Shared Landscape Model Integrating the Management of Culture and Nature: Thesis and Exegesis
Abstract
PhD project (the Project) includes a Thesis and an associated Exegesis. The Project is
an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural investigation of shared management landscapes
that considers the integration of cultural and natural heritage management. The aim of
the research is to propose a management model to address failures in the sustainability
and effectiveness of shared management partnerships, manifest in damage to both the
heritage and historic fabric. The Case Studies are the Australian world heritage
locations of Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Purnululu National Park and Reserve,
and the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.
The research reveals that within Australia, the approach to managing the relationship
of culture and nature within a landscape is dominated by the outmoded Western
dualist model that manifests in the separation of the management of cultural and
natural heritage, whilst simultaneously separating historic fabric and heritage
management. This model is in stark contrast to the Australian traditional Aboriginal
partners approach of managing landscapes as ‘Country’, which recognises the
symbiosis and integration of culture and nature. The Thesis provides evidence for a new landscape management model integrating the
management of Culture, Nature and Art (CNA) focused on the intangible of heritage
as the primary driver of policy development and management delivery. In engaging
with CNA simultaneously the Western dualist model is shifted closer to the holistic
traditional Aboriginal perspective of ‘Country’ thus opening the potential for greater
cross-cultural understanding and reciprocity. The Exegesis provides an exploration of the concept of negotiation as encountered
through the experience of sense of place within the landscape to provide an intangible
qualitative basis on which to informed landscape management priorities. The visual
practice is pursued through the mediums of photography, drawing, painting, firedrawings,
sculpture and installation that engage with a reciprocity between mediums
and cyclic movement between field and studio. The continual shifting dialogue
between mediums and locations produces an engagement with ‘the liminal’ relating to
the decisions required to transverse cultural thresholds and become enveloped within
the process of cross-cultural negotiations.