Dwelling, place, and landscape: an orchard in Somerset

In this paper we seek to develop the concept of dwelling as a means of theorising place and landscape. We do this for two interconnected reasons. First, dwelling has come to the fore recently as an approach to nature, place, and landscape, but we argue that further development of this idea is required in order to address issues relating to romantic views of places, authenticity, localness, and the way we 'see' landscapes. Second, we turn to the notion of dwelling to develop interconnected views of the world which can still retain a notion of place, a key but problematic concept within geography, landscape studies, and environmental thinking. In particular, we seek to develop ideas of place within the context of actor network theory. We explore the notion of dwelling in Heidegger and as adapted by Ingold, and we trace how dwelling has been deployed subsequently in studies of landscape and place. We then develop a more critical appreciation of dwelling in the context of an orchard in Somerset which we have researched as a place of hybrid constructions of culture and nature.