Ecological Restoration and Place Attachment: Emplacing Non-Places?

Author: Drenthen, Martin

Source: Environmental Values, Volume 18, Number 3, August 2009 , pp. 285-312(28)

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Abstract:

The creation of new wetlands along rivers as an instrument to mitigate flood risks in times of climate change seduces us to approach the landscape from a 'managerial' perspective and threatens a more place-oriented approach. How to provide ecological restoration with a broad cultural context that can help prevent these new landscapes from becoming non-places, devoid of meaning and with no real connection to our habitable world. In this paper, I discuss three possible alternative interpretations of the meaning of places and place attachment in these 'new nature' projects, and show how all three imply a different view on human identity and history.

Keywords: environmental hermeneutics; ethics of place; legible landscape; water management; Postmodernity

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.3197/096327109X12474739376451