Landscape in the Geografia de Catalunya of AEDOS: some interpretative readings

Abstract

The discipline of Geography plays a key role in the framing of landscape as a nationalist ideological construction. This is analysed from a hermeneutic perspective in the Geografia de Catalunya, a multi-volume collection of writings published by AEDOS. At face value this document portrays Catalonia as a nation consisting of a great diversity of landscapes, each corresponding to one of the comarques, a sub-national Catalan territory. It is interpreted that some contributors to the volumes seem to attribute a cohesive role to Barcelona amongst this outwardly fragmented mosaic of landscapes. Given the historical context of their publication, during Franco’s dictatorship, these Catalan nationalist views had to be expressed in restrained and subtle ways.

Keywords: landscape, ideology, nationalism, geography, Catalonia.