The Role of the Arts on Landscape Science - (Ewan Allinson)
04/14/21 • 71 min
Too much expert-led decision making has long been shown to deliver perverse outcomes for the environment and society. What if a more earnest collaboration with artists and the arts is the secret ingredient to unlocking a more egalitarian science and society relationship? Independent sculptor, dry stone waller, and landscape partnership innovator Ewan Allinson, discusses the role of the arts in landscape decision making.
Episode Links
- The Hefted to Hill project, as part of the Northern Heartlands Landscape Partnership
- Hill-Farming, Knowledge and Power, Medium article by Ewan Allinson
- Community Empowerment and Landscape Report by Chris Dalglish
- Marcel Duchamp, Fountain 1917
- Valuing Arts and Arts Research
- Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
- Agnes Denes, Wheatfield, 1982
- Alan Sonfist, Time Landscape, 1965
- John Glover landscape paintings
- Poetry by Wordsworth
- Guide to the Lakes by William Wordsworth
- AALERT 4DM (Arts and Artists and Environmental Research Today for Decision Making Network)
- Art is Not an Island Film, created for AALERT 4DM. Produced by Ewan Allinson and filmed and edited by Maria Rud with oversight by Eirini Saratsi.
- Taigh-Chearsabhagh Museum and Arts Centre North Uist
- Uplands Alliance
- Artist-Scholar David Haley
Too much expert-led decision making has long been shown to deliver perverse outcomes for the environment and society. What if a more earnest collaboration with artists and the arts is the secret ingredient to unlocking a more egalitarian science and society relationship? Independent sculptor, dry stone waller, and landscape partnership innovator Ewan Allinson, discusses the role of the arts in landscape decision making.
Episode Links
- The Hefted to Hill project, as part of the Northern Heartlands Landscape Partnership
- Hill-Farming, Knowledge and Power, Medium article by Ewan Allinson
- Community Empowerment and Landscape Report by Chris Dalglish
- Marcel Duchamp, Fountain 1917
- Valuing Arts and Arts Research
- Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
- Agnes Denes, Wheatfield, 1982
- Alan Sonfist, Time Landscape, 1965
- John Glover landscape paintings
- Poetry by Wordsworth
- Guide to the Lakes by William Wordsworth
- AALERT 4DM (Arts and Artists and Environmental Research Today for Decision Making Network)
- Art is Not an Island Film, created for AALERT 4DM. Produced by Ewan Allinson and filmed and edited by Maria Rud with oversight by Eirini Saratsi.
- Taigh-Chearsabhagh Museum and Arts Centre North Uist
- Uplands Alliance
- Artist-Scholar David Haley
Previous Episode
The Dasgupta Review - (Janet Fisher)
The past decades have seen the rise to dominance of the ecosystem services framework, a worldview and scientific practice that sees the processes of the biosphere through a lens of how they prop up human activities. Within academic circles, the concept is hotly contested. Some see valuing nature with the language of neoclassical economics as the only way to motivate governments and corporate actors into doing responsible environmental action. Others see concepts of ecosystem services and natural capital as the inevitable deepening of predatory capitalist relations extending into new environmental domains. Dr Janet Fisher, an environmental social scientist at the University of Edinburgh, joins the podcast to discuss the newly published Dasgupta Report, an independent review of the relationship between the economy and biodiversity commissioned by the UK Treasury. The report made headlines when it asserted that we should treat nature like an asset and manage it like any other financial portfolio. We discuss how the report is evidence of a rise to dominance of applying economic thinking into the domain of ecology and environmental conservation and what that means for scholars working on landscape science.
Links to items mentioned in the episode- The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
- Dempsey, J., & Suarez, D. C. (2016). Arrested development? The promises and paradoxes of “selling nature to save it”. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 106(3), 653-671.
- The Future of Conservation Project
- Westman, W. E. (1977). How much are nature's services worth?. Science, 197(4307), 960-964.
- Ehrlich, P. R. (1968). The population bomb. New York, 72-80.
- Mark Carney, UN special envoy for climate’s plan for a $100 billion carbon market
- The Natural Capital Project’s InVEST software
- Kareiva, P., & Marvier, M. (2012). What is conservation science?. BioScience, 62(11), 962-969.
- Final Report - The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review
- The relationship between ecosystem services and human-wellbeing from the MEA.
- Norgaard, R. B. (2010). Ecosystem services: From eye-opening metaphor to complexity blinder. Ecological economics, 69(6), 1219-1227.
- Fletcher, R., & Büscher, B. (2017). The PES conceit: revisiting the relationship between payments for environmental services and neoliberal conservation. Ecological Economics,
Next Episode
An Agroecological Vision for the United Kingdom - (Jyoti Fernandes)
Jyoti Fernandes, farmer of Five Penny Farms and Policy Coordinator with the UK based Landworkers’ Alliance, discusses what agroecology means to her and the efforts to shape food policy in the United Kingdom. We also discuss the risk of agroecology being co-opted and the current boycott of the UN Food Systems Summit.
Episode Links
- Five Penny Farms, Dorset
- Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa
- Scientists Boycott the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit
- Jyoti testifying at the EU Parliament in 2015
- Raj Patel on Normal Borlaug | Interview in PBS American Experience
- Is Agroecology Being Co-opted by Big Ag? | Civil Eats Article
- Farm Protests in India Are Writing the Green Revolution’s Obituary | Scientific American Article
- The Land Workers’ Alliance
- The Dimbleby Report | Part One of the National Food Strategy
- European Coordination Via Campesina
- Reframing the land-sparing/land-sharing debate for biodiversity conservation | Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
- Nature Friendly Farming Network
- Pasture Fed Livestock Association
- SUSTAIN Alliance for better food and farming
- Agriculture Act 2020
Landscapes is produced by Adam Calo. A complete written transcript of the episode can be found on Adam’s newsletter: Land Food Nexus. Send feedback or questions to [email protected]. Music by Blue Dot Sessions: “Kilkerrin” by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue).
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