Divergent visions of wildness in a storied landscape : practices and discourses of rewilding in Scotland's wild places
Date
08/2017Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The public profile of rewilding has risen rapidly, and there is broad agreement within rewilding discourses about the desirability of enhancing naturalness and wildness. However, there are contrasting views about what such enhancement should comprise, both philosophically and practically. Here we investigate understandings and practices of rewilding amongst managers and owners of wild land in the Scottish uplands. The data, gathered in 2011-2013, comprise (i) semi-structured interviews with 20 stakeholders in the upland management sector, and (ii) an investigation, utilising the Delphi method, of the objectives and rationales of 17 upland estates engaged in rewilding. The results reveal some broad areas of consensus, but considerable divergence concerning the desired ends and means of rewilding, especially about (i) the place of people and cultural artefacts within wild land, and (ii) the relative merits of intervention and non-intervention. The paper presents a ‘many wilds’ synthesis of these contrasting perspectives in the form of a matrix with four interconnected axes (wild nature, wild places, wild experience and wildness), offering a way of conceptualising this plurality and of considering the conflicts which are the corollary of multiple goals for wild places.
Citation
Deary , H & Warren , C R 2017 , ' Divergent visions of wildness in a storied landscape : practices and discourses of rewilding in Scotland's wild places ' , Journal of Rural Studies , vol. 54 , pp. 211-222 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.06.019
Publication
Journal of Rural Studies
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0743-0167Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2017.06.019
Description
The research was funded by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of ScotlandCollections
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