Debatable Peaks and Contested Valleys: Englishness and the Dolomite Landscape Scenery

The Dolomites were shaped by 19th-century English travelers who elevated their unique mountain forms into aesthetic symbols while overshadowing the region's contested cultural narratives. This study reveals how the 'bizarre' peaks were appropriated through an English gaze, transforming them into sublime abstractions of landscape space, while valleys were reduced to picturesque cultural places. The research employs historical analysis and critical discourse to examine how this foreign perspective contributed to obscuring the Dolomites' complex borderland identity, despite their globalized heritage status.

Bainbridge, W. (2016). Debatable Peaks and Contested Valleys: Englishness and the Dolomite Landscape Scenery. Journal of Borderlands Studies, 31(1), 39–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/08865655.2015.1115734