How do people perceive the land around them, and how is that perception changed by history? Those connections are complex and multilayered.
Space, Territory, Landscape
The space that people inhabit becomes, over time, a symbol for the ways in which they do so. Space becomes territory, and territory in turn, charged with the cultural and historical meaning given to it by its inhabitants, becomes landscape.
Identity and Landscape
Thus, the creation of group identity goes hand in hand with the construction of landscape. As a result of this two-way process, landscape becomes part and parcel of the collective identity of the group. In other words, landscape becomes one way in which groups, for example national groups, see themselves represented.
A random sample of descriptions of the word nation reveals the ties between national identity and landscape:
Traditional, people of common ancestry occupying a set territory. Can also mean people of diverse backgrounds joined together for a mutual purpose. Commonly a generic term for a particular country state. (From www.embassy.org.nz/encycl/n1encyc.htm)
A self-identifying people who share a common history, often language, a common culture and a homeland. A nation is the most persistent and resistant organization of people-culture- territory. (From: www2.truman.edu/~marc/resources/terms.html)
A group of one or more cultures or races within a particular territory (From: www.headsup.org.uk/content/default.asp)
Identity, Memory and History
Identity is inevitably connected with the memory of the past. Pamela J. Steward and Andrew Strathern (2003) quote Jon R. Gillis: "The core meaning of any individual or group identity," John R. Gillis writes, "namely, a sense of sameness over time and space is sustained by remembering; and what is remembered is defined by the assumed identity."
This collective remembering, knowing and a sense of connection with one's 'roots' is a deeply felt desire, perhaps especially so in those who have been uprooted.
Uprooted
One of the questions that has interested me for a while is: What happens when that deep felt connection between identity and landscape is ruptured? How does it impact people, especially when that rupture was forceful or perhaps even worse, violent.
I have collected many stories of people who lost everything in the massive deportations that happened toward the end and right after World War II. Toward the end of the war, seven and a half million Germans were homeless, what French philosopher Simone Weill called the most acute state of uprootedness (Weil, 1949/2002). For many people I have spoken with over the years, the experience of loss of their home and homeland was tantamount to the loss of "everything". It was a complete loss, which signified the loss of natural, historical, familial, social and physical roots. They lost themselves. Being torn from the familiarity of space and landscape, the living preservation of the past, tore the expectations for the future to shreds as well. For many, the idea of home diminished to a mere echo in a distant memory.
References
Paul Basu (1997). Narratives in a landscape. http://www.btinternet.com/~paulbasu/narratives/nl-frame.html?http://www.btinternet.com/~paulbasu/narratives/nl-text10.html~Display
Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern (Eds.) (2003). Landscape, Memory And History. Anthropological Perspectives. Michigan: University of Michigan Press
Simone Weil. (1949/2002). The need for roots. N.Y.: Routledge
