ABSTRACT
The ‘Western Gaze’ succinctly expresses a particular, historically constituted, way of perceiving and experiencing the world. It is a gaze that skims the surface; surveys the land from an ego-centred viewpoint; and invokes an active viewer (the subject) and a passive land (object). This active viewer is equated with ‘culture’ and the land with ‘nature’; and viewer/culture are gendered male, land/ nature are gendered female. Finally, the Western Gaze is about control.
