ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the cultural economies of landscape associated with the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, and – following Wylie – suggests landscape-as-tension is central to the cultural, tourism and economic practices surrounding the landscape in question. The type of tension Wylie identifies is that between landscape as something to be “looked at” versus something to “immerse oneself in”; or what recent geographical and landscape theory have termed the representational and nonrepresentational modes of engaging with landscape. The argument is developed that, in the case of “the Mountains” (as Sydneysiders call them), the practices of landscape-as-representation have underpinned a cultural economy aligned with what Urry (1990) termed the “tourist gaze” and its visual emphasis on lookouts, photography, souvenirs and visual artefacts. Landscape-as-nonrepresentation, on the other hand, has tended to revolve around practices such as walking in the forests and canyons, and activities that “elevate the senses”. More recently, the nonrepresentational economy has also given rise to micro-entrepreneurs who create gastronomic and other “lifestyle” goods based on perceived local qualities (e.g. craft beer). However, the Blue Mountains has also recently spawned community and grassroot activities such as foraging and the creation of “edible gardens”, both of which problematise and enlarge what creativity and growing/making “things”’ means in the context of landscape.
