New geo-graphies of border landscapes

di Elena dell’Agnese
in Memoria e Ricerca n.s. 45 (2014), p. 51

At the beginning of the Twentieth century, geography used to be described as «the science of landscape». Now, such a definition seems to be out of fashion. All the same, the two words, «geography» and «landscape» still share a close connection, since they both may refer to «the thing» (to the geo-structure), and also to the «representation of the thing» (to the meta-geography). And representation is a form of power. So, while the popularity of landscape as an objective analytical tool has been fading away, the significance of landscape as a way of representing things is proving to be more and more relevant. Not only landscape is no more supposed to be «objective» reality, it does not even have to be an objective representation or to have an indisputable aesthetic quality. All the same, it is a way of seeing, and of retelling, regional, and geopolitical, stories. Thirty years after the Rumley and Minghi’s seminal book on «the geography of border landscape» (1991), the new geo-graphies of border landscapes are aimed at analysing different ways of «speaking about» and of «visualizing» border relations, from cinema to art, to literature and photography, music, cartoons. Keywords: Political geography, Border, Landscape, New geography, Representation, Arts