The LandBruk seminar series is open to all who are interested in, or curious about the Nordic region and various forms of land use. It is possible to attend the seminars in person or on Zoom.
Language
This seminar will be held in English. The discussion will be in English, Danish and Norwegian.
Abstract
How are rural landscapes and soil valuated, in both an economic and social sense? How are landscape values negotiated by local landowners and public managers? And what role does storytelling play in landscape appraising and transformation processes?
These are questions to be explored in a paper drawing on ethnographic material from a so-called multifunctional land consolidation project in the river valley of Nørreådalen in central Jutland. The case forms part of an industrial PhD project concerning storytelling and the co-creation of future landscapes in rural Denmark. With a very short time to respond to the global biodiversity and climate crisis and divergent land use demands, the concept of multifunctional landscape planning has gained traction as a method of yielding space for both agriculture, recreation, biodiversity, GHG reduction, rural development and ground water protection. Consequently, projects initiated by public agencies and local municipalities, based on landowner voluntarism, are currently reversing historical ways of governing the landscape.
The paper argues that contesting landscape values are enacted in the multifunctional land consolidation process. Here, the involved actors use storytelling to express their values and to make their appraising proliferate.
About LandBruk
LandBruk (LandUse) is a group of researchers and students associated with the NorLab research group, who come together to discuss anthropological perspectives on land-use in the Nordics.