engleski

The ‘Western gaze’ and its Role in Interpreting Landscape - Examples from Croatia

In recent decades, there has been a growing interest in the way 'gaze' impacts studies of landscape and heritage. ‘The Western Gaze’ puts emphasis on the active observing subject in whose mind all the knowledge and perception are located. It expresses a certain view of the world and the way it is perceived. Said ‘gaze’ positions itself in the authorized heritage discourse and presents a certain mentality and set of values that have vastly impacted archaeology as we know today. It assumes that certain characteristics are more worthy of preservation and presentation as heritage than others. Given the highly visual aspect of landscape, the ‘Western Gaze’ has become imbued in landscape studies that divide ‘culture’ and ‘nature’. It is based on Cartesian principles and consequently, the ‘Western Gaze’ assumes scientific objectivity in its research methodology and aspires to retain as much distance from the embedded cultural values of every researcher as possible. It represents a series of dualisms, natureculture, subject-object, mind-body and male- female. In recent years, theoretical approaches in archaeology have explored how various ‘gazes’ (male, Western, imperial…) have affected landscape studies and its development. This paper will present how said discourse and gaze have impacted landscape studies using as a proxy a part of Croatia that extends from the northern Dalmatian coast to the slopes of South Velebit.

archaeological theory ; gaze ; landscape archaeology ; history of archaeology

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