Landscape as a Text: Ricoeur and Human Geography

This paper aims to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue between Ricoeur’s phenomenological- hermeneutical thought and human geography, in particular with respect to the issue of landscape interpretation. The connection draws on the idea that landscapes and lived spaces can be read as texts, not unfamiliar to human geography and semiotics from 1980s onward. In the first part of the paper I will briefly expound some theories of landscape which make use of the metaphors “landscape as cultural image” and “landscape as text” in human and cultural geography. Then, I will discuss the main contribution of Ricoeur to the issue of space. The philosopher already envisioned a possible application of his “threefold mimesis” of Time and Narrative (1983-1985) to architectural spaces (Architecture and Narrativity, 1996). In the conclusion, I will propose to rejuvenate the geographical metaphor of “landscape as text” by introducing a possible application of the Ricoeurian notion of “meaningful action as text” to landscape.