Negotiating the edge : community management of the Governors Bay foreshore

Abstract

Landscape management is the process of directing the function and appearance of current and future landscapes. Much landscape research in Aotearoa/New Zealand has to date modelled the management making process as rational and apolitical with language a neutral medium of description. This study adopts an approach that both critiques these assumptions, and recognises the contingent nature of language and its role in constituting our subjective realities. Governors Bay foreshore provides the case study for analysing discourses competing for influence in landscape management. Study of the conflict and negotiation between them gives an enhanced understanding of the meanings attributed by New Zealanders to their landscapes, and a better understanding of the issues that arise from community involvement in management of landscape values and amenity values.