“SCENOPHOBIA”, GEOGRAPHY AND THE AESTHETIC POLITICS OF LANDSCAPE “SCENOPHOBIA”, GEOGRAPHY AND THE AESTHETIC POLITICS OF LANDSCAPE doc

“SCENOPHOBIA”, GEOGRAPHY AND THE AESTHETIC POLITICS OF LANDSCAPE

© The author 2007
Journal compilation © 2007 Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography

203

“SCENOPHOBIA”, GEOGRAPHY AND THE
AESTHETIC POLITICS OF LANDSCAPE

by
Karl Benediktsson

Benediktsson, K.,

2007: “Scenophobia”, geography and the aes-
thetic politics of landscape.

Geogr. Ann

., 89 B (3): 203–217.
ABSTRACT. Recent critiques of the nature–culture dualism, in-
fluenced by diverse theoretical stances, have effectively destabi-
lized the “naturalness” of nature and highlighted its pervasive and
intricate sociality. Yet the practical, ethical and political effects of
this theoretical turn are open to question. In particular, the em-
phasis on the sociality of nature has not led to reinvigorated en-
vironmental or landscape politics. Meanwhile, the need for such
politics has if anything increased, as evident when ongoing and,
arguably, accelerating landscape transformations are taken into

account.
These concerns are illustrated in the paper with an example
from Iceland. In its uninhabited central highland, serious battles
are now being fought over landscape values. Capital and state
have joined forces in an investment-driven scramble for hydro-
power and geothermal resources to facilitate heavy industry, ir-
revocably transforming landscapes in the process. Dissonant
voices arguing for caution and conservation have been sidelined
or silenced by the power(ful) alliance.
The author argues for renewed attention to the aesthetic, in-
cluding the visual, if responsible politics of landscape are to be
achieved. Aesthetic appreciation is an important part of the eve-
ryday experiences of most people. Yet, enthusiastic as they have
been in deconstructing conventional narratives of nature, geogra-
phers have been rather timid when it comes to analysing aesthetic
values of landscape and their significance, let alone in suggesting
progressive landscape politics. A political geography of land-
scape is needed which takes aesthetics seriously, and which ac-
knowledges the merit of engagement and enchantment.

Key words:



social nature,



landscape politics,

landscape aesthetics,
scenic values, Iceland, Kárahnjúkar power project

Power politics: an introductory story

You do not have to be interested in the high-
lands or nature at all – If you are interested in
earthmoving machinery, then this is heaven!

1

The hills are alive with the sound of diesel engines.
At Kárahnjúkar, in the northeastern highland of Ice-
land, the visitor is left gobsmacked. Anyone seek-
ing tranquility and solitude would feel well and tru-
ly out of place here these days. Relentlessly, the yel-
low-coloured bulldozers, excavators and dump
trucks work their way through the terrain (Fig. 1).
Mountains are being moved – literally. One of the
country’s most furious, dirty and powerful glacial
rivers is being dammed and diverted from its im-
mense canyon through 50 km long tunnels to a val-
ley further east, where an underground power sta-
tion is under construction. Tall, grey, electricity py-
lons are also being planted in that valley, towering
over the humble birch trees. In a fjord not far away
on the east coast, an international army of labourers
is constructing a very large aluminium smelter.

Owned by the American multinational Alcoa, the
smelter is supposed to bring an abundance of jobs
and general well-being to this previously stagnant
part of Iceland. A true “megaproject” is taking
shape. It involves large corporate actors such as the
US aluminium company Alcoa and the contracting
firms Impregilo and Bechtel, headquartered in Italy
and the US respectively. The “developmentist” Ice-
landic state is also a major player,

2

promising cheap
energy – and lots of it – to Alcoa, and to the global
aluminium industry at large.
In the process, some remarkable landscapes are
being irrevocably transformed. Although the larg-
est of its kind, the Kárahnjúkar project is only the
latest, albeit probably not the final, chapter in a long
history of struggle for the landscapes of Iceland be-
tween the interests of capitalism and conservation.
Most hotly contested are the landscapes of the cen-
tral highland. In fact, the scramble for resources has
greatly intensified in recent years, fuelled by the im-
pending privatization of the power industry. The
value of those landscapes is being determined in
powerful units that are widely respected: mega/
giga/terawatts; and ultimately in monetary units
that are widely understood: dollars, euros, krónur.
Those arguing for caution and conservation have

been effectively sidelined by a public relations ma-
chine second to none, orchestrated by Lands-
virkjun, the national power company.
In a highly competitive market economy under
the conditions of globalization, is there any space
for alternative visions and valuations of landscapes,
besides and beyond the economic bottom line? If
found to be lacking, can that space be created? Can
academics – geographers, for instance – play a role
in bringing it about?
As for myself, the Kárahnjúkar saga has made

KARL BENEDIKTSSON

© The author 2007
Journal compilation © 2007 Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography

204
me think long and hard about these very questions.
Let us not beat about the bush. My own personal
sentiment is probably clear already, but I will state
it here just in case: I am simply appalled by what
to me seems a short-sighted, unsustainable and
recklessly exploitative project, decided upon in an
undemocratic manner, which will in no way guar-
antee the socioeconomic future of the communi-
ties in whose interest it is purportedly undertaken.
I am also, and no less so, appalled by the landscape
transformations wrought in this part of my coun-
try, which was not so long ago largely without di-

rect evidence of human energies,

3

but with the en-
ergies of the various forces of nature all the more
visible.
Geographers – myself included – were in fact
conspicuously absent from debates about the poli-
tics of landscape conservation concerning the Ká-
rahnjúkar project. Others fought the battle against
the project – a motley crew of committed environ-
mentalists of many persuasions, but not least art-
ists, ranging from painters and writers to actors and
musicians. That battle was eventually lost. It seems
to me that part of the answer to the curious silence
of critical human geographers (and many others
from the social sciences and humanities, albeit with
honourable exceptions; see e.g. Jónsson 2003
2004;

°

orgeirsdóttir 2005) lies in the way in which
critical geography has in recent years tended to
sidestep the admittedly complex issue of landscape
aesthetics. To some extent, I would argue, this is
due to the very success of recent (and much-need-
ed) theorizing about the ambiguous nature of na-
ture.

Socialized nature and its politics

The sharp distinction between nature and society/
culture has been one of the central planks of the sci-
entific endeavour for centuries, which is not sur-
prising given the self-evident status this distinction
has occupied during Western cultural history, espe-
cially since the times of Descartes and Bacon (Gla-
cken 1967; White 1967; Latour 1993; Harvey
1996). It is only in the past few decades or even
years that this dualism has been subjected to extend-
ed critique and indeed effectively destabilized in re-
cent theorizing (see e.g. FitzSimmons 1989; Mac-
naghten and Urry 1998; Goldman and Schurman
2000; Haila 2000; Castree and Braun 2001; De-
meritt 2002; Castree 2004). The resultant “sociali-
zation” of nature has been influenced by a number
of theoretical strands. Roughly speaking, three
main positions may be identified.
The first highlights economic relations: the

pro-
duction

of nature (Smith 1984). This is evident in
the valuations placed on nature’s material manifes-
tations as resources and as raw material, as well as
space for locating various “productive” activities.
Marxist theorists have been among those most

prominent in the new analysis of nature. Somewhat
contradictorily, this is the one part of social theory
Fig. 1. Landscapes transformed:
The building of Kárahnjúkar dam,
July 2005.
Source: www.karahnjukar.is.

“SCENOPHOBIA”, GEOGRAPHY AND THE AESTHETIC POLITICS OF LANDSCAPE

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Journal compilation © 2007 Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography

205
which has always insisted that nature is social
(Smith 1984; Pepper 1993; Harvey 1996), yet has
been accused of utter neglect of issues relating to
the natural environment, save for nature’s values
for economic accumulation processes. For Marx,
the application of human labour to nature was a fun-
damental process in the formation of social rela-
tions, which is the essence of the idea of “produced
nature”. In practice, analysis of the social – or rather
the economic – was nearly always foregrounded in
Marxist analysis, or, as Castree (1995) puts it, the
‘materiality of produced nature’ was underplayed.
The important interjection of FitzSimmons (1989)
served as a wake-up call which has fed into an in-
vigorated political ecology of either more Marxist
flavour or less (Bryant 1992; Peet and Watts 1996;
Arsel 2002; Hagner 2003; Porter 2004; Trudgill

2004).
The second position emphasizes the social and
cultural

constructions

of meaning in nature. They
include, of course, a plethora of sociocultural valu-
ations, manifested in items as diverse as the orna-
mental plants many of us spend a great deal of time
tending in our manicured gardens, and the tender
blisters which the highland traveller has to deal with
at the end of a strenuous day of hiking.
The social constructionist work about nature has
been strongly influenced by the “discursive turn” in
social sciences in general. Instead of taking off from
a solid ground of ontological and epistemological
realism, it has questioned the “reality” of nature,
highlighting instead the diversity of meanings and
symbols associated with and afforded by nature: na-
ture is only made knowable through the use of cul-
turally coded concepts. Much of the academic at-
tention has accordingly been directed towards ana-
lysing the historical evolution of the various cultur-
al conceptualizations of nature. A particularly
pertinent example, given the central issue of this pa-
per, is Cronon’s dissection of the concept of “wil-
derness”, which has indeed animated much of the
conservation discourse in Iceland in recent years
(Benediktsson 2000). The “cultural logic” inherent

in the spaces of conservation has also been similarly
analysed elsewhere, for instance, in Sweden (Mels
1999, 2002).
As frequently happens, the basic idea of socially
constructed nature has been transformed into sever-
al distinctive lines of thought. In an attempt to clarify
the debate, Demeritt (2002) usefully distinguishes
between two major forms of constructionism. First
of all, he points to constructionist rhetoric being
used simply as a device for unsettling some “truths”
or widely accepted knowledges about the “natural”
state of things. This is in itself not particularly rad-
ical in terms of epistemology, as it more often than
not entails a realist view of knowledge and its refer-
ence to the “real world”. The aim then is simply to
replace an allegedly “false” version with a “true”
version of the story in question. Often there is a po-
litical agenda, – hidden or explicit, radical or con-
servative – behind such accounts. It has certainly
been put to work in the Icelandic highland debate,
both sides accusing each other of misconstruing and
misinterpreting the “facts”.
More fundamental constructionist critiques of
the concept of nature itself, according to Demeritt,
are those that discuss its philosophical underpin-
nings. Such philosophical critiques can take many
forms. One type of critique puts stress on the inter-
subjective construction of social reality and the in-
sistence upon separating that reality from actual
physical conditions. In other words, the concern is

to unravel through empirically based exposition the
conditions surrounding the varied claim-making
activities which relate to nature and environmental
issues. A group of constructionists has looked spe-
cifically at how scientific knowledge is constructed
through negotiations taking place within scientific
communities. Some of these sociologists of scien-
tific knowledge have articulated a strong, ontolog-
ically idealist position, in effect insisting on the
complete bracketing of “reality” – physical as well
as social – in favour of conventionalism. Not far
away is a version which Demeritt (2002) calls “dis-
cursive constructionalism”. Its advocates pay spe-
cial attention to issues of power and discursive prac-
tices in the making of stories about nature, as well
as the effects that such narratives have. As for what
kind of progressive politics might follow in the
wake of such a deconstruction, suggestions have
been somewhat modest. A book devoted to the sub-
ject (Castree and Braun 2001) thus simply ends
with the advice that the inevitability of “paradox”
be acknowledged (Proctor 2001; see also Proctor
1998).
Turning now to the third major group of academ-
ics working in the borderlands between nature and
society, the actor-network theorists are in some re-
spects the most radical. They go a step further and
speak of active and mutual

co-construction

of so-
ciety and nature. In this case, nature is envisaged as
an active agent in the strange and hybrid entangle-
ments – or

collectifs

(Callon and Law 1995) – of
which the world is made, not merely as a neutral
object on which humans can scribble their cultural

KARL BENEDIKTSSON

© The author 2007
Journal compilation © 2007 Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography

206
meanings and/or rework into monetary values.
These theorists insist on a relational, “flat” ontolo-
gy in which humans, plants and animals, and inan-
imate things – society and nature – are equal co-
constituents of the events that make up the world
(Callon 1986; Latour 1993; Callon and Law 1995;
Law and Hassard 1999). The attribution of “agen-
cy” to non-humans as well as humans is central.
Suddenly, a plethora of potential actors/actants, in-
animate as well as animate – scallops (Callon
1986), trees (Cloke and Jones 2001, 2003, 2004),
rivers (Eden

et al

. 2000), walking boots (Michael
2001) and so on – appear in an active role in net-
worked assemblages which compose an ever-shift-
ing world, not merely as a passive backdrop to hu-
man actions. Agency is not a capacity possessed
but an outcome of negotiations taking place be-
tween heterogeneous participants in networked re-
lations.
While the provocative “radical symmetry” of ac-
tor-network theorists has not been uncritically cel-
ebrated by everyone (cf. Collins and Yearley 1992;
Vandenberghe 2002), it is no exaggeration to say
that ANT has stimulated a more nuanced story tell-
ing about the world. For the purposes of this paper,
the question is not least about its political implica-
tions. Castree and MacMillan (2001) reason that ac-
tor-network theory would find purely social con-
structionist politics of nature just as untenable as the
realist politics it seeks to destabilize. Instead, a ‘hy-
brid politics of nature’ is advocated, to be based on
relational ethics (Whatmore 2002). Politics of na-
ture should not, Castree and MacMillan argue, be
centred on a select few purified spaces of defined
geographical extent, such as those officially desig-
nated as “wilderness” or other protected areas, as
‘these spaces are neither wholly natural nor merely
zones where certain social actors impose their cul-

turally specific ideas of what nature is supposed to
be’ (Castree and MacMillan 2001, p. 221). Howev-
er, they do not see the strong version of ANT, which
insists on a completely equal treatment of human
and non-human actors (or actants), as leading to re-
sponsible politics of nature. Instead they advocate a
“weaker” form of ANT, which admits:
that power, while dispersed, can be directed
by some (namely, specific ‘social’ actors)
more than others; and that a politics of nature
attuned to the needs and rights of both human
and natural entities must ultimately be orches-
trated through putatively ‘social’ actors.
(Castree and MacMillan 2001, pp. 222–223)
To sum up: in different ways, these varied theoret-
ical developments have destabilized the “natural-
ness” of nature and highlighted its pervasive and in-
tricate sociality. Similarly, many other dualisms fa-
miliar to geographers have been exposed as shaky
at best or destructive at worst: rural–urban; place–
space; subject–object. Dualistic thinking is well and
truly out of fashion, in academia at least, and justly
so in these muddled and postmodern times. For our
purposes, the absence of concern with the visual is
remarkable, however, in discussions of social na-
ture.

Landscape in geography: from “scopophilia”
to “scenophobia”?

Similar to that supremely important and overarch-
ing concept of

nature

, the old geographical chestnut
–

landscape

– has been prised open. While German-
ic and Nordic usage of the word (i.e.

landskap/
Landschaft

) has to some extent retained an earlier
meaning of polity, as discussed below, its primary
association – certainly in the anglophone world –
has been with the visual. The very mention of land-
scape automatically led one to think about a vista or
scenery. It conjured up an image of someone – a
geographer perhaps – standing on a hilltop and gaz-
ing into the distance. A sharp distinction was main-
tained between the viewing subject and the viewed
object. The re-theorization of nature and dissolution
of the subject–object dualism has led to a marked
retreat of the visual paradigm in landscape geo-
graphy. The critiques of the visual emphasis have
been of several different, albeit related, kinds. I will

now present a selective review of these critiques, to-
gether with some counter-arguments.
First, the “landscape-as-scenery” approach im-
plicit in the above description has been faulted on
grounds of being simplistic and superficial. Accord-
ing to many critics, it is a gross oversimplification of
the complex sensory and experiential encounters be-
tween people and landscapes. I agree wholehearted-
ly in principle. There is a great deal more to human
encounters with nature in general, and to landscape
appreciation more specifically, apart from and be-
yond what the visual sense affords. Even so, I want
to probe this a little. My main reason for concern is
the boundary work often discerned in the writings of
those who argue in this way, between “us” (academ-
ics) and “them” (the public). Quite often, one dis-
cerns a touch of elitism in the writings of those who
oppose “the scenic” on grounds of shallowness.
Take, for instance, the comments made by a person

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Journal compilation © 2007 Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography

207
who, incidentally, was central in taking up aesthetics
of nature as an academic issue in the 1960s:
If we want to attach very high value to the ap-
preciation of natural beauty, we must be able

to show that more is involved in such appreci-
ation than the pleasant, unfocused enjoyment
of a picnic place, or a fleeting and distanced
impression of the countryside through a tour-
ing-coach window, or obligatory visits to
standard viewpoints or (should I say?) snap-
shot-points.
(Hepburn 2001, p. 1)
This seems to imply that everyday experiences,
such as those of the picnicker and – heaven forbid
– the coach tourist, cannot be expected to yield the
same depth and quality of appreciation as does more
rarefied academic contemplation. The tourist gaze
is construed as trivial, not serious (cf. Urry 1990;
Crawshaw and Urry 1997).
This essentialization of the tourism experience
hardly does justice to the plethora of practices and
performances found under the rubric of tourism (cf.
e.g. Crouch 1999; Coleman and Crang 2002; Bær-
enholdt

et al

. 2004; Cartier and Lew 2005). Even
coach tourists can and sometimes do have some
quite profound experiences when confronted with
unfamiliar and startling landscapes which they find
moving, as my friends who have worked as tour
guides have repeatedly told me (cf. Leddy 2005 for
an interesting discussion of nature appreciation

from within the car). As for photography specifical-
ly, recent work has shown that this quintessential
tourist activity is all but simple (Crang 1997; Craw-
shaw and Urry 1997) – and in fact it is about many
things other than visual representation (Larsen
2001, 2005). The act of photographing is an ‘em-
bodied experience’ (Crang 1997). We might also do
well to keep in mind that the appreciation of nature
and landscapes is

always

mediated by technology
of some sort or other (Leddy 2005), not only sophis-
ticated optical or electronic gadgetry, but also more
mundane technology such as the boots on one’s feet
(Michael 2001; Ingold 2004).
Second, the term

landscape

has itself been ac-
cused of serving as merely a visual “masque”, di-
verting attention from much more “substantive” is-
sues (Olwig 1996). The inherent “duplicity of land-
scape” (Daniels 1989) endows the concept with the
‘capacity to veil historically specific social rela-
tions behind the smooth and often aesthetic appear-
ance of “nature”’ (Cosgrove 2004, p. 68; see also
Mitchell 2000). Many authors have seen reason to

dwell at length on the complex and intriguing his-
torical evolution of the landscape concept, from its
Dutch/German roots into English and other Ger-
manic languages. The most extensive of these dis-
cussions are found in Olwig’s work (1992, 1996,
2002, 2005). According to Olwig, the original
meaning of

Landschaft

in the Germanic cultural
realm was that of a territorial polity, which entailed
certain rights and duties for those living within its
bounds (see also Setten 2003 for the “Nordic” con-
text); a meaning Olwig terms “substantive” as op-
posed to the scenic (by implication insubstantial?)
meaning which later took hold, especially in Eng-
land, i.e. of a visual representation of a particular
kind, or a ‘way of seeing’ (Cosgrove 1984).
This analysis is a highly pertinent and valuable
reminder of the complexities which frequently lurk
behind apparently simple and straightforward con-
cepts. However, a rather restricted geographical
reference is noticeable in the writings of Olwig and
others about these conceptual developments, as
there has been little discussion of corresponding
concepts in non-Germanic languages, let alone
non-European languages. This renders much of this
discussion rather one-sided and even self-centred in
cultural terms. I also profess to having some doubts

regarding the continued need for extended etymo-
logical expeditions, at least in rather well-mapped
Northern European linguistic territory. Philological
interests notwithstanding, a present-day scholar in
this part of the world has to confront the fact that
everyday understanding of the landscape concept
among the common folks

does

tend to emphasize
the scenic aspect.
It may be helpful to put this in my own cultural
context. Taking Germano-centric linguistic analy-
sis a little further while we are at it, the emphasis
on visual characteristics may be even more pro-
nounced in the use of the term

landslag

in the Ice-
landic language than with

landscape

in English,
and certainly more so than in the case of the Ger-
man

Landschaft

. Although the

-lag

suffix does in-
deed relate to the legal sphere (cf. Olwig 1996),
those antiquated connotations have been rather
thoroughly forgotten by the people who are putting
the concept of

landslag

to use in various ways in
contemporary Iceland. What matters for an analy-
sis of the present, I argue, is not only the genealogy
of the concept and its varying trajectories in the
past, but also how that concept is put to work “on
the ground” in contemporary society, through eve-
ryday use and practices.

KARL BENEDIKTSSON

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208
The third set of criticisms of the visual under-
standing of landscape relates to the pretensions in-
volved in attempting to achieve a “detached” as-

sessment of landscape by analysing its scenic char-
acteristics. Such presumptions about detachment
and objectivity have been accused of woefully eras-
ing the history which is surely always part and par-
cel of the landscape. Past power struggles and ideo-
logical meanings associated with the landscape are
overlooked. Such an approach therefore, it is ar-
gued, has a disempowering effect on local inhabit-
ants, at worst obliterating them from the history of
the landscapes in which they live and from which
they make their living.
History provides many instances of this. A par-
ticularly good example of such analysis is provided
by Cronon’s (1996) careful interrogation of the
concept of “wilderness” – a concept which has an-
imated conservation practices particularly in North
America and Oceania, but also to some extent in
Europe. Probing its meaning in the North American
context, Cronon traced the intricate cultural history
of this concept, which has come to stand for any-
thing but culture in the conservation discourse. Far
from being a space somehow beyond human soci-
ety, “wilderness” was shown to be laden with a vio-
lent past and some very particular ideologies, most
notably that of the “frontier”. This analysis touched
a raw nerve, provoking a host of less than sympa-
thetic responses from conservation-minded people
(see e.g. Cohen 1996; Hays 1996; Curry 2003; Crist
2004), many of whom saw his work as a disabling
and dangerous critique. It might be noted that the

paper was written at a time when the blatantly eu-
phemistic concept of “wise use” was being touted
by corporations eager to get their teeth into hitherto
relatively pristine areas in public ownership in the
USA.
Cronon’s argument about wilderness is very
clearly a social constructionist one. It might be not-
ed that the emphasis on scenic beauty of landscape
has also been attacked from the opposite position –
that of natural science and ecosystem analysis

4

– as
unable to serve as a guide to responsible treatment
of landscapes. Ecosystemic health of a particular
landscape may have nothing at all to do with the
aesthetic pleasures afforded by that landscape. So,
the reasoning goes, we might simply have to forgo
the aesthetic in favour of the ecological; an ‘“eat
your spinach” mode of persuation’ as Saito (2004,
n.p.) aptly puts it. Alternatively, taking their cue
from Aldo Leopold’s “land aesthetic”, which runs
parallel to his “land ethic” (Callicott 1989), some
theorists argue that it is the aesthetic judgement that
is wrong. Our culture should learn to appreciate aes-
thetically those landscapes that are ecologically
sound. Leopold’s land aesthetic thus:
emphasizes less the directly visible, scenic as-
pects of nature and more the conceptual – di-

versity, complexity, species rarity, species in-
teractions, nativity, phylogenetic antiquity –
the aspects of nature revealed by evolutionary
and ecological natural history.
(Callicott 1989, p. 240)
Therefore, what is needed is a reformed “aesthetic
of the unspectacular”. A noble thought for sure, for
which I have great sympathy, but a great deal of
“cultural engineering” would probably be required
to achieve such a goal. This applies both to ethics
and aesthetics – as Harvey (1996, p. 120) has some-
what wistfully observed, ‘Leopold’s land ethic
would necessarily entail the construction of an al-
ternative mode of production and consumption to
that of capitalism’.
This apart, considerable ecological knowledge
would be needed to discern between aesthetically
worthy and unworthy landscapes under such an aes-
thetic paradigm. Who should be the judge? Sepän-
maa (1993) proclaims that ‘the correct basis [for en-
vironmental aesthetics] is given by contemporary
scientific knowledge’ (p. 78) and that ‘lay opinion
cannot carry the weight of that of an expert’ (p. 88).
This is also the gist of the well-known “natural en-
vironmental model” of aesthetics advanced by Carl-
son (1997, 2001), who assigns a central role to nat-
ural scientists in matters of aesthetic judgement
about nature: to properly appreciate a landscape’s
visual appearance, one has to know the formative
processes which brought it into being. This is much

too narrow from my point of view. Apart from being
philosophically questionable as several authors have
shown (Carroll 1993; Heyd 2001; Brady 2003; Led-
dy 2005), it carries the very real possibility of exclu-
sion of those from non-scientific backgrounds, even
if such “lay” and/or local people may have intimate
knowledge of, and deep moral connections with, the
landscape in question. Farmers are an obvious case
in point (cf. Setten 2002, 2004, 2005).
Last but not least, the fall from grace of the vis-
ual paradigm in landscape studies has been rein-
forced by a forceful criticism of geography’s long-
standing “ocularcentrism” from a feminist stand-
point. More than a decade ago, Rose (1993) fa-
mously accused geography in general of “aesthetic

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209
masculinism” and, specifically addressing the cen-
trality of landscape, asserted that ‘[t]he pleasures
geographers feel when they look at landscape are
not innocent … but nor are they simple’ (Rose
1993, p. 88). She linked the geographers’ “phallo-
centric gazing” at landscape to an exercise of male
power over feminized nature. Needless to say, this
blunt critique proved uncomfortable to many ge-

ographers. One might, however, note that other
feminist geographers have warned of the essential-
ization inherent in assuming a single male/female
gaze (Nash 1996).
Don’t get me wrong: I do think that all the cri-
tiques mentioned above have a valid point to make.
The dualism of nature–society and the hegemony of
the scenic had to be dethroned. Yet there may – as
always in conceptual critique – be a danger of suc-
cumbing to the baby-bathwater syndrome. Geo-
graphers seem to have flipped over from rampant
“scopophilia”

5

to rather pusillanimous “scenopho-
bia”. The socialization of nature has had the unfor-
tunate side-effect of stifling serious discussion
among geographers about the aesthetic politics of
landscape.
There is no denying the importance of the visual.
What is more, there is no escaping the inherently

political

quality of the visual; of imagery; scenery;
landscape (cf. Mitchell 2000). As an eminent geo-
grapher (although not speaking specifically of land-
scape) puts it, ‘images are a key element of space
because it is so often through them that we register

the spaces around us and imagine how they might
turn up in the future’ (Thrift 2003, p. 100).
My contention is that a serious engagement with
the visual, couched in the terms of a more general
philosophy of aesthetic engagement, should actual-
ly be an indispensable part of a landscape geogra-
phy which purports to have something to say about
the politics of landscape. The question I would like
to pose next is: What kind of aesthetic philosophy
might best further the cause of an invigorated poli-
tics of landscape?

Reasserting the importance of landscape
aesthetics

A fine mess we’re in, Jackie
A clearing in the bush
The trees are all tangled up,
and they’re the wrong shade of green.
(Don McGlashan: ‘Jackie’s Song’.
The Mutton Birds,

Rain,
Steam and Speed

1999)
A number of possible options are open to geogra-
phers for getting themselves out of the fine mess
they’re in with regard to the politics of landscape.
The simplest of course would be to put up an am-

biguous grin, continue with suitably opaque textual
gymnastics designed to impress fellow academic
travellers, and let the great roadshow of capital-
driven landscape transformations continue its glo-
bal tour unchecked. Landscape is just a matter of
dubitable social constructions anyway, isn’t it? As
the reader should have gleaned by the reading thus
far, I consider this path of “academic least resist-
ance” to be untenable and equal to playing dead in
both an ethical and aesthetic sense.
Another option, and one which has received con-
siderable attention, consists of following Galileo’s
famous dictum, to ‘make measurable that which is
not measurable’. Notwithstanding the contradiction
inherent in this exhortation, repeated attempts have
been made to establish an aesthetic reference for
landscapes in observable and recordable “facts”.
The Visual Resource Management methods devised
in the United States for managing federal lands are
a case in point (Bureau of Land Management 2003).
They involve the delineation and mapping of geo-
graphical units that are rated and ranked according
to various criteria pertaining to scenic quality, sen-
sitivity to change, viewing distance and so on and
analysed through overlay techniques. Similar meth-
ods have been devised in other countries, including
Canada (cf. critique in Dakin 2003) and Australia.
In Iceland, this option for dealing with landscape
has, belatedly, gained some momentum. In 1999,
work towards a ‘Master Plan for Hydro and Geo-

thermal Energy Resources in Iceland’ was started,
modelled on similar planning undertaken earlier in
Norway. Under the watchful eye of the Ministry of
Industry, four groups of experts started assembling
data about potential energy projects, and their en-
vironmental and socioeconomic impacts (Land-
vernd 2004). One of these groups – dealing with
natural and cultural heritage – took up the formida-
ble challenge of assessing landscape values and im-
pacts. The group consisted mostly of natural scien-
tists. A complex methodology ensued, based in part
on methods for scenery management developed in
the USA. Numerical values were systematically as-
signed to various landscape features, which were
intended to reflect aesthetic values (Rammaáætlun
um n

=

tingu vatnsafls og jar

√

varma 2002). These
were combined into a single “rating” which was
then weighed against four other criteria with the
help of a formal decision-making methodology –

KARL BENEDIKTSSON

© The author 2007
Journal compilation © 2007 Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography

210
the Analytical Hierarchical Process – to arrive at a
relative measure of the importance of natural and
cultural heritage in the areas that would be affected
by the proposed projects. The various alternatives
could then be objectively compared, or so it was
reasoned, in terms of their landscapes.
Now, in pragmatic political terms there is much
to be said for this sort of work. The basic sentiment
is laudable: the process was obviously intended to
give landscape a “weight” hitherto denied in the
corridors of decision-making. Questions loom
large, however. To the social scientist, the “objec-
tivity” of a process such as this is obviously highly
debatable, as the methods clearly mask a great
number of subjective judgements. Once again,
numbers were supposed to work their magic of ob-
jectification (cf. Rose 1999). Landscape values ar-
rived at through “disinterested” methods could
hence be brought to a table at which more classic
measures of Nature’s worth, such as measures of bi-
odiversity, had been allocated a seat already.
But even if objectivity was the goal, the expert
group stopped short of attempting to translate this
evaluation into economic calculation. The exercise
nevertheless generated considerable interest and
was well received – by nearly everyone except for

the power industry and its political protagonists.
The overall political effects were somewhat less
than spectacular. The authorities in fact seemed to
lose interest as soon as the results of the first phase
of the master plan had seen the light of day: those
projects already started or supposed to be the next
in line actually came out the worst in this evalua-
tion, all things considered.

6

In my reading, this story serves to illustrate that
plain empirical realism does not seem to offer much
promise for a philosophically sound and politically
astute geography of landscape, any more than does
slick constructionism. For that, geographers need a
language which would enable them to converse with
the general public about heartfelt aesthetics matters.
Visual values are bound to be central in such a con-
versation. Shorn of simplistic emphasis on “the pic-
turesque”, the visual sense will continue as one of
the major ingredients in an aesthetic appreciation of
landscapes, if not

the

major ingredient, given the
everyday flavour of the landscape concept.
As an academic problem, the aesthetics of Na-
ture and landscapes is a field of many contested the-

ories, but several threads of discussion are found in
environmental philosophy which may be very help-
ful for that purpose. Some have already been men-
tioned. Broadly speaking, philosophers working
with environmental aesthetics have adopted either
a stance of “disinterested” judgement, often associ-
ated with Kant ([1790] 2000; see also Lothian 1999;
Brady 2003), or an opposite pose of “engagement”
and “existential insiderness” (cf. Bourassa 1991).
The evaluation methods described above obviously
presuppose that aesthetic judgements are made by
detached observers who do not allow non-aesthetic
interests to intrude. But how reasonable is such a
presupposition? Many people think it is not reason-
able at all (e.g. Bourassa 1991; Berleant 1992,
1997; Heyd 2001; Fenner 2003). Instead of the
Kantian ideal of “disinterestedness”, many of these
authors look to American pragmatist philosophy for
a basis, notably that of Dewey (1929, 1934).
Dewey’s project is holistic; he argues against the
separation of body from mind, or of humans from
nature (McDonald 2002). Shusterman (2000) draws
attention to the central importance of what he terms
“somatic naturalism” in Dewey’s approach: in a
similar vein as Nietzsche, Dewey emphasizes the
bodily or somatic basis of the aesthetic. Shusterman
also sees his views as compatible in this regard with
the work of Foucault and Merleau-Ponty, for both of
whom the body was central. Central in his theory is
the concept of “aesthetic experience”, which has a

common-sense, intrinsic appeal, although some-
what complex and difficult to pin down precisely.
Such an experience has a beginning and an end:
Dewey speaks of aesthetic experiences as “consum-
matory experiences” which offer a deep apprecia-
tion of the relatedness of things and persons:
Experience … is heightened vitality. Instead of
signifying being shut up within one’s own pri-
vate feelings and sensations, it signifies active
and alert commerce with the world; at its height
it signifies complete interpenetration of self and
the world of objects and events. Instead of sig-
nifying surrender to caprice and disorder, it af-
fords our sole demonstration of a stability that is
not stagnation but is rhythmic and developing.
(Dewey 1934, p. 23)
An aesthetic experience is moreover made up of
many strands of sense and emotion. It follows that
it is not tenable to attempt to isolate single strands
of the aesthetic experience as a whole and assign to
them a specific role as carriers of aesthetic signifi-
cance, as attempted, for instance, in the various “ob-
jectivist” landscape assessment methods that have
been devised. On the contrary, the aesthetic sense
cannot be divorced from everyday life and practic-

“SCENOPHOBIA”, GEOGRAPHY AND THE AESTHETIC POLITICS OF LANDSCAPE

© The author 2007
Journal compilation © 2007 Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography

211
es. In opposition to Kant, Dewey does not think that
judgements of aesthetic beauty can or should be re-
moved from all considerations of function and use.
Instead he reasons that aesthetic value lies in:
satisfying the live creature in a more global
way, by serving a variety of ends, and above
all by enhancing our immediate experience
which invigorates and vitalizes us, thus aiding
our achievement of whatever further ends we
pursue.
(Shusterman 2000, p. 9)
Dewey himself was mainly concerned with art,
but subsequent authors have taken his ideas in
several distinct directions. Particularly notewor-
thy, in my judgement, is Berleant’s phenomeno-
logically based “aesthetic of engagement” (Berle-
ant 1992, 1993, 1997; see also Bourassa 1991;
Brady 2003), which has strong affinities with
Dewey’s pragmatist aesthetics. Berleant insists
that aesthetics be “participatory”, and strongly op-
poses the separation between subject and object.
The appreciator should be acutely aware of the
context in which s/he interacts with the landscape,
not in order to eliminate this context, but to high-
light the value of deep and varied relations indi-
viduals have with landscape and nature.
This is clearly a very different viewpoint from
that of the emphasis on scientific knowledge found

in Carlson’s “natural environmental model”, out-
lined above, and indeed from the objectivist lean-
ings of much current landscape appreciation work
in political circles. A consistent political corollary
of the aesthetic of engagement would be the crea-
tion of a discursive space where multiple, nuanced
and inevitably contextual stories and appreciations
of landscape are respected. Fenner, comparing the
“detachment” position with that of “engagement”,
is sure that the latter holds more political promise:
[I]f the point is to move aesthetic attenders to
realise obligations on their part to defend and
protect natural areas and objects, then clearly
the greater call to action, or constraint of ac-
tion, is found through the model of greater in-
timacy, interest and relationship between na-
ture and humans.
(Fenner 2003, p. 7)
Similar themes to those of Berleant are taken up by
Heyd (2001), who makes compelling claims for
multi-vocal story-telling. He believes there is a very
real danger of closing the doors for meaningful and
ethical politics of Nature, if the natural science mod-
el of appreciating landscapes becomes entrenched:
[I]n many cases scientific knowledge may be
neutral, or even harmful, to our aesthetic appre-
ciation of nature, because it directs our atten-
tion to the theoretical level and the general
case, diverting us from the personal level and
particular case that we actually need to engage.

(Heyd 2001, p. 126)
Carroll (1993, p. 254) likewise stresses the capacity
of Nature to provide moving emotional experiences
of considerable richness, ‘where our cognitions do
not mobilize the far more formal and recondite sys-
temic knowledge found in natural history and sci-
ence’. Thus, we need ‘an account that focuses on our
capacity to become emotionally moved by nature’
(Heyd 2001, p. 125). It is not reasonable, however,
to demand that all senses are equally engaged at
once (Leddy 2005). Without necessarily prioritizing
“the scenic” in general terms, it is perfectly possible
to refer to a particular sense – the visual – in account-
ing for why one is emotionally moved in a particular
context.
So, the world needs more stories of Nature and
landscapes – stories which could and should have
political significance by virtue of their very exist-
ence (cf. Cronon 1992); stories that have their roots
in a diversity of sensual experiences in nature: vis-
ual, aural, olfactory, somatic. Geography is itself a
riotous discipline of many and diverse narrative tra-
ditions. Geographers should be well placed to tell
such stories about the beauty of landscape, and, just
as importantly, to argue for their being respected in
the halls of political and economic power.
I now want to get back to Kárahnjúkar in the
northeastern highlands of Iceland, and consider
some of the stories which were told about natural
beauty in the struggle between conservationists

and developers – stories in which the visual land-
scape figured prominently.

Kárahnjúkar: visual stories and their effects

Solemn silence reigns in Iceland’s highest and
most rugged wilderness … the birds fly silent-
ly across, they have nothing to seek there and
so speed across the deserts. It could be said
that nature is dead and fossilized, with neither
animal nor plant life able to persist.
(Thoroddsen 1908, p. 165)

KARL BENEDIKTSSON

© The author 2007
Journal compilation © 2007 Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography

212
It is enough to look at photographs of the
land which is to be submerged to feel pain in
the heart. This pain is not measurable, which
may be irritating for the men with the meas-
uring instruments. Without wanting to deni-
grate measurements, not everything is meas-
urable. We have neither been able to measure
the length of love nor the circumference of
God.
(Jökulsdóttir 2002, p. 38)
Nearly one hundred years separate these two quo-

tations. Basing his assessment on his extensive trav-
els in the highlands of Iceland in the late nineteenth
century,

°

orvaldur Thoroddsen

7
tells of a bleak
landscape – a “wilderness” of biblical propor-
tions, with characteristics of terror, mystery and
intrigue. Writer and environmental activist Elísa-
bet Jökulsdóttir, writing in an Icelandic newspa-
per during the height of the Kárahnjúkar contro-
versy, also invokes religion, albeit in a very dif-
ferent manner, in order to show the folly of one-
dimensional engineering evaluation.
The photographs that moved Jökulsdóttir’s
heart occupied quite a central role in the national
discourse for a while. Some of the country’s most
prominent photographers joined in the debate on
the side of conservationists, telling visual stories
of a part of the highlands which very few Iceland-
ers had actually visited. Particularly notable was
the work of Jóhann Ísberg and Ragnar Axelsson.
Outdoor enthusiast and nature photographer Ís-
berg systematically photographed much of the
area in 2002. His photos were published on a spe-
cial website (Iceland Nature Conservation Organ-

isation 2002) and have been widely used by those
attempting to mobilize resistance to the Kárahn-
júkar project. He has now turned his attention to
other parts of the highlands that are being consid-
ered for hydropower development. Axelsson, an
acclaimed photographer and photojournalist
working at Iceland’s largest newspaper Morgun-
bla√i√, prepared a photo essay entitled Landi√
sem hverfur (The land that will disappear). The
essay was published late in 2002 in three Sunday
issues of the newspaper, the photos accompanied
by short captions highlighting both the landscape
and biological conditions, and what would be lost
if the project went ahead. The photographs were
subsequently exhibited in Reykjavík’s major
shopping mall. They generated a lot of public in-
terest and commentary, such as that by Jökulsdót-
tir quoted above. Many people seemed to be gen-
uinely moved. Even the editor of the conservative
newspaper was moved as well, judging from edi-
torials he wrote following the publication.
The pictures taken by both of these photogra-
phers went beyond the conventional representa-
tions of the picturesque and the sublime; of grand
vistas, formidable canyons and waterfalls found
in all pictorial accounts of the highlands (Haf-
steinsson 1994). While amply illustrating the
large-scale land forms and the overall scenic char-
acter of these landscapes, the photographers jux-
taposed this with smaller and gentler features,

their photos revealing a great variety of colours,
natural forms and forms of animal and plant life.
This surprised many viewers who had not had any
close encounters with the area and assumed that
it was simply a grey and lifeless desert – a some-
what similar assessment to that of Thoroddsen in
the early twentieth century, but without the mys-
tery. Rock formations, rivers, birds and animals
appeared in these haunting photographs as
glimpses of violated landscapes, the visual lan-
guage silently exposing the shaky ideological
premises of the hydropower project. A philoso-
pher and cultural critic observed that Axelsson’s
photos really were:
a reflection on a world that was – nature al-
ready sentenced to death in the name of inter-
ests which nobody is totally certain are the
real interests in the long run. … The decision
has been made, but the sacrifice is neverthe-
less obvious: a sacrifice of life. It therefore
looks as if those who make the decision –
those who speak for rationality, those who
speak for industry and economy – have to
make a leap of faith in the end: carry out the
sacrifice in the blindness of one who really
does not know what the future holds yet puts
trust in one’s religious conviction.
(Ólafsson 2003, pp. 80–81)
One photograph, or rather one motif, proved par-
ticularly capable of moving hearts and minds. This

was a very distinctive rock (Fig. 2), situated right on
the bank of the river, at the bottom of the future res-
ervoir behind the dam at Kárahnjúkar. Located in a
spot very seldom visited by human travellers, this
rock formation had been almost unknown previ-
ously except to a few farmers from the valley be-
low. Axelsson’s photo effectively highlighted the
anthropomorphic features of the rock. The caption
to the photo invoked a connection with folklore:
“SCENOPHOBIA”, GEOGRAPHY AND THE AESTHETIC POLITICS OF LANDSCAPE
© The author 2007
Journal compilation © 2007 Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography
213
The mean-looking stone troll is one of nature’s
many artworks in the area. The troll, who is a
little higher than a human, is on the western
bank of Jökulsá and looks towards the east.
(Axelsson 2002, pp. 10–11)
The photo became an instant hit. Conservationists
found in this visually arresting figure a potent icon-
ic symbol; a silent spokesperson who turned out to
be particularly effective in conveying the message
that the Kárahnjúkar project was an affront against
Nature and landscapes. The anthropomorphic
stone figure who “stood guard” on the river bank in-
vested the landscape with a moral purpose. Inter-
estingly, following the initial publication of Axels-
son’s photo,
8
the figure was not generally presented

as a ‘mean-looking stone troll’ but was referred to
in somewhat gentler terms as ‘Einbúinn vi√ Jöklu’
(the hermit at river Jökla) or ‘Gljúfrabúinn mikli’
(the great gorge dweller), hinting at mental forti-
tude and invoking romantic sentiments, with strong
references to the old visual category of the sublime.
This was “romancing the stone” through photo-
graphic means.
Now, it would be simple to dismiss these sen-
timents as irrational emotion brought forth by
simple photographic propaganda techniques, and/
or as yet another example of how landscape and its
representations are never an “innocent” tabula ra-
sa, but always a social construction (Hafsteinsson
1994; Friday 1999). But this would be to miss the
point somewhat. Indeed, a critical deconstruction
is both possible and appropriate. The power of the
photographs was the result of plain scenic attrac-
tiveness of the landscape seen through the eyes of
the general Icelandic public, as well as of refer-
ences to natural history, mythology and national-
ism. A particular space was being produced and
animated through their conscious use. But what I
precisely wanted to highlight was the power of a
story of landscape told with visual means to bring
about deep emotional feeling (which is not to be
taken lightly, even if that is all too often the case)
and to activate moral sentiments of care. A story
which, for a while, provided an effective and
much-needed counterpoint to the reductionist sto-

ries of engineering prowess and economic returns,
that had dictated the terms of the debate about
these landscapes.
But back to the stone hermit by the river. Con-
servationists and their opponents alike were
stunned when Morgunbla√i√ told its readers in
May 2005 that he had ceased to stand his guard,
felled by the river itself some time during the pre-
vious winter. To many, this seemed highly symbol-
ic of the defeat suffered by Iceland’s conservation-
ist movement in its struggle against the corpora-
tions and “power politicians” during the Kárahn-
júkar conflict.
Conclusion
What I have tried to argue in this paper is that, de-
spite dubious past connotations with superficiality
and lack of substance, critical geographers cannot
afford to dismiss the importance of the “scenic” – of
Fig. 2. ‘The hermit by the river’. Source: Published with the permission of photographer Ragnar Axelsson.
KARL BENEDIKTSSON
© The author 2007
Journal compilation © 2007 Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography
214
sensing and interpreting Nature in visual ways –
when thinking and writing about landscapes. Rather
than shy away from the visual substance of land-
scapes on grounds of a timid and ill-founded “sceno-
phobia”, a geography of landscape is needed which
takes visual values seriously, while simultaneously
acknowledging the experiential complexity of land-

scape appreciation. The “scenic” is an indispensable
part of a more comprehensive aesthetic of nature
which, in accordance with the Deweyan approach,
does involve all senses and indeed the body as a
whole (cf. Lund 2005). Attendance to the visual
does not necessarily have to lead down the well-
trodden path of objectification and detachment. On
the contrary, it is a necessary part of democratic and
inclusive politics of landscape where there is room
for various interpretive takes. This is not to argue for
a new metanarrative about universal aesthetic values
and how to account for them. On the contrary, I con-
cur with Godlovich (1998, p. 184), when he states:
[t]here is no one final fitting affective or in-
tellectual response, no definite hedonic or
cognitive payoff, and with that no authorita-
tive prescriptions from some master-race of
nature critics and connoisseurs to be fol-
lowed obediently by some underclass of adu-
latory bumpkins.
An “aesthetic of engagement” in the manner pro-
posed by Berleant (1992, 1997) does acknowl-
edge the emotional part of the aesthetic experi-
ence, which is subjective through and through.
But does this translate well into a politics of land-
scape? Well, it could and should: ‘Emotions pro-
vide us with a vital means of attunement… to a sit-
uation. And they have a message. They are what
matters’ (Thrift 1999, p. 314). Part of the project
of a politically astute landscape geography would

also be to reveal the subjective and emotional con-
tent of the ostensibly “detached” sciences of en-
gineering and economics, which usually provide
political decision-makers with “objective” ration-
ales for such large-scale landscape transforma-
tions as that on which I have centred my discus-
sion. One might here recall maverick economist
McCloskey (1990) who some time ago insisted
that economics was to a large extent a rhetorical
exercise, or story-telling.
On the subject of emotion, one well-worn and
often disparaged aesthetic concept is particularly
interesting, evoking as it does complex emotional
responses. This is the concept of the sublime,
which has a long pedigree in aesthetic discussion.
Berleant has suggested that the sublime might af-
ter all prove valuable for the aesthetics of engage-
ment. As he puts it, its central idea is ‘the capacity
of the natural world to act on so monumental a
scale as to exceed our powers of framing and con-
trol’ (Berleant 1992, p. 234), which may, if noth-
ing else, provide a valuable counter-narrative to
technological hyperbole.
Cloke and Jones, taking due notice of the critiques
of Nature–culture dualism mentioned earlier in the
paper, have argued cogently for a renewed “ethical
mindfulness” that would be ‘both place-located and
bound into wider relational matrices’ (Cloke and
Jones 2003, p. 212). They point to ‘the importance of
enchantment as a prompt to personal moral impuls-

es’ (Cloke and Jones 2003, p. 211, emphasis added).
Perhaps what is needed for a geography of landscape
politics is not only an aesthetic of engagement but of
enchantment; an emotional state frequently and rath-
er easily afforded by the sublime and grandiose, but
also by less spectacular landscapes, once one allows
oneself to dwell therein.
Bennett (2001, p. 5) explains that enchantment
involves:
the temporary suspension of chronological
time and bodily movement. To be enchant-
ed… is to participate in a momentarily immo-
bilizing encounter; it is to be transfixed, spell-
bound. … Thoughts, but also limbs… are
brought to rest, even as the senses continue to
operate, indeed, in high gear. You notice new
colors, discern details previously ignored,
hear extraordinary sounds, as familiar land-
scapes of sense sharpen and intensify.
Sure, stories about enchanting landscapes are being
told all the time. The trick is to foster a culture that
will listen to and respect them. This may well prove
to be a tall order, but I think geographers should try
to do their bit.
Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges the contribu-
tion of Edda Ruth Hlín Waage and °orvar√ur Ár-
nason, who commented on this paper at various
stages. I have also benefited from conversations
with Gunhild Setten, Gunn•óra Ólafsdóttir and

others. Finally, two anonymous reviewers are
thanked for their very valuable comments. All the
usual caveats apply.
“SCENOPHOBIA”, GEOGRAPHY AND THE AESTHETIC POLITICS OF LANDSCAPE
© The author 2007
Journal compilation © 2007 Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography
215
Karl Benediktsson
Department of Geography and Tourism
University of Iceland
Askja, Sturlugata 7
IS-101 Reykjavík, Iceland
E-mail:
Notes
1. This statement was made by a rural inhabitant in east Ice-
land in June 2003 in an interview with Edda Ruth Hlín
Waage for a research project about the national parks and
local community development (see Benediktsson and °or-
var√ardóttir 2005; Benediktsson and Waage 2005).
2. In a recent book, Flyvbjerg et al. (2003) observe that infra-
structural “megaprojects” seem to have their own peculiar
logic, which makes them irresistible to government. Al-
though this is not the subject of this paper, the Kárahnjúkar
project obviously lends itself well to such analysis.
3. This is not to say that these landscapes have not been affect-
ed by human actions. Most notably, centuries of grazing
have greatly changed the vegetation and contributed to se-
vere soil erosion (cf. e.g. Arnalds 1987).
4. Cronon’s many and erudite writings in environmental histo-
ry (e.g. Cronon 1983, 1991) are in fact clearly grounded in

ecological discourse. Interestingly, he has even been
charged with overlooking the metaphoric character of that
discourse: of conflating the concepts of ecology with Nature
as such (Demeritt 1994).
5. I am using the term very literally here (‘the love of looking’)
but not in its most common meaning, voyeurism, although
such usage would, for example, chime well with Rose’s
(1993) feminist critique of “the gaze” in geography.
6. The second phase of the master plan is in progress when this
paper is published. It will include a refinement and exten-
sion of the work on landscape classification and evaluation.
7. Thoroddsen was a highly respected natural scientist and the
first Icelander to study geography at university, in Copenha-
gen in the 1870s. He was an inveterate traveller who surveyed
and mapped much of Iceland’s interior for the first time.
8. Several others photographed the rock after this, but most
of them from the same angle, highlighting the same fea-
tures.
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