Theano S. Terkenli

Towards a theory of the landscape: the Aegean landscape as a cultural image

Abstract Seeking to contribute to a theoretical and analytical approach to the study of landscape, this essay offers directions for integrated future research that combine quantitative with qualitative methodologies towards the ultimate goal of landscape planning and policy implementation. Towards this goal, this paper represents an attempt to apply concerns about landscape theory and appropriate methodology on landscape form, function and meaning by delineating a framework of analysis for the Aegean landscape of Greece. Such a challenging goal, however, undertaken here through critical geographical perspectives, should rather be approached on a transdisciplinary basis. The plethora of processes of action and interaction among the various components of a landscape dictate that there are almost no methodological frameworks and tools that are irrelevant to in landscape study, planning, use or policy implementation. If one focuses on characteristics distinctive to the landscape context, however, such as the visual–cognitive–experiential interface and biophysical–human interaction in the landscape, the beginnings of a theory of landscape as a stage set for human life may, thus, be established. On this basis, a conceptual framework for contemporary multifunctional landscapes is first proposed to serve as a basis for the development of an analytical framework. The case study that follows focuses on the construction of the Aegean cultural landscape, aiming to illustrate and begin to apply concerns and approaches presented in the theoretical part of this study. Aegeanity is first negotiated in theoretical terms on the basis of its distinctive geography, scale and cultural meaning, encompassing landscape characteristics and relationships as presented above. As concerns Aegean landscape analysis, goals and criteria of assessment are interwoven into appropriate methodological schemata and examples of this work presented accordingly.

HOME AS A REGION

This essay explores the processes by which place becomes home and examines the characteristics of a home region that distinguish it from other types of regions. In contemporary Western society, weakening human identification with place and with social groups seems to be reducing home to a mere accumu- lation of habits that are elaborations on modern or postmodern lifestyles. A home region is a system of interlinked patterns of habitual association and attachment. However, realization that the world is increasingly interconnected and interde- pendent may produce the backlash of a return to home contexts that are most familiar and intimate. Intense affection for home points to a dialectical relation- ship between the extent of personal or collective homes and attachment to them.

Landscapes of tourism: Towards a global cultural economy of space?

This article explores the imprint on tourist landscapes of enworldment, unworldment, deworldment and transworldment processes of a newly-emerging cultural reorganization of space, in order to contribute towards tourist landscape theory, negotiated here in terms of landscape attraction, seduction and desire. Tourist landscapes become by nature and by function eloquent geographical media and expressions of this new global cultural economy of space , by hosting, promoting and exhibiting new types of spatial experiences that are increasingly more fluid, complex, surreal and a-geographical than in the past. The article begins to negotiate the ways and processes whereby such experiences are substantiated in terms of landscape seduction and the desire to travel, and constructed through complex bodily/sensual, emotional and cognitive interrelationships between the tourist and the visited landscape.

Human activity in landscape seasonality: the case of tourism in Crete.

As an integral quality of the landscape, seasonality greatly affects, informs and interweaves with human livelihood systems, such as the tourism-based economies of Greek island communities, currently almost entirely dependent upon summer holiday tourism for their survival. The multiple facets and impacts of seasonality produced and inscribed by tourism on the landscape, and specifically on the landscape of northern Crete, are described and discussed. For this purpose, a three-fold analytical framework of tourist resort evolution for a Greek island or rural tourist destination, from the stage of discovery to the stage of establishment and institutionalization of tourism, is employed. The three different stages of this tourism destination lifecycle model are roughly represented by three different zones of tourism impact in the broader region of Hersonissos in northern Crete. Here, tourism-induced changes roughly attenuate with distance from the coast, acquiring distinctive geographical patterns that follow those of spatial tourist concentration, scale of development, and incorporation of tourism into Cretan society and space. It is illustrated that the role and impact of tourism-induced seasonality seems to be most pronounced and significant during the second stage of the lifecycle of a tourism area such as the Cretan region under study.

Landscape indicators for the evaluation of tourist landscape structure

Landscape structure has been analysed in many European countries with the aid of indicator-based landscape assessments, geographical information system (GIS) and remote-sensing techniques, applied mainly in landscape ecology and geography. The objective of this paper is to present a developed framework of landscape indicators and appropriate spatial metrics for the analysis of tourist landscape structure and its application in the coastal tourist landscape in Kos Island, Greece. With the aid of GIS analysis techniques (viewshed and spatial statistics), our results revealed both intensive and extensive tourist landscape development during the period 1981–1995 and a trend towards stabilization for the period 1995–2002. The spatial distribution of land use patterns, the evolution of a complex system of transport networks and increased building density resulted in decreased visibility towards the sea and in fragmentation of the initial landscape – an early sign of landscape identity loss.

Landscapes of Tourism: A Cultural Geographic Perspective

In recent years, there has been a growing recognition in social scientific circles and in the humanities of the contextualised, positional character of all forms of knowledge and experience (Norton, 1996). Such recognition, however, has not as yet been followed up by adequate empirical research in order to operationalise and substantiates the theoretical propositions put forth. In practice, this has meant that there is to-date no substantial understanding of cultural mechanisms of change. In the ever-growing interdisciplinary dialogue on space and the environment, meanwhile, contemporary geography seems to have an increasingly significant contribution in the specification, in its fullest sense, of the context of human life and activity. Within this context, the relevance of the cultural in spatial analysis is becoming increasingly compelling, since at the basis of any human-environment interrelationship lie ideologically and symbolically charged conceptions of space can be found. Such conceptions grow out of humanity’ s quest for meaning and identity and obviously point to the centrality of the social and the cultural in the articulation of space through time.

Tourism: beyond the pleasure of practicing geography

The scholarly and instrumental contribution of Geography to Tourism Studies is well established and broadly indisputable, as is the contribution of Geography to the phenomenon of Tourism itself – its dimensions, it functions, its impacts, indeed all of its aspects (Hall & Page, 2009, 2014; Pearce, 1979; Squire, 1994). There are, however, instances and circumstances where the role and significance of Geography to Tourism become even more readily and urgently apparent. In fact, there can be no tourism or study of tourism without geography. Tourism capitalizes on geography – whether ‘real’, virtual/iconic or imaginary. Tourism intrinsically connotes change of one’s familiar environment, in pursuit of the unfamiliar. It derives its raison-d-être from this literary or metaphorical distance, this transportation to the different; this is the tourism lure, the thrill, the attraction (Adler, 1989; Urry, 1990). Geography provides not only the background and vessel for this experience, but also all the pleasures; it provides the ‘goods’ themselves: a mysterious expedition in wilderness, a relaxing lounge on the beach, an uplifting pilgrimage, a history ride, etc. Tourism is entwined with geography, for better or for worse: it feeds on the novelty or the value of nature and culture, devouring the world, but its returns are simultaneously in sync with the vicissitudes and tribulations of this world: tourism rushes to the fields of tragedy, it is breathlessly arrested by beauty, it profits from all sorts of entertainment, but it is also susceptible to crises, disasters, and strife. In all of these ways, the future of tourism is not only certain, it is also brilliant. Tourism invariably celebrates humanity, and, most of all, it is the most global and massive way of face-to-face interpersonal, intimate, ‘exotic’, mysterious, fun, exhilarating human contact on earth: an epiphany of contact. Thus, tourism becomes not only the pleasure of practicing geography, but also of meeting the world face-to-face, and, through this meeting, as Montaigne once declared (Jackson, 1980, p. 4), of meeting oneself.

Landscape values and the question of cultural sustainability: Exploring an uncomfortable relationship in the case of Greece

ABSTRACT The article highlights the factor of tentativeness in the applicability of the cultural sustainability concept to landscape values in the case of Greece. The authors used a comparative questionnaire survey to draw out indicative trends in lay landscape conscience (gauged as perceptions, values, preferences, feelings and behaviours) in relation to the Greek landscape in the Arcadia region and on the island of Lesvos. Differences were found between urban and rural respondents in the case study sites, in line with relevant literature. Since the disruption of ‘traditional’ organic forms of lay landscape conscience during Greece’s rapid post-war urbanization and rural exodus, Greek landscape conscience now seems to be going through a reformulation, in a new, more Western guise. In this context, cultural sustainability may, at first glance be irrelevant and even undesirable. However, the findings also indicate that cultural education and landscape awareness play a significant role in understanding and better handling of contemporary landscape issues. The authors conclude that Soini & Birkeland’s ‘eco-cultural civilization’ storyline of scientific discourse on cultural sustainability is the most appropriate way forward in landscape stewardship, since it supports cultural change through education and participatory governance, while also involving local values and knowledge.

Tourism Impacts of International Arts Festivals in Greece. The Cases of the Kalamata Dance Festival and Drama Short Film Festival

Towns and cities are increasingly using arts festivals as an important motivator to attract visitors and tourism and to stimulate urban development. During the past two decades, arts festivals have been multiplying in the Western world and becoming more visible and culturally prominent. This research seeks to address tourism aspects that develop between arts festivals organisers and policy makers, residents, visitors and the tourism industry. The objective of the paper is to explore the role of the International Arts festivals in the tourism development of the cities of Kalamata and Drama, Greece, through measurement and evaluation of the perceptions and opinions of its attendants and the cities’ residents and visitors. Primary data were collected with the aid of online questionnaires, distributed and collected during autumn2016. 130 questionnaires were answered by residents and visitors of the Drama International Short Film Festival and 186 questionnaires were answered by residents and visitors of the Kalamata International Dance Festival. Results suggest that, after 22 years of operation, the two Festivals are significantly acknowledged for their overall role in the cities’ tourism image and growth, despite different characteristics the two festivals and the two cities. The city of Drama has benefited from its Festival, which has played a significant part in improving the city’s tourism infrastructure, image and first-time visitor attraction. As Kalamata is an already established destination, the Festival may have not necessarily translated into much higher tourism revenues and infrastructure improvement, but is has significantly enhanced its image and high-profile visitor attraction. In both cases, it is widely acknowledged that the Festivals have a lot of further untapped potential, as unique city branding tools, adding value to the destinations and extending the tourism season. This research aims to contribute to knowledge concerning the impacts of established international festivals on medium-sized cities, useful for research and academic purposes, as well as for local and national authorities responsible for tourism planning.

In Search of the Greek Landscape: A Cultural Geography

Although Greece was among the first European countries that signed the European Landscape Convention, it has only recently ratified it, while the landscape, generally speaking, has been absent from most expressions of everyday private and public life in Modern Greece. Moreover, irreparable Open image in new window destruction of the Greek landscape, dating back to prehistoric times, has recently been exacerbated through widespread neglect, misuse, or even outright destruction, much accelerated since Greece’s era of rapid urbanization in the 1950s and 1960s. This chapter begins with a brief illustration of trends and facts that point to the problematic relationship of Greek society with its landscapes. It traces the roots of this relationship in the cultural make-up of the Modern Greek nation-state and in a series of historical particularities and social-institutional deficiencies, much amplified during the post-war period. The objective of this chapter is to attempt to understand and explain this shortcoming by exploring the lack of a well-developed landscape conscience in Modern Greece.