Landscape‐as‐governance: Exploring agency, embodied sensing and decision preferences

Abstract We introduce landscape‐as‐governance (LAG) as a dynamic landscape property and theoretical approach that uses people's embodied sensing to explain their governance preferences. LAG incorporates enactive‐cognitive and polycentric governance approaches to reveal how sensing and sensemaking influence decision‐making at personal and landscape scales. LAG's novelty lies in showing how personal landscape sensing intertwines social and ecological factors, transforming individual experiences into collective governance norms. While people's interests undoubtedly play the dominant role in determining landscape governance, LAG argues that sensing and sensemaking are crucial components that shape these interests and preferences. LAG suggests that recognising the co‐constituted nature of human agency in landscapes can lead to more reflective, sustainable and equitable governance, emphasising the need for bottom‐up innovation and the integration of sensory experiences into decision‐making processes. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.