Stumbling over Animals in the Landscape: Methodological Accidents and Anecdotes

Abstract

This article explores the potential of giving animals a more prominent role in landscape studies. Through an historical constructivist approach, animals can function as object, text, happening, and as a fragment of a larger environmental history. Using empirical examples from Norway and Scotland, animals’ symbolic, social, and cultural availability are addressed. After presenting two case studies I claim that we can enrich our understanding of rural landscapes by including animals. Animals help uncover the meanings people embed in their landscape. By using the term animalscape, animals can more straightforwardly be incorporated both methodologically and analytically in rural studies.