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Accepted Paper:
Landscapes and wellbeing in rural Scotland
Ian Harper
(University of Edinburgh)
How do relationships with the "wild", and ecological diversity inform human wellbeing? This paper presents research from highland Scotland concerned to better understand these intersecting dynamics.
Paper long abstract:
The landscapes of the highlands of Scotland have been sites of ideological and political contestation for centuries: what the environmental historian Smout (2000) categorises as shifting engagements of “use and delight”. In this paper I present ongoing research from highland Perthshire, around the intersection of ideas of the “wild”, ecological diversity, and human wellbeing. Through participation, observations and conversations with workers, volunteers and visitors at rural sites managed primarily to restore ecological diversity from old deer estates, the research fosters conversations around what we mean by wellbeing. How do engagements with these spaces – be that climbing mountains, remaking paths, or managing “nature” – impinge on what it means to be well? With these encounters and moments of interaction in these landscapes, with both humans and non-humans alike, I have attempted to “include ethnography and natural history” (Tsing, 2015). Does this engaged biosocial methodological approach (or rather, perhaps, eco-social approach) help us to better understand human wellbeing?