Claudia Carter

‘Seeing is Not Everything’: Exploring the Landscape Experiences of Different Publics

Abstract This paper develops a multi-sensory and multiple-perspective framework for assessing public perception of landscapes. Proceeding from a viewpoint that landscape research and policy have been pre-occupied with expert-led and visual approaches, our method elevates the experiences and range of responses of different publics to centre stage. Set within phenomenological and experiential epistemologies, our piloted technique captured the real time responses of walkers, mountain bikers, planners, councillors and land managers on pre-planned trips in Aberdeenshire. Subsequent analysis of audio recordings and field notes elicited detailed data revealing a complex appreciation of landscape set within dynamic and multiple socio-economic identities and sensory experiences of individuals. The paper concludes with a plea for policy-makers and researchers to recognise the importance of different publics who may experience and respond to landscape in different ways and the significance of incorporating both visual and non-visual components into emergent landscape assessment and policy approaches.

Stigma and Attachment: Performance of Identity in an Environmentally Degraded Place

Research examining the relationship between place and identity shows that the experience of places influences a persons process of identification, through which an emotional bond with the place may be developed. However, the implications of this literature for land restoration remain unexplored. This is partially due to a gap in empirical research that explores the performance of identities in environmentally degraded settings. This article examines the relationship between identity and place among residents living around five coal ash disposal sites in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The article develops a qualitative model to understand the emergence of divergent responses toward the pollution and illustrates that in an environmentally degraded setting the bonds between the individuals and the place are not necessarily dislocated; in some cases, these bonds may be even reinforced by the performance of adaptative identities in response to environmental change.

Access for all? Barriers to accessing woodlands and forests in Britain

This paper presents results from research that identified and analysed barriers to accessing British woodlands and forests. This paper aims to contribute to an understanding of access and accessibility and to inform the design of policy and management interventions to encourage increased access by under-represented social groups. A brief review of policy and academic literature places the issue of inclusive woodland and forest access in the context of contemporary debates surrounding public health, well-being, diversity and the perceived role of public green space. There follows an analysis of quantitative and qualitative research findings, informing the presentation of a working typology of barriers. The typology is structured around the access needs of various social groups, allowing an analysis of the social distribution of barriers. The findings indicate the deep-seated psychological, emotional and socio-cultural nature of some barriers and highlight the need for carefully designed interventions that may lie outside the conventional remit of woodland management. This paper will be of particular interest to decision-makers and practitioners and to those involved in the design and delivery of policies, programmes and projects aimed at encouraging inclusive use of woodlands, forests and other types of green space.

The governance of coal ash pollution in post-socialist times: power and expectations

The coal energy sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) represents both a significant economic hope and a considerable environmental threat for the country. One of the major problems of the coal industry is the disposal of large amounts of coal combustion residues. RECOAL was an EU-supported project (2005–7) whose objective was to develop remediation solutions for coal ash disposal (CAD) sites in BiH. Most of RECOALs environmental fieldwork was based around TEP in the municipality of Tuzla, one of the biggest thermo-electric power plants in the country. Qualitative research was carried out to understand the environmental governance structure of the area and inform and test the acceptance of different remediation solutions proposed by RECOAL. Interviews with institutional stakeholders showed a highly complex institutional structure, where government institutions and industry are involved in complicated negotiations about the distribution of the liabilities resulting from TEPs pollution. Interviews among local residents show that locally organised action could help steer the policy-making process towards more sustainable solutions.

Assimilation, Blind Spots and Coproduced Crises

Core to Environmental Values is thought-provoking interdisciplinary discussion on citizen-consumer tensions, individual agency and social behavioural change, and human–nature relationships, often with direct reference to accelerated, human induced, environmental and climate change. This issue includes contributions that critically examine how the concept of economic growth has deep, culturally embedded roots and while we are becoming better at assessing and signposting value pluralism and capturing the many facets of environmental values, we are witnessing an impoverishing standardisation of language and reduction of biological and cultural diversity. Why do we lean towards modes of thinking and behaviour that ultimately normalise, and naturalise, economic growth? Even when there is recognition of the need for change, and the political will to do so, specific (individual or shared) self and place based perceptions can form barriers to supporting and living that change.

Climate Change, Irreversible Change and Changing Perspectives

This issue is about change and changing/new perspectives. The papers represent a rich array of perspectives across moral and political philosophy, environmental ethics, politics, sociology and economics yet all are written in a way to be of interest and accessible to readers from a wide range of disciplines and backgrounds. Perusing the papers made me think of the many different facets of ‘change’, including the subtleness of change, the challenges of change and the reluctance to change. Two subtle changes relate to the journal. Have you noticed that we have a new associated editor? Alex Loftus joined the Team of Editors earlier this year. Alex’s main interest is the conditions of possibility for radical change; his research in the areas of radical geography, urban political ecology, water politics and Marxist thought. Another subtle change is that the journal broadened its social media presence from the White Horse Press facebook page1 to Twitter. Katie McShane and I started to tweet last summer from our @J_EnvValues twitter account sharing links to new book reviews, articles in print and announcing new issues as well as occasionally retweeting comments and work that catch our eyes. In fact, as I write this I notice it is our first anniversary today. Social media is not everyone’s cup of tea but it can make a real change in terms of broadening one’s network, sounding out feedback to ideas, finding out about a wide range of issues across the globe, spotting gems of publications, enjoying powerful visual art and registering interesting events and case studies. Through Twitter a colleague and co-tutor on a module made contact with Brent Toderian – who played a prominent role in making Vancouver one of the leading green cities – and invited him to join a BCU Masters class via skype. This skype session highlighted the power of personal narratives. Reading the Vancouver action plan showed an ambitious framework of targets which can act as an incentive for Vancouver residents and businesses and as a template for other cities; yet hearing the story first hand with its ups and downs, finding out more about the specific context that helped the city progress on its green journey and Brent highlighting what he felt was really important provided lively inspiration and more grounded (rather than PR-style) insights well beyond the content of the Greenest City 2020 Action Plan. It was the discussions with Brent rather than the action plan that stayed in our minds and has influenced our own work and approaches. In my previous editorial (Carter, 2013) I looked at ‘evidence’, and again evidence features as a topic in this issue. The article on fracking by Jaspal et al. identified and starts filling the gap of social and psychological evidence in