We work on a range of topics and apply a diversity of analytical lenses, methods and sources. The figure below summarises central themes in our research. You can learn more about us by visiting our individual pages and projects.
Peoples | Places | Histories |
|---|---|---|
Peoples work, movements and emotions in more than human world. | Places of production, nature, institutions, technologies and stories. | Political ecologies, regional economies and global relations in the past, present and future. |
Methods and sources used in landscape studies
Research on landscape, land use, and historical geography has undergone several changes over the past decades. The focus has changed significantly regarding time periods, scale levels, and theories applied. With these changes, sources and methods have also evolved. There are considerable differences in studying landscapes from the Iron Age, land ownership in the Middle Ages, agriculture during the early modern period, or people’s perceptions of today’s landscape. Here are some of the methods that have been utilized in theses within the research field since the 1950s. In recent projects, methods such as walk-along, participatory mapping, photography and image interpretation, and video recordings have been used.
Interviews
Interviews are a natural part of trying to understand people and their relationship with the landscape. In dissertations within this subject area since the 1990s, this has involved interviews with landowners, farmers, workers, and others. Focus groups and other ways of reaching people have also been used, such as surveys and other forms of interviews.
Text analyses
Text analyses of various kinds are central within the social sciences. These can include discourse analyses of different documents, media, and so on.
Within historical geography, historical sources from archives have been used since the mid-20th century, much like they were in nearby discplines such as history and economic history. In the first period, there was a strong focus on production in agriculture, population changes, and the development of ownership. The sources were registers and government-established sources concerning the conditions in the country. Other types of source material were also used, such as purchase contracts, diaries, and so on.
Contemporary documents have been very varied, as society produces more texts, whether they are laws, political decisions, policy documents, regulations, investigations, plans, corporate documentation, media reports, accounting records, and so on.
Detailed mapping
Within the research field, there is a long tradition of detailed mapping or inventorying abandoned, fossil landscapes from earlier times. These formed the basis for discussions about land use and ownership during historical periods with few written sources. Phosphate analyses were also conducted early on to capture the utilization of the land. By the end of the 20th century, these analyses were closely linked to archaeological investigations, including formal excavations of various elements in the landscape. Detailed mapping has also been carried out under modern conditions to clarify ownership and use in the present and in earlier times.
Map analyses
Since the first half of the 20th century, historical and modern maps have been used. These have been employed in various ways, partly as texts because they contain information about areas, ownership, and population, and partly as a basis for spatial analyses, where they are often used as a foundation for changes over time, but also for morphological analyses regarding changes prior to the map periods, so-called retrogressive analyses. Increasingly, these analyses came to be conducted using GIS during the 1990s.
Remote sensing
In landscape research, aerial photographs have been used since the mid-20th century; these have been employed in various ways to obtain overviews of land use, vegetation, and buildings. Through regular rephotography, changes over time can be observed. Oblique photographs have also been used to obtain information about landscapes and their character. Since the late 20th century, satellite images have increasingly become important for capturing changes over time and for analyzing land use and land cover (LU/LC).
The research interests and activities of the profile are further represented the Rural Landscapes Journal.