Landscape Sociology

Landscape Sociology is the study of people in the non-urban landscape, including the urban fringe, regional towns and service centres. Landscapes make visible the biophysical and social links between nature and culture, especially between natural resource management and agricultural food systems. Landscape is a vernacular scene, the product of everyday practice. Landscape sociologists believe that the landscape is not neutral but constructed, and that from this theoretical position research is possible to understand the social practices that have contributed to how the landscape is now and how it might be different in the future. Following on from this, the communities who are responsible for the landscapes they inhabit, research, or make policies about, are able to be active in understanding and changing them. For landscape sociologists landscapes are both subject and object and a part of an environmental narrative.

Landscapes Sociology focuses on the interaction of society and the environment in a landscape. This obviously includes all land managers, farmers and community groups such as Landcare. Less obvious, but no less important, are government employees who are responsible for policy and the delivery of services to the community. Landscape sociology offer insights into how each of these 'communities of practice', including those in the public service, pursue their own interests in the landscape. A significant context for this research is the move away from productivity as the dominant mode of conceiving agricultural landscapes' worth, towards wanting to achieve economic, social and environmental sustainability. Making this change in policy work will require different social groups to collaborate and share their practices in new and unconventional ways.