Researching Militarized Landscapes: A Literature Review on War and the Militarization of the Environment

Abstract This article critically assesses literature on militarized landscapes (sites that are partially or fully mobilized to achieve military aims). It argues that alongside increasing public and media attention, militarized landscapes are a burgeoning area of inquiry in a variety of disciplines, including geography, history, earth sciences and archaeology. To allow for an analysis of different disciplinary perspectives around common themes, this article is structured around the areas of preparing for war, the battlefield, and the 'homefront'. In light of the research identified in this article, it is no longer possible to treat war and landscape as separate realms. Instead, the challenge is to explore how war and landscapes reciprocally reproduce each other across time and space. The common themes that exist across the scholarly disciplines also indicate the potential for extensive interdisciplinary research into militarized landscapes.