Contested Terrain

Differing Interpretations of Co. Wicklow's Landscape

Bibliographic Data

ID8083201
AuthorsEamonn Slater (0000-0002-2801-6392, St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, corresponding author)
Year1993
Volume3
Issue1
Pages23-55
Publication date1993-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueIrish Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0791-6035 • E-ISSN: 2050-5280
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/079160359300300102
OpenAlexW2578376089
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited9

This paper looks at how Irish landscape was interpreted in the mid 1800s, when modern tourism in Ireland began. It attempts to discover the ideological structures present in this appreciation of Irish landscape, and it does so in relation with the Hall's description of Co. Wicklow landscape. It argues that there are two ‘socially constructed’ ways to read Irish landscape, the picturesque and the oral interpretations, which create senses of detachment and attachment respectively to the local terrain. It explores in this context how the picturesque corresponds to the way an outsider wishes to gaze upon a landscape, either as a colonialising landlord or as a tourist. Although the picturesque excludes human work from its vision, it was manufactured in the demesnes of the landlord class according to compositional techniques. But the ideological structure of the beautiful aspect of the picturesque excludes the native people who actually live in the landscape, because they are seen as a source of disharmony. The native gaze, on the contrary, creates a sense of attachment to the local place

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Context (archaeology · Gaze · Geography · Ideology · Irish · Landlord · Linguistics · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Relation (database · Sociology · Tourism · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Philippine History and Culture · Psychology · History · Law · Philosophy

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