Landscape, Leisure and Tourism

For Prof. Dr. Jaap Lengkeek

Landscape, Leisure and Tourism

Socio-spatial Studies in Experiences,
Practices and Policies

Henk de Haan
Ren van der Duim
editors

Eburon Delft
2008

ISBN 978-90-5972-299-6
Uitgeverij Eburon
Postbus 2867
2601 CW Delft
Tel.: 015 213 14 84 / Fax: 015 214 68 88
info@eburon.nl / www.eburon.nl
Cover design and layout: Henk de Haan
Typeset in FF Scala 10/13
Cover: Painting by H.J.M.R. de Haan
English language editor: Jeremy Rayner
Editorial assistance: Katharina Zellmer
Published with the support of Wageningen University,
Department of Environmental Sciences,
Chairgroup Socio-spatial Analysis
2008 De auteurs. Alle rechten voorbehouden. Niets uit deze uitgave mag worden verveelvoudigd, opgeslagen in een geautomatiseerd gegevensbestand, of openbaar gemaakt, in enige
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enig andere manier, zonder voorafgaande schriftelijke toestemming van de rechthebbende(n).
2008 The authors. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing from the
proprietor(s).

Contents

Introduction
1. Henk de Haan and Ren van der Duim
Socio-spatial studies in experiences, practices and policies

Part 1: Experiencing nature, landscape and heritage

2. Dmitri Karmanov
Research methods in landscape perception and experience

17

3. Maarten Jacobs
Emotional responses to animals

31

4. Arjen Buijs
Immigrants between two cultures: Social representations
theory and images of nature

43

5. Jelle Vervloet
The position of cultural history and heritage management
in a complex society

63

Part 2: Leisure practices and public space

6. Henk de Haan
Social interaction and neighbourhood control. The
significance of walking and narratives

73

7. Karin Peters
Leisure in a multicultural society

97

8. Ramona van Marwijk

Walkers perspectives on nature management strategies:
Nature restoration in a National Park

113

Part 3: The state of the art of tourism research

9. Irena Ateljevic and Linda Peeters
The hybrid specialities and interdisciplinarity of
social science: A case of the tourism studies field

129

10. Valentina Tassone

Systematizing scientific knowledge in sustainable
tourism, poverty reduction and nature conservation

159

11. Ren van der Duim

Exploring pro-poor tourism research: The state of the art

179

Part 4: Landscape policies, management and design

12. Marlies van Hal
Collaborative management in national parks: The
case of Retezat National Park, Romania

199

13. Marleen Buizer

Local initiatives challenging mainstream policies:
Signs of sub-politics?

215

14. Marlies Brinkhuijsen

Designing landscapes for leisure: Reconsidering a
Dutch design tradition

229

15. Martijn Duineveld

The socio-political use of environmental perception,
interpretation and evaluation research

245

Introduction

1 Socio-spatial Studies in Experiences,

Practices and Policies
Henk de Haan and Ren van der Duim

he environment constitutes the everyday living space for people. People use
spatial settings for mobility, work, leisure, dwelling, and so on. Socio-spatial
analysis focuses on these peopleenvironment interactions; that is, on how people
and organizations act upon the spatial contexts in which they find themselves, and
how space has an impact on their practices and experiences.
This book describes and analyses many different ways in which people interact
with the environment, as tourists, policy makers, nature or animal lovers, visitors
to urban parks, and citizens walking in their neighbourhood or a natural park. It
highlights their environmental practices, experiences and representations and the
way in which spatial environments structure these practices and experiences. It
also reveals how people and organizations order and structure space (or at least try
to), as well as the processes of institutionalization and appropriation that accompany such ordering and structuring. It discusses how design, planning, policies
and regulation influence peoples behavioural and experiential world.
It is far beyond the scope of this introduction to present a comprehensive overview of the broad theoretical and thematic domain of the papers. That would be
an impossible task. Instead, this introduction explains the aim of the book and
clarifies the context from which the contributions originate. This is followed by an
overview of the different parts and chapters of the book.
This book is the result of a common effort by the staff members of the Socio-spatial Analysis chairgroup of Wageningen University, the Netherlands; it
presents an overview of current and recent work related to landscape, space,
tourism and leisure. The book is dedicated to Jaap Lengkeek, who was appointed professor of the chairgroup in 2002. Between then and his retirement at the
end of 2008, he realized a remarkable achievement as witnessed by this collection of papers.
The Socio-spatial Analysis chairgroup originates from the interdisciplinary
Working Group on Outdoor Recreation, which was founded in 1984. The working
group became a chairgroup in 1997, and in 2002 it offered one of the first MSc
programmes at Wageningen, entitled Leisure, Tourism and Environment. In
2003, the group also began participating in the BSc and MSc programmes Landscape Architecture and Planning, with its own MSc specialization Socio-spatial

Analysis. In doing so, the study fields of socio-spatial analysis, leisure and tourism became increasingly intertwined, not only in education but also in research.
The working group, which had a relatively narrow thematic focus on outdoor
recreation, was transformed into a multidisciplinary social-science group, with
a broad focus on peopleenvironment interactions. It has always been clear to
Lengkeek that leisure and tourism cannot be considered as isolated domains in
peoples livelihoods, and that an academically interesting approach should focus on the meanings people attribute to tourist and leisure places and to how
they experience leisure and tourism activities. He positioned the Wageningen
perspective as a social-science approach, with an emphasis on the integration
of tourism and leisure in everyday life-worlds, on the significance of place and
the environmental setting, and on the importance of studying experiences and
signifying practices.
As such, this approach not only opened up an interesting window on tourism
and leisure, but also broadened the thematic focus of the chairgroup to much
wider, more fundamental fields of scientific inquiry, more specifically to peopleplace interactions. In real life, people are not merely concerned with temporary escapes from everyday environments, becoming tourists or consumers
of leisure facilities; instead, they look for spatial qualities as part of their general
livelihood strategies. They have outspoken environmental demands concerning
the quality of residential environments, green spaces, public spaces, landscapes,
transit and commercial areas, office spaces and workplaces. The issues studied
in tourism and leisure such as producing and managing attractive destinations, where people can enjoy environmental and staged qualities are not fundamentally different from the more general focus on place-making, design and
planning, and the use and experiences of our everyday environments. Moreover,
as Lengkeek was also a fervent supporter of linking tourism, landscapes and cultural heritage, heritage studies and heritage experiences also gained an important position within the chairgroup.
In order to understand tourism and leisure, a scientific approach should look
at peopleenvironment interactions from a much broader theoretical perspective.
Thus, landscape and nature preferences and attitudes, sense of place, and issues
concerned with participative policies and governance can be applied to a wide variety of themes, including tourism and leisure. Moreover, the fact that many tourism and leisure attractions are not merely the domain of visitors but are an integral part of peoples environment, implies intensive study of the socio-environmental effects. What does it mean if an area is dependent on income from tourism, or how can tourism play a role in employment and income policies? Or, what
happens to farmers and local inhabitants when landscapes are transformed for
leisure purposes? Broadening the perspective to the structuration and experience
of environmental qualities in general has diversified considerably the theoretical
and thematic foci of the chairgroup. The broadening of theoretical and thematic
perspectives is well reflected by the scope of the contributions to this book.

As stated, this volume is dedicated to Jaap Lengkeek. This collection of papers is therefore different from most of the edited volumes that appear nowadays.
An edited volume is usually based on carefully selected and often invited papers
that are written by a geographically dispersed group of authors on a specialized,
narrow theme. The authors of this book are all associated with the same scientific group. They are colleagues on a daily basis, commonly responsible for the
groups research and teaching programme. Secondly, the books theme represents
the wide spectrum of scientific work that is done within the context of the group.
This does not mean that the papers are an eclectic selection; on the contrary, each
paper touches on fundamental research approaches and themes, and the relationships between themes as promoted by Lengkeek. The unity of the contents mirrors Jaap Lengkeeks academic heritage.
The result is a collection of papers that range from emotions towards the
animal world to poverty-reducing tourism projects, and from landscape experiences to ethnic leisure patterns. Despite this variety, all the papers are inspired
by the same objective of establishing systematic relationships between peoples
spatial preferences, patterns of spatial behaviour, and their effects on social and
physical environments. They ref lect the variety of scales and levels of abstraction that characterize the groups research. The book contains an analysis of
global ordering mechanisms of tourism and development paradigms, as well
as a precise empirical study of collaborative park management; highly abstract
methodological considerations about how to study peoples environmental preferences are mixed with a critical approach to how experience research is mingled with political and policy agendas. There is a remarkable diversity also in a
methodological sense. Quantitative research, based on the hypothetical-deductive model, exists side by side with a more social constructivist and symbolicinteractionist approach.
Overview of the book
Part 1 Experiencing nature, landscape and heritage comprises four chapters.
Karmanov provides a general overview of methods of studying landscape perceptions, illustrated by a wide variety of mainly experimental psychological research.
Jacobs asks why we like or dislike animals, and introduces fundamental emotion
theory as a basis to unravel the possible causes and mechanisms that bring about
positive or negative feelings towards animals. Buijs presents a conceptual and empirical study of how different ethnic groups perceive nature, thereby touching on
the problems of a multicultural society and hybrid cultural backgrounds. Finally,
Vervloet presents the results of research on the differential perception of culturalhistorical landscapes. These papers use a range of perspectives on psychological
states, emotions, social representations and images, and landscape visions. However, they all focus on explaining individual, social and cultural differences, thus
illustrating the significance of a multilayered reality

In the first chapter Research methods in landscape perception and experience

Dmitri Karmanov presents a review of the psychological research into landscape
perception and experience, with a particular focus on the methods and techniques
used. According to Karmanov, experience studies are confronted with the major
methodological problem of how to access an individuals perceptual, cognitive and
affective representations of an environment. His review is based on research papers published in Environment and Behavior and Journal of Environmental Psychology. The five clusters of methods that in recent decades have been consistently applied in the psychological research into landscape experience are questionnaires,
psychometric tests, psychophysical methods, psychophysiological methods, and
observation. After discussing these methods, Karmanov raises the problem of the
measurement of psychological states. He argues that there is no direct access to
mental characteristics and that properties of the mind do not lend themselves to
simple physical measurement. Although attempts have been made to develop empirical measures that do approximate psychological characteristics, the imperfection of the relationship between psychological characteristics and their assumed
empirical manifestations has not yet been resolved. The application of a combination of various methods and techniques seems to be the best way forward. However, landscape experience will never be exhaustively accounted for.
In the second chapter Emotional responses to animals Maarten Jacobs argues that human relationships with animals, including instant short-term relationships such as encountering a wild squirrel, are often characterized by strong
feelings. Liking or disliking animals results from those feelings, which are always
accompanied by a positive or a negative emotion. In this theoretical paper, he explains the possible causes of why we like or dislike animals by describing different types of emotional responses to animals and elucidating the underlying
mechanisms. Fundamental insights into the workings of emotions provide good
reasons to assume three types of emotional responses, namely evolutionary developed innate responses, unconsciously learned responses and consciously learned
responses. These different emotional responses may account for instances of liking or disliking animals as found in the scientific literature and derived from anecdotal evidence. According to Jacobs, the study of our emotional relationships
with animals and the underlying mechanisms can contribute to our general understanding of peoples attitudes, norms and values with respect to, for instance,
wildlife management, the keeping of companion animals, agricultural production, animal-related tourism, etc.
In the third chapter in Part 1 Immigrants between two cultures Arjen Buijs focuses on the images of nature held by different ethnic groups. According to Buijs,
environmental psychology does not pay sufficient attention to the dynamics of the
humannature relationship. To understand the dynamics of how individual immigrants look upon nature, he suggests using social representations theory. Representations are primarily produced in our contacts with other people and institutions. As consensual representations, they form the agreed set of values, beliefs,

images and metaphors that are attached to a specific object. Buijs emphasizes that
individual cognitions which he coins as images of nature cannot be equated
with social representations, which provide people with a repertoire of views and
ideas and are internalized in individual minds. Images of nature are enclosing
frameworks that direct and structure the perception and appreciation of nature.
When individuals incorporate conflicting elements from different social representations, this leads to cognitive polyphasia. These theoretical perspectives are used
to show how and why immigrants and native Dutch people differ in the way they
look at nature and nature management. Dutch people support a wilderness image
of nature, while immigrant groups show massive support for the functional image and only very limited support for the wilderness image. These results suggest
that both first-generation immigrants and the native Dutch construct their images
of nature based on the social representations that are dominant in their own cultures. Interestingly, second-generation immigrants (persons born in the Netherlands but raised in an immigrant culture) seem to take a middle position between
the two groups. Their adherence to the different images of nature is a result of a
combination of the functional images that are dominant among first-generation
immigrants and the wilderness images held by many native Dutch persons. These
results seem to reflect the complex cultural situation of these second-generation
immigrants: they clearly belong to two different social groups that are related to
very different cultures. Buijss observations raise interesting questions about the
phase of acculturalization among second-generation immigrants, who seem to
draw simultaneously on two social representations of nature.
In the last chapter of Part 1 The position of cultural history and heritage management in a complex society Jelle Vervloet approaches the position of cultural history and heritage management in relation to the complex society in which we live.
He reports on a research project that analysed the perception of cultural-historical
landscapes by different social groups, namely local and regional historical associations, local people and various interest groups. Each group has its own appreciation of specific phenomena in cultural-historical landscapes. Aspects that play an
important role in the perception of landscapes are knowledge, emotional commitment, susceptibility to aesthetics, satisfaction of functional needs, and economic
dependence. Glasses (spectacles) are used as a metaphor to express specific social
groups views of cultural history. Vervloet distinguishes, for instance, policy glasses, expert glasses, sunglasses and market glasses. Given this perceptual differentiation, the question is how to use this variety of information in heritage management. What kind of solution can be recommended in the confrontation between
expert knowledge and actor knowledge? Vervloet clearly demonstrates one of the
complexities of contemporary policies that are related to landscape and heritage
management in general. Different actors ranging from local people to professionals, and from academics to tourists have diverging perceptions of the historical landscape, and this often makes it difficult for policy makers, who prefer to
deal with more uniform representations of reality, to take decisions.

In Part 2 Leisure practices and public space the emphasis shifts from environmental experiences, attitudes and emotions, to environmental practices. Three
papers study peoples leisure-related behaviour in residential areas, public spaces,
parks and protected natural areas. De Haan explores the neighbourhood setting
as an arena of social control and interaction, arguing that architectural and planning principles have a huge impact on human interaction. Peters studies urban
public spaces and more formal leisure zones from the perspective of the multicultural society, while in the last chapter of Part 2, van Marwijk studies landscape
preferences in a protected National Park. Interaction between people and between
people and the environment, and the focus on behaviour, show how attitudes and
preferences are based in practical experiences and cannot always be studied in an
experimental way, removed from the concrete bodily experiences.
In his paper Social interaction and neighbourhood control, Henk de Haan focuses on the residential area as an important setting for peoples leisure time.
His point of departure is the vulnerable position of the home: in a neighbourhood context it is exposed to the effects of all kinds of human activities. The experience of dwelling is determined not only by the quality of the time spent indoors but also by the environmental qualities outside the house. According to de
Haan, most neighbourhood residents are fully aware of their neighbourhoods
qualities and the need to control the external impact on their private dwellings.
He describes this extension of the personal domain into the public domain in
terms of social, cognitive and material appropriation. Control tactics are not always consciously practised as instrumental and functional tactics. Welcoming
new inhabitants, having an informal chat in the street and taking a walk around
the block are basically leisure activities that people undertake primarily for social or physical reasons. Establishing social relations with neighbours and gaining extensive knowledge of neighbourhood space and events are natural outcomes of peoples inherent openness to their environment. The fact that social
networks and neighbourhood knowledge are important preconditions for exercising control and for creating a sort of collective moral space reveals the double meaning of leisure time: it is the time experienced as socially and physically
pleasant, but also as time that is useful for maintaining and improving the conditions for leisure and pleasure. In conclusion, de Haan argues that self-regulation, social regulation and environmental regulation are fascinating concepts to
be explored in different types of neighbourhood. Neighbourhoods offer a living
laboratory for researching the intersection between the personal, the social and
the environmental.
Karin Peters, in her paper Leisure in a multicultural society, discusses ethnic diversity and leisure from three perspectives. She first looks at the leisure patterns
in terms of ethnic participation. Based on theories of marginality and ethnicity,
she argues that both socio-economic and sociocultural aspects partly explain differences in leisure behaviour. The second perspective considers the significance
of leisure activities for inter-ethnic integration. Peters describes the outcome of

her research at a number of urban parks, where different ethnic groups are most
likely to meet and interact. She concludes that although ethnic minority groups
do indeed visit the same places, there is not much evidence of mixed encounters.
The third part deals with ethnicity as a commodified product. Based on various examples, she shows that ethnic diversity can and is used to attract people, and that
ethnic groups frequently interact in themed and staged environments. According
to Peters, leisure studies can contribute significantly to an understanding of social integration. In leisure activities, which mostly take place in the public sphere
or in relatively open institutional contexts, people are relatively free from the restrictions they encounter in educational systems or the labour market. Her finding that even in leisure activities the ethnic divisions of society are reproduced is
therefore remarkable.
The last chapter of Part 2 was written by Ramona van Marwijk. Her paper Walkers perspectives on nature management strategies is part of a bigger research project
on timespace behavioural patterns in a landscape where nature development and
recreational values are combined. As the title indicates, she is interested in what
walkers in a Dutch National Park think of interventions in the landscape that are
intended to restore the original local natural features. Nature managers face the
dual task of conserving and restoring nature, and offering opportunities for recreationists to enjoy nature. Their nature restoration interventions regularly draw
criticism from various groups, such as residents and recreationists. The research
focused on people with in situ experience, and although they were asked to participate in a more distanced research methodology, they were capable of referring to
the landscape in which they had walked. The respondents were divided into two
groups. The first received information about the restoration project, while the second did not. The research question was: what is the effect of knowledge on preference and perception? The results show that recreationists perceive the restored
nature sites more positively than the traditionally managed ones: bogs and wet
forest were preferred to coniferous and deciduous forest. In addition, the presentation of information about the ideas behind the restoration plan positively influenced the desirability of restored nature sites.
Part 3 discusses The state of the art of tourism research. Socio-spatial analysis at
Wageningen University has a strong empirical focus on international tourism
and its relation to sustainable development through its international MSc programme in Leisure, Tourism and Environment, the appointment in 2009 of a
special professor focusing on tourism and sustainable development, and an extensive portfolio in applied research focusing on tourism, nature conservation
and poverty alleviation and on tourism and socio-economic transformation. We
therefore decided to devote the third part of this book to the state of the art of
tourism research. First, Ateljevic and Peeters provide a historical map of tourism
studies for the last four decades, namely from the late 1960s until the late 2000s.
The analysis of tourism studies in general is followed by a more detailed map-

ping by Tassone of the development of research in the field of tourism, nature

conservation and poverty reduction. She provides an indication of the direction
of past scientific research work in this field. She also explores research trends,
gaps and opportunities, and concludes that there is a dire need to develop new
research concepts and frameworks and innovative ways of combining existing
approaches. In the third chapter, van der Duim discusses the origin of the concept of pro-poor tourism in a historical perspective. He also examines the current
state of research in the field of pro-poor tourism and discusses the way forward
for research on pro-poor tourism.
In the first chapter The hybrid specialities and interdisciplinarity of social science Irena Ateljevic and Linda Peeters examine 40 years of tourism knowledge
production by linking the phenomenal world of tourism per se with the knowledge force field, that is, where a researcher sits to gaze upon the phenomenon,
research it and write about it. Despite the maturation signs, the three most important challenges faced by tourism studies are: 1) to deepen the efforts of greater
dialogue between business and non-business studies approaches in order to bring
together pure theoretical preoccupations and empirical concerns of necessary social change; 2) to change the image of tourism, which is still seen as a frivolous
service industry that mostly creates negative environmental, social and cultural
impacts; and 3) to move beyond the still dominant Eurocentric perspectives and
develop conceptualizations of tourisms that include multiple cultural differences,
worldviews and research activities that reflect and recognize the plurality of all
practices, positions and insights.
In her paper Systematizing scientific knowledge in sustainable tourism, poverty reduction and nature conservation, Valentina Tassone presents an analysis of 67 scientific papers on tourism, poverty alleviation and nature conservation issues that appeared in 15 social-science journals in the period 20032006. Her study provides
an indication of the direction of past scientific research work and explores research
trends, gaps and opportunities, also taking into account societal need. Her findings
suggest that research on poverty issues is very much overlooked and that there is
a clear need to investigate the effectiveness of tourism strategies for the poor (see
also van der Duim, this volume). Distribution of resources, equity issues, community involvement, group cohesion, and potential partnerships and arrangements
should be carefully examined. Researchers must also deepen their understanding
of the interconnection and interdependency between poverty, tourism and nature
conservation issues. According to Tassone, problem-oriented research should be
less fragmented and more broad in its scope. Case studies should be more spread
among regions and especially focus on less-researched topics, such as poverty and
sustainability issues in developing countries. Concept-oriented research should be
put higher on the research agenda, also because it provides the philosophical, conceptual and methodological grounds upon which practical research can be implemented. The development of new concepts and frameworks and innovative ways
of combining existing approaches is very much needed.

10

In his paper Exploring pro-poor tourism research: the state of the art, Ren van der
Duim stresses the need for more comparative and longitudinal research projects
to assess the impacts of pro-poor tourism strategies and interventions in order
to substantiate the promises of pro-poor tourism, and to further the theoretical,
methodological and conceptual underpinning of this type of research. He first
discusses the origin of the concept of pro-poor tourism in a historical perspective,
showing that liberal and neoliberal, critical and alternative development approaches have all contributed in some way to the growth of interest in pro-poor tourism.
Second, he examines the current state of research in the field of pro-poor tourism
and discusses the way forward for research. Van der Duim argues not only to do
more and especially better research on pro-poor tourism, but also to critically analyse how people and organizations (and especially development organizations)
construct or have constructed pro-poor tourism and initiated research to substantiate pro-poor tourism.
The fourth and final part of this book Landscape policies, management and design
concerns the way in which interventions influence peoples behaviour and experiences and how, vice versa, people try to influence policies and interventions. Van
Hal examines a collaborative management project in Retezat National Park, Romania. Buizer links up three private, local initiatives to influence policy making with
the concept of sub-politics as introduced by Beck. Brinkhuijsen examines to what
extent leisure approaches in the context of the Dutch design tradition are still relevant and suitable in the twenty-first century. In the last chapter, Duineveld examines
the extra-scientific uses of environmental perception, interpretation and evaluation
research, and argues that social scientists should become more aware of the contexts in which they produce knowledge and they way it can be used and misused.
In the first chapter Collaborative management in National Parks: the case of Retezat National Park, Romania Marlies van Hal examines a collaborative management project in the named National Park. Managers of protected areas increasingly recognize that protected area management needs to take a cooperative and collaborative approach with local stakeholders in order to share the responsibility for
management. In this chapter Van Hal develops a framework, or a set of criteria,
for examining the conditions for creating collaborative management processes
in protected areas. Her assessment criteria are derived from a comparison of the
relevant literature. The resulting framework consists of five dimensions: stakeholder characteristics, relationships and communication, process and structure,
resources, and external environment. Based on this, the study then examines the
collaborative management of RNP. The framework allowed the identification of a
number of issues that have an effect on that collaborative management.
In her paper Local initiatives challenging mainstream polices: signs of sub-politics?, Marleen Buizer shows how citizens, societal organizations, private enterprises or combinations thereof attempt to influence policy making in their own
time, regarding their own place and on their own conditions. Her qualitative

11

analysis of three private, local initiatives and particularly of what exactly happens
in their interactions with established policies is an attempt to answer the question in which sense these initiatives are sub-politics in the making. She suggests
that exploring the interconnections between discourses and institutional practices may be a particularly fruitful way to uncover in what sense these initiatives
could be characterized as sub-political in terms of discourse as well as in terms
of institutional practices.
In her paper Designing landscapes for leisure: reconsidering a Dutch design tradition, Marlies Brinkhuijsen examines the extent to which leisure approaches in the
Dutch design tradition concerning rural landscapes are still relevant and suitable
in the context of current new leisure demands and landscape challenges. She analyses operational and strategic landscape designs to uncover the underlying design
concepts, tools and ideas. These are compared and critically reviewed from an academic and a practical point of view. According to Brinkhuijsen, a marked shortcoming in the reconstructed design tradition is the negligence and underestimation of sociocultural aspects. Landscape has been approached as an ecological,
functional and economic system. Landscape designers can overcome this shortcoming by making use of extensive theoretical and empirical knowledge. They
need to familiarize themselves with the specific leisure knowledge produced by
leisure and tourism studies, environmental psychology, cultural geography and
cultural anthropology. Brinkhuijsen urges landscape designers to include people
in their landscape studies and to treat their needs and desires with the same passion and sensitivity as they do other demands, in order to instigate a flow of new
(or renewed) design concepts, tools and images.
Finally, in the last chapter The socio-political use of environmental perception,
interpretation and evaluation research Martijn Duineveld examines the extra-scientific uses of environmental perception, interpretation and evaluation research.
Extra-scientific use refers to all those types of research that attempt to acquire
insights into the ways people perceive, construct, value and evaluate their environment. In its many forms from psychological analyses to interpretative anthropological approaches it is a type of research that has recently gained popularity in the Netherlands, partly because it is regarded as relevant to politics and
policy making. Within these extra-scientific practices, the results of perception,
interpretation and evaluation research are and can be used for various purposes. Duineveld distinguishes seven uses of research: the democratization of policy
and decision-making processes; policy evaluation; management and resolution
of conflicts; support and formation of policies; improvement of communication
strategies; deconstruction of policy assumptions; and the legitimating of existing
policies and political action. Although this use in research tenders and scientific
reports is hardly ever explicated as an extra-scientific goal, a brief analysis of the
actual uses of perception, interpretation and evaluation research shows that the
results are frequently used as means to achieve these goals. This particular use of
research becomes problematic when it leads to undemocratic practices in which

12

certain groups use research results to legitimize their own facts and values and
leave aside or exclude others. To tackle this problem, social scientists should become more aware of the contexts in which they produce knowledge (the scientific
field) and of how knowledge can be used and misused outside the academic field.
For this, Duineveld explores the concept of reflexivity (or participant objectivation
or auto-analysis), which stems from the French sociologist Bourdieu.
The future of socio-spatial analysis
This book illustrates the way in which socio-spatial analysis and leisure and tourism studies have gradually managed to amalgamate within the context of one particular chairgroup during the last decade. As Ateljevic explains in this volume, in
the efforts to build a more integrated interdisciplinary field of tourism studies,
works have emerged that are innovative in that they analyse tourism and leisure
as powerful agents that are related to critical socio-political and economic issues of
sustainability, heritage, governance, migration, urbanrural relations, nature conservation, human and spatial marginalization, globalization, representation, cultural commodification, consumption, and social identities and experiences. In order to theorize and examine these issues, insights from socio-spatial analysis have
been employed to give greater impetus to the social science trajectory. On the other hand, it has become clear to the chairgroup that socio-spatial analysis has a lot
to gain from the innovative works within the realm of leisure and tourism studies.
As stated above, the issues studied in tourism and leisure such as producing and
managing attractive destinations, the way people experience landscape and nature
during their leisure time, or the way tourists or recreationists and tourism and
leisure organizations order and structure space are not fundamentally different from the more general issues of place-making, design and planning, and the
use and experiences of our everyday environments. It is the ambition of the chairgroup to further connect these two worlds at a theoretical level, in education and
in research, by incessantly studying experiences, practices and representations
within the realms of everyday spaces, as well as leisure and tourism landscapes.
As this book illustrates, the link between tourism and leisure studies and sociospatial analysis, and consequently the chairgroups empirical focus on everyday,
leisure and tourism landscapes, will continue to contribute to the societal and political debates on the importance of the environment for sustainable development;
planning, design and landscape architecture; liveability, health, social and mental
well-being; and last but not least entertainment and leisure.

13

Part 1
Experiencing Nature,
Landscape and Heritage

2 Research Methods in Landscape

Perception and Experience
Dmitri Karmanov

ver the last decades researchers into the experiential qualities of landscape
have developed a variety of theoretical perspectives, concepts and research
methods. This paper presents a review of the psychological research into landscape perception and experience with a particular focus on the methods and techniques used rather than on theories or empirical results. Although the ideas, conceptual frameworks and theories that drive research are of primary importance,
we should not underestimate the importance of the research methods and techniques (questionnaires, tests, physiological measures, observation, etc.), as they
determine the nature of the data collected in support of these theories. Discussing methodological issues separately from any theoretical framework may be considered a rather artificial undertaking. As a rule, the nature of the theory restricts
the range of research methods that can be meaningfully used. For example, for a
theory explaining the stress-reducing capacity of natural environments it is necessary to estimate stress levels, using some sort of physiological measure. On the
other hand, the number of ideas and theories about landscape experience that
are worth investigating is potentially limitless, whereas the number of available
methods is restricted.
The focus on methods is prompted by the observation that operationalizing
research questions that is, translating ideas into feasible research strategies
may be as difficult as generating the ideas in the first place. A variety of methods
are available for testing psychological theories. In fact, it is wise to test a theory
using different methods in order to prove that it is not the application of some specific method that results in the theory being supported or rejected. A synopsis of
the methods that have been applied in the investigation of landscape perception
and experience can therefore be quite useful. For then the characteristics of the
method and the nature of the resulting data can already be considered in terms
of their suitability to answer the research question. The subject of this review is
not the strengths and weaknesses of specific methods; rather, the emphasis is on
providing guidance for the selection of methods. The choice of a method is also
determined by a number of questions generated by the theory of measurement.
These will be discussed. In this review I draw a distinction between methods and
techniques: methods refer to general strategies of data collection and analysis,

17

while techniques refer to specific measures (skin conductance or heart rate) or

strategies of data collection (the use of specific types of observational techniques).
Systems of inquiry
The fundamental task of psychological research is to explain differences. These
may be the differences between experimental conditions, groups of people or environments. The research methods used to investigate differences have traditionally been divided into quantitative and qualitative ones.
The ontological and epistemological foundations of quantitative and qualitative frameworks are rather different. A quantitative approach presupposes the existence of an objective reality in which the researcher is independent of the subject
of inquiry. The assumption behind a qualitative approach is that reality is subjective and the researcher and the subject of inquiry interact with each other (Groat
& Wang, 2002: 2728). This difference is reflected in the methodologies of each
approach. Quantitative research is described as a deductive process of inquiry
that seeks cause-and-effect explanations, and qualitative research as an inductive
process that seeks clarification of multiple critical factors affecting the phenomenon (ibid.). In quantitative research the emphasis is on internal and external validity, reliability and objectivity; qualitative research highlights the historical and social context of research, that is, its political, gender, ethnic and racial connotations.
The representation of qualitative and quantitative methods as innately opposite approaches may, however, be an oversimplification. In the practice of research, qualitative and quantitative techniques are complementary, as they focus
on different aspects of reality. Qualitative methods can be used to describe a phenomenon, its nature and its development in time, while quantitative methods are
used to describe the frequency of its occurrence, the range of its distribution, etc.
Thus: . . . participant observation in the hands of a positivist may be used to document the number and length of interactions within a setting, but in the hands
of an action theorist the technique may be used to explore the realms of subjective meaning of those interactions. (Morgan & Smircich, cited in Groat & Wang,
2002: 31)
At a theoretical level both qualitative and quantitative techniques categorize
phenomena, the former emphasizing words and the latter numbers. In practice,
research would profit from the elimination of any sharp boundaries between
qualitative and quantitative approaches. For example, it should be customary to
use some qualitative technique (e.g. an unstructured interview) as a first stage in
an otherwise quantitative inquiry. It goes without saying that qualitative methods
are important in their own right. Consider, for instance, the wealth of information that has come from a study into the landscapes of childhood that was based
on the interpretation of personal experiences (Sebba, 1991), or a study of personal
experiences of natural landscapes by elderly Japanese that was assessed by means
of in-depth interviews (Ohta, 2001).

18

As most psychological research into landscape experience has been of a quantitative nature, in this review I will not discuss techniques associated exclusively with qualitative research, such as action research, ethnographical research or
diary techniques. After reviewing the methods and some of the techniques of
quantitative research, I will discuss a number of theoretical questions related to
the choice of methods and the analysis of research data from the perspective of
measurement theory.
The categorization of psychological methods
This review of psychological methods is based on research papers published in
two journals that comprehensively cover the spectrum of theories and methods
of research into landscape perception and landscape experience. The two journals
are Environment and Behavior and Journal of Environmental Psychology.
Five clusters of methods can be distinguished that in recent decades have
been consistently applied in the psychological research into landscape experience: questionnaires, psychometric tests, psychophysical and psychophysiological methods, and observation. Theories of landscape perception and experience
(e.g. the theory of restorative environments) usually rely on a combination of
methods. Different methods are sometimes applied within one study, for instance a combination of behavioural and cognitive map analysis (Holahan & Dobrowolny, 1978).
Questionnaires
It is no surprise that questionnaires are the most widely used technique in landscape perception and experience research. Although there are many established
psychometric tests (see below), researchers often need to create their own measures to investigate their specific research questions. Questionnaires became such
a popular research technique because of their versatility and the possibility of
customizing them. The use of questionnaires is virtually indispensable as an initial step in gathering information about phenomena in order to formulate specific hypotheses. A vast number of research topics have been explored using questionnaires, from the aesthetic and emotional experiences of wilderness hikers
(Shafer & Mietz, 1969), through the dimensions of wilderness solitude (Hammitt, 1982), to the analysis of preferences for urban nature (Herzog, 1989) and the
determinants of recreation satisfaction in camping (Dorfman, 1979).
Psychometric tests
Psychometric testing is a very common method of data collection in psychological research. Psychometric tests are fully developed questionnaires, with known
reliability, validity and population parameters; an example is the Minnesota Mul-

19

tiphasic Personality Inventory (Graham, 2006). Most psychometric tests are

norm referenced, which means that data exist about the range of scores that can
be expected from the population under consideration (Hammond, 1995). There
are also criterion (performance) referenced psychometric tests with known expected standards of performance. Exact, operationally defined concepts underlie these tests. Psychometric tests have been developed to measure an extremely
broad range of mental characteristics: aptitudes, competencies, personality traits,
mood states, psychopathologies and attitudes. Researchers into landscape experience have applied a variety of psychometric tests: personality tests, the Semantic Differential (Osgood et al., 1957), the Profile of Mood States (POMS) (McNair
et al., 1971), the Zuckerman Inventory of Personal Reactions (ZIPERS) (Zuckerman, 1977), etc.
Using a popular test with known characteristics saves time and facilitates the
comparison of results between different studies. Whereas using an existing test
may appear a better option than designing a questionnaire, it is essential to bear
in mind that the content of the instrument of measurement must be relevant to
the environment or psychological state under consideration. This is not always
the case, as many tests will have been developed for a different purpose in a different situation. In such cases, it may be advisable to design a questionnaire.
Psychometric tests are usually divided into four categories: projective tests,
self-report inventories, objective tests and ideographic measures. Projective tests
are primarily used in psychiatry (e.g. the Rorschach test). Such tests were developed to bring to the surface pathological processes that may not be accessible to a
subjects consciousness. It is unlikely that projective tests can be applied outside
the clinical context. Self-report inventories, on the other hand, have been commonly used in landscape perception and experience research to measure environmental attitudes (Milfont & Duckitt, 2004), personality factors (Stamps & Nasar,
1997), mood states (Karmanov & Hamel, 2008), etc.
Objective tests include tests of knowledge and performance. For instance, a
performance test was applied in a study of affective restoration in which a proofreading task (i.e. finding misspellings and errors) was used as a measure of affective restoration (Hartig et al., 1991). Shibata and Suzuki (2002) applied an association task (the generation of words for given items) and a sorting task (the sorting
of 180 index cards into Japanese alphabetic order) to the investigation of the effect
of the presence of leafy plants in a room on the subjects task performance. Objective tests have also been applied in studies of unconscious processes. Affective
priming is a technique that has proved to be effective in the exploration of unconscious influences on the perceived experiential qualities of natural environments.
Stimuli that are thought to be of functional importance to the organism may elicit
unconscious emotional reactions without a subject becoming aware of them. The
presence as well as the type of hidden emotional reactions may be deduced from
participants faster reaction times to affectively similar stimuli, for instance faces
that express specific emotions (Korpela et al., 2002; Hietanen & Korpela, 2004).

20

Ideographic tests focus on individual respondents. A widely applied strategy

is that of a repertory grid. The technique in its simplest form requires the participants to compare and contrast sets of three elements (people, environments,
objects, etc.) using their own words and criteria. The method allows the respondents to choose their own concepts for the categorization of perceived experiential
qualities of, for instance, built environments (Leff & Deutsch, 1973). The resulting descriptions are further analysed using multidimensional scaling technique
(MDS) in order to discern patterns of relationships between the elements (Grling, 1976). An advantage of the grid method is that it combines the ideographic assessment of an individuals constructs with the possibility of generalization
across groups of people through the use of statistical techniques.
Another ideographic measure is the analysis of cognitive maps, a measure
that was initiated by Lynch (Lynch, 1960). Cognitive maps are hypothesized representations of the environment, embodying peoples knowledge, beliefs, conceptions and misconceptions about the spatial organization of the environment. Asking people to draw a map of their physical environment reveals individuals representations of it, which can subsequently be examined for inaccuracies and distortions (Kitchin, 1994).
Ideographic tests have frequently been used to study preferences for natural
scenes, particularly by means of a multiple sorting task (Zube et al., 1983; Kaplan, 1987; Scott & Canter, 1997). Respondents are usually asked to categorize a
set of elements (photos of natural scenes) according to perceived similarities
and differences. Kaplan (1987) used a multiple sorting task to find a relationship between preferences for natural scenes and specific physical characteristics of these scenes. He notes the relative inaccessibility of landscape preference
to conscious introspection. Participants tend to be unaware of the properties
of natural scenes (mystery, coherence) that proved effective in predicting their
preferences.
Psychophysical methods
Psychophysical methods have been of distinct importance to the research into
landscape experience and perception. These methods were developed as techniques for measuring the parameters of sensory and perceptual systems. In psychological research these methods are commonly used to find the minimum difference in the physical intensity of a stimulus that is still recognized as difference
in perceived experiential quality (two frequencies of sound that are still detected
as two different sounds). This technique of threshold detection can be applied to
determine various types of thresholds: between sounds, colours or words.
The methods of visual threshold detection have rarely been used in landscape
research, with the notable exception of Shang and Bishops (2000) study. Psychophysical research into landscape perception and experience uses techniques
that allow exploration of the relationship between experiential qualities of land-

21

scapes and their physical characteristics. Photographs of landscapes are generally

used. The physical features of the depicted scenes are either described accurately
or measured. These features are subsequently related to preferences or to judgements of scenic beauty by means of regression analysis (Calvin et al., 1972; Abell
et al., 1986). For instance, Shafer (1969) developed a mathematical model of landscape preferences for use in the assessment of the recreation potential of landscapes. Preferences were determined by means of the combined effect of specific
landscape properties: the perimeter of vegetation, the presence of water, the area
of non-vegetation, the total area covered by clouds, etc. In a similar study, Patsfall
and Feimer (1984) examined the physical properties of landscapes that contribute
to their perceived scenic quality.
The effect of specific physical characteristics of landscapes on perceived experiential qualities (safety, preference, scenic quality) can also be investigated by
manipulating the physical characteristics of landscapes using photographs (e.g.
by adding or taking away trees or varying tree size) (Sheets & Manzer, 1991).
Variations in specific physical properties can then be related to changes in the
experience of landscape. Many landscape perception studies make use of this
technique, such as a study of preferred tree shapes in which different shapes
and heights of trees were related to preference judgements (Summit & Sommer,
1999; Herzog & Flynn-Smith, 2001). Another example is a study of the emotional experience of parks in which scenes representing different levels of three
physical characteristics namely tree spacing, density of understorey growth
(brush, shrubs and grasses) and presence of paths were correlated with measures of affect, that is, pleasure, beauty, activity, satisfaction, etc. (Hull & Harvey,
1989).
Psychophysiological methods
Research into landscape perception and experience has also been characterized
by an interest in the interactions between psychological and physiological phenomena. The physiological impact of environments has been seen as an important complement to subjective psychological data. Another rationale behind the
use of psychophysiological methods was the fact that physiological measures are
much more successful in motivating governmental action (Ulrich, 1981). The
field of psychophysiology is concerned with the manipulation of psychological
variables while observing the effects of such manipulation on physiological processes (Barrett & Sowden, 1995). Additionally, the behavioural consequences of
physiological states (e.g. the avoidance of stress-inducing environments) and the
effects of behaviour on these physiological states have been investigated.
Much research has been done into the physiology of emotion, stress, cognitive
task performance, personality, etc. The vast array of physiological measures includes muscle activity (electromyographic; EMG), galvanic skin response (SCR),
electro-oculography (EOG) (eye movements), cardiac response (ECG), the electri-

22

cal/magnetic activity of a mass action of neurons within the cortex (EEG/MEG)

and functional brain imaging (fMRI), to name but a few. The potential of these
techniques has barely been touched upon within landscape perception and experience research. There are limits to their utility, however, since as a rule such
techniques were developed in a very different research context. They may be highly specific in terms of data presentation and format and many are associated with
specific psychological parameters. For instance, skin conductance is particularly
useful as a measure of arousal, facial electromyography and cardiac response as
measures of emotional states, EEG as a measure of attentional focus and cognitive performance, etc. Therefore, finding a physiological measure suitable to the
goals of landscape research may be a challenge.
Nevertheless, some of the measures have been successfully applied by researchers into landscape perception and experience. For instance, Ulrich (1981)
used heart rate and EEG (alpha waves) as measures of cortical arousal and found
that natural environments have beneficial, stress-reducing effects. In a different
study (Ulrich et al., 1991), stress recovery during exposure to natural and urban
environments was measured by a battery of physiological measures, namely heart
period, muscle tension, skin conductance and pulse transit time (a non-invasive
measure that correlates with systolic blood pressure). In a study into stress recovery after exposure to various roadside environments, measures of blood pressure,
electrodermal and facial electromyographic activity (EMG) were used (Parsons et
al., 1998). In a study of preferred tree shapes preferences for shapes and heights
of trees were related to measures of blood pressure and skin temperature (Lohr &
Pearson-Mims, 2006). Another example of the application of psychophysiological techniques is the research into the memorization of views seen when driving
along a road (Carr & Schissler, 1969). In this study, the car passengers eye movements were recorded and compared with the data from free recall of the journey.
Finally, a study of the beneficial effects of gardening made use of salivary cortisol
as a measure of arousal (van den Berg et al., 2006).
Observation
A traditional and still very popular technique is that of observation. It enables a
researcher to study behaviour as it takes place in a variety of situations. Behaviour
can sometimes be sampled by constructing simulated situations (e.g. role play).
However, simply watching and listening in combination with the recording or
counting of phenomena generates a rich source of data. Observational techniques
have now been enriched by the use of covert observation at a distance using GPS
or radio-wave tracking devices (Shoval & Isaacson, 2007). The problem generally
associated with behaviour observation techniques is the difficulty of explaining
the underlying mechanisms of and motivation behind observed behaviour, as
these require insights into the cognitive and emotional aspects of human functioning. This limits their value.

23

The measurement of psychological states

The quality of experience is not easily categorized or expressed in words; its causes are often not accessible to conscious scrutiny. The aim of this short theoretical
exposition is to borrow ideas from the theory of measurement in psychology and
apply them to the experience of landscape. The vast array of methods applied to
psychological research into landscape experience allows the exploration of a variety of psychological processes that underlie the experience of landscape. Such
exploration requires the quantification and measurement of psychological states.
Measurement has been defined as an essentially representational activity, that is,
a process of assigning numbers in such a manner as to preserve basic qualitative
relations observed in the world (Narens & Luce, 1986, cited in Borsboom, 2005:
86). The problem with the measurement of psychological states is that there is no
direct access to mental characteristics; properties of mind do not lend themselves
to simple physical measurement.
Two approaches can be distinguished in the theory of measurement, namely
a realist and an anti-realist approach. These approaches differ fundamentally in
how they understand the relationship between abstract scientific concepts such
as intelligence, depression, stress and concrete observations (Borsboom, 2005:
6). From the realist perspective, theoretical constructs such as intelligence or extraversion, as well as experiential qualities such as attractiveness, are described
as unobservable but nonetheless real phenomena that possess causal power. For
instance, the experience of a gardens attractiveness is thought to exist irrespective of whether anybody attempts to measure it or express it in words. From the
anti-realist perspective, theoretical constructs or experiential qualities have no
referents in reality (ibid.: 7); they have no existential status independent of observations. From this perspective, the experience of attractiveness is not merely
estimated by means of numbers or words but is constructed in the process of its
estimation.
The distinctions made in the theory of measurement do not apply in the practice of psychological inquiry. The measurement of experience usually involves a
number of steps. To begin with, experiential states must be conceptualized in
terms of specific experiential qualities (attractiveness, interestingness). Then the
experiential qualities must be made measurable by relating them to an observable
entity, such as verbal description or physiological or behavioural records. Finally,
the observable entities are measured by means of a technique of measurement,
such as scales, test scores or physiological records. The hypothetical property being assessed (e.g. intelligence) is linked to the measured property (e.g. score on
intelligence test) by common sense only. Considering the inexactness of denotations of words defining constructs, it is impossible to prove that any collection
of observables measures a construct (Nunnally, 1994: 106). This observation applies both to measurements of theoretical constructs such as intelligence and
to the measurement of specific experiential qualities, such as attractiveness.

24

The objectivity of measurement seems to be even more compromised when

we attempt to explore peoples experience of a garden by asking them to score it
on a number of such vague qualities as attractiveness, friendliness or boringness,
than when we attempt to measure their intelligence. In this respect, Nunnally
(ibid.: 50) makes a distinction between judgements when a correct response
can be given and sentiments, when a preference is pronounced. In both cases,
however, it remains fundamentally uncertain whether (and if so, to what extent)
the quality to be measured is actually present in the measurements, or whether it
is at all possible to express the quality to be measured in numbers. It seems that
tests that have correct and incorrect responses, such as tests that measure intelligence, do not suffer from this problem. By counting the number of correct
answers we can differentiate between people on the grounds of an objectively determined score on an intelligence test. Assessing the scoring of a gardens attractiveness or novelty raises the question whether and, if so, to what extent the participants judgements describe similar qualities of experience. Yet, the problem
of the relationship between construct and empirical observations is the same,
whether it concerns psychological characteristics (e.g. intelligence) or experiential qualities (e.g. attractiveness).
Attempts have been made to develop empirical measures that do approximate
psychological characteristics. Embertson, for instance, proposes using a substantial number of distinct cognitive sub-processes as building blocks for psychological constructs that are suitable to direct measurement. (Embertson, 1983, cited in
Borsboom, 2005: 81) For the time being, however, it seems unavoidable to accept
the imperfection of the relationship between psychological characteristics and their
assumed empirical manifestations. A pragmatic solution to the problem is needed.
Measures are tools that can be used for specific purposes, such as the prediction of
behaviour, differentiation between individuals or the elucidation of complex psychological phenomena. As a consequence, the data obtained should be judged on
their utility and not on their capacity to truly represent any underlying psychological characteristics. Such a pragmatic approach to measurement makes it possible
to concentrate on the practical problems of measuring psychological properties.
A holistic experience can only be explored through its categorization into subprocesses, as no quantitative methods are available with which to research the holistic experience itself. This state of affairs is not unique to the research into experience: it is just as impossible to measure an object without taking recourse to
the measurement of its attributes, its particular features, for instance its length,
weight or colour. It is quite legitimate to reduce a holistic experience to specific
experiential qualities that are suitable for empirical inquiry. One needs to take
into account, however, that the partition of an experience limits the interpretational and predictive power of experiments or tests. There may be a multitude of
determinants of an experience that cannot be accounted for when only a limited
number of sub-processes are being explored. The interpretation of results must
therefore proceed with caution.

25

When can we assume that the reduction of experiential states to specific experiential qualities has been successful? The reduction can be considered valid and
good only when it encompasses central and essential properties of experience.
Only a practical solution can be proposed here, as there are no solid theoretical
grounds on which to found the partitioning of a holistic and continuous phenomenon into discrete experiential qualities. It is the conceptual framework within
which the research takes place that to a large extent determines the appropriateness and meaningfulness of the specific experiential qualities to be measured. In
the absence of rules, the choice in the end is made by common sense.
We can assume that the terms attractiveness and interestingness refer to real
qualities of the experience of landscape. Environments are commonly judged to
be attractive and interesting and people seem to be sensitive to differences in attractiveness and interestingness between environments. We can deduce from observation that their judgements are reflected in their behaviour. We can also assume some consensus as to the interpretation of the terms attractiveness and interestingness. Finally, attractiveness and interestingness refer to distinct, one-dimensional properties of experience. Cool is an instance of a common term that,
when used to describe a persons characteristics, does not refer to a distinct and
one-dimensional psychological characteristic; it therefore cannot be a topic of scientific investigation.
We must not forget that we cannot measure subjective experience directly: it
is always mediated through language. If verbal description is to be the instrument for the investigation of experience, then the choice of which descriptions
of experience to use is of primary importance. There are many other words to
describe a quality of experience, such as attractiveness. It is not clear whether
semantically associated adjectives attractive, beautiful, inviting, picturesque,
enjoyable refer to the same or to slightly different experiential qualities, and
which of the adjectives should be chosen to represent the quality in question.
Again, only a practical solution can be proposed. For instance, the attractiveness
of an environment can be represented by a combined score on all of the adjectives mentioned above.
As perceptual and experiential qualities are non-verbal by nature, their verbalization may run up against the limits of language. It may well be possible that
the description of an experience of an environment generated by means of a grid
method (using participants own words and criteria) does not represent the qualities of the experience but expresses a network of verbal associations. Surprisingly, very little theoretical or empirical research has been done to elucidate the
relationship between language and experience. However, Lowenthal and Riel
(1972) found that experiential judgements of an environment ref lect real-world
experiences and not just verbal associations: in the judgements of an environment (e.g. a garden), its perceived beauty was associated with order, smoothness
and richness, while the word beauty was associated with natural, open, quiet.
More research into this topic is urgently needed.

26

Language allows us to express the quality and intensity of an experience

through adjectives unattractive, attractive, very attractive, etc. The empirical
variation in attractiveness can then be measured within a numerical relational
system. Measurement is possible only because there is some correspondence between the properties of experience and the properties of the numerical system.
Self-report measures rely on the participants capacity to consciously access
and verbalize their experience; they can only explain a fraction of all that they perceive and of their behaviour. Many aspects of experience are either inaccessible to
consciousness or not easily verbalized. It therefore seems appropriate to supplement self-report data with data obtained by means of non-linguistic methods of
research, namely objective tests of performance, physiological measures and behavioural observations. Then self-report data on, for instance, the experience of
stress can be correlated to the level of stress hormones in the blood, or verbal ratings of a landscapes interestingness can be correlated to arousal levels measured
by means of skin conductance. Such a combination of data strengthens the evidence in support of the ideas and theories under investigation.
Conclusions
A major methodological problem that experience studies encounter is that it is
difficult to access an individuals perceptual, cognitive and affective representations of his or her environment. The analysis of landscape experience and the development of a taxonomy of experiential qualities and of measures suitable to the
research in question are ongoing processes. A variety of methods and techniques
have been developed to measure the perceived experiential qualities of landscapes. The application of a combination of different methods and techniques
seems to be the best way forward. For instance, verbal methods of data collection
with their emphasis on conscious reflection can be supplemented with objective
tests (e.g. affective priming) and physiological measures of experience (e.g. skin
conductance) that are not dependent on the conscious verbalization of experience.
Landscape experience is a holistic and constantly changing phenomenon; it
will never be exhaustively accounted for. Specific properties of experience can be
explored in a systematic way. Verbal descriptors must be selected that do justice
to the experiential qualities under investigation. We must accept imperfections in
the relationship between words and experience, as well as imperfections in the relationship between the theoretical conceptualization of experiential qualities and
their observed empirical manifestations.
One of the aims of this paper was to describe the variety of theoretical perspectives, concepts and research methods that are characteristic of psychological
inquiry into landscape experience. Research into the psychological dimensions of
experience the attitudes, perceptual and cognitive processes, personality traits,
unconscious processes and the perceived experiential qualities of landscapes is
essential for the understanding of humanlandscape interaction.

27

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3 Emotional Responses to Animals

Maarten Jacobs

ids is a nickname invented by an unknown bird-fancier to describe his or

her feathered children that is now commonly used by American bird-fanciers (Anderson, 2003). The portrayal of companion birds as family members is a
manifestation of a deep, positive feeling towards animals. It is easy to find examples of positive emotions that animals can evoke in humans. The popularity of
wildlife-based tourism is increasing around the world (Reynolds & Braithwaite,
2001), and viewing wildlife is a predominant theme in tourism brochures about
sub-Saharan Africa (van der Meer, 2006). The birth of Knut (a polar bear) in the
Berliner Zoo led to a European media hype in 2006 and 2007. Many people are
fascinated by TV documentaries about animals.
In a series of cross-cultural studies into peoples views on wildlife, many stories
were collected that express a positive emotional bond with wildlife, such as compassion for, attraction to or caring about wildlife (Jacobs, 2007; Kaczensky, 2007;
Raadik & Cottrell, 2007; Tanakanjana & Saranet, 2007; Zinn & Shen, 2007). There
is mounting evidence to suggest that those who keep pets are likely to benefit from
various improvements in health, and that the use of pets in therapy has considerable positive mental effects (Brodie & Biley, 1999; Jorgenson, 1997). On the other
hand, negative feelings with respect to animals are also ubiquitous. Snake and spider phobias are widespread across different cultures (Cook & Mineka, 1988), and
for many people, a confrontation with a barking dog is an unpleasant experience.
Amongst the total set of objects, events and situations we can encounter, animals belong to the extremists when it comes to the potential emotions, positive
or negative, evoked in humans, although there is great variance in the quality and
strength of the accompanying feelings. Notwithstanding the variance, a phenomenal quality of every experience is that it takes, so to speak, a position on the liking-disliking or pleasure-displeasure dimension (Searle, 1997, 2000), a feature
that psychologists call core affect (Barrett, Mesquita, Ochsner & Gross, 2007). Liking or disliking is a revelation of our capacity to respond emotionally to objects,
events or situations: we generally like those objects that evoke positive emotions,
and dislike those that evoke negative emotions. Since the core aim of science is
to explain, a logical question follows from these observations, namely: why do we
like or dislike animals?
In the context of tourism studies, Larsen (2007) argues that scholars who are
engaged in the applied sciences should make an effort to build bridges with the

31

more fundamental sciences. This recommendation also pertains to the study of

emotional relationships with animals. Liking or disliking animals are specifications of the general working of emotions, within a specific context. Fundamental emotion theory, then, provides a good basis to unravel the possible causes and
mechanisms that bring about positive or negative feelings towards animals.
Emotions and brains
In order to give an account of emotions, it is useful to make a distinction between
emotional stimuli, emotional bodily reactions and emotional experiences (Brinda, 1970; Kleinginna & Kleinginna, 1981). Emotional stimuli are events, situations or objects that are the immediate external causes of emotions. Emotional
reactions to those stimuli involve bodily reactions, some of which are overt such
as blushing, sweating, facial expressions or stuttering and some of which less
overt, such as changes in heart rate, skin conductivity or the increase in hormonal
levels in the blood system. Emotional experiences are the contents of consciousness during and immediately after an emotional reaction. Emotional experiences
include but are not limited to feelings.
Vygotsky (1978) contends that the human mind and human behaviour result
from three basic processes of development: phylogenesis (biological evolution),
sociogenesis (cultural development) and ontogenesis (individual development).
This division into fundamental categories also applies to the working of emotions: evolution, culture and individual biographies exercise influence on different aspects of emotions (Jacobs, 2006, Ch. 11). In this chapter, I give instances of
the various influences.
Since emotions, like all psychological phenomena, are constituted in the brain,
neuroscientific studies provide valuable information about the working of emotions. A brief explanation of some essential aspects of the working of the brain
might be useful in order to appreciate the contribution of neuroscientific knowledge to the understanding of emotions (for a good introduction to neuroscience,
see Kandel, Schwatz & Jessell, 1995).
The brain consists of many different regions that are specialized for different
functions. These regions often operate simultaneously. For example, specialized
brain regions analyse the form, colour and motion of visual stimuli (Grill-Spector & Malach, 2004). Other brain regions are organized hierarchically. The brain
regions that analyse form, colour and motion send their output to visual association regions that match properties of the stimuli with existing visual knowledge.
Psychological functions often cannot be equated with the working of a single
brain region. As a rule, a psychological function is constituted by a set of various
cooperating brain regions. Information is constantly exchanged between various
regions; this is the principle of recurrent loops (Edelman, 1993; Koch & Crick,
2001). These feedback loops also occur between regions that are organized hierarchically, thus instantiating bottom-up as well as top-down influences on ongo-

32

ing neural processing. The operations of many brain regions cannot be grasped
by introspection. We are not aware that form, motion and colour are analysed
separately in the visual system. Only a subset of brain operations, especially operations that occur at the higher end of the hierarchy, give rise to consciousness.
However, unconscious neural processes can greatly influence the contents of the
conscious mind.
These principles that is, the parallel and hierarchical working of brain regions, the widespread occurrence of feedback loops, the constitution of psychological function by different cooperating brain regions and the non-awareness of
many brain operations also apply to the neural underpinnings of emotions. It is
also worth mentioning that the emotional system and the perceptual system are
separate but interacting systems in the human brain. Information about stimuli
as received by the senses is sent simultaneously to the emotional system and the
perceptual system (LeDoux, 2000). These systems, however, exchange information perpetually and at different stages of emotional and perceptual processing.
Emotional bodily reactions as adaptive responses
In the course of biological evolution, emotional bodily reactions have emerged as
automatic adaptive responses to situations of life importance, and serve the survival and well-being of the organism (Damasio, 2001: 60; LeDoux, 1996: 40). Various empirical observations justify this proposition. Darwin (1965) noted that a
number of emotional expressions are exhibited similarly across cultures. Ekman
asked subjects in twenty-one countries to match six photographs of human faces
exhibiting different emotional expressions with six emotion words. The studies reveal that facial expressions of happiness, anger, fear, disgust, surprise and sadness
are universally recognized (Ekman, 1992, 1999b; Ekman & Friesen, 1971). Other
emotion researchers have employed different methods to demonstrate cross-cultural invariable aspects of emotions (for an overview, see LeDoux, 1996: 113).
The convergent conclusion is that all humans share some basic emotional responses for which learning is not needed; at least fear, anger, disgust and joy are
shared responses. This is why people who were born blind exhibit the same facial
emotional expressions as people with proper vision. Some emotional responses
are innate and predisposed by our genetic make-up. Many of these responses are
shared not only by humans but also across different species. As Darwin (1965) observed, The erection of body hair during a fear response is to be found in dogs, lions, hyenas, cows, pigs, antelopes, horses, cats, rodents, bats and humans. And an
increased heartbeat as part of the set of emotional bodily reactions can be observed
in any organism that has a heartbeat. Many of these built-in emotional bodily responses occur automatically, without any voluntary control. We do not decide to
increase our heartbeat or to release adrenalin into the blood system: it just happens in fear responses, controlled by brain regions that are genetically coded to do
so. We are not introspectively aware of the working of these brain regions.

33

The inherited nature of bodily emotional responses suggests that, within the
framework of evolution theory, these responses are beneficial to survival. Indeed,
emotion theorists argue that emotional reactions are adaptive in dealing with
fundamental life tasks (Damasio, 2001: 60; Ekman, 1999a; LeDoux, 1996: 40).
The erection of body hair in fear responses makes the organism look bigger and
may therefore help to deter a predator from attacking. The tendency to freeze in
such responses also reduces the chance of being spotted by a predator. The release of adrenalin results in a tendency to focus on the current situation. An increased heartbeat enhances the bodily conditions for fight or flight behaviour.
Sharing a reasonable part of the set of automatic emotional bodily responses
with many animals is probably a strong constituent, if not an essential one, for
many forms of engagement with animals. To a certain extent, we are able to recognize the emotional expressions of animals because elements of those expressions
are similar to our expressions. Many pet owners recognize the emotional states of
their companion animals. Russell (2003) found that humans are reasonably able
to recognize the emotional expressions of horses. Recognition of animal behaviour,
compassion for animals and bonds with animals are probably partially rooted in
the similarities in emotional expressions across species. Moreover, the tendency to
anthropomorphize animals (that is, to assign human traits and states to animals)
can be partially explained by the possibility of recognizing the same emotions in
animals. On the other hand, humans are sometimes animalized (this has been the
case especially since the dissemination of Darwins evolution theory). The felt distance between humans and animals has probably decreased over the last century.
Emotional bodily reactions evolved as adaptive responses, in the sense of preparing the body for dealing with life-threatening or life-enhancing situations, and
also have a communication function. Two kinds of emotional communication can
be distinguished. First, communication towards the organism that is the external
cause of the emotional response. The erection of a preys body hair communicates
to the predator that it is not an easy catch. A dog wagging its tail communicates to
the owner: I like you. It is of course possible to misinterpret another species emotional communication. A famous Dutch example is the story of Bokito, a male zoo
gorilla who is the alpha of his group. A regular visitor to the zoo had stared straight
into the eyes of Bokito many times, under the impression that Bokitos response
was a sign of affection. One day, however, Bokito managed to jump over the ditch
that separated him from the visitors and violently attacked the visitor. Bokito saw
the staring as a challenge to his leadership, as primatologists contend, and decided
it was time to meet that challenge. Notwithstanding misinterpretations, one-to-one
understandable emotional communication between animals and humans often occurs. If such communication is positive, it may be a cause to like animals and constitute intense bonds with animals, especially pets. By the same token, this mechanism can be a cause to dislike animals, such as disliking dogs that bark at people.
The second kind of emotional communication is informing other animals of
a common dangerous or beneficial situation. For example, if an antelope spots a

34

lion and exhibits a fear reaction, other antelopes infer from the emotional expression that the current conditions are not safe, without the need to spot the lion themselves. We generally have an innate tendency to become sad when we encounter
sad expressions or happy when we encounter happy expressions, a tendency that is
processed unconsciously. Everybody can probably recall seeing a bad film but nevertheless being emotionally affected by it. Here, this innate tendency is exploited
by the film makers: we become happy or sad when we see that the protagonist is
happy or sad, and our conscious judgements about the film have little influence on
this event. This mechanism permits animals to make us feel good. For example,
cows that are grazing peacefully in a meadow communicate to us that the situation
is safe, and thus might induce in us a positive emotional state. We may therefore
like cows not because they make us consciously think or decide that the situation
is safe, but because they give us a positive feeling on the basis of an unconsciously
processed innate tendency to interpret animal bodily expressions this way.
Emotional triggers
Emotional bodily responses can be adaptive only if they occur in specific situations or, in psychological terms, as reactions to specific stimuli. We have an innate tendency to react with an emotional response to certain stimuli. Newborn
babies start to cry in reaction to sudden loud sounds. Laboratory raised rats that
have never seen a cat or a fellow rat, immediately stop whatever they are doing
when exposed to a cat; they will either freeze or try to escape, depending on their
distance from the cat (Blanchard & Blanchard, 1988). LeDoux (1996) uses the
term natural triggers to refer to stimuli to which we have an innate tendency to
react emotionally. For our remote ancestors, from whom we inherited our genes,
animals were crucial to survival, for example, as sources of food and sources of
danger. We probably have an innate tendency to react emotionally to animals.
It is often assumed in the literature on emotions that snakes and spiders are
strictly natural triggers for humans; that is, no previous learning is involved in exhibiting emotional reactions to those stimuli, since snake and spider phobias are
common and distributed across cultures. The preparedness theory (Seligman,
1971) offers an alternative explanation for the ubiquity of snake and spider phobias. According to this theory, we might have an innate predisposition to rapidly
acquire emotional responses to certain stimuli. Hence, the predisposition to react
emotionally to some stimuli might not be innate; instead, we might have a kind of
quick learning programme that, once it has been fed with only a little experience,
will result in a disposition. Cook and Mineka (1988) tested this theory by showing
young rhesus monkeys a film of a rhesus monkey exhibiting fear in response to
either a toy snake or a toy flower. The young monkeys had had no previous experiences with snakes and had been pre-tested to ensure they were not afraid of the
toy snakes prior to the experiment. The monkeys acquired a fear of snakes simply
by watching videotapes of the model monkeys reacting fearfully to toy snakes. In

35

contrast, monkeys that viewed films showing exactly the same fear performance
but this time directed towards brightly-coloured artificial flowers did not acquire
a significant fear of flowers. Hence, rhesus monkeys are born with a preparedness to acquire a fear of snakes very quickly.
Snake phobias in humans are probably a result of an inborn preparedness. A
film on YouTube (2008) shows a baby approaching and then grabbing a snake
without any sign of fear, thus indicating that the newborn infant does not have an
innate fear of snakes. It is of course still possible that we have an innate predisposition to react emotionally to some animals, while we have an innate preparedness
to learn these reactions quickly for other animals. For example, we might have an
innate fear of big predators; this however is an empirical question that can only
be answered by conducting experiments. Either way (innate predispositions or
preparedness that is easily activated to become a mental disposition to react emotionally), many animals are strong natural triggers to us. Most people exhibit fear
responses to big predators or potentially harmful animals, such as snakes or spiders that may be deadly poisonous. And it is possible that we react emotionally to
animals that our ancestors used to eat. These dispositions give rise to our liking
animals (positive emotional response) or disliking animals (negative response).
The brain regions in which those innate dispositions are stored can be modified by learning. Conditioning is a mechanism in which a previously neutral stimulus gets associated with an emotional stimulus (Damasio, 2001: 66; LeDoux,
1996: 141). Thus, if a person has an emotional experience with an animal, this
animal might become an emotional trigger. It is not necessary to consciously remember the experience: the learned disposition is stored in brain regions that operate unconsciously. By means of conditioning, any animal can become an emotional stimulus. Conditioning can be a source of variance between people with
respect to the animals they like or dislike. For example, person A may have had
a frightening experience with a dog at a very young age and thus dislike dogs for
ever, without remembering the event at all, while person B may have had a bad
experience with a cat, and by the same token be disposed to dislike cats for ever.
The story thus far about automatic emotional responses, the inborn tendency to extract information from emotional expressions of other species, and natural and unconsciously learned triggers is one about unconscious operations of
the human brain. We respond emotionally to big predators or snakes not because
we know that these animals are dangerous, but because biological evolution has
equipped us with a predisposition or quick learning programme to do so, a feature that is materialized in brain regions that have nothing to do with knowledge.
The innate dispositions cannot simply be equated with consciously liking or disliking animals: the dispositions are hard-wired in brain regions that do not directly give rise to consciousness. The outcomes of these operations are transferred to
other brain regions that interpret information about bodily responses and give
rise to conscious emotional experiences. And knowledge can interfere with these
later stages of emotional processing, as will be explained.

36

Feelings as perceptions of bodily states

A feeling is a conscious awareness of an emotion, such as sadness or anger.
Damasio (2003) states that feelings are essentially perceptions of bodily emotional responses. At first sight, this may seem an odd statement. The concept of
perception is often used in the sense of being consciously aware of something
out there, for example a professor in a suit in front of you or, for that matter, another animal or any material object. Conscious feelings are, however, very similar to perception. The only difference lies in the source of the input for perceptual
processing. In the case of perception, the information that gets interpreted comes
from our senses, while in the case of feelings, the incoming information comes
not from the senses directly, but from brain regions that are constantly mapping
the body. An organism has to survey the state of the body in order to adjust the
bodily conditions to react properly to a dynamic environment. Sometimes it is hot
and sometimes it is cold, and if the body does not react appropriately the organism will die almost instantly. The regions involved in surveying the bodily state
also send information to regions in the cortex (the outer layer of the brain, right
under the skull). Apart from information about the bodily states, the cortex also
receives information from brain regions in which innate dispositions and quick
learning programmes to respond emotionally are stored. In the cortex, the incoming information is interpreted into conscious feelings.
A condition for perception is the possession of mental concepts, which are acquired during the course of life (Jacobs, 2006: 125). Our perceptual experiences
are not meaningless chaotic dances of shapes and colour; on the contrary, perception is an organized, structured experience of objects and events that are to a
certain extent familiar to us (Kriegel, 2004). Mental concepts are the organizing
units in the interpretative processes that result in a perceptual experience. This
can be inferred from, for example, our ability to perceive a tree that we have never
seen before, as a tree. Without a mental concept of tree-ness, every tree would be
something totally new to us. All meaningful perceptual experiences are permeated with concepts (Strawson, 1992: 62).
The same goes for conscious feelings: mental concepts are employed in the
interpretative processing of information about bodily states. We possess mental
concepts of happiness, sadness, etc. If the incoming information matches with
these concepts, we feel happy or sad. We are probably not born with the capacity to feel happy or sad. A newborn baby is not capable of recognizing a tree, because it does not possess the appropriate concept to do so. The baby gradually
develops this concept on the basis of recurring patterns in the visual stimuli it
receives. Likewise, the concepts necessary for conscious feelings are gradually
developed. A baby reacts with an emotional bodily response, bodily states are
mapped, the information is sent to cortical regions and in these regions emotion
concepts emerge on the basis of recurring patterns in information about bodily
states. Because we are born with a limited set of basic emotional bodily respons-

37

es, we all develop basic emotion concepts. Liking or disliking as part of the emotional experience comes into being during the construction of feelings based on
feedback from the body.
A negative emotional bodily reaction will often be interpreted as a negative feeling, and a positive reaction as a positive feeling. A fear reaction to snakes, which
is a result of an unconsciously processed mental disposition, might thus lead to a
negative feeling about snakes. A positive bodily emotional reaction following from
encountering relaxed cows a reaction that is based on unconsciously processed information that the situation is safe might give rise to a positive feeling about cows.
Still, some inherited features other than predispositions to react emotionally
can exercise influence in this interpretative process. For example, our visual system contains an innate tendency to attend to biological motion. Simion, Regolin
and Bulf (2008) found that two-day-old babies preferred to look at biological motion rather than non-biological motion. They showed the babies two films. One
depicted a dozen spotlights representing the joints and contours of a walking hen.
The other film depicted a dozen spotlights that moved with the same characteristics (in terms of angles and speed) but was generated randomly. Most of the babies preferred the film that represented the walking hen. This innate tendency
prefigures a fascination for all moving animals, whether pets or wildlife.
Knowledge and feelings
Since the production of conscious feelings is an interpretative process, there is not
always a one-to-one relation between emotional bodily reactions and conscious feelings. All kinds of learning processes, based on culturally shared knowledge or individual experiences, can influence the production of feelings: the cortex is very open
to learning. In the interpretative process, our knowledge can come into play. For example, rabbits might evoke in most humans an innate positive emotional reaction,
as a result of a predisposition that has evolved because rabbits are excellent food for
us and because grazing rabbits communicate to us that there is no danger present.
Nevertheless, a farmer may dislike rabbits because they damage his crops. The
knowledge will not prevent the farmer from reacting with an initial positive bodily
emotion to rabbits. Rather, this knowledge interferes with the interpretation of the
bodily emotional reaction into a feeling. A positive emotional bodily reaction may
then lead to a negative feeling. Owing to feedback loops in the brain, this negative
feeling can in turn suppress the positive emotional bodily reaction.
While a bear is probably a natural trigger for a fear reaction, encountering a
bear in the zoo gives many people a pleasant feeling. The initial negative emotion
is interpreted into a positive feeling, because our contextual knowledge that the
bear is behind bars allows us to do so. Even encountering a bear in the wild can
be interpreted into a positive feeling, if we feel reasonably safe on the basis of our
knowledge about bear behaviour (bears are generally not interested in people and
if they are not approached too closely and do not have young cubs with them, they
will simply shuffle away).
38

As well as interfering with the interpretation of an initial emotional bodily

reaction into a conscious feeling, acquired knowledge can influence emotional
processing in another way. For example, the word fear will not be judged by the
emotional appraisal system as emotionally relevant, because the system neither
has an innate tendency to do so (it was not beneficial for our remote ancestors to
become afraid of the word fear) nor is it conditioned to react emotionally to this
stimulus. Still, if subjects who have mastered the English language read the word
fear, an emotional bodily reaction is measurable, even though it is not very intense (Isenberg, Silbersweig, Engelien, Emmerich, Malavade & Beattie, 1999). In
this case, the perceptual system detects the meaning of the word and gives feedback to the brain regions that initiate a bodily fear reaction. The bodily fear reaction in turn can give rise to consciously felt fear.
Thus, mental dispositions that result from conscious learning (other than
conditioning) can not only modify the interpretation of emotional bodily responses into feelings, but also turn on the emotional system. An example of this mechanism can be found in children who visit zoos that exhibit the common clownfish
(Amphiprion ocellaris). Most children tend to become very happy and excited upon
seeing this fish. While it is a pretty little fish, its physical appearance does not explain the childrens reaction. Nemo the lead character in the popular animation
film Finding Nemo is a clownfish, and it is the conscious association with Nemo
that makes children react exuberantly.
Consciously acquired mental dispositions account for much variance across
cultures and individuals in feelings towards animals. People born in India may
like cows because they have learned that cows are sacred animals. When these
people encounter or think of a cow, the knowledge is activated and may turn on
the emotional system, which produces a positive emotional reaction. Knowledge
can thus become a cause of feelings, and therefore a cause of liking or disliking
animals. This mechanism can also reinforce and intensify innate tendencies. For
example, we might like cows because we have an innate preference for biological
movement, and because we have an inherited predisposition to react positively to
peacefully grazing cows since they communicate that the situation is safe. We are
not introspectively aware of these causes: they consist not of explicit knowledge
but of implicit dispositions that are unconsciously processed in subcortical brain
regions. We can still assign reasons for liking cows (e.g. cows in meadows make
the landscape more vivid), but these reasons have nothing to do with the initial
causes. The reasons can, however, become causes in the future: in the form of explicit knowledge, they operate as enforcing powers to the emotional system.
Conclusion
Six mechanisms that can explain causes of liking or disliking animals have been
identified. (1) We have an innate sensitivity to biological movement, as is demonstrated by newborn babies preferences for films that depict biological movement. This innate fascination is probably a feature not of the emotional system
39

but of the visual perception system. Indirectly, this sensitivity contributes to our
liking or disliking animals by focusing attention on animals and thus increasing
the likelihood of spotting and emotionally responding to animals. (2) We probably have innate predispositions and certainly have quick learning programmes to
respond emotionally to some animals. These inherited predispositions or quick
learning programmes have emerged in the course of biological evolution, because
animals were important to the survival of our remote ancestors. These predispositions or quick learning programmes result in positive or negative emotional responses to some animals, and may give rise to liking or disliking animals when
interpreted into conscious feelings. (3) As a result of conditioning, we have mental dispositions to respond emotionally to animals. (4) We tend to react emotionally to the emotional expressions of animals. In the case of one-to-one emotional
communication from an animal to a human, this mechanism is probably very
important for developing bonds with pets. (5) Acquired knowledge about animals
can influence the way we interpret a bodily emotional reaction to an animal into
a conscious experience, including core affect. This knowledge can enhance and
reinforce feelings that are constructed out of bodily emotional reactions, but can
also transform these feelings: an initially negative bodily emotion may be interpreted into a positive feeling. (6) Acquired knowledge about animals can activate
emotional reactions to animals. Even if the emotional system does not detect an
animal as emotionally relevant, output of cognitive processing may be sent to the
emotional system, resulting in an emotional reaction. Through this mechanism,
we may for example like encountering an animal that is rarely seen, because we
know it is a special event. Different instances of liking and disliking animals may
be caused by different combinations of these mechanisms.
The study of our emotional relationships with animals and the underlying
mechanisms can contribute greatly to our general understanding of peoples relationships with animals (Manfredo, 2008), for example understanding the attitudes, norms and values with respect to animals in various contexts (wildlife management, the keeping of companion animals, agricultural production, etc.), social
conflicts with respect to the treatment of animals, and leisure and tourist behaviour that is related to animals. The nature of emotional experiences that is, the
contents of consciousness during and immediately after an emotional reaction
is often underemphasized in emotion studies, which tend to focus on the mechanisms that constitute these experiences or the stimuli that are the external causes
of emotions.
Liking or disliking is just one aspect of emotional experiences. A feeling is
another aspect. This may be a feeling connected to a basic emotion (happiness,
sadness, anger, etc.) or it may be a non-basic feeling (e.g. a particular mixture of
anger and fear) that is culturally acquired and applies to a particular context only.
Feelings are often directed towards a situation, event, object or person that is
seen as the immediate external cause of the feeling. Furthermore, emotion experiences have a particular level of intensity or arousal, which is a feeling of being

40

wound up or active. Emotional experiences also involve psychological appraisals

of the situation in terms of novelty, being conducive or destructive to ones goal,
being compatible with ones norms and values, or perceiving oneself as being the
person in a position of responsibility. Emotional experiences are often accompanied by particular thoughts. It is for example likely that sad anecdotes or associations enter the conscious mind of a person who is in a sad state. Studying these
different phenomenological aspects of emotional experiences can enrich our understanding of our emotional relations with animals.
Note
This chapter is a modified version of: M.H. Jacobs (2009) Why do we like or dislike animals? Human dimensions of wildlife 14 (1), pp. 111

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42

4 Immigrants Between two Cultures:

Social Representations Theory and
Images of Nature
Arjen Buijs

ifferent cultures, different natures. How we look at nature is to a great extent related to the culture in which we live (Bang, Medin & Atran, 2007).
And as cultures change, so do conceptualizations of nature; this is evidenced by
Western culture, where throughout history nature has been conceptualized in
different ways (Schama, 1995). Also, new conceptualizations may only gradually
spread through society. For example, since the 18th century, the wellknown Romantic or Arcadian view on nature held by a small elite has gradually permeated
the whole of society. Landscape paintings, popular books, outings organized by
socialist educational groups and, more recently, the mass media have promoted
the symbolic meanings of nature as beautiful, healthy and worthy of protection,
and such meanings have become acknowledged by the large majority of Western
citizens (Schama, 1995; van Koppen, 2002; Schouten, 2005).
This chapter, however, deals with another source of change in how people relate to nature and the environment: the dynamics of migration. Increasing migration between different cultures is one of the most important characteristics of the
globalization of late modern societies (Castles & Davidson, 2000). This physical
mobility implies cultural mobility, also in relation to the views on the humannature relationship: immigrants bring their cultural views with them. In their new
country, they may be confronted with other views and need to cope with contradictions between both cultures. This also holds for different cultural views on nature and the environment.
This chapter deals with the relationship between the cultural and the individual level of the humannature relationship. It consists of a theoretical and an empirical section. In the former, I suggest a theoretical approach that may allow us
to understand how individuals develop their individual images of nature based on
the resources available to them in their particular culture. In the empirical section, I examine whether this theoretical approach can be useful to understand the
differences between individuals from different cultures. The focus is on differences between the images of nature held by native Dutch people and those held
by immigrants, especially the in-betweens, namely the second-generation immi-

43

grants who can draw from two different cultures: that of their ancestors and that
of the country in which they were born.
To understand the dynamics of how individual immigrants look upon and
participate in nature, I suggest using social representations theory (Moscovici,
1961/1976; Halfacree, 1993). Social representations theory is a social psychological theory that focuses on the sociogenesis of cognitions. It acknowledges and investigates the social processes that cause dynamics in these cognitions. As such,
it is well equipped to deal with the dynamics in views on nature that are related to
immigration processes and the effects of encounters between different cultures.
Here, I suggest considering social representations as cultural resources for the
development of individual cognitions. I show how immigrants and native Dutch
people differ in the way they look at nature and nature management, and especially focus on how second-generation immigrants are positioned between two
different cultures; that is, how they try to cope with their relationship to two different cultures: the rural and Islamic culture of their ancestors and the urban and
hedonistic culture of the country in which they were born and educated.
In the second half of the chapter, I use these theoretical considerations to empirically investigate how individual images of nature held by native Dutch people
and by first- and second-generation immigrants are related to culturally determined social representations of nature. In this, I pay special attention to the question whether we can witness a process of acculturalization of second-generation
immigrants in relation to their view on nature, or whether it would be better to
speak of cognitive polyphasia, namely the internalization of seemingly conflicting values and beliefs from two conflicting social representations.
Theoretical observations
Social representations theory
The theory of social representations is a social psychological theory that focuses on the content and production of common sense in modern societies, that is,
on how people understand the social and material world around them and what
meanings they attach to that world. The theory describes how social groups develop common sense knowledge (or practical knowledge or folk knowledge; Moscovici, 1961/1976). Therefore, Wagner and colleagues (1999, p. 96) define social
representations as the collective elaboration of an object by the community for
the purpose of behaving and communicating. Inspired by the cultural turn in
rural studies, Halfacree (1993) introduced the concept of social representations
in spatial studies in a plea to include the symbolic meanings of rurality as object of study in rural studies. According to Halfacree, rurality should no longer be
defined solely through socio-economic variables, like population density or economic activities; instead, it should be seen as a symbolic concept that is defined
in communication between people or groups of people and institutions. This ac-

44

knowledgement of the symbolic and social aspects of rurality is especially important if one wants to grasp lay peoples understanding of rurality (Halfacree, 1993;
Jones, 1995; Haartsen, 2002) as well the widespread use of the Dutch cultural
landscape for leisure activities, a use that is related to a wide variety of motives
(Elands & Lengkeek, 2000; Lengkeek, 2001).
Social representations are not produced individually in our personal encounters with nature and through a process of perception and interpretation. Representations are above all produced in our contacts with other people and institutions, such as the media, nature protection organizations and nature policy practices. As such, social representations are consensual representations. They form
the agreed set of values, beliefs, images and metaphors that are attached to a specific object. Social representations are produced in a wide range of social practices
based on communication between groups of people as well as in social practices
directly related to encounters with our natural environment. Figure 1 illustrates
how social representations of nature are produced between individuals, nature
and the social group in which they are embedded.
Figure 1: The production of social representations of nature as the result of the interaction of an
individual (I), the social group to which he or she belongs (Others) and the physical environment (Nature) (adapted from Moscovici, 1984, p. 9)

Others

Nature
Social
representation

Our understanding of the world is not just a matter of automated perception of

this world. Understanding is an activity in which meanings are actively attributed to the outside world (Hall, 1997). Social representations are examples of such
meanings. To be more concrete, social representations are the meanings we attribute to material and social objects.
Social representations serve several functions in our society. First, they help
us to understand the outside world and to cope with that world. They help us
to familiarize us with the unfamiliar (Moscovici, 1984). Our social representations suggest what meanings of an object are important and should be responded to, and help us distinguish important messages from less important ones.
When encountering a rural area, we use the representation to give meaning to
that area.

45

Second, social representations serve as a common base for communication.

As such, the symbolic aspects of the social representations of our environment
are important not only for the individual understanding of our environment, but
also as mutual frames of reference (van den Brink & Metze, 2006) or more
precisely, frames of meanings used in communication about social objects.
Through referring to the mutually agreed social representations, they function as
a common code for communication and define the vocabulary that can be used to
talk about the objects involved.
Third, they function as impetus for actions. Our actions are informed by our
social representations of the world (Moscovici, 2000). The physical spread of
houses in a rural area may be affected by social representations of rurality. Several studies have shown that people not only use social representations to give
meaning to rural environments, but also act towards these environments based
on such representations (e.g. Voelklein & Howarth, 2005). Studies show that the
trend of counter-urbanization in several European countries can to a great extent be explained by the positively connoted social representations of rurality, also
known as the rural idyll (Halfacree, 1993). Many people move to such areas because they want to enjoy these symbolic meanings of rurality, and tourist images
of the environment profoundly influence the spatial configuration of rural areas
(Lengkeek, Kloeze & Brouwer, 1997).
The stability and dynamics of social representations
Social representations can be conceived of as group-related sets of meanings used
and produced in a complex mix of different kind of social practices. For example,
social representations of nature are used and produced in media practices; for instance conservation agencies promote the beauty of ecosystems and stress the importance of protecting those that are under threat. However, the same representations may be used and reproduced in political discussions about nature, landscape or agriculture. They are reproduced in literature and paintings, and even
in advertisements, or in very concrete and bodily practices of nature recreation
and tourism. Also the ecological sciences play an important role in the development of social representations of nature. Through the dissemination of ecological
knowledge by the popular media, the sciences contribute to the dominant social
representations of nature (van Koppen, 2002). Because social representations of
nature are reproduced in such a complex mix of social practices, they exceed any
specific social practice. Not every social practice produces its own meaning of nature, but the meaning of nature is produced in the combination of all practices
that are related to nature, landscape, biodiversity and so forth.
These representations have shown a remarkable stability through time. For
example, the Romantic meaning of nature that has been produced in landscape
paintings since the seventeenth century has diffused into nature protection practices since the late nineteenth century through socialist movements campaigns

46

to uplift lower classes, and has been further popularized through media practices
in the twentieth century. As a result, on an average Sunday afternoon, traffic jams
develop on Dutch motorways when families return from their Sunday afternoon
walk in an enjoyable forest. This is why social representations of nature often show
a remarkable stability. According to Moscovici (2000), the stability of a representation across different social practices is as least as dominant as the dynamics of
that representation. Unless a radically new phenomenon or conflicts with another
social group emerge, a social representation will hardly change (Moscovici, 1984).
Social representations theory considers the meaning of nature (and other objects) as less context dependent and more stable than do most discursive theories. This relative stability is also related to another important difference from discourse theories: although discourse theories and social representations theory acknowledge the role of the negotiation of meaning in social practices, social representations need not always be negotiated. Social representations may become a
form of consensual knowledge that is taken for granted (Moscovici, 1984). When
all members of a social group or culture share the same social representation, they
no longer need to be negotiated. In such a situation, social representations may
even become fossilized (Moscovici, 2000; Voelklein & Howarth, 2005): they have
become an uncontested (and often unreflexive) element of a specific culture (Moscovici, 2000). They become part of the social stock of knowledge of a group or
society (cf. Schutz, 1962); for example, the notions that one can enjoy nature, that
it is beautiful and healthy are elements of dominant social representations of nature that are recognized by all social groups in Dutch society. In their daily conversations, people use elements of the representations to position themselves in relation to nature, without needing any explicit justification of these representations.
Social representations as cultural resources
Social representations are closely related to culture; they can be seen as one of the
elements that constitute a certain culture or subculture. In this section, I investigate the relationship between social representations and culture, and then develop further the function of social representations in our society, based on a view
on culture as resource (Swidler, 1986).
Related to the constructivist turn in sociology and related disciplines, also the
conceptualization of culture has changed (Wuthnow, 2008). Culture has often
been conceptualized as the backdrop of human behaviour, for example as the publicly shared meanings or conceptual maps (Hall, 1997). Culture is then viewed as
a seamless web, unitary and internally coherent across different groups and situations (DiMaggio, 1997). This view of culture as a closely knit web of meanings
influencing human conduct is criticized by Ann Swidler (1986). She replaces this
view on culture as a latent variable by a much more eclectic and idealist view on
culture as a toolkit. She defines culture as a toolkit packed with the skills, habits, values, myths and metaphors that people use as a resource to construct strate-

47

gies of action (Swidler, 1986). Culture then is no longer conceptualized as a more

or less unified set of habits, values or symbols; instead, every culture contains
diverse and sometimes conflicting elements. It is a heterogeneous collection of
meanings, fragmented across groups (DiMaggio, 1997). Consequently, culture
does not simply provide a set of values that inform peoples actions. The essence
of culture lies much more in providing a repertoire on which people may draw to
develop their actions. Depending on the specific context, people choose different
elements of a culture to pursue their actions. When people visit a national park
with their family, they mobilize other symbols and values than they would were
they there on a work-related outing. According to Swidler, it is especially in unsettled practices that the dynamic aspects of cultures come to the fore. Culture
is then sometimes used more as something to which actors refer to in order to
justify their values or actions. In more settled practices, peoples conduct is more
routinized and dominant cultural values and beliefs may be drawn upon in a
more unconscious and unreflexive way (Swidler, 1986).
This interpretation of culture as a repertoire on which people may draw to
pursue action (or to justify their action) is very much in line with the view on
social representations I described above. As social representations are the sets
of meaning of a society or a specific social group, they are an important part of
the culture of that group or society. Therefore, in my view, we can conceive of social representations as a cultural resource that actors may use to develop specific
views and behaviour towards the object of a representation. Specific elements of
social representations are then used to make sense of the situation. They provide
people with a repertoire of values, beliefs, metaphors and icons that may be used
to understand a phenomenon and act towards it. As individuals may select specific elements and exclude others in their considerations, social representations are
not simple sources of behaviour; instead, they provide people with a cultural repertoire on which they can build their strategy for action (Swidler, 1986)
Because social representations function as cultural resources, they both enable and constrain peoples thoughts and actions. By providing a set of values,
beliefs, metaphors or icons, they enable individuals to define a rural area as an
idealized place to buy a nice house. Alternatively, people may strategically select
specific elements from a social representation to discursively pursue valued ends
(DiMaggio, 1997). At the same time, social representations constrain actors. For
example, they constrain peoples capacity to imagine alternative ways of looking
at the world. Alternative interpretations of reality and alternative strategies for actions are often not accounted for, because these alternatives are not part of the
dominant cultural elements, which include social representations.
Social representations of nature and individual images of nature
The theory of social representations is a fruitful theory in the field of humanenvironment studies because it relates the social level with the individual level. Con-

48

trary to environmental psychology, cognitions are treated not as individual elaborations of the world, but as individual reflections of socially constructed meanings. As such, social representations theory shares with discursive psychology
the focus on social practices (Potter & Wetherell, 1987), but contrary to discursive
psychology, the existence (or knowability) of individual cognitions is not denied.
Social representations are conceptualized as the resources from which individuals may draw to develop individual cognitions. People internalize the social representations, or elements thereof, of the group(s) to which they belong. They become part of the cognitive system of an individual and are stored in individual
memory. Social representations thus reside not only across the minds of members of a social group, but are also represented within individual minds (Jovchelovitch, 1996, p. 125). Social representations can be seen as mediators between
social practices in which representations of nature are produced and the cognitive
world of the individual.
Although social representations are internalized in individual minds, these
individual cognitions cannot be equated with social representations. According
to Moscovici (2000), an individual does not simply internalize a social representation of an object; rather, he or she develops an individual representation of that
object. This development of an individual representation involves the incorporation of specific elements of a social representation that are available to the individual. Not all elements of a social representation need be adopted by an individual (Voelklein & Howarth, 2005); depending on personal experiences, some elements may more be relevant than others.
Because individual representations cannot be equated with social representations, I also explicitly differentiate social representations of nature from individual representations of nature. Having referred to the literature on individual
images of nature (e.g. Buijs, 2000; Rink, Wchter & Potthast, 2004; Stamou &
Paraskevopoulos, 2004; van den Berg, de Vries & Vlek, 2006), I choose to call individual representations of nature images of nature. Individual images of nature
are thus based on the social representations of nature that are available to that individual.
Conf licting social representations of nature may lead to cognitive polyphasia
A second reason why social representations should not be equated with individual
representations is that social representations may become mingled. In late modern societies, people are no longer related to only one social group. The links between people and their social group are often much weaker than they were a few
centuries ago. But even more importantly, people are often members of many different social groups. Because of this fragmentation of identity, individuals may
also encounter different social representations of nature in the different groups
they relate to. For example, a city dweller who moves to the countryside is confronted with a new social representation of nature: the representation of the farm-

49

ers and ex-farmers. If after some years the newcomer starts to identify with that
new social group, he or she will have to cope with two different social representations of nature; for example an urban representation of nature one that is focused on the ecological and recreational value of nature and a rural representation, one that is related to a more experiential and instrumental relationships
with nature and the need to balance ecology and economy. In such a situation, an
individual may draw from two different representations in developing his or her
own image of nature.
If an individual incorporates elements from different representations, he or
she may also incorporate conflicting elements. Moscovici (1961/1976) called this
situation cognitive polyphasia. Cognitive polyphasia has been shown to exist in
several situations and has been used to explain why different attitudes are exhibited in different contexts (e.g. Wagner, 1998). Cognitive polyphasia may occur especially in fast changing cultures; in India, for example, many individuals combine modern with tradition representations of health. This has led to cognitive
polyphasia, in which people turn to modern medicine for some diseases while relying on traditional medicine for others (Wagner et al., 1999).
Table
Table1:1:Cognitive
Cognitivepolyphasia
polyphasia when
when people
peoplecombine
combine views
views related
related to
toaa high
high level
level of
of confidence
confidence in
science
with related
views related
to level
a high
of prudence
(based
on&Castro
& Lima, 2001)
with views
to a high
oflevel
prudence
(based on
Castro
Lima, 2001)
Low level of confidence in
science and human conduct

High level of confidence in

science and human conduct

Low level of prudence:

Nature is robust and humans
may use it as they seem fit.

Disbelievers
(27%)

Confidants
(26%)

High level of prudence:

Nature is fragile and humans
should observe prudence in
relation to ecology

Prudents
(27%)

Paradoxicals
(cognitive polyphasia)
(20%)

The concept of cognitive polyphasia has also been used to understand the existence of contrasting attitudes towards the environment. Especially Castro and
Lima (2001) have developed this concept further. Using Dunlap and van Lieres
New Environmental Paradigm scale, they show that people sometimes combine
ecocentric with anthropocentric values to develop specific attitudes (Castro &
Lima, 2001). Based on Portuguese research, they conclude that new representations of nature related to, for instance, the fragility of nature, the negative impact of human conduct and distrust in the scientific solutions for environmental
problems have spread throughout society. These ideas have sometimes replaced
old, more anthropocentric representations of nature. However, this process of replacing one representation with a newer one is not unproblematic: new ideas do
not simply replace older ones; instead, old values and beliefs tend to coexist and
interact with new values and beliefs, and some people try to combine elements of

50

both representations into ideas that conciliate seemingly contradictory beliefs and
values (Castro, 2006). According to Castro and Lima, cognitive polyphasia occurs
in a significant group of respondents (20%) who try to combine confidence in science and in human capacity to treat the ecology with care with prudence towards
science and especially towards the environment (see table 1). According to Castro
(ibid.), this situation of cognitive polyphasia, in which individuals combine contrasting values and beliefs from different social representations, may explain the
often reported lack of correspondence between pro-environmental attitudes and
behaviour or between different types of pro-environmental behaviour.
Empirical observations: differences between the images of nature held by immigrants and those held by native Dutch people
Having looked at how individuals draw from social representations of nature to
develop their individual images of nature, I now focus on one specific example:
the social representations and images of nature held by Turkish and Moroccan
immigrants. The focus in the remainder of this paper is on an empirical example
of the different images of nature held by immigrants and by native Dutch people,
and on whether conflicting social representations of nature may lead to cognitive
polyphasia among especially second-generation immigrants.
In the following, I describe based on the literature the similarities and differences between the social representations of nature held by those whose culture
of origin is Islamic (here, Turkish and Moroccan immigrants) and those whose
culture is Dutch. As theorized above, these social representations of nature may
function as a cultural resource for people to develop their individual images of
nature. The empirical focus is then on the similarities and differences between
the images of nature held by immigrants and those held by native Dutch people.
Having been born and educated in the Netherlands but raised in often very traditional immigrant cultures, second-generation immigrants may belong to two
different cultures: Islamic culture and Dutch culture. The question is whether
these second-generation immigrants indeed draw from two different social representations to develop their individual image of nature. Reformulated in an empirical hypothesis: do the images of nature held by native Dutch people and by
first- and second-generation immigrants differ? And what is the position of second-generation immigrants related to these two groups? A final question is: do
second-generation immigrants show signs of cognitive polyphasia, related to the
incorporation and combination of elements from both native Dutch culture and
from immigrant culture?
I present here data from a quantitative survey amongst ethnic minority groups
from Islamic cultures (Turkey and Morocco) and native Dutch people. Because
most Dutch immigrants are urbanites, we focused on three cities: Arnhem,
Utrecht and Haarlem. To improve the comparability of immigrants and native
Dutch people in terms of socio-economics and living environment, in each of

51

these cities we focused on one district that has a high percentage of immigrants.
In each city, data from 100 native Dutch people and 100 immigrants were collected (response rate 46%). The questionnaire consisted of two scales (2 x 8 items)
to measure images of nature, as developed in earlier studies (Buijs, 2000), and
questions on the socio-demographic background of the respondents.1 Additionally, landscape preferences were measured using pictures of the twelve most typical
Dutch landscapes. The result of the measurement of landscape preferences are
described elsewhere (Buijs, Elands & Langers, submitted).
Social representations of nature: the example of Islamic immigrants
Social representations of nature differ between Western and Islamic cultures. Turkish and Moroccan cultures are strongly based on the Koran (Makhzoumi, 2002).
As the Koran and the Bible have common roots, Islamic representations of nature
share certain characteristics with Christian representations in Western countries.
Both have a monotheistic worldview: although Gods influence is visible in nature,
nature itself is not divine and animals and trees are not to be worshipped. The concept of stewardship is also important in both cultures (Ammar, 1995).
A functional view on nature, focusing on the use of nature to fulfil human
needs within the boundaries of a general attitude of responsibility and respect
for nature, has long been dominant in both cultures. Since the Renaissance, and
especially since the rise of Romanticism, representations of nature in Christian
cultures have shifted from this functional image of nature towards what has been
called an Arcadian representation of nature. The Arcadian representation puts
a particular focus on a combination of experiencing the beauty of natural landscapes, the moral obligation to protect nature and the importance of the emotions evoked by nature. At the same time, nature became represented as fragile and human influence was seen as a threat to the balance of nature (van Koppen, 2000). Furthermore, and influenced by European landscape paintings,
landscape as scenery and the symbolic meanings and emotions evoked by such
scenery became an important aspect of the representation of nature in western
European culture (Andrews, 1999). These symbolic meanings came to be an important source of inspiration during the grand tours made by the cultural elite
(Lengkeek, 1994, 1996).
Such a shift towards Arcadian representations of nature and a focus on scenic
landscapes has not occurred in Islamic cultures (Schouten, 2005). There are also
other differences in modern representations of nature between Islamic cultures
and most Western Christian cultures. For example, in Islamic cultures, nature
is seen as the manifestation of the almighty God (Allah). Through nature, mankind can learn the word of God and can discern Gods truth, beauty and compassion (Makhzoumi, 2002). Because nature is a reflection of Gods word, nature
is represented as well organized and well managed, without disorder or discord
(Maasen, 2004). Therefore, humans are supposed to manage the land and take

52

good care of it. To bring wild lands into culture is seen as celebrating Gods work
(Makhzoumi, 2002). Furthermore, the modern Western focus on scenic landscapes is not very dominant in Islamic cultures; Arab languages even lack a word
for the concept of landscape (ibid.).
Not only religious differences but also the rural background of immigrants
may influence the subsequent representations of nature. The vast majority of immigrants from Turkey and Morocco originate from small villages located in remote agricultural areas. Differences in nature practices between the remote, rural places of origin and the highly urbanized Dutch society could hardly be greater. Research has shown important differences in values associated with nature
between people from rural and those from urban backgrounds (Manfredo, Teel
& Bright, 2003). In agrarian-based cultures, social representations of meanings
are based on the direct material interaction with the natural environment. In urbanized cultures, the symbolic meanings of nature have become more important.
These symbolic meanings are often based on idealized representations of nature
and landscape related to hedonistic values and the construction of nature as the
antithesis of human culture (van Koppen, 2000). As a result, nature is often associated with autonomy, spontaneity and naturalness (Ulrich, 1983). This is in
sharp contrast to the view held in many rural cultures that nature is something
that needs to be controlled; nature is sometimes even regarded as threatening
(ORourke, 2000).
The conclusion of this short stroll through cultural differences is that social
representations of nature do differ significantly between Dutch culture and Turkish and Moroccan cultures.2 In the following section I describe how these social
representations are reflected in peoples individual images of nature.
Images of nature held by immigrants compared to those held by native Dutch people
Images of nature can be defined as enclosing frameworks that direct and structure the perception and appreciation of nature (Keulartz, van der Windt & Swart,
2004). As described above, images of nature are the cognitive reflections of social
representations of nature. We have seen that the social representation of nature
differs between Islamic cultures and native Dutch culture. Therefore, also the individual images may differ between native Dutch people and people originating
from Turkey or Morocco.
Previous studies have conceptualized images of nature as consisting of two
dimensions: peoples beliefs regarding nature and their normative views on the
relationship between humans and nature (Buijs, in press). An important belief
is the assumed relationship between nature and culture. Are nature and culture
seen as opposites, or is nature closely related and inseparable from culture? Several studies have shown that beliefs about the natureculture dichotomy may
differ among the general public (Hull, Robertson & Kendra, 2001) and between
different cultures (Bang, Medin & Atran, 2007). The normative elements of im-

53

ages of nature relate to ethical-normative cognitions concerning the relationship

between humans and nature. Normative elements are related to, for example, anthropocentric or ecocentric views on the relationship between human and nature,
or views on the appropriate goals of managing natural areas. Other topics include
the view on human interventions in nature versus the autonomy of nature.
Factor analysis of peoples beliefs about nature, focusing on the assumed prototypically of nature-related instances, revealed three factors:3 independent nature
(e.g. marshes) was seen by most respondents as the most typical of nature, while
domesticated nature (e.g. cats and dogs) was seen as the least typical. Productive
nature (e.g. old farms) was mostly not seen as typical nature (see table 2).
Table 2: Factor analyses of prototypicality rating: means and factor loadings (>0.4) N=573
Mean score
(1 5)
(5=typical
nature)

Percentage
typical or
very typical nature

Independent nature

Floodings

3.6

55%

.827

Marshes

4.0

70%

.789

Weeds between
pavement

2.7

29%

.570

Old farms

3.2

40%

.875

Farmer on his
tractor

2.8

30%

.860

Large corn fields

3.4

38%

Humans

3.1

40%

.842

Domestic animals

2.7

27%

.838

(.418)

Productive
nature

Domesticated nature

.445

Factor analyses on the items belonging to values also revealed three factorial dimensions. The first factor (the perceived need for autonomy of nature) is related to the view of many respondents that nature should develop as independently
from humans as possible. The second factor was related to anthropocentric values. Support for the items related to this factor was much lower. The third factor
refers to the appropriate intensity of management of nature areas (management
intensity). The items constituting this factor showed the highest variation. While
38% felt that dead trees in the forests need to be cleared away, another 25% disagreed with this policy (see table 3).
Based on the above-mentioned conceptualization of images of nature as beliefs, values and value orientations, we investigated the different images of nature
held by immigrants and by native Dutch people. This investigation showed that
there are significant differences: the immigrants expressed a more anthropocentric view on the humannature relationship, they preferred a high level of management of nature, the autonomy of nature was less important for them, and they

54

Table 3: Factor analyses of values and value orientations: means and factor loadings (>0.4) N=561
Mean score
1=disagree
5=agree

Percentage
agree

Perceived
need for
autonomy
of nature

Anthropocentric
values

Management
intensity

To protect nature,
some areas need to
be closed to visitors

3.7

57%

.744

The longer a natural

area is left untouched, the
greater its value

3.8

63%

.663

Wind turbines and

electricity pylons
make nature less
valuable

3.6

52%

.598

Nature is less fragile

than some people
think

3.0

29%

.850

Not every single

rare plant needs to
be protected

2.8

26%

.617

Humans may use

nature as they see
fit

2.0

11%

.461

Road verges should

be decently mowed

3.6

57%

.789

Dead trees in the

forests should be
cleared away

3.1

38%

.744

used a broader definition of nature and less often conceptualized nature and culture as oppositional concepts. Most native Dutch people supported a wilderness
image of nature, related to ecocentric values and the autonomy of nature. Support
for the functional image (related to anthropocentric values and intensive management) was very limited within this group of native Dutch people. However, immigrant groups showed massive support (almost 50%) for the functional image,
while the wilderness image received only very limited support. The inclusive image which focuses on ecocentric values and a broad definition of nature was
supported by both groups (see table 4).
Interestingly, second-generation immigrants (i.e. those born in the Netherlands but raised in an immigrant culture) seem to take a position between both
groups. Their adherence to the different images of nature is a combination of the
functional images that are dominant among first-generation immigrants and

55

the wilderness images held by many native Dutch people. These results seem to
reflect the complex cultural situation of these second-generation immigrants: they
clearly belong to two different social groups, related to very different cultures (including possibly different social representations of nature). To develop their own
view on nature, they can draw from two different social representations of nature,
related to two very different cultures. Consequently, their individual images of nature may incorporate elements from both social representations of nature, including possibly conflicting elements. In the remainder of this chapter, I explore both
this situation of the acculturalization of immigrants and the possibility of cognitive polyphasia in the images of nature of second-generation immigrants.
Table 4: Images of nature held by native Dutch people and by first- and second-generation
immigrants
Images of nature
Wilderness
image
(N=207)

Functional
image
(N=170)

Inclusive
image
(N=180)

Native Dutch people

51%

15%

34%

Immigrants

25%

44%

31%

First-generation immigrants

18%

47%

35%

Second-generation immigrants

40%

38%

22%

Origin (Cramers V=0.33***)

Within immigrants (Cramers V=0.23***)

*** p < .001

Second-generation immigrants: drawing on two different cultural resources?

We used this empirical study of images of nature to investigate the relationship
between the images held by second-generation immigrants and those held by
first-generation immigrants and native Dutch people. From which social representation of nature do second-generation immigrants draw their individual images of nature? Do they draw on the Dutch representation of nature with its
strong focus on ecocentric values and the view that autonomous processes in nature should be strengthened and thus management intensity should be as low
as possible or do they draw more on the social representation of their parents
culture, which is related to more anthropocentric values of nature and nature as
a well-kept garden to celebrate the perfect order as established by Allah? Furthermore, do they adhere to the narrow definition of nature in which only nature
independent from human influence is considered true nature or to the broader
definition in the social representation of their parents culture, in which the natureculture divide is less prominent? In short, which cultures and which social
representations are the prime resource for their individual images of nature?

56

To investigate the elements that second-generation immigrants have incorporated from the representations available to them, we compared the six sub-dimensions of images of nature held by second-generation immigrants with those held
by native Dutch people and first-generation immigrants. Interestingly, there is a
clear divide between the cognitive and the normative dimension. Within the cognitive dimension, second-generation immigrants seem to draw mainly on the native Dutch representation. And just as it is to native Dutch people, the independence of nature is an important characteristic of nature. Independent nature (like
marshes) is considered the most typical form of nature, while domesticated nature is often not considered as nature. This is in contrast to first-generation immigrants, who do not seem to draw a clear difference between independent nature, domesticated nature and productive nature. However, on the normative dimension, second-generation immigrants seem to draw much more on the social
representation of their (Turkish or Moroccan) culture. Their normative view on
the humannature relationship is very much in line with that of the first-generation immigrants, and differs significantly from the views of native Dutch people.
They adhere more to anthropocentric values, they prefer higher levels of management of nature and they are less anxious to interfere with nature (see table 5). We
can thus conclude that second-generation immigrants draw from two different
social representations of nature: one grounded in native Dutch culture, the other
grounded in the Islamic and rural cultures of their ancestors.
Table 5: Cognitive polyphasia of second-generation immigrants?
1st-generation
immigrants
(N=211)

2nd-generation
immigrants
(N=88)

Native Dutch
people
(N=318)

Independent nature

3.2a

3.5b

3.5b

Productive nature

3.1

2.8

3.0

3.2

2.8

2.8b

Need for autonomy

3.6a

3.5a

3.8b

Anthropocentric values

2.8a

2.7a

2.4b

3.0b

Dimensions of images
of nature
Cognitive dimension

Domesticated nature
Normative dimension

Management intensity

3.7

3.5

Differences of the dimensions printed in bold differ significantly from each other (p<.05). Means
with unequal letters differ per column at p<.05.

Conclusions
I have argued for the use of social representations theory as a means to relate individual cognitions about nature with the social construction of these meanings.
Based on Swidlers conceptualization of culture as a toolkit or a repertoire that

57

individuals may draw on in a creative manner, I have also argued that individuals
draw on the social representations that circulate in society to construct individual cognitions about nature (which I have named images of nature). I then used
this theoretical approach to understand the differences in images of nature held
by immigrants and those held by native Dutch people, focusing especially on the
position of second-generation immigrants in-between their culture of origin and
native Dutch culture.
Immigrants and native Dutch people differed significantly as regards the images of nature they hold. While most native Dutch people supported the wilderness image, almost half of the immigrants supported the functional image. Immigrants expressed a more anthropocentric view on the humannature relationship, they preferred a high level of management of nature, the autonomy of nature
was less important for them, they used a broader definition of nature and they
less often conceptualized nature and culture as oppositional concepts. The differences between the images of nature held by immigrants and those held by native
Dutch people found in this study are to a large extent in line with more general
cultural differences between Islamic and Christian cultures regarding the perception of nature. These results suggest that both first-generation immigrants
and native Dutch people construct their images of nature based on the social representations that are dominant in their own culture. As these social representations of nature differ significantly, these people have developed different images
of nature. For example, the fact that many first-generation immigrants support
the functional image of nature with its focus on utilitarian values and intensive
management may be related to the divine task in Islam for humans to manage
nature and to bring wild areas into culture. Prior research has shown that that
these different images of nature are related to a relative preference for managed
landscapes among many immigrants (Buijs, Elands & Langers, in press).
Second-generation immigrants are related to two different cultures, namely
the immigrant culture of the parents who raised them and the culture of the society in which they were born. The results suggest that these second-generation
immigrants draw on both cultures to construct their individual images of nature.
They draw especially on the cognitive elements of Dutch social representation of
nature, related to a clear natureculture divide. However, to construct the normative elements of their images of nature, they draw more on the social representations that are dominant in the (Turkish or Moroccan) culture of their parents.
They expressed relatively anthropocentric values and the autonomy of nature was
not very important. They also seemed to hold a less romantic view of the Dutch
landscape, as they felt that the construction of electricity pylons through agrarian
landscapes does not threaten the landscape quality of such areas.
How should this result be interpreted? Does the fact that second-generation
immigrants seem to draw on two social representations of nature simultaneously
mean that they are in a phase of acculturalization? It is too early to tell. To draw
such a conclusion, we need to conduct longitudinal studies or inter-generational

58

studies in which we can show how the images of nature develop through time
and/or through different generations and age groups. The results do suggest that
second-generation immigrants show signs of cognitive polyphasia (Moscovici,
1961/1976; Wagner, 1998). They seem to have implemented elements of the representations of nature held by native Dutch people and those held by Turkish/
Moroccan people. Some of these elements may be in conflict with each other. For
example, the fact that they define nature as complementary to humans and human culture seems contradictory to their view that nature should be intensively
managed and that the maintenance of autonomous processes in nature is not very
important. These contradictions may imply, as Castro (2006) suggests, that the
implementation of cultural changes in environmental views is not as straightforward as is sometimes suggested. Old and new ideas may coexist and interact, depending on individual experiences and identities. As a result, ambivalence about
values and attitudes may occur in a time of cultural change, and the replacement
of old ideas about nature by new ideas should be seen as complex and iterative,
and not as a simple linear process.
Notes
1. For a more extensive description of the methods used in this study, see Buijs et al.,
2006.
2. For a more extensive elaboration of cultural differences in the representation of nature, see e.g. Schama, 1995; Schouten, 2005.
3. To prevent possible cognitive polyphasia among second-generation immigrants
from interfering with this factor analysis, we conducted the analysis based on the native Dutch people and the first-generation immigrants. The results were comparable
with the analysis of the full dataset (Buijs, Elands & Langers, in press).

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61

5 The Position of Cultural History and

Heritage Management in a Complex
Society
Jelle Vervloet

ultural history and the preservation of monuments and historical buildings

have a regular place in the decision-making process concerning spatial planning in the Netherlands. For several decades, all sorts of government agencies have
been looking into this subject. Every province and municipality has a department
or a civil servant charged with attending to this theme. A national institute the
National Service for Archaeology, Cultural Landscape and Built Heritage (RACM)
oversees the quality of the policy. The civil service designates protected landscapes and publishes policy documents. Reviews of the condition of nature and
landscapes are issued annually, e.g. Natuurverkenning, Natuurbalans, Archeologiebalans). Landscape architects and planners make great efforts to incorporate cultural
history into their designs; when requested to do so, they even make cultural-historically inspired plans and designs (Nota Belvdre 1999). All these activities and
products stem from official legislation and rules. Government politicians assume
that people are in need of a high-quality landscape. Nature, peace and quiet along
with clean water, soil and air are important items in spatial planning.
In the Netherlands, cultural history has been regarded as one of the central
qualities of the landscape since the mid 1970s (Nota CRM 1975). It was believed
that the unique character of our national culture emerged from the historically
developed landscape. The Dutch national character our identity was specifically expressed in the manner in which former generations shaped the landscape.
What remained of this was worthy of preservation.
The underlying thought was that the bond with the past should not be cut too
abruptly, despite all the dynamic developments in the landscape. For the sake of
the citizens quality of life, the environment should reflect as many of the nations
characteristics as possible. People were obviously aware that this ambition could
not be realized at the same level of intensity in all places. Building on the tradition
that had already been developed in the preservation of buildings, archaeological
objects and nature reserves, it was decided to select a limited number of areas in
which the main focus was to be on the conservation of the landscape, that is, on
preserving as much of the existing situation as possible (de Klerk, 1987).

63

The government employed historical geographers to make scientifically

sound choices on behalf of the policy. The extent to which it was possible to read
the development of the landscape from the current situation (i.e. to extract the
information value) was an important starting point for such assessments (de
Bont & Renes, 1988). This should not come as a complete surprise: Dutch historical geographers considered landscape genesis research to be their core business.
Putting the measure of information first was in perfect keeping with their scientific perception.
How the inhabitants experienced the historically developed landscape that
surrounded them was hardly mentioned, if at all. The scientists approach did not
really fit in with the way the local inhabitants looked at the landscape, and this
created a distance between the two groups. The values that the scientists attached
to areas and objects were not always recognized or acknowledged as such by the
population itself (van den Berg & Casimir, 2002). Many inhabitants, and especially farmers, felt that their existence was threatened by all these areas the scientists
were designating. In their opinion, to freeze the situation the landscape was in
would result in stagnation, and stagnation leads to decline. They not only feared
for their income, but were also suspicious about the subsidies offered by the government to overcome the deadlock they were in; subsidies imply a financial dependency and a restriction of free enterprise. People would rather not be stigmatized as park keepers (Denig, 1975). As it was, many of the arrangements did not
last very long. Each new government introduced new arrangements, which rarely
turned out to be much of an improvement. This did not offer the farmers much
to hold on to in the long run, and this prospect did not promote a healthy operational management.
Independent of our judgement of the motives and principles of those who developed the policies and carried out the inventories, it makes sense to ascertain
how the population itself experiences the cultural history of the landscape and
how this can be implemented in future policy concerning the landscape (Vervloet,
2007). Here, we are talking about such questions as: what arouses the interest of
the population? Upon what standards do people base their choices, and what are
their motives? From this follow further questions: which kinds of objects and areas do they prefer? Does this correspond with the ideas and plans of the scientists,
or do different opinions and preferences come to the fore? (van Assche, 2004;
Coeterier, 2000; van Duineveld, 2006; Koedoot, 2004).
This process of change is not new. It started with the introduction of the term
inspraak (participation). This was followed by the establishment of draagvlak
(public support), and now people are busily engaged in participatieve planvorming
(participative planning), whereby the population is directly involved in reflecting
upon the future town and country planning (de Poel et al., 2000). A gradual shift
from top-down to bottom-up can be discerned in planning, as shown by the way
the policy on town and country planning is structured in the Netherlands. These
plans used to be drawn up by central government, but nowadays this administra-

64

tive rank is responsible only for setting general planning guidelines; it is now the
lower administrative ranks, which are closer to the public, that formulate concrete
planning proposals (Woltjer, 1992; Hendrikx, 1999).
We see a similar shift at the successive conferences of historical geographers.
The number of contributions on landscape genesis and the assessment systems
based on a positivistic perspective on science is decreasing in favour of contributions that have a more post-modern slant, which puts first the manner in which
the inhabitants experience the historical aspects of the landscape. Next to historical geography, other disciplines and approaches such as cultural anthropology,
sociology and environmental psychology are playing a steadily more important
role in this (Schavemaker, 2008).
It is no longer a matter of dating as precisely as possible the objects and structures that adorn the landscape, nor of a technically intrinsic evaluation based on
flawlessness, rarity or distinctive characteristics; instead, it is a matter of, for instance, which parts of the landscape are considered by the inhabitants or land-users as having a historical aura and thus warrant being preserved in some form or
another (Duineveld, 2006; Koedoot & Lengkeek, 2004). In addition, these days
many people want to preserve an object because there is a nice anecdote attached
to it. The biographical backgrounds are becoming increasingly important. Historical geographers must transform themselves into storytellers. An object or an
area counts only if it is supplied with a historical narrative that appeals to the imagination (Kolen, 2005).
Key questions
In order to fathom the consequences of this paradigm change for our cultural history and the preservation of monuments and historical buildings, we addressed
three related questions that might help us to gain a clearer understanding of the
way in which people experience the historical landscape. These questions are: 1)
What is the role of local historical associations in the striving for landscape preservation? 2) To what extent is the local population aware of the existence of cultural-historical values in the landscape? 3) How do the various actor-groups perceive
the cultural history of the landscape?
What is the role of local historical associations in the striving for landscape preservation?
For quite some time it was claimed that the natural backing for the preservation of
cultural-historical phenomena in the landscape should be sought in the circles of
local historians, namely the local and regional historical associations (Rooyakkers,
2000). In order to substantiate this claim, research was carried out in the eastern
part of the Netherlands to systematically take a closer look at four associations that
have been active on a local and regional level for a considerable time. The research
comprised a meticulous analysis of the articles that had appeared in the associa-

65

tions magazines in recent years and of their other activities. Further, prominent
members of each associations committee were interviewed to find out whether
any information had been missed or misinterpreted (Groot, 2008).
The results were remarkable. In only a very limited number of cases did the
associations actually react to the plans proposed by the government. The clubs for
local and regional historical studies hardly functioned (if at all) as platforms for
protests against changes in the landscape; in general, they adopted a neutral attitude. Within this type of association, the unity of the village community or the region they claim to represent is of primary importance. Interventions in the landscape for example, through house or road building could all too easily develop
into a subject that would cause discord between the members, for example, between local politicians who represent several parties but are not infrequently also
members of the committees, or between farmers and shopkeepers. They would
therefore rather look into the past than into the future. The associations will only
contact the town council if they expect that virtually all members will see eye to
eye on a certain matter. This explains the protest against the felling of a certain
kroezeboom (an age-old tree with a highly symbolic value): village meetings are
still held under it on special occasions.
What the local clubs are interested in is the history of individual farms. This
is tied up with the history of generations of farmers, whose descendants are often still living in the village. At a local level, genealogical research is central. As
people search for their roots, they come across farmsteads that carry their family
names. These farmsteads are the point of departure of the research. For local historians, they are the stepping stones to their family trees.
The landscape formed by farmsteads receives a lot less attention. For historical
geographers it is also interesting to investigate how much land was owned, where
this land was situated and which field names were borne by the various parcels,
as this helps them to form an image of the historical rural land use. However, the
local researchers in the region we selected were hardly interested in that particular knowledge. Most of them have no understanding of the cohesion of the landscape and thus no reason to dwell on the future of the landscape.
To what extent is the local population aware of the existence of cultural-historical values in the landscape?
Our respondents in the municipality of Rheden, which is situated on the edge of
the Veluwe, were asked to point out objects and/or structures in their surroundings that, in their opinion, were of cultural-historical interest. They were also
asked to indicate the objects and structures on a mental map (Pikkemaat, 2006).
To see whether social division played a role here, we looked at the respondents
education, income and background. The results show that castles and churches
score points with everyone. These are often the only objects mentioned by people
with lower incomes and little education. The higher the level of education and in-

66

come, the more objects were mentioned and mapped; this group even indicated
such landscape elements as lanes, hedges and wooded banks.
The commuters living in the municipality scored the highest; many of these
people did not originate from Rheden. They were more aware than the others of
the precious landscape setting in which they live. Perhaps this is not that surprising: especially commuters prefer to live in an attractive environment. Nor is it a
surprise that they were generally able to relate the most about the historical context of their surroundings. The fact of the matter is that they have the highest level of education. However, their knowledge of these kinds of subjects is also related
to the fact that they consciously want to attach themselves to their new environment and, as a result, deliberately go in search of its history.
Another result of this research is that an expert report on cultural values in
the countryside around Rheden (Bootsma, Derks & Scholte Lubberdink, 2004)
emphasizes subjects not mentioned by the inhabitants. The report takes a typical technical approach based on the study of maps. The members of the Rheden
community are more devoted to the perception of their place of residence. Because they speak different languages, the locals do not recognize most of the cultural historical values designated by the officials.
How do the various actor groups perceive the cultural history of the landscape?
The experience of cultural history is connected to the education, income and background of the persons interviewed. In order to shed more light on the way people perceive the cultural history in the landscape, we studied how different actor
groups experience the cultural history in the landscape. We understand actors as
representatives of groups that are involved with the cultural-historical aspects of
the landscape (de Keijzer & van der Wal, 2006).
The study looked at the relationship between the experience of the landscape
in a part of the east of the Netherlands and the cultural-historical phenomena in
it. Here, experience is understood as information-processing leading to the attribution of meaning. This process is all about the attribution of the correct meaning to the incoming information, so that a proper behavioural reaction can be
selected. This study was about the perception and valuation of the landscape by
various groups in society. To be able to conduct this analysis, we formulated three
research questions: 1) Which actor groups are present in the cultural-historical
landscape of the eastern part of the Netherlands and what is their relation to this
landscape? 2) What are the motives and incentives of these groups with regard to
the cultural history in the area; that is, which viewpoints do they have? 3) Do the
portrayed viewpoints match the actual situation?
The experience of cultural history and landscapes stems from deeper motives
and incentives. Next to knowledge, income and such like (which we touched on
in the previous study), experience also stems from the emotional involvement,
the susceptibility to aesthetics, the functional fulfilment of needs and the de-

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gree of economic dependence. By making a distinction based on these motives

and incentives, we formulated a typology of the glasses worn by various social
groups. These are policy glasses, expert glasses, sunglasses, market glasses, survival glasses, identity glasses and crackle-ware glasses. The following are some
examples of these glasses.
Policy glasses are focused on the degree to which the cultural history in the
landscape can be fitted in with other policy sectors. The actors in this group are
policy makers and the people who implement the policies. Each of these actors
wears glasses with a different focus. Schoolteacher glasses are worn by the policy
makers; they ask themselves which phenomena are of cultural-historical value
and which can be fitted into the policy. Reading glasses fit the people who implement the policies; to them, cultural history is valuable when it is in line with the
intended policy.
Expert glasses are focused on the content. The actor wearing these glasses experiences the landscape primarily out of the desire to discover more about the
genesis of the landscape through research. There are two kinds of experts: the academic scientist and the applied researcher. The first observes the world through
a telescope. It is his or her objective to amass knowledge for the sake of knowledge.
This actor is not interested in the de facto preservation of cultural-historical elements; instead, publishing is his or her main objective. The applied researcher
mostly uses binoculars. His or her objective is to conduct brief studies and pass
the results on to, for instance, policy makers.
Sunglasses are worn by holiday-makers. They consume cultural history. They
are mainly interested in beautiful stories, whether or not these are offered by
travel guides. Their main goal, however, is peace and quiet. No matter how rich
the landscape is in cultural history, if it lacks tourist infrastructure (e.g. hotels
and campsites), the tourists will not turn up. We distinguish two types of people in this category, namely those who wear grandmothers glasses and those who
wear blinkers. The first group is interested in the past and visits an area in order
to learn something about its history; the second group seeks entertainment in the
landscape without really caring about the environment. This latter group is in it
for the activity, not for the area in which the activity takes place.
Market glasses are worn by people who view cultural history from a purely economic perspective. These glasses fit many different people. For example, there
are profiteers glasses and gold-diggers glasses. People who profit from cultural history without offering anything in return wear profiteers glasses. Examples of these
people are hotel keepers, property developers and estate agents, who extol the virtues of their goods based on the presence of cultural-historical remnants but leave
the preservation thereof to the public domain. Gold-diggers glasses are worn by
people who use their metal detectors to search for valuable finds in the soil in order to sell these to antique dealers or to collectors of antiquities.

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Discussion
The results of the above studies illustrate the point we were trying to make: the
groups and individuals we interviewed vary greatly as regards their commitment,
experiences and preferences. However, it is not entirely clear how we should proceed from here. Nevertheless, we hope that the results of these studies will, for
example, contribute to solving problems related to communication and understanding between the various actors in spatial planning and the handling of the
cultural landscape in its broader context.
The research offers an opportunity for those who make decisions about the development of the cultural-historical landscape to understand the appreciation other parties in society have of the landscape they work with: Experts with their cool
approach are not always impressed with emotional and subjective meanings. Because of this, they might pass over essential conditions to embed and anchor the
preservation of heritage (Duineveld, Koedoot & Lengkeek, 2004). On the other
hand, an attempt can be made to foster some knowledge among the population
for the stories the experts are able to tell.
More consultation between and more openness by both parties (who themselves are divided) could help to eliminate misconceptions and prejudices. This,
however, will take a lot of time and people are already complaining about slow
procedures in spatial planning. The problem is therefore far from being solved.
Perhaps this contribution can be a modest starting point for a fruitful discussion
between the groups and the individuals involved.
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Part 2
Leisure Practices and
Public Space

Social Interaction and Neighbourhood

Control: The significance of Walking and
Narratives
Henk de Haan

eisure, dwelling and the housing environment are closely related. Research by
Breedveld and colleagues (2006) reveals that in the Netherlands in 2005, each
person had an average of approximately 45 hours of free time per week. This time
is predominantly spent in and around the house or in the neighbourhood. According to Harms (2006), about 60 per cent of the total time people spend on social
contacts, recreation, sport and culture is spent in the residential environment.
The importance of home-bound forms of leisure activities corresponds with
contemporary trends in home culture in the Netherlands. The dwelling is not
merely a place for physical and social reproduction. According to Kooijman (2004,
p. 7), individual development and freedom of choice are concepts that are central
to dwelling. In the past, the kitchen, the garden and the interior decoration were
strictly functional; now these are spaces for the expression of personal taste and
status, where an optimal experience of dwelling as a form of consumption can
be realized. This is clear, for instance, from the enormous popularity of home
decoration and DIY shops, lifestyle magazines and TV programmes on home improvement. More than ever, the house is a leisure domain, where people spend
quality time and in which they invest a lot of time and money in order to maintain the necessary standards. According to Galle (2004, p. 74), . . . the house is
liable to the all-embracing inclination to turn everything into an ultimate experience . . . The decoration of the normal house should be not only functional, but
also attractive, thrilling, romantic and trendy. King (2005, p. 93) states that the
house is essentially a dull, boring structure: a simple box that often fails to excite
us. Hence the wish to give our dwellings a makeover and turn them into something more exciting and personal.
In the Netherlands, most people live in compact, densely populated neighbourhoods. This means that one not only has neighbours very close-by, but also
that the residential environment must be shared with a large number of other occupants. Hence, when people are looking for a house they not only judge the quality of the house and the neighbourhood facilities, but also do their best to find
out what kind of people live in the neighbourhood and especially who and what

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the closest neighbours are. A fundamental issue nowadays is peoples wish to

find a neighbourhood that corresponds with their lifestyle. In general, people can
choose from a wide range of housing types and neighbourhoods, but they cannot
choose their neighbours. A house can be transformed and decorated according to
personal taste, but the social and physical characteristics of the neighbourhood
are outside the power of private control and regulation.
Annoying neighbours and other environmental nuisances such as crime, pollution, vandalism and asocial behaviour can significantly disturb the experience
of private spatial quality. This predicament is well described in an article about
neighbourhood mediation in the Dutch newspaper Trouw (31 August 2005): The
Netherlands is jam-packed, especially in the cities, where we live almost on top of
each other. Moreover, there are almost as many households as there are lifestyles,
which perhaps do not always agree with one another. Our houses and our gardens
are places where we withdraw, where we recover from our stressful life. At home,
it must be it quiet and clean, peaceful and relaxing. Sometimes these aspirations
cannot easily be matched with the neighbours hobbies, which can be the start of
something small and insignificant, but may quickly develop into straightforward
irritation. The residential environment is a significant factor in the enjoyment
of not only the private domain: people also want to enjoy nearby outdoor spaces and social contacts, and the neighbourhood is a potential setting for and facilitates leisure time outside the home. The presence of walking possibilities,
playgrounds and meeting places is of major importance to people who seek entertainment and social contacts in their immediate neighbourhood. The neighbourhood is in fact an extension of the home (see Augoyard, 2008). The home
and the residential environment are two interconnected domains, with dialectical and symbiotic relations that are especially expressed in the tension between
the private and the public domain. The private field is the primary location for
experiencing dwelling, but that experience does not stand apart from the inf luence of the environment.
This chapter is about the way in which local residents protect and defend their
private domain by controlling outside influences, and about the need to establish
social relations with the outside world in order to make possible these kinds of social regulation mechanisms. In order to protect their privacy and personal integrity, people have to establish public interactions and enact public social control. I
focus on relatively insignificant, everyday events in order to grasp the nature of
the neighbourhood and to discover how people react to an infringement of the
normative order. I show that everyday ways of being in the neighbourhood conceal and articulate fundamental questions of social and normative order.
The everyday life-world of the neighbourhood is an exceptional setting for
people to express themselves simultaneously as private, social, moral and environmental persons. Such social control mechanisms are particularly urgent in a
social spatial environment in which many people have to cope with the fact that
they live in close proximity to others. Close proximity, as we know from Halls

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(1966) research, entails the need to control others in order to defend personal
integrity. In a neighbourhood environment, this comes down to protecting the
home environment from unwanted interference, and the public environment
from undesirable developments or invasion.
In the following pages, I analyse why social control is necessary in order to
protect the home and the environment from factors that have a negative impact
on the dwelling experience. I start with a short analysis of proximity in neighbourhoods in order to establish why and how the private dwelling is vulnerable and needs protection from external influences. I then theoretically explore
these protective mechanisms in the context of such concepts as appropriation,
domain formation, territorial behaviour and boundaries in order to gain a better
insight into the specificities and more general aspects of control mechanisms in
the neighbourhood. After these generalities on territorial control, I focus more
specifically on how people exercise social control through walking practices. Finally, I conclude my observations on neighbourhood social control by drawing
some comparisons between neighbourhood space and public space.
At home: leisure and social regulation
In the West, at home is associated with freedom, security and comfort. Although
one can feel at home in many places and under a variety of circumstances, the feeling is especially associated with the private family dwelling. At home is closely
linked with the concept of privacy, which refers to both personal and territorial integrity: . . . home is a private, often familial realm clearly differentiated from public space and removed from public scrutiny and surveillance the private realm of
the home is typically understood as a space that offers freedom and control, security, and scope for creativity and regeneration. (Mallet, 2004 p. 71. See also King,
2004, 2008; Blunt & Dowling, 2006; Marcus, 1995).
This seclusion and the associated significance of the private domain is in sharp
contrast to the outside world, over which people do not have similar levels of control and where public norms and openness characterize space. In this respect, the
boundaries between public and private are important. The dwelling is always part
of a wider territory in which it shares space with other dwellings and public life
has its own logic. At home, the occupant may be lord and master, but he or she is
very dependent on others with respect to what happens in the neighbourhood. According to Cuff (2005, 3): The main reason neighbour relations are charged is
sheer proximity. Unlike other social relations . . . space is inherent to neighbourship. Residential neighbours live their daily lives near one another over extended
periods of time. Their actions impinge upon one another, and at some levels,
are mutually dependent we are locked in relation with them to some degree.
Most houses are very transparent and liable to environmental influences. What
happens inside the dwelling may leak into the environment, and vice versa. With
the rise of the domestic ideal and the meaning of the home as a safe haven, these

75

outside influences are increasingly considered an infringement of the private domain. According to Stokoe (2006, 1.4), dwellings nowadays are meant to offer
people an experience of privacy, but The fact that most dwellings have shared
boundaries means that the private relationships of people and their neighbours
can be somewhat transmitted to people who are not in that relationship. Physical proximity means that neighbours know details about one anothers private life
and doings that they are not supposed to know; they know each others daily routines, holiday periods, the whereabouts of the children, dinner times (even what
is eaten), musical taste, and so on. What should be private, what should belong to
the intimate sphere, becomes a form of public intimacy: the ultimate experience
of being on your own is not only exposed to neighbours, but these neighbours may
also interfere with your life. The sheer transparency of the private dwelling exposes privacy in the public sphere, while privacy itself is limited by environmental
disturbances (see Stokoe & Wallwork, 2003; Stokoe & Hepburn, 2005; Br, 2008).
Many activities in and around the house are intended to ensure the inhabitants privacy. This is most evident in new residential areas. When the new inhabitants arrive, there is intense activity as people mark their territory by putting up
fences, planting hedges, building walls, etc. People build a protective wall in order
not only to demarcate the boundary, but also to make the private domain as invisible as possible to the neighbours.
But these protective measures are by no means sufficient. Although visual
privacy is perhaps easy to realize, it is much more difficult to control the impact
of the environment on the private dwelling or to control the general environmental qualities of the neighbourhood. People are very sensitive about what they can
hear, smell and see in their immediate surroundings. All kinds of things can happen in a neighbourhood to significantly disturb the experience of dwelling. Teenagers hanging out on the corner, busy traffic, dirty streets, noisy neighbours, antisocial behaviour, crime, the lack of maintenance of public green and many other
things can make life a nightmare. Protecting the dwelling in a physical and visual
way is far from sufficient: what is actually needed is control over public space and
public behaviour, as well as over the behaviour of immediate neighbours. In order to experience private neighbourhood time maximally, people need to take individual and collective action: they need to socially appropriate the environment
in order to protect their privacy and individuality (see Haumont & Morel, 2005).
This phenomenon of people trying to control the environment receives a lot of
attention in theoretical literature about domain formation, territoriality and the
appropriation of space. Such concepts refer to peoples tendency to individually or
collectively control the spaces that they find important for everyday life. Spaces in
which people spend a lot of time and that they cannot easily or spontaneously exchange for other spaces are not passively endured. On the contrary, the more important spaces are in everyday life, the more people are inclined to exercise both
social and physical control over these spaces. Although there are several kinds of
regulation as far as residential areas are concerned, in this paper I focus only on

76

those that are informal, non-formalized and not based on externalized control
(such as in gated communities). In ordinary neighbourhoods, there are no formalized codes of conduct: how neighbours behave depends on their moral standards and the extent to which they feel socially inhibited. As far as the condition
of public space is concerned, it is mostly the state or the local government that
is responsible for safety and management. Neighbourhood control thus depends
largely on both individual and collective forms of regulation. On what general
principles is this desire to control everyday living environments based, and how
does it manifest itself empirically?
According to Sibley (1995), the construction and regulation of boundaries are
fundamental processes in group interactions and in the interaction between personal identity and the identities of others. By exercising control and imposing
moral standards, people try to gain command over the spaces that they find important for their own life-world. They apply criteria on the basis of which certain
forms of behaviour or spatial events and phenomena are considered inappropriate. People draw real and symbolic boundaries around the spaces they wish to control, and guard these boundaries against any form of trespassing and invasion. In
this context, Sibley uses the concept of purification and such related terms as pollution and contamination. Regulating space and defending against transgressive
behaviour can be considered purification rituals. Whatever does not belong or is
out of place should be excluded (see also Cresswell, 1996, 2004; Morris, 2007).
In this respect, we can distinguish between weakly and strongly classified
environments. In the words of Malone (2002, p. 595): Within weakly classified
environments, boundaries between inside and outside are soft. The organizing
principles of such environments are heterogeneity and permeability to the external world. Within strongly classified environments, by contrast, mixing is generally treated as a territorial violation. In this highly ordered context, boundaries
with the outside tend to be sharply drawn and impermeable. While public neighbourhood space is in principle a weakly classified environment, because it encapsulates the strongly classified environment of individual dwellings, inhabitants
tend to want to extend the power over their home into public space, thus transforming it into space with clearly identifiable levels of boundary control.
These thoughts can also be found in other territoriality and privacy theories.
Sack (1983), for instance, describes territoriality as a spatial strategy to affect, influence and control. Territoriality and purification are mechanisms to appropriate space, as a form of domain formation in a socio-political sense. Some groups
can thus imprint their identity on space to such an extent that space is transformed in both a material and a social-normative sense (for the concept of territoriality, see Delaney, 2005). In environmental psychology, the principle that
people do their utmost to bring their everyday living environment into harmony
with their own principles and functional demands is well researched (see Moore,
2005). Implicitly, this refers to a basic principle in an actor-oriented approach,
namely that people consciously assess and tactically try to shape their environ-

77

ment in order to achieve what is sometimes called environmental fit, synomorphy or compatibility (for more on these concepts, see de Haan, 2005).
With respect to the residential environment, especially such authors as Altman and Taylor (Altman, 1975; Altman & Chemers, 1985; Taylor, 1988) have applied the concept of territoriality. Taylor, for instance, distinguishes several ways
in which actors exhibit territorial behaviour. Here, I pay attention to marking behaviour and territorial cognition. Marking behaviour refers to the material personalization of house and garden, and is an important non-verbal form of communicating who you are, how you position yourself in the neighbourhood and
how highly you value private seclusion. Maintenance of the garden, decorative
elements, hedges and fences are all visible signs that communicate taste, status
and lifestyle. A house with an open garden, windows without curtains and no
clear demarcation between private and public space, for instance, shows that the
occupants of the house are open to the outside world and want to show who they
are. Good maintenance is a sign of conformity, while rubbish strewn around the
house, bad paintwork and so on show that the occupants are indifferent to or too
poor to keep up with neighbourhood standards. These material signs are very
important visual sources for studying the everyday semiotics of neighbourhood
communication. For people who live in the neighbourhood, these are an inexhaustible source of information, gossip and, sometimes, intervention (for more
on non-verbal communication, see Rapoport, 1982; Abu-Ghazzeh, 2000; Lawson, 2001; Garvey, 2005; Harris & Brown, 1996).
Territorial cognition is a second, less visible mode of territorial behaviour. People who have been in a neighbourhood for a long time develop intensive knowledge about what is going on in that neighbourhood. Inhabitants build up a rich
local experience by taking frequent walks, communicating with their neighbours
and keeping an open, observant mind. Looking, listening or just being there results in a mental construct that consists of numerous facts, perceptions and moral positions. Appropriating the neighbourhood in a cognitive sense results in a
form of ownership, one that is based on superior knowledge and a bundle of
rights to use that knowledge for intervening in neighbourhood events.
Marking behaviour in a broad sense can be seen as the sum of the total actual
behaviour by which actors communicate their moral standards, while territorial
cognition refers to the receiving end of the communication: it is the total impression that people have of social and material spaces.
Territorial behaviour and regulation of public space as mechanisms through
which people protect their primary personal space and integrity are closely associated with peoples need for ontological security. This security is achieved not by
isolating themselves but also by expanding the personal sphere of influence. In
their article Home as a territorial system, Mrtsin and Niit (2005) show how people appropriate space in several ways. Following Heidmets, they refer to the environmental person: This type of expansion involves both the social and mental,
as well as the physical environment . . . Through the personalization of the envi-

78

ronment people take control over the external world (p. 151). By viewing the personalized part of the environment as an extension of the self, someone is capable
of and entitled to control this space and to use it for personal expression.
Here, Altmans conceptualization of privacy is important. Altman (1977) defines privacy as the selective control of access to the individual or the group. This
process of privacy regulation is actually about controlling the permeability of
boundaries: what do you want to show to the world, and what do you allow to enter the private world from the outside world? The opennessclosedness dichotomy is about the interaction between the private and the public world, and all the
gradients between the two (see Margulis, 2003). In the residential environment,
this principle is translated into a variety of neighbourhood lifestyle strategies.
This brief discussion of concepts associated with individual behaviour and
privacy in the public context of a neighbourhood shows that a neighbourhood is
not simply a cluster of houses that are in more or less close proximity to one another, but that it consists of a complicated interaction between the private and the
public domain. People need to be conscious of the fact that their behaviour impinges on other people and vice versa, and that there are collective interests in
controlling these interactions. The existence of this awareness among the majority of residents is both at the heart of neighbourhood control strategies and a central element in many neighbourhood conflicts. In the following section, I emphasize the fundamental role of knowledge as a resource for control.
Social practices, knowledge and regulation
To live is to live locally and to know is first of all to know the places one is in (Casey, 1996, p. 18). Here, Casey draws attention to the fact that human activities always take place somewhere, and that the accumulated experience of being in the
same place results in extensive knowledge of that place. In the literature on space
and place, a lot of attention is paid to embodied lay geographies and how they differ from disembodied kinds of knowledge that are not based on in situ experiences (see Crouch, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2006). Local residents spend a lot of time in
their neighbourhood, and depending on their practices and social interactions,
have a lot of neighbourhood knowledge. This knowledge comprises not only practical knowledge such as how to find your way around, who lives where, which
places to avoid or where you can go for a pleasant walk but also knowledge about
peoples behaviour in the neighbourhood, neighbourhood events and processes
of change. This knowledge consist not only of facts but also of explanations, feelings and judgements. Neighbourhood knowledge is an accumulation of memories, a stock of practical devices, that help people to orient themselves in practical,
social and moral situations.
How do people achieve this knowledge, and why are knowledge and the associated interpretative frame important for coping with the inherent tension between privacy, the dwelling and the residential environment?

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Following Foucault, it is important to observe that social control, as a form

of everyday exercise of power, depends on knowledge. Active local residents observe their environment, identify and interpret threats, identify actors, and take
preventive or interventional action. Residents who observe transform the neighbourhood into a sort of panopticon, and therefore into an arena for exercising disciplinary power. According to England, neighbourhood communities thus map
their territory in order to be able to identify unwanted developments: Communities rely upon the power/space/knowledge trifecta in order to map out and enforce
their community boundaries. Bodies and spaces are mapped through observation
and reports designating between orderly and disorderly, citizen and non-citizen
(England, 2006, p. 44).
The kind of knowledge local residents build up differs from scientific or policy-oriented knowledge. Everyday knowledge is based on in situ experiences,
whereby people are both participants and observers and knowledge is applied
to their own environment. The utilization of knowledge is restricted to the local situation and cannot be extended to other neighbourhood contexts. Scientific
knowledge, in contrast, is based on general principles and applications, independent of specific situations. Policy-related knowledge is knowledge that is collected
and then used by government agencies to develop regulation guidelines in order
to solve problems that are defined within a policy agenda. The kind of knowledge
the government collects and uses can best be characterized as spatial knowledge:
Spatial knowledge is more formalized, abstract and generalized knowledge. It
strips emplaced knowledge of its local particularities and its social and personal
content (Christensen, 2003, p. 16).
Local residents dispose of emplaced knowledge (ibid.), but how this knowledge
is used shows similarities with government ambitions. It serves local people to
exercise control, define problems, find solutions and develop intervention strategies. In order to be able to control the neighbourhood, people need exact knowledge about what is going on and who is responsible for what. Instead of policy programmes and formal decision-making, neighbourhood intervention is based on
the application of individual and collective normative principles, although it also
happens that local residents take legal or political action. If local residents experience trouble with certain residents, or if public space management and order are
not what residents want, a process is set in motion. This process begins with the
exchange of knowledge and experience, evolves into an intensive neighbourhood
discourse during which normative principles are discussed, and then develops into
purposive action in order to actually do something about the situation. Neighbourhoods do not have a programme or formalized normative standards. However,
through communicative interaction and neighbourhood narratives, there is a kind
of common understanding about what is and what is not acceptable behaviour.
Local (or emplaced) knowledge is based on concrete local experiences and interactions, and is generally developed by maintaining an observant, open attitude
towards the environment. Doing and feeling the neighbourhood are embedded

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in activities that are mainly practised during leisure time. When people are relaxing at home, going for a walk or participating in neighbourhood events, they are
not only trying to have a good time: they are simultaneously recording, observing
and exploring what people in their environment do and say, and what is happening
in the street and around peoples houses. Before I enter into this process of cognitive appropriation, I first give an example of a sociable neighbourhood activity that
was organized so that people could get to know each other and show who they are.
In Amersfoorts Kruiskamp neighbourhood (one of the citys problem neighbourhoods), the local government is implementing restructuring plans that are
aimed at improving the housing conditions and bringing more variety to the
neighbourhood. Old houses are being demolished and new houses for better-off
middle-class groups are being built. Thus, relatively rich newcomers are settling
in a neighbourhood that is well known for its poverty, crime and segregation.
The first newcomers moved into the area with a certain amount of hesitation.
One of the first things they did was organize a neighbourhood party: they wanted
to meet the old local residents and thought that a street party with music, drinks
and food would be a good way to establish social contacts. This initiative reflects not
only the fact that many newcomers in regenerated city neighbourhoods have idealistic ideas about urbanity and that these specific newcomers wanted to become integrated into their new neighbourhood, but also that the latter had taken a first step
towards collecting strategic knowledge in order to set up protective control mechanisms. It is essential for newcomers to show who they are, to be recognized as persons and to give faces to their anonymous front doors. They want to be known as
nice people who have good intentions. They do not want to be seen as strangers;
they want to get to know the people they will meet regularly in the future.
Why is it so important in a neighbourhood to show who you are and to know
who the others are? This exchange of information has everything to do with social control, or perhaps better in this context, with a strategy of neutralizing the
potentially risky situation of stranger-to-stranger interaction. The party was an
entertaining event, and chatting with other local residents made the newcomers
feel much more secure about their property, their cars and their personal safety
(see the report in NRC-Handelsblad, 27 June 2007).
Both the way in which people behave in an environment and how they experience it very much depend on their personal relation with that environment. The
intensity of local observations, the interaction with others and reactions to what
happens are determined by the significance of the environment for everyday life.
The more important the environment, the more people are involved with it, and
thus the need to control the environment increases. Someone who walks around
in his or her own residential environment observes more intensively and is likely to think about what happens in a more concerned and evaluative way; if that
person walks along a random street somewhere else in town, he or she will see
messy streets, sinister characters or pleasant things like fine buildings in a different way. The personal relations with such anonymous environments are most-

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ly purely functional or instrumental: a person knows that he or she is there only

temporally and that the only necessity is to safeguard his or her personal integrity.
The same sights messy streets, sinister characters or fine buildings have
a totally different meaning in the residential environment. Here, the environment is an extension of the dwelling, and all pleasant and unpleasant experiences have a direct impact on ones feeling of well-being and sense of place. Peoples
close relationship with their residential environment makes them more sensible,
more concerned and, in the end, more inclined to do something about negative
phenomena. Local residents are not simply passers-by; they are both materially
and socially embedded in the environment. Personal and material integrity are
bound up with permanent or semi-permanent interdependence with the neighbourhood. The fragile boundaries between the private dwelling and the environment, and the strong feeling of infringement that people experience when things
they do not like are happening in their neighbourhood, are recurrent themes in
the endless stories told about neighbourhood problems. This is illustrated by the
following examples, all of which are drawn from the Dutch context.
In the village of Rietmolen (pop. 550), the local residents protested against the
local authorities plans to build a football and a training field immediately behind
their houses. They argued that it would cause a lot of noise and light pollution,
negatively affect their privacy and drastically reduce the market value of their
houses. They also objected to the fact that a large number of old oak trees would
have to be felled to make way for the sport fields (Tubantia/Twentsche Courant, 23
February 2007).
In Veldhoven (pop. 43,500), the residents are furious with the local authorities
because the latter plan to build a cable railway near their houses. One of the residents: There are plenty of alternative locations for childrens playthings. He argues that the clattering of the pulleys will cause a lot of disturbance, especially in
the summer when people are sitting in their gardens. He also expects that it will
attract a lot of young people and that their hanging around will be a big nuisance
(Eindhovens Dagblad, 23 February 2007). In Dronten (pop. 38,00), the locals are
protesting against plans to cut down a small forest to make room for a new housing project. The neighbourhood very much values the forest: many people use it
for walking and for enjoying nature, the fields and the trees. They refuse to give
up this valuable space in their everyday environment.
As the above examples illustrate, local residents are very alert when it comes
to changes in their neighbourhood. In order to be able to prevent plans from being implemented, or to improve the conditions, residents need to have knowledge,
they need to be able to assess the consequences of changes and they must formulate legitimate arguments, which are mostly based on moral grounds (privacy, out
of place, nature). Knowledge is acquired by experience, by being in the locality
and through communication. Walking around is a particularly significant activity in this respect. According to Demerath and Levinger (2003, p. 226), a number
of specific qualities characterize walking: The sights, sounds, smells and kinetic

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feelings we encounter walking are more numerous than those we encounter driving, which gives walking more breadth as an overall experience. Because of that
greater breadth of experience we will encounter more diverse perceptions as pedestrians, and our senses will be more stimulated. Walking is not only a pleasant way of moving around, but also a unique way to experience the environment
both physically and socially.
Walking the neighbourhood: territorial cognition and narratives
Social-spatial theorists have recently paid a lot of attention to walking as a specific manner of relating to the environment (see Morris, 2004; Ingold, 2004;
Anderson, 2004; Macauley, 2007). Although most of the walking literature is related to design (see Isaacs, 2000, or Forsyth, 2008) or to issues of health/physical activity, some attention is also paid to the experiential and sociability features
(see Wunderlich, 2008; DuToit, 2007; Demerath, 2003). According to Augoyard
(2008), people draw figures in the landscape, and from these figures one can read
the rhetoric of walking: walking is a way to inscribe preferences and avoidances
in space. In his The Practice of Everyday Life, De Certeau (1984) argues that people
map and conceptually appropriate the world while walking. He emphasizes the
narrative landscape that people create by frequently moving around in the same
space. When people familiarize themselves with space, spatial objects become invested with memories of people and events. When people move through space,
such memories are triggered by visual and other sensual perceptions. The connection of events, people, objects and places transforms spatial experience into a
persons individual narrative (see Leach, 2002).
This embodied cognition, or cognitive appropriation of space, is not only an
individual experience: through communicative interaction these experiences are
shared by storytelling. These stories often carry a moral message: the storyteller is also talking about him or herself, about others, about moral values. Many
neighbourhoods exist as a collection of all these stories and personal memories,
as a sort of neighbourhood narrative: an endless string of facts and opinions about
people, events and places. The collective narrative of a neighbourhood holds very
strong moral messages (see Modan, 2007). A story is way to communicate knowledge that is derived from intensive exploration, and is part of a narrative repertoire. Stories communicate the identity of the teller and are extensive comments
on neighbourhood realities. As Bird (2002, p. 544) formulates it: Through stories, people continue to make aesthetic and moral sense of places, at the same
time endowing these places with a sense of their own cultural identity.
By walking around in the everyday living environment, local residents experience the environment in different ways. They see houses, people, streets, trees,
cars and gardens, feel the texture of space, hear noises and voices, smell pleasant
and unpleasant smells. The chosen pathway brings the walker into contact with
unexpected events and people, as well as with the unchanging, reassuring, every-

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day sameness. An attentive walk is a sort of inspection, an opportunity to check

out a couple of places that are in the process of change. Regular neighbourhood
walks result in an image of gradual change and of stability. The accumulated
image of change among the regular neighbourhood watchers contributes to the
overall view of the nature of these changes, as well as to an assessment of whether
or not these changes are acceptable.
Not all local residents are equally interested in the neighbourhood. Seamon
(1979) refers in this respect to an awareness continuum, referring to the fact that
people not only look in different ways and see different things, but that there is
also a significant difference among people in terms of how observant they are.
Some people live in a neighbourhood for years without realizing what types of
houses there are or noticing the layout of their neighbours gardens, while others
know and see every detail. Every neighbourhood has its so-called specialists: they
know every inch of the streets, they know all the people and they know what is going on, and they are capable of structuring all this knowledge in a coherent moral
story about peoples behaviour and neighbourhood facts.
A walk around the neighbourhood is an interactive event. The environment
has an effect on what people experience and how it contributes to their cognitive,
narrative image: this is the neighbourhood in the mind. However, their presence also transforms the environment. The process of cognitively appropriating
a neighbourhood transforms the neighbourhood by mentally reconstructing it.
Objects, people and places are mentally amalgamated into significant practical
and experiential units, as a result of which actors contribute meaning and connectivity to space in a unique way. Thus, for the individual observer there is much
more than meets the eye, and this explains why people can become quite upset
when connectivities and meanings are destroyed, erased by physical transformations. For instance, when shops are closed, trees cut down or houses demolished,
what people deplore is not the loss of the physical objects, but the mental pain of
no longer being capable of reading these objects as signs of meaningful events,
people and other memories.
The stream of associations that are engendered by spatial interaction are
not the same for all local residents, although places very often do have the same
meanings and evoke the same feelings. In that way, a neighbourhood is part not
only of a residents personal biography but also of a collective biography. The more
people in a certain location share personal and spatial biographies, the stronger
the implantation of a collective sense of place. People often do have an individual
sense of place and belonging, but as they become aware of the fact that other people in the same locality share fundamental place histories and memories, and that
these are valued in more or less the same way, a collective sense of place and belonging arises. Sense of place arises from and consists of peoples capacity to connect material objects the everyday things that make up space with practices,
events, stories and people, and is evidenced by collective outrage when seemingly
insignificant things are erased to make space for change.

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According to Kusenbach (2003), peoples capacity to code and decode their environment as a collection of signs resembles looking at a collection of family photographs. Our everyday living environment becomes . . . a sort of personal biographer as it preserves parts of our life history. Navigating familiar environments
full of personal landmarks in many ways resembles going through the pages of a
personal photo album or diary. Meyerfeld (1997) refers to the memorable everyday spaces as the ghost of place, the congealed memories that are invisible and
imperceptible to those who do not have the same relationship with space. The
fact that people in a neighbourhood appropriate neighbourhood space cognitively
means that it becomes a personalized environment, an extension of the self and
the dwelling. It is therefore no surprise that this environment needs protecting,
just as the domestic domain does. Exploring the neighbourhood as a leisure activity thus results in personalization and attachment, which in turn increases the
need for forms of control that are related to defence and protection. Such control
not only reproduces the structures of neighbourhood attachment, but also serves
as a way to protect the private domain.
Newcomers to a neighbourhood do not yet have this sense of place. Their attention is initially focused mainly on neighbourhood space as public space, but in
order to optimize their dwelling experience, most are willing to invest time in getting to know people and learning about the values and moralities that are embedded in the neighbourhood. In order not to be excluded, and not to be vulnerable,
new residents very often take the initiative in introducing themselves. The importance of such integration rituals is widely recognized, even to the extent that a recent book (Sikkel & Witter, 2007) on new rural residents has a whole chapter on
behavioural guidelines for newcomers.
The importance of knowing one another is regularly emphasized in the newspaper reports I studied when preparing this paper. Many neighbourhoods organize acquaintance meetings to welcome new people, or to bring new people into
contact with one another. Especially neighbourhoods that have a large turnover
are very keen to prevent the creation of a community of strangers. The social activities associated with these rituals are popular forms of entertainment, but they
have a deeper meaning as well. Hardly knowing the neighbours or not being able
to distinguish neighbours from non-neighbours makes many people feel very
uncomfortable. Knowing the people who live around you creates a feeling of ontological security; it means that you have a potential option for communication
and therefore control. Being surrounded by familiar people obviates a feeling of
isolation and alienation.
The above was brought up by a man at a neighbourhood association meeting
in a village in the south of the Netherlands. He said that he felt ignored and that
nobody cared about him; he knew his immediate neighbours, but that was about
it. Other people recognized this feeling and the idea was born to put together a
book of neighbourhood portraits. All the inhabitants of the neighbourhood were
sent a letter asking them to submit one page of information about their house-

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holds (Brabants Dagblad, 8 December 2006). In another neighbourhood, the inhabitants organized communal cooking sessions and meals. As one of the participants said: When youre no longer strangers to one another, the living environment automatically becomes better (De Gelderlander, 13 November 2003).
Although there are many different styles of neighbourhood behaviour and attitudes, there seems to be a dominant discourse on the importance of having social contacts. People who completely ignore the neighbourhood are often seen as
outsiders and are often not appreciated or trusted. Why is it important to show
your identity and to develop a relationship of trust with your co-residents? I think
that social networks and trust are mainly important as collective forms of social
control. To know people means that you can talk to them, discuss and negotiate
problems and annoyances, ask for favours, and develop respect and a common
understanding. A research report (TNS NIPO, 2004) reveals that one million
people in the Netherlands are regularly disturbed by their neighbours behaviour. However, being disturbed by someone with whom you have good contact is
completely different from being disturbed by someone you do not know. Can you
expect respect or consideration from a stranger, who has no idea who you are?
The research shows, for instance, that people tend to be more tolerant of neighbours they know, and that knowing the neighbours also means that the frequency of disturbances is much lower: only 5 per cent of the people who said that they
knew their neighbours very well sometimes experienced troublesome behaviour.
Of those whose who did not know their neighbours, 20 per cent regularly experienced annoying behaviour. Knowing the neighbours seems to be a very good
way not only to control their behaviour but also to learn to respect it. Most people
who live in a densely populated housing environment realize that in order to enjoy their privacy, they have to invest in social relationships.
I mentioned earlier in this section that people invest in other people in order
to protect their privacy, and I emphasized that through personalization people also
cognitively appropriate neighbourhood space. To conclude this section, I give some
examples of how people react when they feel that this personalized environment
is threatened, and how they organize collective action in order to restore the image
of the neighbourhood. Local residents see the neighbourhood in personal terms,
as an environment they own and as a context that should have a minimal negative impact on the privacy of their homes. I have argued that walking around in the
neighbourhood is a complex activity of appropriation, knowledge building and surveillance, but what happens when one is confronted with public space annoyances?
In Loppersum (pop. 11,00), as in so many other places, seemingly small issues
sometimes develop into major disturbances. The inhabitants of one of the neighbourhoods complain that the local government is making a big mess. The problem is that the local government is responsible for the flower beds, but does nothing to maintain them. They are overgrown with weeds, look wild and rough, and
are a complete eyesore. A local resident: Its one big jumble. Passers-by make remarks about it and point at it. Its the talk of the day in the street. The weeds are

86

spreading into the tidy gardens of the neighbourhood. People are ashamed, and
very irritated by the fact that the local government does not assume its responsibility (Dagblad van het Noorden, 5 October 2006). Here we see a clear example of
how the tidiness of some green elements in public space affects peoples dwelling experience. They do not want to be identified with the chaos. What if visitors
think that they made the mess? It is a question of reputation. Neighbourhood control in this case is directed not towards correcting the moral standards of the inhabitants, but towards mobilizing people against the standard of the government
and protecting the neighbourhood identity
Another example shows a more direct form of neighbourhood intervention.
In Steenwijk (pop. 43,000), a town in the north of the Netherlands, the inhabitants of a chic neighbourhood have teamed up against one of their neighbours.
The residential environment consists of individual, private plots on which the inhabitants have built their own houses. All the houses look different, but they can
be typified as posh villas, representing the taste of respectable people from the
higher middle class.
One of the plots was bought by Jan Husslage, a well-known pioneer in the
field of ecological building, mainly using recycled materials. Jan bought the plot
and started building his dream house all by himself. His neighbours were very
annoyed right from the start. The building site was constantly littered with rubbish and the hammering, sawing and drilling went on seven days a weak. When
the result finally became visible, the neighbours were furious: to their eyes, it
looked terrible like a shack, a prairie house and was totally incongruous with
the civilized appearance of the other houses. According to the inhabitants, it is
a disaster, something that belongs in a shanty town. Everybody agreed that it
should be demolished as soon as possible. One neighbour: If wed known this,
wed never have bought the land and built a house here. The value of our house
has dropped dramatically because of this. Local residents protest is a good example of how people want to control the environment in order to maintain its
appearance and social standing in accordance with their own moral standards.
The neighbourhood should ref lect personal values, taste and status, and if something happens that is out of place, it has to be removed. The final decision has
not yet been taken, but the local authorities seem to be in favour of removing the
house because Jan Husslage did not respect the legal formalities.
These organized forms of neighbourhood control are expressed in many different ways. In structural terms, however, they have a lot of similarities. They are
always about public space discontents. Local residents complain about the state
of the maintenance of public or private green spaces, about bullying teenagers,
noise, visual pollution and various other nuisances. The reasons for their dissatisfaction vary from a fear of loss of privacy, disturbance of the peace, infringements
on recreational facilities, shame, or sheer moral outrage about people and events
with which local residents do not want to be associated. Neighbourhood control is
aimed at correcting the behaviour of people and institutions, in order to defend the

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moral and material standards that are associated with an undisturbed private domain and a public environment that corresponds with personal taste and beliefs.
The moral character of the neighbourhood: from fleeting to embedded relationships
Going outside represents an opportunity par excellence to get into contact with
ones neighbours. A casual encounter in the street or an organized neighbourhood activity enables local residents to meet each other, to get to know one another and to exchange information. Social interaction between neighbours can take
the form of intensive, friendly relationships or simply a greeting or a chat every now and then. Social interaction and being familiar with each other are fundamental for exchanging information and developing moral standards, and for
forming a social network for security and help.
In that sense, neighbourhood social interaction differs from interaction in the
public space. In previous sections, I mainly focused on how people explore the environment and accumulate and exchange knowledge, and how cognitive territorial
appropriation transforms the environment into a personal domain that needs to
be protected and defended. At another level, people are simultaneously involved
in social appropriation. By establishing social contacts, they are capable of organizing themselves to combat public annoyances; such contacts also allow them to
build up networks of trust and respect in order to directly protect their privacy. If
the visual, material world is perceived as a system of signs of social behaviour, it is
crucial for a sense of belonging to act on social space as well. This section focuses on public encounters and their importance for social neighbourhood qualities.
The character of public space receives a lot of attention in the social-spatial
literature (see Watson, 2006; Morrill, 2005). Ever since the trailblazing work by
such authors as Goffman and Lofland, it has become clear that encounters between strangers in public spaces are based on a number of fundamental principles. According to Goffman (1963), civil inattention is a mixture of public respect
and private protection, typical of public contexts in which anonymity, diversity
and fleeting relationships dominate. Lofland (1998) chooses to use the concept of
public realm in order to emphasize that we can only understand the differentiation between spaces by focusing on the moral standards that regulate social interaction. Public space cannot be defined in political or material terms, but only on
the basis of self-imposed, commonly shared standards of behaviour.
Private control mechanisms, or the dominant appropriation of public space by
cultural subgroups, may exclude people from entering certain spaces and thus
deprive those spaces of their public character. In this context, Lofland introduces
the concept of the parochial realm, namely spaces in which most people know one
another. Such social spaces obviously engender different types of interaction. Not
only are people familiar with each other but they are also frequently present and
expect more than fleeting, anonymous relationships.

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Residential areas in the Netherlands, especially those built after the 1940s,
are mostly monofunctional subdivisions. There may be some sort of centre with
some shops and other facilities, but the dominant zoning principle has always
been that residential areas are not integrated into a wider urban infrastructural,
economic and service network. The infrastructural network in residential areas
is purely local, while first category roads are mainly structured on their periphery. Because of this, non-mixed residential areas are predominantly the domain
of the people who actually live there. Of course, there are also more cosmopolitan
residential areas that attract a lot of visitors and commuters, but here my focus is
on the large majority of Dutch housing districts, which are characteristically enclaves, isolated from the mixed urban fabric. Although these neighbourhoods are
public and freely accessible, in practice neighbourhood appropriation strategies
have transformed them into parochial, or collective, spaces.
What are the interaction patterns in the parochial sphere, and on what sort
of moral principles are they based? According to Lofland, interaction patterns in
public space are characterized by what she calls cooperative motility. In public
space, people try to avoid any behaviour that would disturb the smooth functioning of public activities. We can see this clearly in busy pedestrian areas, where
peoples movements resemble the performance of a street ballet. People tend not
to interfere in each others business, to avoid problems and to behave as though
they are not interested in what is happening around them. Although they probable have their thoughts about what is going on, as passers-by they do not have to
think about it in terms of their own living environment.
In a residential area, however, things are different: people have an identity,
a dwelling and a private shelter; they are on sedentary territory, where indifference, escape or avoidance is not possible. In the neighbourhood you are a spatial
person, not just anyone. In a recent article, Kusenbach (2006) explores the differences between public and parochial space by focusing on interaction. Loflands
public realm terminology is transferred to the neighbourhood setting. Here, I use
her fine observations in order to describe these differences, and use some Dutch
material on neighbourhood life as an illustration.
According to Kusenbach, an elementary part of neighbourhood morality is
expressing friendly recognition. This means that neighbours greet each other,
even if in a minimal way. Ignoring this rule is a sign of indifference or disrespect and can be taken as a very serious insult. Take, for instance, a neighbourhood in the city of Gouda. Here, the inhabitants assert that one of the most important facets of neighbourhood liveability is greeting each other in the street.
One of the local residents: I enjoy living here, because most people still say hello. There are also residents who never say anything when they meet someone
in the street. That is taken as an offence and is deeply disapproved of (It feels as
though they look down on you). According to the local residents, a sort of boundary crosses the neighbourhood, with on one side people who are hiding themselves,
mostly the well-educated people, and on the other side the ordinary people. Ordi-

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nary people like to do things together: most of the fences between their houses are
so low that they allow neighbours to see each others gardens and have the occasional chat, while the houses on the other side of the neighbourhood are protected
by high hedges and fences, showing that those people want to be left to their own
devices. One of the residents said: You create a good atmosphere by having a chat
in the street, by saying hello. It is a natural, good feeling to know your neighbours
and how they are doing. I find it important and nice to talk with everybody, but
there are always people who do not seem to want that; they say nothing, and I have
stopped trying to get something out of them. (Trouw, 29 May 2004).
According to Kusenbach (2006, p. 291), greeting has not only a high symbolic
significance but also its consequences: Any deeper involvement between locals
quickly ends or never even develops when friendly recognition is not given or reciprocated. In sum, it is the normative, minimum principle of interaction among
people who consider each other neighbours.
Although people in the public realm tend not to interfere with one another,
Lofland (1998, p. 32) mentions restrained helpfulness as an import principle.
If people get into difficulty and help can be given without risk, this is normally
done. It is considered quite natural to show someone the way, to help a person
cross the street, to hold a door open, and so on. But this help is not based on reciprocity. You do not build up credit or trust by frequently assisting different people
in public. Relationships are fleeting and finite.
The equivalent in parochial space goes much further: helping is embedded
in a network of reciprocal relationships and trust, and deeply penetrates the personal sphere. In the Netherlands, for instance, half of all the inhabitants have the
key to their neighbours house. Giving a key is the ultimate symbol of trust, and
is necessary for people who like to have someone keep an eye on the house while
they are away. During holidays and short breaks, domestic animals are taken
care of, plants are watered, and the neighbours house is regularly checked in order to immediately alert the police if there are signs of intruders.
Good contacts with the neighbours therefore guarantee a sort of protective and
surveillance network during absence. Kusenbach calls this parochial helpfulness.
It is based on enduring relationships of trust and characterized by reciprocity. No
payment is required: what people want in exchange is help if they need it, thankfulness and sociability. Parochial helpfulness is one of the key factors in creating social
cohesion, because reciprocal relationships can always be called upon. It is an excuse
for contact, without fear of rejection or being considered pathetic.
The third aspect of typical neighbourhood interaction is what Kusenbach calls
proactive intervention. While people in public space are often reduced to the selfimposed role of passive spectator and do not feel the need to intervene in environments where they are outsiders, in the neighbourhood context indifference contradicts self-interest. As I have shown in previous sections, social control by surveillance and narrating moral values is not sufficient to stop or prevent unwanted
developments. By individual and collective intervention, local residents often take

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physical, legal or other kinds of action to actually intervene. Neighbourhood proactive intervention occurs in the case of severe conflicts between neighbours. What
happens does not seem to be very shocking, but for personal relationships and wellbeing the events are usually far-reaching. The following example illustrates this.
The people living in what at first sight is a peaceful street in the town of Wezep
(pop. 12,000) are involved in a profound conflict; some of them even refer to it as
a war. The cause of the conflict is the large number of cats that roam the neighbourhood. One resident had had enough of it and thought up a radical solution:
he put a cat trap in his garden, but the trap had a sharp spike in it that seriously
injured the cats. He used the trap to catch a number of cats, and subsequently
disposed of them. The cat owners in the neighbourhood were understandably furious when they found out what he was doing. They reported him to the police,
and he was charged with cruelty to animals. He, however, was convinced of the
legitimacy of his behaviour: What else can I do? Should I have a barbed wire
fence around my garden? I am completely fed up with it. Do you have any idea
how much trouble these cats cause? We love gardening, but we do not want to constantly get cat shit on our hands. (Zwolse Courant, 30 May 2007)
A very popular Dutch TV programme on neighbourhood conflicts reveals
some of the incredible irritation and suffering that some neighbours experience.
The programme usually focuses on a case in which one or more local residents
took action against other residents, which led to a long period of quarrel and conflict. The programme then brings the case to the peoples judge, who studies all
the legal documents, hears all the people and investigates the situation. At the
end of the programme, he passes judgement. Although he tries to persuade people to come to a friendly agreement, he never succeeds.
The extent to which local residents care about each others behaviour or about
what happens in their environment varies from neighbourhood to neighbourhood. It very much depends on housing conditions, the level of heterogeneity of
lifestyles, and the extent to which people are capable of establishing relations of
trust, tolerance and respect. The parochial character of a neighbourhood is not
something that is self-evident: people have to put time and effort into creating social networks of control and common normative standards.
Conclusion
I have emphasized the significance of the home and the neighbourhood for leisure activities. Inhabitants relax in their gardens, children play in the street, and
people go for walks, chat with their neighbours or organize neighbourhood activities. All these activities contribute to the experience of neighbourhood time. Although I did not look at indoor activities at home, I did point out that the private
domain is the ultimate place for relaxation, self-expression and intimate private
relationships. Here, people experience autonomy, non-interference and freedom.
Although the time that people spend at home and the importance of that time

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varies during the lifecycle and according to the chosen lifestyle even those who
spend a lot of leisure time with others outside their dwelling need such a relatively undisturbed location to rest and to shelter their belongings.
My point of departure was the vulnerable position of the home: in a neighbourhood context it is exposed to the effect of all kinds of human activities. The
experience of dwelling is determined not only by the quality of the time spent indoors, but also by the environmental qualities outside the house. A sense of place,
and with it a positive feeling about where you are, is dependent on how much you
identify with other residents and with the physical and material charm of the
neighbourhood. Most neighbourhood residents are fully aware of their neighbourhoods qualities and the need to control the external impact on their private
dwellings. I have described this extension of the personal domain into the public
domain in terms of social, cognitive and material appropriation. It should be emphasized that these control tactics are not always consciously practised as instrumental and functional. Welcoming new inhabitants, having an informal chat in
the street and taking a walk around the block are basically leisure activities that
people undertake primarily for social and physical reasons. Establishing social
relations with neighbours and gaining extensive knowledge of neighbourhood
space and events are natural outcomes of peoples inherent openness to their environment. The fact that social networks and neighbourhood knowledge are important preconditions for exercising control and for creating a sort of collective
moral space reveals the double meaning of leisure time: it is the time experienced
as socially and physically pleasant, but also as time that is useful for maintaining
and improving the conditions for leisure and pleasure.
From this perspective, I have argued that voluntary forms of social control and
intervention are based on social cohesion, as well as on conflict. In neighbourhoods where housing conditions and spatial design guarantee peoples privacy,
and where public space is not or only barely threatened by unpleasant events, social interaction and control are not necessary in order to ensure a positive neighbourhood experience. Conflicts are unlikely to occur, because the residential environment lacks the potential to encourage social interdependencies. This raises
the interesting question of the relationship between social cohesion and social
control on the one hand, and the physical and material characteristics of a neighbourhood on the other. And what is the relationship between external neighbourhood threats and the intensification of neighbourhood contacts and explicit moral
standards? In concluding this paper, I argue that the combination of self-regulation, social regulation and environmental regulation are fascinating concepts to be
explored in different types of neighbourhood. Only neighbourhoods offer a sort of
living laboratory for researching the intersection between the personal, the social
and the environmental (spatial). It is likely that close proximity and socio-environmental vulnerability result in neighbourhood styles that are quite different from
residential environments in which people are physically and socially less vulnerable and much freer in creating modes of interaction with their neighbours.

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7 Leisure in a Multicultural Society

Karin Peters

ost Western societies have become multi-ethnic. The change from an agricultural to an industrial economy coupled with the economic boom of the
1960s and 1970s created a labour shortage in Western countries. In response,
workers from countries such as Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey were invited to
Western Europe. Many people mainly Africans and Asians set off for Europe
or the USA in search of better places to live. For years, people thought that most
of these migrant workers would return to their home countries, but this was not
the case and multicultural societies were born. The Netherlands is now home to
1.7 million people with a nonWestern background; this represents about 11% of
the countrys total population (16.5 million). Of this group, over 40% were born in
the Netherlands. Four immigrant groups form the majority, namely Turks (2.3%),
Moroccans (2%), Surinamers (0.8) and Dutch Antilleans (0.3).
This chapter looks at the multicultural society in relation to three aspects of leisure. The first concerns the leisure patterns of ethnic minority groups, including the
influence of religion and gender and the role of immigration in leisure behaviour.
The second concerns the role of leisure in integration. In this section I first present a
brief description of the ethnic minority policy of the Netherlands in order to provide
the context of integration. I then use multicultural spaces, sport associations and urban public spaces as examples in an analysis of the meaning of leisure for integration. Further, I argue that leisure plays a role in acquiring social capital through facilitating inter-ethnic contact. The third aspect concerns ethnicity as a commodified
product, namely ethnic diversity as an attraction. I end the chapter with some concluding remarks about the meaning of leisure in a multicultural society.
Ethnicity in leisure practices
One of the main subjects in leisure research is the leisure behaviour of various
groups of people based on their gender, age, social-economic position and level of
education. Although much research has been done on leisure behaviour and the
meaning of leisure for participants and non-participants, the leisure behaviour
of different ethnic groups has only lately been researched (e.g. Stodolska, 2000;
Martin & Mason, 2004; Ward, 2000).
A few studies have recently been carried out into the leisure patterns of different ethnic groups in the Netherlands (e.g. Jokovi, 2003). These studies looked

97

at the differences in various ways. For example, van den Broek and Keuzenkamp
(2008) show that ethnic groups engage in fewer different leisure activities during
their free time than do the native Dutch. Especially Turks and Moroccans engage
in leisure activities that are much less varied than those of the native Dutch. The
Netherlands Social Cultural Planning Office (2005) has shown that Turks, Moroccans, Surinamers and Antilleans less often visit nature areas, recreational areas, urban parks and entertainment parks than do the native Dutch.
Buijs and colleagues (2006) demonstrated that immigrants appreciate the existing Dutch landscapes less than the reference group; they visit green areas less
often and are more indifferent about the future development of such areas. The
researchers explained this by saying that immigrants have a less romantic image of nature. Another difference between these four ethnic groups and the native Dutch is that the former make fewer visits to museums and pop concerts;
however, they go to parks for picnics more often and pay more visits to their families. According to Yi (2000), Chinese people in the Netherlands also find familybased leisure activities (e.g. visiting friends, or playing tennis or such games as
solitaire) the most important of all leisure activities. The same applies to the Pakistanis who live in the Netherlands, for whom the family is the primary source
of leisure (Ahmad, 2004).
For sport activities, the participation rates of Surinamers and Antilleans are
lower than those of the native Dutch but higher than those of Turks and Moroccans (Lagendijk & van der Gugten, 1996). Differences are found by generation,
with higher participation rates in sport activities for the second generation. The
trends are unfavourable as well: the percentage of immigrants who are members
of sport clubs was 52% in 1995 and only 43% in 1999. Also the percentage of immigrants who engage in sports on a weekly basis decreased, namely from 34% in
1995 to 24% in 1999 (de Haan & Breedveld, 2000).
Another aspect within this field of research is related to the use of the mass
media. Van den Broek and Keuzenkamp (2008) show that differences in the use
of the mass media between ethnic and native people are not that great. Most ethnic people read Dutch newspapers, watch Dutch television and use the Internet,
albeit less so than native people. The use of the mass media by Turks deviates
the most from that of the native Dutch: they read more Turkish newspapers and
watch more Turkish TV programmes. These results show that there are differences between the leisure practices of different ethnic groups. The question is, why?
Explaining differences in leisure participation
Three main theories can be applied in order to explain the differences in leisure
participation (Stodolska 2003; Thompson, 2002; Jokovi, 2003; Juniu, 2000; Peleman, 2003). The first the marginality thesis states that differences can be
explained by looking at socio-economic characteristics. Marginality, poverty and
unequal access are named as factors that explain differences in leisure participa-

98

tion. The second most prominent theory in the literature the ethnicity thesis
focuses on cultural differences in ethnic leisure styles due to micro-cultural variations in values, norms and socialization patterns that differ considerably from
the majority population (Juniu, 2000: 360).
A third perspective perceived discrimination pays attention to the constraints on immigrants that are related to their ethnic background. Perceived discrimination is seen as one of the factors responsible for differences in leisure behaviour. It explains differences between a mainstream population and ethnic/racial minorities (Floyd, 1998; Philipp, 1999; West, 1989).
Jokovi (2000, 2001) discusses the marginality and the ethnicity thesis in
her study on the leisure participation of immigrants in the Netherlands. Her research focused on people with different ethnic backgrounds in Rotterdam. She
concludes that such socio-economic factors as income, age and education have
more influence on the participation of people than does their ethnic-cultural
background. Although this conclusion is valid for most leisure activities, there
are exceptions. Second-generation immigrants participate more in such activities
as visiting pavement cafes in city centres or recreational areas and other natural
areas outside the city than do first-generation immigrants. Nevertheless, the participation level of the second-generation immigrants is lower than that of the native Dutch. For other activities it can be concluded that first- and second-generation immigrants participate at the same level. Thus, ethnic-cultural background
has no significant effect on such activities as visiting playgrounds or walking
around or shopping in inner cities. Also Aizlewood and colleagues (2005) demonstrate in their study on immigrants in the Netherlands and Canada, that issues
related to education and employment status are more dominant determinants of
participation than those of ethnocultural minority status, immigrant status or religious affiliation.
In the ethnicity thesis, the role of religion has an important relation to differences in leisure behaviour. VandeSchoot (2005) states, based on Thompson
(2002), that although there is little literature on the role of Islam in determining
leisure behaviour, it has been found that, in general, religion influences leisure
participation, sometimes through overt religious practice, and sometimes as a traditional or background element in activity choice. Brooks (2003) concludes that
Islam traditionally prioritizes work. But as long as the enjoyment of these activities does not interfere with a persons Islamic obligations, there is nothing against
leisure in the form of rest or recreation. Almost all Turks and Moroccans living in
the Netherlands see themselves as Muslims. Especially Moroccans are actively engaged in their religion: more than half of all second-generation Moroccans in the
age group 1512 pray more than five times a day, and over 90% have fasted during
Ramadan. A pattern can be seen in which those who identify themselves as Muslim or other religion have the lowest recreational participation rates (10% and 9%,
respectively) in sports, singing and hobby organizations, and those who report no
religion have the highest participation rate (29%) (Aizlewood et al., 2005).

99

Total
Yes (%)
No (%)

No religion

Christian

Islam

Other Eastern

Other religion

Total

2025
29
71

1253
20
80

1814
10
90

275
19
81

74
9
91

5441
20
80

For Muslim women, religion and gender are interrelated and collectively constrain leisure participation. Peleman (2003) showed in her research that both
gender and religion partly determine the leisure patterns of Moroccan women in
Belgium. Restrictions related to their gender lead to certain leisure behaviours.
Swimming with men is not allowed, nor may they be in the company of male
friends in public spaces. Furthermore, women seek spaces in which to spend
their leisure time that are not controlled by men. The creation of temporary ethnic spaces is used to broaden the opportunities for immigrants to spend their leisure time. The main reasons to seek out these spaces are to escape from restrictions and to be able to be oneself and not to be questioned about wearing a veil
or about other cultural and religious signs. According to Verma and Darby (1994),
South Asian girls in Britain are significantly constrained in their recreational
participation, particularly in those activities that take place outside the home, and
in sports participation. The main reasons for this are a lack of parental approval to
engage in these activities, parental enforcement of strict dress codes, inadequate
availability of single-sex facilities, and their own religious beliefs about the proper
behaviour of females. According to Duyvendak and colleagues (1998), the lower
rates of participation in sports clubs in the city of Rotterdam for such ethnic minorities as Surinamers, Moroccans and Turks compared to the native Dutch are
primarily explained by different levels of participation by women of these minorities relative to native Dutch women. Particularly Moroccan women have very low
participation rates. This shows the interrelation between gender and religion in
explaining leisure participation.
In the Netherlands, hardly any research has taken the third perspective that
is, perceived discrimination as a starting point. The only places in which research in this field has been done are pubs and discos (Komen, 2004; Geldrop
& van Heewaarden, 2003). This research showed that some younger members
of ethnic groups find themselves in a position in which they cannot enter all the
clubs and discos they wish to enter. Komen (2004) found that discrimination affects the leisure participation of immigrant youth. Especially Moroccan and Turkish boys state that they are refused entry to certain places. Other studies (Peleman, 2003; Bruin, 2006) show that immigrants use more spaces of their own
in order to be in control. Immigrants organize ethnic parties, soccer events and
other activities and decide on the rules for them, for example no drinking alcohol, no mixing of genders and starting early so that the women can return home
at a respectable time.

100

The role of immigration itself has received limited attention in these three
perspectives (Stodolska, 1998). If we look at the constraints on leisure participation, it is clear that immigrants face not only the constraints that are commonly
encountered (lack of time, money and transport, etc.), but also constraints that
are related to their minority status and to the fact that they have to adjust to a new
environment (Stodolska, 2002). Constraints that hinder leisure participation are
problems with language, unfamiliarity with the ways of life in the host country,
insufficient access to known and desired forms of recreational activity, and experiences with discrimination. In addition, immigrants may not have social networks or know about the opportunities (Stodolska, 2002). Stodolska and Alexandris (2004) found that immigrants, whatever their ethnocultural or socio-demographic background, do not undertake much voluntary physical activity after they
have settled in the host country, because sport and physical recreation are typically quite low on the priority list of immigrants who struggle to adjust to a new
environment, who often hold several lowwage but physically demanding jobs,
and who have hardly any free time available (ibid., 39293).
Yu and Berryman (1996) analysed the leisure patterns of Chinese immigrants
in terms of constraints on leisure, self-esteem and acculturation. They concluded that leisure was used as a way to integrate into their new societies. Stodolska
and Yi (2003) found that leisure participation rates and patterns are highly related to the level of acculturation among Mexican-Americans. In the Netherlands,
the role of immigration in leisure behaviour has not explicitly been a part of research activities. Although it can be concluded that the leisure behaviour of second-generation immigrants differs for certain activities from the first generation,
not much can be said about the influence of immigration.
In short, the research executed in the Netherlands shows that the two theories mutually explain leisure participation. Both socio-economic and sociocultural aspects partly explain differences in leisure behaviour. While looking for general conclusions that can be drawn from this range of research, it became clear
that the leisure patterns of non-Western immigrants differ from those of Western
people: they are characterized by less variety, less use of facilities that are located
at a greater distance from home, a greater family orientation, the use of more places close to their homes and the spending of leisure time in larger groups.
Inter-ethnic interactions during leisure: creating mutual understanding?
In this section, I discuss the intersection of ethnicity and leisure by looking at various developments with regard to social interaction. The main question is whether leisure plays a role in stimulating contact between people with different cultural backgrounds. I give examples of initiatives that are aimed at stimulating
contact between ethnic groups through sport and other leisure activities. First,
though, I present a brief overview of the ethnic minorities policy in order to contextualize these initiatives.

101

Ethnic minority policy in the Netherlands

The Netherlands ethnic minorities (EM) policy first appeared at the beginning of
the 1980s in the form of a welfare state policy that was intended to stimulate the
equality and equity of vulnerable groups in society (Bruquetas-Callejo, 2007). Towards the end of the 1980s, public and political discourse began to look critically
at EM policy: it had failed in important areas of labour and education (Scientific
Council, 1989, in Bruquetas-Callejo, 2007), with criticism falling on its overemphasis of cultural aspects (ibid.).
This led to the formulation of further republican integration policies throughout the 1990s, in which the emphasis was on the individual rather than the group,
and on the socio-economic rather than the cultural and religious aspects of integration. The beginning of the twenty-first century was primed for a new shift in
policy orientation; the dominant view came to be that integration processes and
policies had fundamentally failed and that the social cohesion of Dutch society
was in danger (Bruquetas-Callejo, 2007).
In line with this, tensions increased between ethnic groups (mainly between
second-generation immigrants from Turkey and Morocco and the native Dutch).
These tensions increased even more after 9/11 and the murder of the film maker
Theo van Gogh in 2004. New ways of dealing with integration problems were introduced. Instead of focusing only on the socio-economic aspects of integration
(employment, education, housing), more attention was paid to shared sociocultural values, which meant that learning the Dutch language and having shared
values became important. In order to achieve this, people with different ethnic
backgrounds had to get to know and understand each other. Meeting each other became a policy issue: people with different ethnic backgrounds should meet
each other in schools (mixed schools are the best), in neighbourhoods (segregation should be combated) and during their leisure time. Sport and multicultural festivals became vehicles for stimulating integration. In 2007, the Space for
Contact (www.ruimtevoorcontact.nl) initiative was launched in order to stimulate
informal contacts between different ethnic groups by subsidizing pertinent activities. Many applications for subsidies for leisure projects were submitted and
accepted. This shows that leisure is seen by policy makers as one of the ways to
stimulate inter-ethnic understanding. Whether this is indeed happening, however, is discussed in the following section.
Leisure as a vehicle for mutual understanding
Leisure settings can be ideal environments for inter-ethnic contact because of such
characteristics as free choice and self-determination (Shinew et al., 2004). However, research shows that leisure spaces are sometimes racially demarcated (Floyd
and Shinew, 1999). Brasse and Krijnen (2005) show that in the Netherlands, immigrants meet people of their own ethnic group for sports, music and other activi-

102

ties. About a third of Turkish and Moroccan people in the Netherlands state that
they never have any contact with Dutch people in their free time. More than half
of the Surinamers and Antilleans in the Netherlands say that they do have regular contact with native Dutch persons. For Moroccans, the figure is 37%, and for
Turks 29%. Only 15% of native Dutch persons do not have regular contact with
other native Dutch persons (van den Broek & Keuzenkamp, 2008). These percentages have hardly changed in the last 15 years (Gijsberts & Dagevos, 2007).
Although these results can be partly explained by the fact that in the areas researched there are more native people than ethnic people and that some neighbourhoods are segregated, they do indicate that there is a cultural distance between the groups (Gijsberts & Vervoort, 2007). Jokovi (2000) also draws the con-

Turks
Moroccan
Surinamers
Antilleans
Native Dutch

More with members of own ethnic

group (in brackets: never have
contact with members of other
ethnic groups)

As many with
own group as
with other
groups

More with
native Dutch

66 (35)
54 (30)
31 (14)
31 (17)
91 (52)

24
30
39
28
6

11
16
30
41
3*

* More contact with immigrants. Source: Gijsberts & Vervoort (2007)

clusion that both Turks and Moroccans spend their leisure time with their own
people. The Chinese people interviewed in the research by Yi (2000) also spend
their leisure time with people of their own ethnic group. According to Yucesoy
(2006), Turkish womens use and experiences of urban public spaces in Enschede are in general not inclusive or facilitative for interacting with others in public,
although they are not totally exclusionary, which would turn these public spaces
into Turkish spaces. Finally, VandeSchoot (2005) concludes that most of the Muslims she interviewed in Canada interacted only with people of their own group.
Further, her respondents told her that they did not interact with Western people
at work or school because they preferred to socialize with other Muslims. There
was no difference between the respondents who were schooled in a predominantly Western versus a non-Western environment (ibid., 2005).
It can be concluded from these results that people tend to interact with people from their own ethnic background during leisure time. However, during leisure activities in public spaces, people see a variety of people with whom they can
build relationships or social capital. Several scholars (e.g. Portes, 1998; Putnam,
2000) stress the importance of social capital and networks for the integration of
immigrants into their new societies. Since leisure participation involves engagement and exchange among and between individuals, families and groups, re-

103

searchers argue that this is beneficial because it leads to a greater sense of mutual
obligation among individuals and towards the larger community (Putnam, 1995;
Fukuyama, 1995).
The stimulation of intercultural contact is intended to promote tolerance and
acceptance within a multicultural society. Already in 1954, Allport found that
having contact with cultural others changes attitudes and diminishes prejudices
about those others. He demonstrated that inter-ethnic contact has positive consequences for the attitudes towards other ethnic groups; more structural contact
leads to fewer prejudices and less stereotyping. His research (as well as most of the
studies that tested this contact hypothesis) was directed at formal situations such
as schools and leisure organizations. Van den Broek and Keuzenkamp (2008) conclude that there is an indication that the images that immigrants and natives hold
of each other are more positive when they have more contact with each other. However, they are not sure about the cause and effect (does a more positive image lead
to more contact or does more contact lead to a more positive image?). Furthermore, research shows that many people judge the presence of many immigrants as
negative and they think that the Muslim way of life does not fit with the Western
way of life (Gijsberts & Vervoort, 2007; Gijsberts & Dagevos, 2005).
Does this mean that leisure does not stimulate inter-ethnic contact and that
contact does not lead to more positive judgements about cultural others? Because
sport is promoted as a way to integrate people with different ethnic background,
it has been held up as an example that shows the contribution to cross-cultural
understanding. Although some state that sport can also lead to more conflicts,
most of the outcomes indicate that sport can help one to acquire social capital.
Putnam is one of the most important persons in this field. His Bowling Alone led
to an enormous growth in the attention paid to the role of sport associations. According to Verweel and colleagues (2005), not only mixed sports but also ethnic
sport associations can help integration, because in such organizations social capital is obtained, through which both bonding and bridging capital is established.
In the Netherlands, sport and social cohesion have been linked in, for example,
Richard Kraijceks initiative to create sport courts in neighbourhoods in order to
stimulate contact between different ethnic groups. It is widely assumed that participating in sport and other leisure activities contributes positively to various aspects
of well-being. Personal development is one of them. Growing self-esteem and acquiring certain skills can help people to be more aware of themselves, and thus to
be more aware of their identity. Therefore, both social capital and social trust and
reciprocity are generated in sport organizations.
Interaction in public spaces
Contact in public spaces can not be characterized in the same manner as the more
structured contact that occurs during sport activities. The question is whether social interactions in public spaces can be used as a vehicle for integration. Several re-

104

searchers (Tinsley et al., 2002; Gobster, 2004; Ravenscroft & Markwell, 2000) have
paid attention to urban public spaces, such as parks, as places were inter-ethnic interactions take place. Urban parks are seen as relevant because they are accessible
to all groups, and different identities are represented in public spaces. Peters and
colleagues (2008) conclude that urban parks are visited equally by immigrant and
non-immigrant groups. This is in contrast to, for example, nature areas, which are
visited more by non-immigrants. Therefore, urban parks can be seen as possibly
favourable spaces for social interaction. In public spaces, informal interactions are
the most important and visible interactions (Muller, 2002; Soenen, 2006; Ravenscroft & Markwell, 2000). Public spaces offer more possibilities than private spaces
for encounters between strangers (Lofland, 1998; Goffman, 1963, 1972).
Most interactions in public spaces are initiated by a third party or object, such
as children, dogs or balls. This triangulation (Lofland, 1988) helps people to
strike up casual conversations with unknown people. De Vos (2005) observed that
people in three urban parks in Gent made contacts with their own subgroups, but
that contacts between different subgroups were not always to be taken for granted. Paravicini (1999, in Vos, 2005) states that in the intersection and transition
zones between relaxation and activity, it is assumed that there occur different
forms of unexpected interactions between people who do not know each other. It
was clear that spontaneous interaction does not occur very often.
Research (Peters, 2008) leads to the conclusion that although leisure is situated in public spaces, leisure activities themselves are seen as taking place in the
private sphere. This can have consequences for the presence and meaning of interethnic interactions during leisure time. Peters and colleagues (2008) state that urban parks provide a vital locality where everyday experiences are shared and negotiated with a variety of people. Some urban parks function as an everyday place in
which people feel at home. Park users can easily connect with the place and with
other users, because many of the latter are already known from the neighbourhood. Other urban parks function as a world of strangers and attract a variety of
people. People feel welcome because these urban parks are open and accessible.
One way of stimulating social interactions in public spaces is to organize events.
People feel more comfortable about talking to others during events, since all the
people attending it have come to the same place for the same reasons. Events not
only stimulate inter-ethnic interactions but also facilitate the empowerment of ethnic groups. In addition, events serve as a way to attract people to certain areas. This
commodification of ethnic diversity is discussed in the following section.
Ethnicity as an attraction
The Kwakoe Summer Festival is held every year in Amsterdams Bijlmer district
(a multicultural district in the south of the city). The event is the largest multicultural festival in the Netherlands and functions as a platform for ethnic-cultural
societies from all over the country. The number of people attending the festival

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has increased considerably over the years; in 2003 and 2004, about one million
individuals visited the festival. The following statement appears on the festival
website: We wish to make a definite contribution to the multicultural society: a
society where understanding and tolerance between different communities and
individuals are of essential importance. We hope to inspire people by the power
of this multicultural society: not only the people participating in Kwakoe but the
entire Dutch community and even outside the Dutch borders.
There are two important issues related to the increase in the number of multicultural events. The first is that cultural diversity is used as a leisure attraction.
The increase in the number of multicultural festivals and the attractiveness of
ethnic neighbourhoods show that people are interested in this new type of event.
Ethnic diversity is visible in urban public domains. Cities are becoming tourist
attractions because they have multicultural neighbourhoods. In addition, cultural diversity offers opportunities through food, music, events and shopping. All
these aspects are manifestations of diversity in public space.
Bodaar and Rath (2006) talk about the nexus between immigrants and public
space: although such manifestations can be important for identity construction,
they can also enhance ethnic stereotypes. Multiculturalism is then reduced to
gazing at the other (Rath, 2007). Marketing ethnic diversity as a tourism product
has become an essential part of policy plans. Examples of the commodification of
ethnic diversity can be seen in the development of China Towns, Little Italys and
Indian Quarters all over the Western world. Every year, these ethnic neighbourhoods receive a lot of visitors who are attracted by exotic restaurants, historical
connections or the opportunity to gaze at the other.
The second aspect relates to creating space for ethnic events and strengthening ethnic ties. While the first aspect can be seen as a way of creating bridging
capital, this aspect relates to bonding capital (Putnam, 2000; Granovetter, 1993).
Instead of mixing with other people, some ethnic events are organized in order
to allow people to get closer to their own group. Ethnic dance parties and various kinds of sociocultural ethnic organizations are examples of this. For example, each year ASalaam organizes a soccer tournament for Moroccan teams and
in recent years, more ladies only events have been organized by Muslim women. According to Farrer (2004), however, in these immigrant subcultures the recognition of individual status can be as important as emphasizing the collective
identity building and group solidarity. In that sense, social cohesion within an
immigrant subculture is achieved, because ethnic enclosure allows the removal
of a stigmatizing immigrant identity, giving immigrants a chance to display individual status resources.
Concluding remarks
People with different ethnic backgrounds have different leisure patterns. Some
activities are more popular among immigrants than among non-immigrants,

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and vice versa, while other activities are equally popular among all inhabitants.
Research shows that this variety can be explained by peoples socio-economic
characteristics and ethno-cultural background. In the case of the Netherlands,
peoples socio-economic characteristics are more important in this respect than
their ethno-cultural backgrounds. If we take a closer look at the ethno-cultural
background, then also immigration, religion and gender seem to be of importance for explaining leisure behaviour. Although in the USA and Canada some
studies have focused on the role of immigration in leisure participation, no research on this has been executed in the Netherlands.
As for religion, it can be concluded that it leads on the one hand to specific leisure activities related to Islam and the mosque for Islamic people, and on the other
hand to constraints on especially Muslim women, who are not free to choose where
they go or the type of activities in which they engage. In the Netherlands, this is
most clearly visible in Muslim womens low level of participation in sport activities.
Multicultural societies offer both immigrants and non-immigrants a wide
range of new ways to spend their leisure time. This has led to cultural diversity becoming a tourist attraction: diversity has been commodified. We should be
aware of the possible negative implications of this, such as gazing at the other and
reinforcing the stereotypes of ethnic people. Nevertheless, multicultural festivals,
restaurants and expositions attract many people. These places can therefore be
spaces in which inter-ethnic interactions take place. In addition, some of these
ethnic events are not meant to stimulate inter-ethnic interactions, but to create a
space in which the group identity can be strengthened.
Whereas sport seems to be a positive factor for stimulating contact and creating social cohesion, the same cannot be said for leisure in public spaces. Interactions are hard to stimulate, mainly because of the characteristics of both the place
and the activities. The main motive for immigrants and non-immigrants to go to
urban parks is because they want to relax and spend time with their friends or
family. Immigrants are more likely than non-immigrants to go to urban parks in
order to picnic. Non-immigrants say that it is fine to have a chat with strangers
but that they do not explicitly seek such contact. Although immigrants say they
are open to any interaction and are looking for more interactions, they do not often take the initiative themselves.
Organizing events can be a way to create an atmosphere in which interaction
is stimulated, in which one can be oneself and have something in common with
the other participants, and in which people do not hide their identities but feel
free to show them. Although public space (e.g. pavement cafes) is an important
setting for identity performance (see Oosterman, 1993), being outside in public
may also be motivated primarily by the desire to experience privacy. Research
done in Nijmegen (Peters, 2008) shows that although people are in a public setting, some act as though they are in a private one. This throws doubt on the suggestion that leisure in public spaces stimulates social interaction and, through
that, social capital. The situation regarding sport is different, however. Sport as

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a means for social cohesion has been taken more seriously in recent years. Various researchers (Verweel et al., 2005; van der Meulen, 2007; Breedveld & van
der Meulen, 2003; Duijvendak et al., 1998) have shown that sport can lead to
more intercultural understanding. Sport organizations are seen as environments
in which social capital is acquired.
Leisure should also be one of the issues when discussing the integration of
non-Western immigrants into Western societies. This issue should be as equally
important as such aspects as work, education and housing. Leisure associations
no matter whether mixed or involving people of only one ethnic group should
be analysed in order to gain a better understanding of their role in teaching certain skills and thus contributing to the integration of immigrants in Western societies. The relation between diversity in public spaces and diversity in society
should also be explored. Such aspects of public spaces as their design, the publics participation in their management and how interactions between different
ethnic groups can be stimulated in them should be investigated in order to better
prepare for our future multicultural societies.
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8 Walkers Perspectives on Nature

Management Strategies: Nature
Restoration in a National Park
Ramona van Marwijk

he Netherlands is one of the worlds most densely populated countries, and

urbanization, infrastructure development and agricultural activities lead to
fragmented and isolated nature (Jongman, 2000). In 1990, the Netherlands Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management and Fisheries introduced the National
Ecological Network (NEN) plan to protect and develop existing natural areas and
to foster the restoration and re-creation of natural systems in areas formerly occupied by urban and agricultural uses (Netherlands Ministry of Agriculture Nature
and Food Quality, 2004). The NEN integrates both ecosystem values and recreation values. National parks which are core zones in the NEN are intended to
promote nature protection and development, outdoor recreation, education and
research (SNP Foundation, 2006).
In the Netherlands, ecological restoration (which is part of the first goal of national parks) is aimed at restoring both natural (self-regulating) and semi-natural
landscapes, such as heathland (Windt, Swart & Keulartz, 2007). Dutch nature areas suffer especially from eutrophication and acidification (Bakker & Berendse,
1999), the extraction of groundwater and the drainage of agricultural land (Runhaar, Gool & Groen, 1996). Strategies to restore nature include removing nutrient-rich topsoils (Tamis, vant Zelfde, van der Meijden, Groen & de Haes, 2005),
raising the groundwater level (Runhaar, Maas, Meuleman & Zonneveld, 2000)
and felling undesirable exotic tree species (Siebel, 1996).
All these actions have been applied in Dwingelderveld National Park (DNP),
which is located in the north-eastern part of the Netherlands. In general, nature restoration actions regularly meet with opposition and criticism from various groups, such as residents and recreationists (Berg, 2004; Swart, Windt &
Keulartz, 2001). This also happened in DNP, where residents organized themselves in a foundation in order to protect the forest. They enjoy the huge trees and
protested against the incomprehensible deforestation and devastation in DNP
(www.woudreus.nl).
Park managers are responsible not only for nature protection and development, but also for creating appropriate conditions for outdoor recreation which

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is the second intended use of national parks. Nature management techniques

may impact recreational experiences, as shown by the example above. A considerable number of researchers have studied the effects of nature on recreational
experiences, for example within environmental psychology (e.g. Arriaza, CaasOrtega, Caas-Madueo & Ruiz-Aviles, 2004; Hull & Stewart, 1995; Kaplan &
Kaplan, 1989). Because the focus of environmental psychology is on the psychology component and thus on humans recreational experience studies tend to
simplify the environmental component (Gyllin & Grahn, 2005). In addition, from
a more applied perspective (forestry, landscape architecture) several perceptional
studies have been conducted that focus on explicit environmental characteristics
(or attributes), such as tree height and age (Silvennoinen, Alho, Kolehmainen &
Pukkala, 2001) and harvest shape (Ribe, 2005). Several researchers subsequently suggested that the perception of environments and environmental changes
can be influenced by information about, for example, nature management techniques (Ribe, 2002). Dutch nature managers have indicated that visitors nature
images and expectations often differ from theirs (Bezemer, Verbij & Filius, 2001).
Public education can help managers to influence public beliefs about ecosystem
management (Brunson & Reiter, 1996).
The present study, which was carried out in cooperation with Sander Terlouw
and David Pitt (see Terlouw, 2008), combines insights from environmental psychology, forestry and landscape architecture. The aim was to study the extent to
which visitors perceptions of the desirability of the environment for walking can
be explained by the environmental attributes of the sites being restored, and the
effect of information on moderating the perception of restoration management
practices.
The following is a brief review of the relevant literature on aesthetic perceptions of nature and the mediating role of information. I then present the research
setting (Dwingelderveld NP), the research method, the results, and a discussion
and conclusion.
Literature review
A literature study revealed that, with regard to environmental perception, several
psychological theories have been developed to explain human aesthetic experience, for example Berleynes (1974) arousal theory, Appletons (1996) prospectrefuge theory and the Kaplans (1989) information processing theory. These psychological theories posit the existence of universal mechanisms within all human beings. The underlying assumption of the evolutionary approach is that
landscape perception relates directly to the physical attributes of the natural landscape, such as tree density, tree distribution and vegetative ground cover (Anderson, 1981). In Dutch research, the idea that perception relates to the physical attributes of the natural landscape is theoretically and empirically elaborated by
means of eight indicators: abundance of vegetation, degree of naturalness, degree

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of variation, abundance of water, abundance of relief, degree of landscape identity, degree of skyline disturbance and degree of noise pollution (Buijs & Kralingen, 2003). Jacobs (2006) states that although this theory ignores sociocultural
aspects in landscape appreciation, research suggests that these indicators are able
to successfully predict the average perception value of the landscape.
Silvennoinen and colleagues (2001) give an overview of peoples preferences
within forest landscapes. They found that in general people prefer stands of tall
trees to stands of small trees, unless the latter form the lower canopy layer of a
two-storeyed stand. In other words, older trees are perceived as more attractive
than young trees. A second general preference relates to the degree of variation
within the landscape: research in the Netherlands has shown that the variation
in landscape types (forest, heath, sand, pasture, fields) is a main predictor of recreational quality (Berg, 1995). A third general finding is that people prefer forest
stands that are not very dense so that the visibility is not impaired. This might be
related to Kaplan and Kaplans theoretical predictor of legibility (Herzog & Kropscott, 2004; Kaplan & Kaplan, 1982): visual access enhances a persons ability to
find his or her way around in a setting. This seems to be highly relevant for a
study in the Netherlands, since most forest managers believe that recreationists
are frightened of getting lost (Suurmond, 2006). Fourth, the presence of water
is often perceived positively (Arriaza et al., 2004; Kaplan, Kaplan & Ryan, 1998;
Pitt, 1989; Real, Arce & Sabucedo, 2000). In line with these findings, it was hypothesized that semi-open landscapes that contain water are perceived as more
desirable than landscapes that have dense (especially young) forest.
Aesthetic perceptions of nature are influenced by information on ecosystem
management. Positively framed narratives that describe nature management
strategies (e.g. cutting trees or leaving dead trees) can positively influence perceptions of sites (Bliss, 2000). However, this is not always the case. In a study by
Brunson and Reiter (1996), one group of respondents rated ecosystem management conditions lower after they had received information on ecosystem management. A reason for this unexpected result might be that the respondents lacked
experience with forestry and were thus not able to distinguish which of the slides
depicted traditional conditions as opposed to ecosystem management conditions.
They may have assumed that all the fields in the scenes were harvested in an ecologically sensitive manner, and this would have made their judgement different
from that of a second group, which positively evaluated ecological harvest methods. This example shows the importance of a well-designed plan of public education in which messages are carefully tailored to the desired public (ibid.: 39).
Research setting
The setting for our study was Dwingelderveld National Park (DNP), which is visited by 1.21.6 million people each year (Milieufederatie Drenthe, 2003; Visschedijk, 1990). Physiographically, the park contains areas that have a shallow layer of

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wind-blown outwash sand deposited on a glacial till plain and areas where the
drift sand has accumulated to form a dune environment. Following denudation
of the original woodland vegetation by anthropogenic forces, extensive grazing on
the outwash sand plain for several hundred years produced what is now the largest wet heath landscape in north-western Europe. During the 1920s and 1930s,
an extensive reforestation policy favouring the planting of exotic conifer plantations was implemented to stabilize the shifting sand in the dune part of the park
and in some parts of the heath community. Policies aimed at effecting nature restoration in the park as a means of implementing the NEN plan were introduced
in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Implementation of these policies
has so far transformed over 10% of the parks 3700 ha area from plantations of exotic conifer monocultures into wet forest and bog communities.
Methods
Study design and variables used
Based on a literature study and an area analysis, we included four physical dimensions of the landscape, namely 1) stand age (related to small or large trees), 2) vegetation type (related to degree of variation in vegetation types), 3) presence of water and 4) spaciousness. We decided not to include relief as a variable, because the
study area is relatively flat. The variable landscape identity was also excluded, because the study focuses on a single area. Skyline disturbance and noise pollution
were also excluded because of their irrelevance to the study area.
The variable stand age applies only to forested sites. Such sites are divided into
two categories based on their age: either pole timber or saw timber. Vegetation
type is divided into four types: deciduous forest, coniferous forest, bog and wet forest. The presence of water is related to the restored nature areas; no visible water is
present in the plantation. Spaciousness is divided into three classes: closed (young
forest, <10m depth of view ), semi-open (old forest, wet forest, 10100m depth of
view) and open (bog, >100m depth of view). Thus, the variety in landscape types in
the park was well represented in the landscape views used in this study.
The study used photographs of forest scenes before and after restoration practices. The stimulus set consisted of 32 colour slides showing 8 different landscape
types. For nature under traditional management, these landscapes are: young coniferous forest, old coniferous forest, young deciduous forest and old deciduous
forest. The restored nature landscapes are: bog with visible water, bog without visible water, wet forest with visible water and wet forest without visible water. Four
pictures of each landscape type were used in the set.
To ensure that the respondents evaluated the setting and not the picture (Scott
& Canter, 1997), they received both oral and written instructions to judge the setting depicted in the photograph and not the photograph itself or the weather conditions depicted in it.

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Elicitation of perceptual judgement by photographs

Photographs are often used in landscape evaluation studies to visualize the scenery (e.g. Berg & Koole, 2006; Palmer, 2007; Ribe, 2005). Critics are concerned
that the photographic quality, the position of the photographer and the film type
account for variance in preferences among viewers (McCool, Benson & Ashor,
1986). However, several studies reported high positive correlations between perceptual judgements and preferences based on photographs and parallel responses
based on direct experience of the represented landscapes (see Daniel & Meitner,
2001 for a discussion). Jacobsen (2007) concludes that photographs can be regarded as valid substitutes for site visits if the photographs are appropriately sampled. Based on his overview we decided to conduct an on-site study. The following
are the characteristics of the pictures used in the study.
All but four of the photographs were taken between 09.00 and 17.00 on the
same day in mid May 2007 in order to minimize differences in light conditions and seasonal variation. The four photographs that were not made on that
day are of three nature settings that had already been transformed and therefore could not be reproduced by the researchers on the same day. They were
taken by the forester prior to the restoration. The fourth photo was also taken
by the forester; it depicts a restored site that fulfilled our criteria better than
the one we had taken.
The sky in the photos is uniform. The horizon was set at the same level for
all forest settings. All open areas were also set on the same horizon level, although a different one than the forest settings in order to avoid having too
much sky in the photographs.
All photos were taken in DNP. All photos of the forest stands were taken within the stand itself and no evidence of active management is visible. Also a
broad range of visual access in terms of depth of view was required. Care was
taken to avoid introducing into the photographs the positive influence of distinctive landmarks, such as large or unusually shaped trees (Herzog & Kropscott, 2004; Kaplan et al., 1998). Moreover, no setting contained people or
visitor facilities. All photos are horizontally oriented and were presented in
full-colour and laminated on 14 x 21 cm (A5) cards. The photographs were randomly ordered.
Respondent sample
Data were collected in DNP on two days in May, four days in June and two days
in July of 2007. People who were returning from a walk in the park were asked
to participate in the research, which focused on hikers only. People were interviewed on both weekdays and at weekends.
The respondents were interviewed at four car parks that are situated in or next
to the forest area that has been or will be transformed. In total, 247 persons took

117

part in the research (142 males, 105 females), yielding a response rate of 57%. The
mean age of the respondents was 52 years, and varied between 16 and 84 years.
Procedure
We had the participants use the forced Q-sort method in order to elicit judgements in a more realistic context of judgement and decision-making (Pitt & Zube,
1979; Scott & Canter, 1997; Stephenson, 1953). They were asked to sort thirty-two
photos into eight piles, following an evaluative protocol. The participants first divided the thirty-two photos into two piles containing the sixteen landscapes that
they considered the most attractive and the sixteen they considered the least attractive in regards to their main activity (walking). Both piles were then subdivided into piles of eight photographs, again divided into the most and the least attractive landscapes; finally, the four piles of eight photographs were sorted into eight
piles of four photographs.
This led to eight different piles each containing four landscapes sorted on the
participants perception of the attractiveness of the landscape for walking. Pile 1
contained the landscape views that the participant regarded as the least attractive,
while the landscape views in pile 8 were the ones considered the most attractive.
In this way each landscape view was given a number between one and eight. The
higher the number, the higher the participant valued the landscape in the photo
on attractiveness of the landscape for walking.
Information treatment and data analysis
The interviewers presented to almost half (46.2%) of the participants an information sheet that had been developed in collaboration with DNP foresters. The sheet
explained the ecological benefits of the restoration management strategy, namely:
Protect the wet heath by improving water quality and regime
Higher biodiversity values
Rare flora and fauna will profit from the restoration.
The information sheet also explained that the landscape would become more varied and open. After reading it, the participants started the sorting procedure.
The data were analysed using the statistical software contained in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The raw pile number scores assigned to
the photos were used for the analysis, unless stated otherwise. In this study, subjects rendered the same judgement of desirability across multiple instances of an
experimental treatment (e.g. 16 traditional nature sites versus 16 restored nature
sites). A repeated measures design was used to account for the sharing of variance
among the multiple measurements of desirability within a subject (e.g. a subjects
evaluative biases were shared among the perceptual judgements rendered across
the 32 sites). Such a design partitions variance in a manner that accommodates the
non-independent nature of measurements repeated within subjects (Field, 2004).

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A general linear model (GLM) repeated measures analysis of variance procedure was used to examine the means of three or more groups of sites (e.g. the
eight landscape types). The raw scores (i.e. pile values) assigned to photos within
a group of sites were treated as repeated measures (each respondent rated both the
traditional nature sites and the restored nature sites). This method allowed a comparison of mean desirability scores of different groups of sites, such as comparing the four vegetation types (coniferous forest, deciduous forest, bog, wet forest).
Homogeneous subsets of mean values were identified using the Bonferroni procedure with Greenhouse-Geisser estimates of the F-statistics. Such procedures
enable robust analysis of post hoc tests that establish valid homogeneous subsets
of mean values (Field, 2004). This method allowed a comparison of the mean desirability scores of different groups of sites (e.g. the eight landscape types). When
only two groups of photos were compared, a paired-samples T-test was used to
compare the means.
The contribution of multiple environmental characteristics in explaining the
variance in the mean desirability scores of the photographs was examined using
linear regression analysis. Mean pile values were calculated across all 247 subjects and treated as dependent measures. The measures of environmental parameters including whether the site was under traditional of restoration management, presence and absence of water, spaciousness of the site and dominant vegetation type were treated as independent measures. These methods eliminated a
significant amount of variance, as mean scores across all 247 subjects were used.
However, they permitted regression of the mean desirability scores on a multivariate model of environmental parameters.
In multiple regression analysis we used a forward stepwise model to create
a final model explaining the effect of the independent variables on the dependent variable. A forward stepwise model is unbiased on which variables to include
in the model first. Decisions about variables to include are based only on mathematical criteria. This gives the best idea of the importance of the variables in explaining variance. Since the forward stepwise model made clear which variables
were of importance, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to check
whether one single independent variable (e.g. informing people) had a unique
contribution over and above the other variables (Field, 2004). The criterion for
entering in regression analysis was set at 0.049, for removal at 0.05. All the coefficients of determination (R 2) mentioned are adjusted for shrinkage (Radj2).
Findings
Effect of restoration management on perceived desirability for walking
Table 1 shows that the difference in perception of the desirability of the restored
nature sites compared to the traditional ones as a setting for walking is significant (table 1). The higher the mean, the more positive a photograph is evaluated.

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Table
Table1:1:Perception
Perceptionofofrestored
restoredand
andtraditional
traditional nature
nature (mean value,
values,N=247)
N=247)
Variable
Mean (scale 1-8)*
Standard error of mean
Restored nature
5.76
0.04
Traditional nature
3.24
0.04
* 1= least attractive landscape for walking, 8 = most attractive landscape for walking.
t-value = 33.31, df = 246, p<0.001

Restored natural sites are perceived as more desirable for walking. Restored sites
refer to bogs and wet forest, while traditional nature refers to coniferous and deciduous forest. At first sight this result seems surprising, because it is difficult
to walk in bogs and wet forest. However, the survey explicitly stated that the respondent was walking on a dry path and that the view depicted in the picture related to the view along the path. The preference for wet areas may indicate that the
respondents had a correct understanding of the survey design.
Effect of landscape attributes
We also examined the effect of landscape attributes on perceived desirability for
walking. Table 2 shows the results for the four landscape attributes included in
this study. The attribute stand age refers only to forest sites (and not to bogs), thus
to 16 photographs. The sites containing old forest (4.23) are clearly more preferred
than sites with young forest (2.25).
Table
Perceptionofoflandscape
landscapeattributes
attributes(N=247)
(N=247)
Table2:2:Perception

Variable
Stand age
Young forest (YF)
Old forest (OF)
Vegetation type
Coniferous forest (CF)
Deciduous forest (DF)
Bog (B)
Wet forest (WF)
Presence of water
Water (W)
No water (NW)
Spaciousness
Closed (C)
Semi-open (SO)
Open (O)

Mean (1-8)*

Standard error
of mean

2.25
4.23

0.05
0.05

2.76 a
3.73 b
5.54 c
5.98 d

0.05
0.05
0.04
0.04

6.43
3.86

0.06
0.02

2.25 a
5.11 b
5.54 c

0.05
0.03
0.06

Test
T-test:
t-value = -27.02
df = 246, p<0.001
Greenhouse-Geisser
F(672.05)
df = 2.36, p<0.001
T-test
t-value = 35.09
df = 246, p<0.001
Greenhouse-Geisser
F(1049.51)
df = 1.81, p<0.001

* 1= least attractive landscape for walking, 8 = most attractive landscape for walking

120

The second attribute is vegetation type. In this study we discerned four vegetation types: coniferous forest, deciduous forest, wet forest and bogs. Each type was
represented by eight photographs. Table 2 shows significant differences between
the four groups. The desirability of coniferous forest as a setting for walking is the
lowest (2.76), while wet forest is rated the highest (5.98). Neither coniferous nor
deciduous forest sites contain water, and both are less spacious than sites that contain bogs or wet forest. As we analysed those two parameters, we discovered possible explanations for the difference in perceived attractiveness of the four vegetation
types. For example, sites with visible open water are perceived as more desirable
(6.43) than sites without water (3.86). In addition, the effect of spaciousness is also
significant across the three spaciousness conditions: closed sites are the least desired as a setting for walking (2.25), while open sites were rated the highest (5.54).
Concluding, the analysis of the four landscape attributes (stand age, vegetation type, presence of water, spaciousness) reveals the higher desirability of old
forest compared to young forest, bog and wet forest compared to coniferous and
deciduous forest, sites with visible water compared to sites without visible water,
and open compared to closed landscape types. The following section presents a
model to compare the relative effect of the separate landscape attributes on perceptions of the desirability of a landscape for walking.
Table
Table3:3:Regression
Regressionmodel
modelgenerated
generatedfor
fordesirability
desirabilityfor
forwalking
walking(N=247)
(N=247)
Variables

Unstandardized
coefficient

Constant

-2.98

Water
Spaciousness
Vegetation type

1.30
1.92
0.81

Standardized
regression coefficient
0.34
0.82
0.54

Significance

-5.51

0.000

4.73
10.08
7.31

0.000
0.000
0.000

R adj = 0.88; F = 73.35, p<0.001

Explaining desirability for walking

When creating a model to assess the relative effects of the landscape attributes,
we had to omit the parameter stand age since it related only to the forest stands
(16 of the 32 photos). Table 3 shows that, in order of magnitude, spaciousness
(0.82), vegetation type (0.54) and the presence of water (0.34) predict fairly successfully the desirability score for walking. The explained variance of 0.88 implies that 88% of the variance in the outcome (to predict desirability for walking)
is accounted for by the variables water, spaciousness and vegetation type.
Effects of information
In relation to the second aim of the study, we examined whether informing visitors about the benefits of the restoration management strategy moderates their

121

perception of desirability. Table 4 shows that the information treatment did influence the visitors perceptions: informed subjects rated photographs of landscapes under traditional management significantly lower (3.16) than did people
who were not informed (3.31), and informed subjects rated photographs of landscapes under restoration management significantly higher (5.84) than did people
who were not informed (5.69).
Table 4: Comparison of desirability scores restored/traditional nature, informed vs not
Table
4: Comparison of desirability scores restored/traditional nature, informed vs not informed
informed
Type of nature management

Informed

Mean* (sd)

Test

Traditional management

No
3.31 (0.63)
Yes
3.16 (0.54)
Greenhouse-Geisser
Total
3.24 (0.59)
F(3.851)
df = 1
Restoration
No
5.69 (0.63)
p<0.051
Yes
5.84 (0.54)
Total
5.76 (0.59)
* 1= least attractive landscape for walking, 8 = most attractive landscape for walking

Discussion and conclusion

The present research examined DNP visitors perception of the desirability for
walking of different types of landscapes resulting from restoration management
practices. We found systematic differences for landscapes under traditional management (deciduous and coniferous plantations) and landscapes under restoration management (bog, wet forest). The mean desirability scores among 247 participants for traditional (3.24) and restored (5.76) nature indicates a preference
for nature under restoration management. In other words, bogs and wet forest
are preferred to coniferous and deciduous forest as landscapes for walking. Further analysis of the landscape and vegetation types showed low preference ratings
for young forest, closely followed by higher preferences for older forests, a finding that is consistent with previous research (e.g. Brunson & Shelby, 1992). Deciduous forest was rated higher than coniferous forest, perhaps because coniferous forests consist largely of exotic tree species, which have been shown to be less
popular than native species (Herzog, Herbert, Kaplan & Crooks, 2000). Landscapes containing open water were rated significantly higher than those without
visible open water. This ties in with previous research (Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989;
Pitt, 1989; Wherrett, 2000). The lower ratings for young forest in particular and
older forest to a lesser extent, are also supported by the literature, which explains
that young forest decreases visibility (Herzog & Kropscott, 2004; Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989).
We predicted that semi-open landscapes containing water would be perceived
as more desirable than landscapes with dense (especially young) forest. Conversely, the semi-open landscapes were rated significantly lower (5.11) than the open
landscapes (5.54). The lower rating for semi-open landscapes was caused by the

122

rating for older forests (4.23) that we defined similar to wet forest (5.98) as
semi-open. Open landscapes are especially desired when water is present: a mean
rating of 6.61 compared to 4.46 when no water is present.
The research revealed that, in order of magnitude, spaciousness, vegetation
type and presence of water are predictors of the mean desirability score for walking, with an explained variance of 88%. This means that the predictors explain
88% of the mean desirability of a landscape. This is slightly higher than found in
other researches (e.g. Eleftheriadis & Tsalikidis, 1990; Pukkala & Kellomki, 1988;
Silvennoinen et al., 2001; Ulrich, 1986). The predictors of our model correspond
to the above reported perception of landscape attributes. However, we have not yet
looked into personal and contextual elements, and it may be that different groups
of people have different desirability and nature preferences (Berg, Vlek & Coeterier, 1998; Elands & Lengkeek, 2000).
While the variables spaciousness, vegetation type and presence of water are
able to fairly successfully account for most of the variance in aesthetic preferences, this does not mean that all Dutch landscapes should develop similarly: clearly
recognizable differences within Dutch landscape should be maintained (Wiertz,
2005). The Dutch landscape is an outstanding example of a cultural landscape.
This value is recognized by policy makers who aim to conserve and develop identity and diversity within Dutch landscapes (LNV, 1992).
We also found that the presentation of information positively influenced the
mean desirability scores of nature sites that result from new nature management
strategies. This is in line with previous research that concluded that carefully crafted and positively framed narratives describing management intentions can increase peoples scenic quality ratings (Brunson & Reiter, 1996; Pitt, 1989).
Although we found a general preference for restored nature, this does not inform us explicitly about the acceptability of restoration management techniques.
Because it can take ten years before the outcome of such techniques is aesthetically appealing (as depicted in this research on pictures showing bogs and wet forests), they often meet with considerable opposition from visitors and locals, especially when trees are actually cut.
This study does not provide a basis for concluding that Dutch recreationists
only want open natural environments with visible water, since we measured only a
static preference, while walking involves movement and change in both space and
time. It is therefore possible that walkers prefer to pass through a variety of landscapes rather than a single type of environment. Further research into visitors
behaviour is necessary before we can draw conclusions on this point. Meanwhile,
the results of this study should be analysed for different user groups in different
settings. Only then will we be able to gain a profound insight into the perception
of landscape desirability for recreational activities.

123

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Part 3
The State of the Art of
Tourism Research

9 The Hybrid Specialities and

Interdisciplinarity of Social Science:
The Case of the Tourism Studies Field
Irena Ateljevic & Linda Peeters

he crisis of representation (Marcus & Fisher, 1986) that emerged during the
1980s within the social science and humanities fields has raised theoretical
debates across all disciplines, leading to what has been marked as the cultural
turn of the postmodern era (Chaney, 1994; Foucault & Gordon, 1980; McDowell,
1994). As part of this cultural shift in thought, qualitative researchers in particular have been challenged to transgress their disciplinary boundaries and integrate
cultural politics into a discussion of power knowledge (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005).
As a result of such shifts and transgressions, two major impacts emerged that are
of our particular concern in this chapter.
First, there has been a significant increase in the number of interdisciplinary
fields of study that are addressing issues of disciplinary reductionism, which Sayer (2001) claims to be parochial and imperial, hence counterproductive in relation to making progress in understanding society (p. 83). The need for the integrated and interactional expertise from multiple disciplines to engage in creating and applying new knowledge as they work together in addressing a common
challenge and/or phenomenon (Collins & Evans, 2002) has been reflected in the
numerous inventions of hybrid specialties (Dogan, 1996) and interdisciplinary
areas, such as heritage studies, entrepreneurship studies, masculinist studies,
subaltern studies, film studies, leisure and tourism studies, urban studies and
media studies, to name but a few.
Second, social researchers are increasingly being asked to be more reflexive
in their approach to research, as academic texts and discourses are revealed as socially constructed representations (Barnes & Duncan, 1992; Clifford & Marcus,
1986; Geertz, 1988; Jackson, 1993). In being reflexive, the researcher becomes
the bricoleur, who: understands that research is an interactive process shaped
by his or her personal history, biography, gender, social class, race, and ethnicity,
and those of the people in the setting. The bricoleur knows that science is power,
for all research findings have political implications. (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000: 3).
It is to this context of social studies of science that we respond here by presenting the historical formation of the interdisciplinary tourism studies field as an il-

129

lustration of such social bricolage. In doing so, we target two types of audience:
social scientists in general and tourism studies (TS) interdisciplinary scholars in
particular. As for the former, we aim to reveal dialectical processes of structure
and agency through which the nexus of individual actions and social, political
and economic forces create our academic needs, fields and institutions. As for
the latter, the aim of the socio-historical deconstruction of the field in question
over the last 40 years is to provide a kind of navigating lens to understand the TS
field origins, its burgeoning visibility, and its complexity and current challenges.
We perceive this task as an important endeavour for two key reasons. First, to
provide some sense of direction to and some boundaries of the field in the context of its significant growth in recent years, which is demonstrated by a steady
increase in the number of specialized tourism academics and researchers, educational programmes, journals, networks, publishers and research centres (BaretjeKeller, 2007). Second, to expose the endeavour from an insiders point of view in
terms of an integrated and interactional knowledge of the field, as opposed to the
view of outsiders who may casually engage with tourism as a topic within their
own disciplinary and/or interdisciplinary homes. To achieve this, it is necessary to
expose some interesting epistemological positions of the authors in the light of the
above established argument of a hybrid and interdisciplinary science.
When the first author Irena Ateljevic did her PhD in human geography,
she used the interest in the tourism phenomenon as a research context to explore
broader socio-spatial issues through a political economy lens. During her doctoral research, Ateljevic engaged with only cross-disciplinary geography references
and was not fully aware of the debates in the tourism studies field, as this was not
considered by her supervisors to be her target audience. She was supposed to talk
to her geographers in their disciplinary language and in relation to their preoccupation with space and place. Yet, when she finished her PhD she got an academic job in an interdisciplinary tourism programme, institutionalized within a
business school where she was faced with a very different audience (particularly
students) who needed her to speak in an interdisciplinary language and to have
an understanding of the tourism phenomenon as a whole. Learning how to navigate between different fields and perspectives and finding her own positioning in
terms of publication outlets and research peers was a challenge. This need to clearly define her audience significantly influenced Ateljevics career development in
the subsequent ten years (see Ateljevic et al., 2005). This is an ongoing tension that
has not been successfully resolved and that will influence the way in which the formation of the TS field is perceived and subsequently presented in this chapter. Yet
it is important to note that the broader human geography perspective, which is in
many ways interdisciplinary by nature, has been extremely valuable for Ateljevics
process of adapting knowledge to different types of audience.
On the other hand, the second author Linda Peeters is a representative
of the second-generation interdisciplinary tourism studies audience (a former
Masters student of Wageningen MLE Leisure, Tourism and Environment pro-

130

gramme) who, while engaging with a whole variety of different fields and disciplines, does not belong to any particular traditional discipline, as her previous
education was based on tourism management studies. Peeters is an embodied
example of an interdisciplinary tourism scholar whose education in many ways
represents the historical dual structure of the TS field. She did her undergraduate
study in hotel and tourism management and then proceeded to do her Masters
in a more critical social science perspective of sustainable tourism. It is to this
audience of interdisciplinary scholars that we particularly appeal here, as our hybrid social science increasingly produces more graduates in theme-based fields,
which may lead to the post-disciplinary turn in social science whereby scholars
identify with learning rather than with disciplines (Sayer, 2001: 89). We find
our endeavour to be important for the key reason of exposing the social construction of knowledge and the confusion we potentially create amongst social science
students and young scholars who are trying to enter the burgeoning fields of our
academic profession.
While the insiders perspective significantly informed the insight into the sociology of the TS field, the method behind the socio-historical analysis is based
on the desk research of two key resources: the work of scholars who have been
engaged with the various reviews of the TS field, and the Internet sources of
networks, journals and programmes that have demonstrated the visibility and
growth of interest in the tourism studies scholarship.
Introduction and theoretical framework
Within the above explained rationale, this chapter provides a historical social construction of an integrated tourism studies field over the last four decades, that is,
from the late 1960s until the late 2000s. It is important to note that the boundaries of the TS field are defined by the interdisciplinary focus and the growth of
tourism-related journals, networks and education programmes rather than by the
review of tourism scholarship that is spread all over social sciences in non-tourism journals, which generally also target a very different audience.
While it needs to be acknowledged that the topic of travel was explored long
before the 1960s, it has been claimed that tourism as a distinct field of study
emerged in that period (Airey, 2004; Jafari, 2007). Prior to that, it was mostly
broad philosophers or lone individuals and historians who were writing about
the phenomenon of travel and recreation in general (for more detail, see Graburn
& Jafari, 1991). The reason for this is fairly palpable. The production of most academic knowledge in social science is induced and motivated by the empirical social world out there that academics observe, study, interpret and represent. Thus,
in the case of tourism it was only after World War II that the modern phenomenon of international travel became available on more of a mass scale, and hence
was more visible as a socio-economic and cultural matter worthy of study at an
academic level.

131

Nevertheless, we need to acknowledge that the development of tourism as we

dominantly perceive it today was invented and captured from the view of the modern Western experience. In other words, travellers, tourists and academics largely
originate from the developed world of the West (however problematic the concept
of the West is these days). Furthermore, we need to be more precise and stress
that while modern-day international travellers have conspicuously come from a
whole range of OECD developed countries,1 it is the English-speaking world that
has dominated the tourism studies writings that are the focus of this paper as the
most obvious and visible foci and as one of the aspects we will critically observe.
In order to satisfy the rationale given in the prologue, we will use a particular
framework of the knowledge force-field developed by Tribe (2006), which neatly captures the production process of academic tourism knowledge in the visual
model presented in figure 1 below.
JOHN TRIBE
Figure 1: The knowledge force-field (Tribe, 2006: 363)

363

Position
Ends
Person

K
Rules
Ideology
Z

Circle 1:
Tourism

Circle 2:
Knowledge Force-Field

Figure 1. The Knowledge Force-field

Circle 3:
Tourism Knowledge

Circle 1 represents the world of tourism phenomenon per se, that is, the empirical
reality of its growth, flows, happenings, histories, structures, events, workings,
manifestations, impacts and influences on people and the environment. In other
dichotomy has prevailed in research where an objective mind has been
words,
it is the as
practice
tourism,
either on
the immune
productionfrom
or the any
consumption
cultivated
if it ofwas
detached
and
bodily
side.
Circle 2 is where a researcher sits to gaze upon the phenomenon, research
impressions.
notion
and Wearing
2001)
or selves (Reinharz
it andThe
write
about of
it. self
The (Wearing
gaze of researchers
and the
interpretations
they make
is initially,
artificially,
and temporarily
from those
are1997)
generally
influenced
by their institutional
positionextracted
(discipline/faculty);
theassopects
of
nurture
or
culture
that
impress
themselves
upon
identity.
cio-economic realities of individual academics (race, ethnicity, gender, class, etc.)
For as Hall notes, in terms of why we research what we do, one also
andcannot
their research
the rules(2004:148).
and ideologyHall
of their
institutions
and disciignore interests;
the personal
provides
examples
of
plines;
and
the
final
ends
of
what/whom
the
(tourism)
knowledge
is
produced
for.
this, notably that a woman who [he] lusted after influenced his
As the interpretation
the production
of knowledge
these
filchoice
of doctorate. and
Additionally
he explains
how goes
goodthrough
and bad
relationships
with
colleagues,
institutions
and
publishers,
and
his
loves
of
ters and forces of circle 2, we get to circle 3 of tourism knowledge where all our
surfing, the outdoors, wine and food have influenced his research
choices. Sayer also stresses the significance of self and The realm of
the Ithat is our capability to receive something from outside and
make it our own, to make something
of what we are constructed
132
throughthus creating something different (1999:3). In an illustration of this, Botterill (2003) deploys an autoethnographic approach
which reveals the interplay of self with research. He recounts his epistemological journey from positivism (his initial received or given per-

facts, theories, concepts and explanations lie in the form of the known world expressed in written language, namely scientific articles, books, reports, websites,
theses, etc. However, it is important to note that this is not a linear process but
a spiral of fluent spaces and circles created by dialectical interrelationships and
influences. For example, if the principal ideology of the tourism world is based
on values of seeing tourism primarily as a business sector, this will influence
where tourism scholars are positioned and education programmes institutionalized. Therefore, the circles of division cannot be fully delineated. Yet, in such a
clear visual form, the framework does provide us with a neat structure for this
chapter, in which we are going to present the historical development of these
three circles over the past four decades, to the extent that such is feasible within
the limits of a chapter.
We will begin with the description of the tourism phenomenon in terms of its
main international structures, importance and travel flows in the context of which
tourism knowledge has been created. The main objective is not to be exhaustive
but to produce a general picture of key structural shifts in the process of tourism
expansion. It should be noted that the focus will be on the nature of international
tourism, as that is what has been a dominant preoccupation of most tourism scholars (Graburn & Jafari, 1991). Thereafter, we will describe the realities and forces
within the knowledge force-field, namely the growth, structures and shapes of the
tourism academy. We will then provide an overview of the increase in tourism programmes, journals and networks and an overview of the disciplinary, geographical
and gender structures of tourism academia. It is important to note that we will not
be able to provide a detailed account as per Tribes five forces, as we are aiming to
provide a general view of the field rather than present the efforts of individual persons. Thus, person and ends will not be captured fully, although some of the key
contributors will implicitly emerge in the proceeding discussion of circle 3.
Finally, the empirical analysis of the tourism academy world will be followed
by a discussion on the historical evolution of tourism knowledge in the past four
decades and how it has been shaped in terms of its main paradigms, contributions and concepts. In doing so, it will be shown that the TS field has been historically polarized between two key approaches of more applied and business-oriented research versus more academic-oriented knowledge derived from critical
perspectives of traditional social science disciplines (Nash, 2007). Our historical
analysis will show that the two fields have always coexisted, albeit with varying
degrees of dominance in different periods.
Circle 1: The phenomenon of international tourism and its strength in the global
economy
People have always travelled; travel appears to be an inherent part of human
nature. The early civilizations in Asia, the Middle East and the Mediterranean
have left us written records of their adventures. After the fifteenth century, the

133

number of written records increased rapidly as a result of the invention of the

printing press. By the mid seventeenth century, the well-known grand tour
emerged and these tourists also kept diaries about their journeys; these records
are literary as well as educational and descriptive (Graburn & Jafari, 1991). In the
nineteenth century, Thomas Cook began to build his empire and mass tourism
started to develop (Towner, 1985).
Yet, we can only talk about tourism on a visible global scale since World War II,
with the take-off of air transport and general economic progress, when the international travel boom truly began. The substantial growth in tourism activity has clearly marked tourism as one of the most remarkable economic and social phenomena
of the past century. The number of international arrivals shows an evolution from
a mere 25 million in 1950 to 903 million in 2007, up 6.6% on 2006. In 1950, the
top 15 destinations received 88% of international travels, in 1970 75% and in 2005
57%, which demonstrates the emergence of new destinations (UNWTO, 2008).
Furthermore, these figures represent only an estimated 17% of all worldwide tourism movements, since they do not include domestic tourist flows, which according
to some estimates account for a further 83% of global flows (Go, 1997).
Tourism creates millions of jobs either directly or indirectly and provides governments with hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue each year, stimulating enormous investments in new infrastructure (UNWTO, 2008; Apostolopoulos et al., 1996). In 2007, worldwide international tourism receipts increased
to EUR 625 billion, corresponding to a growth in real terms of 5.6% on 2006. In
2003, international tourism receipts represented nearly 6% of worldwide exports
of services and goods. If one considers only service exports, the share of tourism exports increases to approximately 30% (UNWTO, 2008). In 2006, Europe
had a 51.1% share of international tourism receipts, while Asia and the Pacific
had 20.8%, the Americas 21%, the Middle East 3.7% and Africa 3.3% (UNWTO,
2007). UNWTO comments on the growth in international tourism receipts between 20052006: As was the case with arrivals, the relative growth in receipts
was strongest in Africa (+10%) and Asia and the Pacific (+9%). Europes receipts
increased by 4% well above the 2.5% growth recorded in 2005 while growth
in the Americas (+2%) fell to less than half its 2005 level. The only region to show
a negative growth trend in relative terms in 2006 was the Middle East (1.4%),
since its growth in absolute terms was not sufficient to keep up with inflation.
As a consequence of the aforementioned developments, tourism has become one
of the major players in international commerce (UNWTO, 2008).
In this period of phenomenal tourism growth, two key phases can be distinguished in terms of its global structural changes: the period up to the mid 1980s/
early 1990s, and the period since then. In the early years of the 1960s boom, tourism was primarily seen as a major tool of economic development for developing
countries, as well as for the periphery of Mediterranean Europe. In 1963, the UN
proclaimed the importance of tourisms contribution to the economies of developing countries: tourism was considered to bring about foreign exchange, to cre-

134

ate employment and to have a multiplier effect on economic growth. Under pressure from such international financial institutions as the World Bank, many developing countries (particularly those with large foreign debts) were encouraged
to attract foreign investment in tourism by providing fiscal concessions and promotional privileges (Lanfant, 1980)2. In other words, international tourism was
primarily designed to allow the emerging well-off middle class to travel from the
world core of the West to the pleasure periphery of undeveloped and still unspoiled countries of the South and East, for example Africa, the Pacific, the Caribbean and the Mediterranean (Pearce, 1987).
This is clearly illustrated by the fact that up to 80% of all international travels (measured by volume) in the last 40 years were made by nationals of just 20
OECD countries. Furthermore, over 60% of total international expenditure in the
early 1990s was accounted for by nationals of the seven countries that have led
tourism consumption for nearly four decades, namely the USA, Germany, Japan,
the UK, Italy, France and Canada (UNWTO, 1995; Vellas & Becherel, 1995). In
terms of the nature of tourism demand, it has been established that these golden hordes of tourists were dominantly interested in the rejuvenation capacity of
sunny destinations, to which Northern urban dwellers flee in great numbers, creating the most visible phenomenon of the 4S based (sun, sea, sand & sex) mass
tourism in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean areas (Poon, 1993).
During the 1980s, however, the notable second phase began when a number
of significant changes started to occur. First, although the developed OECD countries of Europe and the USA were historically also the main top tourist destinations (in terms of arrivals and receipts), it was only when these countries started
to suffer economic crises (i.e. in the late 1970s) that tourist activity began to be
seen as a key component in economic diversification strategies and as a remedy for
growing unemployment in industrialized countries, especially in Western Europe
(Williams & Shaw, 1988; 1991; OECD, 1995). This was an important economic and
political shift that moved tourism to the forefront of the political agenda of Western countries by recognizing it as an agent of diversification and development in
urban, rural and peripheral economies of the West (Craik, 1991; Hardy et al., 1991;
Commonwealth Department of Tourism, 1992; Law, 1993; Montanari & Williams,
1995). We will see later how that also influenced the fact that many tourism educational programmes began to emerge at universities throughout the world.
Second, alongside the continuous demand for the 4S type of holidays, the
changing nature of tourism production and consumption began to show new,
special interest forms of tourism, profiling critical consumer tourists who demand environmentally sound holidays (Krippendorf, 1987). Poon (1993) asserted
that new hybrid tourists have emerged who want to experience something different, to be in control, to see and enjoy but not destroy, and who are adventurous
and educated. They are held in contrast to old tourists who follow the masses in
search of sun or snow, are cautious, and are here today and gone tomorrow. Urry
(1990) promoted the notion of the post-tourist as set within a wider framework

135

of emerging ecological values associated with a green consumer, namely creativity, health, new experiences, human relations and personal growth. Munt (1994)
described it as a postmodern phenomenon of new middle classes. This trend has
led to the development of a wide range of special tourism activities, such as bird
watching, trekking, botanical study and whale watching. For example, in the early 1990s some 80 million American bird watchers accounted for USD 14 billion
spent on equipment, travel and related expenses (Hawkins, 1994). In due course,
alternative tourism, soft tourism, eco tourism, sustainable tourism, nature
tourism and green tourism became buzzwords.
Since the mid 1990s, the nature of generating markets has changed towards
new emerging sources of international tourism flows. Two key trends influenced
this movement: the fall of the Berlin Wall which allowed Eastern European
countries to develop towards market economies and to travel freely and the
economic growth of Asia, led by Japan and followed by the seven little dragons,
namely Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia and
Indonesia, and more recently by China and India. It was also in the mid 1990s
that countries such as Korea, Taiwan and China introduced social legislation that
freed their citizens to travel internationally.
Although developed countries still remain the major consumers of international tourism, China and the Russian Federation have entered the top-10 chart
of tourism spenders (see table 1). As a consequence, the nature of international
tourism demand has become an eclectic mixture of many different forms of travel consumption: mass tourism in the form of packaged sightseeing tours; sun &
sea beach holidays; long-haul backpacker travel on the unbeaten track of exotic
lands; cultural tourism in the form of short-break weekends in urban centres; exclusive bird watching and fishing trips; active tourism (adventure sports); well-being spas; volunteer tourism; and many more (Zeppel, 1992; Poon, 1993; Richards,
1996; Wearing, 2001; Hannam & Ateljevic, 2008).
Table 1: Worlds international tourism top 10 spenders in 2000 and 2006 (Source: World Tourism Organization, 2001; 2007)
Top 10 countries 2000
United States
Germany
United Kingdom
Japan
France
Italy
Canada
Netherlands
China
Belgium/ Luxemburg
Total % of the world
travel market

Market share

Top 10 countries 2006

13.7
10.0
7.7
6.6
3.6
3.2
2.6
2.5
n.a.
n.a.

Germany
United States
United Kingdom
Japan
France
China
Italy
Canada
Russian Federation
Korea, Republic of
Total % of the world
travel market

>49.9

136

Market share
10.2
9.8
8.6
4.4
3.7
3.3
3.2
2.8
2.6
2.5
51.1

To summarize, at the beginning of the twenty-first century it can be argued

that tourism has achieved a higher profile in the consciousness of the public of
the developed world than ever before (Hall et al., 2004) not only because of
the numbers and its economic importance but also because it is increasingly acknowledged on the world political agenda. For example, in 2003 the UN General
Assembly unanimously made the World Tourism Organization a full-fledged UN
agency. In 2006, the UN appointed 27 September as the day on which to celebrate the phenomenon that is tourism and started a campaign to bring this message to the whole world (UNWTO, 2008). As a consequence, it has been argued
that tourism has finally begun to impact policy makers and has climbed the international political agenda to the extent that policy makers recognize that it is not
just economic activity, but an important agent of economic, social, cultural and
political change (Hall et al., 2004).
Circle 2: The knowledge-force field of growing tourism academia
The changes within tourism academia are reflective of the empirical world of
tourism. The boom of the worldwide tourism industry has resulted in a growth in
the number of tourism educational programmes, individual academics specialized in the field, tourism journals and tourism networks, particularly since the
late 1980s when developed countries began to acknowledge tourism economically and politically. In this part of the chapter, we will provide an overview of this
growth and the structures and shapes of this academic world. We will begin with
a description of the growth in higher education programmes, journals and tourism networks, followed by an overview of the nature of institutional homes and
disciplines within which tourism has been positioned. Then we are going to look
at the main factors of structural distributions in terms of institutional/disciplinary homes and socio-geographic disparities.
Higher education programmes
A number of studies illustrate the growth in the number of higher education programmes in the last four decades. Airey (2004) exemplifies the growth by pointing out that in the UK there were about 20 students of tourism in higher education in 1972, and that by the end of the century, this figure had increased to more
than 4000 new students each year. Botterill and colleagues (2002) report the
substantial increase in PhDs in tourism awarded in the UK, namely from 4 in
1990 to 29 in 1997, the period that coincided with the earlier established recognition of tourism importance in the OECD countries that began in the late 1980s.
In 1970, there were only two universities offering tourism courses in the UK,
while in 20034 there were 56 higher education institutes offering undergraduate tourism programmes. In the same period, this institutional change resulted
in the number of professors in either the tourism management or the tourism

137

studies field increasing from virtually zero to 30 (Tribe & Wickens, 2004). Ryan
(1995) shows a similar trend of the exponential growth in the number of university-based tourism programmes, students and individual academics in the southern hemisphere.
The growth has not been confined to developed countries. For example, in
Brazil the first tourism programme in higher education was created in the early
1970s; by the 1990s there were 250 such programmes, while in 2004 the figure
was 600 (Leal, 2004). Similarly, the post-1980s boom was experienced by China. Before 1978, tourism was virtually non-existent as a subject of study, while
in 1991 there were 69 higher education institutes offering various tourism programmes (Zhao, 1991). Bao (2002) looked at tourism geography as the subject of
doctoral dissertations in China in the period 19892000, and found that of the
twenty Chinese doctoral dissertations only one was produced before 1994.
Journals
Co-parallel with the growth in the number of education programmes and academics, there has been a logical correlation of the main dissemination venues for
tourism knowledge, namely academic journals. To see how phenomenal growth
this field has been in the last few decades, it suffices to look at the growth in the
number of tourism and travel related journals, namely from a mere dozen in the
1970s to almost 150 in 2008. Many of these journals were created to satisfy different disciplinary and ideological agendas, individual research interests and academic networks. The topic of tourism is also being addressed in non-tourism
and travel related journals. If, for example, one enters the keyword touris* into
the Web of Science database and analyses the results (articles) according to their
source (journal), one sees that 23% of these articles appeared in Annals of Tourism
Research or Tourism Management, while the remaining 77% are dispersed over
more than 500 journals from a whole variety of disciplines and fields of interest. After position 1 (Annals of Tourism Research) and position 2 (Tourism Management), there is no tourism journal in the top 20, although at position 6 we find
a journal in a tourism-related area: Journal of Travel Medicine. When analysing
the same results (articles) according to the subject area in which they have been
placed, only 25% are considered to belong to the subject area of hospitality, leisure, sport and tourism, while the remaining 75% belong to other subject areas,
such as sociology (17%), environmental studies (15%), management (12%) and geography (9%).
Table 2 lists the academic tourism journals that were established before 1981,
namely in the period we distinguish as the first key phase in the formation of the
TS field. Journal of Travel Research, Annals of Tourism Research and Tourism Management (which were established in 1963, 1973 and 1980, respectively) are still
claimed to be the top three journals (Ryan, 2005; McKercher et al., 2006; Zhao &
Ritchie, 2007; Jamal et al., 2008).

138

Table 2: Academic tourism-related journals established before 1981

Travel &Tourism Journals

Date established
(first volume)

Editor based in
(2008)

1946

Switzerland

1952

Croatia

1963
1973
1976

USA
UK
India

1976

Hong Kong

1980

New Zealand

The Tourist Review/Tourism Review/Revue de Tourisme

TOURISM: An International Interdisciplinary Journal
(formerly Turizam)
Journal of Travel Research
Annals of Tourism Research
Tourism Recreation Research
Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research (formerly
Hospitality Research Journal and formerly Hospitality
Education and Research Journal and previously Journal
of Hospitality education)
Tourism Management

The growth in the number of academic tourism and travel journals that started after 1980 (figure 2) shows a tremendous increase after the 1990s, which was obviously parallel to the changes in circle 1, as described earlier. Figure 2 shows that the
establishment of academic tourism and travel journals really took off in the 1990s:
88% of all journals were established after 1990. Figure 3 shows more or less the
same development as regards academic journals in such tourism-related areas as
leisure, hospitality, recreation, etc.: 68% of all journals were established after 1990.
It is important to note, however, that this quantitative growth is used here only
to illustrate the greater visibility of the field rather than as evidence of its interdisciplinary integration and the quality. One only needs to look at the titles of some
of the journals (e.g. Journal of Volunteer Tourism; Information Technology and
Tourism; Journal of Convention and Event Tourism) to see how fragmented and
more specialized the field has become. Although many efforts have been made
to rank and evaluate various tourism journals (e.g. Ryan, 2005; Zhao & Ritchie,
2007), how selective and biased these evaluations are remains a matter of debate
(Pritchard & Morgan, 2007; Jamal et al., 2008).
Figure 2: Growth in the number of academic
tourism
& travel journals, 19812009
90

Figure 3: Growth in the number of academic

journals in tourism-related areas, 19812009

80

45

70

40

60

35

50

30

50

25

40

20

30

15

20

10

05

02

99

96

93

90

08
20

20

20

19

19

19

19

19

19

19

87

84

0
81

10

81

19

84

19

87

19

90

19

93

19

96

19

99

19

02

20

05

20

08

20

Figure 3:
Figure
4: Growth of academic journals in tourism areas 1981Growth academic tourism & travel journals
1981-2009
(source: desk research)2009 2
(source:
139desk research)

Networks
Baretje-Keller the founder of an international centre for research and study on
tourism (Centre International de Recherches et dEtudes Touristiques; CIRET)
strongly confirms our central argument of the TS field growth. In his Report
of Activities: 19972006, he reveals an amazing statistic: an average of 30 new
researchers have been included in his database each month since the creation
of CIRET in 1996 (Baretje-Keller, 2007). Baretje-Keller established his centre
with the idea of creating a global databank of university institutions, individual researchers, documents and publishers. Figure 4 illustrates the phenomenal
growth in the number of individual researchers registered in his network as being interested in the topic of tourism. In addition, by the time we carried out our
research in April 2008, Baretje-Keller had registered a total of 143,673 scientific
outputs in this field (pers. comm., April 2008).
CIRET is one of the many networks devoted to the subject of tourism to have
emerged in the last couple of decades. These networks range from the more general to the theme specific; from regional and national to international networks;
from professional commercial industry related, to academic networks (Graburn
& Jafari, 1991). One impetus for the increase in the number of networks especially in Europe was the initiative of the European Commission to develop European
Thematic Networks (ETN) in order to help universities promote subject-based collaboration (Richards, 1998). This was an important political move by the Commission to recognize the increasing importance of tourism as a subject of higher
education in Europe.
Figure 5 provides an overview of the growth in the number of academic networks, divided into two types: those that only exchange information, and those
that are more active and are involved in various activities, such as organizing conferences and academic publications. It is important to state, however, that not all
of these networks are equally open to new members. For example, the IAST (acFigure 4: Growth in the number of individual
researchers in the CIRET database February
2007April 2008 (source: desk research)

Figure 5: Growth in the number of academic

information networks and active networks
(source: desk research)

4100

35

4000

30

3900

25

3800

20

3700

15

3600

10

3500

Active networks

3400
February

Information networks

April

51

19

59

19

67

19

75

19

83

19

91

19

99

19

07

20

Figure 5: Growth Individual Researchers in the CIRET database

Figure 6: Growth Academic Information networks and Active
February 2007-April 2008
140 networks
(source: desk research)
(source: desk research)

tive network) which was created by anthropologists and sociologists is a very

closed network with a maximum of 75 members (Jafari, 2007), while CIRET (information network) is an open network with more than 4000 individual and 700
collective members. In the rest of this chapter we will provide an overview of the
structures and shapes of this tourism academia. In terms of its main structures
that refer to positions of individuals, we are going to look at the main factors of
structural distributions in terms of institutional/ disciplinary homes and sociogeographic disparities.
Institutional homes
When the tourism boom became an obvious phenomenon and academic interest began to emerge, the main question was where tourism would be taught and
institutionalized in terms of its home a department/discipline/school to which
it should belong. Given the early focus on the economic importance of tourism
and students employment prospects, Airey (2004) claims that it seemed logical
to place tourism within business schools and/or vocational hotel management departments. He links the focus and purpose of the tourism programmes to the earlier acceptance for degree level in the 1960s of hotel and catering management
programmes, which were profoundly vocational, focusing on the operation of the
industry and practice and having close connections with employers (see also e.g.
Formica, 1996). When tourism programmes emerged within the same environment, and often in departments that offered degrees in hotel management, they
followed the same vocational, industry-oriented path.
At the same time, tourism also attracted the interest of those in other more
social science based disciplines; the most notable were geography, anthropology
and sociology scholars, who had began to study tourism as a subject within their
own disciplines, hence offering it as one of their courses, for example within an
anthropology degree (Nash, 2007). It was these early scholars who introduced
a broader and more critical perspective of tourism in terms of its social, political and cultural complexities. It is this dualistic division between the more business-oriented and the social science based approaches that has shaped the field
of tourism studies as we know it today. The way in which this was achieved in
terms of the variety of paradigms, concepts and approaches will be covered in the
circle 3 section. At this point, we remain focused on circle 2 of the disciplinary
homes that tourism academics have been dominantly housed in and affiliated
with. The example of the IAST (International Academy for the Study of Tourism),
one of the most traditional social science based networks, illustrates how tourism
is dominantly institutionalized within departments/schools of tourism management, business and marketing (47%), even though their home PhD discipline is
often based elsewhere (only 26% are associated with that perspective).
Tribe (2001) and Pritchard and Morgan (2007) also discuss the correlation
between disciplines, institutions and the tourism curriculum, and point out

141

the tendency to locate tourism programmes in management/business schools.

While over 70% of the tourism programmes in the UK are located in business
schools, almost 90% of individual academics belong to some social science discipline (sociology, economics, geography, anthropology, cultural studies, political science, etc.). The paradox of such multidisciplinarity and eclectic complexity can be explained by the fact that tourism continues to be dominantly located
within the business schools institutional framework (Airey, 2004).
Geographic/ethnic and gender disparities
The geographical profile of tourism academia is another important aspect that
structures the academic world. An example of this is the difference in focus in
tourism programmes between different regions and countries around the world.
Formica (1996), for example, compared the differences in hospitality and tourism
education between Europe and the USA. The USA is characterized by the AngloSaxon approach, which focuses on professional development by improving personal knowledge through using appropriate skills in order to manage a restaurant
or run a tourism enterprise; in contrast, the European tradition is more driven by
theoretical studies of the social and economic aspects of tourism.
Table 3: Geographical distribution of editors
Geographical distribution editors (percent)
academic tourism &
travel journals

academic journals in
tourism areas

Western Europe

32

25

North America
Asia
Australasia-Oceania
Eastern Europe
Africa
South America
Middle East
Central America
Caribbean

24
16
13
6
5
2
2
0
0

57
2
8
0
8
0
0
0
0

Also interesting is the geographical distribution of journal editors. Table 3

which is the result of our analysis of all the academic tourism and travel journals
and academic journals in tourism-related areas (same data used for our analysis
for table 2 and figures 2 and 3) clearly demonstrates the dominance of Western
developed countries. Another interesting aspect is the geographical location of
the universities and the individual researchers. Table 4 is the result of our analysis of these aspects within the CIRET network (over 4000 researchers), the ATLAS network (313 institutions) and TRINET (nearly 1500 individual researchers).

142

The table clearly shows the dominance of Western developed countries, although
also the fairly strong presence of Asia in terms of its educational institutions within ATLAS. However, one should keep in mind the context in which these figures
operate, as the under-representation of certain regions has a lot to do with a lack
of institutional conditions in these countries.
Table 4: Geographical characteristics of the TRINET, CIRET and ATLAS networks
(source: desk research)
Region
Western Europe
Eastern Europe
Middle East
Africa
Asia
North America
South America
Central America
Caribbean
Australasia-Oceania
Total

Individual
Researchers
TRINET (%)

Individual
Researchers
CIRET (%)

Universities
CIRET (%)

Educational Institutions
and Professional Bodies
ATLAS (%)

24
1
1
<1
5
43
<1
0
<1
26
100

36
4
1
2
10
27
4
<1
<1
15
100

35
6
2
4
13
23
6
<1
1
10
100

42
11
2
10
25
2
2
<1
<1
5
100

Tribe (2006: 364) specifically engages with this Eurocentric dominance in

academia, and asserts that the production of knowledge and development of
theory was in the past largely based upon Eurocentric research and the ideas of
mainly white middle-class men. With respect to the geographical characteristics of the journals, Tribe (2006) also notes a power of inequity, pointing out the
dichotomies of core-periphery relationships. He refers to an analysis by Hall and
colleagues (2004) of the global distribution of journal editors, which showed that
77% of the editors are located in the UK, the USA, New Zealand, Australia and
Canada. Pritchard and Morgan (2007) further elaborate on the geographical imbalance with respect to tourism journals and their editors. The fact that English
is the dominant language in the international journals gives the scholars from
English-speaking countries an important advantage (Pritchard & Morgan, 2007).
Tribes (2006) argument that tourism studies are dominated by first-generation, white, male scholars who are grounded in ethnocentric Western, Anglo-Saxon research traditions is consistent with the fact that only 18% of CIRETs individual researchers are female (pers. comm. Baretje-Keller, March 2008). Aramberri
(2002) further points out that almost all the delegates at the 2001 International
Academy for the Study of Tourism (IAST) conference were male. Pritchard and
Morgan (2007) note the gender imbalance with regard to the editors of 12 international tourism journals in their overview of the percentages of male and female
members of each journal. Our compilation of these results shows that 82% of the
members of these twelve journals are male.
3

143

Since we have presented the factors influencing the development of tourism

knowledge, it is necessary to discuss the tourism knowledge itself. What is behind the numbers? What knowledge have these power factors within the knowledge force-field brought us? How have they presented the tourism phenomenon
to us during the last four decades? This is the focus of the following section,
which covers circle 3.
Circle 3: Tourism knowledge: a (not the) history of representing tourism
At the beginning of this chapter we established that the formation of the TS field
has been historically characterized by a divide that has been described in various though similar terms: pure vs applied research (Smith, 1989); impacts-externalities camp vs business development camp (Echtner & Jamal, 1997); academic-oriented vs business-oriented views (Nash, 2007); tourism management
vs tourism sciences/tourism studies (Hollinshead, 2007). While these two camps
have always coexisted, three different periods can be distinguished in terms of
the varying degrees of prominence they have had and how that has impacted
the theoretization and representation of tourism knowledge. These periods are:
1) the late 1960s/1970s, characterized by the greater visibility of early pioneers
work employing critical academically-oriented social sciences approach; 2) the
1980s/1990s, which were dominated by business studies of tourism management and marketing perspectives, hence producing more applied work; and 3)
the 2000s, characterized by strengthening the critical social science trajectory as
well as opening a dialogue with the tourism management camp.
The early beginnings: late 1960s/1970s
The first groundbreaking research in the tourism studies field can be attributed primarily to the social sciences disciplines of anthropology, sociology, geography, economics and social psychology. Nash (2007) in his latest contribution
towards providing an overview of those early beginnings, points out that particularly Western anthropologists and sociologists played an important role in the
creation and development of a multidisciplinary tourism social science. The pioneers of that time who have been called the first-generation tourism scholars
(Jamal & Kim, 2005) were Dennison Nash, Jeremy Boissevain, Erik Cohen,
Malcolm Crick, Graham Dann, Nelson Graburn, Jafar Jafari, Marie-Franoise
Lanfant, Dean MacCannell, Michel Picard, Valene Smith, Margaret Byrne Swain
and Pierre L. van den Berghe (Nash, 2007). The session devoted to the anthropology of tourism that Valene Smith organized at the 1974 Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Mexico City is often regarded as a landmark
in the field. The IAST network one of the most traditional, elitist and closed
social science based networks was founded by the majority of the individuals
mentioned above.

144

Observing the prevalence of white Westerners among international travellers

to developing countries of the pleasure periphery, these scholars primarily studied tourism as an important agent of social and cultural change in host countries
(anthropology of indigenous cultures) and trends of travel motivations in generating countries (sociology of leisure). As a consequence, Nash (2007) explains, early
tourism theories were influenced by the grand theoretical approaches in sociology and anthropology of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber and often
produced the cross-disciplinary studies of tourism. Thus, significant concepts
and theories that reflect this influence emerged at the time; for example, tourism as the quest of the new leisure class (MacCannell, 1976), false/staged authenticity (Smith, 1977), the concept of liminality and the rite of passage (Graburn,
1977), tourism typology and the modes of tourist experience (i.e. the notions of
strangerhood and tourism as pilgrimage) (Cohen, 1973, 1974, 1979) and tourism
as a form of imperialism (Nash, 1977). On the other hand, geographers and economists were more concerned with the environmental and economic impacts on
host societies and, more generally, issues of spatial/economic flows and regional
development (e.g. Bryden & Farber, 1971; Pearce, 1987; Mathieson & Wall, 1982).
While there was a greater variety of perspectives (from descriptive post-positivistic to interpretative perspectives), it can be argued that this period was generally characterized by a critical and fairly pessimistic view of international tourism (for a more detailed overview of all disciplines and individual contributions
in this period, see Graburn & Jafari, 1991). In general, it can be argued that golden hordes of tourists were seen to be destroying authentic indigenous cultures
and producing serious negative social and cultural impacts (Turner & Ash, 1975;
Smith, 1977). However, travellers were also often seen as products of capitalism
and modernity. MacCannell (1973) produced a major sociological work on the leisure class, claiming that international travel is a key symbol of modernity. Feeling alienated from the modern, Western urban society, middle-class travellers
search for authenticity and life meaning in the pre-modern, native cultures of
the Other, a search that is seriously thwarted by the increasing commercialization and institutionalization of the tourism industry, creating a so-called notion
of false authenticity (Cohen, 1973; Greenwood, 1977).
Yet, despite their critical stance and often genuine desire to warn and save
host countries from the golden tourist hordes or greedy hotel corporations, in
retrospect these theoretical constructions have been recognized as predominantly Eurocentric views, exporting colonial ideas and ideologies of the West into the
Third World (see Nash, 2007). In doing so, tourism practice and theory have been
recognized to be in many ways forms of Othering through which the question
whether the subaltern can really speak remains critical (Aitchison, 2001). They
were also dominated by structuralist perspectives, by stressing the importance of
structures (e.g. capitalism or modernity) and often fully denying any power of human agency. In other words, people were seen as passive victims of ruthless modernity, driven by capitalism and colonial notions of tourism development.

145

The complexity of these epistemological questions has more recently been addressed by one of these early pioneers Marie-Francoise Lanfant in the personal career story that she wrote for Nashs reflective book on early developments of
the study of tourism. The following statement of her experience in her 1972 class
on the sociology of international tourism (a class in which 28 different nationalities were represented) neatly illustrates the point (Lanfant, 2007: 123):
There in front of me I had French students, convinced of the value of free time and
leisure (even more so among those with legitimate professions in view), and students
from the Third World for whom the words free time and leisure had no place in their
vocabulary, but who were nonetheless looking for the meanings associated with the
power they sought to acquire. These last spoke of their countries and of themselves
as confronted by the challenge involved in the penetration by international tourism.
They spoke of circumstances in which they lived of their home communities, which
in some cases still had rudimentary conditions of existence. They spoke of their religious beliefs, held together by sacred rites, which some no longer believed in. They
spoke of their families that were still attached to the old traditions. And they spoke of
themselves in the face of touristic intrusions. I can testify to troubling exchanges between French students and foreign students with different points of view that created
a split in the class. It came to the point where there were disputes provoked by racist
sentiments. In this class the question of the Other rose to the surface with all its psychological force, and I was taken back.

Such a critical view of international tourism was enabled by the academic context
of the period in which the tourism phenomenon was dominantly studied as part
of general degrees in major social science disciplines that were generally inclined
towards more critical views (e.g. sociology). This critical scholarship, however, began to be overshadowed in the early 1980s by the increasing need for more business-oriented perspectives based on industry-driven approaches and useful contributions of applied knowledge. Although business-oriented approaches existed
in this early period, they did not appear to have a significantly visible scientific
effect and were quietly coexisting with non-applied/academic oriented points
of view (Nash, 2007). This was soon to change. Although the non-business approaches have continued to make their contributions, they are now more isolated
in their diverse and dispersed disciplinary homes. In turn, the more interdisciplinary business studies approach has gained the power of greater visibility and acceptance by academic administrators, colleagues, publishers, media and international bodies (e.g. world tourism organizations) (ibid.).
The dominance of the business studies approach: the 1980/1990s
In the early 1980s, as the economic crisis of oil and manufacturing industries
in the OECD countries deepened, a necessary shift in the West towards service
economies began to occur. Tourism had become an important issue on the political agenda, as it was now seen as a way to diversify and develop rural and urban

146

economies, which resulted in a need for more industry-driven education. The circle 2 discussions revealed the trend towards tourism being dominantly institutionalized in business and management schools. Consequently, the positivistic business-oriented approach concerned with marketing and management issues developed mainly in this period, and since then it has been in the forefront in tourism
studies. Hall et al. (2004) comment on this, arguing that an important number
of research efforts have been put into the determination of industry approaches or
the supply side definition of tourism. Airey (2008) calls this period the industrial stage or the vocational/managerial stage and refers to the growing tourism
sector and its corresponding employment needs and demand for students. The
Tourism Management journal, which now claims to be amongst the top three tourism journals, was established in 1980. This journal created an awareness among
tourism scholars of their relevance for the management of the tourist industry.
The American influence from which most of these management and marketing perspectives derive could be noted in the increasingly influential Journal of
Travel Research and its dominantly positivistic/quantitative studies of consumer
behaviour in tourism. As a result, a whole range of applied theories had begun
to emerge. For example, tourism typologies as explanatory models of behaviour
relating to identity and motivation were used for marketing segmentation purposes (Mazanec, 1984; Moutinho, 1987; Woodside & Carr, 1988). In line with the
dominant marketing and management perspectives, these contributions primarily valorized quantitative methodology only. The boom in tourism in Australasia
in the early 1990s was reflected in the increasing number of tourism management programmes and in the greater influence of industry and policy oriented
research conducted in Australia and New Zealand (i.e. by such prolific writers as
Michael Hall, Stephen Page and Chris Ryan). As the structure and nature of international tourism began to change, it created a need for various conceptualizations of special interest tourism and various types of travel (e.g. backpackers, eco
tourists, youth adventurers, wine tourists and volunteer travellers, to name but a
few). Management and marketing perspectives have appeared in order to answer
the questions Who?, What?, Where?, When? and How much? in order to improve the efficiency of tourism exchange between destinations, business organizations and tourists (Calantone & Mazanec, 1991).
While it would be going beyond the scope of this chapter to cite all the key concepts and works that have accumulated as a result of the growth in the number
of business-oriented academics over the last 40 years, it can be generally argued
that their goal is to produce generalizations and typologies that can contribute to
the management needs of the tourism industry and tourism policy makers. Disconnected in general from any bigger societal or political questions, their theories and concepts can be distinguished by their vocabulary of neoliberal ideology
that is dedicated to the promotion of market economies. Their concerns generally
comprise such issues as consumer satisfaction, product development opportunities, destination images and tourist perceptions, tourism typologies and market

147

segmentation, marketing planning, peak performance delivery in service, advertising and strategic market planning (Calantone & Mazanec, 1991).
It is important to note that business-oriented approaches have been crossfertilizing concepts and theories with other fields and disciplines, particularly
leisure and recreation studies, and that this has led to some important insights
into the management of public lands and services (Smith & Godbey, 1991). In
the continuing tradition of producing applied knowledge, more recent concerns
have been related to tourism in Asia and Eastern Europe (as important emerging
markets and destinations), ranging from issues of sustainability and the physical
and social carrying capacity of various tourist sites (e.g. beaches, islands, heritage sites), to issues of security and terrorism. While the range of their research
interests grows, one consistency remains: business-oriented points of view deny
any subjectivity in their epistemological stance, claiming only the objectivist approach based on quantitative methods of generalization (Riley & Love, 2000). In
order to satisfy their key purpose namely to support and reproduce the existing
socio-economic system and to satisfy the needs of the tourism industry and tourism policy their research goals are typically positivistic, namely to measure, describe, predict and generalize. While in a typically post-positivistic way the business point of view can overlap with the interpretative paradigm of searching for
an understanding and producing exploratory studies, it is the vocabulary of applied knowledge that reveals their epistemological positioning.
It is important to note, however, that despite the predominance of business
approaches, many disciplines have continued to be interested in tourism as a research context for bigger questions of politics, economy, culture and society, and
are thus widening the divide in the TS field. Tribe (1997; 2004) captures this divide by using a model in which the field of tourism (TF) equals TF1+TF2, where
TF1 represents the more positivistic and non-critical business management oriented approach and TF2 is the more interpretive and critical, albeit dispersed,
multidisciplinary non-business/social science approach. However, as the second
generation of non-business oriented scholars had begun to emerge in greater
numbers in the 2000s (and to join the first generation), they have started to integrate social science perspectives into foreground the new debates and approaches a move that Tribe (2005) describes as a turning point in the field of tourism
studies. He claims that a sign of increasing maturity is evidenced by more reflexivity and new tourism research which offers a counter-balance to tourism as a
business practice and which encourages researchers to follow innovative and radical lines of inquiry (2005: 5). To fulfil our objective of historical mapping, it is
this period of the new turn that will be looked at in our last discussion section.
Life begins at 403: the maturation phase of the TS field
It has been claimed that the maturation of tourism research is evidenced by a
whole range of initiatives and greater organization, made visible through new

148

journals, articles, networks and conferences (Tribe, 2005; Franklin, 2007; Airey,
2008). For example, Tourist Studies and Tourism and Cultural Change were established (in 2000 and 2003, respectively) to promote critical scholarship and innovative methodological and theoretical approaches in contrast to the positivistic
and more quantitative and empirical nature of business management studies. In
the efforts to build a more integrated interdisciplinary field of tourism studies
(Jamal & Kim, 2005), works have emerged that are innovative in that they analyse
tourism as a powerful agent connected to critical socio-political and economic
issues of sustainability, issues of mobility, social exclusion and injustice, heritage, governance, migration, urbanrural relations, nature conservation, human
and spatial marginalization, globalization, political representation, cultural commodification, consumption and social identities. The greater engagement with
tourism in the context of those issues by prominent social and cultural theorists
(John Urry, Chris Rojek, Barbara Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, etc.) has given greater
impetus to the social science trajectory, producing various turns that have been
variously labelled according to their particular agenda. For example, the Critical
Tourism Studies (CTS) network has officially proclaimed the critical turn in tourism studies through a series of conferences, books and journal articles, and has
now loosely gathered around 150 scholars in order to promote more interpretative and critical modes of inquiry in relation to the dominant positivist approach
of the tourism management school (Ateljevic et al., 2005; 2007; Pritchard et al.,
2007; Ateljevic et al., 2008). On the other hand, Aitchison (2006) speaks about
the cultural turn through which she recognizes the greater engagement of TS
scholars with the cultural theory of post-structuralist perspectives, and who deal
with issues of identity, cultural representations and symbolism. Hannam (2008)
advances the notion of the mobilities turn, and has recently established a new
journal called Mobilities (together with John Urry), arguing that that the concept
of mobilities helps us to understand global tourism in the context of other social
and spatial travel processes.
While many theoretically oriented scholars are dispersed across different networks and social fractions (e.g. RC 50 ISA; the International Geographical Union
Group; Academy for the International Study of Tourism (AIST); CTS; ATLAS), it
can be observed that in many ways the earlier tradition of first-generation critical scholars has been strengthened and extended to lift the interdisciplinary field
of tourism studies to a new level, which some call a post-disciplinary approach
(Coles et al., 2005). In their efforts to explore new theoretical grounds, Coles and
colleagues (ibid.) wish to disentangle tourism studies from its current definition
and research approach in order to lift it to an open yet integrated field that is
concerned with learning rather than disciplines. Hollinsheads (2008) concept
of tourism as a world-making phenomenon similarly emphasizes the potential of
post-disciplinary research outlooks for tourism scholars and their need to move
beyond hard domain boundaries of closed disciplinary and even interdisciplinary
systems of analysis.

149

It is important to note an important aspect of these new developments. The

early beginnings of the multidisciplinary critical social science interests in the
tourism phenomenon had a weak institutionalization that caused their dispersed and less visible position in relation to the growing and more prominent
business studies camp (Hall et al., 2004). On the other hand, the more recent
critically engaged tourism research has greater visibility as evidenced by the
greater organization of an increasing number of interdisciplinary scholars who
are based in business schools and/or did their Masters/PhDs in tourism studies/management. Their increasing numbers represent an institutional power;
they often lead or join this trend in order to bring purely theoretical and disciplinary based preoccupations together with the real world concerns (the second author illustrates the case in point, as noted in the prologue). In the process
of these critical deconstructions, a whole variety of philosophical, theoretical,
methodological and political questions have been raised. Philosophically and
epistemologically new or critical tourism research is critical of the structuralist approaches of the earlier modernist and colonial perspectives, allowing the
greater prominence of sub-paradigms such as post-structuralist, neo-Marxist,
critical realist, feminist and postmodern approaches. It goes beyond the essentialist dualisms such as core-periphery, first-third world, mind-body, subjectobject, us-them, feminine-masculine, self-Other. It is more than simply a way
of knowing. It is a way of being, a commitment to tourism inquiry that is prosocial justice, pro-equality and anti-oppression: it is an academy of hope. It transcends the ontological shift and paradigmatic transformations (Ateljevic et al.,
2007). It is about raising questions of social ref lexivity and researcher positionality in the entanglements of their academic and social structures (Ateljevic et
al., 2005; Nash, 2007).
Theoretically, it introduces an exciting array of new concepts, theories and
approaches that creates fertile cross-/inter-/post-disciplinary grounds for the TS
field. Although this might be simplifying matters, good examples are actor-network theory, embodiment and performance, gender analysis, non-representational theory, Foucauldian studies of power and discourses, post-colonial theories,
world-making and mobilities, etc. In other words, these innovative works take
tourism to the forefront of social science as a research context in which the questions of seeing, making, experiencing and sustaining the world have been explored. As a consequence, innovative and progressive methods and methodologies have been promoted, such as constructivism, ethno-methodology, projective
techniques, oral history, life-course analysis, the use of the survey method and
the solicited diary in feminist research, memory work, discourse analysis and auto-ethnography, to name a few (Ateljevic et al., 2007). In its endeavour to reveal
academic and social structures, the movement has an important political agenda
to emancipate and promote social justice and equality; to move from the efforts of
marking a difference to making a difference (Aitchison, 2007) in order to create
a truly just and sustainable world.

150

Despite the maturation signs, the three most important future challenges faced by the TS field can be observed at this point: to increase the efforts to
bring about a serious dialogue between business and non-business studies approaches in order to bring together pure theoretical preoccupations and empirical concerns of necessary social change; to change the public conception
of tourism as a frivolous service industry that mostly creates negative environmental, social and cultural impacts; and to move beyond the still dominant
Eurocentric perspectives and develop conceptualizations of tourisms that include multiple cultural differences, worldviews and research activities that ref lect and recognize the plurality of all practices, positions and insights (Pritchard & Morgan, 2007). In these times when the social sciences and the humanities are urged to become sites for critical conversations about democracy, race,
gender, class, nation-states, globalization, freedom and community (Denzin &
Lincoln, 2005:3), tourism social science which represents one of the biggest
contemporary phenomena of human movement and world-making ought to
respond. Pritchard and Morgan (2007: 26) reaffirm this opportunity for the
tourism academy to become an agency for positive transformation and to find
more spaces for dialogue, ref lexivity, equality, empowerment and co-created
knowledge in our scholarship.
Conclusion
In these times when we social scientists are asked to redefine our core aims, to
decide how [we] can regain a sense of common purpose and to develop a higher
and more respected profile in public life (Sayer, 2001: 83), we return to the appeal set out at the beginning of this chapter. In relation to the broader social science audience, we have illustrated how the nexus of individual actions and social, political and economic forces create our academic needs, fields and institutions, which are becoming increasingly hybrid and interdisciplinary. In doing
so, we have indicated two key issues. First, the positionality of interdisciplinary
scholars and the need to create an awareness of academic strategy of audiencing. Second, we have reaffirmed the notion of no value-free truth and how the
knowledge force-field of academic position, ends, person, rules and ideology inf luences the creation of academic knowledge. In terms of the appeal to tourism
scholars, we have pointed to the need to pause and provide some general sense
of direction in terms of how our field has been formed. The aim of presenting
an overview of the general trends and the main literatures was to provide insight into the main directions, issues, terminologies, paradigms, concepts and
approaches that have created the field as it is today. The socio-historical deconstruction of tourism studies over the last 40 years was not intended as a detailed
map, but as a general navigation system to guide us through its prolific outputs
and expose the current challenges we face.

151

Notes
1. The OECD brings together the governments of countries that are committed to democracy and the market economy from around the world in order to promote goals of
supporting sustainable economic growth; boosting employment; raising living standards; maintaining financial stability; assisting other countries economic development
and contribute to growth in world trade (as stated on their website). The Convention
on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development was signed in the
early 1960s by 21 countries, namely Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France,
Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway,
Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK and the USA. Since then, a further 10 countries have become members.
2. The World Bank became the major financier of tourism-related projects. Between
1969 and 1979, it supported 24 tourism projects in 18 countries with loans and credits
from the International Development Association (IDA) totalling some $459 million.
These were for resort developments along the Mediterranean coast and in Romania,
Bulgaria, Tunisia, Thailand, Mexico and the Caribbean (Pleumarom 1994).
3. Life begins at 40 has been borrowed from an article by David Airey (2008), in which
he argues that tourism education has finally matured after 40 years of existence.

Acknowledgement
The authors should like to acknowledge the editing feedback and assistance provided by
Marjolein Kloek.

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10 Systematizing Scientific Knowledge in

Sustainable Tourism, Poverty Reduction
and Nature Conservation
Valentina Tassone

he dominant discourse on sustainable development has drawn attention in

recent years to the need to link nature conservation and poverty alleviation issues. It has become clear that natural areas cannot exist in isolation from the human systems that share the same space, especially in developing countries where
natural resources are the major assets on which poor communities rely for their
survival (MEA, 2005). As a consequence, policies, plans and strategies oriented
towards poverty alleviation and environmental conservation have been given top
priority on the international agenda (e.g. MEA, 2005; NEPAD, 2001; UN, 2007;
World Bank, 2000).
Nevertheless, knowledge about the theories, roles and contribution of tourism
arrangements, policies and plans with regard to these issues appears to be going
through a process of debate and experimentation. Research studies seem to be
scattered and there is a clear need to systematize the knowledge produced. Some
recent studies that analysed the making and evolution of tourism academic knowledge have provided some interesting facts about trends and productivity in scientific research (Xiao & Smith, 2006a, 2006b; Jogaratnam et al., 2005). However,
these studies examined tourism research from a broad perspective; they did not
specifically look at the knowledge generated in the field of tourism, nature conservation and poverty reduction.
This paper addresses that gap. By analysing 67 scientific papers on tourism,
poverty alleviation and nature conservation issues that were published in 15 different social science journals in 20032006, this paper provides an indication of the
direction of past scientific research work and explores research trends, gaps and
opportunities while taking into account societal need. This analysis is a continuation of previous research (see Tassone et al., 2007; Tassone & van der Duim, 2008)
that focused on the development of a research agenda on sustainable tourism.
I first present the methodology used for mapping scientific knowledge. I then
identify and classify the main research topics addressed by past studies. This is
followed by an examination of the modes of knowledge production. I also present
a framework to cluster the knowledge produced according to the underlying fo-

159

cus and key objectives of past research. Then, based on the findings described in
the previous sections, I discuss societal needs and future research opportunities.
I end the paper with a conclusion.
Mapping scientific knowledge: the method
In order to identify the state of knowledge in tourism, poverty reduction and nature conservation, I analysed a number of studies that dealt with these issues.
Time constraints and practicalities imposed a restriction on the types and number
of studies I could examine. Considering the scientific focus of my analysis, I decided to scrutinize research papers published in a number of scientific journals in
the field of social science. I did not take into account research studies published
elsewhere (e.g. in books, conference proceedings or magazines).
After examining a number of scientific journals that represent the richness
and variety of perspectives and disciplines within social science, I selected 15 journals, including top journals in the tourism field and journals that deal with sustainability, global change issues and a variety of related social, environmental and
economic issues. These journals are: Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Journal of Tourism Research, Journal of Travel Research, Tourism Economics, Tourism Management, Tourist Studies and also Biodiversity and
Conservation, Ecological Economics, Environmental and Development Economics, Environment Development and Sustainability, Environmental Monitoring
and Assessment, Journal of Environmental Management, International Environmental Management and World Development.
I then selected a number of articles published in these journals in 20032006
by using a number of keywords that directly or indirectly address some typical issues in tourism, poverty reduction and nature protection. The keywords were chosen by considering the key issues raised and discussed by researchers and representatives of international governmental and non-governmental organizations
at the International Conference on Sustainable Tourism in Breda, in December
2006. The articles selected are those that discuss in a general or specific manner
tourism issues related to sustainability, poverty reduction and nature conservation, and that contain at least one of the following words/phrases in the title and/
or list of keywords: sustainability, community, stakeholder, poverty, nature, environment, protected area, impact, management, decision-making, social, cultural,
fund-raising, market mechanisms. Thus, a paper was not included in the analysis
if, for example, it contains one of the words listed above but does not refer to the
issues discussed in this book. Time constraints meant that I could not take into
account other important issues and aspects (pollution problems, climate change,
specific sea-coastal tourism issues, city tourism, etc.) that are gaining more and
more priority on the research agenda.
I selected 67 articles and then sorted them according to the main theme to
which they refer. I identified four themes, namely 1) tourism and poverty reduc-

160

tion, 2) tourism and nature conservation, 3) tourism, poverty reduction and nature
conservation, and 4) tourism and sustainability.
Theme 1 (tourism and poverty reduction) concerns the relation between tourism and poverty issues. Here, poverty includes not only the economic dimension,
but also the fair distribution of resources, gender equality, education, community
involvement, group cohesion, and any other tourism-related social or political arrangements and issues that may play a role in the life of the poor. Although the
relation between tourism, poverty and nature is of particular importance in developing countries, this analysis also includes studies on tourism and social poverty
related problems of developed nations, although it does not refer to issues related
to the economic development of these developed countries as a whole.
Theme 2 (tourism and nature conservation) encompasses all studies dealing
with the relation between tourism and nature protection. The term nature protection refers to the protection of the natural environment comprising animals, micro-organisms and vegetation. It refers to the preservation of threatened species,
the conservation of scarce resources, and the restoration or protection of ecosystems and biodiversity upon which human and other life depends. Specific air and
water issues are not included in this analysis.
Theme 3 (tourism, poverty reduction and nature conservation) concerns a theoretical and practical investigation of the links, potentials and outcomes of the relation between tourism, poverty reduction and nature protection.
Theme 4 (tourism and sustainability) concerns sustainable tourism in general
and includes concepts, theories and values that are related to sustainability. Papers
on this theme may also discuss specific issues related to nature protection and
poverty, but the accent lies on sustainability issues.
This analysis provides an overview of past trends and current gaps and needs in
tourism research that may guide and inspire a future research agenda. Although it
does not provide a picture of all the knowledge ever produced in the field of tourism, nature conservation and poverty reduction, the studies selected do provide a
suitable representation of research studies carried out in this field in recent years.
Domains of knowledge
After selecting the papers according to the words/phrases and themes detailed
above, I sorted them by topic, namely domain of knowledge. Only one main topic
addressed in each paper was taken into account. Thus, if a study simultaneously addresses more than one topic, the study was classified according to the main
topic discussed. I identified and classified domains of knowledge within each of
the selected themes by analysing the specific key research questions and aims that
each paper addresses. Table 1 presents an overview of the research topics of the
selected studies. According to my analysis, tourism and poverty reduction (theme
1) appears to be overlooked. Two main domains of research were identified. Some
studies deal with the ex post evaluation of tourism impacts on livelihood and main-

161

Table 1: Domains of academic knowledge (Source: based on Tassone & van der Duim, 2008)
Theme 1: Tourism and poverty reduction
Ex post impact evaluation
Community participation

Clifton & Benson, 2006; Dyer et al., 2003; Nyaupane et

al., 2006 ; Saayman & Saayman, 2006;
Briedenhann & Wickens, 2004; Tosun, 2006

studies
4
2

Theme 2: Tourism and nature conservation

Ethics and discourses
Ex post impact evaluation
Management

Environmental
performance of tourism
enterprises
Financing mechanisms
Stakeholders roles,
values and partnerships

Holden, 2005; Jamal et al., 2003; Shultis & Way, 2005

Hill & Pickering, 2006; Kuvan, 2005; Li et al., 2006; Li et
al., 2005; Priskin, 2003.
Brown, 2006; Buultjens et al., 2005; Cheng et al., 2005;
Gios et al, 2006; Henderson, 2005; Kenneth et al., 2004;
Kruger, 2005; Li, W., 2004; Okello & Kiringe, 2004;
Phillips & Jones, 2006; Sorice et al., 2006; Tisdell &
Wilson, 2005
Clarke, 2004; Herremans et al. 2005; Spenceley, 2006;
van der Duim & van Marwijk, 2006
Alpizar, 2006
Buckley, 2004; De Oliveira, 2005; Fairweather et al.,
2005; Fennell & Butler, 2003; Lewis & Newsome, 2003;
Medina, 2005; Naidoo & Adamowicz, 2005; Nyaupane et
al., 2004; Svoronou & Holden, 2006; Wurzinger &
Johansson, 2006

3
5
12

1
10

Theme 3: Tourism, poverty reduction and nature conservation

Ex post and ex ante
impact evaluation
Management
Stakeholders roles and
involvement
Communities attitudes
and intentions

Ex post: Gossling, 2003; Kontogeorgopoulos, 2005; Silori,

2004; Stone & Wall, 2004
Ex ante: Mbaiwa, 2004
Fennel & Weaver, 2005; Hawkins, 2004; Northcote &
Macbeth, 2006; Tsaur, 2006
Adams & Infield, 2003; Sithole, 2005; Li, 2006; Li, Y., 2004
Kuvan & Akan, 2005; Lai & Nepal, 2006; Sekhar, 2003

4
4
3

Theme 4: Tourism and sustainability

Concepts and approaches
Applications and methods
to evaluate sustainability

Choi & Sirakaya, 2006; Farrell et al., 2005; Ko, 2005;

Cottrell et al., 2004; Gezici, 2006; Jamal & Tanase, 2005;
Johnston & Tyrrell, 2005; Mbaiwa, 2005; Mycoo, 2006;
van der Duim & Caalders, 2004

3
7

According
my analysis,
tourism and poverty
reduction (theme
1) appears
to be
ly
focus ontoassessing
the sociocultural
and socio-economic
impacts
of tourism.
overlooked.
Two
main
of research
were identified.
studies
Other
studies
deal
withdomains
communities
participation,
examineSome
typologies
of deal
parwith the exinpost
evaluation
of tourism
on livelihood
and mainly
on
ticipation
tourism
development,
andimpacts
investigate
opportunities
for the focus
developassessing
the sociocultural
and socio-economic
impacts
of tourism.and
Other
studment
of tourism
through community
participation
and cooperation
partneries deal
with communities
ships
between
local areas. participation, examine typologies of participation in

162

Tourism and nature conservation (theme 2) appears to be a well studied theme.

A number of papers focus on ethics and discourses, discuss the philosophical
changes in the conceptions of protected areas and conservation principles in relation to tourism management, and present a conceptual analysis of human relationships and the natural world. Impact evaluation studies deal with the ex post
assessment of the impacts of tourism projects, policies and plans on natural resources. Other studies focus on management issues while dealing with impacts
in a more indirect way. They analyse the strengths and weakness of management
measures, identify new management strategies, and discuss the problems and
consequences of tourism management. Some researchers discuss the environmental performance of tourism enterprises and the sustainability of these enterprises. One study dealing with financing mechanisms examines the pricing
of protected areas in nature-based tourism. Another group of papers investigate
stakeholders roles, values and partnerships. They focus on the role of stakeholders in planning and decision-making, look at stakeholders values, perspectives
and behaviours related to tourism, investigate peoples preferences and willingness to pay for protected areas, and discuss partnerships among stakeholders.
Within the theme tourism, poverty reduction and nature conservation (theme
3), a number of studies deal with the economic, sociocultural and environmental
impacts of tourism. The majority of authors focus on the ex post evaluation of tourism impacts. Some studies discuss tourism management issues in relation to the
environment and to poverty. A number of papers deal with stakeholders roles and
involvement in decision-making and tourism development. Communities attitudes and intentions towards potential tourism development are also investigated.
Finally, the theme tourism and sustainability (theme 4) includes a few research
studies that describe concepts and approaches to sustainability, and some others
that focus on methods to evaluate the sustainability of projects, plans and policies.
Modes of knowledge production
The academic research agenda and the output of a researcher or research institute
are often a result of complex negotiations between the agendas of universities,
financing institutes, conservation and development organizations, international
communities, governmental agencies, the tourism industry, and the theoretical
and paradigmatic interests and programmes of the researcher and the scientific
community in which he or she participates.
Although in practice we thus have to deal with boundaries that are difficult to
draw, we can make an analytical distinction between two ways in which the selection of a research topic is made (see also Lengkeek & Platenkamp, 2006). First,
a wide variety of practical concerns may present topics for research. In this mode
of knowledge production, research is primarily problem oriented. The knowledge
produced by research is oriented towards possible applications and use. This type
of knowledge production often accepts the socio-political, economic or cultural

163

context both as a given and as a source of problems. Second, an equally wide range
of topics for research derive from scientific and intellectual interest. Here, the research is concept oriented, that is, oriented towards the development of theory,
concepts and new methodologies, which are intended to enable us to explain societal phenomenon in a more positivistic tradition, or to interpret and understand
meanings in a more phenomenological perspective. Here, concepts are abstracted
from the daily context, as far as such is possible.
In this paper, the mode of knowledge production of the selected studies is discussed by classifying these studies according to the problem-oriented or conceptoriented mode. The results of this research indicate that about 76% of the papers
analysed are problem oriented. These studies focus on practical tourism oriented
matters in relation to poverty reduction, nature conservation and sustainability.
They often aim to increase the clarity about and understanding of specific problemoriented questions and issues, to assess the impacts and the effectiveness of policies
and projects (e.g. Clifton & Benson, 2006; Hill & Pickering, 2006; Li et al., 2006;
Tisdell & Wilson, 2005), to identify specific management strategies that bring sustainable outcomes (e.g. Alpizar, 2006; Phillips & Jones, 2006; Sorice et al., 2006;
Stone & Wall), to analyse stakeholders relationships and values (e.g. Brown, 2006;
De Oliviera, 2005; Gios et al., 2006; Lewis & Newsome, 2003; Naidoo & Adamowics, 2005; Sithole, 2005; Svoronou & Holden, 2006) and to investigate the outcomes and prospects of partnerships among various actors (e.g. Buckley, 2004).
Although a remarkable number of papers deal with problem-oriented research, the
results appear fragmented, scarcely comparable and limited in scope. These studies mainly focus on the application of existing approaches, such as regression analysis, contingent valuation, the Delphi method and GIS applications.
About 9% of the papers are concept-oriented. Some of them focus on ethical
issues, discourses, philosophical reflections about the role of protected areas and
the relation between humans and nature, and conceptual approaches to managing natural assets (Jamal et al., 2003; Holden 2005; Hughey et al., 2004; Shultis
& Way, 2005). A number of authors discuss concepts and aspects of sustainability
science and its evolution and meaning (Farrel et al., 2005; Johnston and Tyrrell,
2005). The majority of the studies focus on the relation between tourism and nature and the concept of sustainability, but there are no studies discussing poverty
issues, the multidimensional nature of poverty or equity matters. In addition, little attention is paid to the development of innovative approaches and frameworks.
At first sight, there seems to be a gap between problem-oriented and conceptoriented modes of knowledge production, not only in relation to how knowledge
is produced but also in terms of outcome. Problem-oriented research may be perceived as useful and as able to provide concrete answers and solutions to policy and daily issues, but may not necessarily contribute to the advancement of
science. On the other hand, concept-oriented research may be scientifically appealing but may be perceived as too abstract or as practically irrelevant. However,
this dichotomy is partly false as the two modes of knowledge production are and

164

should be closely linked and interrelated. The development of new theories and
models as well as reflective thoughts about concepts and methods can provide
the philosophical, conceptual and methodological ground upon which practical
research can be implemented. At the same time, concrete results in the field can
inform science by identifying societal needs and current theoretical and methodological constraints that require attention and further investigation.
Figure 1 Geographical distribution of case studies
9
8

N Case studies

7
6
5

Tourism-Poverty

Tourism-Nature
Sustainable Tourism

Tourism-Poverty-Nature

2
1
0
Europe Oceania

Asia

Africa

South Central North

America America America

The analysis suggests that about 15% of the selected studies are the result of a
particular blending of problem-oriented and concept-oriented research. This
mix shows the existing link and inter-relation between the two modes of knowledge production. These studies mainly focus on conceptually discussing new approaches, frameworks or methods while presenting them in specific contexts or
by means of particular case studies. Some of these papers examine the relation
between tourism and poverty or between tourism and nature (or a combination
thereof) and investigate the nature of stakeholders interactions and partnerships
(e.g. Fennell & Butler, 2003; Fennel & Weaver, 2005; Gossling, 2003; Medina,
2005; Spenceley, 2006; Tosun, 2006). Other authors examine the multidimensionality of the sustainability concept and sustainability evaluation issues (e.g.
Choi & Sirakaya, 2006; Farrel et al., 2005; Ko, 2005).
The majority of problem-oriented studies and of those that are a mix of problem-oriented and concept-oriented research focus on the application of specific
case studies in a number of regions. The results depicted in figure 1 suggest that
case studies that examine tourism and poverty issues are highly overlooked. They
are completely absent from some critical regions that are suffering from serious
poverty issues (e.g. Asia, South America and Central America). Tourism and nature conservation research is spread all over the world, especially across Oceania,

165

Europe and Asia, while sustainable tourism studies focus especially on Europe. Finally, integrated studies on tourism, poverty and nature conservation have mainly
been carried out in Asia and Africa.
Clustering knowledge production
After classifying the research studies according to their themes, main topics and
modes of knowledge production, I classified and structured them into clusters according to the underlying focus and key objectives of the research reported on in
each study. A variety of conceptual frameworks can be used to examine and structure the knowledge produced, but any clustering is arbitrary and imperfect. After
analysing the research approaches and methods presented in each paper, examining the research topics discussed and struggling for some time with organizing
the knowledge generated, I established that all papers could fit into one of the four
clusters presented in figure 2, namely valuation, impact assessment and management, stakeholder processes, and critical analysis. Clusters are often linked to one
another and may support and complement each other.
Figure 2: Clustering knowledge production. Source: adapted from Meyer, 2006 and Tassone
et al., 2007

Sustainable Tourism,
Poverty Alleviation & Nature Conservation
Impact Assessment &
Management

Valuation

Stakeholders Issues & Processes

Critical analysis

Figure 3: Clustering
knowledge production
Valuation studies
Source: adapted from Meyer, 2006 and Tassone et al., 2007

Such studies include approaches and results that are related to the estimation of
values that certain goods, services or experiences have for, for example, individuals or society. The process and the results of such valuation studies depend on the
perspective considered. From the economic perspective, valuation studies often
focus on assigning a monetary value to goods and services through market price
when feasible or through other indirect methods (see e.g. Pearce et al., 2006).
From the ecological point of view, the valuation process focuses on identifying
and measuring the role and importance of the attributes or functions of an ecosys-

166

tem (see e.g. de Groot, 1992; de Groot et al., 2002). In sociology, research focuses
on the qualitative analysis of social and cultural values, exploring tourists experience values of nature, etc. (see e.g. Lengkeek, 2001). My findings reveal that valuation analysis has been overlooked in tourism studies. The few papers that do deal
with valuation focus mainly on investigating ecological values. Valuation is often
used to estimate the benefits provided by natural resources, which can be useful
for the development of appropriate tourism management strategies (e.g. Brown,
2006; Gios et al., 2006; Naaido & Adamowicz, 2005). Not much methodological
innovation is produced in this cluster.
Impact assessment and management studies
These studies focus on the quantitative and qualitative assessment of the impacts
of certain strategies and on management issues. Research included in the previous cluster (valuation) differs from research on impact assessment and management, although the two types of studies are very often interlinked. While valuation
studies focus on, for example, identifying and assigning the ecological, social and
economic values that a national park has, impact assessment and management
studies take advantage of this information but focus mainly on assessing the positive or negative consequences of certain arrangements, projects and plans in that
specific park and strive to identify good management strategies.
Impact assessment and management studies include a variety of ecological,
economic and sociological oriented studies. In the case of potential plans (i.e. ex
ante evaluation studies), they may facilitate the identification of management and
planning strategies leading to the desirable outcome; in the case of current and
past projects (i.e. ex post evaluation studies), they may highlight the consequences and propose changes. Some approaches available in ecology environmental
risk assessment, carrying capacity calculation, ecological footprint, environmental
impact assessment, etc. can be useful when assessing environmental impacts
and identifying good environmental management strategies. In economics, the
various approaches such as cost-benefit analysis or cost-effectiveness analysis
are aimed mainly at assessing the impacts in terms of economic profitability and
identifying management strategies that are the most profitable or the cheapest.
From a social perspective, studies focus on the development of socially meaningful management strategies, on the analysis of the impacts on society, and on
the way people live, work, play, relate to one another, organize to meet their needs
and generally cope as members of society. Examples of social methods are social
impact assessment and social risk assessment.
From the sustainability point of view, the ecological, economic and social perspectives are considered simultaneously. In this case, approaches and frameworks
(e.g. sustainability indicators and multi-criteria analysis) may look at issues from
a integrated point of view by taking into account the different perspectives. The
remarkable number of impact and management studies indicates the growing so-

167

cial concern about the effects of tourism and how to effectively manage tourism.
Research in this field is mainly driven by case studies and there is sometimes an
attempt to integrate ecological, economic and social approaches and methods.
However, the studies are scattered, empirical research is lacking, and existing
approaches lack a coherent framework around which natural assets and poverty
issues can be clustered and managed consistently. Integrated approaches that look
holistically at the various aspects of tourism and the variety of its consequences
should be further investigated. Monitoring, evaluation and management frameworks should be further developed in order to take into account the complexity
and uncertainty related to the tourism system. It should be examined what potential value the science of complexity has for tourism management and governmental and non-governmental policies. Research could also focus on adaptive management as a way of dealing with uncertainty and unpredictability. Furthermore, research should look not only at the overall benefits derived from tourism, but also
at equity issues and the distribution of environmental, economic and social benefits among stakeholders and especially among the poor. Additionally, studies focus
almost entirely on the ex post evaluation of arrangements and policies; therefore, a
future research agenda should include ex ante evaluation studies that can provide
useful information when establishing new plans and strategies.
Stakeholder issues and processes
These refer to issues among stakeholders and to processes that bring different
stakeholders into dialogue and constructive engagement.The valuation and impact
assessment and management studies just discussed often directly or indirectly take
into account stakeholders preferences, opinions, needs, desires, well-being, etc.
Stakeholders are actors that can have different forms, sizes and capacities; they can
be individuals, organizations or unorganized groups. Issues and processes among
stakeholders can differ according to the objectives (e.g. policy-making and implementation issues, natural resource management, distribution of resources), the
scale (local, national, global), the type of participants involved (local communities,
business, government, NGOs, scientists), etc. This analysis suggests that the majority of research studies in this cluster focus mainly on investigating the roles and
perspectives of various actors in tourism. It is clear that actors (nature conservation organizations, development organizations, market parties, governmental bodies, etc.) can differently give meaning to and deal with tourism and sustainability.
In other words, the actors might have different modes of ordering (van der
Duim, 2005). In order to contribute to global change, future research should investigate and identify new arrangements that integrate the different perspectives
of stakeholders, new types of institutional mechanisms, and new forms of multiactor and multilevel governance. Therefore, innovative forms of globallocal interactions, publicprivate partnerships, ecotourism ventures, pro-poor tourism
strategies, etc. need to be found and set in place. These arrangements can contrib-

168

ute to reordering tourism by translating poverty and nature conservation into the
process of tourism development, and vice versa. Furthermore, attention should be
paid to the role of the poor in potential partnerships and arrangements. Modes of
participation of poor communities in the decision-making process according to
the local socio-political constraints and existing institutional arrangements should
be further investigated. Research should also explore various ways to socially and
politically empower local communities.
Critical analysis
Critical analysis examines sustainable tourism, poverty alleviation and nature conservation and the previously mentioned clusters from a critical perspective, making use of insights from, for example, political economy, political geography, political ecology and political sociology. Here, disciplines intersect with political sciences by conceptualizing the relation between tourism, nature conservation and
poverty alleviation in terms of more general development theories, and by linking
this relation to political, economic and social structures and relations of power,
politics, systems of government and economic organization and, more recently,
processes of globalization and complexity issues.
The work of Farrell and Twining-Ward (2005) and that of Shultis and Way
(2005) are examples of critical studies in tourism research. Future research should
focus on critically examining tourism and its role for nature conservation and poverty; it should especially focus on the role of tourism for poverty and the multiple dimensions of poverty, considering that there is a lack of studies that address
these issues. Studies should also focus on investigating the evolution of the concept and meaning of sustainability for tourism, and vice versa.
Figure 3 shows the number of times (frequency) that a specific cluster is discussed in the papers I analysed. Each paper may refer to one or more clusters.
Figure 3: Distribution of papers according to research clusters
35
30
25
20

Tourism-Poverty

15

Tourism-Nature
Sustainable Tourism

10

Tourism-Poverty-Nature

5
0
Valuation

Impact
Stakeholders Critical analysis
assessment and issues and
management
processes

169

Societal needs and opportunities in research

The vast array of problem-oriented research and that driven by case studies might
at first give the impression that the research carried out in the past years in sustainable tourism, poverty alleviation and nature conservation was very much focused on contributing to enriching knowledge about concrete societal issues and
needs. A more comprehensive examination of the topics, the research questions
and the findings of the papers analysed revealed that several major societal and
global concerns were very much overlooked in the studies.
There is a lack of studies that focus on and discuss the contribution of tourism to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), namely the eradication of
extreme poverty and hunger (MDG 1), gender equality (MDG 3), environmental
sustainability (MDG 7) and the development of global partnership (MDG 8). In
2007 that is, at the midpoint between the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals in 2000 and the target date for achieving them (2015) the UN clearly
stated that some countries, for example sub-Saharan Africa, were not on track to
achieve any of the Goals. In these areas, tourism can play an important role in the
achievement of the Goals because of its already significant contribution to African
economies and because tourism in Africa is proving increasingly competitive and
the long-term prospects seem to be very positive. For example, Africas comparative advantage in wilderness and wildlife is likely to increase in value as such assets become scarcer globally (Ashley & Mitchell, 2005).
Although UN policy makers and researchers stress that the capacity to systematically measure, monitor and report on the progress of the various initiatives is at
the heart of a sustainable development policy and the achievement of the MDGs
(Nature, 2007; NEPAD, 2001; UN, 2007), there is a lack of monitoring and evaluation studies. Research in the tourism field is needed to investigate, monitor and
evaluate the actual or potential contribution of tourism to the achievement of any
of these specific objectives.
Another important aspect is the need for comparative analysis across destinations. The literature analysed predominantly consists of case studies on unique
destinations in various regions. They provide results and reflections on management, impacts or other specific issues in a certain area. Although it is clear that
the constraints, challenges and opportunities posed by tourism differ across locations, it is evident that NGOs and other organizations are eager to increase their
knowledge about a number of critical factors that influence the outcome of tourism for poverty alleviation and nature conservation. By taking into account the
specific institutional, socio-political, economic and ecological contexts and interrelations in which tourism projects are developed and implemented, research
should attempt to identify and isolate underlying factors across destinations that
contributed to the effectiveness of tourism for poverty and for nature, or failed to
do so. Rather than providing a fixed set of rules, comparative analysis can provide
a set of options and elements upon which to reflect before the implementation

170

of certain tourism arrangements and plans. There is a methodological need to

elaborate new comparative approaches. Meaningful frameworks for comparative
analysis that take into account conceptual and methodological issues, limitations
and constraint, while delivering the benefits of such analysis, should be developed
and carefully investigated (Baum, 1999). For this purpose, tourism research could
build on the experience gained in other fields within social science such as politics, sociology and public policy, which have invested heavily in the development
and application of comparative methodologies (Pearce, 1993).
For a number of years, societal organizations have been pointing out that tourism can play a very important role in providing sustainable financing for protected
areas and creating incentive measures for managing natural resources and supporting the poor. NGOs and other organizations have made some attempts to investigate and evaluate current financing mechanisms and to identify new ones
that can support both the poor and nature (Landell-Mills & Porras, 2002; Font,
2004; WWF, 2006). As regards financing opportunities to manage natural resource and protect nature, not much has been done to develop innovative types of
payment schemes, that is, schemes apart from entrance and user fees, taxes and
site-specific negotiation, and donations (Gutman, 2003).
Very little is known about the impact of such schemes on the locals and on the
poor. Research can contribute by providing knowledge about the application and
the effectiveness of current mechanisms and by increasing their level of sophistication. New arrangements should therefore be investigated. For example, it could
be possible to create a niche market for community-based nature tourism whereby communities, instead of selling access to land via tour operators, start up their
own businesses (joint venture mechanisms); however, research is needed to assess their potential and their effectiveness. The socio-economic context in which
new partnerships and arrangements are taking place should also be carefully examined. Locals often start their own businesses in the form of small-scale establishments (e.g. souvenir shops or simple guest-houses in attractive natural areas),
but their survival is severely threatened by large-scale tourism business. Many
small-scale businesses cannot survive as a result of strong competition under imperfect market conditions (Tosun, 2005).
Finally, societal organizations often include tourism as a part of a broader policy or plan, whereas tourism itself may not be the only strategy used in the development plan for a certain area. The challenge for researchers is to identify ways
and methods to isolate the impacts of tourism from the impacts of the alternative
strategies that are included in the same policy or plan.
Conclusion
This article reported on an examination of 67 articles that were published in 15
peer-reviewed journals in the period 20032006. The results were presented in
accordance with themes, topics and modes of knowledge production. The scien-

171

tific knowledge was systematized in a number of clusters according to the underlying focus and key objectives of the research studies. Case studies and their distribution among regions were scrutinized.
The findings of this study suggest that research on poverty issues is very much
overlooked and that there is a clear need to investigate the effectiveness of tourism strategies for the poor (see also van der Duim, this volume). Distribution
of resources, equity issues, community involvement, group cohesion, and potential partnerships and arrangements should be carefully examined. Researchers should also deepen their understanding of the interconnection and interdependency of poverty, tourism and nature conservation issues. Problem-oriented
research should be less fragmented and broader in its scope. Case studies should
be more spread among regions and focus on less researched topics, such as poverty and sustainability issues in developing countries. Concept-oriented research
should be higher on the research agenda, also because it provides the philosophical, conceptual and methodological ground upon which practical research can be
implemented. The development of new concepts and frameworks and innovative
ways of combining existing approaches is very much needed.
Future research should take into account the interdependence of science and
society and investigate societal relevant issues. Monitoring and evaluation studies
could provide meaningful answers to the question concerning the contribution of
tourism to the Millennium Development Goals. The long-term assessment of tourism arrangements, policies and plans, comparative analyses across destinations
and innovative financing mechanisms could make an important contribution to
the sustainable development of tourism. Studies that investigate how to integrate
complexity theory into tourism management and governmental and non-governmental policies can provide useful insights related to management and governance. Research is therefore required to promptly address and investigate these and
other urgent critical issues in order to contribute to the production of scientifically
robust and socially meaningful knowledge at a global and a local level.
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11 Exploring Pro-poor Tourism Research:

The State of the Art
Ren van der Duim

ince the Earth Summit at Rio in 1992, there have been countless workshops,
meetings, conferences and policy documents on the relation between tourism
and sustainable development, and a substantial literature on sustainable tourism
has emerged. These publications and articles in journals range from attempts to
make a conceptual connection between the concerns of sustainable tourism and
those of sustainable development (Hunter, 1995, 1997; Sharpley, 2000; Hardy et
al., 2002), to management-oriented literature that promotes approaches and tools
to better integrate tourism development with the protection of the natural (or cultural) environment at tourist destination areas.
At around the turn of the new century, this discussion on sustainable tourism
development was enriched with the concept of pro-poor tourism (PPT). It was
first introduced in a report for the UK Department for International Development
(DfID) in 1999 (Bennet et al., 1999); since then it has been adopted by key tourism
and donor organizations such as the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO),
the UK-based Overseas Development Institute (ODI), the SNV Netherlands Development Organization (SNV) and the Asian Development Bank (Meyer, 2007).
PPT is generally defined as tourism that generates net benefits for the poor.
These benefits may be economic and environmental as well as social and cultural, although socio-economic impacts generally receive most of the attention. According to the Pro-poor Tourism Partnership (www.propoortourism.org.uk) in
the UK, PPT should not be considered a specific product or sector of tourism, but
an overall approach. Strategies for making tourism pro-poor focus specifically
on unlocking opportunities for the poor within tourism (see Ashley et al., 2001).
In practice, the focus and scale of PPT initiatives vary enormously, from including tourism in national poverty reduction strategies to organizing smallscale community-based tourism projects; and from creating linkages between international tourism companies and the poor, to capacity building and providing
training and technical assistance. There are obviously many ways forward in PPT.
Here, I first discuss the origin of the concept of PPT in a historical perspective,
showing that liberal, neoliberal, critical and alternative development approaches
have all contributed in some way to the growth of interest in PPT. I then examine the current state of research in the field of PPT and discuss the way forward

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for PPT-related research. In this, I stress the need for more comparative and longitudinal research projects to assess the impacts of PPT strategies and interventions in order to substantiate the promises of PPT and to further the theoretical,
methodological and conceptual underpinning of this type of research. Moreover,
I argue that there is a need to critically analyse how people and organizations (especially development organizations) construct or have constructed PPT and initiated research to substantiate PPT.
A short history
The current discussion of PPT builds on a long tradition of debates about the relationship between tourism and development. Since the 1940s, aid programmes
have been developed in an attempt to transfer wealth and expertise to what used
to be known as the third world. However, many of these attempts have been met
with scepticism, especially amongst academics; in addition, large-scale tourism
has sometimes encountered virulent hostility (Harrison, 2008: 24). The relationship between tourism and development and the related definitions of good
and bad tourism have been conceptualized over time in a variety of ways. Liberal, neoliberal, critical and alternative development approaches have all contributed in some way to the growth of interest in PPT, although it has been particularly influenced by neoliberal and alternative development thinking (see Scheyvens, 2007: 236237).
The early liberal approach to tourism was embodied by the logic of modernization theory. In the 1950s and 1960s, tourism was identified as a potential modernization strategy that could help newly independent third world countries to
earn foreign exchange. Tourism was promoted as a development strategy to transfer technology, to increase employment and GDP, to attract foreign capital and
to promote a modern way of life that had Western values (see Sharpley & Telfer, 2002: 52; Scheyvens, 2007). This boosterism approach was based on the
assumption that tourisms contribution to national economic development is a
function of the size of the sector. It follows that growth is good, and that rapid
growth is even better. However, the approach did not include specific PPT measures (see Ashley & Mitchell, 2008: 15).
Influenced by dependency and political economy theory and structuralist
schools of thought, many social scientists soon started arguing that poor people and non-Western countries are typically excluded from or disadvantaged by
what tourism can offer (Scheyvens, 2007: 231). According to the dependency theory, underdevelopment is a result of exploitation by developed countries. Global
capitalistic political and economic relations are such that wealthier, more powerful Western nations are able to exploit weaker, peripheral nations, thereby limiting developmental opportunities in less developed countries (Telfer & Sharpley,
2008). Indeed, authors like Turner and Ash (1975), Krippendorf (1975), Armanski (1978), Prahl and Steinecke (1979) and Britton (1982) were amongst the first

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to warn of the possibly detrimental economic, environmental and social effects

of tourism and to point at core-periphery relationships that prevent destinations
from fully benefiting from tourism. For example, Armanskis critique was outspoken: Die planlose profitoreintierte Expansion hat fr immer viele Orte und
Landschaften verschandelt, die sie den Touristen als ideale Erholungsgebiete anpreist. Der Tourismus hat zwar Dornrschen geweckt sie aber sogleich in eine
Dienstmagd verwandelt, die onhmachtig der Zerstrung ihrer vertrauter Umgebung zusehen muss (Armanski, 1978: 56).
Table 1: Changing perceptions of the relation between tourism and development. (After Ashley
purely local, while first category roads are mainly structured on their periph
& Harrison, 2007; Scheyvens, 2007; Sharpley & Telfer, 2002; Telfer & Sharpley, 2008)

Developmentapproach

Whatisgoodtourism?

Modernization

Lotsoftourists(boosterism),asthey
contributetoeconomicgrowth,employment
generationandforeignexchange;benefitswill
trickledown

1970s

Underdevelopment/
dependency

None;astourismisassociatedwith
dependenceonforeigncapitalandexpertise
andwithgrowingsocialandeconomic
disparities,andoftenundermineslocal
cultures

Mid1970s
and1980s

Neoliberalism

Privatesectortourismdevelopment;primacy
ofthefreecompetitivemarkets,privatization
asthewayout

1970sand
early1980s

Alternative
development

Smallscalecommunitybasedtourism/
ecotourism/sustainabletourism

1990s
onwards

Postdevelopment

Dissentingviewpoints:tourismisneither
goodnorbad,butacomplexsystemin
whichlocalpeoplemaybeabletoresist,
subvert,manipulateortransformtourism

1950sand
1960s

In their famous book The Golden Hordes, Turner and Ash (1975:15) referred to
tourism destinations as the pleasure periphery and declared that international
tourism is like King Midas in reverse; a device for the systematic destruction of
everything that is beautiful in the world.
The neoliberal tourism agenda of the 1970s and 1980s resembled the modernization paradigm, but now stressed the role of the free market and minimized
that of the state. In order to strengthen the role of tourism as an export industry,
international organizations like the EU and the World Bank (through its International Finance Corporation; IFC) invested in infrastructure, product and market
development, and strategy development. The structural adjustment programmes
inspired by the World Bank and the IMF also highlighted the strategic importance of the private sector in the development of tourism and reduced the role of

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governments to providing investment incentives that were intended to stimulate

the participation of private companies in the tourism sector (see Sharpley & Telfer, 2002: 5658; Harrison, 2008: 2; Hawkins & Mann, 2008).
Alternative approaches to tourism development emerged as a result of the preand post-Rio discussions on sustainable development. These approaches were informed by a number of bodies of thinking that focused on grass-roots development and embraced ideas about participation, equity, gender sensitivity and empowerment (Scheyvens, 2007: 240). Just as development theorists were tending
to become dissatisfied with existing development philosophies, tourism analysts
became disillusioned with mass tourism in favour of community-based tourism,
small-scale and locally owned developments and alternative forms of tourism
(Sharpley & Telfer, 2002). Whereas in the 1980s and 1990s, ecotourism dominated the development agenda in an attempt to promote the environmental management of tourism, in the last decade increased attention has been paid to the equity dimensions of sustainable development, which has led to new interest in the
community as a critical element in achieving development goals and diversifying
the livelihood options of the poor. This subsequently evoked a new interest in the
relation between tourism development and pro-poor strategies (Hall, 2007: 112).
As development studies in the 1980s and 1990s reached what has been called
an impasse (Schuurmans, 1996), a diversity of theories, approaches and voices
emerged, some of which share ideas that are similar to concepts from the past.
This post-development period (Telfer & Sharpley, 2008) or post-structuralist period (Scheyvens, 2007) also inspired especially development organizations to rethink the relation between tourism and poverty. Although the focus on tourism
as a poverty alleviator was not new and has never been entirely absent from the
tourism-development debate, at the end of the 1990s specific PPT approaches
were promoted in the UK by a small group of researchers and consultants. The
aim of these approaches was to go beyond both the boosterism approach as it
did not include pro-poor measures and a community-based approach. Although
community-based tourism projects have been and still are driven by distributional objectives (i.e. the desire to assist a specific poor community), they did not, and
often still do not, pay attention to opportunity costs, that is, to whether channelling donor resources to other parts of the tourism chain would deliver a greater pro-poor impact, and whether the substantial investment likely to be needed
would be justified by the community returns (see Ashley & Mitchell, 2008).
The concept of PPT is now regarded as an overall approach that is specifically
focused on unlocking opportunities for the poor within tourism. Essential here is
that tourism is not necessarily only small-scale and alternative, as previously proposed in alternative approaches; instead, PPT seeks to harness the industry as a
whole to contribute to development aims (Meyer, 2007). PPT pays specific attention to obstacles that constrain the poors greater participation in tourism. And
whereas liberals and neoliberals commonly believed that tourism-induced benefits brought about by economic growth would eventually trickle down to the local

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poor through multiple channels, contemporary PPT approaches aim to establish

a direct link between tourism and poverty alleviation and emphasize the voices
and needs of the poor in tourism development. The poor have become the focus
of concern (Zhao & Ritchie, 2007: 120). As PPT includes a variety of approaches,
initiatives and strategies, it clearly amalgamates different theoretical frameworks:
liberal, neoliberal, critical and alternative development approaches have all contributed in some way to the growth of interest in PPT (see Scheyvens, 2007: 236;
Telfer & Sharpley, 2008).
This PPT field has developed in great part through the Pro-poor Tourism
Partnership in the UK, the UNWTOs Sustainable Tourism Eliminating Poverty
(STEP) Programme and the work of the tourism advisers of the SNV. The Propoor Tourism Partnership is a collaborative research initiative between the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), the Centre for
Responsible Tourism (CRT) and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI). In
2000, ODI initiated a research project to analyse the theoretical basis of PPT and
examine case studies of tourism in practice (Ashley et al., 2001). Since then, the
Pro-poor Tourism Partnership has been responsible for a wide range of primarily empirical studies of PPT, many of which were funded by the DfID and ODI
(Scheyvens, 2007: 235). According to Scheyvens, the Partnership seems to have
a broad, holistic notion that is at least partly inspired by alternative development
theory. However, it also firmly believes that it is important to bring about changes in mainstream tourism, including challenging corporations to change the way
they operate, rather than to establish numerous community run bungalow-style
ventures with dubious business prospects (ibid.: 244).
The STEP initiative was launched in 2002 at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development. During the summit, the UNWTO invited UN
agencies, governments, donor agencies, NGOs and other stakeholders to unite
in a concerted effort to use the socio-economic benefits that derive from tourism to actively combat poverty throughout the world. Some 50 STEP projects are
currently being implemented in around 30 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin
America. The aim of the STEP projects is to enhance the local economic impact of
tourism by, for example, improving the performance of small and medium-sized
tourism enterprises, establishing PPT business linkages between tourism resorts
and neighbouring communities, and using fees, taxes and donations generated
from tourism development for the benefit of the poor (Leijzer, 2007).
However, despite the UNWTOs green and pro-poor agenda, it is basically
following a neoliberal approach and its main aim is still to promote economic
growth through tourism. This ambiguity is often criticized. On the one hand,
the UNWTO has been criticized for focusing primarily on promoting the development of tourism. Particularly the Third World Network voiced this critique in
articles written by Pleumaron (2002 a and b). For example: In conclusion, the
WTO-OMT is an elitist and closed club, dominated by the interests of rich countries and tourism business leaders, and there is little, if any, space for critical voic-

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es from civic groups in the Third World. Although NGOs can apply for affiliate
membership, the annual fee of US$ 1,700 is too high for grass roots organizations (Pleumaron, 2002b: 6).
On the other hand, the UNWTO tries to be a meeting point in almost all discussions on sustainable tourism development, including recent debates on tourism and climate change and tourism and gender. Remarkably enough, the organization seems aware of the dual image of international tourism and its two completely different faces (see WTO, 2002: 56) and of the dual role the UNWTO plays
in this field. In its contribution to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002, the UNWTO concluded that substantive progress
had been made in terms of increased awareness of sustainability issues among all
tourism stakeholders, especially public administrations, and in terms of the availability of hard and soft technological solutions to overcome the negative environmental and sociocultural impacts of tourism. But it also recognized that: Sustainable tourism approaches, policies and plans are not always consistently followed
and applied by all nations, at all tourism destinations and by all actors in the tourism process. There are many factors that prevent a more systematic application of
declared policies and the implementation of tourism development plans (Ibid.).
Table 2: Main features of PPT. Source: Harrison (2008)
PPTisnot:

PPTdoes:

anticapitalist

focusonincorporatingthepoorintomarkets

separatefromtherestoftourism

dependonexistingstructuresandmarkets

anichetypeoftourism(e.g.
communitybasedtourism)

orientatetowardsprovidingthenetbenefitsof
tourismtothepoor

aspecificmethod

usedifferentmethodstocollectandanalysedata,
includingvaluechainanalysis

onlyaboutthepoor

recognizethatthepoorestmaynotbetouchedby
PPTandthatthenonpoormaybenefit
disproportionately

justabouthungerandincomes

useabroaddefinitionofpoverty;itisbasically
aboutdevelopment

onlyaboutindividualbenefits

focusonfamilyandcommunitybenefits(water,
sanitation,health,education,training,etc.)

The STEP initiative is closely related to the work of the SNV. In 2004, the UNWTO and the SNV signed a memorandum of understanding as part of a new
corporate strategy focused on achieving tangible impacts in the areas of sustainable and equitable production, income and employment for the poor, and effective, efficient and increased access to and delivery of basic services (SNV, 2006).

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The SNV now puts a strong emphasis on the socio-economic impacts of tourism
and on result measurement. Together with the shift from a project implementation
organization to an advisory services provider, the SNVs focus on tourism shifted
from community-based and grass-roots development to a value chain approach in
which: . . . the focus has to be on mainstream tourism, not on community-based
tourism. By mainstream tourism we mean that tourism development should be
considered an inclusive business, in which the poor will benefit from investments
from the private sector. Governments will have to play their role to assure that the
poor are not forgotten. This will include, for instance, a legislative environment
that favours PPT development. And there also is still a huge amount of work to do
in terms of changing the mindset of the public and the private sector towards a propoor development in tourism (Laumans, pers. communication. See also Ashley
& Mitchell, 2008.) Although there are differences between the UKs and the UNWTOs initiatives, the main features of PPT are summarized in table 2.
PPT research
Despite the general feeling that it is now time to start looking for constructive approaches to tourism that will benefit local people and their environments (Scheyvens, 2002), and the fact that PPT is increasingly seen as one of these constructive
approaches, data to substantiate and strengthen PPT strategies are largely lacking.
According to Zhao and Ritchie (2007: 120), the relationship between tourism
and poverty alleviation largely remains terra incognita among tourism academics (see also Tassone, this volume). However, in the last five years the relation between tourism and poverty alleviation has attracted a small cohort of researchers
within tourism. Their research is mainly commissioned and/or executed by donor and development organizations, such as the SNV, the IIED, ODI, the GTZ (a
German development organization), the World Bank, and the Asian and American Development Bank.
As a result, research methodologies and outputs are dominated by a small
number of UK-affiliated researchers (e.g. Ashley, Goodwin, Meyer and Mitchell),
and by Spenceley in South Africa and Lengeveld in Germany. Their work is primarily documented in reports that are available on the websites of, for example,
ODI, the Pro-poor Tourism Partnership and the SNV; hardly any are published
in scientific journals. Despite the progress they have made (for an overview, see
Ashley & Mitchell, 2008), the Pro-poor Tourism Partnership concludes in the
third and likely last edition of the Pro-poor Tourism Annual Register (2007) that
it still does not have enough examples of initiatives with clear demonstrable impacts. Especially case studies that demonstrate the mainstreaming of tourism
and poverty reduction strategies are lacking: There are still a handful of cases
where we have demonstrable impacts. Most impacts that are evident are still at
the very micro level, based on a single product or locality. And there is still too often an unwritten assumption that if tourism is community based it must also be

185

pro-poor. Or, equally falsely, that if tourism is to be pro-poor it must be community based. Progress has been painfully slow (ibid.: 1; emphasis added).
A recent report by the World Bank and ODI similarly concludes that there is
more evidence available than is generally marshalled into PPT arguments. But at
the same time, evidence is piecemeal, use of definitions sloppy, and methodological divisions fragment the body of knowledge and researchers (Mitchell & Ashley, 2007a,
2007b; emphasis added; see also Zhao & Ritchie, 2007).
What accounts for the fragmentation, the limitation in scope and the lack of
methodological and theoretical development? First, PPT research lacks funding.
In 2002 the STEP programme, as a global action framework to harness tourism
to reduce poverty, candidly recognized the significance of research for the success
of PPT. However, a worldwide research base enabling research initiatives in this
field to be coordinated, concerted and shared is yet to materialize (Zhao & Ritchie, 2007: 137). Research cooperation with national, let alone transnational companies, is still minimal and exceptional. In general their support is largely rhetorical, and big business has been even less willing to provide research funds than
governments and other aid agencies, on which PPT research continues to rely for
what are relatively small handouts (Harrison, 2008:13).
Especially in the Netherlands, but also in other countries such as the UK, financial resources for executing longitudinal and comparative research are extremely scarce. Ministries for development cooperation in the UK (DfID) and the
Netherlands (DGIS) have not or have not fully acknowledged the development
potentials of tourism and the role tourism can play in achieving the Millennium
Development Goals. Therefore, much research still relies on student projects or
on sporadic and/or consultancy-based funding. The latter often reflects the needs
of especially international development organizations to prove that they are effective. Their donors compel them to clearly measure and show the development
effects and impacts, at the expense of theoretical discussions and conceptualizations of the relationship between tourism and poverty alleviation. Moreover, these
funding organizations have not only to prove but also to move, and therefore
have to carefully balance between resources allocated to monitoring and evaluation and those allocated to action (Ashley & Mitchell, 2008: 28).
As a consequence, PPT research is still limited and dominated by a relatively
small group of researchers, practitioners and consultants. But as many of these persons lack permanent academic posts and financial security, they remain largely outside academic debates, and thus their insights into the relation between tourism
and development and that between tourism and poverty alleviation are ignored or
underrated in academic circles (Harrison, 2008: 9). Once more the gap between
theory and practice has to be bridged: PPT practitioners and followers must engage
with the academic community; in return, PPT insistence on looking at the very basic
impacts of tourism at the community level, insisting on development and bringing
about direct and quantifiable change, will reintroduce into tourism studies and politics a dimension that has been neglected for too long (Harrison, 2008: 14).

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Second, the complexity of poverty-related issues may also partly account for
the sparse attention that tourism researchers have paid to poverty alleviation research. As Zhao and Ritchie (2007: 121) observe, due to the multidimensional
nature of poverty, understanding any poverty-related issue is always a challenge,
as a wide range of interwoven factors (e.g. economic, socio-political and cultural
forces) need to be taken into account. In addition, unfamiliarity with the research
areas (poverty-stricken areas) and remoteness from the research subjects may deter many researchers from delving into poverty research.
Third, and related, it is striking that PPT is studied by (albeit only a few) practitioners and academics from a variety of disciplines, who use quite different concepts, definitions, research methods, etc., and do not have much contact, let alone
much accumulation of knowledge and insights between them. It is clear that PPT
research would benefit greatly from an integrated and multidisciplinary approach
by linking different perspectives in a single research programme (van Huijstee et
al., 2007; Mitchell & Ashley 2007a, 2007b; Tassone, this volume) and by bringing together scholars and practitioners in both tourism and development disciplines and practices (Meyer, 2007).
The way forward
The question is, how can research best contribute to PPT strategies and practices?
There are many ways forward, but I suggest the following two. First, to find out
to what extent and how PPT, as a specific set of approaches, can reap from tourism net benefits for the poor, there is an urgent need to establish more systematic, comprehensive and coherent research approaches to guide the enquiries of
this emerging field of research (Zhao & Ritchie, 2007). Second and taking into
account the historical overview presented above I recommend to critically think
about how people and organizations construct or constructed PPT and the accompanying research methods to analyse or develop interventions.
Enhancing PPT practices and research
First of all, there is a call to establish a body of credible empirical work assessing different pro-poor impacts of contrasting tourisms (including domestic tourism)
in different contexts, at the level of a destination (Ashley & Mitchell, 2005; emphasis added). According to PPT protagonists, this empirical work should shift its
focus from community-based tourism projects and initiatives most of which result from an alternative development paradigm to mainstream tourism. Taking
into account that community-based tourism has an extremely poor track record
in providing conservation benefits or reducing poverty, it is now quite clear that
PPT has to be applied within a wider, commercial framework. It has to work with
businesses and markets and not against them (Harrison, 2008: 12). The task of
the proposed body of empirical work would be to reveal whether or not the pre-

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Box 1: Examples of PPT research

Research projects indicate that although tourism can have important propoor impacts, the results are highly context specific. For example, Blake and
colleagues (2008) recently argued that tourism in Brazil benefits the low-income sections of the Brazilian population and has the potential to reduce
income inequality. However: The lowest-income households are not the
main beneficiaries, as households with low (but not the lowest) income benefit more from the earnings and price channel effects of tourism expansion.
High- and medium-income households, followed by the low-income group,
benefit most from the government channel effects, with the exception of the
case when governments directs the benefits from tourism expansion specifically towards the lowest income group (Ibid.: 124).
In contrast, research in Gambia indicates that fewer than 100,000 tourists
create through inter-sectoral linkages more than 4500 jobs for poor people,
namely approximately 3000 jobs in wage employment, 1100 in small businesses and 500 in farming (Mitchell, 2007). Similarly, based on a research
project carried out at seven resorts in the Caribbean, Lengefeld and Stewart
(2004) argue that an increase in the social/environmental/cultural soundness
of mass tourism has much more impact than the promotion of 100% sustainable, but niche tourism (see also Lengefeld, 2008).
A Sandals 5-star resort creates on average 1.52 jobs per room (compared
to the normal 5-star hotel average of 1 job per room). The minimum wage at
Sandals is USD 450 per month compared to USD 100250 per month at the
other resorts researched, and the gross monthly wage (cash and in-kind contribution) for Sandals line staff ranges between USD 700 and USD 1150. The
resorts studied buy an average of between USD 1 million and more than USD
2 million per year on the local and national markets. The only resorts in the
study sample that were actively supporting local farmer groups to produce
for their needs were those run by Sandals. Seventy farmer families receive
an income of USD 100 per month (and live above the poverty line) simply by
supplying watermelons and cantaloupes to Sandals. Including support provided for training centres and higher education for staff members, each year
Sandals spends an average of USD 5 million on training (= more than USD 600
per employee per year). Sandals community outreach is also considerable:
the chain supports more than 200 projects in local communities throughout
the Caribbean.
In contrast, exploratory research carried out by Erasmus University Rotterdam in collaboration with SNV-Mozambique and SNV-Tanzania suggests that
although larger and high-end firms can be job machines and thus help to alleviate poverty, their local economic embeddings are limited (van Wijk et al.,
2007). Similarly, in an ODI research project on nature-based tourism and poverty alleviation in South Africa, Spenceley and Goodwin (2007) selected four
nature-based tourism enterprises and concluded that isolated effects from
individual tourism companies have little tangible impact on the majority of
people living in highly populated rural communities, but that the impact is
substantial for the few people who benefit directly.

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sumptions underlying various PPT approaches are met in reality, and if so to what
extent. As illustrated in Box 1, research projects indicate that the pro-poor impact
of various and contrasting tourisms can be substantial but extremely varied and
highly dependent on local circumstances. Box 1 also shows that although theory
recognizes the multidimensionality of poverty, PPT research mainly focuses on
economic and employment issues.
To move beyond the individual case study type of outputs, the PPT research
agenda needs not only more research and research funding (and preferably more
comparative and longitudinal research projects), but also further theoretical,
methodological and conceptual underpinning of this research. Taking into account that PPT is theoretically imprecise and that most PPT practitioners do not
claim theoretical sophistication (Harrison, 2008: 9), scholars could contribute to
PPT research by developing conceptual frameworks for analysing and developing PPT strategies and interventions (see e.g. Zhao & Ritchie, 2007; Blake et al.
2008; Meyer, 2007) .
An example of this conceptual and methodological elaboration in PPT research is the development of the PPT value chain approach (VCA), as for example
promoted and discussed by Ashley and Mitchell (2007, 2008) and illustrated by
some of the studies in box 1. In principle, the aim of VCA is to intervene at key
points in the value chain in order to change how the chains operate and to improve their performance from the perspective of the poor. Therefore, the VCA research basically analyses linkages between actors in the value chain and the way
that benefits flow to the poor (ibid.: 5). Recent empirical research, most of it commissioned by the SNV, shows the potentials and relevance as well as the methodological problems of the VCA. For example, according to a recent study in Luang
Prabang (Laos) it seems likely that at least USD 6 million per year of tourist expenditure is flowing directly to semi-skilled and unskilled producers, suppliers
and workers, which is around 27% of the total receipts of around USD 22.5 million into Luang Prabang (Ashley, 2007). However, the estimates of expenditure
and income are extremely rough and they could easily be wrong by a factor of two
in either direction, and some gaps in the analysis have been filled with mere guesstimates (ibid.: vi; emphasis added). This type of research still has to face important
conceptual and methodological challenges related to the definition and measurement of what counts as poor, and the inclusion of context analysis, including market relations and trends that influence impacts and possible interventions (Ashley
& Mitchell, 2007: 29; 2008). Moreover, and as illustrated in table 1, the VCA focuses on the financial benefits and costs, but has not yet found a way to reconcile
objectives related to PPT interventions with environmental and social objectives,
including other livelihood impacts, distributional priorities, and social and environmental change (Ashley & Mitchell, 2008).
Therefore, the discussion on the VCA should also link up with more general discussions about monitoring and evaluation and related criteria to measure
effectiveness. Tassone (this volume) therefore argues for the development, test-

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ing and implementation of a monitoring and evaluation framework to assess the

effectiveness of the variety of tourism-related poverty-reduction policies, strategies and practices to achieve specific, concrete and global Millennium Development Goals as set by the UN. According to Tassone, the framework should integrate two apparently opposed types of approaches, namely technical approaches
which involve the systematic use of quantitative analysis and qualitative discursive approaches, which also involve modes of participation of actors at various levels. The framework faces the challenge of finding innovative ways to expand and
integrate a variety of monitoring and evaluation tools developed in various fields
within the scientific, development and conservation world (see also Margoluis &
Salafsky 1998; Simpson, 2007; Stem et al., 2005).
Deliberating pro-poor tourism practices and research
There is another, complementary way forward that goes beyond the measurement
of outcomes and impacts per se. Taking the points of view of particularly institutional, discourse and actor-network theories, I suggest also making PPT discourses, policies, strategies and practices (as well as the accompanying research
methods to substantiate these practices) objects of research and seeing them as
produced by and as the outcome of intricate webs of organizations and interactions, of institutional arrangements between for example community members,
tourism businesses, governmental agencies, development and donor organizations, and their suppliers.
The short history in this article of the relationship between tourism and development has shown that different approaches to it have emerged and disappeared
and then reappeared in different guises; they are produced and reproduced over
time. This article has also pointed at the recent emergence and dominance of particular PPT strategies and practices, moving away from community-based tourism towards the pro-poor impacts of mainstream tourism (see Ashley & Harrison, 2007), and related research approaches, like value chain analysis, as the result of the work of certain people (e.g. Ashley, Goodwin & Mitchell) and certain
organizations (e.g. ODI and SNV).
I suggest furthering this path of detection and looking at the PPT approach
and related research practices as socially constructed and logically constituted,
but premised upon a number of assumptions which themselves may be open
to interpretation (Butcher, 2007: 162; see also Duineveld, this volume). By doing so, this strand of research might for example reveal how dominant ideas and
practices related to tourism and development reflect more general societal sociopolitical and socio-economic discourses and developments. It might also disclose
to what extent these ideas and practices are, for example, locked in to linear thinking and to procedures and requirements (of e.g. donors and the wider public),
such as the logical framework and impact assessment. It might even lead to a
greater awareness of exactly why development through tourism is so problematic

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(see Ramalingan & Jones, 2008). The emphasis in this type of research is on contextualizing and critically reflecting upon how people and organizations socially
construct and constructed PPT and on the research methods to analyse or develop
interventions. The emphasis is on scrutinizing PPT as the outcome of complex
processes of translation and ordering (van der Duim, 2005).
I suggest that this strand of research should have a dual approach, namely it should look 1) at these PPT arrangements, practices and related research
projects, and 2) especially into these arrangements and practices (van Huijstee
et al., 2007). As for 1), it should look at these arrangements from an institutional
perspective and question how they came into being, the role that these tourismrelated arrangements play or could play and the functions they fulfil in the presumed contribution of tourism to poverty alleviation. It should, for example, link
the global rise of the concept of sustainable tourism development since the 1990s
and the expressions of it in development and tourism-related organizations, with
the regional and local manifestations of it in the designs of, for example, publicprivate partnerships, community-based tourism projects, PPT strategies of mainstream tourism businesses, and tourism benefit sharing programmes in nature
conservation areas (see also Archabald & Naughton-Treves, 2001). A good example of this strand of research is Hawkins and Manns (2008) recent analysis of
the World Banks role in tourism development, showing that differing development themes have influenced the way tourisms role in development is perceived
within the agency and how in turn it has shaped a country-level dialogue with
governments, the private sector and other development partners. A PhD project
at Wageningen University is to look at why, how and by whom in the last fifteen
years sustainable tourism development for poverty reduction and related types of
intervention was introduced and institutionalized in the SNV.
As for 2), the aim of research that looks into these arrangements is to analyse
in detail the institutional arrangements, policies and practices of INGOs, NGOs,
market parties and governmental bodies, to assess the changes therein and the
reasons therefor. It should look at issues of governance, relations of power, and
processes and tactics of translation. It should examine how different modes of ordering constitute each other, and how the interweaving of or conflicts between
projects of tourism entrepreneurs, development organizations, banks and governments influence development outcomes and the position of poor people in the
tourism chain. It would therefore complement a VCA (predominantly aiming at
measuring outcomes and impacts and at suggesting interventions in the value
chain) by assessing governance in value chains and by exploring power relations
between the different partners within value chains a critical issue when looking at barriers to entry for poor producers (Ashley & Mitchell, 2008). Similarly,
it could also for example look at the consequences of introducing a VCA by developing organizations like the SNV for their own work. Interestingly, proponents
of the VCA, for example Ashley and Mitchell (2008: 8), are very aware that the
recent introduction of, for example, the VCA within the SNV will lead to a break

191

with previous standard practices within the organization: it alters with whom the
SNV works, where it works, its types of projects, the evidence base needed for interventions and the skills required. It will also define what knowledge is produced
and what research is executed, by whom and for what purposes.
This strand of research could theoretically start from actor-network theory (cf.
Latour, 2005; Law, 1994; Murdoch, 2006; van der Duim, 2005) and as a result set
off from the assumption that PPT approaches are to be seen in terms of incessant
ordering and reordering processes. In an attempt to alleviate poverty through
tourism, new and heterogeneous types of institutional arrangements coalesce
natural, social, physical and financial resources and develop from globallocal interfaces. They clearly aim and claim to reorder tourism by translating poverty reduction into the process of tourism development, and vice versa. However, actors
inside and outside the tourism networks (e.g. tourism businesses, governmental
agencies, nature conservation, developing organizations) might differently give
meaning to and deal with these new patterns of coordination between people, organizations, technologies and environmental phenomena (cf. Leeuwis, 2003). In
other words, they might have different modes of ordering (cf. Law, 1994; van der
Ploeg, 2003). These modes of ordering consist of a set of ideas about the way sustainable tourism development in general and PPT in particular should be practised, they inculcate related intervention and research practices and imply particular ways of integrating or separating organizations with different interests. Research would theoretically and critically examine these different designs for PPT
and related research practices in terms of actor-networks and modes of ordering,
providing a series of stepping stones towards a more profound understanding of
the possibilities and limitations of PPT, and eventually might even provide recommendations to improve these designs.
Conclusions
I first discussed the recent fascination with PPT and related research from a historical perspective. Although the idea of PPT rests on a variety of different and
sometimes competing development approaches, and therefore the relation between tourism and poverty alleviation has been and will be constantly debated,
especially in international development cooperation it has increasingly become a
buzz word and it is now almost common sense that tourism can have important
pro-poor impacts and that these can be strengthened by deliberate public policy interventions, validated by sound research. However, data to substantiate the
promises of various PPT strategies are lacking. Academic literature and research
on PPT remains at the margins of tourism research and a scan through the relevant academic journals reveals that very little academic writing has been published on the subject (Meyer, 2007; see also Tassone, this volume). As a result,
systematic, comparative and transparent monitoring over time is scarce (Harrison, 2008: 10). Although few scattered empirical studies indicate that tourism

192

policies and practices contribute to the economy of developing countries (e.g. UNWTO, 2004) and may have important pro-poor impacts, a lack of an accepted integrated monitoring and evaluation framework and of reliable data makes it impossible not only to track progress, but also to assess the effectiveness of measures
taken and to suggest changes to enhance the local economic impact of tourism
(Leijzer, 2007; see also Tassone, this volume).
Therefore, I first argued that detailed empirical assessment is needed to understand where and how tourism can effectively perform as a tool for poverty reduction. Until that time, the question whether PPT is rhetoric or reality will remain largely unanswered. In order to make progress, the PPT research agenda
needs not only more (and preferably more comparative and longitudinal) research
projects, but also further theoretical, methodological and conceptual underpinning of this research.
However, apart from the urgent need to assess the impacts and effectiveness
of PPT strategies and practices and to improve the conceptual and methodological
underpinning of this research, these strategies and practices themselves, and the
related methods for assessing their impacts, should also be scrutinized. Therefore, following institutional and actor-network analysis, I also advocated a critical
analysis of the institutional arrangements, policies and practices and related research efforts that aim to make tourism work for poverty alleviation. The central
questions to be addressed are how and by whom pro-poor strategies are translated into existing tourism practices, how these strategies are attributed to people
and things, how they are stabilized, and what role research practices play in these
processes of translation and stabilization.
In order to fully grasp the mechanisms that can be used to reduce poverty
through tourism, I advocated an assessment of the effectiveness of existing PPT
practices not only in terms of employment and income but also in a sociocultural
and environmental sense. I also advocated action-research in which the researcher follows development and donor organizations, incoming tour operators, hotel
companies or any other particular actor in the process of defining PPT and creating associations that aim to produce an effect that is considered necessary: namely the increase of net benefits for the poor.
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Part 4
Landscape Policies,
Management and Design

12 Collaborative Management of National

Parks: The Case of Retezat National Park,
Romania
Marlies van Hal

he managers of protected areas now recognize that protected area management needs to take a cooperative and collaborative approach with local stakeholders in order to share the responsibility for management (Lane, 2001; Kothari et al., 1996; Leikam et al., 2004; Bramwell & Lane, 2000). It is socially and
politically unacceptable to exclude from a protected area local stakeholders who
live close to or within that protected area without providing them with viable
economic alternatives, nor is it acceptable to exclude them from the decisionmaking process (Leikam et al., 2004). The participation of stakeholders in the
process of information sharing and decision making is a crucial precondition
for tourism planning to evolve with minimum negative impacts (Bramwell &
Lane, 2000).
However, involving a broad range of stakeholders in the planning process is
not an easy task. It can be extremely challenging and time-consuming to reach
consensus on the many, often incompatible interests of the stakeholders. Nevertheless, stakeholder collaboration can generate many potential benefits such as
political legitimacy: collaboration processes are more legitimate and equitable
than traditional approaches to planning, as the former encourage sharing and
participation, in which the beliefs and advice of non-experts (e.g. local community members) are as equally valid as those of experts (Bramwell & Sharman,
1999; Hall, 1999; Healey, 1997). Furthermore, by sharing the ideas, resources
and expertise of stakeholders, the group creates something new and valuable
together a whole that is greater than the sum of its individual parts (Shannon
1998; Taylor-Powell et al., 1998, in Lasker et al., 2001: 184).
This paper reports on a study of the collaborative management of Retezat National Park (RNP), which is located in the western part of Romania. RNP is Romanias oldest national park (established 1935) and was one of the countrys first
parks to implement a model of collaborative park management (Stanciu, 2001).
To examine this collaborative management project, a framework focusing especially on process-related issues (i.e. working processes, relationships and capacities) that may shed light on collaborative management processes was developed.

199

This paper provides insight into the dynamics of stakeholder collaboration in protected areas, with the aim of guiding other researchers who are engaged in the
examination of collaborative management initiatives in protected areas.
Study area
RNP covers an area of 38,000 ha, of which 1800 ha are under strict protection in
what is known as the Gemenele Scientific Reserve. Within RNP, there are more
than 20 peaks that are higher than 2000 m; the highest at 2509 m is the Pelegea peak. In 1979, RNP was declared an International Biosphere Reserve under
the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Programme (Borrini-Feyerabend et al., 2004).
Until 1999, there was no special management body in place to plan and implement management activities (Stanciu, 2001). However, in 1999 the RNP
Management Plan was established to create a park management infrastructure
by adopting a collaborative planning approach. For this, two new management
bodies were established in 2003: the Scientific Council and the Consultative
Council. The membership of the Scientific Council includes representatives of
governmental, scientific and administrative institutions whose role is to approve
and evaluate the activities of the RNP management. The membership of the
Consultative Council includes representatives of key stakeholders; it too plays an
advisory role, yet in contrast to the Scientific Council it does not have any formal authority to inf luence decisions taken by the RNP management. The study
reported on here examined collaborative management within the Consultative
Council but not within the Scientific Council. For a thorough analysis of the collaborative management of RNP, stakeholders of the Scientific Council should
have been included in the study.
Examining collaborative management
Including local stakeholders in the management of protected areas is becoming increasingly commonplace. This new paradigm, or co-management, decentralizes the decision-making power from solely government agencies to one of
shared governance with local communities (Lane, 2001, in Leikam et al., 2001:
1). However, co-management arrangements are not an end in themselves they
are formed to achieve other goals, with the implicit or explicit recognition that
by acting together partners can accomplish more than by acting alone (Caplan
& Jones, 2002: 1).
Stakeholders can be involved in many different ways in the management of
protected areas. Arnsteins well-known ladder of participation (1969) is subdivided into eight rungs of participation, ranging from non-participation to citizens control. However, many people criticize Arnsteins ladder as it implies that
the higher rungs of the ladder are more desirable than the lower (Byrne & Davis, 1998: 13). On the other hand, Borrini-Feyerabends continuum (1996), for ex-

200

ample, stretches from full control of a protected area by a governmental organization to its full control by local people. In this participation spectrum, there is no
right place for co-management: the collaborative management processes and
agreements should fit the needs and opportunities of each context (ibid.: 22).
Once a collaborative management approach has been selected and implemented in a protected area, monitoring must be carried out to ensure that action
plans stay on track (Frey, 2000), to promote participants learning about the programme and its performance (Binnendijk, 1996) and to help keep the collaborating partners involved in the process (Frey, 2000). A review of the literature indicates an abundance of studies on collaboration in protected areas. Various studies
(e.g. Endicott, 1993; Mattessich & Monsey, 1992; Long & Arnold, 1995) examined
conservation collaboration; many of these studies present procedural frameworks
and guidelines for collaboration, and identify many factors that influence collaborative management processes. These processes depend not only on formal institutional structures on which partnerships are established, but also on the personalities, motivations, involvement, communication, skills and power of each individual involved (Ladkin & Betramini, 2002; Lasker et al., 2001).
However, the majority of such studies focus on analysing formal institutional structures and the impacts and achievements of the shared goals of the collaborative group (Ross et al., 2004). These approaches also concentrate primarily
on tangible outcomes (e.g. improvement of the biophysical environment). Much
less attention is paid to how such collaborative arrangements work in their own
way (Bellamy et al., 2001), with a focus on the more intangible aspects of collaboration at the process level, in which issues such as access to information, relationships, and level of trust and respect among stakeholders are taken into account.
As co-management arrangements are not an end in themselves, the present research should have made a direct link between the measurement of intangible aspects of collaboration and the measurement of tangible outcomes in terms of, for
example, nature conservation or socio-economic development around the RNP.
This, however, was beyond the scope of the research.
Collaborative management framework
There is a lack of concrete frameworks to assist in the analysis of the process
level of collaboration, which is surprising as it is just as important for the partnership to work well from the point of view of all parties, as for the outcomes to
be achieved (Ross et al., 2004: 53). In order to develop a framework for analysis, criteria were identified that are supposed to have some bearing on collaboration (stakeholders involvement, communication, etc.). In this respect, four
frameworks were very useful for this study. Lasker and colleagues (2001) provided a framework identifying 19 determinants that influence the level of synergy in partnership arrangements; the determinants form a framework consisting of 5 categories (resources, partner characteristics, relationships among part-

201

ners, partnership characteristics, external environment). Second, Mattessich and

Monsey (1992) identified 20 factors influencing collaboration and grouped them
into 6 categories (environment, membership characteristics, process and structure, communication, purpose, and resources). Third, Toupal and Johnson (1998)
identified eight characteristics of public and private partnerships. Fourth, Borrini-Feyerabend (1995) set out indicators of collaborative management processes;
these indicators provide a means to analyse the process by which collaborative
management was established in a protected area. These four studies form the basis of the framework presented in this paper.
To develop a comprehensive framework, the four sources were mutually compared. For example, in Mattessich and Monsey (1992) the factor appropriate
cross-section of members was identified, whereas Lasker and colleagues (2001)
identified the factor heterogeneity of partners. Although different concepts are
used, the content is highly similar as both relate to a cross-section of stakeholders.
Similar factors were then selected for incorporation into the framework for this
study. The factors that did not overlap were independently analysed and, based
on the judgement of the researcher, either accepted or rejected for inclusion in
the framework. This resulted in the identification of 21 factors to examine collaborative management processes in protected areas. The factors were then subdivided among five dimensions: external environment, stakeholder characteristics,
relationship and communication, process and structure, and resources. Together
they were put in the framework presented in table 1. The main reason to develop this framework was to provide a list of criteria when examining collaborative
management processes in protected areas.
Study method
The purpose of the study was to develop and apply a framework consisting of
criteria for examining the collaborative management of protected areas. A case
study approach was adopted in order to assess the practicability of the framework
and to examine the collaboration at RNP. Qualitative research was executed to
elicit detailed information regarding attitudes towards and opinions and values
of collaboration in the case of RNP.
Twenty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted in AprilJune 2006
with key stakeholders of the Consultative Council. Although the Council comprises 25 members, not all could be interviewed due to the members lack of time
or lack of interest in participating in this study. Nevertheless, the 21 respondents
interviewed represented an appropriate cross-section of RNP community interest (i.e. environmental protection agency, county council, mayors of local communities, cabin owners, NGOs, etc.). The interviews were based on a flexible semistructured interview format, which allowed for questions to emerge from the information offered. The flexible nature of the interview style facilitated informal
conversations and provided a deeper insight into issues such as trust and power

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Table 1: Collaborative management framework for protected areas

Dimensions
Externalenvironment

Factors
Sources
Historyofcollaborationandcorporationinthecom
2,3
munity
Communitysupport
2,3,4

Stakeholdercharacteristics

Appropriatecrosssectionofstakeholders
Involvement

Relationshipandcommunication

Openandfrequentcommunication
Awarenessofpoweranditsinfluenceonthecollabo
rationprocessamongstakeholders
Abilitytocompromise
Acceptancethatconflictcansharpenstakeholders
discussionsonissuesandcanstimulatenewideas
andapproaches
Mutual respect,understandingandtrust
Establishedformalandinformalcommunicationlinks

Processandstructure

Resources

Confidenceinandsatisfactionwiththedecision
makingprocessandthepartnershipdecisionstaken
Sharedvision
Feelingofownership
Opennesstovariouswaysoforganizingitselfandac
complishingitswork
Clearunderstandingofroles,rightsandresponsibili
ties
Therolesandresponsibilitiesmatchtheparticular
interestsandskillsofeachstakeholder
Sufficientfunds
Availabilityofspace,equipmentandgoods
Skilledconvener
Availabilityofanalysisanddocumentation

2,3
1,2,3,4
2,3,4
2
3,4
2

2,3,4
1,2,3
2
3,4
3
3
1,3,4
1,2,3
2,3,4
2,3
1,4
2,3

Thefollowingfoursourcesformthebasisofthecollaborativemanagementframeworkdeveloped
inthisstudy:1.BorriniFeyerabend(1996);2.Laskeretal.(2001);3.Mattessich&Monsey(1992);
4.Toupal&Johnson(1998)

among the stakeholders. Each interview lasted 4590 minutes. Written notes were
taken during the interview sessions. Data of the resulting transcripts were organized on the basis of themes, concepts and related features, allowing identification
of broad pattern for the concepts and themes that emerged (Medeiros de Araujo
& Bramwell, 2002). Local reports and other documents provided antecedent data
to complement, verify and substantiate the empirical findings (Cutumisu, 2003).
Study findings
The following are the findings in relation to the five dimensions of the collaborative management framework (see table 1). These dimensions are external envi193
ronment,
stakeholder characteristics, relationship and communication, process
and structure, and resources.

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External environment
One set of issues when examining the collaborative management of protected areas is the external environment. These external factors are beyond the ability
of any partnership to control (Lasker et al., 2001: 196) and are divided into two
levels: the history of collaboration, and community support. First, collaboration
is more likely to succeed in communities that have a history of working together:
A history of collaboration or cooperation exists in the community and offers the
potential collaborative partners an understanding of the roles and expectations
required in collaboration and enables them to trust the process (Mattessich &
Monsey, 1992: 15). In Romania, there is no or only very little history of collaboration. The country used to have a super-centralized (Popescu, 1993) planning and
control system (i.e. a Communist regime). This top-down system may have affected involvement and trust in collaboration processes. Interviewees confirmed that
Romanians have lost their confidence in collaboration: Since the Communist regime, many [Romanians] have become suspicious and distrustful and have lost
their confidence in collaboration and For cooperation, you need to have some
trust in each other, and that is a difficult aspect as [since the Communist regime]
nobody trusts anyone any more.
Second, having broad-based community support is essential for the sustainability of the partnership (Goodman et al., 1998; Mattessich & Monsey, 1992; Lasker
et al., 2001). Interviewees generally considered the community support to be satisfactory. According to many respondents, most external parties (e.g. the general
public) perceive RNP positively, because they are confident that RNP brings them
economic benefits. However, the local landowners had some problems with the
RNP management. All interviewees mentioned that land owners feel restricted
by the laws and rules of the Romanian government and the RNP management,
which prohibit woodcutting and limit sheep grazing: The landowners feel they
no longer have control over their own land, because woodcutting is not allowed
and sheep grazing has been regulated too strictly and Conflicts on limitation
of sheep grazing remain between the park management and local landowners.
Stakeholder characteristics
An examination of the collaborative management of protected areas should also
consider the people involved. People more than any other aspect of collaboration
influence the processes of collaboration: Strip away the rhetoric and the theory,
and the concept of partnership is all about people that are collaborating together
on one common goal (Long & Arnold, 1995: 109). What is needed is an appropriate cross-section of stakeholders. This means that the collaboration group includes representatives of each segment of the community that will be affected by
the activities of the collaborative group: Partnerships need to identify and actively engage partners with a sufficient range of perspectives, resources and skills

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to give the group a full picture of the problem, to stimulate new, locally responsive ways of thinking about solutions, and to implement comprehensive actions
(Lasker et al., 2001: 191).
Many relevant key stakeholders groups are represented in the Consultative
Council (local communities, forest directorate and forest districts, mountain rescue teams, school inspectors, environmental protection agency, cabin owners,
NGOs, etc.). Respondents said that the inclusion of many stakeholders has resulted in more open and frequent communication and that Council meetings contributed to an increased understanding between the stakeholders.
Another critical factor in collaboration is the involvement of stakeholders
(Lasker et al., 2001; Mattessich & Monsey, 1992; Toupal & Johnson, 1998). According to Roberts and Simpson (1999: 1), in many former socialist countries of
Central and Eastern Europe the concept of developing wider involvement in decision-making processes remains inherently problematic. This may be the result
of Romanias Communist history: it would not be unreasonable for people who
used to be constrained in local decision making to be slow to respond positively to calls for active participation (Turnock, 1996, in Roberts & Simpson, 1991:
319). In this study, involvement was measured by assessing the interviewees
participation in RNP activities (e.g. hiking days) or attendance at at least two out
of three Council meetings, by the way they maintained contact with the Council members and the RNP management at and outside regular meetings, and the
way they expressed that they felt committed to RNP in general. Surprisingly, involvement did not seem to constrain collaboration in RNP; 19 of the 21 respondents said that meetings were often extremely well attended by the stakeholders
and that many of them participated in and/or co-organized RNP activities (e.g. a
mountain rescue event). Sixteen respondents even underlined their willingness
to be more involved with RNP management activities.
Relationships and communication
A third set of issues when examining collaborative management processes in protected areas is related to the relationships and communication between the stakeholders. It is generally acknowledged that building relationships is one of the most
daunting and time-consuming challenges a team faces (Kreuter et al., 2000). Ideally, collaborative group members must interact often, update one another, discuss issues openly, and convey all necessary information to one another and to
people outside the group (Mattessich & Monsey 1992: 16). The character of the
dialogue is likely to be a major factor in whether there is mutual understanding
and learning across the differences among stakeholders (Forster 1993; Friedmann 1992; Innes, 1995, in Bramwell & Sharmann, 1999: 398). The interviewees stated that they felt very confident about the internal communication in the
Council, and emphasized that there was honest and open communication among
stakeholders in which it is possible for each member to give their opinion and ad-

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vice. Several mentioned that through the Council, stakeholders now understand
and have better contact than ever before. However, all interviewees reported their
dissatisfaction with the frequency of communication with the RNP management,
and many complained that they were not being kept up to date with the latest park
developments. Two respondents explained: I only get information from the park
management when I specifically ask for it and The park management rarely informs the Council about recently taken decisions or recent activities.
Some interviewees said that if the poor communication with the RNP management continued, they would leave the Council: I am just getting more and
more annoyed by the communicative skills of the park management. Power differences can also seriously influence collaboration since they limit who participates, whose opinions are considered as being valid, and who has influence on
the decisions made (Israel et al., 1998, cited in Lasker et al., 2001: 193).
Power differences were examined by asking interviewees who has the power
to take final decisions, by requesting examples of successful and unsuccessful decisions taken by park management, and by asking whether the interviewees felt
that they were heard by the other stakeholders. Data from the semi-structured
interviews indicated a fair distribution of power among Council members; all but
one respondent mentioned that power is shared by the Council as a whole: The
voting system that we apply for taking final decisions ensures that each stakeholder has equal power, as the most votes count. Furthermore, interviewees once
more mentioned their ability to speak freely and to influence the Councils decision-making process.
However, there was less satisfaction regarding the attitude of the park management towards the Council: according to many (17) of the interviewees, the
RNP management regularly takes decisions without the Councils approval. The
following example illustrates this point. Four hydropower companies are located
within the park area. These companies existed long before the Communist period, and the Romanian government allows them to carry out their activities in
RNP. However, the RNP management tried to evict the hydropower companies
from the park area because their activities disturb the natural flora and fauna in
RNP. This was against the will of most Council members (16), who stated that
such activities harm the environment only minimally and that the hydropower
companies create a lot of employment. According to one interviewee, the hydropower companies account for almost two thirds of the employment in this area.
As a consequence, Council members did not feel that the RNP management was
listening to them, because they simply continued their attempts to evict the hydropower companies from the park area. One Council member complained: The
example of hydropower companies and many other examples clearly show that
our opinions are not taken into consideration, and the RNP management has
such a conservation ethic; it only takes their own concerns into consideration.
Third, the degree to which collaborative stakeholders are able to compromise
is also likely to have a strong influence on collaboration. This factor concerns

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whether cooperating stakeholders accept that collaboration is likely to produce

qualitatively different outcomes and that they are likely to have to modify their
own approach (Bramwell & Sharman, 1999). Participants who are more likely
to accept these principles become more receptive to alternative ways of thinking
and new types of policy proposals (ibid.: 379). RNPs stakeholders underlined
the importance of reaching compromise, yet considered compromise a time-consuming task. Several respondents criticized the efficiency of the decision-making process: Some meetings get extremely boring because issues are discussed
too extensively, even if there is already a compromise. Nonetheless, according
to some, compromise is often reached since stakeholders have a shared vision,
namely nature conservation: We are connected through our shared vision of nature conservation and sustainable development and can mostly find a compromise that largely suits each stakeholder.
Fourth, the acceptance of conflicts plays a role: Rather than being considered
an obstacle to planning, conflict should be considered acceptable as conflict may
provide opportunities for mutual learning (Daniels & Walker 1996: 12). Within the Council, stakeholders said that they did not have any real conflicts that
were worth noting. Various respondents said that discussions and debates exist
in almost every group and should not be avoided. However, interviewees again
mentioned the complicated relationship with the RNP management, because the
interests and opinions of the Council are not always taken into account in the
RNPs final management decisions. Again, interviewees referred to the discussion about whether or not to evict the hydropower companies from the park (see
also the factor Awareness of power and its influence on the collaboration process
among stakeholders).
Fifth, mutual respect, understanding and trust inf luences collaboration:
Mutual respect, understanding and trust means that collaborating stakeholders share an understanding and have respect for each other and their respective
organizations; how they operate, their cultural norms and values, limitations
and expectations (Mattessich & Monsey, 1992: 15). To work closely together,
stakeholders who are involved in collaboration need to be confident that other
stakeholders will follow through on their responsibilities and obligations and
will not take advantage of them (Lasker et al., 2001). In addition, Respect is
also critical as it is difficult to imagine how a partnership can achieve success
unless its other stakeholders appreciate the value of the others contribution and
perspectives (Lasker et al., 2001: 192). Data obtained from the semi-structured
interviews with RNPs stakeholders were quite contradictive. On the one hand,
it seemed that the stakeholders respected, trusted and understood each other;
this could be concluded on the basis of direct questions put to the respondents
(e.g.: With which members do you prefer to collaborate? With whom do you
least prefer to collaborate?). The stakeholders did not seem to have particular
preferences and indicated that they were able to collaborate with all the other
stakeholders.

207

On the other hand, data from direct questions (e.g.: What is your opinion
about the existence of trust, respect and understanding within the RNP area?)
revealed distrust and suspicion among stakeholders in the RNP region. Interviewees once again mentioned that Romanias history negatively affects trust in
collaboration. Although some respondents denied the existence of distrust, the
majority (18) stated that there is little trust among RNP stakeholders. One interviewee even stated that nobody in the Council trusts anyone else in the Council:
I dont trust them and they dont trust me. It negatively influences the collaboration atmosphere. And: Trust is a heavily loaded concept, as we Romanians generally do not have confidence in each other.
Interviewees said that distrust exists throughout the country, and therefore
should not be interpreted as a regional issue. In addition, interviewees mentioned that trust in collaboration has slowly increased among Council members,
but were not able to give an example of this.
Finally, channels of communication must exist on paper so that information
flow occurs: The types of information that partnerships need go beyond statistical data to include the perspectives, values and ideas of different stakeholders as
well as information about the community assets (Lasker et al., 2001: 190). By disseminating information, cooperating stakeholders can stay involved in the collaboration process (Petrova et al., 2002). At RNP, it seemed that formal and informal
communication links are quite well established. Regular meetings and annual
workshops stimulate ongoing communication between Council members. Furthermore, these members are kept up to date by means of a monthly email that informs them about Council developments, and they meet informally during community or park activities. However, the communication with the RNP management is in contrast to the satisfactory communication between Council members:
all respondents reported that they were dissatisfied with the frequency of communication with the management (see also Open and frequent communication).
Process and structure
Another set of issues to consider when examining the collaborative management of protected areas is related to the process and structure of the collaboration: structures (e.g. administration, management, governance) are likely to have
a strong influence on collaboration (Lasker et al., 2001). Structures affect the
ability of partnerships to actively engage an optimal mix of partners, create an environment that fosters good working relationships among partners, and combine
the perspectives, resources and skills of different partners (ibid.: 191).
First, there should be confidence in and satisfaction with the decision-making process and the decisions taken: when stakeholders support and have confidence in the process they are likely to be calm and positive towards the run-up towards the taken decision (ibid.). Almost all the interviewees said that they were
satisfied with the decision-making process in the Council. Final decisions are put

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to the vote; interviewees experienced this as an honest system. Compromise is

reached to the extent that such is possible. Interviewees were very satisfied with
the decision-making process, as they could state their opinions openly and all
members listened and respected each others opinions. However, several interviewees criticized the efficiency of the decision-making process.
The interviewees were pleased with the decision-making process in the Council, but were very dissatisfied with the decision-making process of the RNP management. As mentioned earlier by Council members (see also Relationships and
communication), the RNP management takes final decisions that do not always
have the support of the Council (e.g. in the case of evicting the hydropower companies). One interviewee said: Were often asked for our opinions, but these are
often not taken into account in the end. As a result, Council members felt they
could not influence the decision-making process of the RNP management at all.
Second, stakeholders should be committed to a shared vision. Results indicate
that stakeholders have one main vision, namely nature conservation: We collectively strive for natural protection of RNP. Although the Council members have
a common goal, they all keep their individual stakes, such as gaining economic
benefits for their cabins or developing childrens activities for the local schools.
Members reported that having a common vision positively influenced the collaboration, as it really added to the feeling of being one unity.
Third, members of a collaborative group should feel ownership of the way the
group works and of the results and products of its work. To achieve this, operating principles should aim to promote a certain feeling of ownership about decisions and outcomes: inter-agency working groups, participating in regular planning and monitoring the collaborative effort can solidify ownership and ongoing commitment (Mattessich & Monsey, 1992: 12). There seemed to be a sense
of ownership among the RNPs stakeholders. According to the interviewees, the
Council serves as a network in which members collectively strive for nature
protection and economic development in RNP. This feeling may have been
stimulated in 2000 through several interactive working groups that were created
for the implementation stage of the Management Plan. But again, the interviewees were not positive about ownership regarding decisions taken by the RNP
management (see also Awareness of power and its influence on the collaboration
process among stakeholders).
Fourth, flexibility is an important factor in collaboration. Monitoring the
group to ensure it remains flexible is important, since groups often tend over
time to solidify their norms in ways which constrain their thinking and behaviour (Mattessich & Monsey, 1992: 12). In RNP, flexibility seems warranted because the management structure is evaluated each year. In those evaluations,
stakeholders critically reflect on management progressions in RNP, and set new
goals and actions for the next year.
Fifth, in collaboration processes there should be a clear understanding of
roles, rights and responsibilities: In order to involve all relevant stakeholders in

209

co-management, especially local communities, roles and responsibilities need to

be defined and clarified; otherwise, the roles and responsibilities for implementing and funding participatory mechanisms, as well as, the delegation of power
will remain unclear(Barborak et al., 2002: 30).
However, at RNP there are no specific management agreements in place that
define and clarify the roles, responsibilities and rights of each stakeholder. The
Council plays only an advisory role in RNP issues and developments, and legally does not have any other rights. Therefore, this factor was not investigated. Although insight was gained into the willingness to have designated roles, rights and
responsibilities for each member, the majority (16) of the interviewees said that
they were not interested in having own specific rights, roles and responsibilities.
Resources
A fifth set of issues is related to the available resources, since financial and human input are necessary to develop and sustain a collaborative group (Mattessich
& Monsey, 1992: 17): stakeholders should have a perception that sufficient resources are devoted to collaboration in order to ensure that progress is not interrupted by lack of resources (Jamal & Getz, 1995, in Bramwell & Sharman, 1999:
401). RNP obviously lacks funds, since many proposed projects could not be realized: The RNP management and we [the Council] wanted to build a hotel that
would meet the EU accommodation standards, a hotel that could then well serve
as an example for local communities. However, due to a lack of funding, this plan
could not be realized.
The Council depends financially on the RNP management, which each year
grants the Council a certain amount of money to finance its activities. In turn, the
RNP management depends mainly on international donors, although the state
and the National Forest Administration (NFA) also provide some funds (Stanciu,
2001). According to the interviewees, the RNP management is active in grant
writing and fund-raising activities.
Second, partnerships must have enough space, equipment (computers, stationery) and goods (Lasker et al., 2001). The interviewees unanimously reported
that they were satisfied with the availability of space, equipment and goods.
Third, there should be a skilled convener: The convener is a neutral person
or organization that can build consensus to the objective of the co-management
plan and the interests of its stakeholders: the convener must have organizing and
interpersonal skills, and carry out the role with fairness (Mattessich & Monsey,
1992: 34). A skilled convener is granted legitimacy by the stakeholders in the
collaboration involved. At present, RNP has no designated convener. According to
the respondents, the Consultative Council and the Scientific Council were playing this outsiders role.
Fourth, analysis and documentation capacities are critical to provide partners
with materials that synthesize their ideas and help them to make timely deci-

210

sions, and also to evaluate the functioning and process of the partnership (Lasker et al., 2001: 194). Sufficient information seemed to be available within the
Council. However, many respondents complained about the provision of information by the RNP management to its stakeholders: I only get information from
the park management when I specifically ask for it. The respondents want information letters or bulletins to be distributed on a monthly basis: In this way, people would remain up to date about the developments within the Retezat region.
Conclusions
The study reported on in this paper first developed a framework for examining
collaborative management processes in protected areas; the development was
based on criteria derived from a comparison of four existing frameworks. The resulting framework consists of five dimensions: stakeholder characteristics, relationships and communication, process and structure, resources, and external environment, Based on this framework, the study then examined the collaborative
management of RNP. The framework allowed the identification of a number of
issues that have an effect on that collaborative management.
Collaborative management of RNP
The application of the framework revealed several aspects that affect the collaborative management of RNP. For example, the Consultative Council included
representatives of many relevant key stakeholder groups, and there was willingness among these stakeholders to be involved in the RNP management activities.
Bringing stakeholders together in the Council resulted in more open and more
frequent communication, and increased the understanding between the stakeholders. This may also be attributed to the formal and informal communication
systems that distribute information to all Council members. Within the Council,
stakeholders were aware of the need for compromise, and in most cases negotiation led to a compromise that largely suited each stakeholder. They were also satisfied with the decision-making process and system: each stakeholder said that
he or she had the ability to speak freely and to influence decisions. Finally, the
availability of sufficient space, equipment and goods stimulated the collaborative
management of RNP.
However, other aspects were identified that hampered collaborative management. Although communication among the stakeholders represented in the
Council was satisfactory, the relationship between the Council and the RNP management was fairly problematic, as Council members voices were not always
heard. Council members did not feel that they could influence decisions made
by the RNP management and felt that the latter made decisions without the support of the Council. In the present management structure, the Council does not
have any formal authority to influence decisions. However, the voices of Council

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members were not heard in an informal way either. In addition, stakeholders expressed their dissatisfaction with information distribution towards local communities and wanted to be more informed about developments within RNP.
Suspicion and distrust among the RNPs stakeholders also constrained collaborative management; this may be attributed to Romanias post-Communist
context, which may negatively affect trust in collaboration. This is a problem,
because collaborative management completely fails without trust and sincerity
(Roberts & Simpson, 1999). Two other stakeholder conflicts were also identified:
one related to the landowners, the other to the hydropower companies. Another
problem is related to a lack of funding, as a result of which several projects could
not be realized.
To overcome constraints, it is recommended to provide Council members with
the formal authority to influence the decisions of the RNP management. Formal agreements should be developed and implemented in the RNP management
plan. This may help increase stakeholders formal decision-making power. Appointing a skilled convener may be helpful in this process. To increase trust and
respect among RNPs stakeholders, it is advised to organize team-building activities and workshops on collaboration. However, it should be noted that trust takes
time to develop and sufficient time should be provided, especially when considering Romanias post-Communist character. Consequently, landowners and hydropower companies should be included in these activities in order to improve the
current conflict situation with the RNP management. Last, to improve RNPs financial situation, it may be useful to actively involve the Council in RNPs fundraising activities.
Evaluation of the framework for examining collaborative management processes
The study also developed a framework for examining collaborative processes. Although more studies and case studies should be executed to validate the practicability of the proposed framework in this study, the framework stimulated a wide-ranging examination of collaborative management, based on an assessment of the external environment, stakeholder characteristics, relationship and communication,
process and structure, and resources. Nevertheless, the proposed framework can
only serve as a guideline for other researchers. In individual cases, different factors
may play an essential role: a particular factor (e.g. a national parks history) that may
seriously affect collaboration in one protected area will not necessarily be very influential in another protected area. Investigating collaboration processes by means of
this framework also requires longitudinal research; as collaboration processes take
time, so should research into these processes. To gain insider perspectives on collaboration, the researcher should go native and be involved for a longer period of time
and not just conduct field research for a couple of weeks, as in this case.
The framework also pays little attention to the power relations that underlie
collaboration. Although the present study did pay some attention to power rela-

212

tions and the influence on collaboration processes, it is essential to put more emphasis on power, as the case study at RNP once more confirmed that power relations can seriously influence collaboration.
Finally, application of this framework does not automatically reveal the successfulness of collaboration (or the lack of such), as that also at least partly depends on the outcomes of this collaboration in terms of tangible impacts (nature
conservation, socio-economic development, etc.). The assessment of outcomes
was beyond the scope of this research project, but should be included in followup projects in order to be able to link processes of collaboration with the results.
It is only by examining these two aspects that proper insight will be gained into
the successes and drawbacks of collaborative management approaches in protected areas.
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13 Local Initiatives Challenging Mainstream

Policies: Signs of Sub-politics?
Marleen Buizer

eliberative practices such as citizen forums, panels or juries have recently become more popular, not least as a topic of empirical research (Hajer &
Wagenaar, 2003; Thompson, 2008). In the Netherlands, the background to these
practices is a low and unstable voter turnout, historically low membership of political parties, and the coming and going of new political parties that are based
on single personalities or single issues (WRR, 2004). Given these circumstances,
deliberative practices can be seen as an additional route to shaping democracy.
Deliberative practices often have a highly organized character and a clear aim,
namely the formulation of decisions about a specific issue and, very often, about
a specific place. Government institutions mostly take the initiative to organize
these deliberations. Akkerman and colleagues (2004) speak of this in terms of
democratization from above. Even although analysts are often critical about the
real intentions behind this kind of participation (Hartman, 2000), it is equally
real to assume that involving the local people with their situated knowledge at
an early stage of decision making will improve the quality and outcome of decision making (Yanow, 2003; Fischer, 2001; Healey, 2003).
The question is, what happens if the initiative for deliberation is informal
and not organized from above? Ulrich Beck used the term sub-politics to articulate that society is increasingly being shaped from below and from outside the
representative institutions of the formal political system (Beck, 1997, 1994). He
used his thesis to refer to large-scale consumer initiatives that link local events
to global issues, such as the consumer protests against dumping the Brent Spar
oil rig. In this paper, I look at the possibilities of applying the sub-politics thesis
to small-scale private initiatives. Are these also signs of sub-politics and, if so, in
what sense? Do these initiatives remain informal or do they become part of mainstream politics? Who participates and who does not? What can be learned from
them in terms of the sub-politics thesis?
Local initiatives often arise in response to government policy, and many a
time there has been a prior conflict over the scope of the latters implementation;
the local initiators challenge the content of government policies because they believe that their area requires alternative or additional measures. I consider deliberation about policy as a potential means of democratization (see also Torgerson,

215

2003); discussions about alternatives to established government policy are a way

for the public to express their concerns, to exchange arguments about these with
others, to learn and develop their ideas, and possibly to influence policy making
in a more argumentative way than voting once every four years or so.
I therefore consider it problematic that confrontations between diverging initiatives and established policy have not been investigated as much as deliberations
organized from above. There are various plausible explanations for this. One is
that the publics eye is more easily attracted to the formal occasions of deliberation. The initiators expect much from the outcomes of the events they organize,
and the media are mostly mobilized to play a role in one or more of the stages
of deliberation. Also, research budgets are more often allocated to study government-initiated interactions with the public. But informal initiatives sometimes do
receive a lot of attention, especially if they are large scale and relate to global issues Becks cases being the perfect examples.
Beck is not very specific about the conditions in which sub-politics occur, however, nor does he distinguish between various versions of sub-politics. Subjecting
the thesis to empirical investigation can inform us about the conditions in which
sub-politics can come about, and perhaps uncover the various forms of sub-politics
to which different conditions can give rise. The cases presented here offer the opportunity to uncover in what sense the sub-politics thesis applies to informal, local (or specific, place-based) initiatives, which enables one to become more specific
about the thesis and makes it possible to identify different versions of sub-politics.
In this way, normative theory (Becks sub-politics thesis) and empirical study (the
cases used in this paper) can enrich each other (Thompson, 2008).
The cases discussed here concern local, informal initiatives in three specific
spatial areas in different parts of the Netherlands. I consider myself an action researcher in these particular cases: I had relatively easy access to specific episodes,
because either I took an active part in these episodes or the actors involved informed me about them (for more detailed descriptions of the cases as well as a critical reflection on my role in them, see Buizer, 2008). The main issue I deal with
here is in what sense these cases are and in what sense they are not manifestations
of sub-politics. The specific places figuring in the three cases offer a basis to become more specific about the in what sense, and provide the possibility to render
a place-based account of the possible meanings of sub-politics. This allows me to
substantiate the mentioned claim that discourse about policy making can be a
means of democratization and to specify the conditions in which such may occur.
I first present the cases, then describe and operationalize Becks sub-politics
thesis. I argue that for the sake of operationalization, uncovering the interconnections between discourses and institutional practices is a particularly fruitful
epistemological exercise. I then apply these concepts to a brief description of the
three cases. I conclude by presenting what this possibly means for present-day
ambitions to create new modes of deliberative governance or, for that matter, a
sub-political society.

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Three cases
Biesland
The first case concerns Biesland, an agricultural enclave situated in the midst of
the cities, towns and recreation areas that make up the Randstad (the urban conglomeration in the west of the Netherlands). The area now has only one active
farm family; most of the farmland has been bought up for urban development
or for the establishment of nature areas and parks, to be managed by private or
state-led nature organizations. However, people who had the aim of doing things
differently got together and a coalition slowly formed. Together with civil servants (often in their private time), local residents (embodied in an active foundation named Friends of Biesland) and researchers, the farmer worked out a farreaching concept of nature-oriented farming that would also be geared to enhancing opportunities for various types of recreational activities, schooling and
care. The minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV) was enthusiastic and promised early in the process to finance half of the plans, as long as the
other half was financed by regional parties. The minister also stated that the European Commission would have to approve the payments to the farmer and that
was the start of a lengthy process to get the idea implemented. The question is,
in what sense can this process of coalition formation on the basis of alternative
ideas, and engagement in policy dialogue about these ideas, be called sub-politics
and in what sense can it not?
Grensschap
The second case concerns a group of residents who organized themselves as the
Grensschap after an interactive event the municipality of Maastricht and the LNV
organized from the top down in 2003. The name Grensschap refers to both the
members of group and the specific area (grens and schap are Dutch for border and
community, respectively). The aim was to influence the land use in a green zone
between the Dutch municipality of Maastricht and the Belgian municipalities of
Riemst and Lanaken. The group proved to be more than just a flash in the pan.
For years, Dutch and Belgian residents and civil servants (most of whom were
also residents of the area) collaborated to organize various activities in order to
share with each other what they knew about the area. The area, which did not
have a name until then, was named the Grensschap in order to emphasize the
role of the DutchBelgian border as a binding element in the landscape. The
members of the Grensschap were not the kind of people who would use a strategy of open resistance against, for instance, building activities. What they wanted
most of all was to be incorporated into the decision-making process as reasonable
experts with plenty of local knowledge about various aspects of the area. They actively sought people who had various kinds of knowledge about the area, such as

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its human history, archaeology, geology and ecology. Some of the members knew
about these aspects of the area because of their professional background, and others because of their hobbies or because they had lived in the area for a long time.
The area had long been considered a no mans land and that image was what
they wanted to shed.
The area was also subject to extensive and rapid change. A recreational park,
linked to the existing swimming pool, was under construction at the Dousberg
complex (a leisure and residential development); the activities of the loam industry were being intensified; and, in addition to the industries that were already
present in the area, the expansion of housing and industrial areas was foreseen
on both sides of the border. As a consequence, the area had not been considered
as one whole. This story raises questions about the kind of politics practised here.
How far did their influence reach?
Loonsche Land
In the third case the Loonsche Land the Efteling theme park and two nature conservation organizations reached an agreement about the development of
a joint land-use management plan, which was laid down in a covenant. The initiative came about after years of conflict between these parties over the building
of accommodation in an area of woods and fields bordering and owned by the
Efteling theme park a conflict that led to legal cases that were remitted to the
Council of State.
Behind these episodes figured the compensation policies of the Dutch national and provincial governments, which state that all building activities in areas that
were formally designated as nature must be compensated for by the creation of
new nature. For instance, in the relevant province of Noord-Brabant, every lost
hectare of forest that was between 25 and 100 years old had to be compensated for
by a factor of 1.66. So the legal cases were mainly about the compensation plans
that the Efteling had submitted: for the nature organizations the proposed compensation was not enough and for the Efteling it was. Documents that supported
the legal procedure (e.g. documents about the ecological value of a fertilized field
of maize and how it would be compensated for) were exchanged. In the end, the
Council of State did not come to a conclusion but annulled the case for procedural
reasons. That was when the involved parties had finally had enough of the deadlocked situation, in which nobody got what they really wanted. The former opponents developed an alternative plan in which they abandoned the nature compensation idea. So, what were the consequences of this political strategy, and can
these be reasonably referred to as sub-politics?
The three cases represent situations in which politics and policies as usual did
not bring about the desired place-based policies that the interest groups wanted to
see for their places. Thus, they engaged in alternative kinds of politics to get their

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ideas realized. To come to conclusions about the kind of politics that they engaged
in, and their sub-political character, I first delve into this theoretical concept.
Sub-politics
Beck uses the term sub-politics to articulate the trend whereby society is increasingly being shaped from below. His work so far has focused on the worldwide
citizens movements that are emerging under the influence of feelings of danger and risks, whether real or anticipated. Becks famous examples are the worldwide movement against nuclear testing at Mururoa, the mass consumer protests
against the disposal in the North Sea of an obsolete oil rig (Brent Spar) (Beck,
1996, 1997) and the BSE crisis, the public perception of which, according to Beck,
gave rise to the fastest passage of laws in the history of the German Republic
(Beck et al., 2003: 14).
The concept of sub-politics refers to politics outside and beyond the representative institutions of the political system of nation-states. It focuses attention
on signs of an (ultimately global) self-organization of politics, which tends to set
all areas of society in motion. Sub-politics means direct politics that is, ad hoc
individual participation in political decisions, bypassing the institutions of representative opinion-formation (political parties, parliaments) and often even lacking the protection of the law. In other words, sub-politics means the shaping of
society from below.(Beck 1996: 18)
How does this idea about a global politics beyond the representative institutions of representative democracy relate to the initiatives addressed here? These
initiatives are obviously not about global movements; they relate to the very local
and specific of everyday places. As they relate to areas that are adjacent to cities or
within urban agglomerations, the initiatives reach further than a neighbourhood
park or a street; however, they are very local compared to the global examples to
which Beck refers. In addition, they are not about the kind of risks or major hazards that Beck speaks of in his examples, but about positive action that the initiators wished to take in order to improve these specific places. Still, Becks thesis
seems to deserve application also to initiatives that have a local, territorial orientation. Thus, the leading questions are: in what sense can one speak of self-organization in these examples, and of direct ad hoc participation in political decisions,
bypassing the representative institutions?
But how does one investigate such questions, which are still quite general?
First, the analyst needs to be enabled to become more specific about the in what
sense part of the question. Making a distinction between discourses and institutional practices, and looking at how both of them change (or do not change),
offers some guidance at this point. From among a variety of approaches to discourse analysis, I chose to take on a perspective that emphasizes both discourse
and institutional practices and the relationship between them. This means that
discourse refers not only to the everyday French meaning of the word (discus-

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sion). Such a linguistic approach would entail detailed analysis of written or spoken words in the texts or conversations of the local initiators and policy makers.
Even though texts and conversations are considered an expression of discourse,
I take a broader outlook by putting the emphasis on the whole range of ways in
which events are interpreted or given meaning to. This includes the practice of
using a language, as well as various kinds of other institutional practices, such as
ways to delineate land, specific allocations of resources, or the enactment of rules
that legitimate a specific type of organizational structure to control management
of the land, and not others. Discourse both steers such practices and is influenced
by them. To be able to investigate their relationship, it is necessary to distinguish
between discourse and institutional practices. Not doing so would collapse the
two separable elements, which is the same risk that lies in wait when operationalizing Giddenss duality of structure and agency (Giddens, 1984). Not separating
structure from agency also problematizes investigating their relationship in the
course of time (Archer, 1995, 1996).
Discourse is the way in which a specific idea is categorized and conceptualized, not just in words but also in deeds. Vivian Schmidt (2008: 305) who
recently suggested adding discursive institutionalism to the three main institutionalisms (rational actor, historical, sociological) phrases this as follows:
Discourse is not just ideas or text (what is said) but also context (where, when,
how, and why it as said). The term refers not only to structure (what is said, or
where and how) but also to agency (who said what to whom). Speaking of discourse in such a way turns it explicitly into a relational concept (see also Healey, 2003) or an interactive process. Schmidt (ibid.: 316): . . . discourse as an
interactive process is what enables agents to change institutions, because the
deliberative nature of discourse allows them to conceive of and talk about institutions as objects at a distance, and to dissociate themselves from them, even as
they continue to use them.
Similarly, institutions stand in particular relationships to people: even though
they are structures, they also exist in the minds of people, either as unconscious
baggage or as the conscious ability to think beyond the institutions within
which people act. Schmidt refers to Searle and Habermas when she refers to these
abilities as, respectively, background ideational abilities and foreground discursive abilities (ibid.: 315316).
Background ideational abilities are internal to individual actors. They encompass the human capacities, dispositions and know-how (knowledge of how the
world works and how to cope with it) and signify what goes on in individual
minds as they come up with new ideas (ibid.: 315). Foreground discursive abilities refer to what can be done collectively by engaging in deliberations about institutions. The latter concept is especially important, because it enables us to understand how actors, in collective efforts, are able to change institutions. As such, a
discursive institutional approach corrects the lack of agency in the other three institutional approaches. Here, too, the relationship between discourse and institu-

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tional practices is viewed in such a way. In my opinion, such a relational approach

to discourse and institutional practices facilitates one to describe the details of
their interactions in specific places.
Now, sub-politics, in discursive institutional terms, is about the ideational and
discursive abilities of agents to change institutional practices, while these agents
are simultaneously operating within the institutions that are bringing forth these
practices. Thus, here self-organization refers not to isolated initiatives that are
completely out of touch with present-day institutions, but to initiatives that are
still related to these institutions. The initiatives may be a consequence of the existing institutional practices and the initiators may be aware of them, so that they
can skilfully use their knowledge about them to promote their own ideas. With regard to the representative institutions, we have to see whether, when using these
transformative abilities, actors disregard (bypass) these entirely or whether they
still make use of them in some way to achieve their ideas.
In the following, I look at the earlier mentioned three cases in which local initiators wanted to make a difference to specific places to which they felt connected, but
could not make this difference without confronting established policies that had
their own established discursive characteristics and practices. What did the local
actors do with their ideational and discursive abilities in the three cases, and how
did that change (or not change) institutional practices? What does this tell us about
sub-politics? What versions of sub-politics can be derived from the three cases?
Competing discourse and institutional practices in three specific places
Biesland: farming and nature in an urbanizing area
In the Biesland case, the leading discourse behind policies to acquire land from
farmers was twofold: nature would be better off were the land owned by nature
organizations, and farming is not able to fulfil the wishes of urban dwellers, who
want recreation and forests. The internal market discourse of the EU which is
based on the idea that farmers can be paid for nature-oriented activities only to
the extent that this will not distort competition with other farmers in Europe
also played a major role: it eventually determined the future of the initiative. But
that was not all.
The initiative gradually obtained financial and other forms of support from
regional administrators and politicians, who believed that the idea of combining
farming and nature management in an urban environment could coexist with
the earlier mentioned discourse, which was based on the idea that nature and
agriculture should be separated. However, that coexistence of discourses in the
Biesland area did not translate into changed practices (e.g. the purchase of land)
elsewhere. And even in the Biesland area itself, there remained historical claims
on parts of the agricultural land. The fact that their ideas did get realized may
to some extent be due to the conscious discursive abilities of the local coalition.

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They were aware of the way of reasoning of key decision makers who were holding on to the idea of agriculture versus nature, and they were also aware that what
they had to do to convince their opponents was to conform to the practice of making prognoses of nature target types that were expected to occur as a result of the
new type of farm management.
They therefore carried out studies that would underpin the nature target
types that they expected, even if the point of departure of such studies was contrary to their own point of departure that nature could not be predicted in such a
way. Instead they thought that nature values were very much context dependent
and unpredictable, that they depended on available ecological conditions. Moreover, in order to fit within the internal market discourse, they also provided all
the detailed data that would enable officials in Brussels to carry out the state aid
procedure, a practice connected to the internal market discourse.
Thus, they operated in the existing institutions to get their ideas accepted, and
by doing so they reinforced existing institutional practices. This could be seen as
co-option, but for the initiators it was a way to pursue their ideas. But at the same
time they were also using their discursive abilities to think and speak outside the
existing institutions, and they kept their original ideas in full view. After years of
political decision making in Brussels and conversations between Dutch and European Commission officials, the plan of the local coalition was approved. The
question now is, in what sense was this sub-politics?
The Biesland coalition more or less achieved what it wanted in its specific local situation, but its success did not affect other places in the Netherlands; this
road was blocked in the final European decision. Also, the contents of their ideas
shifted in the direction of national and European policy frameworks while the initiators used their discursive abilities to fit their ideas within the latter. This led
to the implementation of a blurred version of the ideas. Although we may come
to a different conclusion in a few years, when the blurred version of the local
idea will be evaluated and lead to delayed effects, for the moment this can only be
speculated about. What is important, however, is that these shifts in the contents
of the ideas, and the continuation of practices as usual in other places, were not
debated in the formal arenas of representative politics, or in other informal arenas. Information about the project was being imparted in personal communications, during excursions to the farm and through a website and an e-newsletter,
but how the initiators had had to change their plans and how this had kept the
mainstream discourse in place did not become an issue. This nuances the manifestation of sub-politics as it occurred in Biesland.
In sum, the case is a manifestation of sub-politics in the sense that alternative discourse could coexist with mainstream discourse, and in the sense that local actors realized part of what they envisioned. But it was not a manifestation of
sub-politics in the sense that the alternative ideas (and the proposed institutional
practices related to them) did not become part of public deliberations about what
they could possibly mean in other areas or for mainstream policies.

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Grensschap: Dutch and Belgian citizens getting a no mans land on the agenda
The Grensschap case reveals a discourse in which the area is seen in a fragmented or segmented way as a no mans land in which there are still plenty of opportunities to expand various functions. This discourse is represented by the Dutch
and Belgian municipal sectors and developers, which were challenged by the integrative Grensschaps discourse. The areas border, history, geology, built environment and ecology were accentuated as binding factors. In the view of the members of the Grensschap, integration and the relationships that could still be perceived in the landscape should be the point of departure when building activities
were to be undertaken.
However, the majority of the municipal administrations continued to look at
the area not as one in which various features would need to be balanced, but solely
as a potential zone for expansion. This was expressed by their institutional practices, such as the planning process for the Zouwdal (a small, open valley), which
was split up into sectoral studies rather than being dealt with as one whole. And
as it was the deliberate strategy of the members of the Grensschap not to explicitly
oppose activities that had already been decided upon, confrontations on issues of
content were less actively sought and were even avoided. They did so on the basis
of their foreground discursive abilities; they knew what would and what would
not be controversial. Thus, they literally used their ability to think outside the institutions to be able to continue to act within them. However, their avoidance of
confrontations also thwarted their chances of deliberating on the contents of their
own ideas and on how these differed from the prevalent ideas about that specific
landscape.
All in all, I would argue that the Grensschap is a manifestation of sub-politics in the sense that it shows the emergence of a new movement that is based
on feelings of connectedness to a specific place and with great value attached
to local knowledge, rather than the formal knowledge bases that are used, recognized and valued by governments. In terms of inf luence on outcomes, however, this statement must be qualified. Their strong ideas on how elements of
the landscape were connected to each other and on how this should be acknowledged in planning efforts did appeal to some politicians and officials, especially those who were dealing with the qualities of the landscape that the members
of the Grensschap were also concerned about. And they were able to realize a
project that for them was important because it carried their message: fourteen
landmarks, each representing the qualities of the area and telling a story about
the coherence of the landscape. The landmarks were to show how each of these
qualities related to the landscape on the place, and how that place could be seen
in relation to the other places. However, it seemed not to inf luence the part of
the administration with most weight as regards the fragmented type of decision making that had also characterized decision making before the Grensschap
came into being.

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Loonsche Land: theme park and nature organizations breaking an impasse

In the Loonsche Land case, the compensation discourse gave rise to a fierce conflict between the actors representing building activities (the theme park) and
those representing nature (the nature organizations), because it stimulated both
sides to think in terms of their own interests. For a long time, the compensation
discourse was reproduced in this struggle; the hostility that characterized these
interactions militated against the willingness to engage in collaborative approaches. But in 2004, with a court decision on the proposed compensation still pending and the process on the verge of being repeated all over again (in other words,
with the situation only getting worse), everybody wanted a way out. The idea that
provided the way out was more integral and qualitative in character. Again, it addressed the area as a whole and was inspired by stories behind the landscape. The
economy and nature were no longer viewed as contradictory or incompatible. It all
boiled down to the imposition of ecological conditions on the building of apartments and to an emphasis on the overall improvement of the area in terms of nature values and cultural history. The shift of practice, from operating through legal procedures to engaging in face-to-face discussions and formulating a joint vision, required both parties to adopt a broader outlook and to replace thinking in
terms of either-or by thinking in terms of and-and, to the extent that this was
possible.
Both parties were satisfied with the plan that resulted from their common endeavour. However, whereas an area-oriented approach such as this one, building
on collaboration between various public and private parties, was gaining ground,
the fundamental principles of the nature compensation discourse, whose built-in
bias towards claim-making practices had triggered the confrontational approach,
continued to hold sway. The most remarkable aspect of this is perhaps that there
was so little discussion about the enabling and constraining effects of compensation policy.
This case provides another example of sub-politics if it is viewed from the angle of the emergence of new coalitions outside the representative system, making use of their discursive abilities to break through an impasse that was created
by the powerful nature compensation discourse. However, it is important to note
here that the new partners kept their process rather closed. They wanted to avoid
interference by other groups (i.e. more radical nature organizations or more fervent business-oriented actors) that would perhaps cling to the principles of either
nature compensation or business development. This lack of openness is most
likely not what Beck had in mind when he spoke of sub-politics. Still, considering
the discursive space that the former opponents created between themselves, and
the ways in which they involved the bureaucracy (thereby circumventing political
decisions), I still see sufficient reason to include this particular place-based series
of events as another variation of sub-politics. But what is perhaps more important is that the events did not give rise to any form of deliberation about the con-

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sequences of nature compensation policy. Thus, despite the new discourse and
the place-based innovation, repercussions for mainstream discourse, which remained firmly embedded in its connected compensation practices, did not arise.
Conclusion
To substantiate the idea that small-scale, place-based initiatives may indicate
the existence of versions of sub-politics that are different from the examples described by Beck, I examined whether and, if so, in what sense the sub-politics thesis would be valid for these. For this, I used three Dutch examples. To operationalize the sub-politics thesis, which is about both process and contents (impact), I
looked at discourses and institutional practices, and particularly at the relationship between them. I expected that putting discourse in the foreground while not
losing sight of what was actually done in terms of institutional practices would
highlight what institutional change took place in the course of the interactions
between the mentioned initiatives and established policies, and what institutional
practices were reproduced and stabilized.
This gave rise to a nuanced picture of what sub-politics could actually involve
in situations such as the ones described here. I derived from the cases different
versions of sub-politics. The versions can be distinguished by looking at the ways
in which the introduction of new ideas was related to a change in institutional
practices, or whether no change occurred.
In the first version of sub-politics, the introduction of new ideas for a specific
area, ideas that did not come forth from the representative system, is accompanied by a change in institutional practices. Place-related actors joined forces to directly influence the policies that are of relevance to their area. And it was not just
words or ideas that changed: new practices came about along with the new ideas. New coalitions centred on new ideas were created in all three cases, and this
sometimes led to significant changes in institutional practices. For instance, the
integrative idea of the cross-border Grensschap area an area that was formerly a
no-mans land and in which sectoral interests could still find room to expand
was connected to the Grensschap as an organization with strong informal rules
about how to deal with the area and with each other.
There was also discursive change in the second and third versions of sub-politics: new ideas became accentuated in relation to particular places and new actor coalitions were mobilized to realize these ideas. However, these versions differ
from the first if one takes into account a time and a place dimension. In the second
version, the contents of what was proposed from outside the representative system
shifted in the direction of dominant policy discourses and practices in the course
of time. Initiators do this deliberately: they use their discursive abilities to assess
what kind of shift is necessary in order to get their ideas accepted. An important
question that distinguished the first from the second version is: did it change only
policy vocabulary or also institutional practices? The three cases demonstrated

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how these shifts may occur in different intensities and at different times; namely
early as in the Grensschap case, where right from the beginning the initiators
took into account mainstream ways of thinking or later, as in the Efteling case,
where the initiators deliberately distanced themselves from the way of thinking
that had brought them into deadlock, but at a later stage translated their ideas back
into the compensation discourse in order to get their plans accepted.
In the third version, discursive change translated into a change in institutional practices, but these practices turned out to be valid only in the place where the
initiative originated; thus, they could be implemented there but nowhere else. It
also means that we need to ask in cases where both discourse and institutional
practices are changed whether that change is directed at the specific place of origin of the initiative only or whether it also has wider policy implications.
The fourth version of sub-politics that stands out in the three cases is distinguished not so much on the basis of the relationship between discourse and institutional practices, as on the basis of the extent to which it is open or closed to
specific actors. It is a closed version of sub-politics. This was most clear in the
Efteling case. Similar to the other cases, new partners engaged in an initiative on
the basis of ideas that deviated from established policies; this new partnership,
however, remained closed: other participants were not allowed in. This introduces closed forms of sub-politics as an additional version.
In view of the above, a fifth variant of sub-politics is conceivable but did not
occur in the three cases. This is an open variant with changed discourse and
changed institutional practices with respect to the specific place in which the
initiative originated, but that also involves broader deliberation about the consequences of these changes for wider policy development. A relevant question with
regard to this version is: who can participate and who cannot?
The final question is, whats next? In my view, further research on the subpolitical character of place-based initiatives is especially relevant in the context of
present-day attempts to locate democracy somewhere else than in the traditional representative institutions of will-formation only. Providing in-depth analyses
of cases in which these versions are tested and elaborated gives a more nuanced
picture of the various manifestations of sub-politics, as we have seen in the three
Dutch examples. Such nuance allows us to fathom what is really going on in
terms of sub-politics and to debate the relative openness or closedness of it, or the
extent to which discursive change accompanies changes in institutional practices over time and across places. Additional empirical analyses would contribute to
better and more elaborate place-based accounts of sub-politics. Operationalizing
the thesis by means of making a distinction between discourse and institutional
practices, and between open and closed versions of sub-politics, has shown its relevance. The first distinction shows that the uptake of new ideas in local policy debates and politics is often not accompanied by a wider debate on the change in institutional practices (over time and across places), meaning that the ideas remain
isolated and institutional practices remain static. The second distinction shows

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that in order to assess the democratic potential of the sub-politics of local initiatives, it is important to articulate which actors make part of the arrangement and
which actors do not, and with what consequences. Such seems a promising element of the work to be done in the field of social spatial analysis.
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14 Designing Landscapes for Leisure:

Reconsidering a Dutch Design Tradition
Marlies Brinkhuijsen

he use and meaning of the countryside is changing in urbanized regions of

north-western Europe. Although the predominant land use may still be agriculture, the actual character of these landscapes is plural and diverse; they include nature, forestry, water management, transport, housing, work and leisure.1
The countryside in the Netherlands is being adjusted to meet leisure needs and
wishes for two reasons, namely to provide green leisure environments in urbanized regions and to support rural economies. A survey by the Market Organisational Research Institute in 2001 showed that over 50% of the Dutch people
considered the main function of the countryside to be the provision of quiet,
space and recreation rather than food production (Frerichs & de Wijs, 2001).
The Dutch National Council for Agricultural Research spoke about the transformation from landscapes of production to landscapes of consumption (NRLO,
1998). It is obvious that such changing images of the countryside create different expectations of usefulness and experiential qualities: There is a shift from
the domination of demands of agricultural efficiency to a variety of experience
demands (Jacobs, 2002).
The transformation of landscapes into appealing environments for leisure is
a pressing contemporary issue and an important one for landscape designers.
After all, landscape design involves functional as well as perceptual and imaginative aspects of space. This combination of aspects is essential if one wishes to
make contemporary landscapes attractive for leisure purposes. Landscape designers have for centuries been modifying landscapes for such purposes, with pleasure being one of the essential motives in the history of garden architecture. European baroque and landscape style gardens are often seen as the progenitors of
theme parks (e.g. Mosser & Teyssot, 1991; Young & Riley, 2002). Landscape designers have developed a rich variety of design concepts, tools, styles and images
1. In this article, leisure, recreation and tourism are considered closely related concepts,
characterized by their joint distinction from everyday life and duties and taking place
in the landscape. They encompass a wide variety of activities and experiences of variable duration that are inspired by non-utilitarian motives. The people concerned include
local residents, citizens from nearby towns, day-trippers and tourists. The whole cluster is henceforth referred to as leisure.

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to organize space, enable leisure use and stir the imagination. Landscape designers can draw on their rich tradition of garden and landscape architecture when
adjusting landscapes for leisure purposes.
It would be unjust, however, to assume that pleasure is all that landscape
designers can contribute to landscapes for leisure. The matter exceeds the local
scale of gardens, parks and estates; it includes the regional scale with all its complexity. Landscape design in the Netherlands is known for its practice of regional
landscape planning and design in rural areas. Dutch landscape designers have
been redesigning existing landscapes and creating entirely new landscapes since
the 1920s (Andela, 2000; de Visser, 1997), and this has led to the development of
a unique tradition of comprehensive landscape design for rural landscapes. Leisure was one of the aspects taken into account, not only in traditional tourist landscapes but also in landscapes that were primarily seen as agriculturally productive landscapes. These practices have produced a range of design concepts, tools,
styles and images that can still be called upon.
A challenge for landscape designers
If landscape designers wish to contribute to the development of attractive rural
landscapes for leisure and to help further develop the discipline of landscape design and its foundations, it is necessary to look beyond the challenges, trends and
demands of both leisure and landscapes. It is sensible to find out how landscape
design activities in recent history relate to the currently changing countryside
and leisure context. Some components of the design tradition will last; others appear questionable or unsuitable in the current context they may be rejuvenated
and transformed, or abandoned. In short, the design tradition should be scrutinized for its relevance and suitability in the given context. However, landscape designers rarely do this. In fact, it is not possible for them to do so, because the way
leisure has been dealt with in this design tradition has never been made explicit.
As long as the leisure approach in the design tradition remains implicit, it cannot
be discussed and examined for its relevance and suitability.
My LANDSCAPE 1:1 study (Brinkhuijsen, 2008) examined to what extent leisure approaches in the context of the Dutch design tradition concerning rural landscapes are still relevant and suitable in todays changing context, which presents
new leisure demands and landscape challenges. The aim of the study was to provide the knowledge and understanding that is necessary to start a discussion about
the leisure approaches and the design traditions relation to those approaches. I
also wanted to contribute to a stronger foundation of landscape design for leisure
in rural landscapes. I formulated the following research questions:

How did Dutch landscape designers deal with leisure in the countryside in
twentieth-century landscape designs? What designs did they make for leisure
purposes? Which design concepts and tools did they apply and for what rea-

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sons? What were their ideas about leisure and the role and meaning of landscapes with regard to leisure, and to what extent did the designs represent
these ideas?
What are the dominant approaches (the leading ideas, design concepts and
tools) to leisure in the countryside that emerge from the studied practices of
twentieth-century landscape design, and how are they related to the Dutch
design tradition concerning rural landscapes?
With regard to leisure in the countryside, what are the critical issues for landscape design theory and practice in the present and future context? What are
the most significant characteristics and trends of leisure in the countryside
and which issues require attention? To what extent does the contemporary
context require reconsideration of the dominant design approaches concerning leisure in the countryside?

Research design
The research design consisted of three parts. The first comprised an empirical
task, namely to select and study operational and strategic landscape designs in order to unearth the underlying design concepts, tools and ideas. For this, an analytical framework was constructed on the basis of four spatial components of leisure: attractions, facilities, routes and settings. The designs represented a range
of Dutch landscapes, that is, the coastal zone and the marine clay polders of the
Zeeland Delta, the river plains of the Gelderse Poort, the peat meadow landscapes
of the Venen and the sandy uplands of the Drentsche Aa Stream Valley. They covered five periods with different planning and policy contexts, namely the pioneering period (1920s 1950s), the period of mass recreation (1960s), the period of
joint recreational use (1970s early 1980s), the period of rambling (late 1980s
1990s) and the period of diversification (present time).
The second part comprised a comparative analysis of the ideas, design concepts and tools that had been unearthed during the design analyses. Dominant
leisure approaches were reconstructed and related to contemporary theoretical insights and to the Dutch design tradition concerning rural landscapes. In the third
part, the reconstructed leisure approaches were critically reviewed from both an
academic and a practical point of view. Central themes of leisure in the countryside were identified and related to the leisure approaches in terms of their relevance and suitability.
Design tradition
The design analyses revealed a range of concepts, tools and ideas that are representative of leisure approaches in landscape design in the five periods studied.
They brought to light a stable design tradition of a comprehensive landscape approach and persistent conceptualizations of leisure. Even though spatial policy

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and leisure policy offered different concepts over time, the focus and preference
of landscape designers remained quite selective and constant. Their dominant
image of leisure in the countryside was one of extensive use by individuals or by
small groups and families: walking, cycling, fishing and enjoying nature. Thus,
leisure could easily be inserted into the landscape with only some relatively modest functional adjustments. Mass recreation and intensive forms of leisure were
treated differently. They were spatially isolated from their environment and put
aside, both literally and figuratively.
The principal measure in all designs for extensive use was the opening up of
the landscape. Routes for both daily strolls and day trips have been planned and
designed ever since the first landscape designs were made in the late 1920s. As
landscapes became more important as leisure environments, strategies to open
up the landscape expanded. Gaps in existing path networks were filled and the
range of networks grew over time. Rambling and public access via private roads
were stimulated. However, when areas were considered too vulnerable, they were
made inaccessible or accessible only along dead-end paths. Landscape designers
appeared to have a special interest in routes that enabled visitors to experience the
structure and diversity of a landscape. The rear side of the landscape was usually assigned to slow traffic. Landscape designers preferred these margins in the
landscape for their unpretentious beauty.
Whereas the opening up of the landscape was the primary condition for accessibility, the presence of attractions was seen as a major condition for a landscape
to be a leisure destination. Landscape designers made use of the landscape itself
as much as possible in their attempts to design an attractive landscape for leisure.
Landscape identity was taken as both a starting point and an objective. Landscape
features were turned into attractions by emphasizing and explaining the characteristics of the specific landscape, or the designers treated the whole landscape as
a leisure attraction. New sites and facilities were added only when a landscape did
not contain enough attractions or was considered unsuitable for leisure.
The essence of landscape designers conceptualization of leisure appeared to
contrast with daily life and daily duties. The designers used a range of design concepts to represent the countryside as an environment that contrasted with both
city life and the city itself. A popular image was that of a countryside in which life
was simple and time had stood still, in contrast to the alienating dynamics of the
city. Rural landscapes were associated with the vernacular and with casualness.
Most designers were afraid of over-design: a design that remained unnoticed as
such was thought to be the best. They preferred landscape elements to be integrated into the landscape instead of being separated and singled out. They aimed
for simple designs that went without saying.
Another essential concept in landscape design for leisure was the concept of
freedom. This concept comprehended two types of freedom: the opportunity to
choose what to do or where to go, and the opportunity to come up with personal
interpretations. The freedom of choice was particularly expressed in the design

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concept of route networks, which enabled people to choose their own itinerary.
Designers devised and designed a variety of leisure attractions and facilities, but
one may question how diverse the leisure supply really was and whether it offered
choices that were in line with consumer demands. Planners and designers concentrated on extensive forms of recreation and, within those parameters, even on
specific types of leisure.
The themes that occurred most often and that turned out to be permanent
features of both policy and design were for people to take a break from daily life,
to enjoy landscapes and nature, and to be interested in it. Amusement and entertainment were associated with mass recreation and, according to the designers,
did not combine well with extensive forms of recreation. People who were looking for the unexpected and more adventurous forms of leisure were not provided
for either. Several possible reasons for this biased preference for specific motives
were taken into consideration. One reason appears to be that landscape designers
planned and designed for people like themselves, in other words, for people who
had a lot of interest in and knowledge about the landscape.
The other type of freedom was that the landscape was open to personal interpretations. In general, landscape designers preferred neutral, multi-interpretable spaces that enabled various uses. They did not like highly controlled environments and tried not to be too directive. The majority of the landscape designers interviewed explicitly mentioned their rejection of information boards
and other obtrusive signs that pushed people to use or interpret an environment in a specific way. Such intrusions did not fit with in the informal image
of the countryside they were trying to portray. They had the tendency to leave it
up to people to form their own interpretations, and preferred to offer opportunities for unprogrammed, unexpected and unthought-of activities rather than
areas that were explicitly laid out for repose. By preserving or designing some
margins in the landscape, they provided space for spontaneous use; for example, a widened bank could be used as a playing field or the raised wall of a culvert could be sat upon. The preference for simplicity also relates to a strong and
long-lasting modernist discourse in landscape design, particularly in rural areas. Modern designers preferred a simple layout, one that had pure, geometric
forms and clear, straight lines. They rejected the use of ornaments and symbolism. Their designs were characterized by functionality. Things should speak
for themselves.
Even though there were specific leisure approaches, leisure was mostly regarded as such an integral part of human presence in rural landscapes that design considerations were not meant exclusively for leisure: they were a natural
part of the comprehensive landscape design. Landscape designers considered it
their job to design for the landscape as a whole, including leisure. As leisure could
easily be inserted into the landscape, it was subordinated to other types of land
use. For landscape designers, their comprehensive and multifunctional approach
was so natural that they saw it as the only true one.

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The emphasis on the landscape scale and the main landscape components was
the basis for all land uses and activities, including leisure. Landscape structure,
the main landscape components and land uses dictated the location of routes, attractions and facilities. Because they considered problems at a larger scale and
related them to other problems, they paid less attention to detailed landscape design. The drawing of detailed plans was often left to technicians who had no background in architectural design.
The concept of the legible landscape turned out to be one of the leading concepts with regard to landscape design for leisure, even though it was not applied
explicitly for leisure purposes. Landscape designers did not discern leisure experience from landscape experience in general. Whether a landscape was meant for
residents, local visitors or occasional tourists, their experience of the landscape
was treated similarly.
Altogether, leisure approaches in recent decades proved unambiguous, persistent and stable, although weakly grounded and poorly elaborated. Leisure was
generally dealt with implicitly and intuitively in landscape design. Leisure was
considered to be inherently integrated in landscapes. In general, the majority of
landscape designers working in rural areas did not make much of an effort to get
to know and understand the nature of leisure behaviour, leisure motives, leisure
experience and the interaction between leisure and everyday life in rural landscapes. They implicitly duplicated the concepts of their predecessors or fell back
on their personal preferences and experiences, and made their designs for people
like themselves.
While the designers did display a serious interest in various functional and
physical-spatial aspects of landscapes, it appears that they were generally less interested in the social and psychological aspects of those landscapes. They studied
in great detail the properties and conditions of nature, water management and
infrastructure, and their consequences for landscape planning and design. They
tried to understand the mechanisms that determine the shapes and images of
landscape elements and the logic of their reciprocal coherence. Design concepts
and decisions were subsequently legitimized with concepts and theories derived
from ecology, hydrology, civil engineering and cultural history. However, leisure
was hardly examined systematically for its properties and conditions.
Consequently, designers reverted to general principles of landscape experience without asking themselves whether landscape experience in general corresponds with leisure experience in particular and to their personal leisure preferences, without asking themselves whether they were legitimate, given the context,
and would meet other peoples leisure needs and wishes. Since landscape designers did not question the nature of leisure and leisure environments as represented in their leisure conceptualizations, they neither explicated nor questioned the
subsequent representation of their leisure conceptualizations in design concepts
and tools: they did not evaluate their views, assumptions, design concepts or tools.
Recent designs, however, show different approaches. An increasing diversi-

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ty of approaches, concepts, themes and images can be observed. This suggests

structural changes; it is likely that landscape design for leisure in the countryside is in transition. However, landscape designers continue to work implicitly
and intuitively. New issues are taken in randomly and common assumptions are
not questioned. As a consequence, landscape design for leisure lacks a theoretical
foundation and is underdeveloped, and some critical issues with respect to contemporary leisure are still left out of consideration.
The need for a well-founded design tradition
Now that leisure has become an important aspect of rural landscapes, it is time to
think of leisure as a relevant and serious design problem. A contemporary, wellfounded design tradition concerning leisure in the countryside must be developed. Design problems in rural areas are now so complex that an intuitive, implicit and random approach will simply not suffice. What is needed is a thorough
and logical study of the nature of leisure and its demands and motives for design.
Both the content and the process of designing for leisure need to be carefully examined, along with the designers ideas, concepts and tools, in theory and in application, and in design and in use. This is of vital importance for the development of a mature landscape design profession, and above all for its societal relevance. A design tradition that is outdated or based on misconceived assumptions
will most likely result in unattractive landscapes for leisure. An explicit, reasoned
and systematic approach is required. Landscape designers need to make their
ideas and perspectives transparent and adjust them if necessary. By collaborating
with other disciplines in research by design, new concepts, tools and images can
be developed together. Based on intimate theoretical and empirical knowledge, it
should be tested whether design concepts and tools are suitable to represent abstract concepts and ideas, and design decisions must be comprehensively underpinned. And finally, designers must assess whether designed landscapes actually
function as intended.
The use of this knowledge will not result in strict, ready-made design rules.
A one-to-one conversion of abstract theoretical concepts into specific leisure environments and concrete design solutions is both undesirable and impossible
undesirable because a limited range of solutions does not add to a rich variety of
routes, attractions, facilities and settings, and impossible because general, abstract concepts such as freedom or contrast with daily life are complex and multilayered concepts that can be interpreted and elaborated in many ways. The characteristics of different modes of leisure experience (amusement, change, interest,
rapture, dedication) are ambiguous as well (Elands & Lengkeek, 2000). They too
can be interpreted and elaborated in many ways, particularly because leisure experience is usually a combination of modes. To devise custom-made design concepts and tools demands creativity and artistry. Reasoning is needed to evaluate
the various options and to make the design choices clear.

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Critical issues concerning leisure

With respect to the contemporary diversity and dynamics of leisure, one may conclude that the design tradition is inadequate to face emerging issues and challenges. It needs to be reconsidered and expanded. The traditional ideal images of
landscapes for leisure might no longer be appropriate. If, in addition to extensive
forms of leisure, intensive forms of leisure are to be integrated with agricultural
practices and other land uses, the familiar concept of a wood packed with leisure
facilities will no longer be the most obvious concept. Designers and their clients
must explicitly ask themselves which forms of leisure and recreation they should
take into account and to what extent their designs correspond to the forms that
are chosen. They should consider plurality as an integrated part of the design
problem. Naturally, it is not necessary for each and every landscape or site to offer
all possible things to all possible people. Each environment has different qualities
that are easier or harder to combine with different activities and different motives,
and some activities do not match very well at all. Zoning is an effective organization principle that can be applied subtly at a regional level, by creating different
landscapes and providing different leisure opportunities within a region, or at a
local level, through internal, functional and spatial organization of routes, facilities and attractions. Dealing with different meanings is both a more subtle and a
more complicated matter. This topic is discussed in the following section, which
looks at the issue of life worlds.
When designers did pay explicit attention to leisure, they mainly focused on
facilities. Leisure experience was implicitly taken into account only to a certain
extent. With regard to experiences that are directly related to perception, few landscape designers explicitly tried to stimulate the senses with their designs. As far
as narratives are concerned, the landscape setting was designed as a non-urban
realm, and when designers did make detailed designs, the routes and attractions
also expressed a contrast with daily urban life. Landscape design as a whole usually referred to one dominant narrative: the history of landscape formation. Leisure experience thus remained rather underexposed, but recent designs show
that more attention was paid to experience and the designs themselves represented a wider variety of experiential aspects.
The design tradition does not have much to offer where leisure experience is
concerned. There is a need for reconsideration. It is crucial that landscape designers pay more attention to the perceptive and imaginative aspects of their designs.
To create a mentally, emotionally or spiritually attractive landscape requires a
landscape that not only functions well but also stimulates the senses and the
mind. Landscape designers should pay more attention to the level of details in
their designs. At a regional scale, landscape perception is an abstract concept,
but at a detailed level it becomes concrete. People perceive their immediate surroundings at eye-level with their senses. Experience can be influenced by playing with material and physical stimuli: the form, size, scale, material, texture,

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smell, sound and composition of landscape elements. The experience of a narrow,

swampy, winding path is very different from the experience of a straight, wide,
paved road; the experience of trees planted in a grid pattern is different from the
experience of indiscriminately planted trees. A refined, detailed landscape design
can stimulate the senses and enhance the impact and richness of the experience.
Landscape designers are able to draw on a long tradition of garden and park
architecture, a tradition that is rich in concepts and tools for the creation of illusions, the provision of pleasure, and various references to nature and culture. Design traditions concerning other leisure domains such as theme parks may
also be a source of inspiration. Theme park designers know perfectly well how to
influence or manipulate peoples behaviour and experience. This knowledge and
these skills can be derived from their commercial context and applied in the context of public space in the countryside. The landscape setting is an inseparable
part of leisure experience, and its role can be better exploited. The landscape setting plays such an important role in leisure experience because it is also the subject of leisure and acts as a symbol, referring to ideal images of leisure, nature and
landscape. It can be the background, symbol and subject of leisure in many ways.
It is often intertwined with leisure attractions and facilities. A hilly landscape, for
instance, attracts those cyclists who seek a sportive challenge. The hilly landscape
setting is the attraction and provides the facilities for a sportive performance at
the same time. A landscape setting can provide a specific ambience for leisure activities and can thus co-create special experiences.
Ideal images of nature and the countryside might not be as obvious as they
seem to be. In a debate with landscape designers about the outcomes of this study,
they argued that the rural images they used for leisure in the countryside are natural and legitimate, as they represent the most eye-catching and fundamental
characteristic of rural landscapes in comparison with other, urban and themed
leisure environments. It is arguable that non-urban images do make sense in
an urbanizing context, as the urbanrural dichotomy is deeply rooted in society. Notwithstanding the legitimacy of their argument, the designers did not ask
themselves whether the changing relation between town and countryside in an
urbanizing context might lead to slightly different interpretations and expectations. A fundamental quality of leisure is contrast. When the landscape becomes
part of the city and the city becomes integrated with the landscape, the quality of
that contrast may diminish. The contrast between town and countryside has to be
thoroughly re-examined for its relevance. An extensive body of literature on rurality (e.g. van Dam et al., 2002; Yarwood, 2005; Edensor, 2006) and alternative concepts of space and urbanity (e.g. Aug, 1995; Graham & Marvin, 2001; Castells,
2004a, 2004b) could feed this discussion and provide new perspectives.
For a long time, designers overlooked the possible coexistence of other realms
and images. Landscape references can be broader and more diverse, as recent designs have shown. Landscapes can refer to other times and places (elsewhen and
elsewhere). They may diversify and enrich the landscape, make them attractive

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to many people with different leisure motives and represent a contrast with daily
life. Landscape designers should not deny the position and meaning of rural landscapes as distinct from other leisure environments, but they can add further layers
of meaning. The representation of narratives of local events and people in landscape designs may strengthen local identity and the orientation in time and space.
The landscape then becomes multilayered and probably more attractive to a diverse
public. However, landscape designers must bear in mind that not everyone reads
landscapes and their embedded narratives in the way that they do. Clients should
be aware of all this and explicitly include these aspects in their assignments.
Landscape designers preference for contextual design and the subsequent
tendency to scale up their designs certainly added to the quality of the designs.
The contextual approach placed the landscape as a whole in the foreground. This
approach entailed including the landscape setting in their designs. At the same
time, the integrated, regional approach often came at the expense of detailed design, whereas the quality of supply is determined to a large extent by the immediate, physical confrontation with the landscape. This problem was partly caused by
the fragmented structure of the planning and design processes. Different people
carried out different stages of the planning and design process, with little continuity in the assignments.
To improve the quality of design, landscape designers should cherish their
integrated approach and pay more attention to the elaboration of their designs.
As discussed, the public expects environments that provide unique and memorable experiences. Landscape designers should create landscapes that are different from others, making use of the genius loci and emphasizing it. By respecting
perceptive and imaginative aspects and elaborating their designs down to the last
detail, they can create landscapes that catch the imagination; that is, they can design in such a way that it appeals to peoples fantasy and evokes amazement, wonder and curiosity.
This is relevant not only to contemporary leisure which focuses the attention on experience but also to such simple and popular activities as walking and
cycling. The quality of many areas in the countryside is considered rather low because the areas have a large-scale character and bad accessibility, and they lack
functionality and scenic beauty (Bruls et al., 2002). Nonetheless, the countryside
is a very popular environment for walking and cycling. It could be so much more
attractive, though. We do not necessarily have to put up with boring, mediocre
design solutions from the past, and landscape designers and their clients do not
need to work solely demand-oriented. Landscape designers could create much
more interesting landscapes for leisure. Their challenge and ambition should be
to create a highly attractive environment, no matter how insignificant the design
problem may appear. Each route should be examined for its scenic qualities, and
each site and each programme should be scrutinized for the specific opportunities they provide. It does not need to be cutting-edge design: exceptionalizing the
everyday landscape with care and creativity could reveal hidden qualities. All of

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this requires clients to realize that quality takes time, tenacity and money; they
have to offer designers the opportunity to go through all the stages of a design
process from the first general concept to the stage of implementation, and give
them the time to elaborate their ideas down to the last detail.
Critical issues concerning leisure environments
A basic principle for landscape designers is to consider and deal with landscapes
in an integrated way. They continuously aim for multifunctional landscapes in
which coexist a diversity of land uses and activities. They have developed a variety of planning and design concepts for dealing with the combination or separation of land uses and activities. The framework planning concept is an example at the regional scale. Zoning principles have been used at different scale levels to intertwine compatible activities or land uses and to separate incompatible
ones. The integrated approach provides coherence in complex situations and corresponds closely with contemporary views of the countryside as a post-productive landscape. Integration is urgently needed in light of the growing number of
claims on rural landscapes, such as water management, climate adaptation, rurban residences and leisure.
Leisure was treated as subordinate to other land uses; it was treated as an activity that could easily be inserted. Intensive and commercial types of leisure were
separated and hidden from sight; the focus was on public properties. This attitude was not unique to landscape designers; leisure policy also considers commerce detestable, although inevitable for economic reasons. Dealing with commercial aspects was a neglected part of the reconstructed design tradition. Such
an attitude towards leisure may be problematic in landscapes for consumption,
where leisure is economically important. The far-reaching commodification of
and competition between landscapes are current trends and offer new challenges
to designers. As for the position of leisure in integrated landscape planning and
design, designers attitudes require reconsideration. Leisure should be treated as
a fully-fledged function, equal to others. Landscape designers should examine to
what extent the diverse, extensive and intensive forms of leisure can be combined
with other land uses and activities, or vice versa.
Competition between landscapes and urban leisure spaces was not a part of
the design tradition; they were rather seen as complementary. Nevertheless, landscape designers emphasized the contrast between urban and rural in many ways.
This contrast, which is firmly rooted in Western society, can be used to distinguish landscapes from urban leisure environments, but it will not be sufficient
to meet the strong competition with urban leisure space and other landscapes;
other qualities are also required. All the same, the design tradition did include
some themes that are of interest in todays commodified context, such as landscape identity and genius loci. They have been major concepts in landscape design. Landscape designers built their designs on area-specific, local and regional

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qualities. The history of landscape its genesis and cultural history was used
as a guiding landscape narrative. The public was not necessarily susceptible to
the way local characteristics and historical features were represented in design.
Whether laymen were able to read landscapes the way landscape designers do
was rarely questioned.
All in all, the reconstructed design tradition concerning landscape identity and representing landscape narratives seems relevant, but not sufficient in
the contemporary commodified and competitive context. Commodification and
branding are common in other realms as well. City marketing and branding, for
example, have been applied in urban environments since the late 1980s. Highquality architecture and public spaces are thought to play an important role. A
study of such environments could reveal the design strategies, concepts and tools
that were used, and help us to develop a view on the pros and cons of landscape
commodification. Design traditions in such realms may contain useful alternative or complementary concepts and tools. Systematic research by design can shed
light on the question to what extent these design strategies, concepts and tools
can be applied to rural landscapes. No matter what, high quality is a primary condition for any landscape in a competitive context, and hence is also a primary demand for landscape designs.
Landscape designers have had to deal continuously with the impoverishment
of landscapes. Ongoing modernization and rationalization led to the disappearance of many historical landscape elements and patterns. Landscape designers
did their best to preserve landscape characteristics by taking structural elements
and patterns as the basis for their designs. The difference between the past situation and the contemporary one is that today the landscape elements are not disappearing on a large scale, although their original meanings are. The reconstruction showed that landscape designers primarily aimed at the physical, visual aspects of landscape. In general, they did not really concern themselves with symbolic meanings or meanings attached to memories. The contemporary context
primarily demands a change of attitude. Symbolic meaning and individual and
collective memories should be considered essential properties of landscapes and
landscape elements. Designers should be conscious of the meanings assigned
to and derived from a landscape by the users and by the designers themselves.
These meanings ought to be made explicit; an inventory and analysis of these
meanings should be part of the design process. The concepts of landscape identity and genius loci should be interpreted broadly. They should include not only
the physical aspects of landscape but also the psychological and symbolic aspects.
The multivocal representations that constitute the genius loci of the place should
be treated with respect. Only then will it be possible to assess existing design concepts and tools and to develop new ones by means of research by design.
The same applies to different life worlds. Landscape design for leisure was
more involved with use and facilities and some general, abstract meanings of
landscape for leisure than with local meanings and conflicts between the life

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worlds of residents and the public. Some examples came up, but in general little
attention was paid to this issue. However, the issue is becoming more urgent as
leisure environments and daily living environments become more intertwined.
As a result of different levels of connection, residents and visitors have different
expectations of the same environment and derive different meanings from it. The
design tradition has no solution to this issue, and this lacuna has to be filled. The
fields of leisure and tourism studies, geography and cultural anthropology have a
comprehensive literature on the problems related to the different life worlds of local residents and tourists, and can provide good examples of how these life worlds
can coexist. Spatial solutions can be developed through research by design, with
designers and experts on life-world topics and experts on leisure and tourism cooperating in multidisciplinary teams. It is the clients job to explicitly insist that
designers take into account the different life worlds of residents and visitors.
Considering planning and design processes
Landscape designers did their best to combine sectional programmes and comprehensive designs, even when their assignments were formulated from a sectional point of view. Their multifunctional, comprehensive landscape approach
enabled them to develop integrated concepts. They gained a lot of experience with
landscape perspectives at a regional scale. Design problems, no matter how small,
were considered in a broader context in order to find out how they interacted with
other activities and problems, both at the time and in the long run. The habit of
scaling up design problems to the regional scale and integrating them with other issues in the same area is firmly embedded in the design tradition. These are
important achievements, and they yield profit in relation to todays planning and
design matters. They match very well with the principles of contemporary development planning. Still, the design tradition requires a substantial development
in order to meet contemporary demands. Innovative function combinations need
to be explored and tested.
Designers are confronted with new clients. The shift from public clients to private and public clients requires approaches that are flexible enough to be adapted
to personal and local circumstances. Designers must make use of all the design
perspectives they have worked from in the past. They now have the opportunity
to connect the classic tradition of garden and park architecture commissioned
by private clients, to the twentieth-century tradition of public clients. Designers
have the chance to design tailored solutions that are geared to local circumstances
and landscape management by private landowners. The time has come to discuss
former restrictions and to explore and re-explore a wide range of historical and
contemporary design tools and images.
The reconstruction of the design tradition showed that landscape designers
built on professional landscape knowledge and their personal preferences. Although design and planning processes have changed, they still tend to maintain

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their approach. Laymens knowledge and interpretations are still rarely taken into
account. The relations between professionals and laymens contributions to the
landscape and between generic and local narratives are still rarely questioned.
Not all landscape designers got the opportunity or took the pains to meet local
narratives, and when they did, the narratives did not always prove useful in landscape design. In default of useful local narratives, landscape designers easily reverted to generic or professional narratives, or to personal preferences.
If collaborative planning is to be taken seriously, landscape designers must
be critical of their design tradition. They should be willing to discuss their own
presumptions and take seriously other professional representations and those of
laymen. This of course applies to planning and design processes in general, but
it has specific implications for some leisure-related topics. When it comes to local
strolls, for example, a landscape designer will probably lay out a route in such a
way that the landscape structure can be experienced, but local residents may prefer a route that connects local memories and narratives; the two do not necessarily coincide. When history is involved, professionals and laymens representations
may diverge considerably. Professionals often value historical relicts differently
from laymen (Duineveld, 2006). The same applies to residents and visitors. Different life worlds may collide when historical elements are commodified into heritage attractions and other layers of meaning are smoothed out. They can no longer take their personal preferences and experiences as the only reference point.
Their attitude has to be cooperative and, to a certain extent, more subservient.
Conclusions
Landscape design faces quite a few challenges: the design issues related to contemporary leisure and landscape design are both abundant and complex. The reconstructed design tradition revealed achievements as well as some shortcomings. An essential achievement is the multifunctional, comprehensive approach
of landscape design. The practice of reinterpreting problems at a regional level
enables landscape designers to discover mutual relations in land uses and activities. Such an approach is essential in order to recognize the issues created by the
changing context and to develop integrated concepts for landscape development.
At the same time, their contextual multifunctional approach has led to shortcomings in the detailed designs, which are so important in relation to the experiential
aspects of landscapes for leisure.
A marked shortcoming in the design tradition is the neglect or underestimation of sociocultural aspects. Landscape was approached as an ecological, functional and economic system, and people were too easily reduced to abstract, objective and universally applicable parts of the equation. Designers ignored the symbolic meaning that a landscape represents to people and the existence of plural
meanings. In short, landscape designers focused mostly on the landscape and too
often forgot the people who live and recreate in it.

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Landscape designers can overcome this shortcoming by making use of extensive theoretical and empirical knowledge. They must familiarize themselves
with the specific leisure knowledge produced by leisure and tourism studies, environmental psychology, cultural geography and cultural anthropology. Furthermore, they should consult people who have practical knowledge so that they can
base future landscape designs on well-founded knowledge. This does not mean
that landscape designers must become experts in these fields. By collaborating in
research by design, they can develop concepts, tools and images together, just as
they have done with ecologists, hydrologists, civil engineers and cultural historians. Landscape designers can also make use of past design traditions and the traditions of other fields, including those that deal with themes that are new to rural
landscapes, such as commodification and competition.
Above all, however, if landscape designers were to include people in their landscape studies and treat their needs and desires with the same passion and sensitivity as they do other demands, they would instigate a flow of new (or renewed)
design concepts, tools and images. If they were to design bespoke, detailed landscapes with the same passion and care as they plan them at a regional scale, they
would be able to create landscapes for leisure that would stir peoples imagination, both now and in the future.
References
Andela, G. (2000) Kneedbaar landschap, kneedbaar volk: de herosche jaren van de ruilverkavelingen in Nederland (Bussum: Thoth)
Auge, M. (1995) Non-places: Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity. (London,
New York: Verso)
Brinkhuijsen, M. (2008) LANDSCAPE 1:1, a study of designs for leisure in the Dutch countryside (Wageningen, Wageningen University)
Bruls, E. J. and A. J. v. Golen, et al. (2002) Wandelen en toegankelijkheid: bedreigingen en
knelpuntgebieden (Den Haag: Stichting Recreatie)
Castells, M. (2004) The information age: economy, society and culture: The power of identity
(Cambridge:, Blackwell)
Castells, M. (2004) The network society: a cross-cultural perspective (Cheltenham: Edward
Elgar)
Dam, F. v. and S. Heins, et al. (2002) Lay discourses of the rural and stated and revealed
preferences for rural living. Some evidence of the existence of a rural idyll in the Netherlands. Journal of Rural Studies 18, pp. 461476
Duineveld, M. (2006) Van oude dingen, de mensen, die voorbij gaan. Over de voorwaarden
meer recht te kunnen doen aan de door burgers gewaardeerde cultuurhistories (Wageningen: Wageningen Universiteit)
Edensor, T. (2006) Performing rurality. Pp. 484495 in P. Cloke et al. eds., Handbook for
rural studies (London: Sage)
Elands, B. and J. Lengkeek (2000) Typical tourists: research into the theoretical and methodological foundations of a typology of tourism and recreation experiences (Wageningen:
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Frerichs, R. M. and J. d. Wijs (2001) Opvattingen en meningen over het Nederlandse platteland (Delft: Nipo)
Graham, S. and S. Marvin (2001) Splintering urbanism; networked infrastructure, technological mobilities and the urban condition (London: Routledge)
Jacobs, M. H. (2002) Places in the experience society. 7th World Leisure Congress, Malaysia.
Mosser, M. and G. Teyssot, eds. (1991) The architecture of western gardens: A design history
from the renaissance to the present day. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press)
NRLO (1998) De groene ruimte op de kaart! Kennis- en Innovatieagenda Ambities voor de
21e eeuw (Den Haag: NRLO)
Visser, R. d. (1997) Een halve eeuw landschapsbouw: het landschap van de landinrichting (Wageningen: Blauwdruk)
Yarwood, R. (2005) Beyond the rural idyll: Images, countryside change and geography.
Geography 90 (1), pp. 1931
Young, T. and R. Riley, eds. (2002) Theme park landscapes: antecedents and variations
(Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection)

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15 The Socio-political Use of Environmental

Perception, Interpretation and Evaluation
Research
Martijn Duineveld

his chapter outlines a critical, reflexive research agenda for environmental

perception, interpretation and evaluation research (PIE). Here, PIE refers to
all those studies that explore the ways in which people perceive, interpret and value the natural and the cultural environment. If one takes this broad definition of
PIE, one can state that much PIE has been conducted in Dutch academia in recent
years. For example, at Wageningen University and Research Centre alone, several
hundred studies have been published in the past 20 years (see e.g. Coeterier, 1995,
2000; Vries, 2008). Many of these studies were directly funded by governmental
bodies, especially by the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality.
For my proposed outline for a critical and reflexive research agenda for PIE, I
will describe seven possible uses of PIE in social and political practices. I will show
that PIE can be used for (1) democratizing policy and decision-making processes, (2) evaluating policy, (3) managing and resolving conflicts, (4) supporting and
constructing policies, (5) improving communication strategies, (6) deconstructing policy assumptions and (7) legitimizing existing policies and political action.
I deliberately use the word possible because the described uses of PIE are not
deduced from empirical research on the use of PIE, but are partly derived from
insights from science and technology studies, sociology and anthropology of science, and governance studies. Therefore the list of potential uses should be read
as a working hypothesis to be verified or falsified, or at least elaborated upon in
upcoming reflexive PIE studies.
Another reason can be added to the above. It is impossible to predict whether
or not the desired extra-academic effects of PIE will be achieved, since the effects
are produced in a necessarily opaque and unpredictable context of use (Duineveld, Beunen, During, Assche & Ark, 2008). The effect of scientific knowledge
or the roles it will play in extra-academic practices depends on various scientific,
social, administrative and political powers. Studies may be ignored, selectively
used or have only a very indirect influence on extra-academic practices. These
arguments might feed the scepticism of people who consider socio-scientific research, including PIE, useless. By outlining seven potential social-political uses

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of PIE, I argue the opposite and at the same time stress the potential for abuse.
First, however, I will elaborate on two important developments that frame the argument.
The need for a critical turn in science studies
Much research on the production and use (and misuse) of scientific knowledge
has been conducted in the field of science and technology studies. I do not intend
to contribute directly to this well-established field, but to borrow from it certain
theories and concepts in order to explore their potential application in the analysis
of PIE. This might sound odd a bit like putting old wine in new bottles. However, I think that this is legitimized by two developments, one in the field of science
and technology studies, the other within academia.
First, my ruthless recycling is compatible with recent debates in science and
technologies studies (STS) (see Biagioli & Galison, 1999; for an overview, see
Pestre, 2004; Biagioli & Galison, 1999). Some more reflexive STS academics are
starting to question the non-political and non-critical dimensions of their own
discipline actor-network theory being a case in point. Fuller (2000), analysing
the trajectory of the Parisian STS school, argues: Actor-network theory turns out
to be little more than a strategic adaptation to the democratization of expertise
and the decline of the strong nation-state in France over the past 25 years. . . .Insofar as actor-network theory has become the main paradigm for contemporary
STS research, it reflects a field that dodges normative commitments in order to
maintain a user-friendly presence.
According to Fuller (ibid.), actor-network theorys popularity in the field of
STS is the result of the client-driven environment in which it is constituted; as a
result it has created an aversion to normative judgements and even an open antagonism to the adoption of critical perspectives. Pestre draws similar conclusions in her Thirty Years of Science Studies: Knowledge, Society and the Political
(2004). She wraps up her historical overview of science studies with a plea for a
critical turn in science studies, replaying the conceptual moves of the 1960s and
1970s. She argues that from the second half of the 1960s and the beginning of
the 1970s, science studies was part of a social movement that was very critical of a
science in which many . . . subscribed to the view that science was an institution
in the service of the powers-that-be, that it was a socially authoritarian and elitist
institution, that science was always-and-already ideological, and that it disguised
the constructed parts of its knowledge claim by naturalizing them.
In this chapter I will not engage any further in the disputes within the field
of STS but will revitalize, with Pestre, the early critical stance regarding the use
of scientific research. I will develop additional arguments for the critical and reflexive approach.
The second recent development this chapter links up with is the rise of what
is referred to as mode 2 knowledge production. Mode 2 refers to the kind of

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knowledge that is explicitly policy-driven. It stands in contrast to mode 1 knowledge production, which, in its ideal form, is driven by the goals and the questions
of scientific disciplines (Gibbons, 1994). The rise of mode 2 knowledge is seen
as part of a tendency in which scientific production is increasingly motivated by
socio-political questions and objectives (Gibbons, 1994; cf. Veld, 2000; Hoppe,
2002; Latour, 1995, 2004). This tendency can be explained by recent developments in academic institutions. Lock and Lorenz (2007) examined how universities and research institutes increasingly commercialized. They state that: [b]y
now it is a commonplace to note that the great wave of ideological fashion in public policy call it commercialization, privatization, marketization, liberalization or whatever you like has also swept across the higher education and research sectors, with far-reaching consequences. Indeed, it looks as if we shall be
stuck with it for a good while yet (cf. Lorenz, 2006).
It is because of these mechanisms of commercialization (or privatization,
marketization and liberalization) that I think it is more and more important
to elaborate on the socio-political use and misuse of scientific/socio-scientific research. I will produce arguments for this in the following.
Six hypothetical socio-political uses of PIE
In his dissertation, Jacobs (2006: 31) gives an overview of different disciplines
involved in PIE: a wide variety of scientific disciplines using many different approaches. One of these disciplines is environmental psychology, which studies
human landscape preferences (ibid.; see e.g. Gifford, 1987; Kaplan, 1987). The
methods used within environmental psychology are predominantly quantitative.
Other disciplines are more qualitatively oriented, for example, human geography,
in which peoples sense of place has been studied (Tuan, 1974, 1977; Flowerdew
& Martin, 1997). Also within anthropology, qualitative studies focus on the interaction between people and their environment (Bender, 2002; Gable & Handler,
2003; Low & Lawrence-Ziga, 2003). The main focus of anthropological PIE is,
roughly speaking, on the meanings people attribute to their environment and the
ways in which the environment constitutes people. According to Jacobs, historical
disciplines can also be added to this brief list. Within these disciplines, scholars
mainly focus on the historical interpretation of the environment, the evolution of
ascribed meaning (e.g. Schama, 1995).
It is not necessary to elaborate any further on the types of PIE. Nor will I scrutinize and analyse various forms of PIE. The main focus of this chapter is not the
content of various PIE studies (for an overview, see Jacobs 2006). Here, I will explore various socio-political uses of PIE. These types can categorized in several
ways. Though some suggest a division between the instrumental, strategic and
conceptual uses of knowledge, and others between knowledge as problem solver,
problem detector, accommodator and advocate (Turnhout, 2003: 19), I prefer not
to introduce seemingly clear-cut categorizations. Instead, I will outline seven

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hypothetical socio-political uses of PIE. Six of them will be presented in this section, the seventh in the following section. Other uses can be added, and some of
the presented uses might be conceived differently by other authors. Other authors
might give a different content to the categories, possibly overlapping with other
classifications or supplementing them (cf. Flyvbjerg, 2001).
1. Democratizing policy and decision-making processes
The first and, in my opinion, most important potential use of PIE is democratization (cf. Jacobs & Kuijer, 2007). PIE can bring the multiplicity of interpretations
and valuations of environments within the grasp of policy makers. It can also be
used to include the opinions of other groups that are under-represented in a decision-making process. This kind of knowledge can be obtained by exploring the
wishes of people and mapping their ideas about their environment or planned
changes in it. After obtaining this knowledge, efforts can be made to attune policy to peoples wishes: what do people think of X? Is there a need for more Y? If
the knowledge produced by PIE is integrated in policies, one can speak of a form
of democratization (Engelen & Sie, Dhian Ho, 2004).
2. Evaluating policy
There is an increasing demand within administrations for policy evaluations. According to van der Meer and Edelenbos (2006), this is a result of: . . . an increasing
emphasis on transparency, measurable results and accountability. Policy documents
should specify clear goals, the attainment of which should be measured by unequivocal (and if possible quantitative) indicators. Policy makers should be held accountable for the results thus assessed. Evaluations are used for a range of purposes. They
can be used to analyse whether the intended goals were achieved and whether policies made a difference, since a policy goal can also be achieved by means other than
the policy itself. Evaluations can also be focused on the functioning and use of rules,
instruments and policy documents. Because PIE can be used as an evaluation tool
for those questions with regard to the opinions and desires (values, meanings) people have regarding their environment or upcoming changes in their environment,
policy evaluation must be added to this list of potential uses of PIE.
3. Managing and resolving conf licts
PIE has the potential to tackle both latent and overt resistance against policy. Research can be done on the appreciation of proposed policies, and to explore potential resistance to new policy means and goals. This information can provide
insight into the positive or negative attitudes people have towards these policies.
These attitudes could, but do not necessarily indicate whether or not people will
oppose the proposed plans (Ajzen, 2005). These plans could then be adapted in
a relatively early stage, by for instance involving the stakeholders (visitors, local
inhabitants, etc.) in the planning or decision-making process. PIE can also shed
light on the knowledge people have about their environment and the values they

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attach to it. By involving these values in the policy process, support might increase and potential opposition could be prevented.
4. Supporting and constructing policies
PIE can be used as a means to support and construct new policies. It can also be
used to support the construction of policies or plans by exploring the values or
problems that exist within a certain community, by for example taking into account places or things in the environment that are valued within that community. PIE can also be used to predict whether or not policy will have an effect; it can
help us understand why a policy is or is not effective. Furthermore, it can be used
to monitor a policy: is it still effective? Is it appreciated or not, and if so by whom?
How can it be adjusted? (cf. Tiemeijer, 2006: 133). It might also be useful for the
exploration of alternative policies by researching which policy option is likely to
be the most effective (cf. ibid.: 134).
5. Improving communication strategies
Another potential use of PIE is to support and improve communication strategies. The outcomes of PIE can indicate how to construct a message, how to create
public awareness, how to persuade. Effective communication processes require
knowledge regarding the interpretation of the environment (Woerkum, 2000).
6. Deconstructing policy presumptions
A slightly different potential use of PIE is deconstruction. The word deconstruction is a combination of construction and destruction, and it refers to the process in which constructions of reality are destructed and better constructions are
introduced (Culler, 1983). For instance, in many policy reports it is argued that
tangible heritage contributes to the qualities and identities of the landscape. This
idea is a major argument of Dutch heritage policy. PIE has shown this assumption to be far too general and in many cases false (van Assche, 2004). Various
studies have shown that people can ascribe completely opposite meanings and
values to the landscape, constructing various, sometimes conflicting identities.
Heritage is sometimes influential in this process, and sometimes it is not (ibid.).
From PIE on heritage, the conclusion can be drawn that the discourse on the heritage values is underpinned by partly false arguments.
I will now introduce a seventh use of PIE. This use has never been explained
in research proposals, papers or reports as a research objective, although it may
well be the most frequently applied use of PIE and perhaps the most dominant
force behind it.
A critical account of the production and socio-political use of PIE
It would be quite plausible to draw the conclusion from this brief overview
of six possible uses of PIE that the popularity of this kind of research can be

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partly explained by its applications. Although most of these can be interpreted

from a normative (democratic) stance as good, there are some critical arguments
against the production and use of PIE. I have derived these arguments partly from
Bourdieu (1979, 1981a, 1981b, 1988, 2003). Another important source is Tiemeijers The Citizens Secret: on State and Opinion Research (Tiemeijer, 2006, translated by the author), in which he, partly inspired by for example Lacan, Bourdieu
and Latour, tries to answer the question: what is the desirability of carrying out
opinion research for the benefit of policy-making in a representative democracy?
(ibid.: 546). Bourdieus and Tiemeijers arguments, both pro and contra opinion
research, apply to PIE.
A good number of critiques can be labelled methodological concerns, or concerns related to the question: does PIE actually represent peoples opinions, values, meanings, emotions, etc? Just like opinion research, the various forms of
PIE cannot be completely representative. Some people do not respond to an interview/opinion poll or they answer dont know or no opinion (Tiemeijer, 2006:
417; Bourdieu, 1979). Another constraint on the representativity of PIE is the social desirability response bias (Ganster, 1983; Presser, 1998; Randall, 1991). This
concept refers to the tendency to answer questions in ways that are deemed socially desirable/acceptable. For example, people may be reluctant to give answers
that could be perceived as unpopular or politically incorrect. Social desirability
response bias is an obstacle when trying to gain insight into what people actually
think and desire. Besides, there is also a chance that people will try to manipulate
the outcomes of PIE by advocating a more extreme position than they actually
hold in order to boost their side of the argument or give rapid and ill-considered
answers in order to hasten the end of their questioning (http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Opinion_poll).
I think it is perfectly arguable that these and other criticisms are valid for various types of PIE, especially when studying larger groups. However, I do not think
that these are the most important counter-arguments concerning PIE and its uses.
In my opinion, one should be much more critical about a seventh potential use of
PIE, namely as a means to legitimize policy. In other words, those in power frequently use PIE as a tactic to sustain or increase their power, to legitimize their
policies and to rhetorically increase public support for their policies (Tiemeijer,
2006: 345). These mechanisms are exposed in various studies on the use of knowledge in extra-academic practices (Veld, 2000). From these studies, the conclusion
has been drawn that scientific knowledge is often used only as political ammunition to support new or old political decisions (Hoppe, 2002: 22). Haas (2004) firmly states that: Power doesnt care about truth anyhow. Politicians dont want science; they want a justification for pre-existing political programs which are driven
principally by political anticipations of gain (Miles 1998; Nelkin 1979).
Those statements illustrate the revitalization of critical stances on the use of
scientific research in the 1960s and 1970s, a revitalization I wish to rejoin here.
In the late 1970s, the sociologist Bourdieu posited the idea that socio-scientific re-

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search can be used to exercise political power. According to him: . . . une bonne
partie de ceux qui se dsignent comme sociologues ou conomistes sont des ingnieurs sociaux qui ont pour fonction de fournir des recettes aux dirigeants des
entreprises prives et des administrations. Ils offrent une rationalisation de la
connaissance pratique ou demi-savante que les membres de la classe dominante
ont du monde social. Les gouvernants ont aujourdhui besoin dune science capable de rationaliser, au double sens, la domination, capable la fois de renforcer les
mcanismes qui lassurent et de la lgitimer (Bourdieu, 1980: 27).
In his article Public opinion does not exist, Bourdieu aimed specifically at
opinion research: The opinion poll is, at the present time, an instrument of political action; . . . The public opinion which is stated on the front page of the
newspapers in terms of percentages (60% of the French in favour of . . . ) is a pure
and simple artefact whose function is to conceal the fact that the state of opinion
at any given moment is a system of forces, of tensions, and that there is nothing
more inadequate than a percentage to represent the state of opinion. One could
even say that there is a tendency in the exercise of power towards its self-concealment as such, and that complete power is only realized when it is fully concealed.
Stated simply, the politician who yesterday said God is on our side today says
Public opinion is on our side (Bourdieu, 1979, also partly cited in: Tiemeijer,
2006: 387).
These quotes illustrate nothing less than Foucaults mutual constitution of
power and knowledge. Power for Foucault is shorthand for the expression he
generally uses: relations of power: But there are ready-made models: when one
speaks of power, people immediately think of a political structure, a government,
a dominant social class, the master and the slave, and so on. I am not thinking of
this at all when I speak of relations of power. I mean that in human relationships,
whether they involve verbal communication , or amorous, institutional, or economic relationships, power is always present: I mean a relationship in which one
person tries to control the conduct of the other. So I am speaking of relations that
exist at different levels, in different forms; these power relations are mobile, they
can be modified, they are not fixed once and for all (Foucault, 1997: 291292).
According to Foucault, power is everywhere and it is exercised from different
viewpoints and positions (Foucault, 1998: 93). Moreover, relations of power are always connected to a certain objective; they are intentional relations: There is no
power that is exercised without a series of aims and objectives (ibid.: 95). It has
to be stressed here that the word power does not carry a negative connotation, in
contrast to the everyday use. Power is neither good nor evil. It can be repressive as
well as productive: power produces some discourses, realities, knowledge, values,
subjects, etc. and makes others impossible by marginalizing or subjugating them
(ibid.: 81102, cf. Foucault, 1994).
The relationship between knowledge and power was recently studied by Flyvbjerg. He extensively studied a planning process from the perspective of power,
strongly influenced by Machiavelli, Nietzsche and Foucault. His Rationality and

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Power: Democracy in Practice is the result of detailed empirical research into planning practices in the city of Aalborg (Flyvbjerg, 1998). Aalborgs local administration received an award for its innovative long-term transportation plans for the inner city. These plans were said to have been developed in an innovative manner,
involving new concepts, new strategies and new partners. However, Flyvbjergs
analysis did not underwrite this success. In his book he exposes the power strategies that various actors, often with opposing interests, used to attain their objectives. One of those strategies was the selective use of scientific knowledge and the
conscious concealing or marginalizing of research that did not support their case.
Flyvbjerg concludes from his study: I already mentioned above Francis Bacons
dictum that knowledge is power. This dictum expresses the essence of Enlightenment thinking. Enlightenment is power, and the more enlightenment the more
rationality the better. The Aalborg study shows that Bacon is right; knowledge
is power. But the study also shows that the inverse relation between power and
knowledge holds and that empirically, as opposed to normatively, it is more important: Power is knowledge. In this sense, the study stands Bacon on his head. It
shows how power defines what gets to count as knowledge. It shows, furthermore,
how power defines not only a certain conception of reality. It is not just the social
construction of rationality that is at issue here; it is also the fact that power defines
physical, economic, social and environmental reality itself (Flyvbjerg, 2002).
The mutual constitution of power and knowledge (power produces knowledge, knowledge produces power) can be seen as inevitable and it applies to almost every kind of science, including PIE. This does not mean, however, that it
is problematic by definition. I think it becomes problematic only when it leads
to unfair, undemocratic practices, in which certain groups use the results of environmental PIE (as a form of knowledge) to legitimize their own values and exclude those of others (a form of power) (cf. Duineveld & Assche, 2006). An example from the Dutch context might illustrate a part these critiques (partly echoing
Bourdieus criticism of opinion polls).
In some studies on the experience of nature, researchers silently embed what
nature is and what it looks like before they actually conduct their research. For example, the photos used in environmental psychology research to investigate peoples preferences already represent a certain view on nature, one often dominated
by ecologists discourse. When using these photos as a research instrument, peoples perceptions, interpretations and evaluations of nature are often overlooked
too few options are open, there are only predefined images of nature. In other
words: one can only judge a predefined image/idea of nature; other images are
excluded from the start (cf. Aarts, 1998). The inevitable outcome of these studies
is that people value nature. Biased research tools produce biased outcomes. These
outcomes are in perfect shape to legitimize existing or intended nature policy,
suddenly supported by research.
Take, for example, the following quotation from the Dutch board for the rural
environment (Raad voor het Landelijk Gebied): From recent research on the posi-

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tion of nature, the conclusion can be drawn that people are very involved with nature. For many people, nature is an important value. . . . An active nature policy is
therefore commonly accepted. (http://www.rlg.nl, translated by the author). I argue that conclusions like these are based on false assumptions. Besides the skewed
results stemming from the research design, there is the assumption that one can
draw conclusions about a specific natural area from generic investigations of nature. More elaborate studies are needed if one wants to legitimize a specific nature
policy. One would at least need to answer such questions as what do people define
as nature? When they desire an increase in nature, on what locations? How do they
value nature compared to other needs like housing? And what are their preferred
instruments for realizing nature? (Duineveld & Beunen, 2006)
To tackle this and other problems connected to the use of PIE, social scientists
working on PIE should become more aware of the contexts of knowledge production (the scientific field) and the way these contexts are shaped by academic and
extra-academic powers. Below, in the final part of this chapter, I will try to translate the insights presented above into a tentative research agenda.
Notes for a research agenda
From the socio-political uses of PIE described above, the conclusion can be drawn
that PIE is likely to be useful for various social, political and environmental issues. At the same time, some scepticism is justified. More detailed investigations
into the socio-political use, both positive and negative, of PIE are definitely needed, also in our case study area, the Netherlands. This is why I will conclude this
chapter with a brief outline of such studies.
The aim of the research advocated here is to verify, falsify and refine the seven features of PIE presented above. This research should focus on the production
and use of PIE and can be seen as a form of what Bourdieu calls reflexive sociology (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). Elsewhere, Bourdieu speaks of auto-analysis
(Reed-Danahay, 2005) or participant objectivation (Bourdieu, 2003), referring to
the same kind of research. For Bourdieu, a reflexive sociology is a sociology that
duplicates its scientific labour. It objectifies not only the social reality of others
but also the researcher and his or her research. In a lecture delivered at a meeting of anthropologists (which explains his use of anthropologists vocabulary to
make his point), he gives the following description: By participant objectivation,
I mean the objectivation of the subject of objectivation, of the analysing subject
in short, of the researcher herself. . . . What needs to be objectivized, then, is not
the anthropologist performing the anthropological analysis of a foreign world, but
the social world that has made both the anthropologist and the conscious or unconscious anthropology that she (or he) engages in her anthropological practice
not only her social origins, her position and trajectory in social space, her social
and religious memberships and beliefs, gender, age, nationality, etc., but also,
and most importantly, her particular position within the microcosm of anthro-

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pologists. It is indeed scientifically attested that her most decisive scientific choices (of topic, method, theory, etc.) depend very closely on the location she (or he)
occupies within her professional universe, what I call the anthropological field,
with its national traditions and peculiarities, its habits of thought, its mandatory
problematics, its shared beliefs and commonplaces, its rituals, values, and consecrations, its constraints in matters of publication of findings, its specific censorships, and, by the same token, the biases embedded in the organizational structure of the discipline, that is, in the collective history of the specialism, and all the
unconscious presuppositions built into the (national) categories of scholarly understanding (Bourdieu, 2003).
In other words, the reflexive anthropology Bourdieu is advocating aims to unveil and unravel the rules, assumptions, discourses and contexts that form a scientific field or discipline, and that influence the scientific practices of academics
operating within them. These rules etc. enable the production of knowledge; simultaneously they are responsible for the blind spots that the researcher developed within a discipline or even for the blind spots of an entire discipline (cf. Assche & Verschraegen, 2008). This type of reflexive PIE I would like to propose
as one of three types I am endorsing here. A second, interrelated type of reflexive experience will be directed at the ways in which socio-political power influences the production of scientific knowledge; the ways in which the research and
its outcomes are modified by power relations between those who produce knowledge and those who financially enable or constrain its production. In relation to
this type of research, questions like these could be asked: what kinds of PIE are
financed and for what reasons? What kinds are not financed and for what reasons? How do the aims of an administration, government or political party influence the outcomes of a research project? Who gains and who loses, and by which
mechanisms of power? (Flyvbjerg, 1998). A third type of reflexive PIE should examine the way the outcomes are used and misused in actual socio-political practices. This form does not focus on the way power relations influence the production of knowledge, as is the case in type two, but on the way knowledge becomes
part of the context of power relations in extra-academic contexts, how it is used
and for what purposes.
The three types of reflexive PIE will sometimes coincide in one study, and will
often overlap. For now I can only express the hope that reflexive PIE will be conducted more often and that the outcomes will raise awareness among researchers and among those who enable and use their research. Unfortunately, my hope
comes with a warning: one should be aware that reflexive PIE holds not only
promises but also a risk. Reflexive studies might reveal to researchers that their
results have become part of policy-legitimizing repertoire, that those results are
used to spread elite values of ethnocentric archaeologists, landscape architects,
ecologists, economists, bureaucrats, technocrats, politicians, etc.!
Therefore, to produce reflexive PIE, we need courage courage to confront
ourselves, our discipline, our colleagues, policy makers and politicians (on whose

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money we are so dependent) with the effects of our research. And these confrontations in turn might be risky, as they might not increase the popularity of reflexive researchers. In the worst case, people will be replaced by someone less critical.
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