Aesthetic values as relational values: Environmental aesthetics in go‐along interviews

Abstract Aesthetic values are often categorised as a type of relational values, yet their shared characteristics with other relational values remain largely unexplored. To address this gap, we turn to Emily Brady's theory of environmental aesthetics; her interpretation of aesthetic value exhibits important parallels with the concept of relational values. We then build on this framework when analysing go‐along interviews conducted in rural Switzerland. In these interviews, participants were asked about personally meaningful places in nature, which often led them to spontaneously describe aesthetic experiences in nature. We found that central concepts of environmental aesthetics are reflected in the participants' narratives, such as the ability of aesthetic values to establish certain types of human–nature relationships, the framing of these values by memories or scientific beliefs and the possibility of intersubjective understanding and sharing of others' aesthetic values. Drawing on the theoretical and practical overlaps in the characterisation of aesthetic and relational values, we propose that aesthetic values, as defined in Brady's aesthetical theory, can be categorised as relational values. This understanding of aesthetic values as relational values can also inform our understanding of other types of relational values, for instance, by demonstrating a role that imagination could play in framing relational values and proposing a model of how other relational values could be intersubjective. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.