Universität Kassel / Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus Senftenberg, 10. Workshop des Arbeitskreises Landschaftsforschung.
Abstract:
What capabilities unfold if we consider the landfill as a site to inquire into the predominant dimensions shaping the concept of “landscape justice”?
The landfill is a site that not only allows us to theorize “landscape justice” as a domain located at the intersection of climate justice (produced by Anthropocene processes, fossil fuels, and waste), environmental justice, (as inherent human/non-human ecological sites), spatial justice and social justice, but also opens up a space to explore the concept of justice through time: landfills are the sites where histories are buried, and conversely new narratives may be excavated.
Lastly, landfills have become a “new frontier” for a multitude of funding schemes and investment initiatives both private and public (e.g. through EFRE, RTP and others). Shedding light on that dynamic allows us to entangle questions of landscape justice with the financial geography that fuels large-scale transformations of our landscape. This contribution will unpack those inherent tensions, focussing on landfills in the Rhine Ruhr region through intersecting methods from material culture, landscape studies and autoethnography.