Understanding recreational landscapes–a review and discussion

Abstract

This paper contributes with a better understanding of recreational landscapes as a conceptual coupling that lacks clarity and cementation as a legitimate and integrated concept in landscape and outdoor recreation-related disciplines, especially within Nordic landscape and outdoor recreation research. The approach in the paper is an explorative-theoretical one with a base in a literature review. The results show 294 identified texts using the conceptual coupling ‘recreation(al) landscape(s)’ in any of its variants and published in 155 different journals. Only a few of the texts offer detailed description of its meaning. Consequently, in an attempt to further the understanding of recreational landscapes, the conceptual coupling is explored and discussed in more detail with special attention given to different landscape relations, human-nature encounters and the relationship between landscape and place. A conclusion is that recreational landscapes must receive more attention and better anchoring in various landscape and outdoor recreation-related disciplines.