Place and Space: A Review of Landscape Anthropology Research

Abstract

Landscape Anthropology is a new disciplinary branch of Anthropology emerged in European and American academia during the 1990s. The current review develops the topic of “Cultural Anthropology and Landscape Architecture”from three perspectives. Firstly, it provides a brief introduction to the definition of Cultural Anthropology to familiarize interdisciplinary readers. Secondly, it provides necessary conceptual clarification to the term “景观设计 (Landscape Architecture).” Thirdly, it provides a review of the research approaches to the study of landscape in the field of Cultural Anthropology: place and space. The “place” perspective focuses on how local people endow cultural meanings onto their surrounding environment, and how people’s routine activities construct landscape. The “space” perspective considers how academics, entrepreneurs, designers, and other main actors in cultural representation, express local culture, and how such representation influences the social production of space. The current paper emphasizes research on these two points and reviews recent studies. Finally, it looks ahead to the possible cooperation between the study of Cultural Anthropology and Landscape Architecture.

Keywords

Landscape Anthropology / Space / Place / Representation

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

Higher Education Press