Landscape as a symbol of power: the high/low marker

Abstract

Space is a complex texture of signs, so that any landscape can be read as a history of symbols of Powers which have designed it. Many authors (Gregory, 1978; Massey and Jess, 2001) have argued that senses of space are inextricably linked to Power relations. The study of social structures could consist in analyzing the ways in which social relations accumulate on a space. Generally, there is a connection between Powers and Spaces. Powers tend to create a hierarchy of positions: the most authoritative is in the highest location, at the opposite the masses are relegated until the Lowest one. This hierarchy is naturally unstable, since the fights among different kinds of Powers and between the Power and the subjected masses are a constant in History. These fights design the landscape with the symbols of architecture so that to study a landscape actually means to read the History of Powers and also to write a Geography of Spatial Relationships of Powers. The signs of these fights are markers which can be detected in the landscapes; they reflect different positions deriving from the results of these never-ending struggles originated from democratic issues or from authoritarian decisions. Generally, who gains the decisional capacity tends to become authoritarian and occupy high positions; who is dominated is naturally relegated in a low position. Consequently, these contrasts spread out the landscape with high/low markers. It can be argued that who decides what place, actually decides who are the people that are supposed to live in it and imposes them what they should make into it and with it. A map cannot describe these political fluxes, so Geography needs new approaches to analyze both individual and collective actions shaping landscapes. There is a strict link between society and place. According to the literature of Social Geography, spatial theories are necessarily linked to social theories, because social structures (a result of the distribution of Power) derive from the accumulation of social actions. We could consider that spatiality is shaped by whole communities or by oligarchies which represent themselves and spread out their image through designed landscapes. Some of these can trigger forms of democracy if they include people, so that they can involve communities in the decision process. Other spaces can exclude them if they keep the dichotomy between rulers and dominated. In this paper we propose a new approach to grasp these different processes of landscape-making: we apply a semiotic model to several landscapes in Asia, Middle East, Europe. This model is built on two oppositions to study the high/low markers: 1- social welfare vs. oligarchic well-being; 2- democratic participation vs. authoritarian command-ship In this view, what people make of their places is closely connected to what they make of themselves as members of society and inhabitants of the Earth. We are the place-world we imagine and therefore space is the more significant dimension, structuring personal experience. Space rather tan time or history, should be studied to understand what kind of Power creates a landscape.