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Paper short abstract:

Drawing on a Nordic tradition, new Scottish outdoor access legislation takes a radical approach to landscape by providing access to 'Scotland's outdoors' in its entirety. This undermines the historical emphasis on 'Highland' landscape. The paper provides case studies from north-east Scotland.

Paper long abstract:

There are two possible generic answers to a question at the heart of anthropological concern with landscape. The question is 'where is landscape?' and the answers are 'away from here' and 'all around us'. Landscape away from here, in conceptual terms, is the picturesque and the remote, which may be travelled to, recorded, mapped and objectified. This has been central to the Western idea of nature and its separation from society or culture. But landscape all around us, the world in which we move and carry out the activities of life, seems reluctant to give in to this discourse, and is constantly reinvented through its inhabitants' practices of dwelling. Kenneth Olwig's assertion of the political and legal aspects of landscapes provides a means of exploring the 'where is landscape' question in land reform in Scotland. Drawing on a Nordic tradition of common access rights, the new Scottish access legislation takes a radical 'all around us' approach to landscape, providing access to 'Scotland's outdoors' in its entirety. This undermines the historical emphasis on 'The Highlands', the mountain environments that have been the locus for the natural and national landscape. The paper reflects upon the first year of the new access rights, and includes case studies in north east Scotland.