For my final paper I am writing about the suburban lawn. I am arguing that the lawn connects people with place and that it is a social construction. I tried to examine the lawn in terms of Cresswell's 'Genealogy of Place' and his three approaches: Descriptive, Phenomenological, and Social Constructionist. My main argument suggests that the suburban lawn is a form of social construction. Yet, after asking different people what they thought about the lawn and letting them read the chart which we received in class, people began to boggle my mind.
Some said that the lawn can be seen in terms of the descriptive sense because it is a thing and it can act as an example of a region or a culture. I agree with this and this was also included in my essay. Additionally, the lawn can be seen as a phenomenological approach because if people construct thier lawns to look a certain way, which is the 'norm' for parts of the 'American' society, than they will have a feeling of belonging and attachment. So i guess that all three approaches can be used when looking at the lawn.
The question which arises is my head is: Should we really be so obsessed with the lawn? I mean, yes if a lawn is perfectly manicured it looks clean and nice, but is it worth all the effort. After watching the movie 'Lawn and Order' it became clear how obsessed the nation is with thier lawns. I mean, some people spend hours after they get home from work to mow their lawn and apply fertilizers to make it greener. Is this really an obsession or is that just my belief? Not only are we changing nature by physically manipulating our lawns to look a certain way and show the rest of the community our social status, but we are also changing our own perspective of what is normal. Grass is noraml, or at least it had been before the evolution of fertilizers and other chemicals. The grass we see in front of our houses seems part of the norm, but it is infact transformed to look that way. Is that the way we want to percieve our landscapes?
Margaret J
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The lawn is interesting topic, and I argee that the approach to lawns is a phenomenological. In the Western world, lawns are the only place were the need for perfection and manicuring of practically every single blade of grass is important. Travel to South America, or India, and you will realize that we have created the need for lawns as a repersentation of where we live and how we live. In South America, you would be lucky to see houses with manicured lawns, you are most likely going to see dirt patches, which is of the norm. What is the obsession with the lawns??
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