ADMINISTRACIÓN DE RIESGO
II. RIESGOS DE SEGUROS
Landscape is a physical area visible from a particular location which has the power to actively (re)produce relationships among people and between people and their material world – and become a ‘place’. Landscapes carry symbolic or ideological meanings that reflect back and help (re)produce or challenge social identities and social practices (Morin 2009). Landscape is mediated by symbols and imagery that impact on the spatial practices of everyday life, and the symbolic landscape is a manifestation of myths and legends, which remain a powerful means of allocating space (Merrifield 1993, p. 526). How the physical landscape may produce a sense of place and how it influences community culture or vice versa are crucial questions in relation to place in geographical and urban studies. The best model of sense of place, place attachment, and satisfaction links the attributes of the environment with characteristic experiences (Stedman 2003).
In Australia, national parks are usually large areas of land with unspoilt landscapes and a diverse number of native plants and animals, where no commercial activities such as farming are allowed and human activity is strictly monitored (Australian Government 2015). In contrast, the term ‘urban park’ means large green spaces within the urban environment that are mainly designed based on cultural heritage values which contribute to their overall identity. Both national and urban parks are considered as public places associated with nature and leisure activities. Nature in this thesis is a geographical concept that contains human history, which changes over time and varies from place to place (Ginn & Demeritt 2009).A public place facilitates people's needs and expectations, protects their rights, and offers people a variety of meanings to attach to the place. Accordingly a public landscape is a public space which is ‘accessible to everyone, where anyone can participate and witness, in entering the public one always risks encounter with those who are different, those who identify with different groups and have different opinions or different forms of life’ (Iveson 1998, p. 28; Young 1990, pp. 239-40).
The term garden however means ‘a piece of ground fenced off from cattle and appropriated to the use and pleasure of man: it is, or ought to be, cultivated’ (Repton
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1816; Turner 2005, p. 1). Garden-making began in West Asia then spread eastward and westward representing ideas about nature (Turner 2005), and in most cases gardens were private or semi-private environments.The term ‘garden’ in the present thesis refers to: 1- urban botanic gardens as cultural landscapes that are mostly used for scientific study of collected, growing plants, public exhibition, and public recreation, especially in Australia; 2- historical gardens, which are highly interwoven with cultural identities; 3- suburban home gardens.
Garden-making was one of the earliest activities undertaken by new arrivals to Australia, and is considered as an act of both memory and re-settlement. However, it did not begin with the arrival of Europeans; Aboriginal land management had already shaped the landscape, which was perceived by the colonists as ‘wildernesses’. Wilderness, here defines as a culturally and historically expression of a certain colonialist’s way of seeing nature (Ginn & Demeritt 2009). Garden-making also provides the circumstances for building complex cultural identities through the interaction between past and present places. Non-Anglo immigrants’ gardens are important in the study of the history of migration to Australia, and have functioned as a way for immigrants to belong to (white) Australian culture (Holmes, Martin & Mirmohamadi 2008). Since new immigrants in Australia seek places for symbols of their homeland, gardens have frequently differed from what urban planners and architects had schemed (Graham & Connell 2006; Morgan, Rocha & Poynting 2005). This is due to cultural differences between immigrants and Anglo-Australians, which result in creating places that mediated with culture and past experiences by immigrants in order to obtain a sense of belonging in a new environment.
Nevertheless, the process of non-English-speaking immigrants producing a sense of belonging may be different in the context of parks as public spaces, which is the focus of this thesis. Although there are fewer chances to interfere in the physical arrangement of public spaces in comparison with the private ones, the meaning and expectations of ‘parks’ may be different in various cultures. Furthermore, since, urban parks have both restorative qualities attributed by nature and recreational facilities; they can be used for various purposes. Considering the wide range of
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activities urban parks can provide, it is crucial to know various purposes of park visiting in order to increase park usage.
Reviewing studies of place - the three-part approaches to the notion of place – and habitus as a sense of place resulted in extracting concepts of ‘place identity’, ‘place attachment’, and ‘sense of belonging’. It also led to the argument that ‘the first generation of immigrants may engage in a process of place making in urban park landscapes structured by their habitus and past experiences of these spaces’. In order to examine how these notions are interpreted by immigrants and what are their expectations of urban parks and why, the research questions and the methodology of the present research draw upon these concepts. Accordingly, the methodology contributes to investigating sense of place associated with existence of meaningful places in urban parks based on the following components:
a) Place identity: favorite aesthetic attributes of urban parks
b) Place attachment: personal and cultural meanings of place and emotional attachments to park landscapes
c) Sense of belonging: social and recreational practices in park landscapes structured by user’s habitus and past experiences
Considering the multi-contextual (Australia and Iran) nature of this thesis, a range of qualitative and quantitative methods are applied to address: 1- How experiences in favourite aesthetic places in urban park landscapes might be evaluated by Iranian users, and result in place identity? 2- How do personal and cultural meanings of place in urban park environments contribute to place attachment for Iranian migrants? 3- Which characteristics of the physical environment in park landscapes may encourage social and recreational practices and foster a sense of belonging? And what sort of recreational activities are preferred by Iranian users? And why?