LE3 .A278 2018

2018

Cohen, Alice

Acadia University

Bachelor of Arts

Honours

Environmental & Sustainability Studies

Environmental & Sustainability Studies

This thesis argues that plants, alongside humans, are history-making actors who are a part of the power structure of the Halifax Public Gardens network. This claim is examined by using Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to analyze power dynamics between the principal designer and plant assemblages in the Gardens, power negotiations in the implementation of landscape design, as well as exploring other significant actors’ relationships with the plants. ANT allows for the recognition of diverse actors and analysis of relational and shifting centers of power. Halifax Public Gardens provides a good model for analysis because it is an understudied space, with strong patriotic association, and is a creation of the Victorian era which was dominated by ideas of purity and separation between nature and culture that are criticized in this thesis. Plants in the Gardens had both direct and indirect interactions and relationships with other significant actors in the Gardens including the City Council of Halifax, the Royal Family and the public of Halifax. Plants and design features that had visual connections to the Old World were highly valued. Primary sources were collected from the online and microfilm collections at the Nova Scotia Archives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:3251