Abstract
Land and body are intimately inter-related. The ways in which we talk about one are often drawn from, or couched in, the ways (and terms) in which we talk about the other. Both are a rich source of metaphor for figuring and understanding the other. We talk about tongues of land, of a mountain range as a backbone, of rivers as arteries of commerce and communication, of arms and legs as limbs like tree branches, of torsos as trunks, of mouths of rivers, and so on. Clichés like ‘the bowels of the earth’ referring to aquifers and wetlands, and ‘the lungs of the city’ referring to parks and recreation areas are not only the stock-in-trade of the creatively bereft and stylistically outmoded but also indicative of the major source we mine for metaphors of land and places on, or in, it.
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© 2008 Rodney James Giblett
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Giblett, R. (2008). Where Land and Body Meet: Body Culture and Nature. In: The Body of Nature and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230595170_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230595170_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-30834-7
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-59517-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)