EXERCISES ABOUT LOOKING AND INTERPRETATION IN GEOGRAPHY: LANDSCAPES AND TERRITORIES

Abstract

The reading and interpretation of landscapes is the central topic of this text. It will appeal to the gaze, as a complex methodological process, to identify the actions of the social actors who model both the material constructions and the symbolic representations of all landscapes. We will dedicate to the analysis of the main local and non-local vectors that make the landscape compositions and the role of societies as constructors of the materiality and meanings of the territory. Throughout the text, the communicating vessels between words and images, concepts and visuals will be underlined, which imply various reading strategies, crossing differentiated representation codes (visual, sound, graphics, etc.). These conceptual and communicative operations keep relationship with contemporary relational geographies and mobility, as they involve multiple social, economic, political, cultural and environmental dimensions, in spatio-temporal coordinates that articulate the local and the global. To extend the readings exercises of varied urban and rural landscapes of the world, this text offers resources and indicators that guide interpretive and relational views of a conception that understands contextualized territories in a social space.