. In Trondheim, a modernistic building was erected on the fire site by 2004,
whereas in Edinburgh the site remained unbuilt in 2010. Both sites had com-
plex ownership patterns. An important explanation for the different outcomes
was owners’ differing abilities to co-operate. Successful co-operation facilitated
rapid redevelopment in Trondheim, whereas failure to agree delayed redevelop-
ment in Edinburgh. Stakeholder consultation and public meetings took place in
both cities, while the general public contributed to the media debate. Architects,
developers and commercial interests had significantly greater say than heritage
organizations and the general public. In both cases planning showed more fea-
tures of NPM than CPT, although the Edinburgh case indicated that NPM does
not necessarily guarantee rapid and efficient redevelopment (Jones 2010). In
2012–2013, a modern mixed-use complex was built on the Edinburgh site. The
site is part of Edinburgh’s UNESCO World Heritage Area. Plans for a similar
development on a nearby site led in 2016 to strong protests by heritage groups,
local residents and homeless people, including an ‘Occupy’ camp (Edinburgh
Evening News 2016; Johnstone 2016).
Sager (2015) further discusses influences on urban regeneration in
Trondheim of three ideologies prevalent in democratic states: neo-liberalism
(applied to the public sector as NPM), participatory democracy, and environ-
mentalism. He finds that neo-liberalism is strongly influential but less hegem-
onic than often claimed, while participatory democracy and environmentalism
can also be recognized in municipal planning goals.
Landscape planning has long been associated with environmental concerns.
The ELC, in force in 2004, placed public participation in landscape matters
on the agenda (CoE 2000a). These ideas informed my teaching on landscape
and planning. However, not all landscape experts gave public participation
first priority or considered it more than a top-down exercise (Jones 2007,
pp. 619–620; Olwig 2007, pp. 206–210; Conrad et al. 2011; Jones and Stenseke
2011b, pp. 13–14). In 2008, Swedish geographer Marie Stenseke and I organ-
ized a workshop at the PECSRL meeting in Portugal to explore how far the
ELC’s provisions for participation had been implemented. The resulting book
presented participation theory and experiences of participation in 12 European
countries, including examples of good practice and challenges of participation.
Identified problems included: time-consuming, costly public participation;
apathy or social barriers hindering people’s involvement; incompatible stake-
holder aims; danger of manipulation by the powerful; public participation
steered in a top-down manner; and unclear relationships between participatory
and representative democracy. Despite various participatory methods in differ-

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 22  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

ent countries, procedures often lacked for implanting participatory inputs in

planning ­outcomes dependent on decisions of politically elected bodies (Jones
and Stenseke 2011a).
The unresolved tension between participatory (or deliberative) democracy
and representative democracy came out at a seminar on the ELC at the Swedish
Institute in Rome in 2007. Illustrating public participation, I used Norwegian
examples from my personal involvement, either directly or indirectly through
university teaching (Jones 2007). I received criticism in the discussion for
insufficient consideration of how participatory approaches relate to the elected
representative bodies that ultimately make the decisions.

Notions of democracy and the landscape

In 2009, Danish environmental and planning philosopher Finn Arler introduced
me to his work (Arler 2008; 2011; Arler and Mellqvist 2015). He notes that
‘landscape democracy’ came on the ELC agenda (CoE 2000b) without defin-
ing democracy in relation to landscape. He presents three sets of democratic
values that influence decision-making in landscape issues: co-determination
and participation; private self-determination; and impartiality and respect for
arguments. Alongside participation, procedures contributing to democratic
decision-making include elections, consultation, markets and informed argu-
ment. Moreover, the landscape is not formed simply by landscape policy, but
also by commodity markets, globalization, and political decisions not concerned
with landscape.
In 2013, I lectured in a PhD course on landscape democracy at the Swedish
University of Agricultural Sciences at Alnarp and the University of Copenhagen.
Subsequently, the Centre for Landscape Democracy was launched at the
Norwegian University of Life Sciences at Ås in 2014. These events encouraged
further exploration of landscape democracy (Jones 2016).
Barnett and Low (2009) distinguish between liberal and radical democ-
racy. In liberal democracy, popular representation is institutionalized through
elected legislatures under conditions of free speech and association. In radical
democracy, social movements aim to contest and transform the procedures
and institutions of official politics through citizens’ active role in all facets of
decision-making.
Participatory approaches are often associated (although not exclusively)
with the local level. At higher levels of democratic governance, the ‘will of the
people’ is primarily expressed through elected, representative bodies. Liebert
(2013) compares this liberal democracy with direct democracy (referendums),
participatory democracy (civil society) and ‘dual-track’ democracy (protecting
minorities against the majority, for example through the courts).
Dalton et al. (2003, pp. 252–253) distinguish between representative democ-
racy, direct democracy, and advocacy democracy. In advocacy democracy,
‘citizens or public groups directly interact with government and even directly
participate in the deliberation process, even if the actual decisions remain in the
hands of government elites’, and citizens may challenge government actions

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 Landscape democracy and public participation  · 23

Liberal dimension
International Judiciary Referendums
Elected
agreements
Government bodies Will of the majority
e.g. trade
Willingness to pay
Bureau-
Market
cratic
forces
Conservative dimension

decisions

Populist dimension
Business interests
Civil servants

NPM Landscape
Experts
Will to protest
Top-
down
Protest
consultation
CPT

Stakeholders Bottom- Citizen & community groups

up
Public participation initiatives
(ELC)
Radical dimension

Figure 2.1  Landscape and democracy: conceptual model of six institutions of democracy affecting
landscape, with actors involved, related to four normative dimensions of democracy

through the courts (ibid., p. 254). The authors examine how far five democratic
criteria – inclusion, political equality, enlightened understanding, control of the
agenda, and effective participation, formulated by Yale political scientist Robert
Dahl (1998, pp. 37–38) – are fulfilled in each form of democracy. They conclude
that none is ideal, each having advantages and limitations (Dalton et al. 2003,
pp. 256–265).
I conclude by combining my experiences and various theoretical notions
in a conceptual model aiming to identify and critically examine how dif-
ferent institutions of democracy may affect landscape issues in practice. In
Figure 2.1, landscape democracy is related to six principal institutions (dark
grey boxes), surrounded by actors strongly associated with them. Normative
dimensions of democracy are shown (in italics) along each side of the dia-
gram, indicating differing views of what is considered most significant in
democratic society.

Bottom-up initiatives  include actions by volunteer groups, residents’ associations, com-

munity organizations, citizen groups, and other non-­governmental organizations
in civil society. Initiatives range from spontaneous actions to dialogue-based par-
ticipatory planning. Problematical aspects include: representativeness of such
groups and their leaders for those they claim to speak for; power relations and
issues of inclusion and exclusion; often lack of dispute-resolution procedures;
and governing authorities’ power to ignore bottom-up initiatives.

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 24  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Top-down consultation  gauges defined stakeholders’ views. Problematical aspects

include: determining relevant stakeholders; consulting stakeholders rather than
citizens more broadly; the potential ability of developers, planners and experts to
use consultation to further their own agendas; tokenism or placation rather than
genuine consultation; and danger of manipulation.

Bureaucratic decisions  involve civil servants and other administrators who interpret
and implement government policies and laws. Problematical aspects include:
managerialism with rigid adherence to rules rather than genuine problem-
solving; the potential ability of administrators to influence excessively the policies
they implement; and decisions reflecting the political majority but overlooking
or ignoring legitimate minority interests.

Elective bodies  include legislative bodies at different administrative levels, whose

composition is determined through elections, and who in turn elect national
or local governments. The system is designed to represent the majority will in
passing laws and determining policy, including international agreements. In
an independent judiciary, courts ensure that laws are followed and rights of
individuals, minorities and landowners upheld. Problematical aspects include:
electoral bias though manipulated electoral district boundaries or unfair franchise
systems; uneven campaign financing and unequal access to or control of the
media; safeguards for minority interests; the relationship between elected bodies
at different administrative levels, especially if there are strong disagreements; and
potential misuse of power. Referendums also reflect the majority will, although
generally limited to advising elected bodies or governments, and often suffer
from low electoral turn-out.

Market forces  include consumers and business interests. Consumption reflects the
people’s will depending on willingness to pay, which has an element of social
inequality through varying ability to pay. While business interests may in varying
degrees work in the interests of society at large, profitability is necessarily their
overriding concern. Large business interests can act as powerful lobbyists,
arguing that they create workplaces or threatening relocation elsewhere to
influence political decision-makers. New forms of governance incorporate
business interests in urban management without the public responsibility or
accountability of elected bodies. International corporations are powerful forces
that often escape democratic accountability.

Protest  involves social and environmental movements that feel fundamental values are
disregarded or significant groups discriminated against. They range from small-
scale local protests to huge mass protests. They may provide a useful corrective,
but are often regarded with scepticism or as illegitimate by the authorities. A
problem is that the loudest rather than the weakest or most representative groups
may be heard most. Successful protest actions tend to have resourceful leaders,
but it should be remembered that powerful vested interests may also conduct
protests. It is also necessary in democratic society to draw a sharp line between

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 Landscape democracy and public participation  · 25

peaceful and violent protest, while not forgetting that heavy-handed policing can
also result in violence.

‘Landscape democracy’ as formulated in the supporting documents of the ELC

(CoE 2000b; 2008) is closest to the bottom left-hand side of Figure 2.1. The
ideal of CPT has much in common with bottom-up initiatives. NPM is reflected
in bureaucratic decisions and top-down consultation.
Figure 2.1 does not address global democracy: although international trade
agreements may be approved by elected parliaments, negotiations are often
outside democratic control; lack of strong democratic control of transnational
corporations is another problem. Other institutions important for democracy,
such as free press and other media, and independent critical cultural institu-
tions, are not addressed in the figure, although they influence perceptions by
providing representations of landscape. The diagram does not indicate alliances
between different groups of actors or lobbying activities.
I suggest that the bottom of Figure 2.1 represents radical democracy, the
left-hand side conservative democracy, the top liberal democracy (with neo-
liberalism favouring the market but influencing bureaucracies through NPM),
while the right-hand side tends towards populist democracy.

Conclusion
Landscape democracy is a relatively new concept and open to discussion. I
show how engagement with local landscapes, and with people’s aspirations and
attachments to these landscapes, led to my concern with issues of public par-
ticipation in landscape matters and landscape democracy, which the ELC was
instrumental in bringing onto the public agenda.
I argue that, to explain how democratic institutions affect landscapes, it is
necessary to understand different conceptualizations of democracy in rela-
tion to one another. This may help identify what may be missing in specific
democratic situations. It is important to focus on the locus of power in different
institutional constellations. Questions for further research include: In whose
interest do different institutions of democracy work? Who is represented and by
whom, and who is excluded? What landscapes are produced by different power
constellations?
The relative weight given to these different expressions of democracy can
directly affect how landscape issues are tackled and the outcome of conflicts
concerning landscape. There is not a simple causal relationship between the
workings of a particular institution and a particular outcome in the landscape,
but the effects of different institutions are intermixed.
I present a conceptual model to illustrate how public participation and protest
relate to other institutions of democracy in landscape issues. Different notions
and institutions of democracy each have particular advantages and disadvan-
tages. Different institutions may be afforded differing degrees of legitimacy in
different situations. They may also be manipulated in different ways. This helps
explain limitations of public participation, and why it is often unsuccessful in

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 26  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

influencing outcomes and hence considered unsatisfactory by participants,

sometimes leading to strong protests. Particular democratic institutions –
including participation and protest – should not be romanticized. There is need
for critique of all institutions of democracy in the interests of its better working
in landscape issues.

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 3
Landscape architecture and the
discourse of democracy in the
Arab Middle East Landscape architecture in the Arab Middle East

Jala Makhzoumi

Introduction
If we accept the most basic definition of ‘democracy’ as a system where the voice
of a majority contributes to consensus in decision-making, then regardless of
how this is achieved, the aspiration is universal. In the Arab Middle East, how-
ever, ‘democracy’ is held suspect, seeing as it is advocated by the same Western
governments that support ruthless, autocratic regimes that have ruled for the
greater part of the twentieth century. Simply put, the West is ready to overlook
the transgressions of basic human rights by Arab dictatorships because they
serve American and European political and economic interests in the region.
Overtones of colonialist thinking are seen as implicit in the Western drive to
democracy (Ramadan 2012) and, just as problematic, that democracy is advo-
cated alongside globalization and US neo-liberalism (Pappe 2014). Nor has
the Western drive to promote democracy in the Middle East since 2003 been
successful. ‘External actors, even very determined ones that employ significant
resources’, argue Carothers and Ottaway (2005, p. 10), have failed to show ‘a
decisive impact on the political direction of other societies’.
Aware of these problems, there have been calls for a ‘political and epistemic
de-linking, decolonializing’, of ‘democracy’ from its association with Western
culture as a necessary step for ‘imagining and building democratic, just and
non-imperial/colonial societies’ (Mignolo 2009, p. 1). ‘De-linking’ will help
overcome current negative associations that undermine the idea of ‘democracy’
and, at the same time, enable countries of the Global South to draw on their own
history, cultural and symbolic capital to construct models that are engaging and
meaningful.
Accepting that top-down processes of democratization are rarely successful
and that democracy can’t be ‘forced’ or implemented overnight, the alternative
would be to revisit the underlying values of democracy practices, for example,
socially just governance, accountability, upholding human rights and dignity
and thereafter to find ways to contextualize these values. This chapter posits

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 30  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

that the complexity of ‘landscape’ as a cultural construct and a material basis

for wellbeing can (a) address the underlying values of democratic practices and
(b) provide an approach that is more likely to contextualize the discourse on
democracy. The underlying premise for this claim is threefold: first, that people
should be free to develop their own notions and practices of democracy and
that the process is long-term; second, that the bottom-up process of democracy
fits in with theories and practices of legitimate rule based on different histories
and traditions; and, third, that the landscape architect can facilitate and mediate
the process. I draw on a case study from Lebanon, a small country bridging
the Mediterranean and the Arabian hinterland, to elaborate the challenges to
democracy and reflect on the role of landscape architecture in preparing the
ground for democratic practices.

A contextualized approach to landscape and democracy

Landscape is a complex construct, a word with multiple meanings, an idea with
many dimensions. As a physical setting, landscape is the medium for human
experience, a tangible, spatial expression of human activity and culture. Used
interchangeably with ‘nature’, ‘country’ and ‘countryside’, landscape has
come to embrace intangible sentiments of identity and belonging as well. The
European Landscape Convention (ELC) was the first to apply the multifac-
eted dimensions of landscape, including the political one, to the scale of an
entire continent. By accepting that landscape is a cultural construct, the ELC
definition of ­landscape1 extends beyond material physicality or the conventional
understanding of landscape as scenery to incorporate accumulated perceptions
and associated social values of the people inhabiting a place. Landscape as such
is place and culture specific, a framework to address a rubric of concerns, envi-
ronmental, socio-economic, cultural and political under the overarching aim
of protecting European landscape heritage and identity. The process set out
by the ELC is nothing short of a ‘political project’, in that its priority is to use
landscape to engage people in a process that is ‘democratic particularly in the
sense that every citizen will benefit from quality landscape, not only those who
are privileged to live in or visit outstanding landscape areas’ (Priore and Galla
2012, p. 132).
By widening the understanding of landscape, the ELC has inspired a politi-
cal discourse that places landscape at the intersection of constitutional ideals
of freedom, social justice and environmental health. Along the same lines, the
Right to Landscape, a concept that draws on the interface of landscape and
human rights (Egoz et al. 2011), builds on landscape as polity and as a necessary
framework for supporting human existence, wellbeing and dignity. The hybrid
term, ‘landscape democracy’ (Center for Landscape Democracy 2015), is an
offshoot of the broader concept of the Right to Landscape, seeing as it also
utilizes the multiple dimensions of landscape, the specific and universal, local
and global as an enabling platform for wellbeing and the freedom of political
expression and just governance. Combining the two, ‘landscape’ and ‘democ-
racy’, invites critical inquiry into the meaning of each in the light of the other,

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 Landscape architecture in the Arab Middle East  · 31

encouraging philosophical and epistemological lines of inquiry into both (Olwig

2015). ‘Landscape’ contextualizes the abstract, universal ideal of democracy,
just as ‘democracy’ serves to emphasize the political dimension of landscape
(Olwig 2002).
‘Landscape democracy’ is concomitant with the call to de-link democracy
from its Western association and enable bottom-up, culture and place spe-
cific discourses. The ‘endogenous2 production of values and symbols’, argues
Ramadan (2012, p. 18), confers upon them internal legitimacy and is likely to
‘create new approaches, new models, contributing as it does to the construc-
tive criticism of contemporary models of democracy’. Initiating an endogenous
discourse comes with growing awareness in non-Western societies of fractured
spatial and cultural continuities resulting from colonial geographies and the
necessity of rewriting history to reclaim the regional heritage and restore pride
in local culture and identity. Short of admitting to these discontinuities, to
acknowledging the possibility of democratic practices that respond to different
histories and traditions, ‘the promise of justice, prosperity and peace will remain
nothing more than window dressing on a violent and iniquitous world order’
(Sayyid 2014, p. 80).
Accepting that neither Western experts nor Arab ones have answers to the
path an alternative democracy model can take (Carothers and Ottaway 2005)
and considering the scale of the demographic, socio-economic and political
conditions in the developing countries, confronting democracy, Sayyid (2014,
p. 78) argues, should necessarily proceed by addressing four fundamental dif-
ficulties: The first concerns the need for ‘concrete strategies as to how such
democratic transformation is to take place’; it is not enough to proclaim the vir-
tues of democracy. The second is to overcome the West–East binary, to ‘de-link
the technical side of democracy from its metaphorical aspect’, and thereafter to
re-describe the technical features of democracy, and re-frame within historical
religious and cultural discourse ‘until a vocabulary develops that does not see
the “non-Western” as “non-Western”’ (ibid.). The third challenge is to shift
from political to economic governance to avoid favouring market-driven econo-
mies and to challenge the neo-liberal ‘consensus’. Finally, and most important,
maintaining a pluralistic world; ‘a world in which the postcolonial moment is
not replaced by a revamped colonial order within its attendant injustices and
cruelties’ (ibid., p. 80). In other words, prioritizing participatory and bottom-up
approaches at all levels of decision-making.
Over and above the difficulties outlined by Sayyid is political instability and
civil unrest in the Middle East. Colonially created modern nation-states have
failed in performing their most basic of functions (Barghouti 2015). Despotic
leaders and ruling parties ‘claimed that they had to sacrifice democracy for eco-
nomic progress, individual human rights for collective independence, and politi-
cal change for peace and stability, yet they ended up without stability, peace
or independence’ (ibid., p. 8). The ‘Arab Spring’, a term used to describe the
uprisings that have engulfed the Arab World since 2011, was ‘a time of hope that
democracy might be finally sweeping the region’ (Shehadeh 2015, p. 243). At
the same time, the Arab Spring was a clear manifestation of public frustration

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 32  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

with the absence of accountability and a loss of faith in Arab identity and culture.
Samir Kassir (2013) speaks of these frustrations as the ‘Arab Malaise’. Apart
from persistent underdevelopment, unemployment and illiteracy, the malaise
manifests itself ‘more in perceptions and feelings than in statistics, starting with
the very widespread and deeply seated feeling that Arabs have no future, no way
of improving their condition’ (ibid., p. 2).
To summarize, the path towards democracy in the Arab Middle East is a
big challenge. Short of addressing the underlying problems of socio-economic
betterment and politically just governance, democracy will be reduced to the
formality of elections and voting. In the following section, Southern Lebanon
provides the context for a grounded discourse on landscape democracy and its
challenges, framing and outcome.

Preparing the ground for democracy: Ebel-es-Saqi Ecological

Park, Southern Lebanon
The landscape in Southern Lebanon is typically Mediterranean, hilly terrain
covered by a mosaic of pastoral scrublands, terraced olive agriculture and
arable farming mainly in the valleys. Privately owned olive orchards and state-­
subsidized tobacco cultivation constitute the main source of livelihoods. Villages
are lacking in service infrastructures, education and health, and in opportuni-
ties for employment, forcing youth to seek employment outside of Lebanon.
Poverty and depravation were amplified by civil war (1975–1990) and Israeli
occupation in Southern Lebanon (1982–2000). Material and human discon-
tinuities in the aftermath of war and occupation undermine the ability of local
communities to voice their needs and/or to critically appraise the proposed
agendas of funding agencies (Makhzoumi 2010), which becomes an additional
challenge to the discourse on democracy.
The case study herein discussed, the village of Ebel-es-Saqi,3 was in the
Israeli-occupied zone for 18 years. The village served as a base for the United
Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which afforded the inhabitants,
their orchards and their common land (Arabic, Mashaa’) some protection from
the destruction and hardship of occupation. A portion of the common land
was re-forested in 1966 by the Ministry of Agriculture to replace the native oak
woodland that had been destroyed at the turn of the twentieth century. State
re-forestation came with a proviso that custody of re-forested land is temporarily
taken up by the state for a designated period of 15 years. There was consider-
able resentment to the heavy-handed appropriation of the village common land,
anger that village herds were banned from grazing and disdain that non-native
tree species, Eucalyptus and Casuarina, were used in re-forestation rather than the
much valued oaks and stone pines. Slowly, the community lost interest in their
woodland which was no longer of value. By 2000, the woodland had matured
into an impressive landscape, visible from afar in a land robbed of its vegetative
cover by war. UNIFIL suggested the woodland as a post-­occupation recovery
project in 2002, and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for
Western Asia (UN-ESCWA) funded the project, which came to be known as

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 Landscape architecture in the Arab Middle East  · 33

the Ebel-es-Saqi Ecological Park (EEP). I was invited to propose a landscape

master plan for the woodland that would protect it as an amenity landscape
(Makhzoumi 2003).
The holistic participatory methodological approach of ecological land-
scape planning4 was adopted and a multidisciplinary project team assembled.
Ecological surveys of the common land and GIS (geographical information
system) mapping of the village landscape were carried out and, in parallel, dis-
cussions with the village community. The project team met formally with the
municipal council and informally through focus groups, with farmers and com-
munity members of all ages. Semi-structured interviews were conducted during
and after the EEP project to gain insight into local perception and valuation of
the village landscape heritage (Makhzoumi 2009). Livelihood generation was a
recurring theme and major concern for the community and a key motivation for
their involvement in the EEP project or any other project. Unfailingly, residents
compare their valuation of the woodland to the olive orchards they own or to
the Ebel Spring, the source of irrigation in the village, and find no benefit to
the community from the woodland. ‘Everyone owns olive trees. The Horsch
(woodland) is beautiful, but olive orchards are of more value to the people’
(ibid., p. 326). Another resident argues: ‘If a tourist center is built next to the
Ebel Spring, or if the village woodland is converted into a bird sanctuary, then I
will like them more [than olive groves]’ (ibid.).
The EEP master plan was conceptualized as a multifunctional framework
expanding the project scope beyond amenity to address nature conservation,
livelihood provision and environmental sustainability.5 The expanded project
scope came to serve as an umbrella for a range of initiatives. Reclaiming steward-
ship of the woodland was one such initiative.6 Upon delivering the EEP study to
UN-ESCWA, Ebel-es-Saqi municipal council commenced negotiations with the
Ministry of Agriculture to put an end to the latter’s custody of village communal
lands. The successful return of custody to the village restored the authority of
the municipality and became a matter of pride for the entire village. Returned
custody and the prospects of implementing the EEP rekindled interest in the
woodland.
Another outcome was the bid by a national non-governmental organization
(NGO), the Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon (SPNL), to imple-
ment and manage the EEP. Ecological zoning undertaken by the master plan of
the village landscape served as the scientific basis for meeting the guidelines of
Birdlife International7 and successfully designating the woodland and common
land as an Important Bird Area (IBA). Once the EEP master plan was imple-
mented and IBA status secured, SPNL proceeded to organize workshops to
train local guides for birdwatching excursions and nature tourism and to advo-
cate the value and benefits of biodiversity conservation. A landscape framing of
natural heritage proved invaluable to SPNL because it rendered the concept of
nature conservation: (a) meaningful, seeing as biodiversity acquires a visible,
spatial expression in Ebel-es-Saqi woodland and common land; (b) engaging,
because the community were active stakeholders in nature conservation; and
(c) empowering, imbuing village communal lands with renewed significance.

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 34  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

The chance uncovering by the master plan team of the word Hima inscribed
on village archival maps had significant repercussions, albeit at a scale beyond
the village. Hima (Arabic for protected land) embraces a range of community-
based practices for managing natural resources that has survived in the region
since pre-Islamic times (Lutfallah 2006). SPNL adopted the idea, renamed the
project ‘Hima Ebel-es-Saqi’ and proceeded to use the project as a model to work
with other village communities in Lebanon, declaring their communal lands as
Hima.8 Success in Lebanon encouraged the adoption of the idea of Hima by the
International Union for the Conservation of Nature as a model for community-
based conservation.9 Internationalizing Hima became the impetus for reviving
the practice in other countries in the Arab World, Jordan and the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia, warranting renewed pride in Arab history and culture.

Critical discussion
Several issues emerge from the discourse on landscape democracy in Ebel-es-
Saqi. On the one hand are the complexities of the context, human, environ-
mental and political, amplified by the post-war condition. Addressing these
complexities necessitates a participatory and multifaceted approach that tackles
more than one problematic. The landscape master plan for the EEP achieves this
by combining core objectives (nature conservation) and supporting objectives
(securing livelihoods from nature and heritage tourism and amenity services).
Core and supporting objectives serve as leverage to enable the village commu-
nity to share their concerns and meet their aspirations for social and economic
betterment and regain their pride in the village heritage – intangible benefits
that are a key to post-war recovery and political transformation.
The complex interfaces of ‘landscape’ and ‘democracy’ are summarized graph-
ically in a conceptual diagram (Figure 3.1). The four ‘democracy challenges’
outlined earlier by Sayyid are listed (extreme left column), cross-­referenced with

DEMOCRACY LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE DEMOCRACY

CHALLENGES PRACTICES

LANDSCAPE LANDSCAPE LANDSCAPE

DIMENSIONS PRINCIPLES ACTIONS

SOCIAL JUSTICE
CONCRETE
PHYSICAL MULTI-SCALAR SPATIALIZE
SOLUTIONS
FREEDOM OF
EXPRESSION
ENVIRONMENTAL/ RESTORE/
ANCHORED RESPONSIVE
CULTURAL RECLAIM
PRIDE/DIGNITY

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTAL MULTIFUNCTIONAL CONTEXTUALIZE WELLBEING/

QUALITY LIVING

POLITICAL/ ENABLE/
GOVERNANCE INCLUSIVE IDENTITY/
SOCIAL EMPOWER BELONGING

Figure 3.1  Schematic diagram illustrating the potential role of landscape architecture ‘dimensions’,
‘principles’ and ‘actions’ in offering dynamic, grounded writing of democracy practices

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 Landscape architecture in the Arab Middle East  · 35

the fundamentals of an expansive landscape architecture approach, ‘landscape

dimensions’, ‘landscape principles’ and ‘landscape action’, and the ‘democracy
practices’ it engenders (extreme right column). The potential of landscape can
be argued in several ways. First, as a physical entity, landscape spatializes the
democracy challenges by offering concrete solutions to abstract issues. The
contiguity of landscapes, from the local to the global, prompt an expansive fram-
ing and solutions that are multi-scalar and multifunctional. Second, landscape
encourages the writing of scenarios that are responsive to the environmental and
cultural context, embracing natural and cultural heritage. Third, landscape archi-
tecture’s creative, solution-oriented design skills are by default developmental,
thus addressing social and economic betterment. At the same time, spatial fluid-
ity and temporal continuity help breach historic discontinuities and encourage
a contextualized interpretation of development. Fourth, as polity, a landscape
framing embraces intangibles such as human dignity, freedom of expression,
social justice and equitable governance, the underlying values of democratic
practices.
In short, landscape democracy serves as the metanarrative that draws on
landscape architecture ‘dimensions’, ‘principles’ and ‘actions’ to offer a dynamic,
grounded writing of democracy practices.
Two recurring themes appear in the discourse of landscape democracy from
Ebel-es-Saqi ‘environment’ and ‘heritage’. Both are effective motivators for
people to take action and fight for a common good. ‘Environment’ and ‘nature’
in Lebanon are increasingly serving as a platform for civil action.10 They have
been credited as instigating ‘democratic influence’ and as ‘models for social
transformation’ (Hamdan 2002, p. 184). At the global level, grass-roots initia-
tives fighting against global warming are similarly proving effective in upturning
conventional ways of thinking of social, cultural and political change (Klein
2016). Heritage is another theme that is politically charged. Drawing on the
discourse of heritage in post-war Lebanon, Al Harithy (2010) explains why.
‘Politics is what moderates our relationship with the past and representation
of that past’ (ibid., p. 73), albeit through a contemporary framework that offers
a future. Heritage is meaningful to the people whose heritage is being defined,
whether at the national level or at the scale of a village community. And because
heritage draws on a people’s history and their cultural and symbolic capital, it is
more likely to overcome cultural and ecological discontinuities, temporal and
spatial ruptures triggered by colonial and post-colonial ‘modernization’. The
revival of Hima serves as an example. Hima is at once a tangible heritage (village
common land) and an intangible heritage (traditional vernacular practices that
are rooted in the regional history). From a policy perspective, Hima acquires
new significance when viewed against the prevailing practice of state-declared
‘Protected Areas’ in Lebanon, a model that imposes global nature conserva-
tion directives with disregard to local context and local communities. As such,
the idea of Hima serves as an endogenous model for nature conservation in
Lebanon and the wider region.

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 36  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Conclusion
The search for a contextualized democracy rhetoric as argued in this chapter is
not a quest that is exclusive to the Arab Middle East but one that is shared by
other regions, mainly in the Global South. The challenge lies partly in moving
away from democracy as the signifier of Western culture, and partly in accepting
that democracy can be advocated with the possibility of articulating theories of
legitimate rule from different histories and traditions. As an expression of the
global demos, democracy cannot have only one history and tradition. Another
challenge, one that is common to other abstract ideals of a human essence, is the
necessity of contextualizing the democracy rhetoric to ensure that it is meaning-
ful to the people of a specific place/region. Abstract ideals become concrete
in their culturally embedded form (Sayyid 2014). In the politically turbulent
Middle East, the story of culture is in itself problematic. Until recently, it has
been told by outsiders and dominated by a Western, colonialist discourse that
draws on the binary of the ‘enlightened’ culture of the ‘West’ and the ‘primitive’
at best, if not vile, culture of the ‘Arab East’ (Pappe 2014, p. 165). This deroga-
tory discourse and the dismissal of Arab culture underlies the ‘Arab Malaise’ and
can be addressed by landscape democracy as the Ebel-es-Saqi demonstrates.
If we accept that people everywhere can produce their own notions of democ-
racy and good governance, then we have to also accept a shift from a short-
term and rapid ‘political pace’ of transformation towards a slower pace that is
long-lasting. Nor does political change necessarily happen in big sweeps; rather,
it materializes ‘through daily transformations conceived and implemented by
ordinary people’ (Esteva et al. 2013, p. ix). The contextualized, multifaceted and
action-oriented approach of landscape architecture deals with the ordinary and
everyday, with people in cities and villages, with natural and cultural heritage.
As such, it is more likely to overcome cultural and ecological discontinuities,
temporal and spatial ruptures triggered by colonial and post-colonial rule. The
landscape approach is also successful when considering the difficulties of demo-
cratic transformation under authoritarian Arab polities. Accepting that outright
regime transformation is not possible, concrete measures towards democratic
change can only be indirect, tangential. A landscape approach, unlike open
political agendas, is not threatening to central and local authorities, but just as
effective in supporting rights and empowering local communities.

Notes
 1. The European Landscape Convention (ELC) defines ‘landscape’ as an ‘area, as perceived by people,
whose character is the result of the actions and interaction of natural and/or human factors’ – see http://
www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureheritage/Conventions/Landscape/ (18 August 2011).
 2. ‘Endogenous’ is used in biology to imply change that is ‘caused by factors within the body or mind or
arising from internal structural or functional causes’, as opposed to ‘exogenous’, which is ‘introduced
from or produced outside the organism or system’ – see http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/
exogenous (21 May 2015).
 3. Ebel-es-Saqi village has 3,448 inhabitants, located at a 70 km drive from the coastal city of Sidon. Village
cadastral area is 750 ha of which 44 per cent is common land and 34 per cent privately owned olive
orchards.

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 Landscape architecture in the Arab Middle East  · 37

 4. See Makhzoumi and Pungetti (1999).

 5. For a detailed account of the holistic approach and the local initiatives it triggered, see Makhzoumi et al.
(2012).
 6. Reclaiming stewardship is a prerequisite by international agencies funding implementation of the Ebel-
es-Saqi Ecological Park project.
 7. Birdlife International: see http://www.birdlife.org/worldwide/partnership/about-birdlife?gclid=Cj0KE​
QjwuJu9BRDP_-HN9eXs1_UBEiQAlfW39vcxAEsfHVdFgDm83F3l67msp3DI7-m-pVQEs​LU10Ua​
AqFg8P8HAQ (9 August 2016)
 8. Since, Himas have been successfully designated in ten villages all over Lebanon. The El-Qleileh village
coastal landscape was the second to be declared a Hima through an academic studio project in co-­
operation with SPNL following the 2006 war; for further details, see Makhzoumi (2010).
 9. For further description of the concept of Hima adopted by the International Union for the Conservation
of Nature (IUCN), see https://www.iucn.org/content/al-hima-revives-traditional-methods-conserva​
tion-and-poverty-reduction (18 March 2017). The Ebel-es-Saqi Hima is now listed by the Society for the
Protection of Nature in Lebanon (SPNL)http://www.spnl.org/ibas-kbas/hima-ebel-es-saqi/ (13 March
2017).
10. For example the civil campaign for protecting Dalieh of Rouche, an urban site of biodiversity value, cul-
tural significance and a landmark in Beirut – see https://www.dalieh.org/ (30 March 2017).

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 4
Exploring the concept of
‘democratic landscape’
Benedetta Castiglioni and Viviana Ferrario

Landscape is a connecting term ... . Much of its appeal ... lies in landscape’s capacity
to combine incommensurate or even dialectically opposed elements: process and
form, nature and culture, land and life. Landscape conveys the idea that their
combination is – or should be – balanced and harmonious, and that harmony is visible
geographically. Balance and harmony carry positive moral weight, so that disordered or
formless landscape seems something of a contradiction. Scenic values thus come to act as
a moral barometer of successful community: human, natural or in combination.
D.E. Cosgrove (2006, p. 52)

Landscape and democracy: some issues under discussion

Since the late 1990s, a social turn interested the field of landscape studies. Due
to the attention now being paid to the relationship between landscape and
people, this perspective is inevitably incorporating new issues, such as justice
and democracy. These issues had previously remained tacit, given that the
landscape was more closely connected to environmental, historic and cultural
approaches. The current debate (see for example Mitchell 2003; Olwig 2005;
the special issue of Landscape Research on ‘Justice, power and the political
landscape’ in 2007; the volume The Right to Landscape: Contesting Landscape
and Human Rights, edited by Egoz et al. in 2011; the international confer-
ence ‘Defining landscape democracy’, organised in 2015 by the Norwegian
Centre for Landscape Democracy; Jorgensen 2016; Mels 2016) involves
discussion about some old, indwelling ideas about landscape, never yet com-
pletely explored in their problematic sphere. One of these, already partially
criticised by Jackson (Henderson 2003), is the idea of an automatic connection
between beautiful landscapes and good territorial dynamics, good governance
or – q­ uoting Cosgrove (2006, p. 52) – ‘successful community’. Scarry (1999)
‘argues that beauty deserves our attention as it leads us not away from, but
towards, social justice’ (Herrington 2016, p. 445). This idea implies the oppo-
site one, namely an automatic connection between disagreeable landscapes
and bad governance. Moving from good governance to the level of democracy
involves only a short step.

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 40  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

This chapter deals with landscape democracy and questions whether the
landscape – at the interface between its material and immaterial dimensions
(Farinelli 1991; Palang and Fry 2003; Wylie 2007) – can tell us about the
democracy of the processes behind it. By observing the landscape forms and
looking for the meanings assigned to them, can we understand something about
the quality of governance and the degree of democracy in the society that build
up that landscape? How is the ‘success’ of a ‘community’ visible and readable
in the landscape, other than through ‘scenic values’ (Cosgrove 2006)? To what
extent can we relate the landscape forms to social justice?
In the following, we propose the concept of ‘democratic landscape’ as a key
to detect the level of democracy in the social construction of landscape. A pre-
liminary examination of some of the important related issues is useful to our
discourse.

The European Landscape Convention and landscape democratisation

The European Landscape Convention (ELC) has provided highly important
impetus to the social turn in landscape studies in the first decades of the twenty-
first century, focusing mostly on two statements (CoE 2000).
What is notable first is its stance on the centrality of people in landscape dis-
course. The Preamble, in particular, affirms that ‘the landscape is a key element
of individual and social well-being’, and that ‘its protection, management and
planning entail rights and responsibilities for everyone’ (ibid.). Later, the text
often calls directly upon the ‘population’, that is, referring to the ‘landscape qual-
ity objectives’ – the linchpin of landscape policy, protection, management and
planning – formulated on the basis of ‘the aspirations of the public with regard
to the landscape features of their surroundings’. In this sense, the Convention
proposes a ‘democratisation’ of landscape (Prieur 2006), as it implies ‘participa-
tion of the public in the production and governance of landscape’ (Zerbi 2001,
p. 356).
A second basic question put forward by the ELC concerns the ‘democratic’
attention paid to ordinary landscapes: ‘It concerns landscapes that might be
considered outstanding as well as everyday or degraded landscapes’ (art. 2).
This concern for all landscapes – as they represent the place of life of European
people and the spatial contexts where their everyday activities occur – stands
in open opposition to an approach that considers only outstanding landscapes
as places to safeguard. The claim for the protection, management and valorisa-
tion of both ‘ordinary landscape’ and ‘outstanding landscape’ can be consid-
ered the expression of a new citizens’ democracy (Lelli and Paradis-Maindive
2000, p. 33). Similarly, it is obvious that the issue of democracy, as presented
by the ELC, does not concern only public spaces in the landscape, but the
entire landscape; all places where people live, produce, move, spend free time
and so on.
The ELC is based upon democratic values, and – as Egoz (2011, pp. 509–
510) points out – it ‘introduces a moral dimension to the landscape discourse’,
‘stresses social equity as the underlying premise’ and is ‘underpinned by the

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 Exploring the concept of ‘democratic landscape’   · 41

spirit of common good and social justice’. This moral dimension questions how
to put into practice the democratic principles it proposes.

The challenge of landscape democracy

The scientific debate concerning the relationship between democracy and land-
scape, and the official documents concerned, generally focus on the question of
democratic procedures in landscape knowledge and evaluation, and in decision-
making and governance.
In some recent contributions, Arler identifies ‘three basic sets of values’ in
referring to landscape democracy: personal freedom and self-determination,
co-determination and participation, and respect for arguments and objectivity
(Arler 2008; Arler and Mellqvist 2015). They lie respectively upon the ‘individu-
als’ right to decide on their private lives’, the ‘equal right [of citizens] in relation
to public decision-making processes’ and the ‘basic democratic virtue to rely
and to be responsive to arguments’ (Arler and Mellqvist 2015, pp. 274–278).
The authors consider different procedures for putting these principles into
practice, such as preference surveys, participation in focus groups and panels
for debate, learning together and drawing up recommendations, or other more
complex and involving procedures such as the ‘connoisseur method’ (ibid.). In
addition, the definition of landscape democracy proposed by the International
Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA) refers to ‘a form of planning and
design’ and to the participation of all citizens in the ‘proposal, development and
establishment of the rules by which their landscape and open spaces are shaped’
(IFLA 2014). Meanwhile, the guidelines for the implementation of the ELC,
introduced in 2008, define as an ‘exercise in democracy’ the involvement of
the public’s opinion in the definition of landscape quality produced by experts
(CoE 2008, sec. II.2.3.A). Similarly, democratisation is seen as ‘the collective
and individual appropriation of all landscapes, through the requirement that
there be direct participation for all in all phases of decision making regarding
landscape alteration, supervision of landscape evolution and prevention of reck-
less landscape destruction’ (Prieur 2006, p. 28).
Although inherently democratic, as they undoubtedly help in taking into
consideration the point of view of all citizens, we wonder whether the afore-
mentioned procedures and recommendations are sufficient to achieve land-
scape democracy. Indeed, the question is whether they involve people as active
subjects of democracy, or simply as passive objects observed by experts (in a
sort of investigative democracy). More generally, we question whether the chal-
lenge of landscape democracy is to be considered as limited to these practices
of procedural democracy, or whether it instead concerns the inner ‘substance’
of the landscapes and the processes of their social construction in the wider
perspective of a substantive democracy. Political studies define the latter as a
form of democracy that functions in the interest of the governed, with attention
paid to the substantive outcomes of the decisional processes, instead of to their
formal aspects. Democratic procedures for participation in decision-making
­concerning landscapes represent a means and not an end.

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 42  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

‘Democratic landscape’ as a possible key concept

Some years ago, we conducted research that led us to reflect on the expression
‘democratic landscape’ in order to gain a better understanding of the impor-
tant changes affecting the landscape in the study case we were analysing, the
metropolitan Venetian region (Castiglioni and Ferrario 2008; Castiglioni et al.
2010). This area in northeast Italy transformed itself rapidly from the 1960s
onwards from a rural landscape to what is now called ‘urbanised countryside’
or ‘città diffusa’; urbanisation and industrialisation (made up of medium-sized
and small factories) grew quickly, together with population, income and welfare.
Many experts blamed and criticised the effects of this process on the landscape,
denouncing land consumption, loss of traditional forms (Cosgrove’s beautiful
‘Palladian landscape’ in Cosgrove 1984), ecological disasters and the introduc-
tion of new, low-quality landscape elements, that is, industrial facilities, single
family houses and infrastructures. It represented ‘for many observers the very
antithesis of a landscape as a local integration of community life and regional
nature’ (Cosgrove 2006, p. 57), similar to post-modern southern California
(Cosgrove 2007).
While agreeing with most of these criticisms, we glimpsed some ambiguity
in certain negative judgements, as if the aesthetic disorder of the new landscape
features would have automatically represented a wrong and un-moral model for
economic, social and spatial development. This negative judgement was often
extended uncritically to the actors of this change, namely the former rural, poorly
educated inhabitants of the villages in the countryside that had within a short
period become high-income, small-scale entrepreneurs and part of the ruling class.
In that research, we used the concept of democratic landscape as the appropri-
ate framework (i) to go beyond the prejudice when trying to understand the
reasons for the landscape change and its spatial and social effects; and (ii) to
take into consideration different points of view, mainly those of the inhabitants,
since this landscape ‘represented the desires and needs, the customs and forms
of justice of the people who made them’ (Mitchell 2003, p. 787, quoting Olwig).
Like the landscape of Los Angeles in Cosgrove’s (2006, p. 64) remarks, the
contemporary metropolitan landscape of the Venetian region ‘represents one –
albeit signal – stage in the complex and historically extended evolution of cul-
tural transformation in which visions of social order and homeliness, and ideals
of harmony between land and human life become instantiated in the material
forms of landscape’.
In similar territorial contexts – and broadly extending it to all landscapes –
the aim is then to seek a substantive landscape democracy, which is to detect
where, how and when we can identify a ‘democratic landscape’, while trying to
recognise some of the characteristics that help to distinguish the level of democ-
racy embodied in a landscape. This is not intended as an analytical assessment
tool, but more comprehensively as an interpretative frame.
A preliminary problem involves establishing the extent to which the land-
scape reflects the processes behind it, the power relations and in sum the level of
democracy; how is it possible to detect it while observing the landscape?

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 Exploring the concept of ‘democratic landscape’   · 43

Does the landscape reflect democracy?

As is well known, various factors and processes continuously shape the land-
scape; what we see in an area is the result of both natural and human dynamics,
and their relations. Referring in particular to the social and political processes
that act in the development of the landscape, now and in the past, ‘it is inevitable
that political, economic, social and cultural inequalities become enshrined in
landscape itself’ (Jorgensen 2016, p. 2). In the same way, even if landscapes
appear just as ‘scenes’, ‘devoid of political significance and social actors’, they
‘are in fact fully imbued with power relations’ (Martin and Sherr 2005, p. 381).
We need then to understand whether and to what extent landscape is able
to indicate not only the processes from which it originates, but also how demo-
cratic they are. It seems that this substantive democracy could be a relevant
theme of landscape research, reorienting landscape studies ‘in a more explicitly
social justice direction’ (Mitchell 2003, p. 789), engaging with justice ‘as a core
issue of any politics of landscape’ (Jorgensen 2016, p. 2) and agreeing that ‘land-
scape studies should develop a concern with landscape as constituted through
­(in)­justice and vice versa’ (Mels 2016, p. 421).
In the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, Ambrogio Lorenzetti presents his painted
landscapes as ‘the Allegory of Good and Bad Governments’ and their ‘Effects in
the City and in the Countryside’, which makes the observer associate a beautiful
and ordered landscape with a good and well-administrated society, and vice
versa an awful and disordered landscape with a bad and badly managed society.
Lorenzetti explicitly paints an ‘allegory’, a symbolic representation; it does not
mean that this relation exists in the actual landscapes. Any automatic equiva-
lence between beautiful landscape and good management would be nothing but
‘deterministic’ (Papotti 2013, p. 386).
In fact, there is a risk of using the landscape as a totalising and self-sufficient
concept, able alone to explain the complex relationship between society and
space. Gambi (1961) warned against the possibility of gathering geographical
facts only through the visible landscape; we also need the support of other analy-
ses, and a historical–geographical one in particular. Rørtveit and Setten (2015,
p. 955) remind us that ‘social processes and practices cannot be easily read off
a landscape morphology’. The landscape is a perceivable witness of the deep
dynamics, but it can only report some glaring issues; there are issues that the
landscape alone cannot reveal, but rather only suggest (Castiglioni et al. 2010).
It is the scholar’s responsibility to determine the appropriate tools with which to
properly interrogate the landscape as a witness.
First, it is necessary to point out that the level of democracy is to a certain
extent independent from the democratic or non-democratic existing polity.
Second, we must observe that in some very special cases, real landscapes achieve
symbolic meanings and become themselves ‘symbolic landscapes’ explicitly
representing democracy: ‘Taken as a whole, the image of the New England vil-
lage is widely assumed to symbolise for many people the best we have known
of any intimate, family-centred, God-fearing, morally conscious, industrious,
thrifty, democratic community’ (Meinig 1979, p. 165, emphasis in the original).

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 44  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

However, in how many other cases is this so well understandable? Moreover,

does every social group perceive this landscape in the same way? After all, is
every New England village a truly democratic landscape?
According to many scholars, every landscape can talk implicitly about the
power processes that shaped it. As Olwig and Mitchell (2007, p. 527) suggest,
‘the fascination of landscape ultimately lies in the way that it expresses justice
and power’. Reading landscapes – as far as they are the outcomes of power
processes – becomes a means of understanding the social and political dynamics
acting in their construction.
That said, we can use the landscape itself as an indicator (Castiglioni 2007)
that collects evidence of power relations, justice, equalities and inequalities
acting in that particular spatial context on different scales. Observing the land-
scape and studying the processes that lie behind it, it is possible ‘to make sense
of the invisible through the visible’ (Turri 2004, p. 82). From this perspective,
landscapes are not simply (visible) elements enhancing society’s wellbeing, but
are symptoms of the (invisible) level of a deep society wellbeing (Ferrario 2011)
based on democracy and justice.

Questioning substantive landscape democracy

In the following, we propose questions that are useful in detecting the democ-
racy level in a certain landscape, as suggested by some previous empirical stud-
ies (Castiglioni and Ferrario 2008; Castiglioni et al. 2015; Ferrario and Reho
2015). The questions should be divided into three main groups, dealing respec-
tively with the actors involved, their relationships and role, and the dimension
of landscape as common good, remembering that democracy level – in both
the present and past landscapes – can be detected only by referring to a spe-
cific change, given the ‘processual nature of landscape’ itself (Jorgensen 2016,
p. 2).

Whose landscape is this?

The first questions deal with the social dimension of the ‘democratic landscape’.
The general question is ‘whose landscape is this?’, and it involves considera-
tion of different groups of actors, each of them with different roles concerning
landscape change (Arler 2008; Castiglioni 2009). Decision-makers (political
and administrative representatives) own the final word and the responsibility
for landscape change; however, other voices exist:

zz the voices of experts who provide data and information, draw up projects
and plans, propose alternatives, and recommend where special attention is
required;
zz the voices of stakeholders, often organised in lobbies, with special interests
in this or that question on landscape in rural and urban settings. Stakeholders
can hold an important and direct power in landscape change, but more
generally they are relevant because they are able to make their voices heard.

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 Exploring the concept of ‘democratic landscape’   · 45

This happens for direct landscape change agents (that is, landowners, farm-
ers or property investors and builders) as well as for ‘opinion stakeholders’
such as ecologists or cultural groups and NGOs;
zz the voices of the lay people living in the landscape, changing it through small
everyday actions and choices, who perceive it and assign values (including
affective values and a sense of belonging), the ones who need to be con-
sidered following the statements of the ELC. These voices are usually not
loud enough, thus there is a need to help them to be expressed (Castiglioni
2009);
zz the voices of tourists who, when visiting the landscape, introduce their per-
sonal ideas about it, often influencing local people’s ideas and behaviours.

Relationships and roles

A list of actors is not sufficient, and it is important to understand how their roles
intertwine in the definition of landscape objectives, in the landscape dynamics
and in the distribution of benefits and problems, as follows.

Final aims  A first question concerns who is involved in defining and proposing the
final aims for a landscape, in the case of both a change planned by an explicit
political project and a change deriving from a collective behaviour that is not
explicitly planned. The ELC is very clear that landscape quality objectives driving
landscape policies must be formulated based on the ‘aspirations of the public’
(art. 1). This means that landscape change should correspond to the needs of
the entire population in the present and the future, without differences, and that
this change should give everybody the same opportunities for wellbeing and
the same possibility of realising personal purposes. A landscape is democratic
inasmuch as all people participate in the definition of the orientations and
objectives of its change – even if they are non-written – and inasmuch as they
share them.

Decision-making process  A second question refers to what we have described above as

procedural democracy as a means to achieve the broader substantive democracy;
it concerns participative processes, namely the way in which persons are involved,
directly or indirectly, in decision-making processes and in writing plans, norms
and rules concerning landscape. At the same time, the question of which and
how expert knowledge contributes to the process of decision-making is relevant,
too: Who are the experts? What data do they choose? To what extent is expert
knowledge able to dialogue with lay-people’s knowledge?

Material construction  A third question relates to the actors that materially modify the
landscape: are they obliged to do it in a certain way, do they follow an order or
do they act freely? Who covers the cost of that landscape change (that is, public
bodies, landowners or private entrepreneurs, local communities or national
institutions)?

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 46  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Advantages/disadvantages  A fourth relevant question, bringing together explicitly the

issues of democracy and justice, concerns who takes advantage of and who is
disadvantaged by a certain landscape change, in terms first of material and
economic resources. Who receives direct benefits? Who receives them indirectly?
Whom does this change damage? What is the level of these benefits or damages
(absolutely and in relation to those of others)? When do they occur? Actually, it
is possible that some time after an advantage, damages occur, or vice versa. How
are advantages and disadvantages deriving from landscape distributed and shared
among citizens? Is this distribution fair or not? Which groups are eventually
favoured? How do different groups co-exist if the distribution is not equitable?
What conflicts occur? It is also important to note that the absence of conflict,
likely resulting from a distribution of advantages in a fair way among most of the
citizens, does not automatically mean that they share a common vision for the
landscape. Thus, to what extent is the convergence of individual interests in itself
a common challenge for/on the landscape? The complexity that emerges from
these questions is even greater if we also consider the scale of the distribution of
benefits and damages, from the local to the global level.

Landscape as commons
The global scale brings us to reflect upon another dimension of substantive
democracy. Indeed, everybody’s rights and responsibilities relating to land-
scapes also refer to another set of values, calling into question the territorial
context and the notion of landscape as ‘commons’ (Castiglioni et al. 2015).
In other words, a landscape cannot be ‘democratic’ if it does not maintain –
while changing – some general features relating to the common goods that con-
cern all of the people and public interests. We are thinking about spatial features,
such as the distribution of landscape elements in an area and their reciprocal
coherence (that is, in dimension, style and function), both considering the rela-
tion among built elements and between these elements and the pre-existing
characteristics of a landscape. The question of the relation between natural and
built elements – spatial as well as functional – takes into account a set of values
connected with ecology and the environmental quality of the landscape. Other
values concern the historical and heritage-related importance of the landscape
elements and structure that require safeguarding and conservation because they
represent a basic reference to people’s identity.
Defining the shared criteria related to these ‘global’ values (recognised and
promoted by international treaties such as the UNESCO Convention on World
Heritage and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands) is not easy. Their always
relative ‘objectiveness’ and the narratives to which they are often related (Scott
2012) call into question again the power of different actors and the different
voices, as we discussed before. Nevertheless, we need to consider these dimen-
sions as they relate to a level of justice and democracy higher than local and
deeper in time, referring to both the present and the future.

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 Exploring the concept of ‘democratic landscape’   · 47

Conclusions
The complexity of the issue of landscape democracy calls into question a wide
set of criteria for studying, planning, living in and visiting landscapes. It confirms
that it is not only possible, but also necessary, to go beyond the landscape ste-
reotypes of beautiful = fair, and, vice versa, disagreeable = unjust.
The list of questions proposed above should be taken into account when
dealing with the social aspects of landscape, and can be applied as a benchmark
in different landscape studies. Observing the Venetian metropolitan region
through the concept of ‘democratic landscape’ helps in recognising how differ-
ent perceptions and values (that is, the immaterial elements of landscape) of
several actors drive the landscape change, and that they should be considered in
efforts to achieve inclusive landscape practices.
Consequences of this approach could be surprising. Namely, we could
discover that a disagreeable landscape can be even more just and democratic
than a beautiful one, such as in the case of those ordinary landscapes of low
aesthetic quality, which nonetheless result from a diffuse increase in the quality
of life of their inhabitants and a larger involvement of all the people in their
making. In such situations, the concept of democratic landscape shows its
potentials in detecting the level of substantive landscape democracy going
beneath the façade of aesthetic appearance, but it requires a reading wary of
prejudices.

Acknowledgements
The authors thank the editors for inviting them to participate in this book. They
also thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and sugges-
tions, which helped to improve the text and clarify the arguments. The authors
are grateful for the discussion held in the SETLAND research group (University
of Padua, Italy) that first introduced the concept of ‘democratic landscape’. This
chapter results from the common work of the authors. Nevertheless, Benedetta
Castiglioni wrote the first two sections and Viviana Ferrario the third one. The
authors combined to write the conclusions.

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 5
Shatter-zone democracy? What
rising sea levels portend for
future governance Shatter-zone democracy and future governance

Charles Geisler

Introduction
According to legend, in the tenth century an all-powerful monarch named
King Canute observed ocean tides rising at his feet and concluded that sea
levels were beyond his control. Today’s rulers face more complicated ocean
­encroachments: global seas swollen by melting glaciers, magnified storm surges,
weather irregularities, and decreasing albedo. As global climate change intensi-
fies, sea levels change, and coastal populations shift inland, will democracy as
we know it become untenable? The answer may well be yes. If global popula-
tion growth continues unabated and habitable lands dwindle, human crowding
will intensify. In many regions, implacable barriers to entry – physical, institu-
tional, and behavioral – will reduce the access, rights, and free choice of coastal
migrants.
Academics in multiple disciplines have connected landscapes and democratic
values in creative ways (for example, Pickles 2004; Lipietz 2006; Castells 2012;
Shrivastava and Kothari 2012). But how does this democratic linkage fare in
landscapes embattled with climate change? Might global mean sea level rise
(GMSLR) require evermore dirigist governance marked by emergency legisla-
tion, if not martial law? Bauman (2002), noting that for at least two centuries
intellectuals have postulated that there are density limits beyond which human
congeniality will not endure, expresses concern that democracy will languish in
overly full landscapes. If climate migrants seeking inland refuge from rising seas
encounter resistance by established populations – witness the push-back facing
today’s political refugees in numerous parts of the world – democratic processes
may founder for at least some sectors of society.
According to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC 2015), GMSLR may rise by 1.5 meters by the end of the twenty-
first century, inundating much of world lowlands where millions of people live.
Other researchers imply larger dislocations of 4–6 meters in the centuries ahead
(Church and White 2006; Overpeck and Weiss 2009; Vermeer and Rahmstorf

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 Shatter-zone democracy and future governance  · 51

2009). Based on the erratic, non-linear effects of Greenland and Western

Antarctica ice-sheets loss, James Hansen et al. (2016) suggest a scenario in
which ice melt occurs ten times faster than previous estimates and yield GMSLR
of several meters in 50 to 200 years. They report that related social disruptions
may include conflicts from forced migrations and economic collapse that might
make the planet ungovernable, threatening the fabric of civilization (ibid.,
p. 3799). According to McKibben (1989), global ice cover contains enough
water to raise world oceans up to 75 meters in the future.
Throughout this chapter, I refer to the inland landscapes to which displaced
coastal residents will migrate as ‘shatter zones,’ or landscapes of likely strain and
conflict.1 Storm surges substantially magnify GMSLR of even a meter or two
and impose enormous costs on resident coastal communities (McGranahan et
al. 2007). Shatter zones are thus a proving ground for democracy, or perhaps
post-democracy, as states of exception continue to unfold. In contrast, I char-
acterize the global low elevation coastal zone (LECZ), where nearly 10 percent
of the world’s population now live (McGranahan et al. 2013), as the sending or
‘surge’ zone.
Four sections follow. The first sets the stage for GMSLR displacement by
offering an overview of natural disasters and social dislocation. This is done with
an eye towards democratic landscapes saddled with demographic challenges
and social conflicts. The second investigates the shatter zone: what are the bar-
riers to entry for surge-zone migrants moving inland from global coast lands?
These barriers are spatially extensive and range from land degradation, ongoing
warfare and spreading desertification to an imposing list of ‘no trespass’ condi-
tions that forestall interior land access and use. The third and fourth sections
contrast two views of future democracy, one in which it is inconvenient and
dysfunctional, the other in which it is resilient, evolving, and durable.

Natural disasters and human dislocation

The scope of GMSLR and its effect on the surge zone may be unparalleled
in human history. Natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, mini ice ages,
droughts, floods, fires, epidemics, plagues, and famines have displaced previous,
smaller populations, leaving them homeless and adrift. Today, political refugees,
internally displaced people, and stateless persons are at their highest numbers
since World War II. Environmental refugee numbers are also ballooning. The
majority of the 3 billion people added to the world by 2050 will be ‘water refu-
gees’ coming from countries where water tables are falling (Brown 2008). The
same author adds: ‘Another new source of refugees, potentially a huge one, is
rising seas. The refugee flows from falling water tables and expanding deserts are
already under way. Those from rising seas are just beginning, but the numbers
could eventually reach the hundreds of millions ...’ (ibid., p. 123).
Though technologies may be found to colonize space and oceans (‘sea-
steading’) or to fortify coastlands against GMSLR, democratic decision-making
and governance will be fundamentally tested by climate change effects. Refugees
often fail to meet residency requirements for voting, are formally or informally

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 52  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

disenfranchized, and face humanitarian fatigue, racial exclusion, or political

antipathy. Ambiguity surrounds humanitarian questions of who gets barred
or evicted and who gets to stay; who is entitled to public services, relocation
assistance, and property compensation; and what voice will the police and the
military have in keeping order and enforcing justice? Simply put, will the tissues
of democracy tear apart amid shatter-zone dynamics?

Shatter-zone landscapes
The human population of the Earth has doubled since the late 1970s and will
probably grow by another 2–3 billion by 2060 (Hooke and Martín-Duque 2012).
As population increases and the LECZ diminishes, inland population densities
will grow. Tensions between coastal migrants and inland gate-keepers are cer-
tain to rise not only because the LECZ itself is shrinking, but because of diverse
and non-trivial inland barriers to entry. These include vast landscapes subject to
advancing soil degradation and loss, carbon storage set-asides required to offset
melting permafrost and the emissions of fossil fuel dependency, toxic dumps
and brownfield development, ongoing warfare and nuclear exclusion zones,
post-war minefields and unexploded ordinance graveyards, exclusionary zoning
and gated cities, and other ‘no trespass’ conditions that discourage newcomers
and produce resettlement battlegrounds.
Elsewhere, Geisler and Currens (2017) have generated estimates of the
substantial reduction in habitable landscapes that could result from worst-case
GMSLR encroachment, aggravated by inland barriers rendering resettlement
areas partially or wholly off-limits. The most pessimistic spatial loss they predict for
2100 is 105 million km2 or roughly 70 percent of the Earth’s current terrestrial area
of 149 m­ illion km2. Even reducing their estimate by half (to 52.5 million km2) puts
nearly one-third of the Earth’s terrestrial surface out of bounds for most sustainable
resettlement. Whatever the correct estimates turn out to be, future-proofing the
planet in amicable, judicious, and participatory ways may soon be in doubt.
One among many examples of ongoing spatial loss is road building. Roads
make it possible for coastal dwellers to travel inland, but also consume interior
living space. In addition to claiming as much 7.5 million km2 as of 2010, they
remake landscapes in many adverse ways. In the United States alone, Forman
(2000) estimates that 19 percent of the country is indirectly impacted when
taking full account of impeded animal migrations, altered runoff, and waterway
rechanneling associated with road build-out. More roads invite more cars and
parking requirements, more auto graveyards, and more landfills for asphalt and
other spent road materials. Road growth triggers more fossil fuel consumption
(Santero 2009) and augments demand for cement, which accounts for 5 percent
of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Largely because of roads,  cement
production is expected to rise from 2.55 billion tons per year in 2006 to over 4
billion tons by 2050 (Rubenstein 2012), with commensurate CO2 growth and
GMSLR feedbacks.

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 Shatter-zone democracy and future governance  · 53

An inconvenient democracy?
The cumulative effects of LECZ loss combined with restrictions on inland access
and use suggest new sea–land–society relationships. The remainder of this
chapter summarizes two opposing interpretations of what these relationships
foreshadow regarding democracy. Some argue that these combined processes
hollow out existing democracies in all but name, in the dictatorial tradition of
Rossiter (1948), Balkin and Levinson (2010), and Abel (2014). Alternatively,
climate change may evoke what Hawken (2007) calls ‘blessed unrest,’ a decen-
tralized, populist democratic form of governance responding to existential
environmental challenges. Hawken sees resurgent citizen organizations already
coalescing in a global movement that

grows and spreads in every city and country and involves virtually every tribe,
culture, language and religion ... . It forms, dissipates, and then re-gathers quickly,
without central leadership, command, or control. Rather than seeking dominance,
this unnamed movement strives to disperse concentrations of power. It has
been capable of bringing down governments, companies, and leaders through
witnessing, informing, and massing. The quickening of the movement in recent
years has come about through information technologies becoming increasingly
accessible and affordable to people everywhere. Its clout resides in its ideas, not in
force. (Hawken 2007, pp. 11–12)

Establishing an unambiguous relationship between GMSLR and performative

democracy is difficult because so many factors are simultaneously at play. The
view that social relations become fractious in the face of crowding and resource
depletion for whatever reason is a familiar narrative among neo-­Malthusians (for
example, Homer-Dixon 1994), but also among political ecologists (for example,
Klare 2012). Recurring competition over space and resources is a partial expla-
nation for democratic dysfunction in some cases and a keystone to its failure
in others (Blaikie and Brookfield 1987). The Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute (de Koning 2009) has weighed in on this matter, asserting
that climate change too can upend the institutions of democracy.
But what might account for centralized, dirigist, and potentially authoritarian
control in the face of GMSLR? Sanderson (1999) reviews numerous studies
of governance under general conditions of environmental stress and reports a
tendency towards centralized decision-making and intervention. More relevant
to the present chapter is the useful literature review compiled by Stehr (2012)
in his writing on ‘inconvenient democracy,’ that is, the view that representative
democracy is ill-equipped to handle the slow but certain climate emergency
confronting humankind. For this and other reasons, Stehr warns, there is broad
disenchantment with the practical efficacy of democratic solutions. It is worth
summarizing his more compelling arguments for why this is so.
First, the causes and consequences of climate change are too complicated for
the public to fathom. The scientific community alone can grasp the big picture
in all or most of its salient details and see the risks and harms of erratic climate

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 54  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

change. By extension, climate change is too grand-scale for collective action.

Second, democracy is inconvenient because it rarely displays swift and efficient
action. Stehr cites, among others, Shearman and Smith (2007) who conclude
that ‘we need an authoritarian form of government in order to implement the
scientific consensus on greenhouse gas emissions’ (Stehr 2012, p. 58). Finally,
under business-as-usual democracy, climate change deniers can and will seize
available channels to prevent or indefinitely prolong debate about human versus
natural causes, the destiny of local and global economies in the absence of
hydrocarbon fuels, and the credibility of science itself.2
In sum, Stehr notes a profound impatience with democracy in the face of
global existential challenges. Scientific discourse increasingly ‘[p]rivileges
hegemonic players such as world powers, states, transnational organizations, and
multinational corporations’ (ibid., p. 59). This observation is echoed in the elit-
ist views of geoengineers intent on ‘fixing’ excessive solar radiation though tech-
nological interventions that require little or no public consultation (Szerszynski
et al. 2013; Gertner 2017). To launch technologies capable of reflecting sunlight
back into space, geoengineering must act at the planetary level, be continuous,
and rely on autocratic governance (Hulm 2014). Democracy, according to a
growing list of thoughtful observers, conforms poorly with the lived experience
of climate change.
It is worth asking for whom democracy is inconvenient? As Klein (2014)
states, for elites who orchestrate democracy, popular welfare is not a planning
priority. Elites respond to lebensraum problems of the shatter zone with plans
of their own. Beyond potentially profitable geoengineering schemes, they are
buying up and barricading the best lands, colonizing the sea and its resources,
and planning to settle space itself if need be. Such utopian colonizing schemes,
for example billionaire Richard Branson’s ocean mapping project and Virgin
Galactic space ventures, might be thought of as shatter zone ‘safety valves’ for
the well-off. To be sure, the growing inequality of wealth, access, and oppor-
tunity are not irrelevancies in understanding the troubles of inconvenient
democracy.3

Democratic recrudescence?
Is democracy ending or just beginning? If the latter, can a new relationship
between democracy and landscape be imagined? Here we explore this pros-
pect through the twin lenses of green democracy and the public trust doctrine.
Despite considerable research linking crowding, chaos, and gathering authori-
tarianism, a democratic paradigm shift may be under way that is changing the
meaning of development, the role of communities and commons therein, and
the moral ecology of society. From this vantage point, shatter-zone experiences
due to ocean encroachment are learning events that can recast democracy and
issue in a ‘social green’ vision of the future (Clapp and Dauvergne 2011) in
which nature and democracy are mutually constituted. Its broad embrace of the
public trust doctrine gives it both legacy and legal standing. Far from inconven-
ient, some see a new democratic engagement occurring across space, time, and

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 Shatter-zone democracy and future governance  · 55

generations – a global movement redressing shatter-zone dilemmas in the name

of green democracy (Prugh and Renner 2014).
An example is found in India, the world’s most populous democracy and a
landscape of many micro shatter zones. These are the result of development
mega-projects from which some 60 million people have been displaced, a vexing
problem in India and elsewhere (Shrivastava and Kothari 2012). These authors
elaborate a re-tooled notion of democracy in India, calling it a Radical Ecological
Democracy, or RED. In this paradigm, communities and collectivities replace
states and corporations as new vortices of social organization. Collectively they
constitute a ‘moral commons’ and reflect working experiments in Rajasthan,
Maharashtra, Andhra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. For
Shrivastava and Kothari the lesson is this: empowered localization can offset
globalization though heightened ecological awareness among non-elites (the
‘demos’) of where they live, what their landscapes require to survive, and what
the moral limits to consumption really are. Kothari et al. (2014) believe that
Buen Vivir in Latin America and the Degrowth Movement in Europe repre-
sent similar large-scale, post-growth democratic experiments showing system
resiliency.
Also concerned with moral context and the future of democracy is Robyn
Eckersley who, in 2004, wrote the imposing book, The Green State: Rethinking
Democracy and Sovereignty. Eckersley explores what is required to replace the
classical liberal democratic state, the growth-dependent welfare state, and the
neo-liberal market-state with a green democratic state. Differing somewhat from
Shrivastava and Kothari, she reasons that the state is still the pre-eminent politi-
cal institution for addressing environmental problems and a necessary stepping
stone toward greening of both domestic and international policy. Eckersley
adheres to a social learning model wherein governments are reflexive actors not
bound by democratic scripts of the past. Governments can, with help from those
they govern and feedback from their ecosystems, change their relationships,
their moral economy, and their responsibilities to steward public goods. ‘Good’
green states can and must remold liberal democratic states into green states
using principles of ecological democracy. Thus armed, democratic states expand
their ecological agency and engagement.
Other contributions to this paradigm shift in democratic rule, mediated by a
commons framework, find new scope and scale in the works of Bollier (2007),
Weston and Bollier (2013), and Bauwens (2010). Bauwens reconceptualizes
democracy by imagining a ‘triarchy’ of the market–state–commons. In his
formulation, the commons represents a third force of political life holding in
check the interests of the market and the state (Wood 2014). These reimagined
visions of the landscape–democracy nexus incorporate notions of a moral com-
mons in the shatter zones of the world. The commons, as a set of operating
and ownership principles for public goods, is managed outside the state regime
and the commercial sector. It is not beholden to them nor is it subject to their
growth imperatives. Yet questions remain. Where do accountability and fiduci-
ary responsibility among those in power come from and are these enforceable
in light of the inconvenient democracy critique? These questions bring us to

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 56  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

the public trust doctrine (PTD), a time-honored body of common law that
addressed sea and coastline governance long before GMSLR gained promi-
nence (Sand 2007), and has expanding inland applications today (Wood 2014;
Hare and Blossey 2014).
If the GMSLR shatter zone concerns posed earlier are taken seriously, a fun-
damental recalibration of democracy would seem necessary to avert authoritar-
ian end-games. It would be tragic to replace climate denial with the denial of
democracy. The PTD, currently extant in the constitutions or statutes of over
20 countries (Takacs 2008; Blumm and Guthrie 2012), emerged in the 1970s
as a potent legal means for checking special interests that corrupt democracy
(Turnipseed et al. 2010) while strengthening the de-carbonizing hand of states
(Nijhuis 2016). Indeed, Joseph Sax (1970), a principal PTD spokesperson, sees
it as an overlooked tool for citizens seeking a comprehensive legal stratagem for
resource management problems of all kinds. As a legal intervention, the PTD
asserts broadly defined environmental rights of all members of the public and,
as if to address the ‘long view’ critique in inconvenient democracy, explicitly
defends the rights of future generations (as well as other species). It imposes
an affirmative fiduciary obligation on government officials to steward a growing
list of resources, ecosystems, and services, thus giving citizens at large – whether
coastal migrants or others – a way to hold officials legally accountable for land-
scape degradation (Wood 2014).
Also hopeful, the PTD has evolved through the ages and is increasingly part
of the ‘law’s DNA’ (Torres 2001). In her review of climate change and the ‘earth
under siege,’ Wood (2014, pp. 14–15) proposes an ‘epochal project of rebuild-
ing natural wealth’ in what she calls ‘Nature’s Trust’ – a legal and cultural means
of advancing the new democracy Khotari, Eckersley, Bauwen, and other authors
advocate. Herein the public is vested with a durable possessory interest in tan-
gible (water, shorelands) and intangible (climate, biodiversity) resources, and
thus has legal standing to hold governments accountable for their protection and
prudential management. Trust resources being owned in common by the public
at large rather than privatized or claimed by states (Torres 2001), the PTD may
offer a defense against exclusion and other barriers to entry where public trust
ownership is upheld by courts. As Wood (2014, pp. 125–126) writes, ‘the public
trust doctrine speaks to one of the most essential purposes of government: pro-
tecting crucial natural assets for the survival and welfare of citizens.’

Conclusion
Rising GMSLR is the most tangible effect of the Earth’s changing climate and
will be with us for centuries to come (Solomon et al. 2009). Over time, rising,
surging, and swollen oceans will imperil the livelihoods of many millions of
surge-zone inhabitants. Debates over the rate and magnitude of GMSLR will
continue, as will debates over inland capacity and willingness to accommodate
coastal migrants. Land-extensive barriers to entry and their potentially shatter-
ing effects on democratic rule remind us of the frailties of human institutions
that until recently seemed stable and dependable. Yet looming inland barriers

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 Shatter-zone democracy and future governance  · 57

to resettlement are a global condition and call for uncommon global resolve in
forging a ‘post-democratic’ democracy.
Ready or not, in the coming decades GMSLR must test democracy at its core.
Ocean push means coastline shove. Shrinkage of the world’s coastlines is not
a matter of if, but when. The ‘demos’ of both the surge and shatter zone must
mobilize us in myriad ways, better as allies than as opponents. Bollier (2008)
reminds us of the ‘viral spiral’ across the landscape of civil society, thanks to
the internet and digital commons. Hawken (2007) sees ‘blessed unrest’ swarm-
ing across the planet, strong enough to interrupt empires of wealth and power.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change4 now holds the largest of
all annual United Nations Conferences, attended by up to 10,000 people each
year from across the globe; RED blueprints and green democracy manifestos
are gathering points for growing numbers of local people committed to resist-
ing shatter-zone failings (Zimmerman 2014). And the once-arcane public trust
doctrine is now evident in the statutes, constitutions, and judicial decisions of
multiple nations, north and south. This a new democratic movement that, we
must hope, is too big to fail.

Acknowledgements
The comments of Noel Gurwick, Gökçe Gunel, Louise Fortmann, Mary Kritz,
Paul McLaughlin, Shelley Feldman, Holly Buck, Susan Dixon, Nelson Bills, and
Darragh Hare are acknowledged, as is funding support for this research from
the Cornell Institute for the Social Sciences (ISS) and its Contested Global
Landscapes Project.

Notes
1. J. Scott (2009) uses shatter zones to refer to upland zones of refuge where lowland populations flee to
evade state-led labor and military obligations. I use the term to refer to inland places where lowland
­evacuees, fleeing GMSLR-induced coastal transformation, encounter multiple barriers to resettlement and
democratic institutions under stress.
2. In 2007, a high court judge in England held that screening Al Gore’s Nobel Award-winning film in British
secondary schools violated laws barring the promotion of partisan political views in the classroom. In
2012, the legislature of North Carolina passed a law making the use of current science to predict GMSLR
illegal (ABC News 2012). According to Winiecky (2013), where politicians do support theories of climate
change, they are inclined to redistribute money largely for coastal modification and adaptation, as this
helps them obtain support from those who benefit most – usually elites and wealthy donors.
3. Global wealth concentration today has become acute: by 2016 the world’s richest 1 per cent may hold
more wealth than the rest of the world combined (Oxfam 2015).
4. The UNFCCC is an international environmental treaty established in 1992. It is the only international
climate policy venue with broad legitimacy, and enjoys virtually universal membership (195 parties to the
Convention).

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 6
Making the case for landscape
democracy: context and
nuances
Shelley Egoz, Karsten Jørgensen and Deni Ruggeri

Introduction
We live in a time of increasing social and environmental uncertainties. In order
for landscape architects to address such challenges and in making a case for
landscape democracy it is necessary to reflect on the epistemology of ‘landscape’
and ‘democracy’, and offer our own understanding of the binomial landscape
democracy, an enigmatic term to many.
The words landscape and democracy share common attributes: they are both
complex and contested terms standing for a variety of interpretations. Joining
both words, to become a term and a concept, poses an added difficulty. For one,
understanding social phenomena requires a particular context, and will embody
ambiguities and nuances. We therefore begin this chapter with a focus on the
particular interpretations of the words ‘landscape’ and ‘democracy’, highlighting
their relevance for making a case for landscape democracy.

Landscape
The scholarly meaning of landscape is diverse and multifaceted, including a visual
‘picture-like’ ideal of a natural area, a geographic term, and an area for scientific
exploration, as well as a metaphor in art, literature and poetry, or an intellectual
framework for analysis in several humanistic and ecological sciences (Howard
et al. 2013). In the last few decades, the transition from a prevailing meaning of
landscape as scenery to a perception of landscape as a ‘world-life place’ has gained
prominence in academia, policy-making and practice. During the second half of
the twentieth century, scholars developed a tradition of cultural geography that
began to engage with landscape as a reflection of culture. Influential Western
(mainly North American) scholars, such as J.B. Jackson, Yi Fu Tuan, Donald
Meinig, David Lowenthal, and their disciples, prepared the ground in academia
for a humanistic perspective on landscape as it relates to society. Meanwhile a
key European policy document is shaping this change in perception of what we

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 62  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

mean by landscape: The European Landscape Convention (ELC). The ELC’s

definition of landscape as ‘an area, as perceived by people, whose character is
the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors’ (CoE
2000) means that our perception of landscape has shifted from a detached
visual and aesthetic entity, a scientific area to analyse objectively, or an idealised
picture, to being understood as a lived-in spatial entity (Olwig 2007) that is
defined, and to which an identity is ascribed, through a profound relationship
between people and their outdoor environment (Egoz 2010). Further develop-
ments from this stance imply that landscape is a common good, rather than a
tradable commodity that can be privately owned (Egoz 2016). Understood in
this manner, landscape forms the basic infrastructure for life and wellbeing of all
humans and the natural environment (Egoz et al. 2011). These premises cannot
be divorced from values of equality and landscape social justice1 embedded in
both the doctrine of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)
and the ELC’s principles, which are anchored in the Council of Europe’s (CoE)
humanistic moral values that aspire to deliver social justice, as stated:

The Convention provides an important contribution to the implementation of

the Council of Europe’s objectives, namely to promote democracy, human rights
and the rule of law and to seek common solutions to the main problems facing
European society today. By developing a new territorial culture, the Council of
Europe seeks to promote populations’ quality of life. (CoE 2000)

Hence our assumption for a shared definition for landscape democracy

­comprises the following propositions:

1. Landscape is both a material artefact and an abstract notion; while

­geographic specific it is also universal: everyone lives in a landscape.
2. Landscape is a common multifunctional resource.
3. Our discourse is underpinned by a commitment to social justice and
­egalitarian values, in the spirit of the UDHR.

We believe these principles ought to shape the planning of equal access to all
landscapes and the resources they provide, whether physical, emotional, mental
or spiritual. This is a political statement taking a particular stance and world-
view. Our definition of landscape aligns with what Kenneth Olwig has termed
Landschaft: ‘a nexus of community, justice, nature, and environmental equity, a
contested territory’ (Olwig 1996, pp. 630–631) recognising the ‘historical and
contemporary importance of community, culture, law, and custom in shaping
human geographical existence – in both idea and practice’ (ibid., p. 645).

Democracy
As with ‘landscape’, the word ‘democracy’ has more tacit dimensions than its
prevailing use in everyday language. Theories of democracy, and democratic
political systems, include liberal/representative, consensus, participatory, and

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 Making the case for landscape democracy   · 63

deliberative, as well as radical democracy, deep democracy, and the recently

coined neo-democracy.2 While this book may not be the place for a compre-
hensive discussion on democracy and political systems, our short review seeks
to illustrate the relevance of democracy to landscape and the complexity of this
binomial.
The word democracy originated in Ancient Greece and literally translates
as ‘the rule of the people’. Despite its old origin and common knowledge of
Athenian democracy and the Agora – the public market place – as the setting
for deliberative democracy, the meaning of the word has always been complex
(Williams 1976) and contested (Cunningham 2002; Arler 2008). Today, in
contemporary Western politics and culture, the word democracy is widely
used to denote an enlightened governance system associated with freedom and
equality. Nonetheless, historically as well as in the present day, conceptions of
democracy diverge (ibid.). ‘The rule of the majority’, or ‘the rule of the people’
creates several challenges that the Greek philosopher Aristotle identified in the
fourth century BCE. For Aristotle, good governance represented ‘the common
good’ rather than self-serving private interests. His intention, however, was not
‘the interests that people happen to share, but that which is good for their com-
munity, since a good community for him promotes the well-being of all its mem-
bers by allowing them to exercise their proper potentials and to lead virtuous
and successful lives’ (Cunningham 2002, p. 7). Of all six forms of government –
royalty, tyranny, aristocracy, oligarchy, polity and democracy – Aristotle saw the
most merit in royalty (one ruler in common interests), aristocracy (few rulers in
common interests) and polity (many rulers in common interests), and identi-
fied their negative parallels in tyranny, oligarchy and democracy. For him, the
ideal governing system would be ‘a royalty where a single, noble ruler performed
his proper function, followed by a properly functioning aristocracy’ (ibid.). Yet
he seemed to recognise that his utopian idea would likely not survive the test of
real-world politics.
Similarly, nineteenth-century French political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville,
in his influential manuscript Democracy in America (1835), identified several
challenges to democracy as a political system. To him, the most critical threats
to democracy and its ideal of equality were its vulnerability to power abuses, and
the possibility that it would bring about the tyranny of the majority.3 Aristotle,
de Tocqueville, and America’s founding fathers, all had an elitist view and mis-
trusted ‘the majority’, or ‘the people’, who they believed lacked the intellectual
abilities and moral values to govern, whereas, they argued, royalty and aristoc-
racy possessed those qualities and skills. Another concern was that in ‘the rule of
the people’, ‘the people’ are an abstract entity and the system is hence open to
manipulation and demagoguery. There was thus a danger that democracy could
become a mask of oppressive rule. A further doubt was whether majority rule
could constitute an effective government.
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, de Tocqueville, and other twentieth-
century political theorists and leaders, were concerned that democracy as the
rule of the majority would undermine minority rights of the wealthy, in particular
land rights, and directed their efforts towards ensuring that individual property

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 64  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

rights would be protected in a constitution (Naiman 1999). This knotty aspect

of the rule of the people in democracy continued to challenge twentieth-century
‘good-Wilson-FDR-Kennedy liberal intellectuals’ (Chomsky 2016, p. 75) who
expressed elitist sentiments and denigrating attitudes towards the ‘ignorant and
meddlesome outsiders who must be put in place’ and saw themselves as the
‘intelligent minorities [of] responsible men who must be protected from the
trampling and roar of the bewildered herd’ (ibid.).
As the new American government that Jefferson and others envisioned illus-
trates, there are ambiguities, tensions and contestations associated with democ-
racy and social justice in every society. This reminds us that when we uncritically
accept that democracy is automatically in line with constitutional values of
liberty and equality, we are often misguided. The tensions can be explained by
the social dynamics and embedded power–class relations of a society, and sug-
gest that any serious attempt at promoting greater landscape democracy should
be grounded in a deep understanding and awareness of power structures and
distribution, and that constitutional references to liberty and equality are but
formal prerequisites to achieving ideals of equity and democracy.

Landscape democracy
The danger of populism on the one hand and elitism on the other indicates that
in a democratic system, formal agreements are only effective if they are set in ‘a
democratic culture with a strong tradition of critical evaluation and respect for
good impartial arguments’ (Arler 2008, p. 84).
Landscape democracy must be addressed in the context of landscape justice,
rather than of protecting the doctrine of individual property rights or proce-
dures for governance. In defining landscape as a common good (Egoz 2016), we
see the conditions for landscape democracy anchored in a particular social con-
tract, where the proposition is for a mutual understanding that landscape is an
essential component to ensure everyone’s wellbeing, an indisputable universal
human right (Egoz et al. 2011). As such, the attempt to promote and materialise
landscape democracy is a step toward spatial justice.
Academic concern with the democratic dimensions of public planning began
in the late 1960s and 1970s, focusing on engaging the public in decisions regard-
ing changes to their landscapes. Public participation achieved scholarly recogni-
tion in the fields of environmental design and planning under the influence and
inspiration of seminal figures such as Sherry Arnstein (1969) in North America
and Patsy Healey (1974) in the UK. Arnstein’s much-used ladder of participation
is a conceptual framework that critiques power relations between citizens and
government, ranging from nonparticipation (manipulation) through tokenism
(informing) to actual citizen power (partnership and control). In spatial planning
theory, Healey’s prolific work on collaborative planning continues to be devel-
oped among urban planners and landscape architects (see Hillier and Metzger
2015). Planning procedures that focus on collaborative processes are consistent
with political theorist Robert Putnam’s (1993) focus on public engagement in
decision-making as a fundamental condition for a functioning democracy. At the

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 Making the case for landscape democracy   · 65

same time, his work has revealed the critical role that community life and social
capital play as platforms for the daily performance and testing of democracy. In
his view, while voting is the simplest form of democratic practice, bridging social
capital and interactions across social groups are important prerequisites and
motivators for civic engagement.
In its ‘Explanatory Report’ item 23, the CoE introduced the concept of ‘land-
scape democracy’ as an international political priority:

Landscape must become a mainstream political concern, since it plays an important

role in the well-being of Europeans who are no longer prepared to tolerate the
alteration of their surroundings by technical and economic developments in which
they have had no say. Landscape is the concern of all and lends itself to democratic
treatment, particularly at local and regional level. (ELC 2000)

Scholarly discussion around this dimension of the ELC began with a semi-
nal article by Danish philosopher Finn Arler (2008; 2011), the first scholar to
attempt a definition of landscape democracy. Addressing the questions of what
landscape democracy might look like, whether and why it is important, and how
it shall be organised, Arler developed a theoretical model structured into three
sets of values:

1. Personal freedom and self-determination (underscored by hardcore liberal

beliefs in democracy and neo-liberal free-market ideologies).
2. Co-determination and participation (underscored by valuing social capital).
3. Objectivity and impartiality (underscored by commitment to common
decisions based on arguments and inclusive, respectful deliberations).

The subject of landscape democracy has since developed into a field of study
in itself, within a wider ongoing scholarly occupation with the topic of landscape
and social justice (for example, Olwig and Mitchell 2009), and discourse on
the right to landscape (Egoz et al. 2011). There are regular conferences and
publications focusing on involving the public in landscape planning and design
(for example, Jones and Stenseke 2011; Roe 2013; Egoz 2015). Yet landscape
democracy is a particular field that materialises social processes in context and a
physical landscape realm, hence there is more to it than abstract ideals.

The physical anchoring of landscape democracy

While Putnam’s emphasis on participation and the significance of social capi-
tal for democracy (Putnam 1993) underlines much of the work on landscape
democracy, there are further dimensions to consider. One of these is the land-
scape’s role as ‘the backdrop to the performance of democratic rights’ (Roe
2013, p. 343). From the Greek Agora to London’s Hyde Park, one of the founda-
tions of democracy is the presence of landscapes as inclusive public spheres that
make available settings and opportunities for human engagement in democratic
activities.

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 66  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Political philosopher Michael Sandel (2009), who advocated ‘the new poli-
tics of common good’, highlighted the significance of spaces where ‘people from
different walks of life encounter one another and so acquire enough of a sense
of a shared life that we can meaningfully think of one another as citizens in
a common venture’. Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman (2007, p. 90) went on to
suggest that designers can contribute to inclusiveness in our cities: ‘architects
and urban planners could do quite a lot to assist the growth of mixophilia and
minimize the occasions for mixophobic responses to the challenges of life’, and
geographer David Harvey (2008, p. 23) argued that ‘the right to the city ... is ...
a common rather than an individual right ... . The freedom to make and remake
our cities and ourselves is ... one of the most precious yet most neglected of our
human rights’.
Another critical function of public space that is fundamental to landscape
democracy today is its role as the place for public protests and demonstrations,
such as the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street. According to geographer Don
Mitchell (2015, p. 16), the actual engagement in demonstrations – being there
to protest – constitutes

alternative modes of producing public or common spaces and reformulating the

relations of power that govern landscape [which] only become possible through
the active taking and occupation of space ... . Therefore, landscape democracy
requires not just an assertion of a ‘right to landscape’ but an active exercise of that
right through the active, communal production of commons over and against the
dominant organisation of space through relations of private property.

As we have witnessed by 2017, six years on from a global wave of

­ emonstrations and street occupations, most of these occupation attempts
d
have not succeeded in changing culture and policy. All too often, politi-
cians, security forces, and in some cases a small army of design experts and
landscape professionals, have gradually erased the visibility and symbolic
prominence of these landscapes. In Turkey, Istanbul’s Taksim Square is a
paradigmatic example of a space that, because of its unique physical and
cultural circumstances, offered a launching pad for landscape democracy.
Thousands of people protested the destruction of this meaningful landscape,
which was ultimately destroyed.
Anthropologist and political activist David Graeber (2013) argues that, not-
withstanding the immediate unsuccessful outcomes, these opportunities for
thousands and sometimes more than a million protesters to gather in one space
(for example, Tahrir Square, Cairo, 2011) are, at the end of the day, the criti-
cal events that begin revolutions and deliver progressive social changes. Space
and landscape thus have an instrumental role in affording or oppressing social
change. The spatial character of these spaces is what after all enables people to
engage in acts of solidarity and protestation against inequality. Regarding Cairo’s
Tahrir Square, Taha (2016, p. 40) notes that its ‘importance ... comes from its
proximity to the numerous governmental buildings and thus the occupation of
Tahrir would provide a direct confrontation between protestors and symbols of

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 Making the case for landscape democracy   · 67

the formal power of the state’. Britt (2013) quotes Nezar AlSayyad, who describes
another significant physical aspect in Tahrir: ‘Its great visibility, where congrega-
tion of the masses within a circular space would create an image of intensity ... ’.
The peculiar urban design of Tahrir Square unintentionally lends itself to hosting
mass protests. The space is ill-defined and composed of several adjacent spaces.
The fact that the square had 23 streets leading to different parts of it meant that
people could stream into the square from all of downtown Cairo and made it
difficult for the police to block access (ibid.).
The type of affordance described above is often unplanned, but it does
demonstrate designers’ potential in making a difference in terms of landscape
democracy. Achieving landscape democracy, nonetheless, is not only a mate-
rial act or a detached design skill. It demands that designers develop a con-
science and a critical stance toward power, and that they become aware of
their own ethical positioning (Hester 2005). Such personal and professional
commitments are very relevant in the twenty-first century. The adverse effects
of powerful economic forces on democracy and social justice are well recog-
nised (Wall and Waterman 2018). These range from gentrification, unequal
power between communities who try to protect cherished or vital landscapes
while facing wealthy developers, to common challenges to the integrity of
participation and consensus processes (see Hoskyns 2014, p. 51, for such
examples).

Conclusion: landscape democracy, context and nuance

As we have argued, landscape democracy, ‘a normative ideal’ (ibid.), includes
several dimensions, all of which are complex and require further critical analy-
sis and reflection. Research and practice today are focused on participation of
‘stakeholders’, that is, the right of those who are directly affected by landscape
change to be involved in decisions. Yet participation alone may not guarantee
landscape justice if it is not ‘full’ (Cammaerts and Carpentier 2005) and open
to all humans, regardless of income, ethnicity, nationality and resident status.
At the same time, there are some contexts where nuanced situations exist, and
challenges to landscape democracy become even more acute. Finn Arler (2008,
p. 77) writes: ‘if we have lived there for a long time, we conceive of it as our
landscape’. The sense of belonging to place and the validity of local knowl-
edge are often addressed under the theme of participation implying landscape
democracy. Associating a democratic right to landscape simply as related with
one’s ‘roots’ in place is problematic. While everyone lives in a landscape, these
days above all, an increasing part of the world’s population is not ‘rooted’ in
one place. In ‘the century of migration’ (Nail 2015, p. 1), refugee fluxes, rural
to urban migrations, and climate change are bound to drive further mass migra-
tions. Migrants, and refugees in particular, are one of the most vulnerable and
marginalised groups of people in society and addressing their democratic right
to the landscape – whether rural or urban – is another crucial dimension of land-
scape democracy, particularly in light of autochthonous resentment to different
attitudes to landscape (Egoz and De Nardi 2017).

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 68  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

These ‘liquid times’ (Bauman 2007) of environmental and political

u­ ncertainties will likely profoundly affect spatial justice and landscape democ-
racy. By laying out these ‘wicked problems’4 (Rittel and Webber 1973) and dis-
cussing a political context for landscape democracy as a nuanced phenomenon
we provide an umbrella for a common theoretical ground in which to operate,
and seek to promote the future evolution of critical discourse, debate, delibera-
tion, and the production of knowledge about the potential role that a landscape/
spatial justice perspective may play in ensuring that social justice is achieved,
one landscape and one user at a time.

Notes
1. In this chapter we use ‘landscape justice’ and ‘spatial justice’ as alternate terms.
2. Coined by legal scholar Conor Gearly who describes neo-democracy as a partner of neo-liberalism, where
an elite enjoys extra privileges within a system of more general formal rights (cited in Chomsky 2016,
p. 7).
3. At the outset, it is important to note that democracy in Aristotle’s days, as in the time of the foundation of
the United States of America, was not all-inclusive in terms of gender, race and creed, though today we tend
to idealise democracy as an expression of equality and justice.
4. A ‘wicked problem’ is an extremely complicated condition where given solutions might create unforeseen
new problems.

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for Landscape Democracy, NMBU.
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porting wellbeing of migrants, a literature review, Landscape Research, DOI: 10.1080/014​

26397.2017.1363880.
Egoz, S., Makhzoumi, J. and Pungetti, G. (2011). The Right to Landscape: Contesting Landscape and
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Harvey, D. (2008). The right to the city, New Left Review, 53, 23–40.
Healey, P. (1974). Planning and change, Progress in Planning, 2(3), 143–237.
Hester, R. (2005). Whose politics do you style? Landscape Architecture Magazine, 12(72), 74–79.
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Studies, London: Routledge.
Jones, M. and Stenseke, M. (Eds) (2011). The European Landscape Convention: Challenges of
Participation, Landscape Series, Vol. 13, Dordrecht: Springer.
Mitchell, D. (2015). Claiming a right to place in the urban landscape: planning resistance and
resisting planning in Glasgow. In Egoz, S. (Ed.) (2015), Hva betyr landskapsdemokrati?
Defining Landscape Democracy, Ås: Centre for Landscape Democracy, NMBU, pp. 16–17.
Nail, T. (2015). The Figure of the Migrant, Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press.
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Chicago: Odonian Press.
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the European Landscape Convention, Landscape Research, 32(5), 579–594.
Olwig, K.R. and Mitchell, D. (Eds) (2009). Justice, Power and the Political Landscape, London:
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Putnam, R. (1993). Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Rittel, H.W.J. and Webber, M.M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning, Policy
Sciences, 4, 155–169, DOI:10.1007/bf01405730.
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(Eds), Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies, London: Routledge, pp. 335–352.
Sandel, M. (2009). A New Citizenship, London, Oxford, Newcastle, and Washington, DC: BBC
Reith Lectures, broadcast retrieved from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00kt7rg.
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DOI: 10.5923/j.arch.20160602.02.
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Williams, R. (1976). Keywords, London: Fontana Press.

Further reading
CLaD (2016). www.nmbu.no/clad.
Olwig, K.R. (2002). Landscape, Nature and the Body Politic: From Britain’s Renaissance to America’s
New World, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

EGOZ_9781786438331_t.indd 69 29/05/2018 16:18

 70  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Olwig, K.R. (2011), The right rights to the right landscape? In Egoz, S., Makhzoumi, J. and
Pungetti, G. (Eds), The Right to Landscape: Contesting Landscape and Human Rights, Farnham,
UK: Ashgate, pp. 39–50.
Olwig, K.R. (2013), The law of landscape and the landscape of law: the things that matter. In
Howard, P., Thompson, I. and Waterton, E. (Eds), Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies,
London: Routledge, pp. 253–262.
Sander, T. and Putnam, R. (2010). Still bowling alone? The post-9/11 split, Journal of Democracy,
21(1), 9–16.

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 Section B

Contextualising landscape
democracy

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EGOZ_9781786438331_t.indd 72 29/05/2018 16:18
 7
Towards democratic
professionalism in landscape
architecture
Paula Horrigan and Mallika Bose

Introduction
The landscape architecture profession has been perennially rooted in and moti-
vated by social responsibility, with the landscape architect’s primary role being
to protect and advance public interests at the intersection of people and land-
scape. Foundational to the profession, since its founding in 1867, is dedication
to public health, safety, and welfare, and the protection of land and environmen-
tal resources. Like other professions serving the public good – medicine, law,
engineering, planning, architecture, and education – landscape architecture by
and large embraces a social trustee model of professionalism (Dzur 2008).
Social responsibility is one of three primary characteristics around which
professions holding to the social trustee model have historically been structured
(ibid.). A second characteristic involves being linked to a body of specific knowl-
edge attained through formal education and practice. That knowledge, once
acquired, sets professional practitioners apart from laypersons. A third and final
characteristic involves being highly self-regulating and structured via organiza-
tional and governing bodies that validate a profession’s corpus of knowledge
and the education and training required to attain it. Governing bodies carefully
oversee and certify professional academic programs, set the standards that legiti-
mate and regulate practice, delineate ethics and codes of conduct, and, where
required, oversee professional licensing. Those known for overseeing landscape
architecture include the American Society of Landscape Architects (in the
US), the Landscape Institute (in the UK), and the International Federation of
Landscape Architects (global).
The aforementioned characteristics constitute an armature around which
a profession’s full identity develops and evolves. Lest it lose respect and rel-
evance, a profession must always exercise willingness to undergo the adaption
and change needed to make it responsive to the society it serves. For landscape
architecture, today’s societal exigencies are many. They include climate change,
air and water pollution, access to clean water, sanitation and open space in

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 74  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

b­ urgeoning cities, social inequity, ecological degradation and vulnerability, over-

taxed and outdated infrastructure, and the environmental needs and demands of
changing populations and places.
While its motivations may indeed be laudable, the social trustee model is
distinguished by its own professional norms and biases. Its tendency is to privi-
lege expert knowledge, disable democracy and exclude non-expert knowledge,
as well as disproportionally favor majority populations. For the design profes-
sions, good design is often associated with higher costs and services to a very
narrow percentage of paying clients and consumers representing the privileged
and powerful, often referred to as ‘the 10%’ (Architecture for Humanity 2012;
Bell 2003). And the ‘best design’ is more often than not associated with expert
authorship and high levels of designer prestige and recognition.
For landscape architecture, on the cusp of this century’s third decade, the
social trustee model may be inadequate in responding to calls for greater equity,
inclusion, and democracy. Is not landscape architecture ready and primed for a
radical re-conceptualizing of professionalism that might more relevantly embody
and produce greater democracy? It is ready, as we will argue, to re-examine its
purpose and take steps to comprehensively affirm democratic professionalism as
a core principle of its ethics, standards, and practice.
In arguing for democratic professionalism, this chapter offers a brief overview
of influences supporting navigation in this direction. It then discusses the social
trustee and radical critique models of professionalism, and their blend, demo-
cratic professionalism, as currently theorized (Dzur 2004; 2008). Against this
background, the chapter turns its attention to one important domain bolstering
democratic design: academia and the schools where professionalism is taught.
Shedding light on academia’s contribution is knowledge gleaned from the narra-
tive profiles of six landscape architecture educators whose teaching and scholar-
ship centers on democratic design praxis. The profiles being used as the basis of
analysis were collected and compiled by the authors as part of a larger ongoing
research project. They convey insights regarding democratic professionalism’s
pathways, positionality, praxis, and purposes. While education’s role is critical,
other actions are needed to advance democratic professionalism in landscape
architecture, some of which this chapter offers in its conclusion.

Landscape architecture’s democratic turn

During the social upheaval of the 1960s, the role of professions became the
subject of much discourse and debate. Many, including professionals them-
selves, saw society’s problems as being exacerbated, if not caused, by experts
remaining a-political in service to clients and conforming to dominant para-
digms favoring technical expertise, standardized procedures, and ‘one size fits
all’ solutions. During this time, from within landscape architecture, architecture,
and planning, a progressive and reform-minded contingent of activist profes-
sionals emerged (Schuman 2006). Their motivations were modernism’s failings,
urban renewal’s community destruction and displacement, and the social move-
ments of the times: environmentalism, civil rights, and feminism. From within

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 democratic professionalism in landscape architecture   · 75

their ranks came calls for greater attention to the profession’s social purposes
and responsibilities and to the need to address the widening chasm between
professional designers and planners and those they were meant to support and
serve (Dutton and Mann 1996). Many embarked on non-mainstream activist
practice, working closely with at-risk populations and positioning themselves
in the midst of politicized urban renewal and environmental justice conflicts.
Landscape architect activist Karl Linn (1968; 2008), for example, proclaimed
the ‘neighborhood commons’ as a social justice and community right. Through
his community design praxis, emphasizing local empowerment, Linn set out to
reclaim the commons through the design and creation of community gardens
and parks in cities. In 1984 he went on to found an organization for profes-
sionals with similar motivations: Architects/Designers/Planners for Social
Responsibility (ADPSR).
Linn’s political activism, like that of others, challenged norms of professional
neutrality and a-politicism and drew attention to the role of power and democ-
racy in landscape architecture, design, and planning (Hirsch 2015). Professional
designers and planners consistently make ethical choices in the way they direct,
manage, and respond to power as well as recognize the differentials and inequali-
ties of power associated with the contexts in which they work (Forester 1989).
Modernism’s ‘tabula rasa’ bias had worked to erase the past and sequester power
and decision-making authority in the hands of the most powerful: profession-
als, investors, and governmental authorities. But it had also ignited and fueled
what was to come. In its wake, greater attention was directed to unpacking and
addressing the power, contestation, and complexity inherent in environments
and their social contexts. That the power to make decisions regarding planning
and design ought not to remain solely in the expert’s hands became a consistent
refrain amongst those emphasizing design as a social act, and an act of civic and
public work (ibid.). They called for approaches and processes that were more
communicative, relational and inclusive of multiple actors representing differ-
ing levels of power. Such approaches were deemed antidotes to rational and
technical professionalism (Schön 1983; 1987), which was blamed for produc-
ing poorly conceived design and planning outcomes and alienation between
people and professionals. Considered a detriment to the public good, technical
professionalism appeared to be generating ineffective practitioners incapable of
wrestling with uncertainty and complexity and blind to the limits and potentials
of their own knowledge.
While remaining outside the mainstream of academia and practice and con-
sidered a minor subset of the profession, the contingent emphasizing design as a
social act would continue working and expanding over the subsequent decades.
Social factors and behavior in the study and design of outdoor urban environ-
ments drew the attention of some who turned their focus towards activating
people–place interactions and designing environments more fit for and inclusive
of diverse users and groups (Appleyard 1981; Gehl 2010; 2011; Halprin 1969;
Marcus and Francis 1998; Whyte 1980). Other pioneering architects and land-
scape architects would advance social and democratic design conceptualizations
and approaches – participatory design, community design, co-design (Hester

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 76  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

1984; 1990; King et al. 1989; Sanoff 1990) – engaging designers and publics in
collaborative sense-making (Forester 1989). Such approaches were directed at
overcoming environmental injustices and inequities. Placemaking, emphasizing
the primacy of place and democracy, would arise as a socially engaged theory
and practice within landscape architecture, and, more broadly, environmental
design (Schneekloth and Shibley 1995). Ultimately emerging from all of these
arenas, sharing concern for design as a social act and attesting to its importance,
would not only be educators, scholars, and practitioners but also literature, case
studies, and built environments. Increasingly, albeit slowly, social and demo-
cratic design would begin moving from the shadows and into a more visible
position in the landscape architecture profession.
Public interest and social activist design (Abendroth and Bell 2015; Bell and
Wakeford 2008), as well as the landscape democracy and the ‘right to the city’
and the ‘just city’ movements (Fainstein 2010; Harvey 2008; Marcuse 2009;
Mitchell 2003), are some of the more recent efforts and discourses calling for
greater emphasis on social responsibility, equity, and democracy within the
environmental planning and design professions. Such urgent societal exigencies
as climate change, rapid urbanization, global poverty, and concurrent widening
of the gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ even in the developed world,
are beckoning landscape architects to rethink the boundaries of their profes-
sional knowledge and to direct greater attentiveness to social responsibility.
Advocates of ecological democracy underscore the role democratic deliberation
and participatory community design needs to play in developing ecologically
democratic twenty-first-century cities and landscapes (Hester 2006, p. 4).
Sustainability paradigms are influencing evolution, within the profession, to
enable effective and robust integration of environmental quality, social equity,
and economic prosperity in planning and design outcomes. While govern-
mental mandates – laws, legislation, and policies – continue to necessitate and
expand opportunities for greater inclusion of users and publics in design and
planning processes, well-informed and mobilized citizenry are making designers
and planners increasingly accountable to their concerns and needs. In higher-
education placemaking, participatory community design, public interest design,
and transformative democratic civic engagement pedagogies are playing their
part in fostering the interrelationship between social responsibility, democracy,
citizenship, and design (Angotti et al. 2011; Bose et al. 2014).
Social and democratic design discourse, theory, and practice has been emerg-
ing and advancing within landscape architecture since the mid 1960s. To what
degree their advancement has altered professionalism is difficult to determine
without further in-depth study. However, if the trends across the previous
decades are any indication, evidence suggests that the profession is undergo-
ing a democratic turn. This democratic turn stands to impact how landscape
architecture will move forward in defining itself and modeling professionalism
in all its domains: education, body of knowledge, practice, credentialing, rec-
ognition, and governance. Professionalism does much more than just commu-
nicate ways of thinking and power – it produces and reproduces them. Might
landscape architecture’s democratic turn be the opportune moment to consider

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 democratic professionalism in landscape architecture   · 77

how its model of professionalism can empower and mobilize its practitioners to
­actualize greater landscape democracy?

Democratic professionalism
Insights from Albert Dzur (2008), scholar of democratic political theory and
theorist of ‘democratic professionalism,’ shed light on what such a turn might
imply in landscape architecture. As alluded to earlier, the professional as social
trustee is strongly motivated toward social responsibility and tends to favor an
‘other orientation or collectivity-orientation’ over their own self-interest (ibid.,
p. 75). In fulfilling their duty of safeguarding and attending to the social purposes
of their profession through application of specialized knowledge and praxis,
social trustees tend to perpetuate reliance on expertise and expert-centered
power and decision-making. Social trustees, through their attitudes and actions,
privilege their knowledge over that of non-experts and non-professionals. They
regard themselves as working for, not with, people they consider the clients
and consumers of their services. This model, wherein a-politicism is the norm,
encourages professionals to distance themselves from any politics threatening
their autonomy or jeopardizing the fulfillment of their responsibilities. As a
result of avoiding politicized and contested contexts, the social trustee model
can often produce and perpetuate technocratic and specialist professionals serv-
ing primarily majority groups in society.
Countering the social trustee model is what Dzur calls the radical critique and
identifies as an alternative normative model of professionalism arising initially
during the 1960s. The radical critique maligns social trustees – also dubbed tech-
nocratic professionals – for their legacy of doing more harm than good and their
record of public manipulation and domination seen as limiting and undermin-
ing, rather than enabling, participatory democracy. The radical critique goes so
far as to suggest that the world would be better off without professionals. Dzur
views its bias toward de-professionalization as being unconstructive and lacking.
It falls short as a viable alternative for reform-minded practitioners seeking ways
to be both professional and democratic. Instead of de-professionalizing, Dzur
offers a new model, democratic professionalism, blending aspects of the radical
critique’s democratic aims with the social motivations of the social trustee (ibid.,
p. 30) (see Table 7.1).
Democratic professionalism ‘situates professionals squarely within the public
culture of democracy’ and asks them to seek ‘the public good with and not
merely for the public’ (ibid., p. 130). It challenges and runs counter to market-
oriented and technocratic modes of professionalism and favors decentralized,
socially grounded deliberative and democratically engaged problem solving.
‘While democratic professionalism entails a new way of conceiving profes-
sionalism, it in no way means replacing professionalism with political activism,’
writes Dzur (ibid., p. 41). Dzur’s meaning of ‘democratic,’ which follows that
of Dewey, is ‘forms of decision making and interaction marked by ‘social equal-
ity, communication, collaboration, and reflection’ (ibid.). These democratic
norms become explicit and deeply manifest in all domains of a profession as it

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 78  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Table 7.1  Models of professionalism contrasted

Social trustee Radical critique Democratic

professional

Main characteristics Knowledge, self- Power to define Commitment to

  of a profession:
Social duties of
 profession flow
from:
Professionals’
  view of laypeople:
Ideal role of
 professional in
society:
Professional ethics
 best fixed and
overseen:
Political role of
 professions:
 regulation, social  interest for the  knowledge as well
responsibility public as to co-direction of
professional services
Group experience, Interest in retaining Professional training
 functional purposes,  social authority +  and experience, as
tacit exchange market security well as from public
collaboration
Clients, consumers, Incompetent at high- Citizens with a stake
 wards   level tasks  in professional
decisions
Expert, specialist, Deprofessionalize, Share authority and
 guide  resist temptation to  knowledge through
monopolize tasks task sharing
By professionals By laypeople By both professionals
  and laypeople
Protection for Disabling intermediary Enabling intermediary
 professional interests  between citizens  in realm of ‘middle
and social functions and democratic democracy’
institutions

Source: Dzur, A.W. (2008), Democratic Professionalism: Citizen Participation and the Reconstruction of Professional Ethics,
Identity and Practice, p. 130, table 3, reproduced with kind permission of Penn State University Press.

undergoes reconceptualization towards democratic professionalism. Through

expanding and mobilizing democratic authority among laypeople and publics in
one’s praxis, the democratic professional transforms from being a task monop-
olist to a task sharer and takes an active role in producing and reproducing
democracy. Professional dominance is rejected and replaced with the intention
to realign and share power in ways that enable, amplify, and express the demo-
cratic interests of those with whom a professional works. What often comes as
an added benefit, suggests Dzur (2004, p. 11), is the regaining of authority and
‘democratic deference’ and the strengthening of one’s professional relevance
and value.
When applied to landscape architecture, we assert that democratic profes-
sionalism would involve acquiring and employing theoretical and practical
knowledge constituting democratic landscape praxis. As previously discussed,
the theories and practices of participatory community design and placemaking
have been important contributors to landscape architecture’s democratic turn.
As core purposes and drivers of these approaches, participatory democratic
decision-making and interaction work to generate more democratic communi-
ties, places, and landscapes. Participation, as part of truly democratic landscape

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 democratic professionalism in landscape architecture   · 79

praxis, enables greater citizen power and control and finds itself elevated to the
higher rungs of Arnstein’s (1969) ladder of participation (citizen control, del-
egated power, partnership). In contrast, participation as regarded through the
lens of social trustee professionalism might find itself much lower on Arnstein’s
ladder – placation, consultation, or even mere informing – and be employed to
provide input and feedback for the design expert hoping to do a better job in
service to the consumers of their services.

Navigating toward democratic professionalism: learning from

practitioner profiles
Professional education is the domain where landscape architecture’s model of
professionalism is taught and learned in preparation for lifelong practice. How
democratic professionalism is advancing within that domain is the question to
which we now turn. Narrative inquiry (Clandinin 2007), a qualitative research
approach, is being used to begin addressing this question. The process involves
conducting narrative interviews with early- to mid-career educators whose work
coalesces around democratic design praxis. The professional networks of the
authors along with a snowball technique were used to identify and engage the
participants. In this chapter, we draw from the spoken texts of six landscape
architects (Phase 1 of the larger study) who have turned their teaching, schol-
arship, and practice towards working in informal urban settlements, prisons,
cities, and neighborhoods in the United States, Europe, and South America
(Horrigan and Bose 2015). These six narrative accounts, collected during the
initial research phase, will be among a larger final set of about twenty. The narra-
tives draw out first-person stories and reflections on the personal life and work
experiences of democratic designers. As edited transcripts, they provide us with
data – some of which is presented here – to study and from which to draw
meaning. As a major outcome of this study, each of the narratives is intended to
remain as an intact and complete record of its author’s subjective truth and will
become part of a larger set of democratic design practitioner profiles that can be
read, interpreted, and analysed, by others (Forester 1999; Peters et al. 2010).
Throughout the six narratives we find a consistent thread of commitment to
shifting practice from rarified professionalism to an honoring of the inherent and
situated knowledge of those most impacted by the places they inhabit. Educators
speak from a source of great conviction regarding the responsibility they feel to
attend to global environmental challenges and the needs of vulnerable popula-
tions and communities. They are working with people and communities that
ordinarily have limited or no access to landscape architecture professionals and
knowledge. They speak of having great respect for the knowledge and assets of
people and communities and their participation in design decisions that impact
them. ‘People around the world, particularly in developing countries or disen-
franchised communities ... there’s a real vulnerability,’ says one. Another speaks
of the 2015 protests in Baltimore, MD, and how people in distressed urban
neighborhoods are connecting their ‘deplorable human conditions with aspects
of the physical environment.’ The heightening of ­environmental injustice and

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 80  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

the mandate of the European Landscape Convention is not to be taken lightly,

says another: ‘Realizing that the landscape is important to people [which]
means that we have a responsibility to reach out and to define who these people
are and engage the largest possible audience of users.’
Concern for landscape architecture’s lack of socially engaged practice models
is expressed by yet another, who feels it is his responsibility to teach and model
socially engaged practice. He also wants to encourage alternative career trajecto-
ries for a socially conscious generation of students who are seeking viable ways
to apply their skills and knowledge to social change.

We need to be building in education and in the profession new models for how we
practice, which prioritize disenfranchised communities and arm people with the
knowledge of how to work effectively in them. It’s not only teaching them how to
do participatory design, but it’s also about how do we make a living doing socially
engaged work to make a new career.

This same educator reflects on how his experience has made him rethink
and adapt his pedagogy so it meets the needs of communities – instead of the
other way around – and helps them undertake a step-by-step process of change,
which, in turn, over time, builds more local capacity and assets. In his approach
he says he is ‘questioning the typical pedagogy in landscape architecture and in
planning, where you think about things as a linear process moving from large-
scale design and then progressing towards site scale [and then] to detail.’
Throughout the profiles, bodies of knowledge germane to socially engaged
democratic design are identified and emphasized. Core disciplinary knowl-
edge from landscape architecture and design thinking is essential but needs to
be accompanied by placemaking, theories of justice, participation, sustainable
development, and group and capacity building. A defining characteristic of
the knowledge domain is that it be critically fluid, not fixed. A wide range
of knowledge domains is needed to address a challenging societal problem,
which necessitates integrative thinking and collaboration. Attention is drawn
to the inclusion of non-discipline-bound knowledge from, for example, eth-
nography, anthropology, geography, and the social sciences. The merging and
integration, not separation, of social, technical, and ecological knowledge is
crucial.

The 4 Ps: pathway, positionality, purpose, and praxis

Surfacing from our analysis of the initial set of profiles are four clusters of com-
monalities we term the 4 Ps: pathway, positionality, purpose, and praxis. In this
formulation, pathway refers to the routes, including life experiences propelling
one toward social responsibility and democratic praxis. Positionality refers to
how one self-identifies one’s place and role in the context of one’s work. Purpose
refers to the intended outcomes of one’s praxis. Finally, praxis refers to action or
reflexive practice along with the process, tools, and methods aligning with and
being used to achieve one’s purpose.

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 democratic professionalism in landscape architecture   · 81

Pathway  From the narratives, we hear of formative community/familial experiences,

activism, and volunteering, as well as teachers and mentors who’ve encouraged
socially engaged and human-centered design. Community experiences include
the Peace Corps or working in local government – which provided direct
exposure to community needs and social issues as well as community organizing,
activism, and politics. Familiar experience includes being exposed to community
organizing through parents and family members. One individual cites growing
up in a neighborhood in Memphis, TN, ‘where everyone took care of each other
and that sense of community was very strong,’ as a major influence. Another who
drew inspiration from graduate studies, Donald Appleyard’s research, and key
faculty mentors says, ‘the Berkeley School really gave me this reassurance that
people matter in urban design.’

Positionality  In the narratives, attention is drawn to positionality and power and

consciously de-privileging and repositioning design expertise. Co-producer,
co-creator, and knowledge integrator are words and phrases speakers use to
describe their role in working with local people and non-experts contributing
valued and respected knowledge of their own. One individual emphasizes ‘not
to think we have all it takes, but that we are just minor parts of a much larger
process.’ Relational repositioning is never automatic, as the narratives reveal, and
is nurtured and produced through active listening, reflexivity, compassion, and
humility on the designer’s part. ‘Most importantly, the community is the driver
of projects,’ says one speaker, while another stresses the need to ‘build bridges
between your view of the world and the people that you’re working with.’ Finally,
understanding and negotiating one’s insider/outsider position is integral, as is
having the flexibility and agility to assume activist, agitator, and advocate roles
in the community.

Purpose  The narratives resonate with purposes that include greater democracy, equity,
ecological democracy, community building and belonging, placemaking, and the
gaining of rights and access to nature, landscape, and public space. One individual
speaks of his work in the urban Appalachian region of the United States and
the importance of ‘putting our feet to the ground, going door-to-door and really
understanding where people obtain their food,’ for the purpose of fostering food
sovereignty and self-sufficiency among the urban populations with whom he is
working.

Praxis  Ensuring that one’s actions and methods support rather than hinder democratic
empowerment requires democratic design knowledge and the critical design
and selection of participation and community design methods. Praxis needs to
echo the dynamic nature of real-world problems and be flexible, simultaneously
multi-scalar, unfolding in space and time, collaborative, and transdisciplinary.
Attention is drawn to the inclusion of non-discipline-bound knowledge:
ethnography, anthropology, and the social sciences. ‘We consulted with child
development experts on campus,’ says one individual, while another recalls how
he turned to people ‘from landscape, public health, engineering, environmental

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 82  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

sciences, and just a lot of different backgrounds.’ The merging and integration,
not separation, of social, technical, and ecological knowledge is deemed essential.
Methods and processes need to enable moving beyond the technical design of
physical spaces and include collective visioning, programming, and sustained
community capacity building. Praxis includes community design, participatory
design, placemaking, and participatory action research. It generates processes
and outcomes that are slower, more emergent, and tactical in lieu of or in addition
to being big-picture and long-term: ‘it’s a funny tension between telling people to
slow down, but then also to act at the same time. But maybe it’s teaching people
how to act in a different way.’

Knowledge from professional education, as provided by this first set of profiles

and others to come, can be used to inform and benefit development of demo-
cratic professionalism in landscape architecture. Each narrative captures the
personal voice and story of an educator who is playing a pivotal role in modeling
and furthering socially engaged democratic landscape praxis. Collectively, the
narratives identify ethics and democratic habits of practice. They amplify the
value and importance of the work being done and help to uncover and discover
what is needed to holistically develop and advance democratic professionalism
in landscape architecture.

Conclusion
At a time when calls for greater equity and democracy are reverberating within
the world, political theorist Albert Dzur’s model of democratic professional-
ism offers landscape architecture a guiding framework for heeding landscape
democracy’s call. By donning democratic professionalism’s mantle, landscape
architecture gains an opportunity to become a vital and proactive producer of
landscape democracy.
While the emergence of landscape architecture’s democratic and socially
engaged discourses, theories and practices, across multiple decades, has contrib-
uted to its democratic turn, more change from within is needed. Social trustee
professionalism remains the dominant model of practice that, while affirming
social purposes and responsibilities, continues the tradition of expert-centric
professionalism, which more often than not hinders and limits democracy. A re-
conceptualization of social trusteeism, which integrates democratic knowledge,
ethics and practice – democratic professionalism – holds promise for evolv-
ing landscape architecture into a profession with added relevance and value
to society. However, deeper and more systemic changes will be needed  – in
education, body of knowledge, practice, credentialing, recognition, and
­governance – if landscape architecture is to fully promote and uphold demo-
cratic ­professionalism in a meaningful way.
Indicators of and directions of movement and change towards democratic
professionalism are heard in the narratives of the educators we are profiling.
As they note, preparing professionals for socially grounded, inclusive demo-
cratic design and problem-solving requires knowledge and experience as well

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 democratic professionalism in landscape architecture   · 83

as mentors and guides. Changes in education will require broadening of cur-

ricula to incorporate instruction in theories of justice and democracy. Expansion
of the designer’s toolbox – to include methods of facilitation, active listening,
and collaboration for deliberative democratic practice – will be essential. The
profession will need to more fully understand and recognize the importance of
landscape democracy and inject it into its many professional domains, includ-
ing, for example, making democratic design and problem solving with vulner-
able populations, a primary activity it commends and recognizes through its
awards and recognition programs. Finally, while it will demand great humility,
the profession will need to shift its bias and worldview away from touting and
favoring expert elitism and towards representing itself as a broader and more
diversified profession that includes, if not one day favors, democratic profes-
sionalism within its ranks.

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 8
Landscape assessment as
conflict and consensus
Andrew Butler

Introduction
In order to engage with landscape as a democratic entity, landscape planners
require tools adapted to deal with such a conceptualisation of landscape – tools
built on substantive theories that acknowledge democratic values connected to
the landscape. This starts with understanding how the landscape is identified
and legitimised as a democratic entity and how it is dealt with through landscape
assessments.
Landscape assessment constitutes a process of recording and communicat-
ing the qualities of an area in order to provide a basis to argue for the values
associated with the landscape. The assessment creates a representation, framing
an area and legitimising certain landscape-related values. The values communi-
cated through the assessments then inform subsequent phases of the planning
process. Consequently, the values acknowledged through the assessment help
to create, elaborate or maintain the social image of a landscape, framing the
public discourse on a particular landscape.
Approaches to landscape assessment have continuously developed since
their inception in the second half of the twentieth century, when they were con-
sidered a means to systematise landscape planning (Marsh 1998; Muir 1999).
Different approaches have arisen over the ensuing years, influenced by national
and disciplinary contexts, which have determined how landscape is recognised
(Jensen 2006; Sarlöv-Herlin 2016). Assessments have ranged from qualitative
methods in the 1960s, used for addressing ‘outstanding’ landscapes (Selman
2010), to more holistic approaches developed since the 1990s, which address
the interrelated and interdependent nature of landscape as the backdrop to life.
The importance of landscape assessment has been legitimised in policy in
the twenty-first century through the European Landscape Convention (ELC)
(Jørgensen et al. 2016). The convention stipulates that ‘with the active par-
ticipation of the interested parties ... and with a view to improving knowledge
of its landscapes, each Party undertakes: to assess the landscapes thus identified,
taking into account the particular values assigned to them by the interested par-
ties and the population concerned’ (CoE 2000, art. 6C).

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 86  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

In this chapter, I raise the question of what it means for landscape assess-
ments to deal with landscape as a democratic entity and reinforce sentiments
of belonging and ownership of the landscape. I lift the relevance of both the
process and the final assessment document, and further highlight the need for
making value criteria for choices within the assessment explicit, in order to pro-
vide transparency to landscape planning processes.

Landscape
There are multiple ways of engaging with our environment, advocating various
modes of perceiving the landscape: as a visual entity, an environment of practice
and polity, an arena for natural processes and the context for lived experiences
(Meinig 1979; Howard 2013). Each of these various understandings draws on
different values and requires a different means of exploration (Stephenson 2010;
Stobbelaar and Pedroli 2011).
Through the later decades of the twentieth century the rhetoric around land-
scape in both academia and practice has moved towards the recognition of it as
a mental and social representation of an inhabited area: the everyday surround-
ing to life (Tuan 1977; Lowenthal 1986). For those who inhabit a place, their
relation to landscape is meaningful and significant rather than a scientific or
biophysical sectoral understanding (Thomas 2008). This has been promoted
in policy through the ELC, where landscape is defined as an ‘area, as perceived
by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural
and/or human factors’ (CoE 2000, ch.1, art. 1A). The ELC definition corre-
sponds to Yi-Fu Tuan’s conceptualisation of ‘space’ and ‘place’ (Tuan 1977).
Space represents a measurable entity which can be described in neutral terms,
as a commonly understood area, while place is reliant on cultural identity result-
ing from aesthetic qualities, cultural meanings and narratives, that is, how that
area is perceived by a community or individual. To understand landscape, as
defined by the ELC, requires an appreciation of space and place, necessitating
the inclusion of both the meanings and values of those who directly experience a
landscape and the knowledge of objective experts.
Consequently, an understanding of landscape requires reconciling the views
of specialists of specific interests (both insiders and outsiders) and the emotional
meaning-laden relationships which the dwellers of a place develop (Raymond
2010). The ELC insinuates that all who engage in some way with a landscape
are experts with justified knowledge of that landscape (Jones 2007; 2016) and
thus innumerable understandings exist for the same landscape. Acknowledging
the subjectivity in landscape perceptions requires an acceptance of diverse and
potentially conflicting values. This multiplicity of perceptions results in a mosaic
of diverse and potentially conflicting values recognised across the landscape
(Butler 2016).

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 Landscape assessment as conflict and consensus   · 87

Assessment
As landscape comes into existence through perception, communication of what
is recognised as landscape relies on some form of representation. Individuals’
perceptions are built, in part, on social contexts and individual histories; hence
no two understandings of a landscape can be identical. Consequently, any rep-
resentation of a landscape will be incomplete and imperfect for the majority
of the population. Each representation is characterised by the point of view
and cultural context through which it emerges and in which it is communi-
cated, defining what is seen as lying out there and how it is understood and
represented. However, some views hold a respectable status, considered justi-
fied ‘true knowledge’ within the planning processes, while others are dismissed,
subordinated or ignored. The assessment process provides the opportunity to
make value criteria for choices in the planning explicit, enabling sentiments of
belonging to be expressed and developed.
What a landscape assessment entails depends on numerous procedural factors
including the issue at hand and its role in a formal planning process, for example
development, maintenance, conservation. Yet the assessment also relies on the
substantive understanding of landscape, which in turn relates to the worldview
of those undertaking the assessment. Recognising landscape as a visual entity,
an environment of practice and polity, an arena for natural processes or as a
democratic entity constituting the surrounding everyday life all require differ-
ent modes of engagement (Stephenson 2010). How landscape is understood
thus determines the tools and approaches that are utilised when dealing with
landscape, creating a perpetuating circle, justifying particular disciplinary values.
The Council of Europe’s promotion of landscape as a democratic entity is
furthered through its general measures, the most relevant to this chapter being
‘Identification and assessment’ (CoE 2000, art. 6C). It is considered that
assessments should involve ‘active participation of the interested parties’ and
recognise the ‘values assigned to them by the interested parties and the popula-
tion concerned’ (ibid.). The recognition of, and reliance on, the ‘population
concerned’ reflects a change not only in the conceptualisation of landscape but
also in the processes used to address the landscape. This can be read as moving
towards democratic processes that engage with a multitude of subjective per-
ceptions, from communities of interest, communities of place, and communities
of practice in order to realise what constitutes a landscape.

Rhetoric and practice of landscape assessment

While the rhetoric of landscape as a democratic, perceived entity gains domi-
nance through both policy and academic studies, conduct of practice remains
predominantly focused on professional or scientific knowledge (Conrad et al.
2011a; 2011b). Professionals tend to handle landscape as a physical surface,
an objective unit of analysis, representing an area for engaging with processes
and practices (Butler 2016). When practice engages only with the physicality
of landscape, it focuses on landscape as a spatial entity, a neutral vessel in which

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 88  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

activities occur, ignoring the extrinsic values coupled to relations established

with and within the landscape (Brunetta and Voghera 2008; Stephenson 2008).
The reliance on specific tangible landscape values in the assessment rein-
forces the dominance of experts, perpetuating a sectoral focus on the planning
and administration of landscape (Dakin 2003). These sectoral understandings
are legitimised as representing the entirety of the landscape (Olwig 2011).
Consequently, specialised assessment can develop an unquestioned impres-
sion of what a landscape is, which is then used as evidence for how landscape
should be (Muir 1999). A further weakness is that the disciplines engaging with
such assessments tend to take for granted that their approaches are relevant in
all cases, as their values are grounded in traditions and ingrained worldviews
(Antonson and Åkerskog 2015), creating a knowledge trap.
These inadequacies in theoretical and methodological instruments for land-
scape planning are highlighted in the supporting text to the ELC: ‘Too often,
they belong to compartmentalised disciplinary universes, while the landscape
demands adequate responses within cross-disciplinary time and space con-
straints which can meet the need for a knowledge of the permanent changes
at local level’ (CoE 2008). When these sectoral views of landscape are opera-
tionalised, the underlying differences in landscape values tend to be overlooked
(Butler and Åkerskog 2014; Butler 2016).Consequently landscape planners are
building on a rocky theoretical foundation for handling the multitude of often
conflicting values which are present in landscape issues.

Democratic approach
It could be said that while the rhetoric of landscape planning promotes a demo-
cratic landscape, practice follows another agenda. However, in a democratic
society, this would be disingenuous; it would be fairer to acknowledge that both
the practice of landscape planners and the rhetoric of policy are informed by
and feed into different democratic values. To deem landscape a subjective lived
experience requires a focus on co-determination and participation, drawing on
discursive deliberative values of democracy, while an expert-defined landscape
is based on an aggregative model informed by democratic values of objectivity
and impartiality undertaken within a democratic planning system (Arler 2008).
However, what should differentiate democratic from other forms of
­decision-making is the ability to legitimise and refuse to eliminate conflict
through authoritarian consensus, ultimately respecting differences (Pløger
2004). It is the inclusion of these disruptive elements that is essential for the
authenticity of democratic processes (Connelly and Richardson 2004; Mouffe
2005). A well-functioning democracy requires a vibrant clash of views and posi-
tions, with excessive consensus leading to apathy, disaffection with political
participation or, worse, crystallisation of collective passions around issues that
cannot be managed through democratic processes (Mouffe 2005).
The aggregative model of democracy, which became dominant in the second
half of the twentieth century, places emphasis on combining preferences. This
leads to consensus, agreement or uniformity of belief as being seen as ideal

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 Landscape assessment as conflict and consensus   · 89

outcomes (Hillier 2003). Yet approaches built on aggregation are unable to

acknowledge the dimensions of conflict that the plurality of landscape and soci-
etal values entails. Thus, pluralism is likely to be recognised as antagonism, to be
managed rationally and legally through the planning process, through solutions
such as compromise, consensus-building or legal force (Pløger 2004).
Consequently, the drive for a ‘true’ consensus is an impossible goal.
Consensus-building cannot engage with all values: it must entail the promo-
tion of favourable values and the subordination or exclusion of others. As a
result, an ‘as good as it gets’ consensus is achieved, yet is often equated with true
consensus, with little question of who loses out. In such processes a ‘them’ is
created through the suppression of views, views which may be raised at a later
point in the planning process, when they are liable to challenge the ‘democratic’
outcomes (Hillier 2003). Consequently conflicts, whether visible or concealed,
are inescapable in planning processes (Pløger 2004).
The culmination of a sectoral engagement with landscape and a desire for
consensus reduces the potential for planners to create space for engaging with
the intimate knowledge of those who experience and form relationships with a
landscape.
Approaches are needed which recognise and accept conflict. A move away
from seeing conflicts as antagonism towards accepting them as a struggle
between adversaries, recognised as ‘strife’ (Pløger 2004) or ‘agonism’ (Mouffe
2005). This provides the space for values and views to be expressed while pre-
venting the construction of opponents as enemies. Such an approach would
allow conflicts to exist, whilst keeping passion within the sphere of public dis-
cussion rather than suppressing it through rational consensus (Pløger 2004;
Mouffe 2005). The result could be a more creative democratic discussion, in
this case around the complex values of landscape, understanding the vibrancy of
diversity that can inform the future of the landscape.
Participation in landscape assessment can act as an integral part of direct
democracy and a supplement to representative democracy, but also provides the
possibility of challenging the established democratic planning structures, ques-
tioning reasoning and providing meaning to ‘strong’ democracy (Roe 2013).
The dominant understanding of landscape can be questioned and conflicting
values legitimised rather than being suppressed through ‘democratic’ processes
of consensus (Egoz et al. 2011). The assessment has the potential to challenge
the establishment’s democratic structures within landscape planning and to
question the reasoning behind them (Roe 2013).

Assessment as a forum for democracy

The dominance of sectoral assessments, aimed at consensus, means that while
everybody engages with landscape as a lived experience, most are restricted
from influencing its development (Buchecker et al. 2003) or the formulation of
the public discourses on their landscape.
Yet, as a common reference, landscape can allow individuals to work together
without needing to reach consensus, by providing the possibility to work within

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 90  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

boundaries, both geographical and mental, which are more or less appreciated
by different participants (Nassauer 2012). The physicality acts as a common
anchor to which perceptions, experiences and multisensory embodiment can be
related, allowing an exploration of the intangible and diverse values associated
with the landscape (ibid.) and providing a mental and social representation of
the everyday from where participatory dialogue can begin. The tangible aspects
of landscape expressed in an assessment can provide a foundation from which to
discuss tacit, implicit or explicit knowledge (Macpherson 2006; Nassauer 2012).
In this light, the process of landscape assessment can be seen as engaging
with a temporarily ‘neutral’ arena, with landscape providing the space in which
common understanding can develop. The common understanding which can be
generated around landscape provides the opportunity to engage with and legiti-
mise conflicts in an open and impartial forum where all values and knowledge
are equally legitimate. This allows the assessment phase to become an arena for
‘strife’, legitimising conflicts on the way to commonly agreed solutions. This
does not mean that all values and views are given the same impetus in decision-
making, but, rather, it provides a better understanding of who is being marginal-
ised in these processes (Pløger 2004), a state that can be described as conflictual
consensus (Mouffe 2005).
Participation in defining landscapes can become a component in the iden-
tification of practices and values, through comparing and contrasting between
the many meanings, interests and expectations (Brunetta and Voghera 2008).
Participation in the assessment may steer perceptions of the landscape, creating a
more common understanding and appreciation of that landscape. Consequently,
this can help to align practice of engagement in the landscape  with polity on
the landscape, bound up in defining and regulating the spaces for these prac-
tices (Olwig 2007). The assessment can be what brings people together around
­landscape as a meta-narrative.
Consequently, the assessment process becomes a participatory forum for dis-
cussion, providing the opportunity, through tacking back and forth, to develop a
commonly accepted meta-understanding (Nassauer 2012). Distinguishing and
expressing these commonalities places focus on an entity which all relate to,
where dialogue between multiple stakeholders can be initiated (Planchat-Héry
2011). Landscape offers a concrete realisation of the Habermasian concept of
public space, where participants can focus on shared meanings (Strecker 2011).
However, as an understanding of landscape is based on meanings and percep-
tions, all are experts and consequently the process must be capable of dealing
with conflicting yet equally justified values. So although the commonalities or
the meta-narratives are lifted, differences and conflicts should not be suppressed.

Product and process

In order to democratise landscape it is not just the landscape that needs to be
democratised but also the practices and processes which shape the landscape.
As a means for communicating landscape in the planning process, it is the final
product, the assessment as an artefact that is prioritised.

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 Landscape assessment as conflict and consensus   · 91

The disciplinary values, on which the assessment documents tend to focus,

provide an argumentation for a certain formulation of landscape, often aimed
at specific development. These can be used as the basis for starting discussions
about the less tangible aspects of the landscape, creating a spatial frame from
which to discuss landscape as place.
However, despite the disciplinary nature of most assessments, they frequently
apply the rhetoric of the ELC to legitimise their argument (Conrad et al. 2011c;
Butler and Åkerskog 2014). Expressing landscape as the perceived surround-
ings to life fills it with added substance and assessments using such rhetoric
gain enhanced legitimacy as democratic processes. The discrepancy this creates
between rhetoric and conduct undermines the assessment process, diluting
the legitimacy of the professionals who undertake the assessment, diminishing
the relevance of landscape and undermining the democratic values which the
­planning process claims to support.
In order to recognise the dynamic and conflicting nature of values present in
a landscape as a democratic entity, the assessment needs to be more than just
an end in itself. Consequently, more focus needs to be placed on the tacit and
implicit aspects of the assessment process, rather than concentrating solely on
the tangible finished document. Recognising the dynamics and conflicts in land-
scape requires an ongoing discussion and the acceptance that an assessment of
landscape can never be complete. Hence, participation in landscape assessment
would move away from defining an ultimate definition of a landscape to focus-
ing on common ground and developing shared meanings (Macpherson 2006;
Nassauer 2012). It is these shared understandings which develop the ‘conven-
tional’ meaning of landscape: an entity developed through everyday practices
created in the public spaces provided by landscape (Olwig 2007).
Such an approach can only be sustained if the assessment is recognised as
a learning process rather than just a means for informing decision-making
(Brunetta and Voghera 2008). Seeing it as a learning process raises the sig-
nificance of awareness-raising in the assessment as emphasised in the ELC (CoE
2000, art. 6B). Awareness-raising of landscape cannot be a traditional top-down
means of informing on the landscape. When all are considered experts on their
landscape then awareness-raising has to be recognised as a co-creation of mean-
ing (Butler and Åkerskog 2014). It becomes a way of communicating and legiti-
mising decisions and values that could reinforce human, social and landscape
capital (Brunetta and Voghera 2008).
Recognising the assessment of a landscape as an ongoing process of continu-
ous learning means that both compromise and consensus are equally possible,
however they must be seen as temporary states, susceptible to disruption at
any point (Mouffe 2005). Accepting the assessment as a learning process has
the potential to move participation in landscape assessment away from resolv-
ing or neutralising potential conflict to focusing on the common ground of
participants’ attachment to place and other shared meanings (Dakin 2003).
Focusing on the common provides the space for values to be legitimised rather
than considered as a problem to be suppressed through the ‘democratic’ pro-
cesses of consensus. Ultimately, decisions on future action must be made and,

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 92  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

at some point, certain views will be suppressed. However if the assessment is

seen as an ongoing process, then assessing which views have been subordinated
or ignored and why this has occurred can become part of the process (Pløger
2004). Consequently, this would allow the assessments to make value criteria
for choices explicit and open for discussion. Rather than justifying accepted
values in landscape, the assessments can become a component for identifying
what values exist in a landscape and how they are handled, adding vibrancy to
the discussion of what landscape is and shaking up the status quo (Brunetta and
Voghera 2008).
Assessment as an ongoing discussion can lift up alternative issues relating to
the landscape such as emotional meaning developed by inhabitants in relation
to landscape change (Dossche et al. 2016; Butler et al. 2017) or the relevance
of landscape management techniques for sustaining a landscape (Syse 2010).
These represent issues built on values that will not necessarily come from expert-
led processes, but are bound up in local initiatives. Lifting alternative issues thus
acts as a support to democratic values. A view such as this is not just a normative
ideal but has been instigated through numerous initiatives including those based
on the European Council for Village and Small Town (ECOVAST) ‘landscape
identification’1 and the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England ‘unlock-
ing the landscape’2 approaches. Both of these examples provide a framework for
local communities to undertake their own landscape assessments, promoting a
community’s landscape values. Approaches such as these have been influenced
by expert methods and are thus in some ways constricted in their scope, to deal-
ing with explicit knowledge of the landscape. A step towards addressing the tacit
and implicit values in the landscape is evident in more art-based schemes. For
example, Parish map projects co-ordinated by Common Ground3 are initiatives
providing a more dynamic forum to discuss the memories, meanings and events
that are connected to the landscape. While these initiatives do not necessarily
feed directly into planning processes, they can help to develop and support a
common understanding, strengthening values of the landscape. The assessment
becomes a means to communicate alternative values, providing a proactive
basis for supporting or resisting landscape change. Public-driven initiatives can
provide a counter assessment that can help create vibrancy of discussion on
landscape issues, questioning the dominant discourse.
Nonetheless, even with public-driven assessments, the final document can
only be complete at a certain moment in a particular process. As a product it can
thus only provide a spatially and temporally static representation of a dynamic
and potentially conflict-filled entity. The assessment document can never be a
complete representation as both the physicality and the perceptions of it are in
constant flux. Consequently, the assessment can never wholly communicate the
complexity of landscape.

Conclusion
When practice is justified through a conceptualisation of landscape as the per-
ceived surroundings to life, and yet is based in disciplinary understanding, it

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 Landscape assessment as conflict and consensus   · 93

raises the question of transparency of the value-foundation. In order to democ-

ratise the assessment there is a need to accept it as a democratic process, whereby
differences can be accepted, common characteristics found and operational
compromises eventually reached.
Landscape assessment has the potential to mature as a tool, moving on from
being just a means for systematising landscape. The assessment has the oppor-
tunity to contribute to democratic landscape planning by creating a form of
resistance, for questioning the values of the landscape planner, and discussing
landscape and democratic processes. As such, assessments have a dual purpose
of supporting and at the same time questioning planning, through creating
vibrant discussion. Maybe landscape assessment has already achieved this new
level of maturity, but it is not necessarily the planners or experts who are driving
this development; it is being brought forward by local communities. Locally
created initiatives provide an alternative counter to expert assessments, pro-
viding a proactive resistance that lifts and crystallises the values of attachment
to the landscape, allowing landscape as ‘place’ to challenge the dominance of
landscape as ‘space’.

Notes
1. See http://www.ecovast.org/papers/good_guid_corr_e.pdf (retrieved 17 October 2017).
2. See http://www.cpre.org.uk/resources/countryside/landscapes/item/1927-a-step-by-step-guide-to-un​
locking-the-landscape (retrieved 17 October 2017).
3. See https://www.commonground.org.uk/parish-maps-gallery/ (retrieved 17 October 2017).

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 9
Invisible and visible lines:
landscape democracy and
landscape practice Invisible and visible lines in landscape democracy

Richard Alomar

Introduction
This chapter discusses the practice of landscape architecture and its place in
landscape democracy, specifically, how methods used to observe, design, or
build physical exterior spaces can influence a more equitable and democratic
outcome. The discussion is framed by three projects that engage landscapes in
different ways and I use the concept of invisible and visible lines as a point of
departure for a larger review of the design process. Each project will represent a
different type of line to consider: Lines that divide social classes, lines that define
property owners, and governmental lines that delineate infrastructure and juris-
diction. The terms ‘landscape architecture’ and ‘landscape architect’ are used
interchangeably to refer to the practice of landscape architecture. Landscape
architecture is a practice of land stewardship and the construction of spaces.
The profession is regulated by laws of practice established to protect the health,
safety, and welfare of the public. The practice explicitly involves people, the
communities that inhabit these landscapes, and the laws that safeguard their
wellbeing (Rogers 2010). The connection between society and landscape and
the responsibility to guard health, safety, and welfare brings landscape archi-
tecture into direct contact with other professions, practices, and traditions
with similar goals. In order to see the whole picture of landscape – landscape
defined as society’s right to participate in the decisions that plan and design
open space – it is necessary to expand the profession’s vision to ensure more
equitable spaces. The right to landscape or landscape democracy as defined by
the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA) EU Landscape
Democracy Resolution (IFLA 2014) presents an opportunity for landscape
architects to participate in projects that advocate, ensure, establish, develop, and
promote a more equitable landscape.
For landscape architects the built environment, forms, and objects that delin-
eate outdoor space is the culmination of the design process and the foundation
of the profession. But democratic landscapes are more than built spaces, which

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 Invisible and visible lines in landscape democracy  · 97

brings to question the role of the landscape architect in landscape democracy.

Is the role of the landscape architect to design physical spaces that embody
democratic principles? If so, are the methods to do so different from current
practice? Is the role of the landscape architect to be a facilitator with technical
expertise that can bridge policy, community engagement, design concepts, and
built form? These are some of the questions that I’ve been asking to understand
my role as a practitioner.

Three lines: three landscape projects

Landscape architects analyse existing spatial conditions, design spaces, or
facilitate the design processes for agencies working with the public. The three
projects to be discussed in one way or another represent conditions where lines
that clearly demark use, ownership, and jurisdiction for the professional can be,
in some circumstances, invisible to the user. And by the same token, how aspects
of day-to-day life define lines that are invisible to the designer. These projects, in
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, East Harlem, New York, and in Lower Manhattan, New
York, cover 20 years of my work, first as a graduate student, then as a practicing
landscape architect and design instructor. The projects show the design practice
across three socio-economic groups and landscape types. I briefly describe the
scope of the work to discuss the ways in which people engaged the landscape,
and how cultural behaviors, public design with a diverse group of constituents,
and the technical aspects of design helped define these invisible and visible lines.
Finally, I describe aspects of analysis and design that can help practitioners view
the landscape in more democratic and socially just ways (see Figure 9.1).

Story lines and social lines: African American front yards, Baton
Rouge, Louisiana
The yards and gardens of African Americans in the rural and urban south of the
United States have been well documented (Westmacott 1992). These spaces
reflected aspects of agricultural practices with visible forms that represented
invisible histories, traditions, and meaning. They were relevant for their everyday
use and practice as single spaces and as a group of spaces within a neighbor-
hood’s landscape.
My research on front yards in an African American neighborhood in urban
Baton Rouge found similar characteristics to their rural counterparts. The
research focused on front yards and how residents went about designing them,
and how people shared materials and practices across racial and social lines,
gifted plants, and remembered each action as the oral design history of the yard.
In revisiting the research and the site over the years, two observations
became relevant in discussing landscape democracy. First, the stories of how
plants were acquired, and, second, the use or appropriation of space outside
the lines that divided properties from each other and from public land. In other
words the story lines associated with plants and design, and the social lines that
were breached when white employers gifted plants to their African American

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EGOZ_9781786438331_t.indd 98
Sources: Photograph by Richard Alomar (left); graphic collage by Richard Alomar (photo and Manhattan Sanborn Map) (middle); cropped utilities plan by Richard Alomar (right).

Figure 9.1  Invisible and visible lines that engage community and designer: private landscapes on public land (left); changes in property ownership and use
(middle); below-ground lines that influence above-ground design (right)

29/05/2018 16:18
 Invisible and visible lines in landscape democracy  · 99

e­ mployees. In interviewing residents it became clear that plants represented

a story to be told. In many cases each plant had a story related to how it came
to become part of the front yard. These stories were engaging, detailed, and in
many cases expressed a sophisticated layering of emotion, family history, and
climatic conditions. In one yard, for example, a fairly common hibiscus plant,
easily available at any local nursery, had a story that included a former employer,
a rainy summer’s day, and a very long walk home. The plant was not a common
hibiscus; it was a hibiscus with a provenance. After listening to many similar
plant stories, it became clear that these plants were treated as individuals, that
they were the point of departure for a larger story of the space, not visible, avail-
able or bound by plans, lines, or maps.
It was also common for front yards to ‘spill out’ past the property line, to
include easements along embankments, public streets, sidewalks, and utilities.
It was common to see a spider-plant hanging basket on a street tree, a light pole
encircled with bricks and daylilies, or a board nailed across trees used as seating
on an abandoned lot. Plants, planters, figurines, and edging created a visual con-
nection between private and public spaces, areas divided by lines only visible
on a plan or map. This ‘appropriation’ was a way to make a bland landscape
‘pretty,’ extend a practice of land cultivation and create, as a result, a common
landscape of unclear jurisdiction: a hybrid landscape that residents considered
as free common land, spaces where social interaction and stories unfolded.
These observations of quotidian practices are not professional design. These
practices are an immediate and personal response to land, work, and circum-
stances. They follow a process where stories trump site design and work knows
no jurisdiction. Here, a neighborhood that was ‘off the radar,’ consisting of the
poor and overlooked, was an area of intuitive expressions of lived space. Here,
the right to landscape was expressed in active engagement: physical, verbal, and
lived.
Property lines and setbacks are legal limits of work where ownership and
jurisdiction is regulated by law. The law, policy, or regulation states the work
and use that can occur. The African American front yards and their owners,
aware of a gift across social and racial lines and possibly unaware of lines that
separated private and public land, defined a sort of day-to-day democracy, a
live experiment testing the boundaries of planned design with the immediacy
of social interaction and work. To the governing bodies this may have repre-
sented an illegal appropriation of land. To the landscape architect it may have
represented the creation of a new space (hybrid) to be reckoned with. For the
resident it represented the logical extension of ongoing life and work. To all,
it may have represented a practice that needed to be accounted for in future
landscape planning.

Social lines and property lines: Los Amigos Community Gardens,

East Harlem, New York
East Harlem, New York is a diverse urban neighborhood with residents from
different ethnic, social, political, and economic backgrounds. It has been

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 100  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

h­ istorically an area where immigrants have settled, from the Italians of New
York’s ‘Second Little Italy’ to the mass influx of Puerto Ricans after World War
II to the recent arrival of West Africans. In addition, many New Yorkers come
from other city boroughs in search of lower rent and proximity to Manhattan.
The ways in which all these groups and individuals relate to and use the land-
scape also varies. These differences in perception were made evident during the
redesign of Los Amigos Community Garden.
When Los Amigos Community Garden was being designed for improve-
ments, using a community design process (a series of public workshops where
resident and design facilitators worked together to identify uses and needs and
collectively developed a design for the space) (Toker 2007), it provided an
opportunity to participate in a dialog that addressed a larger vision of landscape
that included culture, race, and the role of communal space in this transition-
ing neighborhood (New York Restoration 2015). Some of the basic questions
included: Who has a real or perceived attachment to the space? Who will have
a stake in the final design? How can the space accommodate a variety of people
and uses? How can the space ‘look’ like it belongs to all, so all are welcome?
The community design process exposed the need to discuss the differences
between the group that claimed the abandoned lot and built the garden in 1982,
new residents who wanted to find space in the garden to read and have activities,
and the property owner, New York Restoration Project (NYRP), a non-profit
organization whose goal it was to design beautiful, high-quality public spaces
within ready walking distance for all New Yorkers.
The discussion turned to the garden’s ‘Casita,’ a ‘small house’ structure used
for storage. It had significant meaning to the community members who estab-
lished the garden, as a symbol of their Puerto Rican heritage, but was seen by
some of the new residents as an eyesore, occupying space that could be used
for seating or more garden space. A long discussion followed over a period of
weeks, when residents brought photos of the Casita over the years and examples
of other types of garden structures. A presentation of research on the Casita’s
cultural and historic significance (Aponte-Pares 1997) and the site’s historic
background was prepared by NYRP. The discussions fostered a better under-
standing of the role of the Casita in the meaning of the garden space, and a path
to view its redesign as an alternative to preservation or demolition.
The final design included a ‘Casita’ structure that maintained the original’s
dimensions, with open framing and no walls. The appearance of the new struc-
ture was not like a typical casita, but was seen as such by the residents thanks
to their active and engaged participation in the design, historic research, and
discussions on materials. They were able to interpret nuances in construction,
use, and color to help design an alternative structure. Additional physical and
programmatic elements were incorporated to include sustainability, education,
and communal activities. These newer elements added a shared layer of input in
the space.
Reclaiming abandoned lots all over Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn was
a common subversive act during the fiscal crisis that faced New York City during
the late 1970s. Many of these lots, reclaimed and appropriated predominately

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 Invisible and visible lines in landscape democracy  · 101

by Puerto Ricans, became community spaces for growing food and social gath-
ering. Many of these spaces were saved from real-estate development by NYRP
who purchased the lots from the city with the sole purpose of maintaining them
as green space. Restoring these lots into viable community spaces, accessible
to all, was both a goal and a challenge. The Los Amigos community garden was
claimed from abandonment by local residents, under the radar of a city crippled
by financial ruin; then, a decade later, it was reclaimed by a new property owner,
set with a mission to provide green space for all. The practices that kept the lot
maintained and attended to for years could not be continued as before. Under
pressure for access and change by newer residents, this entangled condition
converged the dynamics of ownership, stewardship, demographic change, and
redesign (restoration).
This project’s design process, which included design workshops, was able to
accommodate a broader discussion on the right to landscape, indirectly. The
project did not have a specific phase in the process of design to discuss these
issues, but in taking on concerns in a democratic and inclusive manner the non-
physical aspects of design were addressed. The idea of real ownership, appropri-
ated property, and restoration were accommodated not on legal terms – ‘We
own this property and we do what’s best for us’ – but in open discussions with all
parties taking into account culture, history, and design.

Property lines and democratic design: West Thames Park, New

York, New York
Every community, whether underserved or affluent, will ask, ‘What will become
of my neighborhood?’ The power to act in addressing that question varies, but
a community’s struggle to determine the right way to proceed and what spaces,
forms, and objects represent that right way is constant. The design and construc-
tion of West Thames Park in Lower Manhattan showed an initiative that estab-
lished an ecological and sustainable design framework, and created space within
the framework for the community to grapple with programming, design, and
decision-making (New York State Department of Transportation 2010). The
overall design plan for the park was set by the district’s design guidelines and a
series of public design workshops. The approval by the local community board
was stalled by recurring requests for revisions to the design. Initially, design
revisions followed the typical agency process, which required stages of internal
approvals and discussion. This process assured that design standards and the
public’s health, safety, and welfare were being addressed, but also required a
great deal of time – time that became scarce with each new review session. To
speed up the process the agency proposed a series of open-response workshops
that had designers, contractors, agency representatives, and community groups
working side by side to review and answer design concerns. The first session was
messy and uncomfortable as participants struggled and designers questioned
their role as ‘experts.’ It became evident that the ‘participant asks, expert answers’
model was not working. The questions from the community were about under-
standing the design decision-making process rather than simply approving one

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 102  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

option over the other. Eventually the sessions became educational, explaining
the principles behind design, planning, and administrative decisions rather than
presentations of engineering or architectural alternatives. ‘Why can’t we move
play equipment a few feet here or there?’ ‘Why can’t we level the lawn and keep
the existing trees?’ ‘Why can’t we make the walkway narrower or move it to the
other side of the park?’
These questions about design were about property, jurisdiction, and under-
ground infrastructure, the parts of design that are never represented on a final
design plan, literally the invisible lines of a plan. These questions were addressed
with drawings and diagrams that made visible the limits of an operation, as is
done in the design studio during design development. For example, play equip-
ment is placed in an area that accommodates a safe-fall zone (an area that
extends past the structure where a child can fall without being hit by another
piece of equipment) and where footings don’t interrupt underground utilities.
A drawing with all these extents and limits showed that moving a piece of play
equipment required first the movement of all other surrounding equipment and
underground utilities such as water and sewer lines, and then the review of all
other landscape elements like walls, seating, and fences which may be affected.
The lateral organization of participants in an educational–studio setting was
used to answer most questions, address design concerns, and reach consensus.
More importantly, the organization of the workshops created a non-hierarchical
space to question, discuss, and resolve design.
The design process, even in participatory design projects, can be biased, rely-
ing heavily on how it is organized and the motivations of the experts and facilita-
tors. How workshops are structured, when they are scheduled, where they are
located, and who gets invited are ways in which the process can be biased to be
inclusive or exclusive. For professional designers, democracy in the process is
expressed in the input of others, but the determination of what gets designed
and built is highly undemocratic since we, landscape architects, conceive the
process as a professional endeavor, framed by law and fraught with liability. The
open-response workshops provided a way to receive approvals and get the park
built. In the workshop discussions of ‘why this and why not that,’ a space was
opened to question the role of the landscape architect and design professional.
Is the landscape architect a spatial and technical expert who determines the
quality of exterior spaces (landscapes)? Is the landscape architect a keeper of the
‘line’ that defines where one can and cannot build? How democratic is that role
and process? What is lost by participating in an open process that makes design
decisions with ‘non-designers’?

Landscape democracy and landscape practice

The IFLA EU Landscape Democracy Resolution is a call to view, work, plan,
and design landscapes in which all citizens participate equally; that landscape is
a right, an expansive space of tangible and intangible dimensions. For landscape
architects, trained to be designers and stewards of the land, this is both a call and
a question. A call to do what we know to be our practice, the design of exterior

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 Invisible and visible lines in landscape democracy  · 103

spaces that accommodate social and environmental needs (this is clearly an

abridged definition, but one that will work for now) and the question of our role
in a landscape defined as boundless and intangible. For the practice of landscape
architecture, landscape democracy affirms issues important to the practitioner:
the consideration and recognition of the physical form of spaces and the input
and consideration of its users.
The three projects presented in this chapter are landscape architecture
projects in scope, practice, and product. They followed the analysis, synthesis,
design development, or construction process. Research questions or workshops
designed to engage the residents of a neighborhood helped to solicit ideas and
advocate for needs. In some cases this process encouraged dialog that led to
design resolution, or at the least, the recognition of conflict and discomfort for
the residents in a neighborhood. And it is in the wide view of design, from
research to construction, that landscape architects can find ways, beyond typical
practice, to contribute and participate in the planning and design of democratic
spaces.
In the African American yard project, the original focus of the research
provided an inventory of spaces, objects, and materials primarily to document
existing conditions in hopes that the information would be used to improve
the quality of green space in the neighborhood. After more than 20 years the
neighborhood has remained unchanged, still underserved and overlooked, as
are so many southern African American neighborhoods.
Viewed superficially, the lack of improvement, the abandoned houses, empty
lots, and deteriorated roadways, demonstrates a failure of policy, planning, and
design. That view fits in neatly with a panoptic approach to landscape planning
and the training of landscape architects: Big strategies, great vision and many
plans are needed to improve such neighborhoods. Viewed from the perspective
of the residents’ practices like the telling of stories about plants and the planting
of areas outside their property line, in other words the processes of the everyday,
I can see the resilience of a landscape that is maintained through these practices.
So this landscape is lived in not totally through planning rules, but through
social practices, which for now are independent of economics and government
regulation.
The Casita project used participatory design, historic research, and design to
build consensus on the future of an urban garden space. The project brought to
the foreground conflicts from beliefs and perceptions held when appropriated
property (landscape) is claimed by its legal owner for public use. The vitality of
the neighborhood’s racial, ethnic, and economic diversity, the historic cycle of
economic and social transition, led to a group of Puerto Ricans claiming aban-
doned property as open space. The property was not legally owned by the group,
but absentee owners and the city took no action to remove them. When the
property was legally claimed by a new owner, the demographics of the neighbor-
hood had changed, the community space was not well maintained, and its use
was limited to a few people.
The project showed how actions to accomplish equitable space change over
time and that the term ‘landscape democracy’ is fluid. The original tactic of

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 104  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

claiming abandoned private land for public use made the space useable for a
group of residents. Over time, use was limited to a few. When the property was
reclaimed by a new owner, public design became the democratizing action.
When community requests for design revisions for West Thames Park were
met with cumbersome response mechanisms, the project faced construction
delays and loss of funding. The quick response workshops helped the project
move forward by ‘leveling’ the design field, integrating design, engineering,
planning, and education. The format allowed residents, designers, and admin-
istrators to talk about design in ‘design’ terms, discussing the reality of physical
constraints, codes, and regulations.

The role of landscape architects

Landscape architects design spaces that embody the processes that bring them
to constructed fruition. The profession’s disposition for form, style, and his-
toric continuity, on the one hand, and health, safety, and welfare, on the other,
requires the management of complex pieces of information, at times at odds
with equity and democracy. In designing and planning for landscapes that are
more equitable and democratic, the first consideration is method: the ways and
processes used to view, collect, share, and synthesize information. So the ques-
tion may not be ‘what do democratic landscapes look like?’, but ‘what processes
were used to make these spaces possible?’ In the preceding discussion, observing
and recording the daily practices of everyday life provided insight into practices
that questioned existing city planning regulations. Introducing cultural history
and open discussion into the traditional design workshop format proved helpful
to discuss situations that did not lead directly to form or physical space, but
did create spaces of understanding. Teaching the public about underlying infra-
structure, maintenance jurisdiction, and other technical aspects of design made
them better informed about the ways in which space is formed and products and
materials are chosen.
The role of the landscape architect as a spatial and technical expert is known
and continues to be necessary in the design of democratic spaces. In order to
make the design process more inclusive and understandable to all, that expertise
can extend to all lines that include and divide, the lines that determine what
can and cannot be done on a site, the lines that limit who makes decisions,
and the lines that regulate use and form. Opening up the design process to
include research, historic context, and technical education helps to create a
more informed public, and helps designers and non-designers find a common
language.
Understanding the different lines that divide and determine planning and
design can serve to bridge the gap between the scale of government agencies
and the way people actually use space at the human scale, that is, the theory of
landscape democracy and the many ways in which spaces are actually used by a
diverse population. The exchange between rules and regulations, and existing
social practices helps us to understand the form and extent of an intervention, or
to determine whether any action is needed at all. The greater and more exciting

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 Invisible and visible lines in landscape democracy  · 105

challenge for landscape architects is in the non-form or non-physical aspects of

democratic landscapes that advocate, ensure, establish, develop, and promote
a holistic vision of landscape. The critical assessment of complex environmen-
tal systems, social issues, planning strategies, and quotidian tactics requires an
approach that allows a broad inclusion of people and methods of engagement.
This approach requires the landscape architect to shed the traditional role of
expert that produces top-down designs based on accepted planning regulations.
The landscape architect can work back and forth between the whole (strategy)
and the detail (tactic), allowing time too for methods that bring people, institu-
tions, and landscape together.

References
Aponte-Pares, L. (1997). Casitas place and culture: Appropriating place in Puerto Rican barrios
(elements of sociability), Places, 11(1), 52–61.
IFLA (2014). Landscape democracy resolution, retrieved 5 March 2017 from: http://iflaeurope.
eu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/IFLA-EU-resolution-Landscape-democracy.pdf.
New York Restoration (2015). Los Amigos Community Garden, retrieved 5 March 2017 from:
https://www.nyrp.org/green-spaces/garden-details/los-amigos-community-garden.
New York State Department of Transportation (2010). Lower Manhattan Park completed on
schedule, in time for summer enjoyment, report, 1 July, retrieved 30 December 2015 from:
https://www.dot.ny.gov/news/press-releases/2010/01-07-10.
Rogers, W. (2010). The Professional Practice of Landscape Architecture: A Complete Guide to Starting
and Running Your Own Firm, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.
Toker, Z. (2007). Recent trends in community design: The eminence of participation, Design
Studies, 28(3), 309–323.
Westmacott, R.N. (1992). African-American Gardens and Yards in the Rural South, Knoxville, TN:
University of Tennessee Press.

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 10
Enacting landscape democracy:
assembling public open space
and asserting the right to the
city
Joern Langhorst

Framing landscape democracy

Urban public spaces, in the context of rapid and pervasive global urbanization
and their inherently high levels of conflict and contestation, are key locations
to explore the dynamic relationship between spatial conditions, socio-cultural
processes, and the attendant geometries of power, expanding on Raymond
Williams’ (1973) critique of the city as a dominant cultural formation. The
history of democracy is decidedly urban (Castells 1983), and most theoretical
perspectives on the relationship between the spatio-material and the ‘demo-
cratic’ (including its socio-cultural–economic and behavioral dimensions)1
foreground the highly diverse, contested, and ‘uneven’ (Smith 1984; Harvey
1973; 2008) urban processes of production and reproduction. Recent scholar-
ship has reiterated concerns that the various processes of neo-liberal restructur-
ing are threatening democracy (for example, Purcell 2002, p. 99; Slater 2014). It
emphasizes the unevenness of access to and participation in public urban space,
and questions implicit and explicit ‘ownership’ of spaces considered public and
the attendant mechanisms of control and enforcement that profoundly chal-
lenge the ‘right to the city.’
Against this background, a framework that critically interrogates the agency
and instrumentality of designed public space in the making and unmaking of
contemporary versions and visions of ‘democracy,’ ‘resilience,’ ‘sustainability,’
and formations of ‘urban’ and ‘urbanity,’ with a particular emphasis on Lefebvre’s
‘right to the city,’ and the attendant issues of social and environmental justice
and landscape democracy, is proposed. It is based on a fundamental concept
of space, place, and landscape as a set of conditions in and through which eco-
nomic, political, everyday social relations, ecological, and cultural processes are
simultaneously organized and fought out (Marcuse 1936 [1968]). The theories
and critiques underlying the framework operate within a dialectic understand-

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 Enacting landscape democracy  · 107

Table 10.1  A framework for landscape democracy (in public urban space)

Understand / evaluate 4 LENSES Landscape / public space as:

Interpret / imagine / enact
Explain / conceptualize /
enable
1. Public sphere / multiple publics
  (Habermas 1989; Fraser 1990)
2. Contested terrain, uneven
 development (Harvey 1973; 2008;
Smith 1984)
3. Heterotopia (Hetherington 1997;
  Foucault 1986)
4. Spectacle / hyperreality (Debord 1967;
 Baudrillard 1981)
3 CRITERIA 1. Expose
2. Propose
3. Politicize
(Marcuse 2009)
METHOD / Assemblage (Latour 2005; DeLanda
METHODOLOGY  2006; Deleuze and Parnet 1977 [2007];
Farias 2009; Tampio 2009; McFarlane
2011)

ing of the actors, processes, and conditions that produce and reproduce differ-
ent forms of ‘space’ in relation to democratic processes and ‘the public’ (Arendt
1958).
First, as shown in Table 10.1, four lenses organize selected key contempo-
rary and historical–theoretical discourses, theories, and perspectives on urban
space, outlining relationships between space and social/cultural/economic/
ecological processes. They form a basis for understanding actions of intentional
spatial change and occupation and evaluating their ability to enable or suppress
democratic, inclusive, and discursive actions and practices that are socially and
environmentally just.
The first lens interrogates notions of ‘the public’ and ‘the public sphere,’
employing Hannah Arendt’s (1958) definition of the public sphere as ‘the space
of appearances.’ Habermas’ (1989) understands the (bourgeois) public sphere
as a mediation of relations between state and society in capitalism, and Nancy
Fraser (1990) critiques the exclusivity of the public sphere, identifying multiple
subaltern and counter-publics.
The second lens investigates public space in the context of hegemonial and
counterhegemonial / marginal / transgressive practices against the background
of Harvey’s (1973; 2008) and Smith’s (1984) concepts of ‘uneven develop-
ment’ and ‘accumulation by dispossession,’ both rooted in a materialist critique
of (urban) development and redevelopment. Lefebvre’s (1996) ‘Right to the
City’ and de Certeau’s (1984) ‘spatial strategies’ and ‘spatial tactics’ expand
this critique by arguing that the right to the city is not just about material access

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 108  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

to urban space, but a renewed right to urban life. The right to the city, wrote
Lefebvre (1996, p. 3),

should modify, concretize and make more practical the rights of the citizen as an
urban dweller and user of multiple services. It would affirm, on the one hand, the
right of the user to make known their ideas on the space and time of their activities
in the urban area; it would also cover the right to the use ... .

The third lens dissects roles of public space as ‘heterotopia,’ investigating

concepts of space based on the relationships between multiple simultaneous
and competing ordering systems (Hetherington 1997).
The fourth lens applies a situationist critique of urban space as ‘spectacle’
(Debord 1967) and ‘hyperreality’ (Baudrillard 1981), investigating underlying
representational systems and practices that govern possible meanings of and
interactions with such space. This representational agency of public space is
particularly critical and insidious as it is less obvious and frequently serves to
camouflage or naturalize power relations.
In the second row of Table 10.1, three criteria guide an investigation in how
to interpret, imagine, and enact the dialectic between the actual and the possible
(or, between urban life as it is experienced and as it could be) – a dialectic that is
a central element of most critical theories of urban space and its operations. The
criteria loosely follow Marcuse’s (2009) participatory reading of critical urban
theory and the ‘right to the city’:

1. expose: analysing the roots of urban problems and issues and clearly
­communicating that analysis to those who need and can use it;
2. propose: working with people and communities affected to develop actual
proposals and strategies to achieve better forms of urban life; and
3. politicize: clarifying the political action implications of the previous two,
informing actions and offering alternative formations of a more socially and
ecologically just city.

A critical role of and for public space lies in facilitating Mitchell’s (2003, p.
211) postulate ‘to be effective, politics must be made visible in public space.’
Exposing, proposing, and politicizing these mechanisms and actors then
becomes a critical and central component of the design (or other constructions)
of public space.
In the third row, ‘assemblage’ provides a method/methodology that mean-
ingfully relates the four lenses and three criteria to each other while significantly
expanding the discourses on urban space and urbanity.2 Conceptualizing public
urban space as being continuously ‘assembled,’ and operating in fluid environ-
ments with various human and non-human actors that intersect and interact is
central to conceive of and critique approaches to further the ‘right to the city’
and landscape democracy (including intentional design).
Assemblage – whether as idea, analytic, descriptive lens, or orientation3 – is
increasingly used in various fields to connote indeterminacy, emergence, pro-

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 Enacting landscape democracy  · 109

cessuality, turbulence, and sociomateriality (McFarlane 2011, p. 206; Latour

2005). It generally attempts to describe relationalities of composition – for
example, social/material. Instead of seeing cities as resultant formations, assem-
blage thinking foregrounds emergence and process and is interested in multiple
and often contested temporalities and possibilities. Deleuze and Parnet (1977
[2007], p. 52) suggest that urban actors, forms, or processes are defined less by
a pre-given property and more by the assemblages they enter and reconstitute.
Assemblage is ‘a double emphasis: on the material, actual and assembled, but
also on the emergent, the processual and the multiple’ (Farías, 2009, p. 15). The
assemblage approach is not describing a spatial category, output, or resultant
formation, but a process of doing, practices, and events produced through dif-
ferent temporalizations and contingencies (Li 2007). Assemblage may provide
a new productive and generative understanding to explain, conceptualize, and
enable the ‘right to the city’ and landscape democracy.

Locating landscape democracy

Three different projects were instrumental in developing the framework. They
were chosen to illustrate a range of types, processes, aspects, and issues of
contemporary practices of construing and constructing ‘public space’ and
show how practices of exposing, proposing, and politicizing are situated dif-
ferently and generate vastly different outcomes in establishing a ‘right to the
city’ and landscape democracy. The first two, the High Line in New York
City, and the Memorial for the Murdered Jews in Europe, illustrate various
shortcomings of contemporary designed, highly visible urban public spaces
in enabling landscape democracy and providing socially and environmentally
just outcomes. The third, the ‘Platform’ in New Orleans, explicitly responded
to social and environmental injustices and engaged the concept of the ‘right
to the city.’

Naturalizing power and enacting the spectacle: the performance

of aesthetics on the High Line
The High Line in New York City (see Figure 10.1), conceivably the most
iconic public park project in recent years, illuminates how conflicts over neo-
liberal agendas of urban redevelopment are spatialized, and how emergent,
constructed, and transgressive ecologies are instrumentalized in the ‘urban
renewal’ and neo-liberal rebranding of neighborhoods and cities as ‘resilient,’
‘sustainable,’ or ‘eco-cities.’
It deploys its carefully constructed aesthetics to successfully hide the actual
authorship of space and to ‘naturalize’ hegemonial power through the replace-
ment of the ecologically transgressive and the exclusion and displacement of
the socially transgressive (the replacement of the successional vegetation was
paralleled by the ‘clean-up’ of the Meatpacking District with its pasts of marginal
industrial production and subsequent sexual image). The erasure of physical
expression of previous ‘layers’ replaces the possibility of encountering more

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 110  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Source: Author.

Figure 10.1  Instrumentalization of emergent and constructed ecologies on the High Line

authentic and inclusive versions and vision of urban nature and culture with
its reductive, domesticated ‘hyper-real’ artifact (Baudrillard 1981; Langhorst
2014).
This artifact reinforces and expands existing power differentials, excluding ideas
about the relationship between human and non-human processes, that might
challenge the hegemony of global capital flows in imagining alternative versions of
urbanity and urban development. As such, its agency is primarily as a highly valued
aesthetic object and device, a powerful sign that represents, advertises, and ‘medi-
ates’ neo-liberal versions of urban renewal, a ‘spectacle’ (Debord 1967). The High
Line illustrates Habermas’ (1989) and Fraser’s (1990) contention that particular
spatial–material constructions of ‘public space’ tend to enforce particular ‘publics’
and social identities, producing and reproducing specific attitudes and behaviors.
The ‘publics’ on the High Line are limited to (consciously or unconsciously) enact
(acceptable) expressions of contemporary constructions of urbanity scripted into
the space, rendering it in effect a stage, camouflaging who writes the script for
this ‘performance of aesthetics’ and inviting questions of aesthetic justice (Mattila
2002) in the context of rights to the city.
The High Line compellingly illustrates the essential and often underestimated
role of aesthetic–visual practices and regimes inherent in – and materialized
by – designed urban spaces. These territorialize and deterritorialize loci and
processes of memory, meaning, place, and community identity. In the context
of urban renewal, abject gentrification, and the wholesale displacement of com-
munities, the role of urban space itself as a medium cannot be underestimated.
Spectacular urban renewal projects in disenfranchised, ‘transitional’ neighbor-
hoods such as the High Line have a long tradition, often referenced as the ‘Bilbao
Effect.’4 They are instrumental in accelerating and depoliticizing these processes
and the highly contested spaces themselves, and play an increasing role in the
‘branding’ of cities (Langhorst 2015). The role of public open space, due to its
ability of being inhabited, used, and interacted with in different ways, and its (at
least perceivably) more open access, is much more insidious: it often – like the

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 Enacting landscape democracy  · 111

Source: Author.

Figure 10.2  Memorial for the Murdered Jews in Europe in Berlin

High Line – operates in opposition to Mitchell’s assertion above, thus becom-

ing an instrument of rendering politics invisible and opposing the practices of
exposing, proposing, and politicizing.

Spatializing meaning and history: memory, narrative, and

enacted discourse in the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of
Europe in Berlin
Peter Eisenman’s ‘Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin’ (see
Figure 10.2) illuminates questions of ‘meaning’ and its construction in space,
exemplified by the function of memorials as loci of open discourse versus a
mise-en-scene of hegemonial narratives about the past, inserted into public
open space.
After a 20-year contentious process, Eisenman’s proposal was chosen.5 His
design emphasizes individual spatial–phenomenological experience and fore-
goes spatialized narratives that can be ‘read.’
Like many contemporary memorials, Eisenman’s memorial is a ‘counter-
memorial,’ devised to counter the forgetting and prevent the repetition of events
perceived as extremely traumatic. While traditional memorials are explicitly
representational and produce a monolithic narrative that is expected to be
‘read’ – often in conjunction with appropriate ritualized behavior and attitudes –
counter-memorials aim to challenge attempts at a hegemonial master-narrative
of history, signaling that the public is heterogeneous, and that individuals inevi-
tably interpret history and memorials differently.6 Young (1992, p. 279) notes
that counter-memorials may also ‘(break) down the hierarchical relationship
between art object and its audience’ by inviting the public to participate in the
artwork’s production or destruction in various ways.
The resultant fluidity, diversity, and potential entanglements of interpreta-
tions, emotions, and bodily actions coincide with the memorial’s ‘author’s’

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 112  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

intent: generally to remind and warn visitors of past events. Traditionally, the
conveyance of such meaning is achieved by scripting: by ‘reading’ or ‘decoding’
the representational content inherent in (or better, built into) the memorial’s
physical form.7 The memorial’s abstract form represents, enacts, proposes, and
embodies simultaneous multiple competing and alternate readings, interpreta-
tions, narratives, and resultant meanings, of its own spatiality as well as of the
events it signifies, rendering it a ‘heterotopian’ (Foucault 1986) space.
Young’s (1993, p. 30) assertion that contemporary (counter-)memorials

aim not to console but to provoke, not to remain fixed but to change, not to
be everlasting but to disappear, not to be ignored by passers-by but to demand
interaction, not to remain pristine but to invite their own violation and not to
accept graciously the burden of memory but to drop it at the subject’s feet

suggests such memorials as a location of discourse and contested meanings

(Huyssen 2003). But – other than a minority of visitors who engage with
the content of the memorial, and the few (quickly removed) graffiti of Nazi
­symbols – the experiences and actions of visitors overwhelmingly have little or
nothing to do with the Holocaust (Stevens 2012).
The few incidences of such graffiti were debated very publicly in the German
media – condemned by the political establishment, but seen as evidence that
the memorial was performing its function as a space of public discourse by the
memorial’s architect, embracing Young’s contention above.
Some argue that the memorial should provide an ‘appropriate expression’
of individual memories in a pluralistic, heterogeneous society, and, as such,
a public space that reflects on and responds to aspects of Lefebvre’s ‘right
to the city,’ including the daily individual meaning-generating actions that
de Certeau (1984) describes in his essay ‘Walking in the city,’ asserting the
primacy of individual experience and memory over hegemonially construed
‘history.’ However, the enacted debates (in the sense of de Certeau’s practice
of everyday life) seem to be devoid of anything the memorial is ‘about’ – they
foreground conflicts about the ‘appropriateness’ of people using the memorial
as a location for picnics, as a playground or outdoor gym,8 or a background for
group photos – which is decidedly at odds with the signage-requested solem-
nity befitting the site of commemoration for one of the most heinous acts of
genocide in history.
The memorial’s heterotopian qualities (Foucault 1986), however, may
reside much more in the realm of Hetherington’s (1997) understanding of
heterotopias as sites of simultaneous and competing ordering systems, and the
memorial’s main agency might operate more along Debord’s (1967) concept
of ‘spectacle.’9 The purpose-designed memorial displays qualities of inadvertent
‘looseness,’ aptly described and analysed by Franck and Stevens (2007), and
evidenced by the frequent ‘non-memorial-appropriate’ uses.
If the critical agency and empowering potential of the entanglement of
memory and history (and of memorial as its physical–spatial manifestation)
lies in its ability to expose, propose, and politicize, then the Memorial for the

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 Enacting landscape democracy  · 113

Source: Author.

Figure 10.3  The Platform, Lower 9th Ward, New Orleans

Murdered Jews in Europe falls short by simply providing a stage for the produc-
tion and reproduction of contemporary urbanity.

Assembling alternative futures and asserting identities:

spatializing post-disaster recovery at the Platform in New
Orleans
The ‘Platform’ (see Figure 10.3) illustrates the ‘assemblage’ – the conception,
construction, occupation, and agency – of a small and transgressive ­spatial
intervention in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans that operated as public
space and had significant impacts on the recovery of a neighborhood and com-
munity (Tonnelat 2011; Langhorst 2012). Built by the author, students, and
other faculty as part of a multi-year involvement with the recovery of the Lower
9th Ward in New Orleans, it explored the possibilities of a much more participa-
tory approach to the construction of open space that is truly ‘public,’ and shows
the agency and potential of spatial–material conditions in facilitating, enabling,
and encouraging multiple publics10 to participate in the occupation of and inter-
action with highly contested space, as well as in the political processes that affect
the present and future of the space they occupy.
The use of ‘assemblage’ as an alternative concept11 was not so much by fore-
thought as by a result of the fluid and highly contested situation after Hurricane
Katrina.
In the context of the Lower Ninth Ward’s precarious position at the interface
between coastal wetlands and human settlements, it ‘might be said to embody
the breadth of the build/no-build line between land to be abandoned and land
to be maintained’ (Tonnelat 2011). This line is physically inscribed into the
landscape as a 20-foot tall sheet piling, separating not just the Lower Ninth
Ward from the Bayou Bienvenue, a wetland and resource that was critical to
the community’s cultural identity and economic survival, but also the site of a
human disaster (empty lots by far exceed houses in the neighborhood) from the

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 114  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

location of an ecological disaster (the Bayou Bienvenue, a stark reminder of the

effects of saltwater intrusion and the disappearance of coastal wetland systems
critical to the survival of gulf coast communities), both integral parts and signi-
fiers of the catastrophe of Katrina.
The Platform, built on top of the levee – the very edge of the negotiation
between human order and non-human processes – overcomes this separation,
and has become a public space in both senses of the word: as a space accessible
to everyone, and as a forum in which to discuss the future of the neighborhood
and of the city in general, and how to live in an environment characterized by
recurring and violent negotiations of human and non-human processes. A poly-
phonic narrative, based in this and other immediate experiences of a complex
environment, and in the histories and narratives that created the identity of the
Lower Ninth Ward, has replaced the hegemonial narrative (or ‘history,’ in the
sense of Cronon 1992; see also Said 1984) that ultimately created the landscape
conditions responsible for the Hurricane Katrina disaster (Tonnelat 2011).
The Platform is highly visible, and is one of the very few public spaces in
New Orleans and the Lower Ninth Ward that is truly ‘open’ and expressive of
the concept of ‘neutral ground,’ a spatial tactic12 with a long tradition in New
Orleans that appropriated the wide median strips on roads for a variety of uses
by local residents.13
The participation and experience enabled by the Platform is critical for broad-
ening the discourses on future human–environment relationships, including
narratives and knowledge habitually excluded and suppressed as ‘non-expert.’
Bhabha (2003) conceptualized and proposed the ‘right to narrative’ as a key
element of an individual and collective right to identity – and by extension of the
right to place.
The space itself, and the processes of its conception and building, exemplify
the potentials of empowering communities to participate in decisions on their
futures and the places and landscapes they inhabit, by helping them to expose the
underlying mechanisms of their marginalization, to propose alternative future
scenarios, and, first and foremost, to politicize their long tradition of systemic and
systematic disempowerment and disenfranchisement. And – maybe above all –
it allows traumatized communities to become co-authors of the landscape they
inhabit instead of being cast as or self-indentified as merely victims of hegemo-
nial agendas, thus reasserting their ‘right to place’14 and identity. While the few
critical perspectives on this project are positive (Tonnelat 2011), it remains
doubtful to what degree it can serve as a model for alternative approaches to
the design and implementation of public space, as the fluid conditions after
Hurricane Katrina were shaped by multiple competing and frequently chang-
ing actors, structures, hierarchies, and processes that made the ‘assemblage’
approach more of a default dictated by circumstance. Conversely, it could
be argued that post-Katrina New Orleans merely rendered the complexities
involved in the production and construction of public urban space more visible,
allowing for a more deliberate engagement of actors and agendas often hidden.

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 Enacting landscape democracy  · 115

Conclusion: assembling the spaces of democracy

While these and other processes involved in constructions and deconstructions
of the ‘democratic,’ ‘resilient,’ ‘sustainable,’ and contemporary ‘urban’ have been
conceptualized and critiqued, as illustrated in the examples above (see also
‘critical urbanism’), it is suggested here that assemblage may provide a new pro-
ductive conceptual understanding and framework. Assemblage, as a relational
process of agonistic composition (McFarlane 2011, p. 221) conceptualizes the
city not simply as an output or resultant formation, but as an ongoing construc-
tion, structured through inequalities of power, resources, and knowledge, and
produced as an unfolding set of uneven practices. First, assemblage emphasizes a
deeper understanding of the relations between history and potential, or between
the actual and the possible, ‘offering new ways of the different processes that
historically produce urban inequality and the possibilities for those conditions
of inequality to be contested, imagined differently and altered’ (ibid.). Second,
assemblage attributes agency to both the material–spatial and the social. It sug-
gests new ways to understand and engage the various ways urbanity and urban
inequality in particular are produced and experienced. It looks in particular at
the material–spatial agency in developing resistance against urban development
and redevelopment as mere capital accumulation. Third, assemblage can be
imagined as collage, composition, and gathering, offering generative and action-
able ontologies and epistemologies.
Assemblage focuses on potentiality, generating concerns and assembling dif-
ference, involving both the formulation of alternatives and the debunking of
existing claims (to legitimacy, to a particular space, to the city, to power, etc.).
It is important to understand that this potentiality exists as a tension between
hope, inspiration, and the scope of the possible.
Assemblage foregrounds the sociomaterial and sociospatial interaction
instead of separating the social and material, between the material–spatial and
the social, calling attention to the agency of spaces and materials themselves,
and to how they might help shape inequality and the prospects for resistance
and alterity (McFarlane 2011; Thrift 2007).
Lastly, assemblage’s emphasis on composition holds potential to reconcep-
tualize difference and unevenness to strategically and tactically generate new
compositions across difference, based in mutual recognition and solidarity as
the basis for new alternate and subaltern forms of city, urban space, and urban
life, and its productions and reproductions.
Of critical importance is that assemblage does not rely on resolving differ-
ences and unevenness (although it also does not exclude a resolution): it is able
to continuously and critically interact with the whole range of actors, networks,
materialities and spatialities, processes and values. As such, it may provide an
explanatory and enabling process model to reconceptualize city, urbanity, and
urban space in new ways that empower and activate established, alternative, sub-
altern, hegemonial and marginalized, visible and less visible actors. As a part of
the larger discourse on ‘landscape democracy’ and social and environmental jus-
tice, assemblage with its engagement of both the social and the spatio–­material

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 116  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

(and their relationships) may hold a key to better and more productively under-
stand and act across these domains of human culture to facilitate more socially
and environmentally just cities. The efficacy of assemblage may very well lie in
expanding and extending the idea of ‘being in process with one’s environment’
(Berleant 1992, p. 2)15 as an experiential, social, critical, and political ‘practice of
everyday life’ (de Certeau 1984) that subverts and reimagines the social orders
and cultural meanings inscribed into urban space (Lefebvre 1996; Baudrillard
1991; Debord 1967).
The assemblage approach suggested here counters the post-political erosion
of the urban public sphere associated with austerity and resilient neo-liberal
governmentality (Slater 2014) and counters the accumulation of capital with
an accumulation of the commons (Hardt and Negri 2009, p. 283), suggesting
the transformative potential of the urban field itself. Insofar as it operational-
izes Henri Lefebvre’s famous call for the ‘right to the city,’ a right does not just
involve access to urban space, but is conceived as a ‘renewed right to urban life.’
‘The right to the city’ should

modify, concretize and make more practical the rights of the citizen as an urban
dweller and user of multiple services. It would affirm, on the one hand, the right of
the user to make known their ideas on the space and time of their activities in the
urban area; it would also cover the right to the use of the centre, a privileged place,
instead of being dispersed and stuck into ghettos (for workers, immigrants, the
‘marginal’ and even for the ‘privileged’) (Lefebvre 1996, p. 3),

thus generating instances of ‘landscape democracy’ (Mitchell 2003; Harvey

2008; Staeheli et al. 2002).

Notes
 1. In its simplest form, the discourses on ‘landscape democracy’ are trying to untangle and conceptualize
the relationship between spatial form and physical environment (whether city, landscape, build, etc.)
and democratic processes. Considering the double role of space and landscape as a result of cultural
production, but also as an active agent in cultural change, this might be one of the most challenging
questions.
 2. A key problem with many of the ‘classic’ approaches, perspectives, and frameworks mentioned here is
that they are inherently analytical and interpretive, but provide little to no guidance on how space might
be designed to enable democratic processes. Purcell (2002, p. 99) exemplifies this in his critique of
Lefebvre’s ‘right to the city’ as ‘more radical, more problematic, and more indeterminate.’
 3. For a short overview over the multiple, diverse, and complex histories and applications of the assemblage
idea, see McFarlane (2011).
 4. This phenomenon is attributed to Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain (1997) and the
transformation of a mostly industrial, neglected and abandoned neighborhood in its wake.
 5. By then, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl had bypassed the jury and ignored significant public
controversy.
 6. See Stevens (2012) for a much more detailed analysis.
 7. Cosgrove (1998) provides examples for the efficacy of representational content in designed landscapes.
 8. The spatial–material qualities of the memorial make it almost irresistible for such activities.
 9. By the spectacular but ambivalent qualities of the designed space itself.
10. For multiple, alternative, and subaltern publics, see Fraser (1990) and Habermas (1989).
11. The High Line and the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe exemplify the ‘top-down’ approach

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 Enacting landscape democracy  · 117

typical for the design of large public urban spaces, while the Platform was conceived and built with the
participation of local communities. It is critical to note that the fundamental differences between the pro-
jects lie in the conceptual and theoretical dimensions discussed here – the participatory processes or lack
thereof are a result of these, not a cause eo ipso.
12. The term ‘spatial tactic’ is used deliberately with reference to de Certeau (1984) and Lefebvre (1991).
Both describe spatial tactics as forms of occupation or use, often temporary, employed by marginalized
cultures against the spatial strategies of hegemonial elites in control of the mechanisms of spatial produc-
tion. See also Franck and Stevens (2007).
13. Street medians in New Orleans are called ‘neutral grounds’ and are used in particular during the Second
Line parades. Second Line parades are traditionally organized by social clubs, African American organiza-
tions in the long-standing sociopolitical tradition of self-help, mutual aid, and resistance to ‘structures of
oppression’ (Breunlin and Regis 2006, p. 746).
14. The concept of ‘right to place’ is an extension of the ‘right to the city,’ as put forward by Lefebvre (1996),
Harvey (1973; 2008), Smith (1984) and Mitchell (2003).
15. Berleant originally developed this concept within the context of experiential and environmental
­aesthetics – this chapter suggests expanding it into the multiple domains of social and cultural processes.

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 11
Public space and social ideals:
revisiting Vienna’s Donaupark Public space and social ideals: Vienna’s Donaupark

Lilli Lička, Ulrike Krippner and Nicole Theresa King

Introduction
Parks as urban public spaces mirror the dynamic histories of planning
approaches, design concepts, and ideologies. Every landscape design reflects the
political, technological, and social conditions of the period in which it was con-
ceived while simultaneously reflecting later transformations. To examine this
relationship, we take as an example Donaupark, Vienna’s post-war modernist
park, which was constructed in the early 1960s on the left bank of the Danube.
The park’s implementation was characterized by a strong socialist impetus and
the maxim of ‘social green’ (Krippner et al. 2014). We explore how contempo-
rary political intentions shaped the park and have influenced its use to this day.
For this purpose, we have analysed programmatic documents of the time, the
park’s design, its development, and its contemporary uses and discuss whether
the park today can be classified as socially just or even democratic.
We find one of the first obvious links between landscape and democracy in
the discussion about Munich’s Olympiapark, which was constructed for the
Olympic Games in 1972. Its designer, Günther Grzimek, called quite literally
for  the realization of ‘democratic green’ and this was the title of his exhibition
about the park in 1973. The historian Dietrich Erben links Grzimek’s attitude
and use of the term democratic to the upcoming understanding of democracy in
the 1960s, which markedly shifts the meaning of the term ‘democratization’ from
representative democracy towards more participatory processes of decision-
making (Erben 2013, p. 30). For Grzimek the ‘conquest of the grass’ (the right
to walk on the grass only emerged in the 1960s and 1970s in the cities of the
German-speaking world) is a crucial part of the process of democratization. In
their catalogue Besitzergreifung des Rasens (Appropriation of the Grass), Stephan
and Grzimek (1983) also ask for transparent planning processes with an option
for citizens to participate and be given extensive access to public spaces, and for
users to be involved in the design or able to change it and thus develop their own
aesthetic competencies.
Contemporary theory on landscape democracy widens the term from mere
participatory options to the ‘right of being represented in space, society and

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 120  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

political life’ (Mels 2016, p. 418). The European Landscape Convention even
‘adopts a radical democratic stance when it states: “Landscape” means an area as
perceived by people’ (Gailing and Leibenath 2017, p. 4). However, the question
of who those people are remains unanswered, which leads us to the topic of
the inclusion and exclusion of societal groups not only from certain spaces but
also from the decision-making process. Obviously access and inclusion as well
as participation are the predominant aspects in the contemporary discourse on
democratic landscapes, which has also been reflected in the ‘right to the city’
debate (see Schwab 2015).

Social green in post-World War II planning strategies

Participation was certainly not a topic in the 1950s and 1960s, when Donaupark
was constructed. The park’s history is inseparably linked to the political and
social development of the post-World War II years and the concerted attempt
to overcome the aftermath of the Nazi regime in Vienna and Austria. In January
1946, a municipal commission for the reconstruction of Vienna (Enquete über
den Wiederaufbau der Stadt Wien) committed to the Athens Charter and prop-
agated the concept of the functional city. This concept, produced in 1933, was
still quite common in European post-World War II urban planning scenarios,
even though the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM)
had recognized the social functions of urban spaces in the 1940s (Domhardt
2011, pp. 136–138). Nevertheless, the separation of urban functions and the
de-densification of heavily built-up areas remained key strategies in the urban
development of Vienna throughout the next decades (Meißl 2005). Within this
concept, urban green became a decisive instrument in structuring and renewing
the city.
Landscape planning in the post-war decades in Vienna referred to two argu-
ments: to the work of Camillo Sitte, a Viennese architect and urban planner of
the late nineteenth century, and to the ambitious housing programme of the
Viennese social democratic government during the inter-war period. In his book
City Planning According to Artistic Principles, published in 1889, Sitte (1843–
1903) had propagated a shift from ‘decorative green’ to ‘sanitary green.’ The
latter was to be laid out as courtyard gardens within perimeter blocks to provide
residents with fresh air, sun, and recreation facilities. More than 30 years later,
Sitte’s ideas shaped the housing programme of so-called Red Vienna, which had
achieved a major objective in improving the living standards of the working class
(Blau 1999, pp. 174–249). The planning authorities followed these develop-
ments after World War II and further transformed Sitte’s ‘sanitary green’ into
‘social green.’ But the term ‘social’ did not essentially allude to the social func-
tion of green open spaces. It primarily illustrated a strategy of Viennese post-war
urban development: A large number of the new landscapes were not conceived
as parks but as green open spaces for social housing projects and welfare facili-
ties such as kindergartens, schools, and public baths.
Alfred Auer, head of the Viennese park department from 1950 to 1975 and
responsible for the masterplan of Donaupark, as we will go on to illustrate,

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 Public space and social ideals: Vienna’s Donaupark  · 121

pointed out three main functions of urban social green: structuring, supporting
the wellbeing of inhabitants, and adding to a city’s prestige (Auer 1964, p. 36).
It is worth discussing these three functions by looking at Donaupark, the most
ambitious park project of the post-war decades. In keeping with the Athens
Charter, contemporary arguments repeatedly pointed out that Donaupark
complemented the Vienna Woods and Meadows Belt. Enacted in 1905, this
green belt had primarily focused on the hilly areas of Vienna and neglected the
Danube’s riverine landscape. Sixty years later, the construction of Donaupark
on the left bank of the river was a most welcome means to upgrade the hitherto
underprivileged northern districts of Vienna.
In post-war Vienna, planning authorities stylized parks as ‘health springs’
(ibid., p. 36), which supported the wellbeing of urban residents. This perception
was closely linked to the endeavor to suppress the Nazi era and the aftermath of
war. Franz Jonas, mayor of Vienna from 1951 to 1965, envisioned the healing
effect of ‘social green.’ ‘The gardens and green spaces of our city ... are to create
a setting with a close connection to nature as a means to rejuvenate the old city
so that scores of healthy, strong, and beautiful people can construct a better
world in it’ (Jonas 1954, p. 5). The new generation that was so highly sought
after went along with the suppression of the past, in politics, culture, society, and
even in urban planning and landscape design. Donaupark was constructed on a
derelict site with an outstanding, yet neglected history: An informal settlement
and an old military training site from the late nineteenth century, where the
Nazis had executed about two hundred deserters and resistance fighters, were
done away with and transferred to the new urban park. The remaining walls of
the military training site were buried under a small hill, one of the park’s very few
topographical figures, the Kaffeehaus Hügel.
The last of the three functions of social green was to act as a city’s ‘busi-
ness card.’ According to Auer, a park represented a city, and thus the newly
constructed Donaupark should stand for the new, post-war society, which expe-
rienced social and economic progress in the years of the Wirtschaftswunder in
the 1950s and 1960s. The colorful and flourishing design of Donaupark was
intended to overcome the greyness of the war and accessories like pink outdoor
swing seats symbolized the modern lifestyle. The Donauturm, a 252-meter-high
lookout tower with a revolving restaurant on the top, was stylized as a new
Viennese landmark. In the media, the park and the garden show were described
and presented as extraordinary and future oriented, making the area an ‘unhis-
torical space’ (Wölcher 2013, p. 71). The show was a clear commitment to
positioning Vienna in a progressive future well connected to the international
community (ibid., pp. 42ff).
However, Austrian landscape design in the decades following World War II
was prissy, uninspired, and conformist and relied on the landscape style of the
inter-war period. As in Germany (Gröning 2002), this conservative atmosphere
might have resulted from personal continuities in the profession. Landscape
architects, who had been practising before the war and who had co-operated
in varying degrees with the Nazi regime, continued their careers after 1945.
Moreover, as teachers in the 1960s and 1970s, Josef Oskar Wladar and Viktor

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 122  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Mödlhammer – both enthusiastic members of the National Socialist German

Workers’ Party (NSDAP) – influenced generations of post-war landscape
architects. Although the situation in Austrian architecture in the early post-war
years resembled that in landscape architecture and the style was far from avant-
garde, it changed in 1958 when a young generation of architects overcame the
traditionalist approach and understanding of the post-war years (Kristan 2006,
pp. 7–15). The buildings in Donaupark express this emerging new departure in
architecture.

Designing a new park for a new society

Initial ideas to arrange a garden show in Vienna went back to 1954 and
received a boost one year later, when the Austrian State Treaty was signed
and a democratic republic reinstalled. However, these ideas were only fulfilled
in the early 1960s, when Donaupark was constructed (Krippner et al. 2014,
pp. 39–44). The planning process invoked broad controversy among profes-
sionals and members of the city council as it was far from transparent. The
city council dismissed the results of the nationwide ideas competition and
favored top-down planning and design. Alfred Auer was commissioned to draft
a masterplan of the new, almost 100-hectare park. A trained garden architect,
he had been appointed head of the Viennese park department in 1950 at the
age of 28 and symbolized the new post-war generation. Rumour had it that his
appointment was a reward for having protected his predecessor Josef Afritsch
from Nazi prosecution.
The park’s layout reflects a moderately modernist design approach, which
is less of its time than most elements of the international garden exhibition it
was hosting. In the competition call for tenders, the new lake and the existing
allotment gardens were defined as obligatory elements of the design. Apart from
the adventure playground, there were no directives issued about what should
happen to the park after the garden show finished. However, the programme
of the latter was clearly defined, as were the amenities and buildings for the
exhibition and other activities, as well as means of transportation. Auer was
thus the mastermind who put together ideas from various entries and created
an overall new design for the park. In its appearance the show demonstrated
the city’s desire to be up-to-date – as articulated by buildings like the exhibition
hall or the lake restaurant, by infrastructure such as the lookout tower with the
revolving restaurant, the train, and the chairlift (see Figure 11.1), and by the
materials used in the garden designs such as concrete for a concert stage and
Eternit (cement asbestos) to retain the garden terraces of the Alpinum and to
create a huge water fountain. When it came to the layout of the public park,
which has remained largely unchanged, the crucial decision was to keep a gener-
ous 15-hectare area of grass in the centre of the park open to any kind of use and
activity (see Figure 11.2). In general, the city wanted to create a large recrea-
tional landscape together with the wider area of the Danube riverside in order to
‘bring everyday life closer to the Danube,’ as reported in the Social Democratic
Party’s newspaper, the Arbeiterzeitung (22 March 1964).

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 Public space and social ideals: Vienna’s Donaupark  · 123

Source: Wien Aktuell 3/64.

Edited by Fremdenverkehrsstelle
der Stadt Wien, 1964.

Figure 11.1 Cover
of the official tourist
magazine edited by
the City of Vienna
promoting the
international garden
exhibition in 1964

The design language of Donaupark is comparable with contemporary examples

such as Dortmund’s Westfalenpark, which was first created as a garden show
in 1959 and was also sited on former landfill and allotments and contained a
number of identical elements such as the lookout tower, playground, and mini-
railway. Similarly, the spatial layout of Donaupark cannot be called radical: it
seamlessly combines a variety of differently designed spaces without a clear
overall geometrical system. The spaces themselves seem to be functionalized
according to their size and shape, creating denser edges with intensive planting
schemes and buildings around the above-mentioned large, open, gently sloping
meadow, or ‘bowl,’ as it was called at the time. Together with paths up to 15
metres wide, this setting made up generous spaces which have always allowed
for a large number of people to engage in a range of recreational activities at the
same time. The lake introduced a natural ambience. The built structures of the
exhibition were generally more typical of the 1960s than was the landscaping.

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 124  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Source: Photo by Klaus Pichler.

Figure 11.2  The large grass bowl, created in 1964 and later to be called ‘Papstwiese’ (pope meadow),
is one of the most successful features of the park which still meets multifaceted needs

When, over time, the modern architectural elements of the exhibition were
gradually removed, the atmosphere in the rest of the park was created by large
spatial units accompanied by smaller areas with intensive perennial plantings
and shrubbery as well as low retention walls built of natural stone. Those spo-
radic original elements still evoke the time of construction, as do the plant spe-
cies, of which mainly trees and shrubs have survived. The range of shapes and
sizes in the spatial units and their varying degrees of openness have offered a
vast range of uses and this has held true right from the early days of the park’s
existence. Recreational activities were complemented by concerts and festivals
organized by the city administration, demonstrating their ambition to take care
of the people living there and supply them with leisure amenities.
Through the five decades of its existence, a gentle atmosphere has prevailed
in the park and so has the variety in age and cultural background of visitors and
the activities they engage in. Some of the playgrounds were enlarged and its
equipment renewed. Along with some of the built structures, they are protected
by heritage law. The original Rosarium underwent a restoration, planned by
Viennese landscape architects Auböck und Kárász. Currently a masterplan – the
result of an international landscape architectural competition in 2008 won by
the Munich-based team Lohrer–Hochrein – is gradually being implemented. In
it they follow the strategy of subtle renewal. The original paternalistic concept

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 Public space and social ideals: Vienna’s Donaupark  · 125

governing the allocation of space and program has shifted slightly over the last
50 years but has never been replaced. It has become more subtle, still providing
stimulus, events, nature education, and other programs. Commercial offerings
like bungee-jumping from the Donauturm are new. However, bottom-up activi-
ties also shape the landscape of users. Self-organized groups have appropriated
parts of the park for their own purposes. The exhibition’s leftover Square of the
Nations has become an area for table tennis, a tarmac square has been turned
into an open and freely accessible tennis court, outdoor chess is played by a
club of mainly elderly men, and self-organized and often inter-cultural football
teams regularly use the large grassy area as their training ground. These appro-
priations are made possible by the spatial layout and by equipment existing or
newly provided by the city council, such as a skate park. Sporadic manifestations
of different political interests have taken place specifically related to features
and developments within the park itself. People annually commemorate the
victims of the executions in front of a plaque, the only memorial for deserters in
Austria until 2014; right-wing activists once destroyed a bust of Che Guevara,
and secularists demonstrated against the publicly funded restoration of a huge
40-meter-high crucifix, which had been put in place to commemorate a public
service by Pope John Paul II. This event had a direct impact on the park: the old
‘bowl’ was renamed ‘Papstwiese,’ or Pope Meadow. The public debate around
the cross and its maintenance can be placed within the discourse of civil society.
From 2010 to 2012 the conflict between different groups in society was carried
beyond the park and into the media. Analysis of media discourse of the time
shows that the park is an example of how politics and power are vicariously
expressed in public spaces (Wölcher 2013, pp. 66ff). In this case Catholics were
finally supported by the social democratic city government, which paid half of
the restoration costs for the cross. Both the cross and the name have remained.
A recent thorough analysis of the correlation between the park’s spatial struc-
tures, its design features, and the uses it serves shows that the extensiveness of
the park, its different areas with their varying atmospheres, and the diversity of
equipment and planting allow for a wide range of activities (Claus 2012).
We can see a certain pattern when looking at the gender of users, which
clearly reflects societal conditions and role models that are only slowly chang-
ing. More male than female visitors do exercise in the park, and more females
than males make use of smaller areas designed for contemplation, such as the
perennial gardens or the butterfly meadow (ibid., p. 134). Apart from gender
observations, however, the study provides evidence of a particular relationship
between spatial prerequisites and uses. Spatial and functional openness lends
itself to a wider range of dynamic activities, while smaller spaces with specific
equipment promote more static activities (ibid., p. 135). The areas earmarked
for particular uses are not strictly demarcated; the borders between them are
blurred. One of the park’s key qualities turns out to be its size: now 60 hec-
tares with the 15-hectare area of grass in its centre. The connection between the
layout of public spaces and the societal circumstances they represent is subtle
and ambiguous and only understandable within the context of the overall social
situation.

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Is Donaupark social, green, and democratic?

To conclude, we want to go back to the discourse on landscape democracy,
which points to participation, transparency, accessibility, and inclusion as key
aspects of democratic landscapes. If we refer again to the example of Munich’s
Olympiapark, which followed Donaupark eight years later and also acts as an
open, accessible public space serving social needs, there is a difference in the
personal intention of the designers. For Olympiapark the designers’ activities
‘reflected a broader “discourse of democracy” (Demokratiediskurs)’ (Schiller
and Young 2010, p. 274), which reflects the emerging political movement in
the time between Donaupark and Olympiapark. Grzimek intended that the park
should be ‘an article of daily use for democratic society’ (ibid., p. 285). While
Alfred Auer, designer of Donaupark, intended to deliver a perfect show and a
public park for the future, his general attitude was more closely connected to
the planning debate to speed up the provision of recreational and social green
spaces. As a result, the general approach towards Donaupark was strongly
paternalistic. The right to participate, another prerequisite for a democratic park,
was never even mentioned in the Vienna example of 1964, either in the politi-
cal programme or in the media. This suggests that Vienna’s city planning and
landscape architecture were still in a pre-democratic state. This is also shown by
the ambiguous decision-making during the design competition, which did not
fulfil the goal of transparency that Grzimek later aspired to. Nor has Donaupark
allowed for any alterations by citizens.
However, the implementation of the park and the uses it has been put
to over the last five decades are very much related to the theory of ‘social
green’ put forward by politicians and professionals at the time. Spaces have
been appropriated and redefined in several areas and for different purposes. In
terms of accessibility, the park has proved to be successful, quite apart from any
benefits accruing from the improved public transport. The park offers a large
open area of grass and a number of smaller spaces for a range of recreational
uses. Even if its socially inclusive function cannot be conclusively established
by the available data, observations show that there is considerable diversity in
terms of cultural background, age, and gender as well as a large range of activi-
ties in the park (Claus 2012), including festivals, cultural events, and political
demonstrations.
It can be concluded that although some of the prerequisites for a truly demo-
cratic space are missing, such as any kind of citizen participation in design or
decision-making, a lack of transparency, and the clearly paternalistic, top-down
approach to implementation, the park has been a huge success in terms of ‘social
green.’ So after more than 50 years of experience, the assumption that demo-
cratic qualities are necessary to create a socially functioning landscape over the
long term can be questioned, prompting research into the specific benefits of
democratic landscapes in the creation of a large urban park that is to be socially
just and adaptable to changing needs over the decades.

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 Public space and social ideals: Vienna’s Donaupark  · 127

References
Auer, A. (1964). Die Funktionen des ‘Sozialen Grüns.’ In Die Stadt Wien (Ed.), Grün in der
Großstadt, Vienna: Vorwärts, pp. 36–38.
Blau, E. (1999). The Architecture of Red Vienna, 1919–1934, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Claus, M. (2012). Korrelation von Raumgestalt und Nutzung am Beispiel Donaupark (unpublished
diploma thesis), Institute of Landscape Architecture, University of Natural Resources and Life
Sciences, Vienna.
Domhardt, K.S. (2011). From the ‘functional city’ to the ‘heart of the city’: Green space and
public space in the CIAM debates of 1942–1952. In Brantz, D. and Dümpelmann, S. (Eds),
Greening the City: Urban Landscapes in the Twentieth Century, Charlottesville, VA: University
of Virginia Press, pp. 133–156.
Erben, D. (2013). Mediale Inszenierungen der Olympischen Sommerspiele in München 1972:
Natur – Park – Benutzer. In Hennecke, S., Keller, R., and Schneegans, J. (Eds), Demokratisches
Grün Olympiapark München, Berlin: Jovis, pp. 16–34.
Gailing, L. and Leibenath, M. (2017). Political landscapes between manifestations and democ-
racy, identities and power, Landscape Research, 42, 337–348, DOI: 10.1080/01426397.​
2017.1290225.
Gröning, G. (2002). Teutonic myth, rubble and recovery: Landscape architecture in Germany.
In Treib, M. (Ed.), The Architecture of Landscape: 1940–1960, Philadelphia, PA: University of
Pennsylvania Press, pp. 120–153.
Jonas, F. (1954). Das Soziale Grün. In Magistrat der Stadt Wien (Ed.), Soziales Grün in Wien,
Wien: Verlag für Jugend und Volk, p. 5.
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Vienna: Metroverlag.
Kristan, M. (2006). Architektur der sechziger Jahre in Wien. In Kristan, M. (Ed.), Die Sechziger:
Architektur in Wien 1960–1970, Vienna: Album, pp. 6–19.
Meißl, G. (2005). Ökonomie und Urbanität: Zur wirtschafts- und sozialgeschichtlichen
Entwickung Wiens im 20. Jahrhundert und zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhundert. In Csendes, P.,
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Schiller, K. and Young, C. (2010). Motion and landscape: Otl Aicher, Gunther Grzimek and the
graphic and garden designs of the 1972 Munich Olympics, Urban History, 37, 272–288, DOI:
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Stephan, R. and Grzimek, G. (1983). Die Besitzergreifung des Rasens: Folgerungen aus dem Modell
Süd-Isar, Munich: Callwey.
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2012 (unpublished diploma thesis), Institute of Landscape Architecture, University of Natural
Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna.

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 12
Storytelling as a catalyst for
democratic landscape change
in a Modernist utopia Storytelling and democratic landscape change

Deni Ruggeri

Introduction
How can stories be employed in the community development process to
inventory, envision, and implement sustainable development and landscape
­democracy? And what role has storytelling had in moving a community from
inaction and despair toward hope and democratic, collective action? This chap-
ter focuses on the Italian new town of Zingonia, a critical case study illustrat-
ing the relevance of stories as structures for social and communal identity,
as a window into a place’s native wisdom, and as tools for achieving sustain-
able, democratic change. Since 2008, the community has been the focus of
a Participatory Action Research (PAR) effort that aimed at authoring a new
vision and core story for the community. Through ‘thick description’ (Geertz
1973), this digital ethnography wants to recount the challenges and opportuni-
ties communities like Zingonia are facing as they attempt to shift their identities
and rewrite their core stories. Marshall Ganz’s (2011) theory of community
development provides the theoretical foundation for this investigation. It posits
that redevelopment is not just a matter of renewal of physical infrastructure, but
of authoring new narratives of hope and action to counteract those of decline
and crisis. The chapter concludes with a list of ‘lessons learned,’ which may
help us better understand the complex nature of similar bottom-up community
development efforts and the importance of stories as instruments for social
mobilization.

Theoretical background
Beginning in the early 1900s, Modernist architects and planners began to seek
new urban development models that could support more efficient, sanitary
urban living for new and old residents. Around the world, new towns were
satellite cities planned to accommodate the unprecedented population growth
of the post-World War II period. Their physical structure consisted of super-

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 Storytelling and democratic landscape change  · 129

blocks of high-rise residential towers and shopping districts with all services
necessary for urban living (Ruggeri 2013). While many new towns featured
central parks and walkable landscape linkages, they also relied heavily on
public transit or freeway linkages to the business districts of many metro areas
(Trancik 1986; Wolfe 1983). By the 1970s, new towns began to show signs
of decline and disinvestment, prompting many experts and commentators to
declare their failure (Fishman 2004; Forsyth and Crewe 2009). In response,
municipal leaders and planners worked hard to adapt their masterplans, renew
their housing stock, attract new residents and businesses, and promote greater
livability (Helleman and Wassenberg 2004). Infrastructural upgrades and
new construction have been accompanied by efforts to shift public percep-
tions, strengthen identity, promote greater eco-literacy, and engage residents
in building social capital through community-based landscape stewardship
(Ruggeri 2015).
Nowadays, landscape architects and planners understand that the chal-
lenges post-World War II new towns have faced are not unique, but that they
simply represent critical case studies of the ‘wickedness’ (Rittel and Webber
1973, p. 161) and complexity of urban development. New towns have become
laboratories for creative, adaptable, strategic policies that should be evaluated
not in terms of whether they are ‘true or false’ but, rather, ‘good or bad’ (Brian
2008; Rittel and Webber 1973). Understanding the changes promoted by the
many redevelopment processes requires that we tap into the perceptions of
residents and experts and begin to investigate whether policies and solutions
resonate in the words of those who have been affected by them (Flyvbjerg
2006).
Urban Planner Leonie Sandercock (2003, p. 12) writes: ‘the way we narrate
the city becomes constitutive of urban reality, affecting the choices we make, the
ways we then might act.’ The value and behavioral changes needed to achieve
truly sustainable, democratic landscape change demand the authoring of new
stories that have the power to move us from inertia and powerlessness toward
action (Ganz 2011). ‘Narratives thus become sources of learning, not only for
the head but also for the heart. Public narrative links the three elements of self,
us, and now: why I am called, why we are called, and why we are called to
act now’ (ibid., p. 274). The power of any redevelopment process should be
judged by its ability to shift the story of self (the past) to the story of now (the
present) to craft a story of us (the future). Successful stories of change need to
engage a real challenge, give us a choice to make, and help us coalesce around
the proposed outcomes. This chapter focuses on Zingonia as a case study for the
shaping of a new collective core story of renewal. The discussion reflects on the
lessons learned in the process of co-authoring a new narrative, the challenges it
faced, the choices and outcomes it produced, and the future actions that might
contribute to its long-term resilience.

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Case study: Zingonia, Italy and the use of storytelling as a tool

for bottom-up community redevelopment
How can stories be employed for us to understand, analyse, plan, and act for the
achievement of sustainable community redevelopment? This chapter focuses
on the unique case of a Modernist Italian new town to illustrate the relevance
of stories as repositories of eco-literacy and native wisdom (Hester 2006), as
important loci for community and landscape identity (Ruggeri 2008), and as
tools for achieving stronger cohesion and social capital. Using marketing lit-
erature, newspaper clippings, transcripts from documentary films, conference
chapters, and social media, I engage in a digital ethnography (Postill and Pink
2012) to illustrate the vicissitudes that led to Zingonia’s core story as a degraded
community and how the Participatory Action Research Zingonia 3.0 project
set out to author a new story of regeneration and rebirth. Beginning in 2008, an
array of efforts to engage many sub-communities – apartment tower residents,
community gardeners, local teachers, municipal leaders, local entrepreneurs,
social media, immigrant groups, local churches, academics from around Italy
and beyond – were set into motion with the shared goal of instilling new hope
in the future of the community through participatory, storytelling-based com-
munity organizing.

Uncovering stories of decline and hope: a core story – Zingonia,

the ‘ideal’ city
[Zingonia] was planned by a team of experts, piece by piece, like a machine that has
to function autonomously. The young city is one of the most forward thinking events in
Italy, and is born on land where past and present coexist peacefully and in harmony.
Right here, in Lombardia, one discovers that to be modern one does not have to break
with the past. For people of the Bergamo region, this is still a solid foundation onto
which to build tomorrow’s world.
Transcription from a marketing video (Rai Storia 2011, minutes 2:30–3:30)

The construction of a satellite city for 50,000 people and 1,000 industries began
in 1964, on the outskirts of Milan, Italy. Built on land stretching across the
five agricultural communities of Verdellino, Verdello, Osio Sotto, Ciserano,
and Boltiere, the 2,000-acre town featured monofunctional residential, com-
mercial, and industrial zones linked by wide arterial roads and buffered by sports
fields and parks. Monumental fountains and concrete sculptures would mark
the community’s public nodes and construct its new identity as a futuristic city
(see Figures 12.1 and 12.2). Press accounts referred to the new community
as a blessed community where opportunity and success abounded (Riunione
Immobiliare 1986). Marketing material reflected the optimism of Italian society
during the 1960s economic boom, going as far as celebrating its 140,000 square
meters of parking as indicators of its economic vitality (Foot 2003; ZIF 1965;
1968).
By the late 1970s, the optimistic discourses of a harmonic co-existence

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 Storytelling and democratic landscape change  · 131

Source: ZIF (Zingone Iniziative Fondiarie).

Figure 12.1  Zingonia’s central areas in an early sketch

between past and present were overshadowed by news that Zingonia was in
a state of crisis, bringing talks of incorporation into a new municipality to a
halt (Il Giorno 1974). Demographic statistics revealed that only one in every
four people employed in Zingonia’s industries had chosen to live in the new
town, preferring instead to buy a home in the historic villages that preceded it
(Airaldi 1981). Images of the dried-up fountains of Piazza Affari and Piazza del
Missile – the city’s main gateways –illustrated newspaper accounts of disinvest-
ment, crime, and economic bankruptcy. Many original residents – themselves
immigrants from Italy’s impoverished southern regions – sold their flats to new-
comers from Morocco, Senegal, and Pakistan, who were lured by the promise of
finding employment in local industries.
The economic crises of the early 2000s left immigrant families with mortgage
payments and maintenance bills they could no longer afford. Many families
began to default on water, gas, and electricity bills, causing their homes to be
declared unfit for inhabitation. Empty units offered refuge for squatters and the
homeless. At night, Zingonia’s arterial streets became ideal places for prostitu-
tion and drug dealing, further undermining the livability of its neighborhoods
and prompting many businesses to relocate to safer areas. By the mid 2000s, in
response to growing concerns for public safety, Lombardia’s Public Housing
Agency and right-wing politicians had begun to discuss plans to demolish and

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 132  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Agriculture

Public open spaces

Private green spaces

Residential buildings
and factories

Source: Deni Ruggeri.

Figure 12.2  Plans for the new town erased the agricultural heritage, replacing it with large paved areas
and private open spaces

rebuild four of Zingonia’s most iconic towers, a decision later formalized in

a masterplan by experts from Milan’s Polytechnic in collaboration with the
regional planning agency. Between 2008 and 2015, Zingonia’s story became
the embodiment of a conflict between an old top-down political and planning
model and a community’s search for greater participation in shaping its own
future (Colleoni 2015).

Challenging the core story: a community with a sense of pride

Concerned with effects that the radical vision of politicians would have on the
community, and frustrated by a core narrative that did not reflect their lived
experiences, residents of Zingonia began to organize. The signing of the 2008
contratto di quartiere (neighborhood contract) laid the foundations for a partner-
ship between the municipality of Verdellino, four NGOs, a planning consultant,
and myself. The goal was to operate change from the bottom up, diversifying the
interventions to affect scales, from the home to the schools, and from the work-
place to the public realm. That same year, a group of current and past residents
created the ‘Quelli della Zingonia’ Facebook group to share pictures from the
past. Collectively, these images were meant to instill new hope and speak of a
community seeking to inspire change by focusing on the memories of the livable,

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 Storytelling and democratic landscape change  · 133

Source: Deni Ruggeri.

Figure 12.3  The landscape of the new town featured high-rise architecture and monumental
fountains, which became an integral part of the identity of the new residents, serving as a background
for family portraits

safe, and tight-knit place they had experienced as children. In these visual stories,
the high-rise towers, spaces, and fountains stood as sources of shared identity and
pride (Figure 12.3). As Facebook group founder Gianni Mazzoleni eloquently
explained: ‘Go see photos of Zingonia, and you will have the feeling of watching a
story of men and women in search of happiness’ (cited in Colleoni 2015).

A community that takes charge of its future

The year 2008 was a watershed in the history of Zingonia, as it marked the
beginning of a PAR project entitled ‘Zingonia 3.0.’ Funded by the Cariplo
Foundation, the project was a partnership between four local non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), the five municipalities of Verdellino, Verdello, Ciserano,
Boltiere, and Osio Sotto, Bergamo’s provincial government, and myself, a land-
scape architecture researcher. The project took on the task of co-authoring a new
core story that would serve as a unifying thread for efforts aimed at improving
people’s engagement in transforming the landscape, organizing residents into
homeowners’ associations, and educating the younger generations to become
more active in community life, co-operation, and stewardship (Zingonia 3.0
2013). Within the partnership, academics would help instill the process with
new knowledge and ideas for sustainable landscape change.

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 134  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Source: Deni Ruggeri.

Figure 12.4  Through participation, Zingonia residents had the opportunity to co-author new visions
for its most important public spaces, which included the re-introduction of local agriculture and a
farmer’s market around one of its monumental fountains

In July 2011, an urban design workshop co-sponsored by the University of Oregon,

USA, and the Zingonia 3.0 partners would write a crucial part of Zingonia’s new
story. Five landscape architecture students in collaboration with local politicians,
residents, and activists co-produced a vision for a healthier and more vibrant place
in closer contact with the landscape. It featured the creation of a system of pro-
ductive landscapes linked by bicycle and pedestrian trails that would help organ-
ize new mixed-use districts (Figure 12.4). The concluding report recommended
the redesign of Zingonia’s streets to make room for pedestrians and their repro-
gramming through tactical urbanism, food, and public art. In September 2011,
the community responded with the organization of the first Parking Day, which
included stands showcasing the city’s excellence in food, music, and gardening.
In the summer of 2014, a second urban design workshop attended by students
from the University of Oregon, the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, and
the University of Bologna further clarified that vision. Through behavioral obser-
vations, on-site visits, interviews, and a digital survey, the workshop produced a
map of the community’s ‘sacred structures’ (Hester 1993, p. 279). Among them,
workshop participants identified the fountain of Piazza Affari and the courtyards
within the towers as those with the greatest potential to write new stories of
change, thanks to the acupuncture-like landscape transformation communicated
to the community through cartoon-like vignettes (Figure 12.5).

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EGOZ_9781786438331_t.indd 135
Source: Deni Ruggeri.

Figure 12.5  The 2015 Urban Design workshop resulted in tactical urbanism strategies for activating Zingonia’s semi-public spaces between the towers,
illustrated with colorful cartoon-like vignettes

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 136  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

The Zingonia 3.0 project was strategic in its use of storytelling in its activities,
continually challenging project partners to find new ways of communicating
with the population. Thanks to the help of a local artist, the project partners
self-produced a coloring book entitled Zingonia da Colorare which would help
educate elementary schoolchildren – and by extension, their families – about
the value of their landscape resources. The engagement of local educators and
students went beyond the publishing of a coloring book. In December 2014, a
new effort entitled Zingonia UniverCity asked 50 junior high school students
to become ‘citizen scientists’ (Silvertown 2009) by mapping and envisioning
strategies for the community spaces with the greatest potential for regenera-
tion. These maps would inform the development of SWOT analyses and long-
term visions for the Zingonia of the year 2050. Both the coloring book and the
UniverCity workshop were important stepping stones in shifting the commu-
nity’s core narrative from decline to bottom-up renewal.

The workings of a new ‘story of us’ for Zingonia

In Spring 2015, the Zingonia 3.0 project partners convened in a public workshop
to reflect on the results of the PAR project slated to end in May of that year. Data
regarding the number of people involved, quality and quantity of press coverage,
and intensity and depth of the social networks affected were triangulated to
assess the impact of the project on the community. Of the 6,000 residents in
the municipality of Verdellino, roughly one person out of every four had partici-
pated in one or more ‘communities of practices’ activated by the PAR project.
As early as 2009, newspaper coverage began to shift from past accounts of petty
crime and prostitution to new reports that called for ‘cooperation and teamwork
as the only way forward’ in the re-birth of the community (Ceresoli 2012). The
majority of the 50 articles published in national media and newspapers between
2010 and 2014 seemed to embrace a new core narrative of a community actively
shaping its future. Similarly, an analysis of social networks illustrated an intense
bridging of social capital across communities of practice, with the most intense
clustering around community gardening, after-school programs, Zingonia
UniverCity, and the requalification of the high-rise apartment buildings.
The 2015 workshop served as a pivotal moment in the PAR process, shifting
the work of the partnership toward the execution of practical interventions that
would embody the new ‘story of us’ and motivate more and more community
members – even the most skeptical – to act. Among the outcomes of this partici-
patory effort would be the decision to rename the project Orizzonte Zingonia
(Zingonia’s Horizon). The change in name corresponded to a broadening of
its partnership to include law enforcement, management companies, NGOs,
researchers from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and the University of
Bologna, local scout groups, and Zingonia’s entire public education system. The
ultimate test of the partnership’s ability to co-operate and promote democratic
landscape change was the work conducted between 2014 and 2015 in the spaces
between the residential towers. With help from volunteers, boy and girl scouts,
residents of Verdellino’s towers refurbished a dilapidated playground and built

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 Storytelling and democratic landscape change  · 137

Source: Orizzonte Zingonia.

Figure 12.6  The workshops were instrumental in generating new community efforts for the
requalification of the spaces between the high-rise apartment buildings

new play structures using materials donated by local businesses (Figure 12.6).
They went as far as re-appropriating an abandoned security booth and trans-
forming it into a community space for an after-school program, homeowner’s
association meetings, and community celebrations. On 15 October 2015, the
new community space and adjacent playground were dedicated to the memory
a young resident, whose tragic fall from one of the towers’ balconies marked a
dark moment for the community (Figure 12.7).

What is next in Zingonia’s story?

The European Landscape Convention’s new definition of landscape recognizes
the importance of residents’ perceptions and landscape meanings and calls for
their integration into landscape planning and design processes through partici-
pation (Déjeant-Pons 2006). New, co-authored stories can help turn abstract
landscape visions of the future into action, by leveraging people’s deeply held
emotions and values, and urging them to take part in their realization. In
Zingonia, the stories authored as the result of the PAR efforts that unfolded
between 2008 and 2015 seem to have succeeded in shifting the core narrative

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 138  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Source: Orizzonte Zingonia.

Figure 12.7  A memorial service to honor a young resident who perished in a domestic accident
demonstrated the relevance of the refurbished semi-public spaces and helped illustrate the new stories
of renewal

from one of decline to one of hope and rebirth. Through ‘reflection in action,’
this chapter has sought to learn from these processes and identify a few lessons
that might help others in promoting storytelling-based, participatory redevelop-
ment practices.

Lesson one: democratic landscape changes require the artistry of

good storytelling
In Zingonia, storytelling was a fundamental tool for tapping into residents’ ideas
of community, their attachment, concerns, and visions for the future of their
town. The visual storytelling of the ‘Quelli della Zingonia’ Facebook group acted
as a powerful forum for sharing individual stories and merging them into a col-
lective gestalt, a new ‘story of us’ (Ganz 2011) that would be greater than the
individual stories of success and failure. The storytelling efforts engage a range
of artistic forms of expression. Together, the imagery from Facebook posts, the
coloring book, and  the many three-dimensional representations produced by
workshop  ­participants gave strength to the narrative by materializing it and
making it feel within one’s reach.

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 Storytelling and democratic landscape change  · 139

Lesson two: community development as storytelling requires a

spectrum of perspectives
Community development practice requires the continuous integration of
multidisciplinary methods, theories, and skills. Zingonia 3.0 engaged the most
interdisciplinary group of partners, ranging from public school teachers to law-
enforcement officials, from local activists to social media enthusiasts, from urban
farmers to religious leaders. Such a symphony of perspectives was instrumental
in shaping a new core story that would resonate with all communities of prac-
tice, citizens, and degrees of imagination. The renegotiation of responsibilities
across partners at the end of each cycle (neighborhood contract, Zingonia 3.0
and Orizzonte Zingonia projects) and changes in project names were critical
in strengthening and refining a new narrative. Interim milestones, built into the
structure of the grant funds, allowed moments of reflection and opportunities to
redistribute resources, shift gear, engage new partners, incorporate new knowl-
edge, continuously enriching the community’s ‘story of us.’

Lesson three: planning for wicked problems requires

transdisciplinary partnerships
Landscape change and community development are ‘wicked’ problems that defy
simple solutions. Zingonia 3.0’s PAR project operated synergistically and across
a variety of scales and communities of practice to empower residents to envision
and actively work for democratic change in Zingonia. The project purposefully
chose to adopt a non-hierarchical governance framework that relied extensively
on collective decision-making. Digital platforms such as Facebook, video con-
ferencing, and short messaging were used to stay in touch, check on the status of
pending projects, or find consensus on strategic choices. Within each community
of practice, individuals had begun to take leadership. In the residential towers,
this has resulted in the creation of a board that will represent the needs and per-
ceptions of residents at key decision points. Similarly, the project was enriched
by the diverse makeup of its partnership, which included scientists and social
scientists, politicians, and commentators, poets, and entrepreneurs, church lead-
ers, and urban farmers. The kaleidoscope of views and sensitivities contributed to
a story that was richly articulated yet clear and accessible to all audiences.

Lesson four: academics are privileged partners in landscape

democracy construction
Service learning in design and architecture schools has been the opportunity for
design and planning students to strengthen their practical skills and experiential
knowledge while adding a dimension of social responsibility to their education.
While the summer workshops had engaged students in service learning, the
project went well beyond filling a requirement in their studies. Participation is
demanding on students and often requires volunteering of many work hours and

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 140  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

commitment that extends beyond the time of an academic semester. Zingonia

3.0 benefited from the contribution of students of landscape architecture, plan-
ning, and architecture from universities in the United States, Italy, Norway, and
beyond. These students have since returned to Zingonia to lead community
participation efforts and have become community partners, rather than service
providers. In the process, they have learned how to take leadership to promote
greater landscape democracy.

Lesson five: the landscape is a powerful stage for the performance

of community
One of the project’s goals was to build bridging social capital between the Italian
and immigrant communities, among young and old residents, and between those
who believed in Zingonia and those who were losing hope. The social network
analysis performed by Marco Vanoli, an important partner, and manager of the
Zingonia 3.0 project, showed that project activities like urban farming, environ-
mental education, and the refurbishing of the open spaces between the towers
acted as catalysts for social capital construction. Since the project’s inception,
the landscape of Zingonia has served an identity-building function. Its fountains
and wide boulevards projected the future of the community onto a global stage
of success. Many of the pictures of early life in the community proudly featured
the high-rise buildings as a sign of a city projected into the future. Today, despite
a public narrative that positions the towers as symbols of degradation, the same
towers continue to be viewed by junior high school students as characters in a
new core story of an integrated, diverse, and sustainable community (Figure
12.8).

Conclusions
Stories are powerful agents of change. They can inspire people to participate
and take charge in shaping future trajectories for their communities. At just
over 50 years of age, Zingonia has been the main character in many storylines.
First came the city of the economic miracle, a top-down narrative that less than
a decade later press accounts of decline and disinvestment would substantially
undermine. It was not until the early 2000s, when living conditions in many of
the towers reached rock bottom, that efforts to generate a new story began to
take shape. Zingonia 3.0 deliberately sought to write and rewrite a new story that
has been enriched by the contributions of new partners and by a collaboration
of people of all creeds, ethnicities, educational levels, and ages. That story has
found a tangible manifestation in the physical improvements, the regenerated
courtyards, and the well-maintained staircases within the apartment complexes.
Most of all, the recent history of this new town shows that the processes of
change initiated since 2008 are not only an issue of physical renewal, but of
regeneration that engages their hearts and minds, too.

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 Storytelling and democratic landscape change  · 141

Source: Deni Ruggeri.

Figure 12.8  Participation with students from the local middle school involved the drawing of
postcards representing their visions for the future of the community

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all the partners in the Zingonia 3.0 and Orizzonte
Zingonia projects and the many students of all ages who have served as
agents of ­democratic change over all these years. Most of all, I thank the
community of Zingonia for inspiring us all with your hard work, optimism,
and persistence.

References
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 13
Democracy and trespass:
political dimensions of
landscape access Democracy and trespass: landscape access

Tim Waterman

Surely the sense of an act lies in its direction and orientation: the future which it is
travelling towards, blindly or lucidly, in other words, what is possible.
Henri Lefebvre (2002, p. 293)

Democracy and trespass

This chapter is about bodies out of place on purpose, and about when being in
the wrong place is the right thing to do. Forbidding access or ejecting people
is often a sign of the breakdown or denial of democracy in the public sphere
and the public realm. Publicity – the ability to be public, to operate in public –
requires a knowledge of one’s own place, even if that place is transgressive, or
perhaps especially if that place is transgressive.
The European Landscape Convention defines landscape as perceived:
‘“Landscape” means an area, as perceived by people, whose character  is
the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human fac-
tors’ (CoE 2000, p. 9). It must be stressed that in this it is the lived landscape,
that which is shaped by its inhabitants and which, in turn, shapes them,
that is the most crucial definition. This physical and cognitive connection,
though, is being eroded in many ways. It is eroded in the countryside (as
it has been since the Industrial Revolution), as people’s direct engagement
with land, tools and materials has been mostly replaced with technology and
machines that distance us from the physical matter of place. It is eroded
as the countryside becomes lonelier and emptier and is reduced to mere
­scenery: a backdrop, not a background for existence. In the worst case, the
rural landscape is virtually completely shielded from public interaction, leav-
ing stewardship in the hands of a very few, with the result that the possibilities
for exploitation are rife. In the city this connection is eroded by ever more
remote processes of planning, finance, development and design that militate
against the a­ bility of communities to have agency in the construction of their
environment.

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 144  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

When the land in landscape is perceived to have the qualities of a property defined
in space, discourse will tend to revolve around individual property rights, territorial
rights, ownership rights, and economic value. If, on the other hand, the land in
landscape, is perceived to be a place, shaped as an area for use by individuals and
communities, then discourse can be directed towards customary use rights, which
are fundamental to common law. (Olwig 2011, p. 39, emphases in the original)

As instruments of control and compliance – from policing and surveillance

to obfuscating bureaucracy – become ever more entrenched and limiting, the
necessity for trespass as an assertion of democratic principles becomes more
and more the only option to effect change at any scale. Many of these acts of
trespass will be illegal and will result in acts of state violence against the trespass-
ers. In the words of Costas Douzinas (2014): ‘Resistance is always situated.
Resistances are local and multiple: they emerge concretely in specific condi-
tions, responding to a situation, state of affairs or event’. He also makes the point
that resistance is a bodily reaction to felt injustices (ibid.). It goes without saying
that this situated resistance is enacted by human bodies in physical places. The
willingness of people to make their bodies vulnerable is part of the great power
of resistance, and this vulnerability dictates that the resistance must be enacted
in the most meaningful and visible places possible. Turkey’s President Erdoğan,
for example, has designated peripheral spaces (such as Maltepe and Kadiköy)
in Istanbul for protest, but protesters only have one body each; and therefore
they will take those resisting bodies to Taksim Square where any violence done
to those bodies will be most visible. Protest is enactment; it is performative, and
therefore it requires an audience. Power understands this, which is one reason
why contemporary governments seek to control, censor or manipulate media
coverage, to deny the media access to events, or to undermine public trust in the
media.

Access and landscape imaginaries

Physical landscape access is necessary for nearly all people, and even if one is
confined through illness or incarceration, for example, knowledge of the pos-
sibility of landscape access might still offer an important form of mental escape.
The landscape is where public lives take place, whether this is in city streets or
rural fields.
An extreme and particular sort of landscape access is one of ‘splendid isola-
tion’, where a society’s most wealthy and powerful citizens (monarchs and oli-
garchs, perhaps) might move through the landscape without needing to touch
the ground or rub elbows with the great unwashed. The landscape imaginaries
that are commonly encountered in aspirational advertising, particularly for
the Western middle class, are just such images: the private island, the secluded
estate. This is a landscape imaginary of privilege and exclusivity. There is a
cost to participate, whether this is one of fees for entry or membership, or the
expense of paraphernalia (grouse hunting or golf, for example, require costly
equipment and conspicuous, unusual, and expensive costumes). Many aspira-

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 Democracy and trespass: landscape access  · 145

tions globally strive for just such detachment, though it would be difficult to
say whether this is a universal human tendency or whether it is the result of the
manipulation of desire by advertisers. It is an imaginary that posits freedom
for the few, and it of course comes up against the limits of its own enclosure: it
is the proverbial ‘gilded cage’. It is a perennial paradox that, while interaction
with others seems to be essential for happiness, it is also a source of friction
and conflict that requires negotiation and accommodation. The richer and more
sustainable imaginary is that of freedom for all, which requires a civil society
and significant amounts of mutual aid, all of which require human interaction
in social settings. The key difference between the two is that the isolationism of
the first only requires protecting a compound, whereas a democratic conception
of freedom of the landscape requires protecting it all. This is a fundamental
point of friction, perhaps, between the differing notions of property in economic
conservatism and environmentalism. Furthermore, isolating tendencies are only
feasible when resources are available to protect that isolation. For most without
wealth and power it is not what doesn’t kill them that makes them strong(er),
but rather what doesn’t isolate them. And the consolidation of collective power
requires space in the landscape.
Another form or mode of power rooted in the manipulation of landscape
imaginaries is that of nationalism. Nationalist identification with landscapes has
a reciprocal effect on national identity and character – in much the same way as
lived landscape does – and perhaps it is no longer possible to separate the two
constructions. In the United States, for example, ‘purple mountain majesty’ and
‘amber waves of grain’ are landscape images that conjure a bountiful and limit-
less frontier as a cornerstone of a national ideology that has come to embrace
not just acquisitiveness and growth, but wastefulness. In England the identifica-
tion with garden and hedgerow – England’s ‘green and pleasant land’ – have
contributed to an obsession with privacy and a concomitant lack of agency in
public affairs beyond the reinforcement of boundaries. The English are (often
justifiably) accused of merely moaning about things rather than fixing them
when faced with adversity from external forces or processes. Americans are,
conversely – and also often justifiably – accused of possessing a strident sense
of entitlement that they take with them wherever they go. Both of these markers
of identity could be either underpinned or bolstered by national myths that are
constructed with the use of heroic landscape imagery.

Bounding and framing

The express link between history and geography is made clear when we say
that history ‘takes place’, that movements of people and great conflicts often
occur due to disputes over land and resources and conditions of scarcity. The
link between history and geography is as reciprocal and relational as the link
between humans and their environment is in the concept of landscape. Places
are produced and framed by the historical events that occur within them. These
determine the scale and tenor of events in such spaces into the future. This is not
necessarily always an ‘organic’ progression, however, as the making of landscape

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 146  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

has increasingly, in modernity, been tied to the wielding of power, as with the
Enclosures in England (Thompson 2013; Williams 1973).
It is easy to naïvely assume that before the Enclosures and the planting
of miles of hedgerows that demarcated its definitions that the British land-
scape was a largely boundless common land defined instead around centres of
feudal power: the lord, the castle, the monarch. Firm definitions of territorial
boundaries in Britain, however, predate the Enclosures quite considerably.
The ancient pagan practice of ‘beating the bounds’, which continues to this
day in many places in England and Wales, involves elders of a community
accompanying youths on a circuit of the boundaries of the parish, and beating
the children with sticks at landmarks along the way (Olwig 2002). Nowadays
the beating is light and ceremonial, but the seriousness of understanding pre-
cisely where borders lay in case of dispute would have justified painful beatings
historically. Where surveying is now the final arbiter of boundary disputes,
this more abstract practice was preceded by one in which the body and its
situation – its siting, its emplacement in context – were key to maintaining
order. The bodily memory and experience of bounding are explicit in ways that
reinforce the body’s profound part of human cognition. The senses, in this case
excited to the point of pain, are fundamental to human meaning, identity and
place.
This very visceral ‘knowing one’s place’ is both literal and figurative, and
reflecting on this gives one a sense of what an outrage it was to the peasantry –
physical, moral and spatial – that boundaries could be blithely rearranged by the
wealthy, ‘landed’ classes in the Enclosures.
The peasantry, forced, often violently, off the land, became the urban prole-
tariat in modernity, and now the underclass is defined by the desperately mar-
ginalised and often de-skilled poor or the precariat. The precariat is composed
of those who are living at or below the subsistence level, lack job security, and
are often in debt. For the peasantry, the proletariat and the precariat, the forces
of oppression are tied directly to the practices of capitalism, and the project of
the Enclosures must be seen to be one that is ongoing and unfinished, perhaps
(though hopefully not) interminable.
Cultural historians Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker identify the oppres-
sion that has accompanied capitalist accumulation throughout modernity as
‘the three disabilities of terror’, which are at root three different problems with
embodiment, emplacement and identity. These are: (i) the inability to name the
oppressor (evident in forms of resistance and misplacement of anger in various
forms of racism and xenophobia, for example); (ii) the desire for death (this
is quite specifically engendered from the hopelessness of violence and enables
people to give up their lives or those of others such as in gang warfare); and
(iii) to become deracinated – specifically to be removed from place, culture
and identity (Linebaugh and Rediker 2000, pp. 53–54, 60). What is disabled by
terror, wherever it is deployed – which is virtually wherever it is conceivable – is
the practice of alternative ways of living, often collective, and ‘popular attach-
ments to liberty and the fullness of sensuality’ (ibid., p. 14) Curiously, the terror
finds itself directed back upwards at the oppressor, as the fears of rebellion,

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 Democracy and trespass: landscape access  · 147

crime or other transgressions born of the isolation germane to wealth and power
is also a form of the terror of deracination.

Acts of trespass
To know one’s place in a democracy is to know that one’s place is often on
the other side of someone else’s fence. Trespass is necessary to the defence of
democracy, as is the idea of utopia: the dream of a better world beyond those
boundaries. Democracy is a constant pressure against the solidification of forms
of authoritarian power, a solidification that is more often than not spatial and
enclosing in its expression. Both hope and transgression – ‘a form of politics’ –
are the primary forms this resistance takes (Cresswell 1996, p. 9). In politics,
hope for the masses is tied to place and setting (and Michael Walzer (1992,
p. 98) describes civil society as a ‘setting of settings’). Thus it is situated; topos
drives change, and civil society functions in places as social and historical agent.
It takes place. Peter Hallward (2012, p. 61) writes, ‘Democracy means rule of
the people, the assertion of the people’s will. Democracy applies in so far as the
collective will of the people over-powers those who exploit, oppress, or deceive
them. Abstracted from such relations of power and over-power, democracy is
an empty word’. It is also an empty word when democracy is abstracted from
the places people inhabit, and in which power and over-power are physically
expressed.
Trespass, as it so often has been historically, is an embodied, emplaced rejec-
tion of global capital and its processes of abstraction and extraction – and disem-
bodied dis-emplaced corporations and people – from the land-grabbing gentry
of the early days of the Enclosures to the tax-dodging corporations who hide
their money and existences in non-places, to the ‘people’ who own urban luxury
flats or villas but who are never home. How can any of this be democratic?
Isolation (and splendid isolation) and its accompanying tendencies of bound-
ing and defence breed fear, particularly the fear of trespass. On the other hand,
isolation and fortification necessitate trespass in a democracy. Thus the fear of
trespass is fully justified, as is the necessity of trespass. Democracy is the project
of resisting certain forms of conservatism – in particular the form that seeks to
preserve or to entrench structures of power, class (which nowadays may be read
as ‘lifestyle’) and wealth, and their expression in landscapes.
In 1932, young members of the urban proletariat of Manchester and Sheffield,
frustrated by a lack of access to the beautiful Peak District landscape around the
summit of Kinder Scout (a point roughly equidistant from each city), demon-
strated the power of trespass as part of the Right to Roam movement. Benny
Rothman, one of the leaders of the group that undertook to trespass on the pri-
vate land, guarded by keepers and used by a wealthy minority to shoot grouse,
says of the group:

We were very young, almost entirely under 21. The established rambling clubs
were of a far older age group, and had spent a lifetime in the rambling movement.
We were impatient at the seemingly futile efforts so far made to achieve access

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 148  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

to mountains. Conditions in towns were becoming more intolerable and

unemployment, which stood at about four million, greatly added to our frustration.
(Rothman 2012, p. 21)

The Manchester Ramblers’ Federation, the more ‘established rambling

club’, was hostile to the idea, afraid that it would antagonise the landowners
and set the movement back (ibid., p. 20). Kinder Scout, once common land,
but enclosed in 1830, was a highly visible but emphatically denied attractor to
those ramblers seeking to escape the smoke and crowding of the industrial cities.
The ramblers must have felt the constriction of the industrial city in a very real,
bodily way. The 24th April 1932 was a clear, bright day, and the young crowd
of working-class men and women took to the hills, ready to defy the keepers,
who were armed with stout sticks. Rothman and his friend Woolfie Winnick
led the group mounting Kinder Scout from the Manchester side, while another
group made the ascent from Sheffield. Rothman and Winnick evaded a heavy
police presence stationed to prevent them taking to the paths, and addressed
the crowd at Bowden Bridge quarry. During the ascent the group grappled
with the gamekeepers, but overcame them and walked much of the way to the
peak. The ramblers enacted the freedom of access and the freedom to roam and
thus won the right of both at Kinder Scout.
The Kinder Scout Mass Trespass was as much addressing problems of urban
conditions and proletariat lives as it was addressing conditions in the coun-
tryside. The ongoing Occupy movement also embodies manifold meanings,
reaching from physical urban places to structural conditions in geopolitics. In
particular its actions at Zuccotti Park in New York from 17 September until 15
November 2011, at St Paul’s in London from 15 October 2011 until 14 June
2012, and at Gezi Park in Istanbul from 28 May until 15 June 2013 expressed
the right for resistant bodies to occupy public places at the same time as they
expressed a desire for a new global political order that excluded the practices
of neo-liberal capitalism. Crucial to Occupy is the performance of democracy
(Chomsky 2012). Horizontally and non-hierarchically organised, Occupy
insists not on making specific demands, but rather demonstrating ‘its refusal to
recognize the legitimacy of the existing political institutions’, and ‘to challenge
the fundamental premises of our economic system’ (Graeber 2013, p. 99). Its
goal is to show by example, by acting it out, that a better alternative to the cur-
rent system of government manipulated by corporations, at best ignoring and at
worst victimising the poor and serving the wealthy, is possible. David Graeber,
one of the key figures of Occupy, calls this ‘prefigurative politics’: it is a politics
of futurity in a utopian mode, and all the stronger for it. ‘Direct action’, he says,
‘is, ultimately, the defiant insistence on acting as if one is already free’ (ibid.,
p. 233).
What both the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass and the actions of the Occupy
movement demonstrate is an embodied and emplaced resistance to force,
violence and enclosures through the assertion of equality – in place, through
the use of the body, and through the projection of political imaginaries. This
assertion is concrete in a way that that which it resists is not. State and corporate

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 Democracy and trespass: landscape access  · 149

power are increasingly abstract – abstracted away from sources of real value to
simple arithmetic measures as well as the physical abstraction of people and
human processes from land. Urbanisation has effectively emptied the country-
side of people in many places, making the rural landscape little more than a
picturesque abstraction for a large segment of the population in the West. Of
Henri Lefebvre’s famous statement about the ‘right to the city’, David Harvey
(2013, pp. 3–4) writes:

[T]he question of what kind of city we want cannot be divorced from the kind
of people we want to be, what kinds of social relations we seek, what relations to
nature we cherish, what style of life we desire, what aesthetic values we hold. The
right to the city is, therefore, far more than a right of individual or group access to
the resources that the city embodies: it is a right to change and reinvent the city
more after our hearts’ desire. It is moreover, a collective rather than an individual
right, since reinventing the city inevitably depends upon the exercise of a collective
power over the processes of urbanization. The freedom to make and remake
ourselves and our cities is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most
neglected of our human rights.

I would argue further that the right to the city must be extended to a right to
the country; that all people should have a right to the landscape, to make it and
remake it ‘more after our hearts’ desire’.

Passage, narrative, inhabitation

Resistance in the case of Occupy or mass trespass operates in between the space
of strategies and tactics, as elucidated by de Certeau (1984, pp. 36–38). A tactic
is ‘an art of the weak’; ‘the space of the other. Thus it must play on and with a ter-
rain imposed on it and organized by the law of a foreign power’ (ibid.). A strat-
egy, on the other hand, is ‘capable of articulating an ensemble of physical places
in which forces are distributed’ (ibid.). It establishes a ‘proper’ space, a ‘triumph
of place over time’, a ‘mastery of time through the foundation of an autonomous
place’ (ibid.). What these resistances accomplish is to use the wedge of the tactic
to establish a space for strategy, and through enacting the strategy, even if estab-
lished in a contingent and temporary space, they open the space of the other
into the space of the proper, making possible an alternative, democratic order
that had hitherto only been an art of the criminal or the subaltern.
Landscape access is a story not just of occupation of land, but of the jour-
neys undertaken as part of the act of dwelling. Journeys can fold into modes of
inhabitation across a vast landscape or even multiple landscapes, aided now by
high-speed transportation. Everyday life is also composed of smaller journeys
on smaller timescales: journeys between home, work, shops, cafés, parks, hair-
dressers, that become intricate rituals of dwelling, of connection to place and
community. Everyday life unfolds in journeys and narratives, including many
varieties of the interpenetration of strategies and tactics. Everyday life ‘takes
place’ exactly as does history.

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 150  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Everyday life is what Henri Lefebvre calls a meshwork, which Tim Ingold
(2007) speaks about in his remarkable book, Lines: A Brief History. Lefebvre
‘speaks of “the reticular patterns left by animals, both wild and domestic, and
by people (in and around the houses of village or small town, as in the town’s
immediate environs)”, whose movements weave an environment that is more
“archi-textural” than architectural’ (ibid., p. 80) The abstraction of people,
places and processes in modernity works to directly negate or deny the existence
of this very ecological and contingent overlapping.
Ingold (2007) draws a distinction between the trajectories of modernity,
which tend to draw straight lines as connectors between nodes, and the ‘line of
wayfaring’, which is the line of a passage that is traced through place, a journey
that is not disembodied, but rather textured and experiential.

They are ceaselessly eroded by the tactical manoeuvring of inhabitants whose

‘wandering lines’ (lignes d’erre) or ‘efficacious meanderings’ – in de Certeau’s
words – undercut the strategic designs of society’s master-builders causing them
gradually to wear out and disintegrate. Quite apart from human beings who may or
may not respect the rules of play, these inhabitants include countless non-humans
that have no heed for them at all. Flying, crawling, wriggling and burrowing all over
and under the regular, linearized infrastructure of the occupied world, creatures
of every sort continually reincorporate and rearrange its crumbling fragments into
their own ways of life. (ibid., pp. 102–103)

These are the lines, the narratives, that compose a landscape of dwelling, a
place. The conflict between the lived landscape and the abstract landscape of
the surveyor and the developer is precisely in this difference. Once enclosed and
inscribed by geometry, it is possible to conceive of landscape as not being a lived
realm, but rather as a collection of discrete sites, nodes, joined with connectors.
Performing the alternative is as much a sign act of resistance as it is a declaration
of the intention to dwell, and to do so not in dominion over, but in concert with,
people and place.

Democratic politics in real landscape space

The democratic idea is based in the idea of equality and that leadership should
be based in the consent of the led – at its behest, not on its behalf. David Graeber
(2013, p. 186) writes that democracy ‘is just the belief that humans are fun-
damentally equal and ought to be able to manage their collective affairs in an
egalitarian fashion, using whatever means appear most conducive’. It follows,
then, that if some members of a society are able to completely close themselves
off to interaction with others in that society by dint of force (which can take the
form of everything from high walls to patrolling to outright violence), then that
enclosure is undemocratic and the citizenry has a duty to resist it.
The actions of both the mass trespasses of the 1930s and the recent Occupy
movement are both examples of prefigurative politics: ‘The idea that the organi-
sational form that an activist group takes should embody the kind of society we

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 Democracy and trespass: landscape access  · 151

wish to create’ – in a sense imagining a better world and then living as though it
already existed – that by creating and living in a more perfect society publicly, it
should be brought to pass (ibid., p. 233).
Through the trespasses and through Occupy, the enactment of utopia
becomes performative, perhaps also improvisatory. It is also an act of memory
and a very situated, very present act. It is to value what is and from that to
imagine what should be. To say, ‘I want to carry this into the future with me. We
want to carry this into the future’. Improvisation helps us to riff around, find the
sweet notes, the snatches of melody, and to play them again and again until they
form a new song. Thus if utopias are performative, if the right to the landscape is
performative, then they are all alive.

References
Certeau, M. de. (1984). The Practice of Everyday Life, Rendall, S. (Trans.), Berkeley, CA: University
of California Press.
Chomsky, N. (2012). Occupy, London and New York: Penguin.
CoE (Council of Europe) (2000). The European Landscape Convention, Florence: ETS.
Cresswell, T. (1996). In Place/Out of Place: Geography, Ideology, and Transgression, Minneapolis,
MN and London: University of Minnesota Press.
Douzinas, C. (2014). From Greece to Ukraine: Welcome to the new age of resistance, Open
Democracy, The Guardian, 4 March, retrieved 22 September 2014 from: http://www.the
­guardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/04/greece-ukraine-welcome-new-age-resistance.
Graeber, D. (2013). The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement, London and New
York: Penguin.
Hallward, P. (2012). People and power: four notes on democracy and dictatorship. In Campagna,
F. and Campiglio, E. (Eds), What We are Fighting For: A Radical Collective Manifesto, London:
Pluto Press, pp. 61–72.
Harvey, D. (2013). Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution, London and
New York: Verso.
Ingold, T. (2007). Lines: A Brief History, London and New York: Routledge.
Lefebvre, H. (2002). Critique of Everyday Life Volume 2: Foundations for a Sociology of the Everyday,
Moore, J. (Trans.), London: Verso.
Linebaugh, P. and Rediker, M. (2000). The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and
the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic, London: Verso.
Olwig, K. (2002). Landscape, Nature, and the Body Politic: From Britain’s Renaissance to America’s
New World, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Olwig, K. (2011). The right rights to the right landscape? In Egoz, S., Makhzoumi, J. and Pungetti,
G. (Eds), The Right to Landscape: Contesting Landscape and Human Rights, Farnham, UK and
Burlington, VT: Ashgate, pp. 39–50.
Rothman, B. (2012). The Battle for Kinder Scout including the 1932 Mass Trespass, Timperley, UK:
Willow Publishing. (First published as The 1932 Kinder Trespass, 1982).
Thompson, E.P. (2013). Whigs and Hunters: The Origin of the Black Act, London: Breviary Stuff
Publications.
Walzer, M. (1992). The civil society argument. In Mouffe, C. (Ed.), Dimensions of Radical
Democracy: Pluralism, Citizenship, Community, London and New York: Verso, pp. 89–107.
Williams, R. (1973). The Country and the City, Nottingham, UK: Spokesman.

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 152  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Further reading
Curry, N. (1994). Countryside Recreation, Access, and Land Use Planning, London: E. and F.N. Spon.
Déjeant-Pons, M. (2011). The European Landscape Convention: From concepts to rights. In
Egoz, S., Makhzoumi, J. and Pungetti, G. (Eds), The Right to Landscape: Contesting Landscape
and Human Rights, Farnham, UK and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, pp. 51–56.
Evans, E. and Moses, J. (2013). Interview with David Graeber, The White Review, online only,
retrieved 22 June 2014 from: http://www.thewhitereview.org/interviews/interview-with-
david-grae​ber/.
German, L. and Rees, J. (2012). A People’s History of London, London and New York: Verso.
Gudeman, S. (2001). The Anthropology of Economy: Community, Market, and Culture, Malden, MA
and Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers.
Harvey, D. (2003). The right to the city, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research,
27(4), 939–941.
Hayden, D. (1997). Urban landscape history: The sense of place and the politics of space. In
Groth, P. and Bressi, T.W. (Eds), Understanding Ordinary Landscapes, New Haven, CT and
London: Yale University Press, pp. 111–133.
Hill, H. (1980). Freedom to Roam: The Struggle for Access to Britain’s Moors and Mountains,
Ashbourne, UK: Moorland Publishing.
Levitas, R. (2013). Utopia as Method: The Imaginary Reconstitution of Society, Basingstoke, UK and
New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Linebaugh, P. (2014). Stop Thief! The Commons, Enclosures, and Resistance, Oakland, CA: PM
Press.
MacFarlane, R. (2012). The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, London: Penguin Books.
McKay, S. (2012). Ramble On: The Story of our Love for Walking in Britain, London: Fourth Estate.
Mitchell, W.J.T. (1994 [2002]). Landscape and Power, 2nd edn, Chicago and London: University
of Chicago Press.
Schrager Lang, A. and Levitsky, D. (Eds) (2012). Dreaming in Public: Building the Occupy
Movement, Oxford: New Internationalist Publications.
Sculthorpe, H. (1993). Freedom to Roam, London: Freedom Press.
Shoard, M. (1999). A Right to Roam: Should we Open up Britain’s Countryside? Oxford and New
York: Oxford University Press.
Soja, E. (2010). Seeking Spatial Justice, Minneapolis, MN and London: University of Minnesota
Press.
Sydenham, A. (2010). Public Rights of Way and Access to Land, 4th edn, Bristol: Jordan Publishing.
Talmon, J.L. (1970). The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, New York: W.W. Norton.

EGOZ_9781786438331_t.indd 152 29/05/2018 16:18

 14
Rural landscape governance
and expertise: on landscape
agents and democracy
Jørgen Primdahl, Lone Søderkvist Kristensen, Finn Arler,
Per Angelstam, Andreas Aagaard Christensen and
Marine Elbakidze

Introduction
Landscapes are coupled social and ecological systems (Angelstam et al. 2013).
As such they are maintained or changed through a combination of different
actions and decisions. The most immediate impact is made by actors with what
Hägerstrand (2001) has termed territorial competences, that is, competences to
physically use and alter the land and its resources. Today these competences are
typically held by individual landowners and land users who produce food, feed,
fibre and fuel, mostly farmers and forest owners.
A number of external factors and drivers, including changing market relations
and technology developments, contribute in framing landscape practices as well.
Both the activity of direct actors and the external drivers are regulated by public
policy interventions representing so-called spatial competences. These interven-
tions are expected to contribute to protection, maintenance, enhancement, and
restoration of ecological, economic, social and cultural values at multiple scales.
One should add yet another kind of practice, though, a practice which
Hägerstrand seemed to ignore: collective landscape practices, where several
actors agree on common goals and co-ordinate their actions deliberately.
Hägerstrand generally assumed that individual actors’ practices are motivated
only by private interest, the exclusive kind of private ‘self-determination’ (ter-
minology from Arler 2008). Collective actions have a long history, nevertheless,
and even though they are no longer as common as they used to be, they still
occur, where common interests are mediated through old or newly constructed
stakeholder formations in civil society leading to deliberative forms of ‘co-­
determination’ (Angelstam and Elbakidze 2017; Arler 2008).
Whether decisions are made by private actors, by public authorities or by
voluntary organisations in civil society, modern landscape management does
not only deliver tangible goods like foods and fibres. It has become still more

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 154  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

multifunctional in its aims and is now expected to deliver biodiversity and land-
scape quality as well as other kinds of social and cultural values. Due to the
complexity of these tasks, an increasing number of experts have been mobilised
to support private owners, public authorities and communities in the promotion
of these values (Christensen 2016). This external expertise includes engineers,
agronomists, foresters, biologists, historians, geographers, landscape architects
and planners.
The emergence of the various groups of experts has had a significant influence
on the governance and management of landscapes, and it calls for a rethinking in
terms of landscape democracy. The aim of this chapter is to analyse the various
roles of experts in guiding landscape change with a specific focus on landscape
democracy, particularly the changing relationships between territorial and spa-
tial competences. Our focus is on the key agents and involved experts and their
relationships, and we close the chapter by discussing a framework for landscape
governance and pathways for advancing landscape democracy.

The three types of agents

Landscape management involves a complex set of actors. In order to have a clear
picture of landscape management and to see the possibilities for an enhanced
landscape democracy, it is necessary to separate and analyse the three main
types of agents and their various roles.

1. In most rural landscapes, the primary landscape manager – the agent who
farms the land, plants a woodlot, manages forests or constructs a road –
manages the land from different positions or in different roles. Primdahl
et al. (2013a) distinguish between three roles which, when seen together,
provide an overall understanding of how rural landscapes are managed and
changed. First, there is the role of the producer, who makes decisions on all
practical issues related to crop and livestock production and different forest
goods. It is in this role that farmers and foresters mainly see themselves
as professionals and it is also in their role as producer that they are most
often seen as policy targets by public agencies. An owner of property makes
other types of decisions, which are more broadly linked to the property as
a whole, as an asset which has been inherited or purchased and which will
be passed on to children or sold. The role as owner involves decisions about
management and changes, which are linked to the property as a living place.
The owner (or long-term tenure holder) is also the person who is legally
responsible for most environmental regulation, including land-use regula-
tion. Finally, the farmer or forester also manages the landscape as a fellow
citizen; that is, as an agent who is concerned about the possible impacts of
their management on neighbours (manure spraying or changing the view by
tree felling for example) or who co-operates directly with the fellow mem-
bers of the local community concerning, for example, recreational access.
2. A second type of landscape agent is public agencies, acting on behalf of the
individuals as members of the democratic society at large. If we leave aside

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 Rural landscape governance and expertise   · 155

situations where a public agency manages landscapes as a landowner, this

type of agent usually functions as a regulator and guide of landscape man-
agement and change. Through various kinds of interventions, including
regulatory measures, incentives and information/advice/facilitation, the
agency restricts or promotes certain practices and changes in accordance
with the political choices of the elected representatives.
3. The third agent is the local community, seen as a web of effect-laden rela-
tionships of individuals with a certain amount of shared values, history
and identity (Etzioni 2000). Historically, the rural village was organised
with a much closer web of relationships than today, in a tightly knit local
social–ecological unit (Angelstam and Elbakidze 2017). To a large extent
this unit was defined by the traditional land use of pre-industrial cultural
landscapes, often based on a spatial structure with land-use zones such as
the ‘domus-hortus-ager-saltus-silva’ system that delivered goods, services
and landscape values, and also an inclusive governance arrangement (for
example, Elbakidze and Angelstam 2007). Traditional village systems sus-
tained the production of multiple benefits that secured the local livelihoods
as well as the national economy by taxation (Agnoletti 2006). Still, the rural
village was also characterised by conflict and was oppressed from above – it
was far from an ideal landscape democracy. Today the village or local com-
munity is much more fragmented socially and culturally, but may still be
considered a key agent in landscape management and change. Parish asso-
ciations, local nature conservation groups and village societies are common
examples of organisations that still engage in landscape issues on behalf of
rural communities.

The described distinction between (1) the producer and private owner, (2) the
state agencies, and (3) the organisations of local community or civil society have
clear similarities or overlaps with the tripartite of roles in modern society that
we have all inherited from the French revolution and which all actors undertake
in daily life: the bourgeois, the competitive self- or family-centred individual; the
citoyen, the citizen with a detached interest in public matters; and the homme, the
sensitive and empathic human being. The main slogan of the French revolution –
liberty, equality, fraternity – reflects this separation: the bourgeois wants freedom
and independence, mainly related to production for the market; the citoyen asks
for equality and fairness, secured by the state; whereas the homme seeks meaning,
quality and satisfaction as part of the brother- and sisterhood of civil society.

Changing roles of the agents: a brief historical outline

As long as there has been a formal state with written laws, there have also been
territorial as well as spatial competences. The division between the two has not
always been clear, because the local community, the village in great parts of
Europe, held both types of competences to a large extent (Figure 14.1). The
gradual transition from feudalism through small family farm systems to modern
industrialism led to profound changes in the role and power of the village.

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 156  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Denmark is a good example. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, a

great deal of the competence to manage land belonged to communities of land
users, who were identified and delimited as social entities based on the village in
most of the country. The period of land-use reforms, which in Denmark started
around 1760 (Bjørn 1988, vols II and III; Fritzbøger 1998), led to a shift in
the balance between spatially and territorially defined competencies in favour
of decision-making located at the individual farm. As the tenure system was
replaced by private ownership, the farm gradually became identified with the
private land property. This led to the evolution of a modern and highly individu-
alised system of land use at the expense of the collective (Christensen 2016).
Partly as a response to this individualisation and due to the fact that farm-
ers became gradually more exposed to the fluctuation of markets in the latter
half of the nineteenth century, a pronounced effort was invested in creating
co-operatives aimed at conserving the initiative and power of local and regional
communities concerning production, financing and processing. In parallel with
increased government investment in agricultural land expansion through heath-
land and wetland reclamations, spatial competencies became embedded within
large-scale co-operative businesses and government institutions (Bjørn 1988,
vol. III; Olwig 1984).
During the twentieth century, the co-operatives became still more centralised,
transforming into agro-businesses, and lost their direct relation with local land-
scapes. During the 1970s and 1980s, after Denmark had entered the European
Community (EC), all national subsidies concerning agricultural expansion were
abolished. Forestry was subject to the same transition in regions where forest
industry was strong. Market policies were liberalised and centralised through
international institutions such as the EC/European Union (EU) and the World
Trade Organization (WTO) (Primdahl and Swaffield 2010). Due to the increas-
ingly negative effects of modern agriculture and forestry on the environment and
rural development (including depopulation in remote areas), environmental
regulations gradually increased in number and influence along with incentives
for rural development. The relationship between territorial and spatial compe-
tences is thus changing towards a still more fragmented (by single, often very
specific issues) series of arrangements between the individual manager and dif-
ferent public agencies. This is increasingly becoming a matter of reactive conflict
management and less a matter of proactive value-based change or placemaking.
Consequently, the role of the local community as a mediator between the
public (state and municipality) and the individual domains has changed dra-
matically during the last 200 years (see Figure 14.1). At the end of the twentieth
century, when Hägerstrand (2001) wrote his text, public policies were highly
sectoral and hierarchical. Since then, policy integration (Baker 2006) and gov-
ernance approaches (Beunen and Opdam 2011) have become key concepts,
and more focus has been put on the various means of providing the wide range
of benefits from landscapes, which today are often labelled ‘ecosystem services’
(for example, Tscharntke et al. 2005). This change may give the local com-
munity new opportunities for regaining influence, especially in relation to the
guiding of landscape change.

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 Rural landscape governance and expertise   · 157

Public policy intervention

(spatial competency)

Community

Individual landscape managers

(territorial competency)

1800 1900 2000

Figure 14.1  Changing dynamics of territorial and spatial competences and the relative significance of
community actions in landscape governance

The key relationships

The three types of agents – the manager, the public agency and the local commu-
nity organisations – interact with each other in numerous ways. In a landscape,
that is, a social–ecological system context, the three types of relationships shown
in Figure 14.2 are of particular interest. First, there is the relationship between
the individual land manager, on the one side, and the public agency, on the
other. This relates mainly to the management of conflicting land-use interests of
various kinds, and is normally handled through regulatory measures, especially
land-use and environmental legislation, but also through various economic and
market-driven incentives/disincentives and advisory services, education and the
provision of information in general (Schneider and Ingram 1990).
Various types of conflicts occur, not only the classical ones between pri-
vate landowners, between the individual landowner and public protectors of
common goods, but also between present and future generations, and between
local and regional development perspectives. In practice, the conflict manage-
ment is typically conducted through a combination of formal administrative
procedures (application and permission, complaints and settlement, legal
processes, etc.) and direct dialogue and negotiation between the shareholder/
stakeholder and public agency in question (Primdahl et al. 2013b). The con-
crete outcomes of such processes are of course dependent on the relative power
of the different actors.
Second, there is the formulation and implementation of plans and projects
concerning future developments of the landscape in question. These types of

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 158  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

activities are typically carried out in collaborative processes between the local
stakeholders involved (organised in different types of associations or communi-
ties) and public agencies. Historically, there is a long tradition of such activities
in rural landscapes including drainage, irrigation and reclamation projects linked
to former expansions of agriculture and forestry (Hansen 2008). In recent dec-
ades, this tradition of collective action for landscape development has almost
­disappeared and along with it academic and professional discussions of how
future rural landscapes should be shaped (Lindahl et al. 2015; Pinto-Correia et
al. 2018).
As a consequence, public agency involvement in landscape change has almost
been reduced to conflict management – with the discourse and practices sur-
rounding habitat restoration as a possible exception. A well-functioning and
effective spatial planning system involves both conflict management and place-
making perspectives (Healey 1998). The lack of placemaking perspectives in
rural landscape planning is a major weakness for advancing the role of com-
munities as mediators between the public and individual domains. In general,
sustaining collaborative processes among stakeholders from different sectors at
multiple levels of governance organised through different types of associations
or communities and public agencies with unequal power is indeed challenging
(Axelsson et al. 2013).
Third, there is the relationship between the individual land manager and
the local community, which is about local co-operation and cultural events, for
example hedgerow management on property boundaries, informal agreements
of access, sharing machinery, and harvest festivals. Nowadays, the local com-
munity is developed and strengthened through such activities, which means
that local co-operation is a precondition for the community. However, different
portfolios of perceived benefits from landscapes among local vs regional stake-
holders add a new dimension. For example, Garrido et al. (2017a; 2017b) show
that, in both Sweden and Spain, local-level stakeholders have become still more
focused on goods, such as food and feed, while regional-level stakeholders have
taken over the focus on cultural heritage and biodiversity.

Expertise and experts

The complexity and multifunctionality of modern landscape management call
for a broad spectrum of expertise. The three key agents themselves still hold
a variety of the expert skills, of course, but increasingly external experts are
demanded to support the agents in all of their separate roles and their mutual
relations.

a. The primary landscape manager,  first and foremost the farmer and forester, has a main
interest in acting as independently as possible in order to behave in accordance
with his or her own ideas without external interference, to be efficient regarding
production, and to be successful on the market. In order to achieve these goals,
specialised knowledge and skills are needed, although this is not enough. A
number of virtues are also required including industry, prudence, perseverance,

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 Rural landscape governance and expertise   · 159

Source: Adapted from

Stahlschmidt et al. (2017, p.
The primary
179).
landscape manager

Figure 14.2 The
three key actors: the
manager, the public
agency and the

Co
community

n
t io

nfli
ora

ct m
llab
Experts

ana
co
and

gem
cal
Lo expertise

ent
The local Placemaking The public
community agency

persistence, responsibility, temperance, etc., as well as openness to new

knowledge and opportunities, and the courage to try out new ideas.
However, even though much responsibility continues to rest with the man-
ager, during the last 100 years they have been faced by an increasing need for
support from experts (often from outside the local area), who offer services
based on their specialised knowledge and skills (Christensen 2016). Some are
experts on various production technicalities: agronomists, machinists, vet-
erinarians, computer experts, etc., while others are experts on legal or economic
­matters: lawyers, legal advisors, agro-economists, bankers, marketing experts,
etc. This implies that crucial expertise has been transferred from the main local
actor, the farmer, to outsiders, many of whom live far from the local area.

b. The public agency  is the administrative body that is steered more or less directly
(depending on the type and location of the body) by elected politicians. It basically
consists of experts specialised in administrative matters (lawyers, policy analysts,
economists, etc.), or specific issues like landscape ecology, cultural heritage, or
visual values. These experts must be led by virtues like justice, impartiality, and
discernment. As the public agency increasingly is involved in partnerships and
governance models based on collaboration and dialogue, courage, flexibility
and pragmatism – not particularly traditional bureaucratic virtues – are gaining
currency. So are skills needed for facilitating and mediating such processes. In
ways similar to the primary landscape manager, the public agency is increasingly
dependent on highly specialised and often remote expertise simply because the
issues become increasingly complex and interlinked with decisions including
policy decisions taken far away from the local landscape.

c. The community  also depends on knowledge and skills related to specific issues, such
as nature conservation, birdlife, cultural heritage, etc. Community members

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 160  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

are often linked to national and international networks, which employ experts
offering services to local groups. Other communities, such as the village
society or the parish association, rely mainly on local expertise and are often
concerned with the landscape as a place to live and involved in projects such as
village renewal, recreational access, renovation of open public spaces or more
comprehensive projects such as preparing a parish plan or a landscape strategy
in co-operation with a local government agency. In this context they may need
expertise regarding process facilitation, visual communication, fund raising, etc.
Virtues like sensibility and sense of quality are thus connected to social virtues
like empathy, friendliness, co-operation, tact, tolerance and magnanimity.

Experts and expertise in landscape democracy

Even though much expertise has been transferred from the local inhabitants,
land owners and producers to external experts of different kinds, many deci-
sions still rest with the rural residents as users (including producers), owners
and citizens. To weigh the various considerations and to find creative solutions
to complex problems in challenging situations, they need judgement, discern-
ment and phronesis (Aristotle 1954; Arler 1992; Flyvbjerg 2001; MacIntyre
1981; Spirn 1998). Donald A. Schön (1987, p. 6) has similarly written about the
‘competent practitioners’ who have ‘wisdom’, ‘intuition’ or ‘artistry’ enough to
‘reconcile, integrate, or choose among conflicting appreciations of a situation so
as to construct a coherent problem worth solving’.
These types of expertise can be expected to come into play at the connections
that combine the three kinds of agents: the public agencies, local community
institutions and the private managers in Figure 14.2. First, there is a continuous
need to balance the wants of the private manager and the considerations of the
public agencies. The immediate manifestation of this is conflict management,
which involves lawyers, public case managers, environmental experts, etc. Below
the immediate level lies a more general need for weighing a variety of legitimate
claims concerning present and future individuals, social concerns, non-human
organisms, etc.
Second, the individual needs to collaborate with neighbours and fellow
citizens. As we mentioned earlier, collaboration has played an important role
historically. Due to the individuals’ increasing reliance on external experts and
their produced technology, collaboration among farmers in relation to produc-
tion has declined. Today, community cohesion, therefore, has become more
dependent on the cultural needs of the community, including village halls, sports
clubs, local branches of the nature protection society, and churches, together
with a large number of small voluntary associations.
These cultural organisations also play a significant role in the third leg in
Figure 14.2: the placemaking co-operation between the local community and
the public agency (and between the individual and the local community) in
a deliberative democratic dialogue. One of the basic questions here is how to
maintain the local landscape as an attractive place for local citizens as well as
visitors. This involves identifying significant landscape features, some of which

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 Rural landscape governance and expertise   · 161

may require help from summoned experts on history, biodiversity or landscape

character. However, local connoisseurs who have lived in the landscape for dec-
ades and who know it well from personal acquaintance are often better suited to
identify other features of high or local significance (Arler 2000; 2008; Arler and
Mellqvist 2015). Placemaking and landscape democracy call for both kinds of
expertise.

Towards new forms of landscape governance

Rural landscape management today is practised within a complex contextual
network of decisions. The private managers must not only cope with changing
markets and technologies, but also navigate through an increasingly complicated
terrain of public regulations. The public authorities, on the other hand, are faced
with an increasing number of policy and planning measures in different domains
and political levels. Each policy measure is designed to cope with specific issues
concerning areas and sites, which are often at a larger scale than the one affected
by the individual manager. Finally, this complexity and the professionalisation
that follows is also a challenge for community organisations of various kinds,
and they are often forced to join together with external experts.
The question is how to bring the manager, the public domain and the social
community together in order to create workable institutions and sustainable
solutions to landscape change, that is, to enhance the overall landscape manage-
ment, to make conflict management more efficient and to develop the landscape
as a better living and visiting place in a broad sense. Market-based regulation is
no longer enough, and new forms of landscape democracy and governance are
needed (Axelsson et al. 2011; Cork Declaration 2016; Hodge 2016; Primdahl
et al. 2013b).
The Dutch territorial co-operatives, which function within 40 regional co-
operatives, represent one of the most promising examples of a form of mediation
between the manager and public policy interventions, especially with respect to
the rural development programme under the EU Common Agricultural Policy
(Swagemakers and Wiskerke 2011). Each regional co-operative now (2017)
signs a contract with the Dutch ministry to set concrete agro-environmental
targets, on the basis of which individual contracts with farmers are made. The
individual farmer, on the other hand, signs an agri-environmental contract with
a co-operative and no longer with the ministry/EU. Consequently, approxi-
mately 14,000 individual agro-environmental management contracts have been
replaced by 40 regional contracts, while the farmer and other managers are
offered a contract that is tailor-made to the specific farm and the landscape in
which it is located (Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs 2016). Although the
co-operatives are mainly concerned with agro-environmental regulations and,
thereby, conflict management, they are also involved with landscape develop-
ment projects such as habitat restoration, planning of road tracing, rural hous-
ing, etc.
Experience with more complex landscape development projects, that is, how
to deal with the landscape as a multifunctional place, has also been gained in a

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 162  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

number of Danish projects (Kristensen et al. in press; Primdahl and Kristensen

2016; Primdahl et al. 2013b). Inspired by spatial planning theory, a frame-
work has been developed for organising landscape strategy-making processes
involving farmers, other rural residents, the municipal administration and
local groups. A strategy process typically includes a phase of interest crea-
tion (through lectures, excursions, for example) and workshops to formulate
goals and objectives, generate ideas and knowledge, identify landscape values
and resources of interest, and create an overall and convincing frame for the
strategy.
In terms of content, a landscape strategy often has three components: a first
section with visions and goals, a spatial frame (or plan) to determine the overall
direction of development, and a number of specific projects to prioritise in the
short term. To be successful, a landscape strategy process requires a relatively
high degree of consensus among the stakeholders involved in managing the
landscape in question and is, therefore, unlikely in landscapes with high levels of
unresolved conflicts.

A true landscape democracy takes time to evolve

The preamble to the European Landscape Convention calls for a ‘true landscape
democracy’ (EC 2000). This democracy must go further than the present highly
individualised and market-oriented landscape management, which has resulted
in an increasing number of economic, environmental and social problems
(Hodge 2016). These problems clearly indicate that the three key agents – the
individual manager, the public agency and the local community – have to find
new modes of collaborating constructively.
One should not have unrealistic expectations about quick fixes in demo-
cratic landscape governance practices. Learning processes take a very long time
(Axelsson et al. 2013). In many European landscapes and regions, it may actu-
ally take decades to reach a level of trust and collaboration that enables the
evolution of local dialogue-based institutions, such as territorial co-operatives
or similar kinds of collaborative landscape initiatives. On the other hand, we
see no reason for not getting started. Experiences gained through new forms of
­landscape democracy are much needed in order to get a clear understanding of
the possibilities and limits we encounter in the endeavour to find more demo-
cratic and community-based models of landscape management.

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 15
Managing cherished
landscapes across legal
boundaries
Morten Clemetsen and Knut Bjørn Stokke

Introduction
Local residents as well as a large number of annual visitors cherish Norwegian
fjord landscapes for their inherent natural and cultural qualities. These herit-
age properties are embedded in functional social–ecological systems, perceived
with distinct landscape characters and a strong sense of place (Selman 2006;
2012). Traditional cultural landscapes, like the West Norwegian fjords, are an
increasingly vital asset for the international tourism industry. The case which
will be introduced in this chapter, Nærøyfjorden UNESCO World Heritage
Area (WHA) in Sogn og Fjordane county, annually receives more than 800,000
visitors. These landscapes are also an intimate part of daily life, dwelling and live-
lihood for the local communities (Ingold 2000). Planning and management of
such large-scale rural landscapes are subject to regulations by different legislative
authorities such as the Planning and Building Act (PBA), the Nature Diversity
Act (NDA) and the Cultural Heritage Act (respectively, Norwegian Ministry
of Environment 2008a; 2008b; 2015), while the dynamic interaction between
peoples’ daily living and their territory often transgresses institutional bounda-
ries. Management of designated, multifunctional rural landscapes in Norway is
criticised for being fragmented and driven by sectoral interests (Skjeggedal et
al. 2016). Consequently, there is limited capacity to co-ordinate planning and
management across boundaries of legal regimes. We observe that this complex-
ity allows integrated landscape solutions related to small-scale and farm-based
entrepreneurships in the WHA to a very limited extent. This can prove to be a
democratic challenge for communities located inside or on the periphery of the
WHA and the included protected landscapes and nature reserves (Clemetsen
1999). In this chapter, we will present and discuss the potentially legitimate
role of actors that can mediate between hierarchies of governments, sectoral
administrations, local businesses, residents and the tourism industry, in order to
achieve a more ‘functional’ local democracy.
We use the term ‘integration actor’ (IA) to identify individual persons who

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 166  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

are taking an active role in connecting different stakeholders in order to solve

challenges that exceed formal boundaries and affect different sectoral authori-
ties. The role of individual actors in overcoming institutional fragmentation
is identified in other studies of rural landscapes and resources as well, being
labelled as key individuals, policy brokers, policy entrepreneurs or policy cham-
pions (Rydin and Falleth 2006). Nevertheless, in this study we look more deeply
into how the IAs may contribute to a functional local democracy, through
negotiating and solving problems as they appear in local communities.1 Local
and regional planning according to the PBA is regarded as the most important
integration tool in Norway. However, management regimes of protected areas,
according to the NDA, operate largely autonomously and are unaffected by the
PBA (Skjeggedal et al. 2016). Consequently nature protection in Norway, as in
many other countries, is a highly conflicting issue, where local inhabitants and
authorities strongly express that the state distrusts and overrules local landscape
practices and traditions (Eiter 2004; Daugstad et al. 2006). Our aim is to elabo-
rate more precisely on the characteristics, skills and capacities that constitute the
IAs, and to ask: what is required in order to take a legitimate position in negoti-
ating development and protection strategies in the space between authorities at
different levels, businesses and local communities?
The empirical data derive from semi-structured interviews with representa-
tives from different management agencies responsible for the Nærøyfjorden
WHA: Aurland municipality, the County Governor and the local manager
for the protected areas, the County Council, the Harbour Authority and
Nærøyfjorden World Heritage Park. We also conducted interviews with farmers
in Nærøyfjorden over three periods: February 2013, April 2015 and December
2015. Each interview lasted 1–1.5 hours. We applied semi-structured interview
guides in order to be open to the way in which the informants perceive the
actual co-ordination challenges, and how they handle it locally (Kvale 2006). To
provide the contextual knowledge, we studied relevant plans and strategies for
Nærøyfjorden WHA.

Handling complex management regimes at the landscape scale

The interplay between nature management, local community development
and large-scale tourism appears at ‘the landscape scale’, encompassing coher-
ent social–ecological systems and distinct cultural identities (Selman 2006;
Langeland 2012). These landscapes represent certain dynamics in the interac-
tion between people and their territory, transgressing administrative and legal
boundaries. According to the European Landscape Convention (CoE 2000), a
conception of landscape as a multifunctional arena for integrated planning and
management would help us to understand the presence, role and legitimacy of
various actors at this scale (Clemetsen and Schibbye 2016).
In the late twentieth century, there was a shift towards network governance,
which implies that solutions should be found not only within one single author-
ity or single legislation framework, but also through co-operation between num-
bers of different actors (Rydin and Falleth 2006). In general, no single actor,

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 Managing cherished landscapes across legal boundaries   · 167

public or private, has the capacity or the authority to tackle challenges at the
landscape scale alone. To face this, the concept of multi-level and network gov-
ernance was introduced, where a central aim is co-operation between different
levels of authorities (multi-level governance) and between public and private
actors (network governance) in order to arrive at decisions concerning complex
problems (Schmitter 2002; Røyseland and Vabo 2008).
However, in order to develop a functional democratic process across
administrative and sectoral boundaries, there is a need for building up some
kind of shared understanding of the landscape context among different levels
of responsible public authorities and private interests (small-scale farmers and
local businesses). We define ‘functional democracy’ as the capacity to empower
local residents and communities, where their relations to their daily landscapes
are taken into account in public planning and decision processes. Seen from an
agonistic perspective (Mouffe 2000), a landscape approach that allows the ter-
ritory to be apprehended as an open arena of negotiations is required (Stenseke
2016), not necessarily with a consensus motive, but allowing the involved actors’
values and objectives to be recognised.
In many European countries, landscape scale planning and management is
institutionalised through the concept of Regional Nature Parks (Mose 2007).
‘Regional Nature Park’ initiatives emerged in the Nordic countries in the 2000s
(Svardal et al. 2010). Nærøyfjorden WHA was one of the first in 2008, aiming
at integrating landscape management, protection and rural development across
the whole territory (Skjeggedal and Clemetsen 2017). The emergence and sig-
nificance of the Regional Park in Nærøyfjorden can be understood in context
of the theoretical contribution of McAreavey (2006). She demonstrates how
different, often non-verbalised and diffuse, interests in a community with a
common territorial perception can lead to formation of local institutions and
organisations. The power of such institutions in performing integrated develop-
ment actions and problem solving will depend on often hidden and subtle key
factors such as trust, power and personal perceptions and motivations (ibid.,
p. 85). Legitimacy as IAs is highly dependent on perceived personal capacities
related to individual persons, which can apply both in the local community as
well as in regional governmental institutions (McAreavey 2006; Short 2015).

The Nærøyfjorden World Heritage Area

The Nærøyfjorden WHA consists of the Nærøyfjorden and Aurlandsfjorden
branches of the world’s longest fjord: Sognefjorden, which stretches 205 km
into the mountain landscapes of Western Norway (Figures 15.1 and 15.2). The
area comprises a number of Protected Landscapes, Nature Reserves and herit-
age sites, as well as farmland settlement areas and infrastructure. This results in
a complex structure of boundaries defined by a number of agencies responsible
for protection and for planning (Figure 15.1). Some boundaries even overlap.
World Heritage status was obtained from UNESCO in 2005, based on the
unique geological features representing the visible geological processes in com-
bination with the continuous settlement history of the fjord landscape. Most

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EGOZ_9781786438331_t.indd 168
Source: Courtesy of Nærøyfjorden Protected Landscape Board.

Figure 15.1  Map of Nærøyfjorden protected areas

29/05/2018 16:18
 Managing cherished landscapes across legal boundaries   · 169

of the Nærøyfjorden WHA is located within Aurland, which is a municipality

of considerable size (1,420 km2) but sparsely populated (1,750 inhabitants in
2015). Farming is still an important industry in the area, mainly based on goat’s
milk production, sheep farming and some vegetable and fruit production. The
last 15 years have seen a considerable growth in processing and branding of local
produce. This has been favourable for the local communities, due to the large
number of tourists visiting the fjords, by cruise ships, coaches and cars, and by
train.
The Ministry of Environment designated Nærøyfjorden as a category V
Protected Landscape (PL) in 2002, followed by another PL and three Nature
Reserves, totalling 709 km2 (UNESCO 2005). In 2009 the responsibility for the
protected areas was delegated from the County Governor to an inter-municipal
board with political representation and with a local manager acting as a sec-
retary for the board. The WHA departed from the nationally protected areas,
but encompassed in addition single farms, hamlets and villages not included
in the protected areas (Figure 15.1). The deviation between protected and
non-protected areas within the WHA has caused substantial confusion and
­misinterpretation of formal regulations among all types of actors.
Both the designation of protected areas and the inscription on the World
Heritage List triggered the formation of a co-operative community organisa-
tion (Clemetsen and Underdal 2005). Resulting from a broad mobilisation and
awareness-raising process, the Nærøyfjorden World Heritage Park was launched
in 2008. The ambition was to be proactive with regard to entrepreneurs, resi-
dents and visitors in the area. The park should not be part of the controlling and
legal system performed by regional and local governments, but should facilitate,
co-ordinate and support local and place-based value creation, knowledge and
skills, and inform visitors and residents about the accessible experiential and
recreational opportunities of the area. Thus, the World Heritage Park does not
operate with fixed boundaries, but is open to include communities that have a
sense of identity to the Nærøyfjorden WHA, whether they are living inside or
outside the boundaries.

The case of Bakka hamlet

The multitude of different legal boundaries represented in our case affect
both public and private planning in the area. In fact, the Bakka community in
the Nærøyfjorden is under pressure from heritage conservation both along
the coastline and in the lower part of the steep mountainside, which defines the
Nærøyfjorden PL (Figure 15.2). The three remaining farms in Bakka have over
the years all pursued projects enabling them to develop their unique assets in this
landscape, drawing on the flow of tourists visiting the area. However, according
to farmers, the conservation authorities have interpreted the formal regulations
of the Nærøyfjorden PL in a strict way, even outside the PL boundaries.
In 2009, the municipality of Aurland initiated a zoning plan process accord-
ing to the PBA for Bakka. The hamlet, surrounded by but not a part of the
Nærøyfjorden PL, is strongly regulated by cultural heritage protection and by

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 170  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Source: M. Clemetsen.

Figure 15.2  The Bakka hamlet (top), located between the strait of Bakka and the foot of the mountain
(bottom)

the general 100-meter protection zone along the shoreline. However, the local
inhabitants operate across all these boundaries in their daily activities and work
in accordance with tradition and cultural practice, reflecting their sense of place
and identity (Knagenhjelm et al. 2009).
All involved stakeholders, including landowners, businesses, government

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 Managing cherished landscapes across legal boundaries   · 171

agencies and local and regional administrations were invited to an inspection

in Bakka, to discuss their interests in the area, early in the planning process.
The initial phase even included a sense of place study, based on interviews with
stakeholders, visitors and government officials (ibid.). The report conveyed
unique information on people’s values, attachment and preferences related
to the landscape and culture of the Nærøyfjorden WHA. This apparently
democratic process soon revealed a substantial bias, as the local smallholders
(farmers) came forward with their ideas and intentions for the area, while the
County Governor’s and in particular the County Council’s Cultural Heritage
representatives did not take part in a real discussion, nor did they raise their
objections during the inspections. Their objections came later when the hear-
ing of the planning proposal was announced. The informal but still important
democratic element of having the opportunity to negotiate ‘in situ’, as the local
smallholders had the impression was going to take place, proved not to be the
reality. Later, the regional authorities used their formal power to stop some of
the development elements in the plan. This caused substantial negative reac-
tions from individual stakeholders and local organisations.
In general, our interviews with farmers and other stakeholders revealed an
understanding of what essentially was missing in the prevailing mix of institu-
tions and management regimes of the area: an overall conception of the fjord
landscape as a holistic social–ecological system, to which the local population is
strongly attached. The interviews confirmed our assumption of fragmented
planning and management of Bakka and its surrounding landscape, where the
different sector interests used their formal power by raising objections to aspects
of the plan which were not in compliance with agreements among the differ-
ent parties earlier in the process. This illustrates that despite the fact that plan-
ning according to the PBA should be the major integration tool for land use in
Norway, institutional fragmentation and asymmetrical power relations have a
bias that compromises local democracy.

Results: two examples of integration actors in action

Based on the interviews, we will highlight two different processes in the wake
of the zoning process of Bakka, where the IAs played a significant role in order
to contribute to a functional democracy where the locals’ relations to their
landscapes are considered, operating across sectoral boundaries. The first exam-
ple is the initiative for making a marked trail from Bakka up to the mountain
rim, named Rimstigen, which now has become a major attraction for visitors
to the area and for local people. The second example is the local manager for
Nærøyfjorden PL and her effort to gather various actors together in order to
face the problems of wave erosion along the shores at Bakka, caused by tourism
vessels. Local communities in Nærøyfjorden regard uncontrolled and unco-
ordinated mass tourism in the fjord as one of the main challenges (Stokke et al.
2016).
The Rimstigen trail, established in 2010, offers a breathtaking view over
Nærøyfjorden (Figure 15.2). The original trail gave access to summer farms

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 172  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

and mountain pastures. The trail has recently been restored and marked for
visitors. The leader of Nærøyfjorden World Heritage Park initiated the pro-
ject, in co-operation with farmers and the community association at Bakka,
the Board of the Nærøyfjorden PL and the Norwegian Nature Inspectorate.
The Norwegian Cultural Heritage Fund, with contributions from the involved
actors, financed the project. Sherpas from Nepal were engaged to restore
the trail in accordance with local traditions. A short time after the trail was
finished, the mountain run, ‘Rimstigen up’, was arranged for the first time in
2011. It is now an annual event in July, gathering a good number of people
and positive feedback to the Bakka community. The trail project gave a posi-
tive and necessary experience of achieving a joint goal in managing and revi-
talising the natural and cultural resources in Nærøyfjorden. In this process,
the leader of the Nærøyfjorden World Heritage Park took up the role as an
IA.
The second illustration of an IA relates to the tourism vessels operat-
ing in Nærøyfjorden WHA, based on regulations from both the Board of
Nærøyfjorden PL, the Municipal Harbour Authority and the Norwegian
Coastal Administration. It seems to be quite easy to obtain a licence for operat-
ing on the fjord from the County Council, and the business is rather lucra-
tive. In 2016, more than 20 vessels were licensed to operate on the Fjord.
Consequently, due to the waves from the increasing number of commercial
tourist boat traffic related to tourism in the narrow Bakka sound, the erosion
along the shore zone has substantially increased. This is particularly challenging
with regard to cultural heritage features, such as old piers and the seventeenth-
century Royal Post road along the fjord but it also affects the locals’ sense
of identity to the fjord. The local inhabitants in Bakka have for a long time
expressed their concerns regarding this problem, but there was no serious
response from the authorities.
In order to face the problems of erosion along the shores of Bakka, the
manager of Nærøyfjorden PL personally initiated a working group with
representatives from the Harbour Authority and the Norwegian Coastal
Administration, as well as two private boat companies operating in the fjord.
The first step was to establish a common knowledge base, focusing on the
causal relationship between waves from boats and the erosion problems. The
report commissioned by the working group, released in November 2014, con-
firmed the correlation (SNO 2014). Some of the boat operators contested
this conclusion. However, with this knowledge base, the working group was
able to arrive at a certain conclusion, using the regulations of the Harbour
Act to reduce the speed limit for vessels passing through the narrowest parts
of the Nærøyfjorden, and now conducts a better system of surveillance. The
manager of Nærøyfjorden PL was not responsible for the actual regulations,
but through dialogue with the Harbour Authority, she was able to inform the
decision process and take action.

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 Managing cherished landscapes across legal boundaries   · 173

Discussion: what constitutes an integration actor in protected

landscapes?
In the Bakka case, we identified two prominent IAs: (i) The leader of
Nærøyfjorden World Heritage Park and (ii) the manager of the Nærøyfjorden
PL Board. We identified essential capacities of these actors which are vital for
integrated and democratic landscape management across boundaries and levels
of government.
Based on the empirical results in our study, we will discuss the following
essential capacities connected to the position as an integration actor:

1. Taking a ‘landscape democracy approach’2 (according to the European

Landscape Convention).
2. Being able to perform across boundaries.
3. Focusing on specific and concrete actions based on local needs and
knowledge.

The leader of Nærøyfjorden World Heritage Park

The landscape perspective, according to Selman (2006), is of fundamental
importance to the ability to build a common platform for understanding and
negotiating different future scenarios for an area with many different boundaries,
responsible management actors and legislation, multidimensional functions,
cultural relationships (stories, sense of place, identity) and conflicting activities.
Since the Nærøyfjorden WHA consists of areas with various designations and
regulations, we observe that it is often difficult for local residents and landown-
ers, as well as for municipal and regional government officials, to distinguish
between regulations for attached locations. The overall objectives of supporting
local living conditions and adapted land use and protecting the geological and
ecological features and processes in the area is very difficult, due to the regulat-
ing formal boundaries. Applying a perspective on landscape as a ‘common arena’
helps us to see ‘the broader picture’ and act across legal boundaries. One of the
initial ideas behind the Regional Park initiative in Nærøyfjorden was in fact to
bridge and reconnect people with their territory. The Park does not operate
with fixed boundaries at all. Restoring the old trail in Bakka, and introducing the
‘Rimstigen Up’ event was an idea intended to take back the integrative percep-
tion of the whole area, across the protected and the non-protected areas, as well
as connecting visitors and local dwellers.
The main competences of the Park leader relates to taking the initiative to
bring the relevant people together, setting up and allocating financial funding for
specific projects within heritage restoration and management, social and cultural
events, as well as organising visitor information and guiding. The Rimstigen pro-
ject brought a new and constructive energy and trust in the space between the
Bakka community and the County Governor, which the farmers experienced as
counterproductive in the earlier zoning planning process at Bakka.
The heritage value of the old migration route to the summer farms was

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 174  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

transformed to an asset for new social activities, based on local traditions. The
arrangement also gave the local residents an active position in their own land-
scape. The Park leader and the staff initiated the project, and their capacity to
act as a mediator between different formal authorities and local people in Bakka
was a precondition for the realising of the project (Rydin and Falleth 2006).
In line with McAreavey (2006), we observe that the leader of the Park in this
context had a legitimate role in bringing different people together, both locals
and people with management responsibility, to take a landscape perspective,
perform across different boundaries and implement concrete actions.

The manager of the Nærøyfjorden Protected Landscape Board

As described, one of the most pressing and conflict-generating challenges in
the World Heritage Area is the problem with boat traffic related to tourism and
speed limits on the fjord. This activity causes severe damage along the shores and
degradation of both cultural heritage monuments and the landscape itself. For
a long time this was perceived as a severe problem. The residents of Bakka have
felt disempowered versus the boat operators and authorities, creating a sense
of democratic deficit. The manager of Nærøyfjorden PL managed to advocate a
comprehensive understanding of the dynamics and constraints attached to the
interface between business and nature management of the area. In an interview
in April 2015, she addressed the contradictory problems of erosion along the
fjord from her perspective in the following way: ‘a unique quaternary geological
story of the fjord landscape in combination with the settlement history, being
highly contrasted by the frequent traffic of tourism vessels in this narrow fjord’.
Her receptive attitude to local residents’ perception of this situation, in combi-
nation with her capacity to act constructively, was essential to the outcome of
this case.
The manager was recruited from a position as administrative leader for the
municipal office of industry, business and farming in Voss, one of the partner
municipalities of the WHA. She was therefore able to demonstrate both profes-
sional skills as well as a thorough insight into the key questions related to viable
farming and small-scale businesses in the area. She possessed the professional
but also the social competences required for such a position. To be able to solve
the erosion problem, she understood the need for co-operation with the right
actors, since the Protection Board is not in a position to handle this problem
alone.
Through insight and personal experience as well as an extensive network,
the secretary was capable of locating and gathering the necessary stakeholders
and actors, in order to reach a functional agreement for managing the problem.
Perceived legitimacy among a broad spectrum of stakeholders enabled her to
build bridges between different management and business actors, which is a
necessary precondition to take appropriate action (Rydin and Falleth 2006).

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 Managing cherished landscapes across legal boundaries   · 175

Conclusion: key characteristics of the integration actor

As our research from the Nærøyfjorden WHA indicates, the successful outcome
of the two initiatives depends on three personal competences that ultimately
enhance a functional local democracy:

1. True sense of trust  Personal skills such as integrity and professional capac-
ity provide a true sense of trust among actors who initially have little in
common. As McAreavey (2006) points out, trust is difficult to produce, and
cannot easily be standardised or formalised without undercutting the trust
itself. Trust exists only in a free space between people who acknowledge the
individual integrity of each member in a group. The IA is a key exponent for
such integrity, affecting the whole group.
2. Perceived legitimacy  Representing one of the stakeholders or acknowl-
edged (formal) institutions acting in the area, or having another well-
grounded position in the community, is a necessary foundation for gaining
legitimacy in controversial management and community development
processes attached to protected areas. Being an elected representative of
an organisation can give a formal legitimate position, but might not be
mutually recognised as perceived legitimacy. This chapter demonstrates
how personal capacities and skills are essential for building up functional
legitimacy, to be able to solve real problems as perceived by local people.
In the case of Nærøyfjorden WHA, a landscape perspective, transgressing
formal boundaries was necessary in order to be able to solve the problem in
question. Traditional governance cultures, which might not be adequately
fine-tuned, can be a democratic problem. As demonstrated in this chapter,
IAs can play a major role in contributing to a functional local democracy.
3. Integrated actions at the landscape scale, allowing group dynamics to
evolve  The capacity to see ‘the broader picture’ on a landscape scale, and
take informal initiatives that can lead to formal and legal decisions across
sectors and administrative boundaries. An informal start might be essential
for building up a group and creating the foundation for a positive atmos-
phere among different actors, which have very little in common, in order
to create a common problem frame. This is in line with the theory of bridg-
ing social capital, which can be defined as the ability to bring unlike actors
together in order to be able to solve problems with required co-operation
between sectoral and geographical boundaries (Rydin and Falleth 2006).

Against the background of the growing trends of both decentralisation and

integration in international rural development and management regimes of pro-
tected nature and landscapes, the three competences that are elaborated above
will be essential to nurture in the future in a landscape democracy perspective.
In education of landscape planners, it is important to strengthen their knowl-
edge, skills and values in order to be able to function as integration actors and
promote democratic and transboundary landscape management. As we have
shown, there is a potential in many types of professional positions related to

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 176  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

landscape planning and management to be an integration actor under some

defined preconditions, allowing individuals to step forward with personal capa-
bilities, acting as peers with other stakeholders in solving concrete problems, or
in pursuing community development projects.

Notes
1. The discussion that follows will draw on empirical data from two research projects at NMBU, Faculty
of Landscape and Society: ‘245325 Visitor Management and Local Community Development’ 2014–2017
and ‘203784 Ideals. Models and Practice in Natural Resource Management. Does Local Management Matter?’
2011–2015, both granted by the Norwegian Research Council.
2. A ‘landscape democracy approach’ means, in this context, to acknowledge the ‘Allemannsretten’ (right of
way), provide access and include not only landowners and permanent residents, but also invite visitors of
many kinds to take part in hiking, boating and other landscape-related activities that support their attach-
ment and identity to place.

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 16
Landscape as the spatial
materialisation of democracy
in Marinaleda, Spain Landscape and democracy in Marinaleda, Spain

Emma López-Bahut and Luz Paz-Agras

Introduction
The European Landscape Convention, presented in Florence in 2000, considers
that ‘the landscape is a key element of individual and social well-being and that
its protection, management and planning entail rights and responsibilities for
everyone’ (CoE 2008, p. 8). As indicated in the analysis by Déjeant-Pons (2011,
p. 54), this implies a series of rights and responsibilities on the part of citizens
who must play an active role in everything associated with the landscape and
the space they inhabit. For this reason, it is necessary to define and establish
the types of actions and political processes that citizens would have to carry out
in order to exercise their right to the landscape: Will bottom-up processes be
allowed? Will it be a model that is unilaterally decided by institutions, or perhaps
by technicians?
One of the most representative bottom-up processes in Spain is the town of
Marinaleda, in the southern region of Andalusia. It makes for an interesting case
study in order to analyse the relationship that is established between the land-
scape and an intensive, continuous participative process that has been carried
out by its inhabitants for decades. Originally, the process came about through
the defence of human rights – those of supporting existence and ­dignity – and
resulted in defining the landscape in all of its spatial facets, including housing,
public space, the town and the agrarian landscape, and through all of its tan-
gible and intangible values, historical, economic, cultural, social, symbolic and
spatial/physical. As such, an analysis of Marinaleda leads to understanding the
landscape as relevant to a discourse on human rights and landscape (Egoz et al.
2011).

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 Landscape and democracy in Marinaleda, Spain  · 179

Background
Marinaleda is a small town (24.8 km2) with a population of 2,734 people
(Instituto de Estadística de Andalucía, España 2015). Until the 1980s, its lim-
ited economic development came from harvesting olives from large plantations
belonging, in many cases, to local aristocracy. This meant employment was
highly seasonal, lasting barely two months each year, and the region was tradi-
tionally associated with high levels of poverty. From the end of the dictatorship
in Spain in 1975, until today, the town has experienced an increased level of
economic, demographic, urban and social growth, due to a structural paradigm
shift after an inhabitant struggle process. A significant sign of this development
is that, despite the current economic downturn, unemployment in the town is
less than 7 per cent, while for the country as a whole it currently stands at 25 per
cent, and in Andalusia at close to 35 per cent.
The interest in this subject comes from our involvement in the summer
course ‘Inhabited processes of architectures, where the other 90% live’, at the
University of A Coruña in 2014. Through theoretical and workshop sessions,
examples of alternative inhabitant processes were analysed (Proxecto DHabitat
2014). The first step was to study the theoretical frame of the Marinaleda case,
following with field research in August 2014, and interviewing Pepa Domiguez,
the municipal architect, who had provided us with documentation that com-
prises a central basis for this work.
In our literature search we identified two existing approaches for former
research analyses in the Marinaleda case. The first was from the point of view of
the political situation, while the second concerned the issue of self-built houses.
From a political angle, the town serves as proof that a utopian model associ-
ated with libertarian communism is possible within a democratic society. The
struggle for the right to use land as a means of subsistence for its inhabitants
has paid off (Local Council of Marinaleda, Spain 2015). A range of processes
were used for such inquiries: a travel diary (Hancox 2012; 2013); studying the
political mechanisms developed in the town associated with the workers’ strug-
gle (Vázquez 1995); and recent studies analysing the town’s political structure
(Staiano 2015). The second analytical perspective followed the bursting of the
real-estate bubble in Spain, focusing on the architectural process of occupants
building their own homes in the town (Domínguez 2009; 2014).
In this chapter, we address a gap in the knowledge about the development of
Marinaleda from the perspective of a bottom-up process lasting several decades.
It has materialised at spatial and physical levels, constructing a given landscape.
Hence, our analysis addresses landscape as a whole and at all scales and dimen-
sions. As such, a landscape associated with this participative process allows us to
understand who produced it and how, and why we can here refer to a clear case
of ‘landscape democracy’.

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 180  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

A bottom-up process from the perspective of the three scales of

justice
In Marinaleda, the struggle against injustice and inequality lies at the heart of the
bottom-up process that has been gradually developed over a period of 40 years.
Its origins can be found as a response to a social conflict connected with the
right to land and the local people’s right to subsistence. This process occurred at
three levels: economic, social and political. Accordingly, we have chosen to look
at the development of Marinaleda within the three scales of justice proposed
by critical theorist Nancy Fraser (2008): the distribution of resources, recogni-
tion of individual rights, and political representation. In considering these three
aspects of justice, Fraser questions the framework of the nation-state in the
era of globalisation, where it has to be applied to situations on a supranational
(macro) or a small (micro) scale, as is the case with Marinaleda. For this reason,
in the following section we explore how these three aspects have been imple-
mented in the village, then analyse how they have influenced the landscape of
Marinaleda.

The (un)fair distribution of resources

In Andalusia, the fair distribution of resources is an endemic problem. In the
nineteenth century, an agrarian reform known as the Mendizábal Disentailment
took place, and farmland was concentrated in the hands of a few aristocratic
owners and wealthy bourgeois. Therefore, labourers lived in grinding poverty.
As mentioned above, the labourers had to rely on the seasonal harvesting of
olives, which was never enough to support a living.
In response to this historical situation, left-wing Andalusian labourers associ-
ated with Anarchism self-organised under the banner of ‘Land to the tiller’. In
1975, at the end of Franco’s dictatorship, local workers decided to self-organise
into the Sindicato Obrero del Campo (Workers’ Countryside Union or SOC),
a leftist, anti-capitalist, Andalusian union based on direct action. During the
first elections in the country following the dictatorship they established a
political party named the Colectivo Unidad de los Trabajadores (Workers’ Unity
Collective or CUT), which has held the absolute majority in the Local Council
of Marinaleda in different guises from these first elections in 1979 until the
present day. Nevertheless, as its current Mayor says: ‘We realised that political
democracy does not work without economic democracy’ (Sánchez Gordillo
2011).
To secure land to cultivate they opted for non-violent direct actions: occupa-
tion, obstruction, hunger strikes, public protests, etc.
This struggle continued for years. At the beginning of the 1990s, they suc-
ceeded in achieving permission to cultivate ‘El Humoso’, a property near
Marinaleda with an area of 1,200 hectares. The concession, made by the owner
and the government, implied that it would cede the use, not the property. This
land, prepared for cultivation, was crucial to the development of the area. The
local inhabitants created an agricultural co-operative and began to plant differ-

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 Landscape and democracy in Marinaleda, Spain  · 181

ent vegetables that needed workers during all the seasons of the year. After a
few years, they built two factories, one for vegetable preserves and another for
processing oil. All the profits were re-invested and all the workers earned the
same salary, including the municipal workers who were elected in the citizens’
assembly. Thus, the town achieved an economic democracy that has led to the
creation of jobs and given many families the opportunity to find a way out of
poverty. Nowadays in Andalusia, there are other examples of occupied and con-
ceded lands that have been cultivated. Among them is the ‘Finca Somonte’, an
unused estate that belongs to the Regional Government of Andalusia and which
was occupied in 2012, and others that have been claimed and are still occupied
such as the ‘Finca las Turquillas’, an estate owned by the army and used for
horse breeding.

Social and cultural democracy

Once the economic elements have been achieved, the second step is to accom-
plish social and cultural democracy, the collective wellbeing of all the inhab-
itants, starting with human rights. The inhabitants of Marinaleda believe that
collective wellbeing has no limits, and thus there are many public services and
facilities offered, including a secondary school, a professional training institute,
a kindergarten, a municipal swimming pool and sports facilities, a care centre
for the elderly, a cultural centre, and retirement homes. While these services
are facing severe cutbacks in the rest of Spain, in Marinaleda they continue to
provide coverage despite the current economic downturn.

Political justice
The redistribution of resources and social recognition (economic and cultural
justice) are not enough on their own. As stated by Fraser (2008), political
justice is necessary, not only regarding the institutional sphere of the state
(or the municipal government in the case of a town), but also regarding rep-
resentation, the strength of Marinaleda. Fraser defines it as the principle of
participatory parity, as: ‘overcoming injustice means dismantling institution-
alized obstacles that prevent some people from participating on a par with
others, as full partners in social interaction’ (ibid., p. 39). For this reason, the
municipal government is only an administrative tool, as all decisions are made
in a citizens’ assembly that is held in public spaces and open to everyone.
Assemblies are held to discuss aspects such as budgetary, neighbourhood and
town matters or community work in a participative atmosphere, in what is
a truly bottom-up political process. In doing so, the people of Marinaleda
played an important role in the protests of the anti-austerity 15M movement
that began in 2011 and continues today, and the ‘22-M Marches for Dignity’
(Madrid, 2014).

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 182  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

The spatial materialisation of participation and justice

The right to the landscape is in full swing and is related to the information, the
participation and the access to justice.
M. Déjeant-Pons (2011, p. 54)

The involvement of all the town’s inhabitants and access to justice, understood
in terms of Fraser’s three scales, is an undeniable fact in Marinaleda. In addition,
as indicated by Déjeant-Pons, it is directly related to the right to the landscape.
In the first chapter of Scales of Justice, Fraser (2008) explains its title through
two concepts: first, the scales, with the traditional image of the goddess holding
them while she is blindfolded, to represent impartiality. The second concept
is the map, as a representation of spatial relationships within a given territory,
which Fraser uses to question the frontiers that define states in the era of glo-
balisation. In its Spanish translation, Escalas de justicia (2008), the term ‘scale’
(escala) is used, which does not translate as the measuring device (balanza),
but instead only as ‘size’ or ‘dimension’. In this analysis, we limit our exploration
to the relationship between Fraser’s scales of justice (economic, socio-cultural
and political) and their spatial materialisation, and the physical relationships
that comprise the landscape of Marinaleda in all its dimensions: housing, public
space, the town and the agrarian landscape.
During the struggle for lands to cultivate in order to economically develop
the village, there was a serious shortage of housing that affected the entire
region, mainly in rural areas, creating precarious situations. The ‘economic plan
for Andalusia 1984–1986’ tried to mitigate this problem with a series of actions
(Regional Government of Andalusia 1984). The municipality decided to buy
the lands situated between the two areas of the village, some of which were
cultivated and others derelict (Figure 16.1). The municipality re-zoned that
land as developable land and allocated it to social housing and public facilities.
This strategy enabled management of a programme for social housing for 35
years and it is still viable today. The municipality, being the owner, avoids any
property speculation. Thanks to this process, Marinaleda’s inhabitants recognise
housing as a basic human right and not as a mere commodity to trade in.
There is a municipal programme for social housing, in which people
build  their own houses. The municipality contributes the plot of land and
a  technical team to develop and build the project. The future inhabitants
have  access to loans financed by the Regional Government of Andalusia
for purchasing construction materials. The future dwellers’ contribution is
their own labour and time, complemented by hiring any additional workers
required to construct the house. To date (2017), 350 houses have been built,
without their owners having to pay a mortgage. This represents 90 per cent
of the new houses in town. This housing development is also a bottom-up
process, where the council is the co-ordinator and the people who will live in
these houses, represented by an elected committee, are the decision-makers.
The designs refer to traditional typologies. They are terraced single-family
houses, around 90 m2 of floor area, with a 100 m2 courtyard, on two levels,

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 Landscape and democracy in Marinaleda, Spain  · 183

Sources: Top: Junta de Andalucía; Consejería de Medio Ambiente y Ordenación del Territorio. Bottom: 2017 Google, Inst. Geogr. Nacional.

Figure 16.1  Aerial photographs of Marinaleda, in 1956 (top) and 2017 (bottom)

with a tiled roof and walls always painted in white (Figure 16.2). To facili-
tate the participative self-construction process, each development includes
around 20 houses.
The municipality is responsible for urban planning, and the public space avail-
able between the self-constructed houses is always designed as a small square, a
high-quality pedestrian space with trees, which serves as a meeting point for the
neighbourhood (Figure 16.3). The large trees give shade and create a microcli-
mate, which is the first thing that strikes visitors arriving in Marinaleda. The main
street is full of large trees, a result of one of the first decisions of the ­community

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EGOZ_9781786438331_t.indd 184
Sources: Emma López-Bahut. 

Figure 16.2  Different architectural projects of self-constructed houses in Marinaleda

29/05/2018 16:18
 Landscape and democracy in Marinaleda, Spain  · 185

Sources: Emma López-Bahut. 

Figure 16.3  Public space between the self-constructed houses in Marinaleda (top); the main street in
Marinaleda is full of large trees (bottom)

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 186  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Sources: Emma López-Bahut.

Figure 16.4  Street art in Marinaleda

in the 1980s. This is very important in a hot, sunny region like Andalusia, but is
rarely found in other towns.
In some of the municipal buildings and in the main street, graffiti and street
art express the values of the town, its political beliefs and its struggles even out-
side the ruling power of the municipality. This gives the urban landscape of
Marinaleda a strong sense of personality and symbolism (Figure 16.4).
Part of the municipally owned land will be turned into a large park in the
southern part of the town, connecting the two old centres and surrounding the
new municipal houses. This public space and the use of green areas and trees
is indicative of how the local people value their town, and completely changes
the spatial relationships that are produced within the town and the image of the
area, as it creates a large swathe of green that is visible from outside of the town.
These actions have had a significant impact on the rural landscape. In the
middle of a vast expanse of olive trees growing in arid, ochre-coloured soil,
emerges a town that appears as an oasis reflecting prosperity. Occupying land to
cultivate other crops, rather than the traditional olive trees, has radically modi-
fied the agrarian landscape of the area.

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 Landscape and democracy in Marinaleda, Spain  · 187

Discussion: landscape democracy

Marinaleda represents the evolution of a project that began with the redistribu-
tion of resources, passing through a stage of recognition and respect, before
finally achieving the involvement of local citizens in the political decision-­making
process. Therefore, it covers the three scales of justice stated by Fraser, consid-
ering these scales as the basis for a truly democratic society. For this reason,
in Marinaleda the relationship between these scales of justice and the spatial
dimension of the landscape can be seen very clearly, making it an interesting case
study. In future investigations, research could compare similar processes in other
countries to further enrich the knowledge base for achieving landscape democ-
racy. Another aspect to explore is how the different dimensions of the landscape
analysed in this essay are perceived by their inhabitants. This would lead us to
check whether, despite experiencing a consolidated bottom-up process, social
inequality continues to operate informally, as Fraser (1990, pp. 73–74) warned,
despite having established a formal frame that tries to avoid it.
Another relevant topic presented by Fraser that is applicable to the right to
the landscape is establishing the fact that a group of people become ‘subjects of
justice’. But not because they share a citizenship or nationality or live together
in the same territory, ‘but rather their joint subjection to a structure of govern-
ance, which sets the ground rules that govern their interaction’ (Fraser 2008,
pp. 126–127). This would lead to strengthening the existing institutions or
proposing new forms of management and governance for the landscape, which
would be based on transparency, the involvement of local citizens, and access to
justice (Déjeant-Pons 2011).
Awareness of the right to landscape or of understanding the landscape as
the materialisation of democracy is not something that has been specifically
defined as an objective throughout the process carried out in Marinaleda. Not
even nowadays are any ecological dimensions of landscape (organic production,
climate change, sustainability, etc.) included in the agricultural co-operatives
production, or in the values promoted by the municipality. None of these
aspects is included as a specific point on the website of the local council, which
refers to the values that define the town. Instead it has been a by-product of a
bottom-up process that has been developed over a sufficiently long period to
spatially materialise democracy.
This could become the ideal moment to incorporate environmental values
(ecology and sustainability) and the awareness that the concept of landscape is
also an issue that belongs to a bottom-up process so complex and consolidated
as it is in this case. It should be a new step in a process of more than 40 years
in which the main objective was to address the people’s basic needs. Now, the
consolidation of these processes opens the introduction of ecological, sustain-
able and landscape values. The responsibility for leading this new approach,
including these new objectives, corresponds to the municipality.
Despite not being one of its initial aims, local citizens have transformed the
town and its urban and agrarian landscape through a genuinely democratic pro-
cess, representing a tangible expression of their society. They have ceased to

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 188  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

be merely users, becoming definers of their own habitat at all scales and spatial
dimensions. For all of these reasons, as demonstrated in this case study, the third
scale of justice that Fraser defined – authentic political representation – is the
one that guarantees a democracy of the landscape. Here we have seen how this
has been materialised directly in the habitat of Marinaleda: in its housing, its
public spaces, the town and the agrarian landscape.

References
CoE (Council of Europe) (2008). The European Landscape Convention and reference docu-
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Déjeant-Pons, M. (2011). The European Landscape Convention: From concepts to rights. In
Egoz, S., Makhzoumi, J. and Pungetti, G. (Eds), The Right to Landscape: Contesting Landscape
and Human Rights, Farnham, UK: Ashgate, pp. 51–55.
Domínguez Jaime, P. (2009). Viviendas de autoconstrucción en Marinaleda (1982–83), La
Ciudad Viva, (2), 59–60, retrieved from: http://www.laciudadviva.org/opencms/opencms/
revistas/num002/revista_0002.html.
Domínguez Jaime, P. (2014). The self-build housing of Marinaleda. In Proxecto DHabitat (Eds),
Inhabited Processes: Architectures Where the Other 90% Lives, A Coruña, Spain: School of
Architecture, University of A Coruña, pp. 57–59.
Egoz, S., Makhzoumi, J. and Pungetti, G. (2011). The right to landscape: An introduction. In
Egoz, S., Makhzoumi, J. and Pungetti, G. (Eds), The Right to Landscape: Contesting Landscape
and Human Rights, Farnham, UK: Ashgate, pp. 1–20.
Fraser, N. (1990). Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing
democracy, Social Text, (25/26), 56–80, DOI: 10.2307/466240.
Fraser, N. (2008). Scales of Justice: Reimagining Political Space in a Globalizing World. Cambridge,
UK: Polity.
Hancox, D. (2012). Utopia and the Valley of Tears: A journey through the Spanish Amazon,
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versobooks.com/books/.
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de Marinaleda, retrieved from: http://www.juntadeandalucia.es/institutodeestadisticaycar​
tografia/sima/htm/sm41061.htm.
Local Council of Marinaleda, Spain (2015). Las luchas, retrieved from http://www.marinaleda.com.
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Coruña, Spain: School of Architecture, University of A Coruña.
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3jImVYA.
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poder popular de Marinaleda, Revista de antropología social, (4), 131–154.

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 17
Planning the cultural and social
reactivation of urban open
spaces in Greek metropoles of
crisis
Eleni Oureilidou

The form and character of Greek cities: the ‘polykatoikia’ as an

urban typology of multicultural proximity
Urban sprawl, as a process, relates to specific economic models and cultural par-
ticularities. In the Greek city, which follows the Mediterranean model, suburban
areas appear as ‘enclaves of poverty’, rather than the ‘gated communities’ that
define the Anglo-American model (Leontidou 2006). A hybrid urban landscape
is typical to the Greek city and reflects the co-existence of different eras, activities
and cultures, corresponding to an informal economy, with areas of spontaneous
housing and lack of design (ibid.).
In addition, intense urbanism differs from Anglo-American models. Small
squares, parks and narrow promenades function more as spatial ‘release’ from
intense urbanization (ibid.) and less as green spaces for outdoor activities.
Moreover, the fragmentation of urban space breaks the space down into a
‘mosaic’ of subsets characterized by deconstructed scales, anarchic construction
and lack of prioritization, as well as the absence of the sense of neighbourhood
(Ioannou and Serraos 2006). Urban open spaces in the centre of Greek metro-
poles are scarce and scattered, defined as leftovers of preceding economic urban
activities.
In Athens and Thessaloniki, transformation of blockhouses into verti-
cal forms of spatial segregation of ethnic, cultural and class identities occurs.
Due to constant waves of immigration, the smaller, lower-floors once-
abandoned apartments have been occupied by immigrants. This form of co-
habitation – ­immigrants at the lowest and basement levels, Greeks at the upper
levels ­– exposes a layer of social inequality and exclusion in the microscale of
‘polykatoikia’, interrupting the horizontality of preceding culturally and socially
homogeneous spaces (Maloutas and Karadimitriou 2001; Mpourlessas 2015).
The context of the global multi-ethnic city develops vertically not horizontally

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 190  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

and exhibits greater fragmentation and diffusion in comparison to developed

ethnoscapes in the global cities.
In parallel, urban open spaces in central districts become fields of urban
struggle, hosting complex forms of social public life. Since public spaces express
power relationships, either in the form of urban conflicts or not, in most cases
the allocation of immigrants has changed pre-established rules and orders.
Nowadays, power relations develop around immigrants’ rights of presence and
use of public space. Great demographic changes mutate human geography at
the neighbourhood scale and inflict an increasing intolerance towards different
ethnic identities, leading to ghetto phenomena (Pettas 2015). This results in
transforming community models of public space (Iveson 1998) into battlefields
of domination characterized by spatial exclusion.

Planning the cultural and social reactivation of urban open

spaces for a more resilient civic society
In the past, cultural politics and gentrification processes shaped districts for
tourism or a recreational monoculture of uses, conforming to the taste of the
‘outsider’. In many cases, part of the population was forced to move out of a
city’s ‘gentrified’ zones, a process known as social cleansing (Hough 2012).
Furthermore, green infrastructures, protection and designation of cultural
heritage, environmental protection and landscape architecture have become
leverages for economic growth. Post-industrial urban economies are governing
contemporary cities, denuding them of their characteristics and excluding local
residents from decision-making processes.
In Greek cities, gentrification processes have defined the development of
some central districts in Athens and Thessaloniki. The regeneration of cultural
infrastructures during 2004 in Athens due to the Olympic Games and in 1996 in
Thessaloniki due to Cultural Capital have defined an important cultural ‘stock’
of the two major Greek cities. Today, cultural-led regenerations, smaller in
scale, including the most recent ‘Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center
(SNFCC)’, have placed the city’s cultural agenda on a higher priority, envi-
sioning antecedent days of economic welfare. In the case of SNFCC, cultural
policy dictated a large-scale investment in urban space, creating an entire urban
precinct for cultural production and creativity.
Nevertheless, since the 2004 Athens Olympics and the gradual degrada-
tion of expensive cultural infrastructures due to governmental corruption and
misuse of economic funds, Greek citizens have become indifferent towards
similar iconic projects. On top of that, a general disappointment about ethnic,
cultural and class identities and the state’s inability to propose a viable real-
location program for the immigrants has resulted in a constant decrease in
real-estate values (Hardt and Negri 2000, p. 105), which breeds racism and
hatred between different ethnicities within the microscale of neighbourhood.
Recently, due to the indisputable breakdown of state power, people have begun
to seek social self-organization and forms of democratic participation and to try
to solve their problems through bottom-up processes (Makridimitris 2004).

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 urban open spaces in Greek metropoles of crisis   · 191

All these conditions demand the redefinition of former urban strategic poli-
cies and the addressing of social inclusion. Over recent years, urban regenera-
tion has engaged with social capital, inspiring the need for equal participation
and accessibility, for a more democratic perception of urban design and experi-
ence. The demographic changes, due to global immigration, dictate innovative
approaches, which create spaces of looser programmatic determination and
equal participation. Above all, they transform urban open spaces from a mere
tool of investment into a field for social reconciliation and self-expression, where
local demands are better resolved (Taylor 2008).

Social capital as a leverage for economic development in urban

regenerations
Economic development in contemporary cities cannot be solely produced by
city-branding and gentrification. Sense of mutual trust, co-operation and mutual
understanding between social groups and social networks are also necessary
for economic resilience and growth. Social capital is crucial in understand-
ing social  cohesion and cultural continuation in a state of crisis and urban
heterogeneity.
Since the 1990s, communities have started to get involved in regeneration
processes. It became increasingly acceptable that within their involvement,
activities would correspond better with local needs and therefore succeed
(Clark and Southern 2006). In general, social capital becomes an important
parameter in urban regeneration, as long as it is involved in consultation and
decision-making processes, grounding cultural regenerations in the synergy of
all local stakeholders and mechanisms that act within the society.

Reactivating the social capital in Greek cities of crisis: the

Occupation Movement in Sintagma Square and Lefkou Pirgou
Square
The Occupation Movement emerged in the United States in 2010 and
marked social  intervention in public spaces in the form of political protest.
Since most urban regenerations were oriented towards an urban ‘face-lifting’
for tourist ­consumption, most open spaces were detached from traditional
uses, such as people coming together, talking and sharing ideas. Thus, during
the Occupation movement in New York, campers all over McPherson Square
were stating: ‘Excuse our mess, Democracy Lab in Progress’ (Depillis 2012),
a clear message to the need for reviving public spaces and re-using them for
collective activities and social osmosis.
For all the attempts of the Occupation movement to change the way public
space was perceived, many people disapproved of the protesters’ anger. Local
authorities thus legislated for stricter laws regulating the way public open spaces
could be used from then on. This type of discourse on the extent of use of public
space had never been on the agenda of the Occupation Movement (ibid.).
Instead, protesting in a public space was a tangible action, a spatial expression of

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 192  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

an anti-capitalist sentiment and seen as an arena for negotiation, where delibera-

tion could take place and a self-governed community in an urban space could be
established.
In Greece, the Occupation Movement expanded rapidly, with people occu-
pying Sintagma Square in Athens and Lefkou Pirgou Square in Thessaloniki.
Sintagma Square, which displays a minimum of social interactions and spatial
appropriations in everyday life, resembled a public ‘arena’ during the time
of its occupation (Pettas 2015) rather than a space for community build-
ing. During the period of protest, the diverse subjectivities preserved their
individual characteristics and aspirations, in the context of spontaneous sym-
biosis. Their ­inefficiency to restrict state surveillance within the square, and
to achieve a more integrated social life in the public realm, led to its gradual
degradation.

Bottom-up initiatives and social-led regenerations: examples in

the Greek context
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, in most American cities, parks and
public spaces were created by people donating their land. Fairhead and Leach
(in Hinchliffe 2003) talked about political ecology and new biogeographies,
and Landry introduced the need for bottom-up procedures in urban design
and supported the importance of equal social accessibility, in order to achieve
‘a lively civil society and a voluntary sector with self-confident organizations
likely to be more resilient in times of stress’ (Landry 2000, p. 296). He argued
that through an assessment and improvement of existing mechanisms, it is
possible to develop ‘civic pride’ and a ‘community spirit’ that would care for
the urban environment (ibid.), formulating distinctive identities, developing
self-confidence and enhancing organizational capacity through the support of
independence.
Today a revised form of social participation in urban landscape design
appears in the concept of tactical urbanism. This is based on participation and
involves the dynamic of knowledge in practice (Ingold and Kurttila 2000) and
encourages citizens’ creativity and their ability to build a common cultural iden-
tity (Garcia 2004). Tactical urbanism derives from three overlapping current
trends: economic recession, demographic changes and the Internet as a tool for
building the civic society. Furthermore, it defines a complete methodology for
the creation of current urban landscapes, placing productivity and experimenta-
tion at the core of urban strategic planning.
In Greece, bottom-up initiatives are emerging in the cities of Athens and
Thessaloniki, as unofficial community actions reclaim public spaces. ‘Parko
Navarino’ is located in the edgy Exarheia district of Athens. This bottom-up
initiative appears more as a political manifestation against the gradual degrada-
tion of public spaces and governmental failures to preserve sustainability of the
urban environment (Smith 2016). In Athens, where the effects of austerity have
become more apparent, people need to incorporate the new culture of social-led
regenerations and create solidarity groups, which will ameliorate urban patho-

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 urban open spaces in Greek metropoles of crisis   · 193

geneses. An example of reclaiming democratic processes in urban making is the

platform ‘SynAthina’, where citizens exchange information, find partners, and
communicate with the city hall in the search for potential sponsors (ibid.).

Case studies of tactical urbanism: streetscapes, parklets, urban

agriculture
‘Streetscape’  is an American term that relates to the Dutch word ‘woonerf’ or the European
‘family street’ (Spirn 1984). In the early 1960s, Jane Jacobs highlighted important
parameters in streetscape design, such as the orientation of the windows facing
the street, and the need for good design to have a positive impact on people
(LeGates and Stout 2011). Today, streetscapes concern the transformation of
a conventional street into a vibrant urban space that fosters equal accessibility
and co-existence of humans and cars. It is a bottom-up initiative that involves
residents working together to ‘re-green’ their streets (Viani 2010).

‘Parklets’  belong, according to several urban theorists, to ‘the latest trend in urban
place-making’ (Kling 2012, p. 80). Parklets do not necessarily transform a
neighbourhood radically, though they contribute to a positive image promotion.
They depend usually on private initiatives, mostly by city residents who
economically support the creation and maintenance of a small park.

‘Urban agriculture’  originates from Europe in medieval times, when most of the cities
configured common orchards and kitchen gardens inside the city wall. In the
United States, at the end of the nineteenth century, urban agriculture took the
form of social policy, as allotment gardens were provided to poor families for
food cultivation (Spirn 1984). During the twentieth century, post-war crises
forced middle-class residents to participate in the management and maintenance
of parks and green spaces (Warnecke 2001).
Today, food crises have forced many people to cultivate their food in urban
and peri-urban areas. Collective initiatives, like Boston Urban Gardeners and
New York City’s Green Guerillas, promulgate the idea of cultivating urban land,
while agricultural projects emerge, reactivating lost social bonds (Mcintyre
2013).

Bottom-up initiatives: goals and parameters for planning for

landscape democracy in urban open spaces
All the types of social-led regenerations mentioned above, either in the form of
occupancy or in the form of revitalizing a streetscape, cultivating an abandoned
open space, and creating parklets for the neighbourhood, have recently become
processes of cultural city ‘remodelling’, reinvigorating democratic processes in
urban making.
Contemporary urban regenerations, in the form of tactical urbanism, demand
a deeper understanding of complex social fabrics. The devastating impacts of
gentrification, along with inadequate policies that would encourage a more

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 194  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

cohesive social network, have brought into question preceding methodologies

that invested in aesthetic values, depriving projects of the internal ability to sus-
tain over time.
In unofficial urban tactics, regenerations cover the needs and desires of the
‘insiders’, the local actors of the urban landscape. More democratic tools and
techniques turn the urban landscape into a ‘soft’ strategy that creates interper-
sonal relations and reflects economic, cultural values and the interests of all
people alike. Since urban open spaces reflect society and social life, a ‘shared’
place, in the form of an urban garden, a livable streetscape or a parklet, supports
common identity and ‘encompasses shared time in the form of shared territory’
(Hayden 1997, p. 9).
In addition to evaluation and consultation that establish democratic decision-
making processes through the redefinition of the organizational patterns of the
urban landscape and the way they affect the local actors (Clemmensen et al.
2010), there are other equally important objectives in social-led regenerations.
In the framework of these demands, streetscapes embody ‘zones of negotia-
tion’ and contain different aspects of urban life. They reduce barriers via ‘poros-
ity’ and flexible uses, turning existing urban structures into potential enclaves
of free movement and change (ibid.). Bottom-up initiatives in the form of
streetscapes could add up and create a network of ‘glue’ spaces that serve for
connectivity (ibid.), bringing together independent urban spatial fragments in
a cohesive urban unity.
Parklets also become livable spaces for balancing between mixed uses and
­democratically represent the aesthetic and social aspirations of the neighbour-
hood. In the form of ‘pockets’ in the city, parklets arise as a spatial manifestation
of emerging ‘urban tribes’ (Maffesoli 1996), who seek urban open spaces that can
provide a variety of experiences for different users. The low cost of construction,
along with a more participatory approach in the design process, renders parklets
a version of a multi-public model of public space, which accommodates a variety
of sub-cultures and groups of different users (Iveson 1998). These new proposed
forms of ‘loose spaces’ (Clemmensen et al. 2010) attract individuals and enable
them to imagine different versions of a shared landscape (Iveson 1998).
Along with parklets, urban vegetable gardens turn limbic spaces or edge sites
on the fringe of the city into productive public spaces. They enable a flexible
system of co-habitation based on the common desire of users to cultivate the
earth and produce food, exchange ideas and come closer. In this case, indi-
viduals are organized according to the circles of food production. Models of
self-organization reflect the need for challenging the status quo in placemaking
and propose ways of turning the urban landscape into an archipelago of enclaves
(Hager and Reijndorp 2001) grounded upon spatial justice in the city.
In the end, this new planning tactic abandons former approaches, which
transformed urban open spaces into ‘dead events’. In the wake of economic
and political challenges, urban open spaces offer new perspectives. In contrast
to their former use as tourist attractions driven by economic gain, now public
spaces can reflect the democratic values of modern societies.

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 urban open spaces in Greek metropoles of crisis   · 195

Bottom-up initiatives in Greek cities of crisis: Kipos3-City as a

resource
Under the condition of crisis, people start to rethink ‘public green’ as an incuba-
tor of social actions. Many Greek cities have embodied the concept of urban
agriculture, investing in low-cost interventions that affect the public realm,
instead of high-cost actions for urban gentrification. Among these, the cities of
Alexandroupoli, Volos and Larissa, located in northern and central Greece, have
introduced allotment gardens for cultivation in the peri-urban areas. In addition,
over recent years, bottom-up initiatives have emerged in Athens, forming the
city’s more collective landscape agenda.
In 2014, ‘Kipos3-City as a resource’ became a commitment to action: to
transform Thessaloniki’s leftover spaces into urban agricultural spots in dense
neighbourhoods. It was sponsored by the Angelopoulos Fellowship program, in
collaboration with the Clinton Global Initiative that supports start-up projects
related to environmental, social and public health issues. The team included
Eleni Oureilidou, Eleftheria Gavriilidou and Maria Ritou, who envisioned the
social reclamation of residual open spaces and their transformation into produc-
tive community gardens.

Building a start-up
At first, the team learned how to build a start-up, via participating in the ‘Clinton
Global Initiative University Annual Meeting 2014’ that was held at Arizona State
University, Phoenix, AZ, USA. There, the team took part in the transformation
of an urban open space into a big-scale community garden, and faced the follow-
ing challenge: the USA knows how, why doesn’t Greece?
Consequently, the team organized research on possible sites called ‘mapping
the city’ where more than ten urban open spaces in the city centre were exam-
ined according to ownership parameters, accessibility, size, sense of neighbour-
hood and appropriate conditions for growing plants (see Figure 17.1). The team
established an open dialogue and invited local institutions and stakeholders to
participate, with the aim of building broader synergy and establishing a success-
ful interplay between ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ processes in landscape design.
The team’s visions and actions inspired local and national news media, while
main concepts were promulgated through social media on the Internet and an
online portfolio, called ‘City as a Resource’, spreading the idea of urban gardens
in Thessaloniki.
Furthermore, the team organized a series of actions, in order to inform vari-
ous neighbourhoods and evaluate their requests. The activities included pinning
up posters that display ballot boxes and handing out flyers stating the design
team’s intentions, commitment to the cause and contact details.

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 196  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Source: Created by the author.

Figure 17.1  Organized and scattered public open spaces: the scale of the city and the scale of the
neighbourhood

Reactivating the neighbourhood: experiences, obstacles and

difficulties
Contacting institutions that are oriented towards environmental and societal
issues, as well as employees of the municipality, clubs of architects and engi-
neers, groups of volunteers and religious foundations, enriched the team’s expe-
rience on vision sharing. The main challenge was to build trust and a broader
coalition between the residents and the local authorities. The preceding ten
years of crisis resulted in people’s deep scepticism and suspicion of Greek state

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 urban open spaces in Greek metropoles of crisis   · 197

representatives, as well as a lack of confidence on working together and becom-

ing the future change-makers.
Occasionally, the team faced challenges and developed an extensive argu-
mentation to turn around negative responses into a more positive stance. The
municipality appeared willing to help but was absent in most of the decision-
making processes. Environmental and societal institutions, although they
showed enthusiasm, never provided any assistance for realising the project.
Above all, despite the fact that the concept of urban gardening embodies a
social contribution, church-authorized representatives responded negatively to
a broader collaboration with other social institutions and neighbourhoods.

Extrapolations and reflections

The need for a multi-level approach to regeneration is indisputable. New urban
projects should correspond to the context of a wider economy and address the
needs of local actors within neighbourhoods (Hildreth 2007). Failing top-down
processes have shown that urban space is not a subject for a central government
to decide on and design, but is the space of everyday social life and a manifesta-
tion of democratic decision-making processes that are valuable for its long-term
sustainability.
All the cases of social-led regenerations that were described above provide a
framework for participation in the small scale of neighbourhood, where locals
‘invest’ in the image of open spaces, appropriating them for self-expression and
interpersonal communication. All these small-scale projects could add up in the
urban landscape and change the way urbanism is perceived today, supporting
a livable network of urban open spaces that ‘mold and mirror’ (Meinig 1979,
p. 188) a resilient economy, an embracing culture and a democratic society.
In the Greek context, especially in metropoles, people have begun to rethink
their social dynamic and develop ways of active participation in commons,
displaying opposition to political decisions that affect social life within urban
territory. Due to the devastating results of gentrification and the strong pres-
ence of immigrants in the cities, the aim of social-led regenerations has been
to empower locals and gradually replace central government with a more
democratic management of urban open spaces. Besides, the main goal of future
social-led regenerations is to better include and embrace immigrants into local
neighbourhoods than to ghetto-ize them.
The case study of ‘Kipos3’ provides an exemplar of reactivating the neigh-
bourhood through food cultivation. Future objectives of the project could be
to expand cultural activities beyond urban agriculture, to co-operate with other
teams and to develop a network of knowledge-sharing and communication with
other neighbourhoods. Bottom-up projects in the urban environment depend
on social capacity to grow and prove an autonomous, internally organized civic
society with specific visions, and develop methodologies for key actions in urban
spaces.
In the end, the biggest challenge for public spaces in Greece is to correspond
to social changes caused by the economic recession, immigration and identity

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 198  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

fragmentation. Bottom-up initiatives in Greece should take into consideration

the complexities of multi-ethnic neighbourhoods and embrace urban open
spaces as intelligent incubators of cultural co-habitation and self-organization.
With the belief that ‘it is everyone’s duty to help the polis’ (LeGates and Stout
2011, p. 39), citizens ought to condemn apathy and reclaim social cohesion and
cultural tolerance. Greek cities of tomorrow are in need of active communities,
which participate in urban regenerations, accept multi-cultural identities and
re-invent the productivity of public spaces, with the aim of changing public open
spaces through community building.

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 18
Landscape democracy in
the upgrading of informal
settlements in Medellín,
Colombia Landscape democracy in Medellín, Colombia

Eva Schwab

Introduction
In Latin American informal settlements, governmental upgrading initiatives,
focused on spatial and infrastructural improvements based on participatory
planning and design processes, have defined a new generation of interventions in
the formerly neglected areas of the cities (Riley et al. 2001). Public open spaces
are key intervention sites of these upgrading programmes, based on the idea
that an upgraded public environment would trigger wider social and physical
change. In their focus on spatial change and participatory planning and design,
these programmes touch upon central aspects of landscape democracy, that is,
the availability and accessibility of democratic representation and participation
in the production of space.
One example of the new generation of upgrading programmes is Medellín,
Colombia, where since the beginning of the 2000s the municipal governments
have run various upgrading initiatives. Among them, ‘Proyectos Urbanos
Integrales’ (PUI) stands out, as it tackled the city’s most deprived neighbour-
hoods, that is, the mostly low income or informal settlements at the periphery of
the city. An important goal of PUI, which translates as Integral Urban Projects,
lies in establishing both inclusionary politics and infrastructure, which increase
the accessibility of urban resources for people in these neighbourhoods. In
doing so, it focuses on the provision of infrastructural and recreational public
open spaces through a participatory approach to improve the physical as well as
symbolic connection and integration with the city, including an urban lifestyle.
The investigation described in this chapter aimed at establishing the relation-
ship between people’s everyday spaces and the public open spaces created by
the municipality during the PUI in Comuna 13, a low-income neighbourhood at
Medellín’s western periphery.

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 Landscape democracy in Medellín, Colombia  · 201

Proyectos Urbanos Integrales (PUI) in Medellín

PUIs have been applied to five areas of the city that show the lowest indices of
human development. The municipality describes PUI as a measure to ‘concen-
trate all the development tools available to the state in a planned and simultane-
ous manner to enhance progress in terms of equity and quality of life in a given
territory’ (Alcaldía de Medellín 2011a, p. 125).
PUIs are characterised by physical interventions to establish a system of public
open spaces that serve (a) as meeting points for the inhabitants to improve
security and conviviality and (b) improve inhabitants’ mobility in terms of walk-
ability and access to public transport (Alcaldía de Medellín/EDU 2007).
As per other contemporary programmes to upgrade informal settlements,
the PUIs in Medellín are laudable governmental initiatives that break with the
rationale behind more common interventions such as eradication and relocation
(Betancur 2007). They are not, however, beyond critique. Independent evalua-
tions of Medellín’s PUIs (Agudelo Velez et al. 2012; Brand 2013; Brand and
Davila 2011; Hernandez 2011; Leibler and Musset 2010; Montoya Restrepo
2014; Quinchía Roldán 2013) show that they have achieved improved infra-
structure and services in the settlements concerned. Regarding the improve-
ment of livelihoods and the reduction of poverty, nonetheless, Brand (2013,
p. 9) comes to the conclusion that PUIs ‘have contributed to improving living
conditions in the areas of influence, [but] they have done nothing to contain the
increasing socio-spatial inequality of the city’. In fact, Medellín is Colombia’s
most unequal city. Beyond that, PUIs have suffered from democratic shortcom-
ings which have limited the empowerment of the settlers and their socio-cultural
recognition, both decreasing opportunities for social mobility and active
­citizenship (Montoya Restrepo 2014).

Landscape uses and meaning in informal settlements

Speak (2014, p. 137) argues that informal settlements are ‘the sites of conflicting
landscape cultures’ because of the different relationships settlers and established
urbanites develop with the urban landscape. This view is supported by Hurtado
and Naranjo (2002), who stress the conflictive relationship shaped by exclusive
norms, police intervention and the prejudiced treatment the settlers face when
they establish themselves in the city. The landscapes of informal settlements
often show the use of communal spaces for growing crops and small animal
husbandry, landscape uses which relate directly to the settlers’ ‘physical and
spiritual survival in the same way as the rural landscapes of their origin’ (Speak
2014, p. 138). This stands in stark contrast to the governing dynamic in many
cities of the Global South, namely to secure their position and status in the
competition and ‘boosterism’ among cities (Brand 2009; Swyngedouw et al.
2002). In upgrading programmes, especially design aesthetics and use regula-
tions aspiring to a ‘globalised’ idea of public space are promoting ‘urban’ values
often at odds with livelihood strategies of the urban poor rooted in their use of
landscape (Roy 2004; Samuels and Khosla 2005; Speak 2014).

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 202  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Case study: open spaces in Comuna 13, Medellín, Colombia

The qualitative, mixed-method research reported here inquired into the rela-
tionship of people’s everyday spaces and the spaces that were established during
the PUI initiative, running from 2007 to 2011. In particular, it investigated
whether the formally established spaces included people’s everyday spaces and,
if so, which uses they performed in them.
Comuna 13 in Medellín was chosen as a case study for this investigation due
to its continuing settlement dynamic and the landscape’s role in conditioning
socio-spatial processes in the district.
Comuna 13 is one of the 16 districts of Medellín and the second area of the
city to be tackled by a PUI. It lies at the western periphery of the city, on sloping
terrain. Comuna 13 is populated by approximately 130,000 people and is one
of the least developed districts of Medellín (MCV 2012, p. 10). In its 20 barrios
(neighbourhoods) it shows a variety of urban fabrics and states of consolidation
(see Figure 18.1).
Fieldwork for data-gathering lasted for six months from July 2011 until
January 2012. In particular, I conducted:

1. Seven walks with six community leaders and three PUI staff, covering most
neighbourhoods of the district.
2. Two mapping workshops with 17 adults and nine children/teenagers,
producing mental maps of their everyday spaces and filling out additional
questionnaires.
3. Twenty-seven semi-structured interviews with 46 people (community lead-
ers, PUI staff and independent experts), lasting between 30 and 90 minutes.
4. Twenty-two conversations with residents, lasting from ten to 30 minutes.
5. Participant observation of three recently established open spaces on seven
occasions throughout the week and at different times during the day/night
to get insights into daily/weekly dynamics and changing user groups.

Sampling used snowballing, starting with community leaders introduced

to me through PUI staff and a contact I had at the Universidad Pontificia
Bolivariana.
I analysed interview data with qualitative content analysis (Mayring 2000)
and employed graphic means such as typologies and charts to analyse data from
the mapping workshops and the walks. For the observation data I used mapping
and statistical analysis.
I was only able to include a small sample of the population in my qualitative
investigation. Acknowledging that Comuna 13 is home to a very diverse com-
munity, regarding age, ethnicity, socio-economic status and time of settlement
in the area, I aimed to engage men and women of all ages and positions. The
responses in the interviews and conversations were very consistent across the
sample in raising the same critical issues, whereas the walks clearly expressed
the different life situation of the local guides. Although this study cannot claim
representativeness in terms of sample size, it does represent the challenges and

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EGOZ_9781786438331_t.indd 203
(a) (b) (c)

(d) (e) (f)

Source: Eva Schwab.

Figure 18.1  Overview of the different landscape characteristics of Comuna 13 with different states of consolidation: (a) Parque Biblioteca San Javier; (b) small
community space with sacred structure in Nuevos Conquistadores; (c) wooden shack for sale in Alto de la Virgen neighbourhood; (d) house in Alto de la
Virgen neighbourhood with ornamental and medicinal plants; (e)Viaducto in Las Independencias neighbourhood, a PUI project; (f) cablecar connecting the
settlements on the hill to San Javier metro stop

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 204  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

topics that were brought forth by my informants. The findings are thus highly
illustrative.

Landscape democracy in informal settlements

Landscape Democracy is a form of planning and design in which all
citizens are meant to participate equally, either directly or through elected
representatives in the proposal, development and establishment of the rules
by which their landscape and open spaces are shaped. IFLA (2014, p. 1)

One core reason for critique of PUI lies in its democratic shortcomings, that
is, the integrity of the participatory processes that accompanied the physical
change.
Yet how is the concept of landscape democracy – which relies on formal
planning and design processes – relevant in an environment that is shaped
by significant inequalities between the actors that affect landscape change
in Comuna 13, and their very different access to formal decision-making
procedures?
Minang et al. (2015), for instance, highlight that negotiation processes con-
cerning landscape development can either consider ‘inside issues’, that is, issues
that the community brings forward, or ‘outside issues’, which are brought to
the community by facilitators. While this binary approach might be an over-
simplification, it points at the different roles actors have in these negotiation
processes and their different power positions, as well as the variety of issues and
values. Minang et al. (ibid., p. 399) argue that ‘satisfaction with the process and
the outcomes will be the ultimate measure of success’.
Arler (2011) highlights that there are various procedures of decision-making
due to the diversity of values and concerns at stake in negotiations about land-
scape development. Due to different values that either focus on the individualis-
tic or the common good, that is, private self-determination or co-determination
and participation, procedures vary between privatisation and popular votes or
opinion polls and public hearings. When considering impartiality and respect
for arguments as core values, expert decisions and consulting connoisseurs rank
high among other procedures to assure the greatest common good. The PUI in
Comuna 13 applied a mix of public hearings and expert decisions, undeniably
with the best intentions to reach the greatest common good. The gap in power
positions between the experts and the residents, however, turned these pro-
cedures into a prolongation of highly hierarchical societal structures, in which
the residents of Comuna 13 were seen as recipients of higher levels of knowl-
edge and not as equal learning partners. When reflecting on the procedures
PUI established in Comuna 13, PUI staff (that is, the experts in the process)
highlighted that ‘it is a complex issue how to tell people from a professional
perspective that they need this or that – e.g. public space for encounters and
play – when they themselves don’t see the relevance of it’ (Interview PUI Staff
1). This is indicative of different roles and hierarchical positions, in which the
­existing experience of self-management and self-help of Comuna 13’s residents

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 Landscape democracy in Medellín, Colombia  · 205

does not have the same value once the district is seen as becoming part of the
city.
This is one of the reasons why people who have been part of the so-called
participatory process accompanying the physical upgrading showed high levels
of dissatisfaction with the integrity of the process. They argued, for instance, that
the process did not allow them to express: ‘no, this is not what we need, we need
other things’ (Interview Community Leader 11).
On the other hand, people who were not involved in this process mostly
expressed contentment with the fact that the government had finally intervened
in their settlement by installing a number of public open spaces. They appreci-
ated the new spaces because more members of the community could use them
thanks to catering to various groups’ needs (that is, youth, children and the
elderly). ‘Before, you could see only the grown-ups play in the sports field,
now the children are coming to enjoy soccer, basketball and the playground’
(Interview Resident 6).
This highlights that landscape democracy in Comuna 13 has two levels. One
is concerned with decision-making processes and the other defined by the qual-
ity of spaces for a diversity of user groups.
In the remainder of this chapter, I will mainly draw in the findings from the
walks and the mapping workshops to discuss the relationship between residents’
everyday spaces and those created during the PUI, to look at how supportive
they are of a diversity of user groups.

Types of open spaces, their qualities and unique characteristics

The analysis illustrates that Comuna 13 – while not well equipped with open
spaces in terms of quantity – shows a broad range of open-space types. These
include obvious and formally established types such as streets and squares, but
also large and small interstitial spaces left over from development. These spaces
hold a diversity of uses, and are socially and economically highly productive
spaces with uses ranging from urban agriculture and (informal) commerce or
trade to the social and recreational, all of which are important to support the
material and emotional livelihoods of the inhabitant. In their totality, they form
an intrinsic part of the quality of life of Comuna 13 residents. In accordance with
the literature, these everyday spaces emerge as social spaces, formed by practices
of use and the availability of equipment (Hernandez Garcia 2013; Rodríguez
Basto 2010). Equally, their definition as communal spaces seems appropriate, as
questions of their usability and accessibility are negotiated outside established
patterns of individual property rights but rather within the dynamics of the
neighbourhood.
This investigation shows that people’s lives play out in a diversity of spaces in
close proximity to their homes, and open space is not the most relevant spatial
category in people’s lives. It is the community facilities, the shops as well as the
homes of relatives and friends, which form the spatial backdrop of their social
lives, while open space is often limited to its function as space for connection.
Football fields are the one type of recreational space frequently mentioned in

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all data-gathering activity. The streets, paths and stairs are necessarily the most
used and most important open spaces as they connect the different buildings
and facilities that people use.
Uses performed in everyday spaces are mostly necessary activities, such as
shopping or going to work, or have to do with social relations. From a spatial
point of view, the heavily utilised spaces are large, open, accessible, and close
to people’s homes. We can see that the newly established spaces have only
acquired the status of everyday spaces if they happen to be in the vicinity of the
homes of people and form part of their established routes and social activities,
as especially the highly valued sports facilities and pedestrian spaces do. These
findings challenge the public open spaces constructed in the recent past during
the PUI initiative that offer mainly contemplative recreational facilities such
as parks. The establishment of parks has frequently been problematised during
interviews and walks; also the mental maps show parks to be structuring ele-
ments rather than lived spaces.
The establishment of new types of spaces goes hand in hand with the intro-
duction of a code of conduct through educational material, such as the manual
‘Vivir Bueno en Medellín’ (Alcaldía de Medellín 2011b). It gives a clear defini-
tion of ‘appropriate’ behaviour in urban open spaces with the argument that
such behaviour serves the good of ‘all’. Behaviour deemed ‘inappropriate’ would
be: informally selling goods, ‘privatising’ public space through small-scale urban
agricultural practices, and using it as workshops for repairs or handicrafts. As
such, the manual promotes use-practices related to leisure, contemplation,
sports and consumption in contrast to open spaces which form a ‘supportive
urban landscape’ (Speak 2014) for the community.
Non-built-up landscapes of varying sizes, that is, either left-over plots of
land or large landscape areas, emerge as important everyday spaces especially
during the walkthroughs in the less consolidated areas of the district (about
35 per cent of the area), where the most vulnerable – the most recently settled
inhabitants – live. There, the residents highlighted the multifunctionality of the
planting around the house, indicating medicinal herbs, fruit trees and berries
for direct use. In these cases, plant choices related to the origins of the residents
and were a means of reinstating former traditions and knowledge in the new
environment. Furthermore, they indicated left-over plots of land of varying size,
which the neighbourhood used for small animal husbandry, or riverbanks where
existing fruit trees were harvested by the people in the neighbourhood. In these
areas, people used parts of the newly established spaces for small-scale urban
agriculture, for instance by replacing the ornamental planting of a park with
vegetables and crops. Additionally, riverbanks provided informal work oppor-
tunities through gravel extraction and serving as sewage infrastructure for the
adjacent housing.
Data gained from interviews, however, suggests that ‘non-urban’ behaviour,
such as keeping animals and engaging in small-scale agriculture, is a highly
controversial aspect of open-space use defined by people’s differing status
and socio-economic situation. When people see the necessity behind such
landscape uses, they support them using descriptions such as ‘this is by our

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 Landscape democracy in Medellín, Colombia  · 207

people’ (Interview Community Leaders 14, 15, 16, 17, 18) or ‘it is for neces-
sity’ (Interview Community Leader 10). On the other hand, others see it in
contrast to desirable urban behavioural etiquette and condemn it by applying
the notion of ‘culture’ of informality and poverty (Lewis 1966). This shows the
influence of discourse and points to a threat which lies in establishing new types
of open spaces with a clearly defined set of ‘urban’ functions: spaces and uses
which have been long-established and are important to many people are looked
down upon. Additionally, interview data suggest that the newly established
recreational spaces have limited anchoring in people’s lived realities and that
they are a projection towards a future when poverty has ceased to limit people’s
recreational use of open space. Thus, practices are undervalued, which can be
relevant beyond processes of consolidation. I claim that it is thus necessary to
see these landscape practices not only in the context of poverty and survival, but
as a cultural practice that has links to the history of the settlement but is a highly
contemporary form of engagement with the environment.

Conclusions
Through a mix of qualitative methods I have investigated the everyday spaces of
people living in Comuna 13 in Medellín. There, landscape is highly valued both
as a defining feature of the surroundings, as a space for sports and socialising
and for its potential to encompass uses that offer diverse forms of productivity.
This challenges the initiative’s focus on new types of public spaces with a clearly
defined set of ‘urban’ functions and recreation as a form of consumption. While
it provides much-appreciated symbolic integration with the city, it leaves aside
types of space and uses that are important to the most vulnerable social groups.
The interstitial and left-over spaces which form the landscape reservoir of the
settlement should not be neglected. Rather they should be perceived as ‘sup-
portive urban landscape’ (Speak 2014). It is the uses of these spaces which are
the spatial backdrop for people’s livelihood strategies, which form a link to their
origins and which are part of their collective memory and identity.
As already noted, the productivity aspect of landscape, however, is not a com-
monly shared value, but one defined by socio-economic position. From this,
central landscape democracy issues emerge, namely who designs the regulations
of use and whether they are detrimental to the livelihood tactics of the most
vulnerable social groups.
The PUI procedure is characterised by partly introducing ‘outside issues’
(Minang et al. 2015), because the participatory format did not provide opportu-
nities for an open deliberation of the goals of the upgrading initiative between all
actors of landscape development in Comuna 13.
A more open format, however, could lead to the integration of a bigger diver-
sity of spaces and use practices into Medellín’s upgrading policy, fostering the
recognition of people’s contribution to the production of a diverse urban space
and culture. And while it probably would also entail more complex negotiation
processes and thus perhaps slow down the process and pace of physical change,
it could support the development of a more ample understanding of both

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 208  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

p­ articipation and the qualities of physical space. This would be an understanding

drawing on and helping to continue people’s action on and interaction with their
surroundings in the recognition that this interaction is formative of a valuable
diversity of material landscapes as well as of landscape discourse about ideas
and values, uses, resources and accessibility, which are formative for making
landscape democracy a lived reality.

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 19
Learning from Occupy Gezi
Park: redefining landscape
democracy in an age of
‘planetary urbanism’
Burcu Yiğit-Turan

Neither the production nor reading of landscape is ever ‘innocent’. Both are political in
the broadest sense of the term. J.S. Duncan (1990, p. 182)

Introduction
The Occupy Gezi Park events in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2013 started as a pro-
test against privatisation of a public park and became an iconic series of events
addressing people’s demand for democracy and for the right to landscape. The
most common image related to landscape democracy or democratic landscapes,
as ‘an ideal moment of happiness’ depicted in a peaceful piece of nature, or
nature in making, which different types of people are seen enjoying without
conflict, lies in the minds of people (Abelman 2015; Licka et al. 2015; Sanna
and Zancan 2015). Similarly, ‘[t]he word “landscape” routinely evokes images
of beauty, harmony, nature, recreation, belonging and feeling at home’ (Gailing
and Leibenath 2017, p. 337). In stark contrast to this, the images of Gezi Park
circulated in the media depicted incidents of protest, encampment, debate and
clash, including a variety of expressions of dissent, sometimes in radically aes-
theticised forms.
The terminology relating to landscape democracy in policy and scholarly
texts is based upon the concepts of participation, consensus and conflict reduc-
tion (CoE 2000; Egoz et al. 2011). The European Landscape Convention (CoE
2000) emphasises public participation and consensus-building in official plan-
ning and management, through bringing different types of professionals and
local actors to the table, as a way of achieving democracy. Very much in line with
the conventional liberal conception of democracy, the document ‘The guid-
ing principles for sustainable spatial development of the European Continent’
(Déjeant-Pons 2010) stresses the need for effective participation by society in

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 Learning from Occupy Gezi Park   · 211

the spatial development process and the importance of societal consensus in

creating a dynamic environment for outside investors and economic players.
On the other hand, Egoz et al. (2011) underline the value of producing conflict-
reducing alternative scenarios in guaranteeing human rights to the landscape.
In contrast to policy texts and popular images, critical studies in the field
accept landscapes as complex instruments and agents of power (Mitchell,
W.J.T. 2002) that obscure struggles over the issues of injustice (Mitchell, W.J.T.
2000; Olwig and Mitchell 2009). Recent studies focus on unfolding those strug-
gles, social exclusions and marginalisations, as well as contestations, dissensus
and conflict (Mitchell, D. 1995; 2003a; 2003b; Mitchell, W.J.T. 2000; Gailing
and Leibenath, 2017). Unlike policy documents, academic papers underline the
problem of participatory planning and design processes being used for legitimi-
sation of plans and decisions that facilitate landscape injustices, exclusions and
marginalisations. The emphasis on consensus-building deriving from the plans
and projects produced by the authorities and of avoiding conflicts during the
process has excluded marginalised voices and alternatives, and consequently the
real problematics of justice are outside the agenda (Arnstein 1969).
According to Purcell (2009), neo-liberal politics, and consequently urban-
ism, exerts sophisticated control over the meaning of any spatial development;
it manipulates every possible medium to propagate the message that there is no
alternative to that which it proposes, and uses participatory planning mechanisms
to legitimise its envisions. Thus anyone who suggests an alternative, or raises
dissent, is seen as acting against the national will and wellbeing. In this context,
spaces of dissent are the foremost places where people can raise their voices to
make injustices and oppressions visible to the public, as well as creating alter-
native spaces and expanding existing notions of citizenship (Mitchell, D. 1995;
Harvey 2012; Brenner 2013; Hou and Knierbien 2017). They draw attention to
the oppression and to the sophisticated interweaving of injustices in landscapes,
which can scarcely be recognised since they are obscured (Mitchell, W.J.T. 2000).
In particular, the Occupy movements functioned in revealing how the frag-
mented pieces of neo-liberalism (privatisation of seeds, water, rural commons,
urban public spaces, etc.) can come together and transform life on this planet
(Shepard 2012; Shiffman et al. 2012; Hou and Knierbien 2017). Expressions of
dissensus and conflict are the essential components of revelation of injustices and
raising the voice of the excluded, or marginalised, to achieve real politics which
might bring about change (Ranciere 1999; 2010). The nature of public space,
and consequently of democracy, is defined through those constant struggles
(Mitchell, D. 1995). These spaces also become ‘invented spaces’ (Miraftab 2004)
or ephemeral spaces of utopian thinking and practices displaying ­alternative
socio-spatial formations (Harvey 2012; Shiffman et al. 2012).
Occupy Gezi Park was more than an abstract space of dissent drawing atten-
tion to some social injustices; it drew attention to specific landscape injustices
articulated in Turkey’s geography with neo-liberal models of urban develop-
ment and to the possibility of reconnecting with landscapes providing specific
alternatives to the making of landscapes. Therefore, it represents a valuable case
study to define or redefine landscape democracy in our time. To investigate the

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 212  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

events, this study addressed the following research questions: Why did Occupy
Gezi Park happen? What kind of ideologies and meanings are associated with
the park? What dissents/dissensus and alternative socio-spatial formations
were expressed during the occupation? What do the events mean for landscape
democracy, landscape, and landscape architecture studies and practices?
The following description of Gezi Park portrays the surrounding context and
the periods before, during and after occupation, focusing on ideologies, dis-
courses, dissents, practices and tactics regarding tangible and intangible aspects
of landscape. The main part of the analysis then focuses on the dissents that were
expressed in different ways during the occupation of the park, which together
provide a rich multi-authored narrative displaying how landscapes inhabit
injustices and how emancipation can be possible. A final analysis, aligned with
critical political theory, attempts to interpret this narrative to redefine landscape
democracy in landscape studies and landscape architecture.
In this investigation, I occupy two different positions: (i) as a citizen, a land-
scape architect, who joined the occupation wholeheartedly to raise a voice for
the agonising landscapes of Gezi Park and for all other landscapes through-
out the world and shared feelings of being a part of an organic entity; and (ii)
as a scholar, who attempted to understand the events through observations,
interviews and secondary data and to give meaning to the resulting materials,
thoughts and feelings by theoretically contextualising different relationalities of
Gezi Park at different scales. This dual positioning aligns with a mixed-method
approach that includes self-experience, observations of places and events, partic-
ipation in events and meetings, conversations with participants, in-depth inter-
views with key actors, and content analysis of published media and literature. I
was in the park on the days of the events and attended the meetings mentioned. I
documented my experiences, observations and thoughts through photography,
video recordings and personal writings. I recorded and transcribed all in-depth
interviews. News followed through social media and other published materi-
als complemented the materials produced through self-experiences. Below, the
inferences derived from these materials are theoretically contextualised with the
scientific literature.

Relational landscapes of Gezi Park: the landscapes of planetary

urbanism and outbursts from their discontents
Landscapes started to transform at a planetary scale during the past century, and
this change has gained pace in recent decades, with all social and ecological layers
of the planet having been altered by neo-liberal models of urban development,
changing social, mental and environmental ecologies on Earth (Harvey 1996;
Amin and Thrift 2002; Guattari 2008; Brenner 2013). For thousands of years,
humans had been living on Earth generating biological connections with a diver-
sity of nature in different places, building different cultures, aesthetics and social
practices arising from those connections. However, these connections were
never totally free of power struggles; there were always some hegemonies taking
control over people, nature, cultures, spaces and social practices (Cosgrove

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 Learning from Occupy Gezi Park   · 213

1985; Mitchell, W.J.T. 2002; Olwig and Mitchell 2009). Nonetheless, those
hegemonies never succeeded in infiltrating as deeply as in our age.
Several authors have alerted us to the unprecedented scale of aggressive land-
scape transformations both in terms of mining of natural resources damaging
ecologies, and inflicting hardships on traditional social structures (Zukin 1995;
Davis 2006; Heynen et al. 2006; Low and Smith 2006; Davis and Monk 2007;
Bridge and Watson 2010; Lees et al. 2015). This ‘soft’ war against life has been
naturalised in the public eye and is generally seen as ‘progress’ or called ‘develop-
ment’ in neo-liberal ideology. Its discontents have been left outside the agenda
through consensus-building around the notions created by a singular political
body for the sake of economics (Purcell 2008; 2009; Brenner 2013; Brown
2015). This feature of the transformation of the natural landscapes on Earth also
applies to landscapes in Turkey and in Istanbul, including its own authentic injus-
tices and repressions based on its historical, social and cultural context (Kurtuluş
2005; Bartu-Candan and Kolluoğlu 2008; Pérouse 2011; Yiğit-Turan 2012;
Akbulut and Adaman 2013; Akbulut 2014; Akbulut and Bartu-Candan 2014).
Through this ‘development’, the links between people and landscapes have
been severed. People have lost any power for making and connecting with
landscapes, losing their biological, physical, social and symbolic relationships
with them – that is, their ‘right to the landscape’. These developments have
caused growing unrest in the public, whose living environments and lifestyles
have been altered without their consent and whose rights of political expression
have been taken away,1 and this unrest eventually culminated in outbursts in
the form of Occupy Movements all over the world (Shepard 2012; Shiffman et
al. 2012; Brenner 2013; Hou and Knierbien 2017). Against this backdrop, in
2011 the Turkish government announced its urban project for Gezi Park and
Taksim Square in Istanbul and it eventually caused the outburst and occupation
­movement in Gezi Park, which lasted for about 15 days.

A short history of Gezi Park

As W.J.T. Mitchell (2002) asserts, landscape is a repository of meanings and a
medium to transmit messages. Therefore, it is also the target of power struggles
to take control over its meanings and messages. Taksim Square and Gezi Park
became such a repository, with turning points in its emergence.
The Taksim area is the centre of a chamber that allocates and distributes
water adjacent to Beyoğlu, Istiklal Street, which during the nineteenth century
was predominantly developed by the influence of non-Muslim bourgeoisie
and diversified with the expansion of new neighbourhoods for Muslim popula-
tions and public infrastructures, such as libraries, post offices and tramlines. An
artillery barracks was built in the southern part of today’s Gezi Park between
1803 and 1806, while the northern part was the Pangaaltı Armenian cemetery
between 1551 and 1939 (Çelik 1986 [1993]). The park became a symbolic
space with state interventions to transform the radical Muslim Ottoman realm
into a secular nation, generating a modern visage of the city initiated with invited
competition (Bozdoğan 1994).

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 214  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Source: Courtesy of © Fonds Prost. Académie d’architecture/Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine/Archives d’architecture du XXe siècle.

Figure 19.1  November 1944, View of Taksim Gezi Park (Taksim Inonu Esplanade) on a Sunday

A French urbanist, Henri Prost, the urban planner of the new social and political
revolution of the Kemalist regime in Istanbul, designed the city to be the secular,
modern, civilised European city of the young republic according to the ideals
of the regime (Akpınar 2003). He included free spaces, ‘les espaces libres’, in the
form of parks, promenades, esplanades, panoramic terraces, squares, boulevards
and sports areas for Istanbul, to provide new spaces for health, recreation and
socialisation. Thus, at the end of the 1930s, the Taksim area was transformed
into a very important square for state ceremonies and the area of the artillery
barrack and the Armenian cemetery into a park, as part of a series designed
according to the modernist principles of that time. The park extended as a
green valley to the east, surrounded by cultural infrastructure. It would soon be
occupied predominantly by women and children and would become a space for
modern urban encounters (Bilsel 2010), and eventually display the emergence
of the new Turks imagined by the regime (Figure 19.1).
The site gained additional historical layers with the development of a multi-
purpose cultural centre and opera house, Ataturk Cultural Centre (AKM), at
the northern edge of Taksim Square, adjacent to the south-eastern border of
Gezi Park in 1969; AKM became an architectural icon of republican modern-
ism. The park was also associated with the development of organised protest
demonstrations by the Turkish Left, particularly with the massacre of protestors
on 1 May 1977, International Labour Day, which left it with memories of the
tragedy and transformed the symbolism addressing working-class struggles for
justice and democracy (Baykan and Hatuka 2010). In the 1990s and 2000s,

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 Learning from Occupy Gezi Park   · 215

the secularist and emancipatory atmosphere of the place resulted in a rich

socio-cultural environment and a refuge for different lifestyles, diverse everyday
practices and political events, particularly for minorities and most vulnerable
groups. Eventually, Taksim Square became the symbol of Turkey; anything seen
there would be visible to all throughout the country. Therefore, it was the target
of power struggles to take control over its meanings and messages. In these
struggles, the plans for the Taksim area and Gezi Park comprised more than an
economically driven intervention; they sought to repress all layers of the past
and the plurality and freedom of the present, thereby creating another environ-
mental trauma with urban development of the last relic of green in the city and
projecting a different urban ideology as the new face of the country.
According to the government’s top-down development plan, Gezi Park would
be developed as a shopping mall on the site of the demolished old Ottoman
military barracks; there would be a mosque and a religious museum surround-
ing Taksim Square. The pedestrian area in the square would be diminished and
replaced with flower parterres instead, and the surrounding streets feeding the
square with pedestrian flows would be taken beneath the surface, dividing the
streets and leaving narrow paths for pedestrians.2 A constructed Ottoman past,
religious institutions and consumption would be stressed, while the green, histori-
cal, public and political aspects of the site would be suppressed with the spatial fea-
tures of the project, despite the site’s rich history. A variety of initiatives emerged
to express dissent regarding the project, with people organising protests, confer-
ences, art events, festivals and meetings.3 Yet nothing could change the decision
made by the prime minister himself, who was personally involved in the process.

Unpicking Gezi Park’s landscapes of dissensus

This struggle is against all the practices that expropriate our coasts, forests and
public spaces. It is against the hydropower, nuclear and coal plants that destroy
nature. It is against the profit-oriented projects that target not only Taksim Square
and Gezi Park, but also Kuşdili Meadow, Haydar Paşa Train Station, Atatürk
Forest Farm and different other commons. It is against the 3rd Bridge project
for which the ground-breaking ceremony was shamelessly held today, which will
destroy all the forests and dry up all the water resources in Istanbul. It is against
the 3rd airport project that serves the customers for the 3rd bridge and will pave
the way for rent-generating construction in northern Istanbul. It is against the
New Istanbul Project that will ruin all our natural resources ... . This here is for all
our people whose houses and living spaces have been confiscated ... . Reclaiming
Taksim, the memory of struggle and solidarity, means reclaiming not only the
square and the park, but also all these values and rights. For all these reasons,
we call upon everyone who wants to stand up for their rights and liberties, city,
living spaces and future to come to Taksim’s Gezi Park. (Taksim Solidarity Press
Release, 29 May 2013)

On 27 May 2013, activists from different groups protesting against the devel-
opment of the park started to meet there and to organise public meetings to

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 216  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

include the wider public in imagining the future of the park and its surroundings
collectively. On 28 May, the pedestrian bridge at the northern edge was demol-
ished by developers and some of the trees were uprooted. With these incidents,
people started to organise through a call by Taksim Solidarity for urgent action,
which was circulated on various electronic list servers and social media networks
among activists in Istanbul, and to meet in the park to resist its destruction.
Nature activists started an encampment in order to defend the park, night and
day, against an intervention.
At dawn on 30 May, municipal police set fire to the tents, occupied the park
and closed it to the public. The police, using tear gas, attacked a press conference
organised by the park protesters at 10.00 a.m. at the northern border of the park.
The divided groups started to meet and sit in protest in Taksim Square at noon,
in order to attract the wider public’s attention. In front of the eyes of everyday
crowds in Istiklal Street and Taksim Square, the police brutally attacked protes-
tors. Through social media alone, a call reached the wider masses for a larger
protest at Taksim against the suppression of the right for democratic expression
at 7.00 pm, when everyone was leaving their offices and schools. This unleashed
into Gezi Park thousands of people from different locations in Istanbul with a
variety of motives against the government’s policies and practices, but mainly
dissent regarding the suppression of freedom of expression and the interventions
to the environment and lifestyles. After hours of clashes between the groups and
the police, by the morning of 1 June the park was occupied by people. Communal
living and a range of expressions of dissent emerged in Gezi Park in the de facto
absence of the state. AKM’s façade carried a giant banner saying, ‘Do not give in’.
On 5 June, Taksim Solidarity published the demands of the protestors, which
underlined the necessity of protection of Gezi Park as the landscape of Turkey
and of freedom of expression.4 The government rejected those demands.5
During the first hours of the day, people cleaned the park; volunteer vet-
erinarians helped street animals, which were severely affected by the tear gas;
a medical tent was established by volunteer doctors to help protestors in need;
and a food centre was established. During the following hours, tents were estab-
lished and the groups6 started to reorganise, taking a certain location in the park
and ornamenting the piece of the land they grabbed with posters, banners and
spatial interventions announcing ideological messages and expressing their dis-
sent. Relics of the conflicts, including burnt-out police cars and buses, became
the monuments of the Occupy Gezi Park movement; some of them were ret-
rofitted and turned into libraries. The traffic was totally blocked by the bar-
ricades and the area became truly pedestrianised. Gradually, other intergroup
cultural infrastructures such as a library were established and different kinds
of events started to emerge freely. Some of the spatial emergencies, such as the
library, were assisted by volunteer architects, Herkes Için Mimarlık (Architecture
for ALL) (Gündoğdu 2013). There was agreement on the right to ‘freedom
of expression’ and empathy between different marginal groups, and reclaiming
these brought all the people together. The words of Mevlana, ‘Come, whoever
you are’, became a motto.7 Secular groups protected anti-capitalist Muslims
from the rain while they prayed; anti-capitalist Muslims helped the LGBTI

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 Learning from Occupy Gezi Park   · 217

community to find food. Street children and animals were integrated into the
emerging community, which embraced them wholeheartedly.
All the groups claimed a piece of land in Gezi Park and altered it, but the
major intervention came from ‘Ecology Collectives’, one of the largest groups in
terms of numbers and of level of engagement since the beginning of the protest.
They started to repair the northern edge of the park that was damaged, estab-
lished an orchard to grow food and set up a talk space to underline the issues
about ecology and food justice under the banner ‘Other food is possible’. Their
numbers grew with the involvement of nature and water rights movements from
different corners of Anatolia.
A little piece of land at the side of an alleyway in the park was taken over
and a makeshift tomb was installed by Armenian Turks, as a reminder of the
underlying Armenian cemetery to the wider masses, with a slogan written on the
tomb: ‘Armenian Cemetery Sourp Hagop, 1551–1939: You took from us our
cemetery, you will not have our park!’.8
Women with Atatürk flags filled different parts of the park and expressed their
nostalgia for the Early Republican period and Atatürk, his contribution to the
emancipation of women and enlightenment of the country. Some hung banners
on their tents saying ‘Kurds exist in this country’. Speakers’ corners and forum sites
emerged for free-talks and debate. The commemoration of protestors who were
killed during the conflicts took place in different corners. Art performers, ballet
dancers and musicians, who had previously been mostly employed by the state’s
ministry of culture and who objected to being made redundant due to closure of
the state’s theatres, operas and art centres, adapted to spaces in the park. They
spontaneously engaged in their art, responding to national-level politics or articu-
lating a dialogue with other emerging practices in the park. Public lectures were
given about urban transformation; volunteers from different neighbourhoods that
were under threat of transformation talked about their experiences and networked.
People collected and exchanged books at library points. Art classes were arranged
for children. Most of the people in Occupy Gezi Park were young; mothers came to
help establish a human chain against any brutal police intervention.9 Pianist Davide
Martello entertained these mothers with a concert that night.10
On Saturday 15 June, the police evacuated the park using massive amounts of
tear gas and violence. All physical traces of the Occupy Gezi Park were removed
by the municipality: tents, the orchard, plants planted by the activists, librar-
ies, food share points, memorial spaces, posters, relics of the conflict, and the
representative stone of Armenian Cemetery, free speech platforms, medical
centres, slogans and many other things. Instead, the surface of the park was
covered by a semiotically and ecologically monolithic commercial landscape:
ready-made grass turf was unrolled all over the park, covering all the pluralities
of the landscape of the Occupy Gezi Park movement. Two weeks later, the
park was reopened with high numbers of police present and it presented people
with the hygienic landscape of the hegemony. From time to time, representative
gravestones appeared on the carefully maintained lawns, but they were immedi-
ately taken away by the police. Any person expressing dissenting ideas was also
taken away.11

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 218  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Conclusions: learning from Occupy Gezi Park

During the occupation of the park by people, all the suppressed former layers
and current diversity of the landscape of Gezi Park over its history until the
present day became visible and reflected the cultural and ecological traumas
and dissents related to the site and the country, and alternative imaginings for
the future. All these symbolic and spatial layers – Armenian (to the sixteenth
century), Ottoman (to the nineteenth century), republican (from the 1930s),
working-class left movement (from the 1960s), LGBTI movement, animal
rights, women rights, human rights, urban rights, nature rights, food justice
movements, anti-capitalist Muslims, Kurds, Carsi, Alevis, Ecology Collectives,
Taksim Solidarity and many others – talked to each other, conflicted and negoti-
ated, but remained with emerging feelings of empathy to the existence of the
others. It was accepted that everyone/thing has a right to exist, commemorate
the past as they see fit and imagine the future. This particularly applied to
groups which had been repressed, marginalised and obscured by the neo-liberal
democracy, authoritarianism and neo-liberal models of urban development in
Turkey, through generic rhetoric based on concepts such as conflict reduction,
consensus-building and participation. Under the trees of Gezi Park, people
rediscovered their direct links with landscape and their right to expression and
of making the landscape without devolving their power to anyone, politician,
planner or landscape architect, through sophisticated systems of exclusion and
material and immaterial detachment under neo-liberal democracies.
For about 15 days, until the brutal police intervention that evacuated the park
completely, different adaptations of landscape were generated to reflect the dis-
sent regarding the destruction of the park, all the relational landscape traumas of
the past and present, and the imaginings of landscapes of justice and democracy.
People united to keep this public space a pluralistic and agonistic landscape.
The Occupy Gezi Park movement simulated how landscapes of democracy
come into being and how they function. It revealed that landscape democracy,
or any democracy, does not come with the processes of consensus-building led
by hegemonies regarding their own metanarratives, but with dynamic expres-
sions of dissent, plurality and creative conflict. The democratic landscape is
constituted through solidarity and association of all possible natural and cultural
meanings. The terrain becomes open to different attachments; not only attach-
ments of people, but also of animals, plants and all the interrelated material
and immaterial formations generated in spontaneity. In particular, traumas most
need to be expressed in order to be healed. They become visible to all parties;
they create shock, then empathy and solidarity between different groups.
Each expression of dissent is a political act and democratic struggle, but inter-
preting landscape and how different dissents came together in the (real and
relational) landscapes of Gezi Park, and what they said, is also a political act.
Landscape architecture, which is the act of reading and rewriting landscapes,
is ultimately a political act. However, the act of reading should reveal sophisti-
catedly masked injustices and pluralities of past, present and future, while the
act of writing (environmental design) should interpret the readings creatively,

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 Learning from Occupy Gezi Park   · 219

producing alternative imaginings and practices to reconnect with landscapes

and demonstrating the political role of the landscape architecture in different
critical contexts. Only by creating such a semiotically rich landscape can the
discipline contribute to people’s search for their rights to the landscape and
to a more democratic future in an age of planetary urbanism. We should be
working on developing the theoretical, methodological, practical and represen-
tational instruments to be used in such acts of readings and writings in landscape
architecture.

Notes
 1. Prior to the Occupy Gezi Park movement, there were many small-scale protests and social movements.
For instance, in December 2011, students of Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, occupied and protested
against the newly opened Starbucks coffee store which took the place of a modest student cafeteria func-
tioning as an important public space in the university campus. Their dissent was as multi-layered as the
landscape dissent: privatisation of public space, top-down decision-making of the university management
over space/landscape, making landscape without socio-ecological functions, right to access to cheap and
healthy food, and imposition of consumerist lifestyles. The occupation of Starbucks transformed into a
movement called ‘Tarlataban’, which aimed to establish a social co-operative consisting of workers and
students of the university that would lead farming in the university’s bare iconic landscape and distribu-
tion of cheap and healthy food through alternative ways of making the public space. (Information and
inferences based on an in-depth interview with one of the active actors of the movement, Umut Kocagöz,
in July 2012.)
 2. For more on the 2013 Taksim project of the Justice and Development Party, see http://www.bbc.com/
news/world-europe-22753752.
 3. See http://herkesicinmimarlik.org/portfolio/gezi-parki/ ‘Traditional Gezi Park Festivals’.
 4. See http://cryptome.org/2013/06/taksim-solidarity.htm ‘The demands of Gezi Park protestors’.
 5. See http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2013/06/20136551212442132.html.
 6. Ecology Collectives, Taksim Solidarity, Gezi Parki Beautification Foundation, The Union of Chambers
of Turkish Engineers and Architects, Anti-Capitalist Muslims, LGBT movements (LGBT Bloc, Kaos
LG), People’s Houses, the Youth Union of Turkey, Çarşı and other soccer fan clubs, feminist groups
(Socialist–Feminist Collective, Women’s Coalition), Animals’ Rights Movement and many other groups,
artists, intellectuals and thousands of individuals not belonging to a group with their own narratives and
creative and humorous expressions.
 7. See http://technosociology.org/?p=1421.
 8. See more at http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-armenian-past-of-taksim-square.
 9. See http://occupiedtaksim.blogspot.se/2013/06/the-mothers-of-protesters-form-human.html.
10. See YouTube video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqyEPqhkZr8&list=RDMqyEPqhkZr8#t​=4​ 6.​
11. For a documentation of Gezi Park protests, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gezi_Park_protests.

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 20
Democracy and the
communicative dimension of
public art Democracy and communication in public art

Beata Sirowy

Introduction
Public art becomes increasingly ubiquitous in urban spaces. Both planners and
decision-makers recognize the potential of art for enriching the quality of urban
life, inviting artists and architects to contribute to urban development initiatives.
In Norway the growing interest for art in public spaces can be linked to accel-
erating urban development in Oslo and other Norwegian cities, including both
transformation of post-industrial areas and densification initiatives. Most typi-
cally, art is seen as a part of place development, and/or an element of a branding
strategy attracting potential residents and tourists. Another factor drawing wider
attention to public art has been numerous art commissions to commemorate the
victims of Anders Behring Breivik’s 22 July 2011 Utøya massacre. As Mortensen
(2014) observes, in the recent years ‘the presence of art in public space has
escalated. Art is used as an official identity marker, ... as an exploration of social
relationships, and as an adaptation to trauma.’
In many cases, public artworks are uncontested and treated as an embellish-
ment1 or a sign of status adding value to a neighboring property – such as statues
in the sculpture park at the newly developed waterfront district Tjuvholmen
in Oslo. Yet recent public art commissions have also brought to the surface
numerous conflicts between the general public and the art milieu. For exam-
ple, the Swedish artist Jonas Dahlberg’s project for the 22 July memorial, titled
‘Incurable wound in nature at Utøya’ and appraised by art critics both nationally
and internationally, met strong opposition from both neighbors and survivors,
who found the proposal distressing and strongly invasive in Utøya’s landscape.
It seems that more effort towards communication with audiences would
be helpful in such cases, but the art milieu is often skeptical towards a dialog
with society, considering it as a threat to their artistic autonomy. Norwegian art
critic Dag Wiersholm (2010) asks: ‘Is it not just about the essence of art to be
uncompromising?’ He argues that although in itself the complicity principle is

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 Democracy and communication in public art  · 223

not entirely unreasonable in relation to art paid for by the public, participatory
processes negatively affect the quality of artworks. ‘The public art where the
majority decides, must be open for compromise, and can in principle lead to
the “lowest common denominator” solutions; acceptable to all, but no more’
(ibid.). He argues that in the context of art commissioning processes we can
legitimately talk about democracy as control and dismiss participatory processes
and audience-related limitations.
Such a position is widely represented in art milieus, but is far from being
unanimously accepted. Numerous authors have since the 1980s been critical
towards the fact that contemporary public artworks tend to be incomprehensi-
ble for a wider audience and neglect local contexts. Taylor (1985) argues that
the art lobby tends to promote a type of public art that is ‘excessively open,
individualistic, spectacular and rarely challenging’ (Taylor, in Remesar 1997,
p. 1). Lewis (1990) indicates that the question of cultural and artistic values are
often avoided in the public art debates or funding schemes. It is because the arts
establishment ‘has apparently captured the idea of artistic/cultural value and
made it its own territory,’ barely open to negotiation (ibid., p. 1). Senie (2003)
points out that although public art is intended for a general audience, ‘there
is a general distrust of that very audience among critics and even some artists
and public art curators. A popular work is somehow presumed to be not good
(public) art.’ More recently, British artist Mackenzie Thorpe (2014) argued
that what creates the perception that art is elitist is the group of people dealing
with public art commissions, ‘gatekeepers operating like a kind of impenetrable,
closed-shop cabal, whose assembled authority allows them to dictate not only
the art we view and should be viewing, but also what our opinions on it should
be.’ Yet, while people enjoy being challenged and educated by art, ‘they do not
like being dictated to, and their choices derided and ignored’ (ibid.).
The disagreements around public art commissions indicate that the criteria
for evaluation of public art need to be reviewed. It is often accepted that public
art, in any form, has instantaneous benefits for the urban environment, but it is
not the case (Cartiere and Willis 2008). This chapter responds to the need for
a more systematic reflection on public art and its democratic characteristics. It
presents the emancipatory perspective of modern aesthetics as highly problem-
atic in relation to public art, and points at Hans-Georg Gadamer’s theory of art
as a more relevant framework for addressing the communicative and democratic
nature of public art interventions.
Due to the limitations of space, the focus of this chapter is primarily theoreti-
cal. It does not aspire to proposing a readily applicable tool for the evaluation
of democratic qualities of public art, but, rather, aims to outline the conceptual
foundations for such a tool. However, in the concluding paragraph I discuss an
example of a public artwork situated in an urban public space, the statue Alison
Lapper Pregnant by Marc Quinn. This example is meant to provide a more spe-
cific understanding of what art in public space really is. Nevertheless a further
effort is necessary to establish a practical way of determining whether any given
artwork satisfies the democratic requirement of communicative participation
with an active, interpretative audience.

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 224  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Public art and public space: democratic qualities

Public art is often understood in terms of publicly funded art or, more broadly,
as any type of art located in a public space. According to the Tate, an executive
non-departmental public body dedicated to the promotion of art in the UK, the
term public art refers to ‘art that is in the public realm, regardless of whether
it is situated on public or private property or whether it has been purchased
with public or private  money.’2 However, such an understanding is far from
being uncontested. As Hein (1996, p. 4) points out, ‘[t]he sheer presence of
art out-of-doors ... does not automatically make that art public – no more than
placing a tiger in a barnyard would make it a domestic animal.’ What matters in
this type of art is not only the location, but also the communicative potential of
the artworks. The Association for Public Art, a non-governmental organization
(NGO) located in Philadelphia, USA, represents a similar understanding, view-
ing public art as ‘a form of collective community expression,’ that is, ‘a reflection
of how we see the world – the artist’s response to our time and place combined
with our own sense of who we are.’3 It can express our values, heighten our
awareness of particular issues, question our assumptions, or challenge custom-
ary ways of relating to our environments. In a similar tone, Knight (2008, p. 1)
suggests that ‘we can best understand art’s public functions when we consider
the interrelationship between content and audience,’ that is, what art has to say
and to whom it speaks. From this perspective, the quality of public art ‘rests in
the quality and impact of its exchanges with audiences’ (ibid., p. 2).
The controversy around public art commissions points towards a more gen-
eral issue – a problem of democracy of public art interventions. This issue is
closely linked to the question of the democracy of public spaces. Public art is an
intervention into a public space, and as such, should most likely conform to our
overall vision of democratic public spaces. What factors constitute the demo-
cratic character of urban public spaces and how can these factors be sustained or
obstructed through public art?
Traditionally, public space has been the arena where public life unfolds:
political issues are debated and social norms affirmed or challenged, people
speak and act together (Arendt 1958). Following this understanding, Hajer and
Reijndorp (2001, p. 11) define public space in terms of a public domain: sites
where exchange (not just a meeting) between various social groups is possi-
ble and actually occurs. Ideally, public space is a space for debate, a commons
accommodating multiple voices and perspectives.
In recent decades numerous authors have written about the severe crisis,
even ‘the end of public space,’ related to the commercialization and privatiza-
tion of urban districts (Sennet 1977; Mitchell 2003; Fainstein 2010). Sennett
(1977) famously discusses ‘the fall of public man,’ which he traces through the
loss of spaces in which individuals can act as citizens, and a preference for spaces
through which they transit, or act as consumers and displayers of their posses-
sions. Mitchell (2003, p. 142) asks: ‘Have we created a society that expects and
desires only private interactions, private communications, and private politics,
that reserves public spaces solely for commodified recreation and spectacle?’

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 Democracy and communication in public art  · 225

What is in this context alarming is that in political theory physical public space
has been increasingly losing its relevance. It tends to be framed as ‘a metaphor
that refers to the myriad ways in which citizens separated in time and space can
participate in collective deliberation, decision making, and action’ (Parkinson
2009, p. 101). Thus, for many political theorists, public space has strong conno-
tations with the Internet, the media, and the networks of citizens in civil society.
On the other hand, numerous authors argue that while new technologies and
their ‘metaphorical public space’ have contributed to broadening the notion
of democracy, the physical public space still matters: the messages that are
communicated via social media involve real people who take up, occupy, share,
and contest physical space (Parkinson 2009, p. 101). From that perspective,
‘democracy depends to a surprising extent on the availability of physical, public
space, even in our allegedly digital world’ (ibid.).Yet the availability of space for
democratic performance is largely under threat in contemporary cities.
Public art, the same as any other intervention in public space, may strengthen
or limit the role of public space as an arena for a collective action, depend-
ing upon whether it sustains ownership and sense of belonging, or reinforces
alienation. Representing a diversity of voices, aspirations and interests in con-
temporary societies, reinterpreting the past, and envisioning future, public art
contributes to the processes of opinion formation and narration in the public
sphere, being a part of a democratic discourse. Public art can also stimulate
transition and change, questioning customary ways of being and looking at the
world.
In this context it is worthwhile to reflect on exclusion mechanisms operating
in public space. Direct exclusion takes place via a set of prohibitions targeted at
undesirable activities, such as political manifestations, street art, begging, skate-
boarding, etc. Indirect exclusion occurs via specific profiling of the area – making
it inviting only to the ‘desired’ groups (wealthy citizens, the global creative class,
tourists, leading business) and inhospitable to other groups. This can be done
by measures such as high price levels and a limited functional program, but also
by a specific profile of cultural options – for example, ‘high culture’ directed pri-
marily at connoisseurs. Thereby, public art can contribute to indirect exclusion
when it fails to address the cultural and social diversity of urban residents. Iconic
artworks certainly build an area’s prestige, but are often perceived as alienating,
and provide little basis for identification with the place for local communities.
In this perspective, the democratic character of public art may be linked to its
ability to sustain a space for representation, that is, a space in which groups and
individuals can make their needs and values visible, and therefore recognized
by others (Young 1990). Furthermore, by making the ‘other’ visible, public art
can help to develop a sense of ‘we’ – the sense of commonality that is necessary
for the functioning of democratic politics. One is less likely to take the other’s
claims seriously if one does not consider the other to be a part of the same
community, someone to whom one is linked by bonds of identity or common
interest (Parkinson 2012, p. 74).

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 226  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Two perspectives on art and creativity: modern aesthetics and

the early Greek view
The understanding of art and creativity has remained implicit in our discussion so
far. In this section I will introduce two basic approaches to art, reflecting a dichot-
omy on a meta-level of art discourse. First, the perspective of modern aesthetics
that emerged in the eighteenth century and has been the dominating outlook in art
discourse since then. Second, the theory of art, originating in the ideas of classical
Greek thinkers, which proliferated until the late Renaissance and in the twentieth
century has been revived within hermeneutic phenomenology. These perspectives
are in many aspects irreconcilable – the former focusing on the autonomy of art,
the latter emphasizing its engagement with the audience and external realities.
Aesthetics as a distinct domain of philosophical discourse has relatively
recent origins. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten used the word ‘aesthetics’ with
reference to a domain of knowledge for the first time, defining it as a ‘science
of the perceptions’ (Baumgarten 1735, in Guyer 2007). His major focus was an
empirical study of good and bad taste, defined as the ability to judge according to
the senses, instead of according to the intellect. Immanuel Kant (1790 [1951]),
in his Critique of Judgement, follows Baumgarten and employs the term aesthetic
judgement to denote a non-cognitive judgment of taste. But how can we defend
the validity of an aesthetic judgment without appealing to any rational criteria?
Kant finds a non-cognitive basis of justification in the universality of our mental
faculties: our mental constitution determines which properties/objects we find
beautiful. Nevertheless, not everyone is equally equipped to properly evaluate
art: good taste in this matter has to be nurtured. This implies a privileged posi-
tion of the expert-critic.
Kant emphasizes a radically subjective character of aesthetic experience,
which is based on a free play of mental faculties resulting in a feeling of pleasure
in response to an aesthetic object. The fact that a work of art serves some pur-
pose limits the aesthetic pleasure it can give; genuine art therefore precludes any
conceptual connections. Accordingly, artistic creation is viewed by Kant as an
autonomous self-expression of a genius artist. Genius ‘discovers’ something that
cannot be found through learning, methodological work, etc.
Modern aesthetics liberate art from traditional considerations such as the
content, the subject matter, and the needs and desires of a community, and
provides a basis for formalist approaches, such as the concept of art for art’s sake,
which has also been widely adopted in relation to public art. Yet, as hermeneu-
tic thinkers point out, understanding art solely in aesthetic terms reduces its
essential ethical function: the ability to reveal the common ‘ethos,’ the character
of a given culture and time (Harries 1997). This line of criticism had already
been raised by Hegel (1835 [1964]) in his Lectures on Aesthetics, in which he
writes: ‘The science here referred to does not investigate beauty in its general
signification, but the beauty of art pure and simple’ (ibid., p. 382). Hegel (ibid.,
p. 388) views the very role of art not in the aesthetic delight it provides, but in
its ability to address ‘the profoundest interests of mankind and spiritual truths of
the widest range.’

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 Democracy and communication in public art  · 227

While modern aesthetics represents a highly individualistic vision of creativity

as self-expression, in the earlier understandings creativity was based on the open-
ness towards the world. An artwork that ‘participates’ in the given reality reveals
the world, manifesting its different dimensions. Its guiding idea is c­ ontinuity – it
operates within an established set of cultural references, reinterpreting them in
a contemporary context. In this perspective, a work of art does not only provide
sensuous pleasure, but is aimed at meaningful communication with a wider
audience. The experience of art has a cognitive character: it enhances our under-
standing of reality, contributes to a better self-understanding, and facilitates
communication among individuals.
Such an understanding of art was dominant until the late Renaissance and
originated in the early Greek views, particularly those of Aristotle. The concept
of mimesis (artistic imitation) is here central. Mimesis, as discussed by Aristotle
(335 BC [2008]) in his Poetics, is not a simple reproduction of reality, but has
an essential discursive, productive element. The artist imitating reality in the
artistic medium does not only depict a given phenomenon, but also interprets,
generalizes, draws consequences. Imitating phenomena, art discloses their
essences, such as the nature of happiness or despair. In this, art is related to
philosophy. As Aristotle (ibid., p. 17) argues, ‘Poetry ... is a more philosophical
and a higher thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history
the particular.’
Hermeneutic thinkers are today major advocates of the early Greek view,
arguing that the great works of art do not only provide a disinterested feeling of
aesthetic pleasure, but also reveal the world and help us to understand ourselves
and others. Art concretizes human existence in an artistic medium, and articu-
lates a given community’s worldview and values. It is not driven by the artist’s
aspirations of novelty and uniqueness, but by a desire to rediscover the world as
we apprehend it in lived experience. As Simone Weil (1968, p. 62) reflects, the
great works of art ‘give us, in the guise of fiction, something equivalent to the
actual density of the real, that density which life offers us every day but which we
are unable to grasp because we are amusing ourselves with lies.’ These works of
art are a result of attention paid to the world, and they ‘have the power to awaken
us to the truth’ (ibid.).

Gadamer’s theory of art: play, festival, and intersubjectivity

Discussing the experience of art, Hans-Georg Gadamer introduces the concept
of play. Play is one of the basic functions in human life. It is not limited to
leisure activities, but can also be identified behind cultic and religious practices.
The concept of play can also be applied to the mode of being of a work of art.
Encountering a work of art, aesthetic consciousness becomes a part of a bigger
event that goes far beyond the subjectivity of the observer or the intentions of
the artist. Gadamer (1960 [2004], p. 106) emphasizes the primacy of play over
the subjectivity of players: ‘all playing is being played. The attraction of a game ...
consists precisely in the fact that the game masters the players.’ Similarly, art
demands a real engagement. If we allow ourselves to be lifted by the play of an

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 228  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

artwork, it confronts us with statements no less ‘true’ than academic arguments

(Grondin 2001, p. 44). Thus, in every play there is something like a ‘sacred
seriousness’ – this is the case not only for art, but also for children’s play, sport,
or any social games (ibid.).
Even though every instance of play is different, it has its own fundamental
nature independent of the consciousness of those who play. Yet it reaches pres-
entation (Darstellung) only through players (Gadamer 1960 [2004], p. 103).
Similarly, a work of art is realized in interpretation. Interpretation is the execu-
tion (Vollzug) of the work of art (Gadamer 2007, p. 217). What follows is that
a work of art is never complete, never finished: it remains open to future inter-
pretation. Like play, it includes a form of constant movement and has a certain
‘aliveness,’ contemporaneousness. In trying to limit the understanding of a work
of art to its original context or to the intentions of the artist, we miss the message
it carries. A work of art invites an observer into a conversation, which, like any
genuine dialog, involves mutuality. Hence, the meaning is never complete; it
is open to meanings that may come from future conversations. ‘Not just occa-
sionally but always, the meaning of a text goes beyond its author. That is why
understanding is not merely a reproductive but always a productive activity as
well’ (Gadamer 1960 [2004], p. 296).
In order to access a work of art in the context of a living conversation, we have
to assume that its meaning is not what the author originally said, but ‘what he
would have wanted to say to me if I had been his original partner in conversa-
tion’ (Gadamer 2007, p. 186). A genuine understanding brings the author’s
speech back to life again (ibid., p. 236). Such an experience of art demands a
profound engagement. As Gadamer explains, the players are aware that play is
not serious – that is why they play. Yet, play demands seriousness. ‘Play fulfills its
purpose only if the player loses himself in play’ (Gadamer 1960 [2004], p. 103).
Not only the players, but also the spectators, engage themselves substantially.
Hence everyone involved in play is a participant: there is no radical separation
between the work of art and the audience. Furthermore, a play resists an objec-
tive, disengaged description – transposition into another medium. In order to
understand it, one must join it, ‘play along.’ Accordingly, a person who intends
to evaluate a work of art in a disengaged, objective manner, like an art critic,
misses the real experience of art.
The openness toward the audience does not mean that play is indefinite –
on the contrary, it is a part of the closedness of play (Gadamer 1960 [2004],
p. 109). The identity of a work of art resembles the identity of play: it is open,
but inviolable. The inclusion of the spectator does not disturb it. It is an essen-
tial part of a work of art to engage the audience into a dialog, ‘the genuine
reception and experience of a work of art can exist only for one who “plays
along,” that is, one who performs in an active way himself’ (Gadamer 2002,
p. 26). Like there is no play without an authentic engagement, there is also no
true experience of art.
An authentic experience of art transforms us: we are not left with exactly the
same feeling about life that we had before we entered the museum, listened to
the concert, or read the poem. Such an experience of art has an ability to chal-

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 Democracy and communication in public art  · 229

lenge our customary expectations and to reveal the limitations of our cultural
horizon.
From the hermeneutic perspective, art not only enhances our understanding
and self-understanding; it also has an important intersubjective dimension: it
grounds a communal experience, establishing a shared realm among individu-
als of different backgrounds. Gadamer explains this aspect of art, referring to
the idea of festival. In a festive celebration – any recurrent event of cultural or
religious significance – we are not separated, but gathered together: a festival
unites everyone. ‘A festival is an experience of community and represents com-
munity in its most perfect form’ (Gadamer 2002, p. 39). The unifying charac-
ter of a festival is related to its temporal character: in a festival we transcend
our own, individual, pragmatic time viewed as a resource to be planned and
spent, subordinating it to something that happens in its own time, such as the
Christmas celebration. In contrast with the ‘empty’ time that needs to be filled,
Gadamer (2002, p. 42) calls this type of time ‘fulfilled’ or ‘autonomous’ time: ‘It
is the nature of the festival that it should proffer time, arresting it and allowing
it to tarry.’ A festival does not dissolve into separate moments, but fulfills every
moment of its duration – we experience here the continuity of time, and this is
what draws us together. A work of art has a similar, autonomous temporality, it
imposes its temporality upon us, unifying us and establishing communication.
Referring to theatre, Gadamer (2002, p. 65) writes: ‘The genuine experience of
the enduring festive character of the theatre seems to me to lie in the immediate
communal experience of what we are and how things stand with us in the vital
exchange between player and onlooker.’
It may seem that the festive character of art emerges most fully in dynamic art
practices. However, in its essence it is not so much about a festival as such, but,
rather, about art’s potential to ground a communal experience and establish a
common realm among individuals of different backgrounds. Thus, the relevance
of Gadamer’s theory is not limited to any particular genre of public art. It can be
applied to both static artifacts like sculpture or murals, and dynamic practices
that have across decades developed in many plural directions away from the
physical object. These include performative arts and other types of projects that
have the social, contextual and processual as their core themes.

The lessons for public art

In this section we will summarize the key insights of Gadamer’s perspective as
relevant to public art in the democratic urban context, referring to a well-known
example of public art: the sculpture Alison Lapper Pregnant by Marc Quinn
(Figure 20.1). The 3.5-metre statue was created to occupy ‘the Fourth Plinth’
in Trafalgar Square, London – a site with deeply rooted cultural context. The
plinth was built in 1841 to carry a statue of King William IV, but the statue was
never realized due to lack of resources.
Quinn was inspired by the fact that there was ‘no positive representation of
disability in the history of public art’ (Parkinson 2012, p. 186). On the sculptor’s
website4 we can read that ‘[t]he sculpture celebrates in a very public way the

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 230  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

Source: Courtesy of Marc Quinn (copyright Marc Quinn).

Figure 20.1  Alison Lapper Pregnant by Marc Quinn, 2005

beauty of a different body, and makes us question the narrow binds of accept-
ability into which social norms tend to push us.’ However, he was primarily
drawn to Lapper as a subject because she represented someone who has over-
come their own circumstances through ‘a different kind of heroism’: all other
statues in Trafalgar Square depict public heroes who are men and figures from
the past. He saw the placement of the sculpture on the Fourth Plinth as a ‘monu-
ment to the future,’ celebrating ‘someone who has conquered their own circum-
stances, rather than someone who has conquered the outside world’ (ibid.). Let
us consider the communicative and democratic character of this artwork from
the perspective of Gadamer’s theory.
An important lesson from Gadamer is that the experience of art has a cogni-
tive character: it is a hermeneutic situation in which meanings are mediated
and an understanding emerges. While modern aesthetics foremost appreciate
free, abstract art and encourage highly idiosyncratic formal explorations often
resulting in artworks incomprehensible for an average spectator, hermeneutics
emphasizes the communicative dimension of art and demands a dialog. Quinn’s
statue conforms to this perspective; it has a capacity to address the audience in a
direct way, it makes a claim on us, confronting us with meanings related to body,
motherhood, femininity, disability – not just with sensuous experiences.

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 Democracy and communication in public art  · 231

In Gadamer’s perspective the meaning of a work of art is neither once and for
all determined by the author and waiting to be deciphered, nor freely constructed
by the observer. It is, rather, negotiated between the observer and a work of art;
it thus has a discursive character. This results in a multiplicity of interpretations,
which is very much the case in our example. Quinn’s sculpture initiated a fierce
public debate. For some it was a modern tribute to motherhood, a reinterpreta-
tion of heroism in a dialog with the historic past, or an affirmation of a human
body, while for others it was an inappropriate or even vulgar intervention in
public space. This variety of opinions shows that ‘interpretation is an insertion
of meaning and not a discovery of it’ (Gadamer 2007, p. 181). Nevertheless, the
openness to interpretation is not indefinite – as in the case of play, the identity of
an artwork is open, but inviolable.
Public art in its festive character has a capacity to unify individuals, establish-
ing a common platform for communication and understanding. As Davey (2013,
p. 50) observes, ‘[t]he art work festivises: it reveals our personal indebtedness to
past and future communities of meaning.’ Quinn’s sculpture has displayed this
unifying, festive character by drawing a broad public attention to the theme of
disability and the rights of disabled people in the UK, and opening up a debate
on a number of conventional assumptions.
Why do such representations matter from a democracy perspective?
Democratic norms might lead us to expect that artworks in public space are
relatively representative of the variety of our societies (Parkinson 2012, p. 187).
Yet the society’s representation in public spaces is often highly selective, over-
looking certain subject matters and perspectives. ‘Not only is it rare to see dis­
abled, pregnant, and many other kinds of people represented in public art, it is
also often the case that the symbolic resources of cities speak to some people
and not others’ (ibid.). Beyond representing the social/cultural diversity of
modern societies and challenging customary assumptions, public artworks –
such as Quinn’s statue – can draw our attention to injustices (for example, social
exclusion). They can also contribute to sustaining the sense of ‘we’: addressing
commonalities across the difference. This is an important aspect of democracy,
which requires ‘some appreciation of the fact that my exercise of personal free-
dom can impact on others’ abilities to do the same thing, or impact on the col-
lective resources that we all need to draw on’ (ibid., p. 26). Today’s societies are
often divided into subgroups, viewing only their particular interests and fighting
to maintain privileges, rather than reflecting on common interests with others
and recognizing the needs of the disadvantaged. Communicative public art can
inspire a broader perspective, providing a platform for diverse cross-community
encounters. This aspect of the experience of public art is largely missing in per-
spectives inspired by modern aesthetics, focused on a solitary, personal response
to an artwork and an artist’s self-expression.
The communicative, democratic qualities of public art interventions are cru-
cial in the context of ‘the right to the city’ defined by Lefebvre (1996, p. 168) as
a ‘demand ... [for] a transformed and renewed access to urban life,’ involving a
broad participation in urban life and the appropriation of urban public spaces.
Public artworks, representing a variety of values and perspectives, can help us to

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 232  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

articulate our claims and exercise the right to the city. Interestingly, already in
1970 Lefebvre (1970 [2003], p. 173) argued that ‘the future of art is not artistic,
but urban,’ suggesting the importance of context-specificity and the political
potential of art. These insights confirm the relevance of Gadamer’s approach to
art in contemporary urban contexts.

Notes
1. This is a translation of the Norwegian word ‘utsmykking’ often used in the context of public art commisions.
2. See http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/public-art.
3. See http://www.associationforpublicart.org/what-is-public-art/.
4. See http://marcquinn.com/artworks/alison-lapper.

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 Reviewers

Diedrich Bruns Ana Paricio

Alessandro Camiz Anna Papadopoulou
David De la Peña Bas Pedroli
Elen Deming Martin Prominski
Annegreth Dietze-Schirdewahn Joerg Rekitte
Bill Derman Clare Rishbeth
Kristin Faurest August E. Røsnes
Ellen Fetzer Lone Søderkvist Kristensen
Anne Katrine Geelmuyden Philip Speranza
David Hays Marie Stenseke
Michael Hebbert Simon Swaffield
Wendy Hoddinott Alex Tarr
Paula Horrigan Theano Terkenli
Michael Jones Ian Thompson
Bettina Lamm Catharine Ward Thompson
Jala Makhzoumi Tim Williams
Conor Newman Poul Wisborg
Hannes Palang

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 Index

a-politicism 74, 75, 77 autonomous time 229

Abel, R.C. 53 awareness-raising 91, 169
abstract landscape 150
access/accessibility 81, 106, 120, 126, 143, Bakka hamlet 169–171
144–145, 149, 192, 200 Bakklandet 18, 19
accountability 32, 55, 56 Balkin, J.M. 53
activism 6, 7, 16, 75, 77, 81 Barnett, C. 22
advocacy democracy 22–23 Bauman, Z. 50, 66
aesthetic judgement 226 Baumgarten, A.G. 226
aesthetics, performance of 109–111 Bauwens, M. 55
African American front yards 97–99, 103 beating the bounds 146
agency 115 beautiful landscapes 39, 43, 47
agents, rural landscape governance 154–158 behavioural code of conduct 206
agents of change 45, 140 belonging 30, 45, 67, 81, 86, 210, 225
aggregative democracy 5, 88–89 Besitzergreifung des Rasens 119
aggressive landscape transformation 213 best design 74
agonism 8, 13, 89, 115, 218 Bhabba, H.K. 114
Agora 63, 65 bias, in design 102
Al Harithy, H. 35 Bilbao Effect 110
Alison Lapper Pregnant 229–232 Bleken, H. 19
AlSayyad, N. 67 blessed unrest 53, 57
Angelopoulos Fellowship program 195 bodily enactment, of resistance 144
apartment building protests, Bakklandet 19 bodily memory, and bounding 146
appropriation of space 97, 99, 125, 126, 137, 231 Bollier, D. 55, 57
Arab Malaise 32, 36 bottom-up initiatives 23, 125, 130–140,
Arab Middle East 29–37 178–188, 192–198
Arab Spring 31–32 boundaries 146
archipelago of enclaves 194 Branson, R. 54
Arendt, H. 107 bridging social capital 136, 140, 175
argumentation 7, 13, 91, 197 Britt, A. 67
aristocracy 63 Buen Vivir 55
Aristotle 63, 227 bureaucratic decisions 24
Arler, F. 22, 41, 65, 67, 204
Arnstein, S.R. 64, 79 Campaign for the Protection of Rural England 92
art lobby 223 capitalism 107, 146, 148
assemblage 108–109, 113–114, 115–116 Carothers, T. 29
Association for Public Art 224 Casita project 100, 103–104
Ataturk Cultural Centre 214 centralized decision-making 53
Athens 189, 190, 192, 195 Centre for Landscape Democracy 22
Athens Charter 120, 121 Certeau, M. de 107, 112, 117, 149
Auer, A. 120–121, 122, 126 cities
austerity 192 inclusiveness 66
authoritarian governance 53, 54 modernist architecture, 1900s 128–129
autobiographical approach 16–17 see also Zingonia, storytelling and change

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 236  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

see also urban public space(s); Venetian Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne
metropolitan region (CIAM) 120
citizen power 64, 79 connectivity 194
citizen scientists 136 ‘conquest of the grass’ 119
City Planning According to Artistic Principles 120 consensus 89, 210, 211, 218
City as a Resource 195 conservatism 25, 121, 145, 147
civil society, democracy and planning 3–13 contested spaces 110, 113
climate change 50, 51, 53–54, 56 co-operation 158, 166, 167, 191, 197
Clinton Global Initiative 195 co-operatives 156, 161, 169, 180–181
coalitions, marginalized groups 8 corporate power 148–149
co-authorship 114, 129, 133, 137 Cosgrove, D.E. 39, 42
co-creators/co-creation 81, 91 Council of Europe (CoE) 62, 65, 87
co-determination 22, 41, 65, 88, 153, 204 counter-memorial (Berlin) 111–113
cognitive experience of art 230 counter-publics 107
cognitive closure 4 Critique of Judgement 226
co-habitation 198 crowding (human) 50, 53, 54
collaboration 77, 160, 162, 195, 197 cultural construct, landscape as a 30
collaborative planning 5, 64 cultural context 35, 87, 213, 229
collective action(s) 128, 153, 158, 225 cultural geography 61
collective rights 114, 149 cultural heritage 18, 19, 35, 36, 158, 159, 169,
collectivity-orientation 77 172, 174, 190
common identity 194 cultural identity 86, 113, 192
common interest 225 cultural infrastructures (Greek) 190
commons/common good 35, 41, 46, 55, 62, 63, cultural landscapes 19, 155, 165
64, 66, 204 cultural organisations 160
communal spaces 205 cultural politics 190
communication 20, 77, 87, 197 Currens, B. 52
see also dialogue; negotiation customary use rights 144
communicative action 7, 20
communicative planning theory (CPT) 5, 7, 20, Dahl, R.A. 23
21, 25 Dahlberg, J. 222
community(ies) Dalton, R.J. 22
landscapes and performance of 140 Davey, N. 231
of practice 87, 136, 139 de-professionalization 77
taking charge of its future 133–136 Debord, G. 112
see also democratic community(ies); local decentralisation 175
community decision-making 45, 53, 75, 204, 205
community building 81, 82, 192, 198 see also democratic decision-making;
community design 75, 76, 78, 81, 82, 100, 101–102 participatory decision-making
community experiences 81 degradation 51, 52, 56, 74, 140, 174, 190
competences 153, 155, 156, 173, 174, 175 Degrowth Movement 55
competent practitioners 160 Déjeant-Pons, M. 178, 182
compliance, in planning 8 Deleuze, G. 109
composition, assemblage’s emphasis on 115 deliberative democracy 3, 5, 7, 10, 11–12, 13, 22,
Comuna 13 (Medellín/Colombia) 202–204, 76, 88, 160
205, 207 democracy 17
conflict management/resolution 157, 158, 160, assessment as a forum for 89–90
161, 210, 211 breakdown/denial of 143
conflict model 18, 20 communicative dimension of public art
conflict(s) 8, 19, 20, 51, 89, 90, 109, 145, 157, 222–232
211, 218 de-linking from Western culture 29, 31
conflictual consensus 90 epistemology 62–63

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 Index  · 237

in landscape architecture 74–77 ecological democracy 55, 76, 81

landscape as a reflection of 43–44
in the Middle East 29
need for vibrant clash of views 88
shatter zones and 50–57
social and cultural 181
and trespass 143–144, 147, 148
see also deliberative democracy; landscape
democracy; liberal democracy;
participatory democracy; radical
democracy
Democracy in America 63
democratic community(ies) 43, 78
democratic decision-making 6, 12, 22, 41, 51, 64
democratic deference 78
democratic design 101–102
democratic green 119
democratic landscape see landscape democracy
democratic legitimacy 3, 4, 8, 12
democratic norms 77–78, 231
democratic professionalism 77–82
democratic values 22, 35, 40, 41, 50, 85, 88, 91,
92, 194
demos 3, 6, 36, 55, 57
deniers of climate change 54
Denmark 156, 162
density limits (population) 50
design 3, 75, 76, 81, 102
see also best design; community design; good
design; modernist design; urban design
development 213
dialectic of urban space 108
dialogue 7, 11, 13, 23, 90, 157, 159, 160, 162,
172, 195, 217
digital ethnography 128, 130
direct action 8, 13, 18, 148, 180
direct democracy 6, 22, 89
direct exclusion 225
direct power 3, 6–7, 44
dirigist governance 50, 53
disciplinary values 87, 91
disenfranchised communities 52, 79, 80, 110, 114
dissent 17, 210, 211, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219
Donaupark (Vienna) 119–126
Douzinas, C. 144
dual-track democracy 22
Duncan, J.S. 210
Dutch territorial co-operatives 161
Dzur, A. 77, 78
Ebel-es-Saqi Ecological Park 32–35, 36
Eckersley, R. 55
ecological landscape planning 33
Ecology Collectives 217
economic development 191
economic forces 67
economic interests 4, 6, 20, 29
‘economic plan for Andalusia 1984–1986’, the
182
economic values 18, 20, 144
ecosystem services 156
Edinburgh (Old Town) 20, 21
Egoz, S. 40, 211
Eisenman, P. 111
El Humoso 180–181
elective bodies 24
elites/elitism 54, 63, 64, 223
embodied resistance 147
empowerment 55, 75, 81
enacted discourse, spatializing 111–113
enclosures 146
England 145, 146
entitlement 145
environmental injustice/justice 79–80, 115
environmentalism 21, 35, 145, 187
equality 23, 44, 62, 63, 64, 77, 150
equity 40, 62, 64, 74, 76, 81, 82, 104, 201
Erben, D. 119
Escalas de justicia 182
EU Landscape Democracy Resolution 96, 102
European Council for Village and Small Town
(ECOVAST) landscape identification 92
European Landscape Convention (ELC) 80
definition of landscape 30, 36, 62, 86, 120,
137, 143
importance of landscape assessment 85
landscape democracy 22, 25, 40–41, 162
landscape as a key element of wellbeing 178
landscape quality objectives 45
and public participation 4, 16, 21, 22, 210
everyday life 149–150
exclusion(s) 4, 23, 56, 89, 189, 190, 211, 225
exclusivity 107, 144
experience, with complex developments
161–162
experts/expertise 154, 158–161
expose, in dialectics of urban life 108, 112
external exclusion 4
Facebook 132–133, 138
Fasting, L. 17
‘fellow citizen’ role 154
festival 229, 231

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 238  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

fiduciary responsibility 55, 56 The Green State: Rethinking Democracy and

food cultivation 193, 194, 197, 217 Sovereignty 55
Footdee 17–18 group dynamics 175
Forman, R. 52 Grzimek, G. 119, 126
Foucault, M. 20 ‘The guiding principles for sustainable spatial
Franck, K. 112 development of the European Continent’
Fraser, N. 107, 110, 180, 181, 182, 187 210–211
free spaces 214 Gullvåg, H. 19
freedom 5, 6, 30, 35, 41, 63, 65, 66, 145, 148, 149,
155, 215, 216, 231 Habermas, J. 7, 20, 107, 110
Freedom Park 19 habitable landscapes, reduction in 52
French Revolution 155 Hägerstrand, T. 153, 156
functional city 120 Hajer, M. 224
functional local democracy 165, 166, 167, 175 Hallward, P. 147
functional space 123, 125 Hansen, J. 51
Hanssen, G.S. 4
Gadamer, H.-G. 223, 227–232 harmony model 18, 20
Gambi, L. 43 Harvey, D. 66, 107, 149
Ganz, M. 128 Hawken, P. 53, 57
Garrido, P. 158 Healey, P. 64
gatekeepers 52, 223 Hegel, G.W.F. 226
Geisler, C. 52 hegemonies/hegemonic power 3, 8, 54, 107,
genders, users of Donaupark 125 109, 212
general will 5, 13 Hein, H. 224
generic planning model 8–12 heritage see cultural heritage; Nærøyfjorden
gentrification 67, 110, 190, 191, 193, 195, 197 World Heritage Area; natural heritage
geoengineering 54 heritage conservation 169
geography 61, 145–146 hermeneutics 226, 227, 229
ghetto phenomena 190 heterotopia 108, 112
global ice cover 51 Hetherington, K. 112
global mean sea level rise (GMSLR) 50, 51, 52, High Line in New York City 109–111
53, 56, 57 Hillier, J. 4
Global South 29, 36, 201 Hima 34, 35, 37
global values 46 history 111–113, 145–146
good design 74 holistic social–ecological systems 171
good governance 36, 39, 63 Houen, G. 17
governance housing development, Marinaleda 182–183
climate change and testing of 51 human rights 29, 30, 31, 62, 64, 66, 149, 178,
landscapes as reflection of 43 181, 182, 211
multi-level 167 humanistic perspective 61, 62
non-hierarchical 139 Hurtado, G. 201
shifting from political to economic 31 hybrid landscape/space 99
social learning model 55 hyperreality 108, 110
see also authoritarian governance; dirigist
governance; rural landscape governance ice melt 51
governing bodies 73 identity 30, 86, 110, 113, 114, 140, 145, 192,
Graeber, D. 66, 148, 150 194, 225
graffiti 112, 186 Ilsvikøra 17, 18
Greek cities, cultural and social reactivation of immigrants 100, 130–131, 140, 189–190, 197
189–199 impartiality 22, 65, 88, 159, 182, 204
Greek view of art 226–227 implementation, of plans and projects 157–158
green democracy 54, 55, 57 implicit values 92

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 Index  · 239

inclusion/inclusiveness 3–13, 23, 65, 66, 120, ladder of participation 16, 64, 79
126, 191 Lægren, A.S. 20–21
inclusionary politics 200 land-use decisions, inclusion in 3–13
inconvenient democracy 53–54 Landry, C. 192
indicators, landscapes as 44 landscape(s)
indirect exclusion 225 as a common good 46, 62, 64
indirect power 5–6, 13 and democratic values 50
inequality(ies) 44, 54, 66, 180, 189 democratisation 40–41, 90, 119
informal settlements, upgrading 200–208 design see design
Ingold, T. 150 epistemology 61–62
injustices 79–80, 144, 180, 181, 211, 231 as inclusive public spheres 65
inland barriers, to resettlement 56–57 perceived benefits from 158
insiders 81, 86, 194 perceptions of 47, 61, 86, 87, 90, 137
integration actors 165–166, 171–172, 173–174, planning see planning
175–176 potential of 35
interaction, with others 145 power and making of 145–146
interest creation 162 promotion as a democratic entity 87
internal exclusion 4 as a reflection of democracy 43–44
International Federation of Landscape Architects relation to 86
(IFLA) 41, 73, 96, 102, 204 representations of 87
interpretation (artistic) 231 rhetoric around 86
intersubjectivity 229 society and 96
interventions (public agency) 155 as stage for performance of community 140
invented spaces 211 uses and meaning in informal settlements 201
isolation 144–145, 147 values attached to 18
see also European Landscape Convention
Jackson, J.B. 61 (ELC)
Jacobs, J. 193 landscape architecture
Jefferson, T. 63, 64 and democracy in the Arab Middle East
Jonas, F. 121 29–37
‘just city’ movements 76 democratic professionalism 77–82
justice democratic turn 74–77
landscapes as expressions of 44 governing bodies 73
spatial materialisation of 182–186 invisible and visible lines in 96–105
see also landscape justice; social justice; three post-World War II conservatism 121
scales of justice regulation of 96
role of landscape architects 104–105
Kant, I. 226 social responsibility 73
Kassir, S. 32 social trustee model 74
Kinder Scout Mass Trespass 147–148 societal exigencies 73–74, 76
Kipos3-City 195, 197 landscape assessment 85–93
Klein, N. 54 approaches to 85
‘knowing one’s place’ 146, 147 democratic approach 88–89
knowledge democratisation 93
non-discipline-bound 80, 81 as a forum for democracy 89–90
professional 73, 74, 80, 82 importance of 85
social construction of 8 participation 89, 90, 91
see also local knowledge; situated knowledge; product and process 90–92
true knowledge rhetoric and practice of 87–88
knowledge integrators 81 value criteria for planning 87, 92
knowledge-sharing 197 landscape change
Kothari, A. 55 advantages and disadvantages 46

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final aims 45 local community 10, 155, 156, 157, 158,

storytelling as catalyst for 128–141 159–160, 161
see also agents of change local knowledge 67
landscape democracy 30, 31, 64–65, 222–223 local power 3, 6–7
achievement of 218 loose spaces 194
challenge of 41 Lorenzetti, A. 43
conceptual model of six institutions 23–25 Los Amigos Community gardens 99–101
contemporary theory on 119–120 lots, reclamation of abandoned 100–101
context and nuance 67–68 low elevation coastal zone (LECZ) 51, 52, 53
ELC agenda 22, 25, 40–41, 162 Low, M. 22
experts and expertise in 160–161 Lowenthal, D. 61
framework for 106–114
in informal settlements 204–205 McAreavey, R. 167, 174
landscape architecture 102–104 McKibben, B. 51
physical anchoring of 65–67 Madison, J. 63
public participation 16, 78–79, 120 manager, Nærøyfjorden PL 174
roles and relationships 45–46 Manchester Ramblers’ Federation 148
Southern Lebanon 32–35 Marcuse, P. 108
spatial materialisation of 178–188 marginalized/disadvantaged groups 3, 8, 67, 90,
substantive 44–45 146, 211
terminology 18, 210 Marinaleda (Spain) 178–188
landscape imaginaries 144–145 market forces 24
landscape justice 64, 67, 68 market–state–commons 55
Landscape and Planning (master’s course) material construction 45
18–19 Mazzoleni, G. 133
landscape scale management 166–167 meaning(s) 7, 91, 231
landscape strategy 162 Medellín (Colombia) 200–208
landscape studies 39, 40, 43 media 25
Landschaft 62 mediation 107, 161, 174
leadership 139, 140, 150, 173–174 Meinig, D. 61
Leangen 19 memorial (Donaupark) 125
learning 41, 91, 129, 138–140 Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe
lebensraum problems, elites’ response to 54 111–113
Lectures on Aesthetics 226 memory 110, 111–113, 146, 151
Lefebvre, H. 106, 108, 116, 117, 149, 150, 231, Mendizábal Disentailment 180
232 mental faculties, and aesthetic judgement 226
Lefkou Pirgou Square 192 meta-understanding 90
legal boundaries 169, 173 metaphorical public space 225
Levinson, S. 53 migrants (climate/coastal) 50, 52, 56, 67
Lewis, J. 223 mimesis 227
liberal democracy 3, 5–6, 10, 12, 13, 22, 25 Minang, P.A. 204
liberal intellectuals 64 minimalist approach 6, 13
liberty 64 Mitchell, D. 44, 66, 108, 224
Liebert, U. 22 Mitchell, W.J.T. 213
line of wayfaring 150 mixophilia 66
Linebaugh, P. 146 modern aesthetics 226–227, 230, 231
Lines: A Brief History 150 modernist architecture 128–129, 130–141
Linn, K. 75 modernist design 75, 122
lived experience(s) 54, 86, 88, 89, 132, 227 modernity 146, 150
lived landscape 143, 145, 150 Mödlhammer, V. 121–122
livelihood generation 33, 34 moral commons 55
lobbying 6, 11, 12 moral dimension, to landscape discourse 40–41

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Mortensen, J. 222 outsider 36, 64, 81, 86, 159, 190

Mouffe, C. 5, 7–8, 11 owner role 154
multi-ethnicity 189, 198 ownership 12, 21, 55, 56, 86, 97, 99, 101, 106,
multi-level regeneration 197 144, 156, 195, 225
multicultural proximity 189–190
multidisciplinarity 33, 139 Palazzo Pubblico (Siena) 43
parish map projects 92
Nærøyfjorden World Heritage Area 165, Parking Day (Zingonia) 134
167–176 parklets 193, 194
Naranjo, D. 201 Parko Navarino 192
narrative inquiry 79 parks see Donaupark (Vienna); West Thames
narrative(s) and storytelling 111–113, 128–141 Park (New York)
nationalism 145 Parnet, C. 109
natural disasters 51–52 participatory action research (PAR) 82, 128, 130,
natural heritage 33, 35, 36 133–136, 139
nature conservation/protection 33, 34, 35, 155, participatory decision-making 31, 78, 119
159, 160, 177 participatory democracy 3, 5, 6–7, 10, 13, 21,
Nature’s Trust 56 22
negotiation 10, 25, 81, 114, 145, 157, 166, 167, participatory design 76, 78, 82, 102
171, 173, 192, 194, 204, 205, 207, 231 participatory parity 181
neighbourhood commons 75 participatory planning 4, 20–22, 33, 211
neo-liberalism 20, 21, 29, 31, 65, 106, 109, 148, partnership 132, 133–136, 139, 159
211, 212, 213 paternalism 124–125, 126
network governance 166–167 peasantry 146
New England villages 43 pedagogy 80
new public management (NMP) 20, 21 people 39, 40, 41, 44–45, 63
New York 99–102, 109–111, 148, 193 see also rule of the people; stakeholders; will of
New York Restoration Project (NYRP) 100 the people
Nilsen, D. 17 perceived legitimacy (actor) 174, 175
non-built-up landscapes 206 perceptions of landscape/land 47, 61, 86, 87, 90,
non-discipline-bound knowledge 80, 81 137, 144
non-economic values 18, 20 performance of aesthetics 109–111
non-urban behaviour 206 performance of community 140
nonparticipation 64 performative democracy 53, 148
Norway 16, 17–20, 21, 222 performative utopias 151
Norwegian fjord landscapes 165 perspectives, importance of a spectrum of 139
see also Nærøyfjorden World Heritage Area philosophy 227
physical/cognitive connection, of landscape 143
objectivity 41, 65, 88 physicality, in assessment 90, 92
Occupy Gezi Park 210–219 place, and understanding of landscape 86
Occupy Movement 148, 149, 150, 191–192 placemaking 76, 78, 81, 82, 158, 160, 161, 193,
oligarchy 63 194
Olsen, V. 17, 18 planetary urbanism 212–213, 219
Olwig, K. 44, 62 planning
Olympiapark (Munich) 119, 126 in Norway 18–20, 165, 166
open spaces 205–207 participation in see participatory planning;
oppression 63, 146, 211 public participation
ordinary landscapes 40, 47 power in 4, 75
Orizzonte Zingonia 136 protests against see public protests
other 225 social green in post-World War II 120–122
Ottaway, M. 29 transparent 119
outside issues 204, 207 urban public spaces 183–186, 189–198

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well-functioning and effective 158 privatisation 204, 210, 224

for wicked problems 139 privilege 54, 144
Platform (New Orleans) 113–114 procedural democracy 41, 45
play 227–228 processual nature of landscape 44
pluralism 7, 8, 13, 20, 31, 89, 112, 218 producer role 154
Poetics 227 productive landscapes 134
political interests 125 productivity 207
political justice 181, 188 progress 213
politicize, in dialectics of urban life 108, 112, 114 property lines 99–102
politics, expression in public spaces 125 property rights 63–64, 144
polity 63 propose, in dialectics of urban life 108, 112, 114
polykatoikia 189–190 Prost, H. 214
Pope Meadow 125 protected/non-protected areas (WHA) 169
population growth 50, 52, 128 Proyectos Urbanos Integrales (PUI) 200, 201,
populism 4, 25, 53, 64 204, 206, 207
Porteous, J.D. 19 public agencies 154–155, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161
positionality 81 public art 222–232, 226–227
post-democratic democracy 57 public engagement 64
post-disaster recovery, spatialization of 113–114 public good(s) 55, 73, 75, 77
post-growth democracy 55 public interest design 76
post-World War II planning, social green in public participation
120–122 democracy and planning 3–13, 23, 64, 210
post-World War II towns, challenge of declining the ELC and 4, 16, 21, 22, 210
129 in landscape assessment 89, 90, 91
potentiality 115 landscape democracy and 16, 41, 78–79, 120,
power 126
democratic models and 3, 5–8 limitations of 25–26
expression in public spaces 125 neo-liberalism and unevenness of 106
in landscape architecture 75 spatial materialisation of 182–186
landscapes as expressions of 44 in splendid isolation 144–145
of local institutions 167 in urban design 192
and making of landscapes 145–146 see also ladder of participation
manipulation of landscape imaginaries 145 public protests 7, 12, 16, 24–25
in planning 4, 75 anti-austerity 181
of a redevelopment process 129 designated spaces, Turkey 144
state and corporate 148–149, 190 as enactment 144
of trespass 147–148 public space and 66–67
see also citizen power; hegemonies/hegemonic Trondheim 17–18, 19, 20
power see also activism; Arab Spring; Occupy
power inequality 67, 110, 204 Movement; resistance(s)
power relations 8, 20, 23, 42, 43, 44, 64, 108, public space(s)
171, 190 expression of power and politics 125
power sharing 78 landscape as a concrete realisation of 90
power struggles 212, 213, 215 multi-public model 194
praxis 81–82 public art and 224–225
precariat 146 role in public protest 66–67
prefigurative politics 148, 150 see also urban public space(s)
prestige 74, 121, 225 public sphere(s) 65, 107, 116, 225
primary landscape managers 154, 157, 158–159, public trust doctrine (PTD) 54, 56, 57
160, 161 Purcell, M. 211
Primdahl, J. 154 purpose 81
privacy 145 Putnam, R. 64

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quality objectives 45 Sanderson, S.K. 53

quality of spaces 205 sanitary green 120
quick response workshops 104 Sax, J. 56
Quinn, M. 229–232 Sayyid, S. 31, 34
Scales of Justice 182
radical critique 77, 78 Scarry, E. 39
radical democracy 3, 5, 7–8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 22, 25 scenery, landscape as 61
Radical Ecological Democracy (RED) 55, 57 Schön, D.A. 160
railway terminal protest 19 Schumpeter, J.A. 6
Ramadan, T. 31 Scott, J. 57
Rancière, J. 7 sea level change 50
recreational spaces 207 sea–land–society relationships 53
Red Vienna 120 self-determination 22, 41, 65, 153, 204
redevelopment see urban regeneration/renewal self-organization 125, 180, 190, 194, 198
Rediker, M. 146 self-regulation 73
reflection 77 Selman, P. 173
reflection in action 138 Senie, H. 223
refugees (climate) 50, 51–52, 67 Setten, G. 43
Regional Nature Parks 167 shared place 194
Reijndorp, A. 224 shared/common understandings 90, 91, 92, 167
relational repositioning 81 shatter zones 51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57
representation, art and 225, 231–232 Shearman, D. 54
representational agency, of public space 108 Shrivastava, A. 55
representations of landscape 87 Sintagma Square 192
representative democracy 21, 22, 53, 89, 119 Sitte, C. 120
republican tradition 5, 7, 13 situated knowledge 79
resistance(s) 50, 144, 147, 149 situated resistance 144
resources 53, 180–181 Slettan, D. 17
respect 22, 41, 64, 79, 187, 204 Smith, J. 54
right to landscape, the xix, xxii, xxix, 30, 65-67, Smith, N. 107
96, 99, 101, 149, 151, 178, 182, 187, 210, social activist design 76
213 social capital 65, 129, 130, 136, 140, 175,
right to narrative 114 191–192
right to participate 126 social change 66, 80, 197–198
right to place 114, 117 social constructionism 8, 40, 41
right to the city 66, 76, 106, 107–108, 116, 149 social and cultural democracy 181
Rimstigen trail 171–172 social dimension, democratic landscape 44–45
road building 52 social green 54, 119, 120–122, 126
road plan (Bakklandet) 18 social justice 30, 35, 39, 40, 41, 43, 62, 64, 65, 67,
Rørtveit, H.N. 43 68, 75, 115
Rossiter, C. 53 social learning model 55
Rothman, B. 147–148 social lines 97–101
Rotvoll 19 social network analysis 136, 140
Rousseau, J.J. 5 social responsibility 73, 76, 77, 80–82, 139
royalty 63 social trustee model 73, 74, 77, 78, 79, 82
rule of the people 63, 64 social turn, in landscape studies 39, 40
rural landscape governance 153–162 social-led regenerations 192–198
socially engaged practice 76, 80, 81, 82
Sager, T. 20, 21 society and landscape 96
Saglie, I.-L. 4 Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon
Sandel, M. 66 (SPNL) 33, 34
Sandercock, L. 129 soft strategy 194

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 244  ·  DEFINING LANDSCAPE DEMOCRACY

solidarity 66, 192, 218 Thorpe, M. 223

space(s) three disabilities of terror 146
the common good and significance of 66 three scales of justice 180–181, 187–188
competition over 53 Tocqueville, A. de 63
of protest/dissent 144, 211 tokenism 64
spatial–material constructions 110 top-down consultation 24
and the understanding of landscape 86 tourism 33, 34, 45, 165, 166, 169, 171–172, 190,
see also appropriation of space; public space(s) 191, 222, 225
space of appearances 107 transdisciplinary partnership 139
spatial competences 153, 155, 156 transformative power 7–8
spatial openness 125 transnational agreements 16
spatial strategies and tactics 107, 114, 117, 149 transparency 12, 13, 86, 93, 119, 126, 187
Speak, S. 201 trespass 143–144, 147–149, 151
spectacle, urban space as 108, 109–111, 112 Trondheim 16, 17–20, 21
splendid isolation 144–145, 147 true consensus 89
stakeholders 20, 21, 44–45, 67, 90, 195 true knowledge 87
Starbucks, student occupation of 219 true landscape democracy 162
state power 148–149, 190 trust 162, 167, 173, 175, 191, 196
Statoil 19 trust resources 56
Stehr, N. 53, 54 Tuan, Y.F. 61, 86
Stenseke, M. 21 tyranny 63
Stephan, R. 119
Stevens, Q. 112 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
stewardship 33, 37, 56, 96, 101, 102, 129, 133, 50, 57
143 United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon
Stockholm International Peace Research (UNIFIL) 32
Institute 53 United States 43, 97–102, 103, 104, 109–111,
storm surges 51 113–114, 145, 191
story lines 97–99 Universal Declaration of Human Rights
storytelling 128–141 (UDHR) 62
street art 186, 225 urban agriculture 193, 194, 195, 197
streetscapes 193, 194 urban conservation 17, 18
strong democracy 89 urban design 122–125, 134, 192
subjectivities 86, 192, 227 urban functions 207
substantive democracy 41, 42, 43, 44–46 urban public space(s)
sustainability paradigms 76 framework for landscape democracy
Svartlamon 19–20 106–114
symbolism 43, 66, 100, 121, 122, 140, 186 planning 183–186, 189–198
SynAthina 193 and social ideals 119–126
urban regeneration/renewal 107, 109, 115, 128,
tacit values 92 129
tactical urbanism 192, 193, 194 influences on, Trondheim 21
Tahrir Square 66–67 informal settlements, Medellín 200–208
Taksim Solidarity 216, 218 protests against, Trondheim 17–18
Taksim Square 66, 144, 213 social capital 191
Tarlabatan 219 social-led 192–198
Taylor, B. 223 in transitional neighbourhoods 110
technical professionalism 75 see also Zingonia
temporality 8, 229 urban tribes 194
territorial competences 153, 155, 156 urbanisation 42, 149
Thessaloniki 189, 190, 192, 195 urbanism 189, 192, 193, 194, 197, 211, 212–213,
thick description 128 219

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 Index  · 245

user involvement, in design 119 wellbeing xxii, 30, 34, 40, 44-45, 62-65, 96, 121,
utopian colonizing schemes 54 178, 181, 211
West Thames Park (New York) 101–102, 104
values Western culture 29, 31, 36, 63
cultural and artistic 223 Westfalenpark (Dortmund) 123
endogenous production of 31 Weston, B.H. 55
environmental 187 wicked problems 68, 129, 139
landscape assessment and 85, 87, 88, 91, 92 Wiersholm, D. 222–223
urban 201 will of the people 22
see also democratic values; economic values Williams, R. 106
Vanoli, M. 140 Winnick, W. 148
Venetian metropolitan region 42, 47 witness, landscape as 43
Verdellino 132, 133, 136–137 Wladar, J.O. 121–122
Vienna’s Donaupark 119–126 Wood, M.C. 56
visual storytelling 132–133, 138 world-life place, landscape as a 61
Vivir Bueno en Medellín 206
voting, indirect power through 5–6 Young, J.E. 111, 112

‘Walking in the city’ 112 Zingonia da Colorare 136

water refugees 51 Zingonia, storytelling and change 128–141
Weil, S. 227 Zingonia UniverCity 136

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