‘A Threatening Din and Clamour’: Cultural Dissonance in the Lake District’s Harmonious Landscape

ABSTRACT

The Lake District’s inscription as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2017 foregrounded the harmonious relationship between culture and nature in the cultural landscape. Looking at the Lakes from a perspective that problematises both harmony (for Prynne a ‘function of money’), and culture (for E.P. Thompson ‘a whole way of conflict’), this article considers the landscape in the contexts of farming, tourism, economic growth and finally COVID-19. I argue that visitor activity following the easing of lockdown restrictions in 2020 and 2021 can be understood as offering a challenge to the dominant narrative of harmony underpinning the region with an uncomfortable apocalyptic revelation of a consumer culture that tourist destinations such as the Lakes more often work to conceal.

KEYWORDS:

• Culture
• conflict
• lake district
• tourism
• farming

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paul Ferguson

Paul Ferguson is a senior lecturer in Literature and Culture at the University of Cumbria. His research interests include problems with the idea of wilderness, non-human/human animals relationships, intimations of apocalypse and weird nature.