James Watts

Landscape, Environment, and British Imperial Identity, 1860-1914

This project explores the multiple ways British people experienced imperial landscapes.

It will investigate how visual and textual projections of images of the physical landscape and environment of ‘Greater Britain’ emphasized and shaped identity and cultural belonging. The primary research questions are twofold.

1. How were imperial landscapes imagined and experienced and how was this presented to domestic audiences through popular visual, textual, and material culture?
2. What was the link between these multiple imaginations and British imperial identity?

The project uses visual, literary, scientific, and accounts from settlers and considers the influence of indigenous peoples on each of these narratives. Looking at the imperial networks of settlers, travellers, and indigenous peoples of the empire, this project explores how imperial landscapes, and environments, were imagined.