Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
The problem, however, is that a continuing form of circulation develops so that
one continually moves between the form of representation, the material world to
which it refers, and back to the form of representation, in a process in which each
modifi es the perception of the other so that the they eventually blur. This leads
to a situation in which scientists loose sight of the way that their knowledge may
be shaped and constrained by taken-for-granted representations. On the basis of
fi eld-work following a team of soil scientists in Brazil, Latour concluded that
between their graphic representations and the material world to which they refer
'there is neither correspondence, nor gaps, nor even two distinct ontological
domains, but an entirely different phenomenon: circulating reference' (Latour,
1999, p. 24). Latour's studies of the soil scientists' research process led him to
observe the following: 'Remove both maps, confuse cartographic conventions, erase
the tens of thousands of hours invested in . . . [their] atlas, interfere with the radar
of planes, and our . . . scientists would be lost in the landscape and obliged once
more to begin all the work of exploration, reference marking, triangulation, and
squaring performed by their hundreds of predecessors' (p. 29). The consequence
of this disorientation is that 'Lost in the forest, the researchers rely on one of the
oldest and most primitive techniques for organising space, claiming a place with
stakes driven into the ground to delineate geometric shapes against the background
noise, or at least to permit the possibility of their recognition. Submerged in the
forest again, they are forced to count on the oldest of the sciences, the measure
of angles, a geometry whose mythical origin has been recounted by Michel Serres'
(pp. 41-42). 'Yes', he fi nally exclaims, 'scientists master the world, but only if the
world comes to them in the form of two-dimensional, superimposable, combinable
inscriptions' (p. 29).
Today, with the development of mapping and modeling tools such as GIS and
GPS, the forms of representation noted by Latour are more powerful than ever, and
this has fostered a resurgence of scientifi c interest in landscape in fi elds such as
landscape ecology.
1
In this situation, when an anthropologist like Latour points out
that what these scientists are actually seeing is vitally shaped by circulating refer-
ence, the reaction of natural scientists can be quite negative, even vituperative, and
this has helped give rise to what has become known as the 'science wars' (Latour,
1999). Such wars, of course, do little to further cooperation between physical and
cultural geographers. A possible way around the problem of circulating reference
with regard to landscape and its relationship to culture, region and nature, lies in
a re-examination of the foundations of the modern notion of landscape as scenic,
pictorial, space. This brings us back to Dr Johnson's defi nition (1): 'A region; the
prospect of a country.'
Landscape One: Historical Region, the Place of Community
In his fi rst defi nition of landscape Dr Johnson equated landscape with the prospect
of a country, understood as region and place. He defi nes both region and country
as 'the place which any man inhabits' and as the inhabitants themselves, as when
Shakespeare wrote: 'All the
country
, in a general voice, Cry'd hate upon him' (S.
Johnson, 1755[1968]: region). Country/region, in this sense, means the same as
'land,' as in Scot
land
, the country, region or place which is the habitation of the
Scots.
Land
, like
country
, can also refer to a human community, as when we refer
to the 'land' rising up against an oppressor.
