Landscape in the Jordan valley: the view through development

In the vast development literature and in historical accounts, the valley landscape is understood and used as an object of planning intervention and as a domestication of a border area. Linked to that, it has been perceived as an object of contemplation, an ideological sight of rural modernity in Jordan. Differently, I will argue that landscape in the Jordan Valley as been not only one of the main objects of development interest, but also an active agent and medium of identity dynamics and power relations. This perspective allows displaying the dynamic process in the definition of a landscape by different institutional actors and the cultural practices that are involved.