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100 _a Brooks, Andrew
_949498
245 _aArtificial lawn people
260 _bSage,
_c2019.
300 _aVol 2, issue 3, 2019 : (548-564 p.).
520 _aThis paper explores a new artificial political ecology through a novel digital methodology. The emotional impacts of the replacement of living turfgrass landscapes with synthetic simulacra are researched via a netnography of animated and polarised online discussion. We investigate how the cultural use of domestic lawns has extended into the creation of non-living artificial lawns and how the environmental values of these new landscapes are debated. Synthetic polymer (plastic) grasses are increasingly being used as alternatives to turfgrass in domestic gardens, changing urban ecologies. We examine the emotional landscapes that are reproduced in online discourse. Paul Robbins showed that a certain suite of behaviours constitutes ‘Lawn People’. Here we demonstrate that ‘Artificial Lawn People’ act in reference to cultural expectations of a ‘good’ lawn to produce non-living, homogeneous, green and tidy gardens, yet their actions spark fierce criticism from others who do not value this new synthetic nature. Our research involved analysis of 948 online discussion posts, and introduces a secondary notion of ‘artificial people’ as our subjects were anonymous contributors to virtual public debates on the environment: generating impassioned polyvocal contestation. Mumsnet.com is a space of heated discussion between proponents and opponents of artificial lawns. We identify three topics: (i) emotional responses: artificial grass is polarising, and its social value contested; (ii) bio-physical affects: plastic fibres impact human and non-human life and (iii) environmental values: turfgrass replacement influences local and global political ecologies. The conclusions shed light on the dynamic relationships between the emotional values of living and non-living landscapes.
650 _aSynthetic turf,
_949566
650 _aplastic grass,
_949567
650 _aemotions,
_949568
650 _anetnography,
_949569
650 _asimulacra
_949570
700 _a Francis, Robert A
_949571
773 0 _012446
_916479
_dLondon: Sage Publication Ltd, 2019.
_tEnvironment and Planning E: Nature and Space/
_x 25148486
856 _uhttps://doi.org/10.1177/2514848619843729
942 _2ddc
_cART
999 _c12478
_d12478