December 2024
Dear LRG members,
It is with great pleasure that I have assumed the honor of being LRG’s next Chair, earlier this fall. With this appointment, has come my great enthusiasm in working with you all, the LRG members, towards the fulfilment of our common goals.
You are well aware that the Group was established to promote research, education and community development in the field of landscape. At these times, however, of unprecedented interdisciplinary advances in knowledge production and global scholarship, our mission becomes much more crucial, timely and seminal. The application and practice of our knowledges in real-life circumstances requires ever more participatory, just, active, creative, community-based, informed and critical engagement and involvement towards humanity’s sustainable development and well-being – a task that engenders and promotes collective mobilization. I am certain you will join me in this task.
What follows are some of the LRG activities that may be of interest to you. Furthermore, you may significantly foster the LRG’s goals and objectives through your engagement in LRG activities and the broader landscape cause, which would greatly benefit from your contribution.
- Joining working groups. The LRG has always fostered the activity of working groups on a variety of themes and fields of interest, from research- and publication-oriented ones to legal and policy focused groups. The work and the output of these working groups have contributed greatly not only to the LRG’s goals and objectives, but to lively, dynamic contributions to the landscape field, at large.
- Participating in workshops and events. A broad variety of exciting events are regularly organized for your benefit and that of larger audiences, such as seminars, round tables, CFSs, workshops etc. ranging from more specialized events on regional landscapes (Africa, South America, China, the upcoming CFS in Cairo, etc.) to bigger events of a broader appeal on themes such as ‘Landscapes of Care’, ‘Landscape Leaders’ Intergenerational Dialogue’, etc.
- Partaking in landscape networks and relevant scientific communities. Such a prospect is especially significant for young researchers and scholars who may wish to link up with a variety of communities of interest, in the landscape field, for purposes of collaboration, research development, publishing, etc. One of the main goals of the LRG is to facilitate such linkages and collaborations.
- Publishing your work on LEX. You are especially encouraged to share your research and personal landscape-related findings, through short essays, photos, podcasts or other relevant general updates. Such communications and exchanges are especially useful in furthering the LRG mission, as well as for you personally, boosting the visibility of your work.
- Applying for project funding. The LRG, through its website and other promotional means, serves to highlight opportunities for members to secure funding for their research or community projects, thus motivating landscape-related knowledge production and community development. By providing guidance on available grants and funding avenues, the LRG aims to emphasize how your work contributes to LRG’s mission and the broader landscape research field.
As the new Chair of the LRG, I am inspired and mobilized by the enormous future possibilities for our Group and its contribution to the Landscape and to Society, and look forward to supporting the work of a broad global community of academics, scholars, practitioners, artists and citizens to achieve our common goals vis-à-vis the landscape. Working together with you at the intersections within disciplines, approaches, sectors, theories, contexts and actual-life empirical situations and perspectives, I believe that the LRG community will be in a position to contribute to a more holistic understanding of the complexities of the relationships between humans and landscapes, at diverse scales from the personal to the trans/local and the planetary.
I feel especially privileged and excited to be the Chair of the LRG in such times of change, crises and major transitions. However, our Group may only heed and fulfil its role through our joint efforts. I am certain that you will find a place in the LRG’s mission and activities that resonates with your goals and interests in the landscape. Let’s continue to materialize the goals and objectives of our Group through our landscape research, the furthering of landscape knowledges and engagement with actual landscape stewardship, education and interdisciplinary collaborations, in such promising, though challenging, and ground-breaking times.
Your Chair,
Theano S. TERKENLI, Professor
Department of Geography, University of the Aegean
University Hill, Mitiline 81100, Lesvos, Greece
Θεανώ Σ. ΤΕΡΚΕΝΛΗ, Καθηγήτρια
Τμήμα Γεωγραφίας, Πανεπιστήμιο Αιγαίου
Λόφος Πανεπιστημίου, Μυτιλήνη 81100, Λέσβος
