Introduction : a place for Hay : flexibility and continuity in Hay-Meadow management

Abstract

Aware that in interpreting landscape, researches should be oriented both towards the present, but also towards the remains of the past in the landscape, be they natural or cultural, Tim Ingold has suggested the use of a “dwelling perspective”, which stresses that “the landscape is constituted as an enduring record of–and testimony to–the lives and works of past generations who have dwelt within it, and in so doing, have left there something of themselves”(1993: 152). The present and past connection is even more obvious since, as established by historical ecologists such as Urban Emanuelsson (2009), human society has been actively contributing for centuries to the creation and shaping of the landscape, which, in turn, had a direct influence on the people and their ways of perceiving space. The “dwelling perspective” is therefore concerned with researching the immediate involvement in the landscape (Ingold 1993: 152), the everyday life, as a starting point. Daily activities have a direct influence on the landscape, as humans have used local resources, have modified and controlled space in order to provide food. The “dwelling perspective” allows the researcher to see the landscape not only in its physicality, but its temporality as well, which can be traced in the tasks associated with the landscape. The “taskscape”, as defined by Tim Ingold in his seminal work, is a “pattern of activities” that can be traced into an array of features found in the landscape, including what we can hear (Ingold 1993: 162). As a result, human beings are seen as active agents and producers of change in a territory, by means of their activity and interactivity.