Landscape and Identity: Geographies of Nation and Class in England

by Wendy Joy Darby

In England, perhaps more than most places, people's engagement with the landscape is deeply felt and has often been expressed through artistic media. The popularity of walking and walking clubs perhaps provides the most compelling evidence of the important role landscape plays in people's lives. Not only is individual identity rooted in experiencing landscape, but under the multiple impacts of social fragmentation, global economic restructuring and European integration, membership in recreational walking groups helps recover a sense of community. Moving between the 1750s and the present, this transdisciplinary book explores the powerful role of landscape in the formation of historical class relations and national identity. The author's direct field experience of fell walking in the Lake District and with various locally based clubs includes investigation of the roles gender and race play. She shows how the politics of access to open spaces has implications beyond the immediate geographical areas considered and ultimately involves questions of citizenship.

224 pages, Hardcover

Published October 1, 2000

Reviews

[Malcolm · Rating 3 out of 5]

The English have a self image of a strong relationship with the landscape, with the physical place of England as its countryside; the plethora of woalking groups, the importance of walking holidays, the emergence of youth hostels, the important political struggles over access to the countryside are all issues that a particular model of Englishness hangs on. I noticed this as an immigrant, and in my pat of england, the Cotswolds, this self image is powerful. But it is also localised, possibly generational, certainly class-linked, and has a different hold in the cities, towns and countryside. Darby explores this and unpacks the significance of the countryside through a usefully conplex text where she draws on histoeical evidence, literary sources and ethnographic investigation. It provides important insights into a form of Englishness.

[Diana180]

I love this book, by an independent scholar who apparently taught in a private school, because it explains in great detail the English ideology that ordinary people should appreciate landscapes and contribute to their upkeep without being made welcome there. Conservationism, tragedy of the commons arguments, rights of way, all explained. Particularly good are the sections on working-class and women's walking societies. The author did participant observation as well as records research. This is one I'll read again.