Landscapes of a New Cultural Economy of Space

This book seeks to contribute to theoretical advances, analytical approaches and applied studies in the broader inter-disciplinary field of contemporary landscape transformation research.

The purpose of the book is to tie together various perspectives, insights and constructions pertaining to contemporary landscapes and landscape representations from different theoretical and methodological positions as well as from diverse geographical and historical contexts in order to elucidate and illustrate processes of cultural transformation inscribed in space. The unifying theme, as well as the main goal and prospective contribution of this book, then, lies in the exploration of these developing forces and characteristics of the new cultural economy of space in the contemporary landscape(s). The primary objective of bringing together in this book geographical perspectives from various subdisciplinary fields is to examine and discuss ways in which the complexities of this newly-emerging cultural economy of space are applied on various sorts of landscapes, i.e. urban and rural landscapes, landscapes of everyday life, landscapes of tourism and recreation, postcolonial and hybrid landscapes, landscapes of economic production, landscapes of the street and of public life, "national landscapes" and so on. The overarching question, thus, is: how do these processes work in different geographical contexts and contribute to place and landscape creation?

Our intention is to create a space for the development of landscape discourse(s) that accommodate(s) both theory and empirical findings as well as methodological issues and practical applications pertaining to the contemporary landscape(s), by examining trends, structures, technologies and practices defining and articulating this new cultural economy of space. Another goal is to identify and facilitate innovative debate and engagement between geography and other sciences researching landscape(s). It is hoped that this endeavor will generate many more questions and areas of inquiry pointing to new directions currently developing in the study of landscape(s) than the questions on the basis of which this task was undertaken here in the first place.