Imagining Englishness through contested English landscapes

Abstract

This article adds to current debates on the nature of English identity through examining some of what Kathleen Stewart calls the ‘incommensurate qualities that … link complexly’ to create a certain feel of a place. Based on the premise that landscape and the story of the landscape, its history, are key elements of a national identity, the article explores the shaping of an imagined community of England through memory, forgetting and ‘official’ stories by using the examples of three specific but mundane places in north west England. One is urban ex-industrial, one a formerly industrial but rural site and one rural agricultural. These stories are unravelled to show how the landscapes are integrated ‘taskscapes’ where both national and local identities are performed. Class and race are hidden behind essentialised notions of Englishness. These exemplify a particular moral vision of English landscapes as natural and timeless countryside that serves to sideline urban and working landscapes and their populations. The article proposes treating a ‘taskscape’ as a gift to future generations, thus enabling all those who are a part of the present taskscape to belong.