A new definition of the concept of cultural landscape based on its formation process

Authors
Parastoo Eshrati 1
Pirooz Hanachi 2
1 Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture, School of Art and Architecture, Shiraz University, Iran. (Corresponding author)
2 Professor, School of Architecture, College of Fine Arts, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Abstract: Early people had made groups on the world and formed the first basis for group life in this way. The interactions of groups with nature occurred separately from the personal ones. Therefore, not only groups of people got affected by nature; but also the untouched nature recorded some footprints of peoples› lifestyles and was not anymore untouched. This interaction between indigenous people and nature over time shaped the cultural landscape as a secondary phenomenon. Although lots of definitions have been presented for this concept, there has not been any inclusive and exclusive definition based on cultural landscape formation process and being regardless of time and geographical and cultural context in order to bring attention to the many and complex aspects of this concept. Therefore, by reviewing and analyzing documents and theories as well as using qualitative research method and content analysis strategy, this paper seeks to achieve a level of understanding about this concept to determine the alphabet for cultural landscape recognition in order to present a new definition for it. To approach the main objective of this paper, redefining the cultural landscape; two main components affecting the formation of cultural landscapes, nature and culture, should be taken into consideration. Having a precise look at cultural landscape literature, it is indicated that two components, in different approaches and as a result with various terms; have formed the basis for cultural landscape definition. In spite of many applicable definitions in geographical and cultural contexts; the necessity for presenting a redefinition for cultural landscapes that have the capacity to be generalized based on their formation processes has been understood. In order to approach the proposed definition, refining the basic concepts in formation processes of cultural landscapes and choosing the most comprehensive key words are investigated. Cultural landscape is known as the result of interaction between people and nature. But the question is that which nature? The initial untouched nature? Or the touched one? And the more important question is that what is called as nature? Is it the environment? Or the ecosystem? Or something else? Having a brief look at cultural landscape definitions and explanations, it can be understood that many words used as synonyms with regards to this issue; are not in fact synonyms; and this occurs due to lack of fixed and correct definitions and consensus on them. By examining the words used as equivalents of the word nature in current definitions of cultural landscape and analyzing them from the point of view of this paper, considering the fact the word “nature” is believed to be untouched from human being interventions, emphasizing on the influence of human in the word “landscape”, not using the phrase “geographical context” widely and colloquially, and the ambiguity of the phrase “environment” regarding the amount of human intervention; in this paper, applying these words and phrases are avoided. The word “ecosystem” owning to its comprehensiveness in covering universe phenomenon and offering a clearer position of human being, has been chosen as the alternative for the word nature. On the other hand, with putting emphasis on the fact that cultural landscape resulted from group interaction, and not individual ones with nature; the need for paying attention to the issue of culture becomes obvious. Having highlighted that the aim of this paper is not presenting a definition of culture; the four channels of knowledge of ecosystems, including science, philosophy, mysticism, and religion as the four main components of culture formation are introduced. After that, the position of the four channels of ecosystem recognition in the culture is defined. Thus, the formation process of cultural landscape based on the four channels of knowledge is refined in a scheme that becomes as the underlying layer for redefining cultural landscape based on its formation process. In this paper, science refers to “ethnic knowledge”. Ethnic knowledge is referred to those kind of information that have been achieved by indigenous people of a specific area about their ecosystem or have gained from other ethnic groups and nationalities. The indigenous people have applied them in their practical knowledge during filtration, which has its own process and does not fit in the range of the question of thisresearch. The indigenous knowledge is used in order to enable or facilitate the possibility of inhabitancy in the geographic environment for that people, with certain beliefs and traditions, and therefore it can be called “indigenous applied knowledge”. The second channel is philosophy. It refers to that of indigenous people rather than great philosophers’ opinions; as in science, indigenous knowledge attracted more attention than great theatrical breakthroughs. The third component is mysticism. The purpose of mysticism is “to recognize the quality of human life” and as two quantitative and qualitative dimensions used to be and are integral; so, whether it is paid attention to or not, mysticism exists in every moment of human life. Religion is the fourth component. Religion refers to a set of rules and orders that have been revealed through revelation for the divine prophets. These rules have had a great role in shaping cultural landscape of societies. Thus, the formation process of each cultural landscape is presented on a scheme that its key components are the four channels of knowledge toward the ecosystem, the ecosystem and culture. Considering the proposed scheme, cultural landscape is redefined in this paper as followed: cultural landscape refers to that part of the gregarious interaction of indigenous people of a micro-ecosystem with it; those people have gained a common understanding toward the entire ecosystem and the micro-ecosystem over the passage of time and consequently have established a common culture. Moreover, they have left objective (tangible) or subjective (intangible) signs in that micro-ecosystem as a result of their interaction that can be recognized by being subjected to careful scrutiny. The main advantage of the proposed scheme and the definition of cultural landscape of this paper is the ability to produce diverse outputs and thus the identification of cultural landscape products in different natural and cultural contexts.

Keywords

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