Landscape, Law and Justice - research

 

 

 


CAS Oslo


The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters


Research theme

Activities

Participants:

Michael Jones

Erling Berge

Ari Lehtinen

David Lowenthal

Kenneth R. Olwig

Tiina Peil

W. David H. Sellar

Gunhild Setten

Hans Sevatdal

Mats Widgren

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Landscape, Law and Justice

Research theme at the Centre for Advanced Study, Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, Oslo 2002-2003


Professor Michael Jones, Department of Geography, NTNU, Trondheim


The research theme focuses on philosophical and theoretical issues concerning justice, law and equity with regard to landscape. The issues discussed derive from recent and ongoing theoretical as well as empirical studies by the participants of the research group. The term landscape incorporates a number of differing but overlapping ways in which the complex relationships between human societies and their physical surroundings are conceptualized. The particular focus here is on the role of law and custom for the allocation, management and use of common resources in the physical environment. The research interests of the members of the research group can be broadly grouped under the following three interrelated sub-themes

(1) Historical concepts of landscape as an expression of law, justice and cultural practice relating to the community regulation of land and other common resources.

The term landscape has a number of different derivations. In geography and related academic disciplines, landscape has been seen as an areal unit of particular character, forms or interrelated features. In art and literature, landscape is the visual content of an area observed from a particular viewpoint. In the Germanic languages, landscape further relates to a region or historical administrative unit, as when used to refer to the medieval Nordic provincial laws, known literally as "Landscape Laws" (landskapslover in Norwegian) (Jones 1988).
In the Nordic countries, legal rules for the equitable solution of conflicts regarding property rights, inheritance, boundaries, livestock and the use of common resources were adopted by local and regional councils (ting, or things) during Viking times. During the 10th and 11th centuries, provincial assemblies and later national assemblies were established and local customary law became codified. Olwig (1996b) has argued that there exists a historical Nordic tradition in which landscape is not so much seen as territory or scenery, but as an expression of law, justice and culture. Central in the shaping of landscape is the role of customs and local institutions. The medieval Scandinavian conception of landscape incorporated the character and conditions of the land, including its traditions, customs and institutions; landscape was a "nexus of community, justice, nature, and environment" (ibid.).
A central topic of study for the research group includes the examination of different conceptions of landscape in a historical perspective, in particular the idea of landscape as a polity generated by local principles of customary law.

(2) Landscape as a physical and cultural manifestation of human activity and institutions, focusing on the role of legislation and customary law in a historical and geographical perspective.

As an extension of the first topic of study, this topic takes up questions related to the interrelationship between continuity and change in explaining the development of landscape as a physical and cultural manifestation through time and in different geographical settings. The topic addresses conceptual issues arising from concrete studies of landscapes in which customary law and local institutions have contributed to the regulation of land tenure and land use. Landscapes are locally the result, among other things, of complex human responses to both local customs and central legislation. The varying interactions between local customs and central legislation in forming landscapes will be examined empirically and theoretically. Of particular interest is the study of to what extent and how common property institutions based on custom are able to adapt to changing economic, social and legal circumstances. This has been earlier studied in relation to Finland (Jones 1977, 1987) and is the subject of an ongoing survey of village and farm neighbourhood institutions in the Nordic countries (Jones forthcoming). The dynamics of institutions regulating property rights (cf. Sevatdal 1998) and the role of property rights as explanatory factors for landscape change (cf. Widgren 1990, 1995, 1997) are fields requiring further study
A case study of particular interest involves survivals of practices derived from ancient Norse law in Orkney and Shetland. Known as udal law, this is generally considered as customary law. A study of udal law illustrates the mechanisms promoting both continuity and change in a situation where one legislative authority has been replaced by another. Customary practices contributing to distinctive patterns of land tenure and land use have survived, albeit in changed form, or left traces in the landscape more than 500 years after the transfer of sovereignty over the islands from Denmark-Norway to Scotland. It is relevant to ask why certain features of the ancient Norse system of property rights lasted to the 19th and even 20th centuries, while others have disappeared (Sellar 1987, 1989, Jones 1996).

(3) Legal implications and landscape impacts of environmental policies for the management of amenity resources and perceived common values in the landscape

This topic deals with questions of environmental justice and injustice in relation to the implementation of governmental policies (Berge 1994, Lehtinen forthcoming). There is a recurring need for decisions on the regulation and management of amenity land use and other resources owned or used in common. The interaction between government policies and central legislation on the one hand and local institutions and byelaws on the other hand is relevant for understanding the landscape impacts of current environmental policies (including policies for cultural heritage). In constitutionally democratic societies, conflicts frequently arise between government bureaucracies, purportedly answerable to representative bodies elected on the basis of one man-one vote, and local institutions representing the private owners of landed property or the possessors of common property rights, with historically derived titles.
It is relevant to study empirically and theoretically conflicts regarding amenity resources and common landscape values. Such studies include, for example, problems relating to common forests in Norden (cf. Berge 1996, Berge & Tretvik 1998, Lehtinen 1996, Lehtinen & Rytteri 1998), rights of access for recreation (in Norwegian allemannsrett) in forest and mountain landscapes, heathland cultivation and conservation (cf. Olwig 1984, 1996a), and the preservation of cultural heritage (Lowenthal 1985, 1996, Gathercole & Lowenthal 1994). A field of increasing importance is the role of customary law for the rights of indigenous minorities in their relationship to environmental and other policies of central governments. This is relevant in Norden - for example in relation to the Sami (Svensson 1999) - as well as in other European countries, and not least in the Third World. New insights can be gained by comparative studies from different parts of the world. Members of the proposed group have research experience from studies in North America, the West Indies, Southern and Eastern Africa, Pakistan, Britain and Norden.

Activities

Members of the research group pursue their individual research interests in the field of landscape, law and justice in a research milieu with like-minded colleagues from a variety of disciplines. A seminar held at regular intervals provides a forum for the discussion of ideas and concepts.
Two international research conferences are planned. The first will be held in Kautokeino, Finnmark, in collaboration with the Nordic Sami Institute during the last week of March 2003. The second will be held in Oslo during the third week of June 2003.This will be held in cooperation with the Working Group on "Land Rights and Landscape in Transformation" of the Permanent European Conference for the Study of the Rural Landscape. It will also be co-ordinated with the activities of the Nordic Seminar for Landscape Research. This comprises a group of some twenty scholars from different disciplines, all studying different aspects of landscape, which has met at intervals since 1993 on the initiative of Professor Ulf Sporrong, Department of Geography, Stockholm University (cf. Ihse 1996). At present, this group is engaged on a book examining conceptualizations of landscape in relation to national, regional and local identity in Norden (Nordscapes, edited by Jones & Olwig, to be published by the University of Minnesota Press).

Participants

The following researchers are participating in the research group. In the following, ideas for research to be undertaken while at the Centre for Advanced Study are outlined for each of the researchers:

Michael Jones will examine Manifestations of udal law in Orkney and Shetland: cultural continuity and change. Udal law is the term commonly used to refer to survivals of ancient Norse law on Orkney and Shetland, traces of which are still to be found today more than 500 years after sovereignty over the islands passed from Denmark-Norway to Scotland. Aspects of udal law which have continued to have significance until the 19th and 20th centuries are allodial tenure (absolute ownership of land), rights of kin and partible inheritance, scat (a form of taxation), scattalds (commonties), ownership of the foreshore and rights to salmon-fishing. Historically the term udal has also been applied to a class of small landed proprietors tracing their origins to Norse landowners. Today udal law is still to some degree seen as a symbol of Orkney and Shetland identity. In addition to his role as group leader, Michael Jones will examine modern perceptions of udal law in relation to 19th and 20th century legal cases and other manifestations of udal practice and beliefs in Orkney and Shetland. The ways in which the concept of udal law has been used, defined, reproduced and modified over time in legal literature, topographical and geographical writings, historical works, travel books and fiction will be examined, with a view to demonstrating how continuity is mediated by a continuous reinterpretation of the concept from generation to generation and even from social class to social class.

Erling Berge will undertake an investigation into Property rights to nature in Norway:
institutional design principles in the management of forest ecosystems. While some rules are fashioned for local conditions by users and owners in collaboration, others are designed and imposed by the state. Still others are devised by states contracting international conventions, which then have to be implemented by each state. The complexity of fashioning effective rules is usually underestimated, and ineffective, even counter-intuitive and counter-productive outcomes occur. Can adherence to some principles of good design lessen the chance of ineffective or counter-productive rules? Erling Berge will study the evolution of statutory institutions enacted by the Norwegian state to govern resource usage on land. The working rules have been fashioned piecemeal throughout the last century. Although by no means perfect, the resultant system works, after a fashion. Questions that will be asked are: Does the system of rules in Norway 'accidentally' follow some rules for good design? Can a study of the rule system in the light of current theories of institutional design suggest improvements? Is it possible to see 'justice' as a design principle?

Ari Lehtinen will work on a study concerned with Nordic forest landscapes and community- based sense of justice. The community-based dynamic behind the development of a sense of environmental justice derives from an understanding of the uneven distribution of risks, and fears of them, faced in the daily lives of the communities. Questions that may be asked are: How do major environmental changes, and the culturally varying responses to these changes, take shape in different contexts? How are the changes articulated and justified? What are the outcomes of these changes? This research focus contains at least two complementary formulations, which will be introduced here in relation to Nordic forest communities.
First, the traditional formulation of the human/nature relationship was in the Nordic forests, as elsewhere, a local process. Today, local and regional communities are still important media for the development of the sense of justice in resource use. The local community approach will be elaborated in this project in relation to the historical constitution or construction of the Nordic backwoods landscape through the regional community, with its own specific historical practices of law and order or justice, facing gradually the challenges of modern forest industry.
Second, the human/nature relationship is also produced and reproduced within the
translocal or non-local connections and networks that people are connected to through their daily routines. Today, it is often argued that these post-traditional community relations are more important than the local community as conditioning factors of our lifeworlds. Within this translocal world, the basic formulation of environmental values takes place indirectly, without personal experience of the immediate power of the forces of nature. Nature becomes instead modified and meaningful as questions of pollution control and trade, as well as issues of environmental geopolitics. Ari Lehtinen's study will concentrate on the most important Nordic forest industrial actors, and their differing strategies in environmental justice questions.

David Lowenthal's involvement with landscape, law and justice bears especially on issues of Land, Law and Stewardship. He has dealt with stewardship of the environment as an historian of environmental history, most recently in his new biography of George Perkins Marsh (University of Washington Press, 2000), as well as in several essays. Of particular concern are the disparities between market-based and other socially desirable orientations toward issues of landscape quality, environmental risk, and inter-generation equity of resource management. Norway has for some time shown a high degree of awareness of the inadequacy of purely econometric considerations of such issues, and of the need to take into consideration communitarian and ethical concerns. Under the title of, David Lowenthal will focus on analyzing and discussing ways of bridging what often seem implacable gulfs in understanding and values with respect to embedded legal frameworks.

Kenneth R. Olwig will focus on Landscape values, law and policy, and the fate of the 'non-indigenous.' The concept of landscape derives from the idea that the land or abode of a people, as a place of dwelling, is shaped through the process of abiding by local customary and common law. It could be argued that the modern representation of landscape as scenery also tends to reflect values that are common to a particular social group, and that access to and control over this landscape is important for the process by which identity within this group is manifested. Norwegians thus appear, for example, to manifest their identity as Norwegians by using their allemannsrett (common rights of access to open land) for the purpose of outdoor recreation in characteristic Norwegian landscapes. Conflicts concerning access to, and control over, the landscape thus tend revolve around conflicting social values as legitimated through rights in the land. Conflicts between Sami pastoralists and Norwegian farmers, or between Norwegian farmers and urban recreationists (or naturalists), or between state administrators and those administered, basically concern how people define themselves with a legitimate, 'insider's,' rights in the land. The most extreme version of this conflict occurred when German national socialists defined themselves as having an insider's blood- from-soil right to live in the German lands, which excluded the Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals. Kenneth Olwig's project will examine ways in which people who are without any claims to indigenous or local rights - immigrants, refugees, marginalized social groups - are implicitly or explicitly excluded from the landscape, as a locus of belonging and identity, by national landscape values and policies.
The point of departure for this study will be the history of landscape as related to social inclusion and exclusion (historically, the outlaw was one who was excluded from the protection of the law of the land). Then an examination will be made of ways in which modern conceptions of landscape, and forms of policy related to these conceptions, have the effect of including or excluding differing social groups. To what extent, for example, does allemannsrett apply in practice to foreigners? The purpose is, ultimately, to provide a conceptual basis by which contemporary landscape values and policies might be re-shaped so as to help make the landscape an inclusive vehicle by which non-indigenous, and marginalized, peoples may become better integrated into national, and local, society.

Tiina Peil will undertake a study of Estonian landscapes between East, West and North. The objective of the project is to analyse changes in landscape impressions and expressions focusing on three issues:
(1) Regional similarities and differences - is the Estonian approach to landscape Nordic? Are there stronger Western or Eastern influences in local landscapes, settlement patterns and society today and in the past?
(2) Local variations in Estonia - how is landscape perceived and conceptualised in different parts of present-day Estonia and in Estonian cultural and linguistic discourse?
(3) National interests and modern landscape policy concerning protection, heritage creation and tourism promotion - how and by whom is the content of landscapes and their future decided upon (focusing on coastal landscapes and islands)?
The concept of landscape in terms of our understanding of the environment or the physical setting is seen as significant as the environment itself. Variations on the theme of forming and understanding landscapes in Estonia will be examined. An in-depth examination of the concept, how it was created (in the early twentieth century), developed (in the 1920s, 1960s and 1990s) and is currently understood and used in the everyday vocabulary of researchers and laymen in Estonia would provide complementary material in the international debate. It is assumed that landscape in Estonian (maastik) is an academic concept, which has not been adopted by the local inhabitants. The relationship between the academic study of landscapes and mundane dwelling in a place will be the subject of further inquiry.
Two further topics of study will be the historical evolution of landscapes focusing on three periods - medieval, late seventeenth century and twentieth century; and the contemporary creation of heritage ('traditional' or 'valuable' landscapes). The point of departure will be modern or current perceptions of the village community and its spatial organisation, i.e. what meaning has this maintained in the Estonian ideological discourse? The main issue is the relationship between the internal and external, as well as shifts in access to and control over the landscape. A significant local (Estonian) variation of the theme is the role of military authorities as a regulatory institution in the landscape. Border zone regulations and the closing of large areas for civilian use for fifty years during the Soviet period resulted in the development of wilderness areas in two opposing meanings - areas of untouched nature, and military wastelands. Examining contemporary perceptions of wilderness will assist conceptualising the Estonian landscape. Impacts of environmental policies on perceived common values, as well as on the creation of heritage and tourism products, will also be examined.

W. David H. Sellar's research will involve a combination of historical, contemporary and comparative approaches to Law, land tenure and landscape. As a legal historian, he is interested in the development of the law in relation to the ownership and tenure of land, including the rules as regards succession to land, and in the impact that the law has had on land use and landscape. Scotland is an interesting subject for study inasmuch as a number of different systems, one of them of Scandinavian origin, have existed side by side for some time. The basic system of landownership is, in origin, feudal. Although the law has frequently been reformed over the centuries, the basic principles of feudal land law remain. However, the Scottish Parliament, re-established in 1999, has currently before it a Bill for the Abolition of Feudal Tenure which, when passed, will remove the feudal system root and branch. In the islands of Orkney and Shetland, alone in Scotland, vestiges of Udal Law remain, dating back to the time of Norwegian possession of these islands. More recently, from 1886 onwards, a succession of Acts (the Crofters Acts) has sought to protect and regulate the position of small peasant cultivators of the land ('crofters') in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, including Orkney and Shetland.
The issue of land use and reform is a highly topical one in contemporary Scotland. The question of land reform goes far beyond legal technicalities. The Scottish Executive has issued a consultation paper on Land Reform, which opens out for debate the whole question of landownership and succession to land, including tenants' rights and the empowerment of local communities. Another debate is about how best to preserve the environment, including the historic landscape and areas of special scientific interest. It is likely that the legislation relating to the preservation of ancient monuments and of historic buildings will also be reviewed and reformed in Scotland. David Sellar will use the opportunity to pursue research in the areas outlined and, in particular, to place them in a comparative perspective through contact with other interested scholars.

Gunhild Setten will work on a study concerned with Landscape and Place - Rights, Justice and Morality. Landscape and place are core concepts in human geography. They are often used interchangeably, even though they are considered to describe differing phenomena. Within landscape geography the concept of place is problematic and complicated. This is partly due to geography's disciplinary history, but also to a reluctance to consider and understand the place dimensions of landscapes and the landscape dimensions of places.
Identifying and understanding these dimensions in present (and past) conceptual practice is one of the major undertakings of the project. This undertaking will have the following point of departure: a present trend is to regard and treat landscapes and places as social, cultural and political venues where power, control, justice and morality are exercised. This is a reality within e.g. planning practice as well as within scientific discourse. For both discourses the question of whose interests are to be represented in shaping differing environments is of particular importance. One therefore needs more specifically to pose questions such as the following:
- How is ownership to places and landscapes produced?
- How is ownership to places and landscapes communicated?
- Why do certain places and landscapes seem to invoke a greater need for ownership?
- Who claim ownership to landscapes and places?
Conceptual practice has ideological and rhetorical reasons. Issues concerning power and ownership are therefore crucial to investigate. The project will theorize the relationship between landscape and place as expressions of rights, justice and morality and how the scientific and planning practice of landscape and place communicate power and ownership.

Hans Sevatdal will focus on Property rights and the dynamics of landscape. He is concerned with the relationships between the institution of property rights - in its many manifestations - on the one hand, and the actual use of land and the conditions of the land, on the other. The perspective is that property rights, in interplay with other factors such as economy and technology as well as with other institutions such as public policy and regulations, shape the physical landscape. Hans Sevatdal will concentrate on concepts and analytical models for the study of these relationships. The aim would be to develop models - intellectual tools - for better understanding of the dynamics of the landscape. From an applied perspective, in the planning context, the models should be applicable in particular cases. Thus empirical knowledge about tenure systems, common property arrangements, the physical layout of property units and boundaries, land registration and cadastral practices in time and space will play an important role.

Mats Widgren will in his research aim at a synthesis of the relations between Land rights, landscape and farming systems. It will be based on empirical research in two contrasting areas: 1) Iron-Age and medieval Scandinavia and 2) Eastern and Southern Africa during the 19th and 20th century. It is yet too early to decide to what extent it will be possible to merge these two different fields of research into one coherent theoretical work but they will definitely fertilise each other.
In the context of Scandinavian landscapes in a long-term perspective, Mats Widgren will strive to develop a coherent explanatory framework. It will combine the hitherto dominating ecological models of landscape change with an understanding of how people have related to land, both with regard to property rights in a more narrow sense and the symbolic aspects of land in a wider sense. Research until now has focused on these aspects separately. Furthermore, research on the symbolic aspects of land has usually not been able to deal with processes of change, but has largely been confined to synchronic analyses. The challenge is thus to combine these aspects in a coherent theoretical model for landscape change. This work will be based on earlier empirical studies within Swedish agrarian history.
Mats Widgren's empirical work on the historical development of landscapes in Tanzania and Kenya focuses on tenurial aspects of locally developed intensive farming. He is also involved in case studies of farming systems and landscape history in the central semi-arid parts of Tanzania. The different case studies will form the basis for a more general treatment of the role of land rights in the development of East African agriculture from the late 19th century onwards. A central issue, much debated, is whether agricultural intensification is possible within the framework of customary land rights and commons.


References

  • Berge, Erling. 1994. Democracy and human rights: conditions for sustainable resource utilization. In: Johnston, Barbara R. (ed.) Who Pays the Price? Examining the Sociocultural Context of Environmental Crisis, 187-193. Island Press, Covelo, California.
  • Berge, Erling. 1996. Forest commons in Norway and Sweden: concepts for a precise description of the legal institutions. In: Haarstad, Kjell, & Tretvik, Aud Mikkelsen (eds.) Bønder, jord, rettar, 79-100. Skiftserie nr. 16, Department of History, Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
  • Berge, Erling, & Tretvik, Aud Mikkelsen. 1998. History and management institutions for forests and pastures of northern Fenno-scandia with an emphasis on Norway. In: Berge, Erling, & Stenseth, Nils Chr. (eds.) Law and the Governance of Renewable Resources. ICS Press, Oakland.
  • Gathercole, Peter, & Lowenthal, David (eds.). 1994. The Politics of the Past (One World Archaeology 12). Routledge, London. 319 pp.
  • Ihse, Margareta (ed.) 1996. Landscape Analysis in the Nordic Countries. Integrated Research in a Holistic Perspective, Report 96:1, Forskningsrådsnämnden, Stockholm. 199 pp.
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  • Jones, Michael. 1987. Landhöjning, jordägoförhållanden och kulturlandskap i Maxmo. (Bidrag till kännedom av Finlands natur och folk 135). Summary: Land uplift, land tenure and the cultural landscape in Maxmo. Societas Scientiarum Fennica, Helsingfors. 247 pp.
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  • Jones, Michael (forthcoming). Landscape - morphology or community? The role of land rights, customs and local institutions for shaping the land in Nordic agrarian societies. In: Jones, Michael, & Olwig, Kenneth (eds.) Nordscapes: Thinking Landscape and Regional Identity on the Northern Edge of Europe. To be published by the University of Minnesota Press.
  • Lehtinen, Ari. 1996. Tales from the northern backwoods: fairy children and conspirators in Finnish forest politics. In: Hjort af Ornäs, Anders (ed.) Approaching Nature from Local Communities. Security Perceived and Achieved, 37-57. EPOS/University of Linköping.
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  • Lehtinen, Ari (forthcoming). A global forest sector? Questions on social vulnerability and environmental justice. In: Hjort af Ornäs, Anders, & Vadnjal, Dan (eds.) Land Tenure and Conflicts. University of Linköping.
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  • Olwig, Kenneth. 1996a. Environmental history and the construction of nature and landscape. Environment and History 2, 15-38. Cambridge.
  • Olwig, Kenneth. 1996b. Recovering the substantive nature of landscape. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 86, 630-653.
  • Sellar, W. David H. 1987. Custom as a source of law. In: Smith, Sir Thomas (ed.) The Laws of Scotland: Stair Memorial Encyclopaedia vol. 22, 176-198. Law Society of Scotland/Butterworths, Edinburgh.
  • Sellar, W. David H. (ed.) 1989. Udal law. In: The Laws of Scotland: Stair Memorial Encyclopaedia vol. 24, 193-230. Law Society of Scotland/Butterworths, Edinburgh.
  • Sevatdal, Hans. 1998. Common property in Norway's rural areas. In: Berge, Erling, & Stenseth, Nils Chr. (eds.) Law and the Governance of Renewable Resources, 141-164. ICS Press, Oakland.
  • Svensson, Tom G. (ed.) 1999. On customary law and the Saami rights process in Norway. Skriftserie nr. 8, Senter for samiske studier, Universitetet i Tromsø. 202 pp.
  • Widgren, Mats. 1990. Strip fields in an Iron Age context: A case study from Västergötland, Sweden. Landscape History 12, 5-24. Leeds.
  • Widgren, Mats (ed.) 1995. Äganderätten i lantbrukets historia [Property rights in the history of agriculture], Skrifter om skogs- og landbrukshistoria 8. Nordiska museet, Stockholm. 174 pp.
  • Widgren, Mats. 1997. Bysamfällighet och tegskifte i Bohuslän 1300-1750 123 [Village community and subdivided fields in Bohuslän, 1300-1750]. Bohusläns museum, Uddevalla. 123 pp.