The purpose of the course is to study a site through its stakeholders’ (or actors) eyes and define their needs, following a two-step process:

First, you will explore how notions of nature, environment, and landscape (NEL) are understood, represented, and shaped by stakeholders at your thesis site. These notions form part of a worldview, that is, the lens through which you will approach the site.

Second, your exploration of the site will allow you to pinpoint and define, by the end of the
term, the focus, i.e., the research/design questions, to which you might apply a design solution.

Fundamentally, in your study of the site, you will consider all potential stakeholders (or actors), be they humans or non-humans. Actors are not only agents who exercise agency and therefore shape the site. They also include those subjected to external agency, whose voices and actions are not always accounted for. They can be local, national, or global social groups. Their views of NELs and interests in the site often conflict with each other. To help build a critical approach to sites and discourses, lectures and readings will introduce students to a variety of conceptual and methodological frameworks from a wide range of disciplinary fields. These include cultural geography, environmental history, historical and political ecology, environmental law, indigenous studies, landscape archaeology and ecological anthropology.