Vaughan Comish's 'aesthetic geography', and Jay Appleton's 'habitat theory' are both predicated on the assumption that the experience of landscape is that of individual perception and response to an
individual scene. But the affective bond between human beings and the external world is not merely, perhaps not even primarily, an individual or personal thing. For geography, in fact, the personal relationship is of minor importance when compared with the collective investment of meaning in places by those who make and keep them.

To apply the term landscape to their surroundings seems inappropriate to those who occupy and work in a place as insiders. Herein is a clue to the status of the iandscape concept. The visible forms and their harmonious integration to the eye may indeed be a constituent part of people's relationship with the surroundings of their daily lives, but such considerations are subservient to other aspects of a working life with family and community. The corn. position of their landscape is much more integrated and inclusive with the diurnal course of life's events - with birth, death, festival, tragedy - all the occurrences that lock together hum.an time and place. For the insider there is no clear separation of self from scene, subject from object.