Enchanted Cutaway: Nurturing Imaginations through Regrowth and Remembrance in the Altered Landscape of the Weald (UK)
abstract
This study traces the impacts the iron industry of the Weald (UK), called Cutaway wood. It emphasises that the sixteenth century, which spanned the boom of the industry in the UK, also saw the greatest impacts of enclosure upon the landscape, the scientific revolution strip life down to its basic elements, and religious theory manifest notions of supernature. All of which created space for a burgeoning industrial capitalism to exploit natures resources. These capitalist abstractions haunt the present, forming a psychological hurdle as we try to visualise a new world. In this article I argue that rekindling a connection to land through visitation may help to reorient our diminished capacities for envisioning solutions to the climate crisis.
Keywords: Woodland • Extraction • Imagining otherwise • Visitation • Coppice