Landscape literacy as a process toward a “democratic landscape”: ten years of researches in Veneto (Northeast Italy)

This paper concerns the results of different studies (both theoretical and applied) carried out in the last ten years on the relationship between people and landscape, in the framework of the European Landscape Convention implementation process. The background is Veneto, Northeast Italy, a region where significant social and spatial changes occurred in the last decades, characterised by diffuse urbanisation processes of an original polycentric urban structure. We discuss possible ways of fostering processes of landscape ‘democratisation’, where ‘the expression of the land – its forms and purposes – fits with the expression of the needs, desires and abilities of the people’ (Breitbach, 2007). With special concern to the landscapes of daily life and to the active role of citizens, this paper first introduces the concept of ‘democratic landscape’ as an interpretative key useful to understanding and evaluating deep territorial changes from both a spatial and a social point of view (Castiglioni et al., 2010). Then this approach is compared with the results of empirical research conducted in the Venetian plain to directly explore social perceptions and attitudes towards landscape. In the final part, we present some reflections and some practices concerning ‘landscape literacy’ (as presented in Spirn, 2005), that is a suitable and effective process to raise awareness among the population in order to foster democratisation. When dealing with landscape, some questions arise in relation to three different dimensions regarding the landscape itself: where is the landscape? Who can/desires/should deal with the landscape? How does landscape change occur? The possible answers may lie in the gap between three sets of opposing concepts: ‘emergent landscape’ (landscape is only where valuable natural/cultural elements emerge) versus ‘total landscape’ (landscape is everywhere), when considering different dimensions. For example: the spatial dimension; ‘exclusive landscape’ (only experts and institutions can deal with landscape) versus ‘inclusive landscape’ (everybody lives in landscape and can deal with it), or the social dimension; and ‘regulated’ changes (changes occurring in institutional processes) versus ‘self-regulated’ changes (changes produced by people, through their daily and spontaneous actions). The distinction between regulation and self-regulation is similar to the one between natural law and customary law as proposed by Olwig (2005, 2007). The concept of ‘democratic landscape’ arises from the combination of ‘total’ landscape and ‘inclusive’ landscape and from the balance between ‘regulation’ and ‘self-regulation’. At the same time, the results of empirical research on social landscape perceptions in case studies in the Venetian plain – conducted mainly through extended interviews with inhabitants – show the gap between the concept of ‘landscape’ usually expressed by people, and their attachment to their place of life (Castiglioni & Ferrario, 2007; Castiglioni, Ferrario, Geronta, Quaglia, & De Nardi, in print). On the one hand, the common idea of landscape is very similar to the concepts of ‘emergent’ landscape and ‘exclusive’ landscape – therefore people don’t associate this concept with their own ordinary landscapes, only with exceptional, far-away ones. This is the main landscape that public authorities consider, and regulate strictly on the basis of an expert evaluation using aesthetic, ecological and cultural criteria. On the other hand, the everyday landscape of the inhabitants is ‘total’ and ‘inclusive’, and they are used to transforming it mostly through self-regulation and to evaluating it through criteria linked primarily to functional needs, self-attachment and social practices. This research highlights a low level of people’s awareness concerning spatial issues that shape their place of life. They are not aware of the plurality of values that are (or could be) expressed through their everyday landscape. From an expert point of view, this low level of awareness has consequences on the landscape quality, which has been stressed by several scholars (Bianchetti, 2003; Vallerani & Varotto, 2005; Salzano & Gibelli, 2007), especially when self-regulation prevails. Nevertheless, due to a general sharing of ideas and attitudes, this situation does not lead to expressed conflicts, unless an individual or public initiative threatens private properties and interests; in these cases, people may gather in order to protest against such an initiative, creating groups that are called comitati (Varotto & Visentin, 2008). A deeper awareness is needed in order to enable people to express different values assigned to landscape, that is their ‘needs, desires and abilities’ (Breibatch, 2007). An institutional frame is also needed, which should be able to harmonise regu78 lation and self-regulation or, in other words, to foster landscape democratisation. A diffuse sensitisation and awareness-raising process represents the way to bridge the gap between people’s ‘idea of landscape’ – associated with the strictly normative (regulated) attitude of the institutional approach towards emergent and exclusive landscapes – and the ordinary landscapes (total and inclusive) in which they live and transform through local (self-regulated) practices. Based on the results of educational projects carried out in formal and informal contexts, we propose some reflections on ‘landscape literacy’, the process that should be implemented in order to raise awareness. We discuss the potential and the effectiveness of a functional, cultural and critical literacy (Stables, 1998) to achieve this aim and the goal of democratic landscapes. In particular critical landscape literacy, intended as a process useful for understanding the driving forces – e.g. cultural, social and political ones – of landscape change, can promote the direct involvement of people and the acquirement of responsibility in a future-oriented perspective (Castiglioni, in print). Finally, we discuss the potential role of local landscape observatories to promote this literacy and the sharing of landscape values, and therefore to concretely fill this gap. The project ‘OP! Landscape is a part of you’, implemented in cooperation with local authorities and the regional government in a pre-alpine Venetian valley during 2011–12, can represent a best practice of implementation of a landscape literacy process (Castiglioni & Varotto, 2013). The project involved local communities (both citizens and schoolchildren) in awareness-raising activities about landscape, proposing critical readings of territorial issues, exchanging ideas and proposals for the future, and being directly involved in actions. Landscape democratisation is more than an emphatic announcement of the European Convention. It reflects an emerging need for collective re-appropriation of landscapes. The path lies in acknowledgment and legitimisation of collective aspirations, and implementation of practices of landscape literacy.