Sense of Place, Landscape and Conflict

Abstract

The loss of the sense of place engenders inner and personal, but also ―above all― social and collective conflict. The article examines three instances of social conflict provoked by the traumatic loss of the sense of place in which landscape plays a key role. The first case is related to the phenomenon of the so-called “platforms for the defense of the territory”. The second case is bound to conflicts over territorial limits typical of hybrid, mixed, landscapes. Resultant from relentless urban explosion, the latter in turn generate sprawlscapes whose expansion normal citizens watch in amazement and disorientation. Finally, the third example deals with the so-called “conflict of landscape representation”, provoked by an ever-growing distance between referential landscapes ―some of which are stereotyped and even archetypal— and real landscapes, characteristic of the everyday life.