Patterned Ground: Entanglements of Nature and Culture - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1861891814 ISBN 13: 9781861891815

Publisher: Reaktion Books, 2004

Synopsis

Patterned Ground unravels the entangled relationships between nature and culture. Around 100 entries by leading names in new geography and related disciplines focus on various ‘objects’ in the landscape – from beaches to battlefields, bees to horses, police stations to post-offices, trees to tractors. Each piece, written by an expert in the field, explores the way in which we understand that object and its relationship to the world around it. This book is neither encyclopedia nor dictionary, but a knowledgeable and impassioned engagement with the world. In this sense, it chimes with earlier experiments in understanding the earth and its landscapes, whether these endeavors have been conducted within the sciences, the social sciences or the arts.

Patterned Ground backtracks from familiar and obvious ways of seeing patterns in the world, and discovers it anew. In this way, it opens up new possibilities for thinking about the relationships between ourselves, objects and the ground on which we walk.

About this title

About the Author:

Stephan Harrison is Senior Research Associate at the School of Geography, Oxford University, UK.

Review:

"Patterned Ground sets itself apart from this crowded genre by creating a landscape of essays that are at once familiar in their topics and yet also powerfully new by their juxtaposition with each other . . .  The themes of Patterned Ground are powerful in the ability both to tie together disparate essays and to challenge the reader to reassess preconceptions of process, landscape and materiality. There is a subtle and playful lyrical connectivity to the arrangement of the essays. . . Ultimately, Patterned Ground succeeds because both the editors and the authors have created a compilation of vignettes that interrupt the reader's normal flow of experience and create renewed perceptions of place." (Jack Livingston Cultural Geographies 2005-01-01)

"A successful balance between the informative, discursive and imaginative elements in an eclectic collection that respects the variety of its contributors' voices.  . . . these essays have given more pleasure than I expected . . . time spent reading them will not have been wasted."

(Martin Haggerty Planning Perspectives 2005-01-01)

About this edition

• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1861891814
• ISBN 13: 9781861891815
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 350
• Editor: Harrison Stephan, Pile Steve, Thrift Nigel