About 

Hi,

welcome to this blog sharing the research, concepts and ideas underpinning my PhD study exploring the ways in which ecomuseums in the UK help communities connect to, understand and care for the places and landscapes in which they live and the wider implications for climate action and sustainable futures.

​

This research study is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership (M4C). My home university is Nottingham Trent University.

​

What is an Ecomuseum?

Ecomuseums are community-centred heritage organisations, focused on the importance of place and landscape, they provide a dynamic way in which communities preserve, interpret, and manage their heritage and landscapes for sustainable and regenerative development.

​

Unlike traditional museums, ecomuseums are not bound in a building with physical collections mediated by experts, but concerned with safeguarding in-situ heritage that is in and of the landscape and communities -  through community leadership and participation to facilitate social, environmental and economic sustainability .

​

The ecomuseum ideal is rooted in the importance of an holistic understanding of place and landscape and the relationship between people and their place,

What is Land-Connectedness? 

Land-connectednesss is a term and framework that I am developing through this study as a means to understand the deep connections we have to the places we live. Building on the concept of 'nature-connectedness' as a driver for care of nature, land-connectedness encompasses all aspects of the land - recognising the intertwining of nature and culture, human and nonhuman through millennia of co-evolution and co-shaping in the landscapes, flora and fauna, language, names, stories, practices and traditions that give each place its unique 'sense of place'.

​

What this study is looking at?

This study is considering the different ways through which this deep connection, or land-connectedness is  made, how it is maintained and strengthened and what implication this has on people's actions towards caring for the places they live and wider climate action.

Specifically, this study is exploring if UK ecomuseum practices can help to foster land-connectedness and offer a mechanism for community stewardship of place.

​

All opinions and mistakes my own.

----------

LandConnectedEcomuseums 

​

​