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Perceptions of place and of landscape often clash. Based upon a decade of intermittent yet ongoing ethnographic research which explores the UK's Cornish peninsula, this volume investigates the social construction of landscape identity from a diversity of conceptual perspectives influenced by contemporary anthropological theories as well as recent developments within the fields of visual and material culture studies.
List of contents
Contents: Landscapes on the Margins of Modernity - Art and Literature Analysis - Contours of Identity - Speaking of Landscapes - Contrasting Culture - Death Defining - Conclusions, Where difference Lies.
About the author
Patrick Laviolette teaches anthropology in the Estonian Humanities Institute at Tallinn University. He holds a Masters in Human Ecology from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD in Anthropology from University College London.
Report
«In this richly documented book Patrick Laviolette offers a distinctive perspective on metaphor and landscape in the creation of cultural identity. Situated intellectually within a panorama of postmodern sources and the critique of the politics of representation, the work is intentionally fragmented, highlighting juxtaposition, cultural paradox and some of the parodies of social distinction in the Duchy of Cornwall. Laviolette's novel take on the anthropology of landscape foregrounds pastiche in a manner that is both provocative and insightful.» (Dr. Eric Hirsch, Reader of Anthropology and Head of Department, Brunel University, London)
«Within the scope of a multi-sited project, this monograph explores how cultural metaphors of identity get embedded and materialised into the social and geographical landscape. Patrick Laviolette's study is a nuanced, compelling and handsomely illustrated account of the regional dimensions of culture, especially as this relates to wider concerns for Western European ethnography and the anthropology of landscape.» (Professor Andrew Dawson, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne)
