Landscape in the Interaction Order explores the concept of landscape as a product of
heterogeneous human practices and the life activities of other organisms. I argue that
conventionalized understandings of landscape as visually integrated scenes obfuscate the
labor and myriad material and semiotic practices that produce “landscapes.” As an
alternative, I advocate that landscapes should be perceived as emergent outcomes of vast
sets of practices and interactional happenings. By attending to these practices and
interactions we are confronted with philosophical questions about the nature of social
engagement, the operations of working bodies in political ecologies, and our
responsibilities to develop livable worlds. In so doing, landscapes escape the fixity and
background status of scenery and emerge as developmentally consequential relational
structures that are of the utmost matter of concern.
Through this political and ontological reconfiguration of the landscape concept, I
challenge notions of intentionality, the meaning of human engineering, and categories of
nature and culture. This work prompts consideration of the importance of responsive
collaboration (however asymmetrical) inside worlds of cultural and species differences
that are necessarily flush with an infinity of non-living forces.Master of Science (MS)Natural Resources and EnvironmentUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78210/1/Landscape in the Interaction Order.pd
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