Highland Landscape Values Project
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2004 | 2005 | Schools Project
No two people standing in one place at the same time will be having exactly the same ’landscape experience’. They will be, perhaps unconsciously, selecting certain elements of their surroundings that they are ’interested in’ or ’attracted to’ or see as more important than others.Different people have different reasons for preferring certain elements of the landscape and to a certain extent these preferences can be linked to a persons background, age or place in society. It is unlikely, for example that an eight year old visiting Ben Lawers for the first time would notice or care about the same features of the landscape as her parents who brought her there. Equally the whole family could have very different ideas about their surroundings compared to someone who has lived in Killin for their whole life. Also, an archaeology student who has carried out an investigation on the Crannogs of Loch Tay will examine certain areas of the landscape in far greater detail than a more casual visitor.
View of Loch Tay from Kiltyrie |
One of several shielings at Meall Greigh |
Reconstructed Crannog at Kenmore |
2005 Historic Landscape Values Project
The aim of the project is to discover what elements of the landscape people care about, why and how much, and also to understand how increasing knowledge and understanding of landscape history affects these values.Two key research questions have been identified. These are:
How can qualitative preferences and values for landscapes best be captured and measured in a repeatable and reliable manner?
To what extent and in what ways does an increased knowledge of landscape history affect people’s landscape preferences and values?
Methodology
I will be using a combination of qualitative and quantitative analytical techniques to help answer these research questions. These will include:- Personal interviews with landscape staff in national and local government and relevant NGOs (Non Governmental Organisations)
- Landscape Valuation Workshops. Valuation workshops offer participants the opportunity to discuss attitudes and values, and to supplement their existing knowledge from a wide range of sources including on-hand expert witnesses. In these workshops existing historical knowledge and understanding will be ascertained and the impact of new knowledge on landscape values evaluated using a range of scoring techniques.
I have just started developing the methodology for this study, and currently the plan is to carry out a pilot questionnaire and interview study, which will be linked to the 2005 archaeological survey season. No doubt, as I read more about this intriguing subject, the aims and methodology will evolve and (hopefully!) clarified. The web page will be updated when preliminary findings become available.
2004 Highland Landscape Values Report
This project seeks to understand how people value landscapes. It is investigating how people view their environment, what they care about, their thoughts, actions and emotions. These are affected by a multitude of personal factors. Of particular interest is how a knowledge of landscape history affects how people understand their surroundings.In the past year research has been carried out using volunteers drawn from groups associated with the Ben Lawers Historic Landscape Project. Participants on the NTS Thistle Camps in the area and children from Killin, Kenmore and Glen Lyon Primary Schools took part in a series of exercises designed to elicit their landscape perceptions. The first of these exercises recorded how people respond to their surroundings and took place in a field at Kiltyrie which contains a wide range of geomorphological and archaeological features. This was followed by an indoor activity which determined what elements of the landscape people actually see and how they describe these features. This was necessary as different people come to a place with different preconceptions and varying levels of knowledge and interest about the natural and historical worlds. As such not everyone will witness the same things in an area, and their landscape perceptions are therefore likely to differ. Finally, a questionnaire was used to record peoples’ ’landscape biographies’; where they have grown up, what places and areas they have visited, what their hobbies and interests are and how interested and knowledgeable they are in history or natural history.
| Data analysis is currently underway with responses from these three exercises being combined to determine how individuals’ ’lifeways’ affect their environmental perceptions. In addition, recurring themes in individuals’ landscape preferences are emerging. These themes will be further investigated at a later stage of the research project. |
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The first year of this project has generated a large volume of data about peoples’ landscape values. However, the fieldwork to date has drawn upon a relatively narrow group of participants and therefore next year a wider cross-section of the public will be surveyed. This, combined with a more detailed investigation of the key themes highlighted from the survey work will generate an in-depth profile of how people perceive Highland landscapes.
| Camilla Priede University of Aberdeen [External Link] |
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