TY - JOUR

T1 - Unnaming the Common: Landscape encounters in the Anthropocene

AU - Overstreet, Katy

AU - Sørensen, Tim Flohr

PY - 2024

Y1 - 2024

N2 - This article explores a particular ruderal landscape in Denmark: Amager Fælled, which is a common located two kilometres from the city centre of Copenhagen, currently embroiled in a fierce controversy over housing development. This controversy is rooted in contested definitions of what counts as nature and what kinds of nature deserve protection. Authorities aiming to redevelop the common as well as organizations working to protect it both operate by an extensive and very forceful strategy of classifying, identifying, and quantifying the elements encountered at the common. As we take note of how these practices of naming shape the landscape, we respond to this strategy of counting and measuring with an unnaming approach inspired by Ursula Le Guin’s short story, ‘She Unnames Them’. This approach resists the tendency to value this place through logics of identification and datafication, attending instead to the multispecies and multi-material encounters unfolding in Amager Fælled.

AB - This article explores a particular ruderal landscape in Denmark: Amager Fælled, which is a common located two kilometres from the city centre of Copenhagen, currently embroiled in a fierce controversy over housing development. This controversy is rooted in contested definitions of what counts as nature and what kinds of nature deserve protection. Authorities aiming to redevelop the common as well as organizations working to protect it both operate by an extensive and very forceful strategy of classifying, identifying, and quantifying the elements encountered at the common. As we take note of how these practices of naming shape the landscape, we respond to this strategy of counting and measuring with an unnaming approach inspired by Ursula Le Guin’s short story, ‘She Unnames Them’. This approach resists the tendency to value this place through logics of identification and datafication, attending instead to the multispecies and multi-material encounters unfolding in Amager Fælled.

KW - Faculty of Humanities

KW - Unnaming

KW - Ruderality

KW - Anthropocene

KW - Commons

KW - Terrain vague

KW - Vagabonds

M3 - Journal article

JO - Landscape Research

JF - Landscape Research

SN - 0142-6397

ER -