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Looking at Military Landscapes: Definitions and Approaches

The Evolving Boundaries of Defence: An Assessment of Recent Shifts in Defence Activities

ISBN: 978-1-78350-974-4, eISBN: 978-1-78350-965-2

Publication date: 14 August 2014

Abstract

This chapter explores how military landscapes have been conceptualised and understood. The chapter starts by defining what is meant by the terms ‘landscape’ and ‘military’. The chapter then proceeds with an exploration of a range of examples from a variety of disciplinary origins in order to support the argument that military landscapes constitute a diversity of sites and have a ubiquity of occurrence. Such examples include battlefields and other sites of conflict, the interconnections between landscapes and the pursuit of specific campaigns and conflicts, the issue of environmental impacts of military activities and the interpretation of these with reference to the specificity of landscapes, and landscapes of memory and military memorialization. The chapter then goes on to consider how military landscapes can be viewed, raising questions about the visibility and invisibility of such sites. The chapter concludes with some observations about the imperative for sustained scholarly attention to military landscapes, in order to inform debates about militarism as a social force.

Citation

Woodward, R. (2014), "Looking at Military Landscapes: Definitions and Approaches", The Evolving Boundaries of Defence: An Assessment of Recent Shifts in Defence Activities (Contributions to Conflict Management, Peace Economics and Development, Vol. 23), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 139-153. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1572-832320140000023010

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2014 Emerald Group Publishing Limited