Unpacking the eclectic approach: close accounts of landscape analysis

Landscape analysis has been described as dynamic and flexible, involving and encouraging drawing on and mixing diverse methods to suit project purposes. However, this eclecticism remains black-boxed and is consequently under-examined in recent landscape analysis discourses of its methodologies, prompting the question about what exactly is being done when performing landscape analysis. Drawing on a relational, post-ANT approach, the paper argues that eclecticism can be better understood by attending closely to the practices of landscape analysis. Through ethnographic fieldwork with landscape architects, the paper explores how landscape analysis is enacted. It highlights how eclecticism must be understood to be more profound than a matter of combining clear-cut methods, while suggesting that the concept of fluidity helps distinguish aspects of the eclectic approach and offers implications for developing methodologies for landscape analysis.