Methodological challenges in researching the mutual shaping of landscapes and discourses

Landscape scholars have long drawn attention to the collective authorship of dwelled spaces (Kolen et al., 2015), while also noting their plural interpretations (Bender 1993). Landscape can also be understood as heritage—temporal in nature and subject to the values and claims of various actors (Ingold 1993; Harvey 2015). Critical heritage studies unraveled the relationships between heritage, power, and politics, often perpetuated through hegemonic or authorized discourses (Smith 2004). When researching landscapes —and writing their biographies—methodological challenges emerge. Beyond our perception, landscapes exist as lifeworlds where humans and non-humans coexist within dynamic relational assemblages. Seeking to articulate these relationships, researchers and authors often adopt normative or detached narrative frameworks, which can validate, expose, and reproduce specific discourses, whether at scientific or activist levels. Practicing critical reflexivity is crucial in acknowledging how our narratives —and the discourses they align with— contribute to strengthening or exposing power relationships, thus intervening in landscape formation. In this paper, I critically analyze the historically constructed discourse of peripherality and remoteness, as seen in the North of Scotland and the South of Italy, and its material consequences on economic systems and living landscapes. I discuss the potential of contemporary academic and local initiatives to reverse the narrative of peripherality by engaging with the active agency of the landscape itself, thereby constructing new discourses that recognize the multiple centralities of landscapes traditionally labeled as peripheral. Lastly, I outline the methodological challenges, ethical considerations, and ontological conundrums that such a telling of their stories entails.