Proximity and intimacy to a place can blind observers to its disturbance history

Evidence

So it came as a great shock many years ago when I realized that it had taken me over a decade to see the imprint of the 1938 hurricane in our forest. When asked to interpret any other woodland, I would pick up evidence of that hurricane, or the lack thereof, within a matter of minutes. Another shock occurred the day I realized that the bulk of our woodlot was once a grain field, when for years I’d assumed that it had only been pasture. It’s ironic that the woodland closest to my heart, the woodland I have grown with for over 30 years, was the woodland that took me the longest to decipher. — Tom Wessels, Forest Forensics, 7

Categorization

• XREF: Bridge to Soundscape’s site-history interpretation and to Eco-Justice Cronon: presence and familiarity are not the same as accurate reading; observation-as-method requires defamiliarization. — connects to: Landscape reading is a learned language that fosters intimacy with place — Tom Wessels, Forest Forensics: A Field Guide to…, 9; Landscape reading answers some histories while opening further questions — Tom Wessels, Forest Forensics: A Field Guide to…, 28; Diagnostic forest features read like the words of a narrative language — Tom Wessels, Forest Forensics: A Field Guide to…, 10 (+5 more)
• SEED: Angle: the native-informant paradox in field interpretation — the expert who can’t read their own home landscape; applies to any place-based pedagogy course.

Related

• Landscape reading is a learned language that fosters intimacy with place (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Dehumanizing contempt can blind observers to the causes of squalor #exemplifies (0.80) — Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed, 544
• Intimate familiarity enables recognition no visual acuity alone can achieve #complicates (0.78) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 84
• Unaccountable incidents can reveal blind gaps in normal perception #expands (0.75) — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 417
• Spatial distance gives perceptual access to systemic harms we cannot directly see #contradicts (0.72) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 332