Migration, Landscape, and Culture Urban Parks and Iranian Immigrants in Melbourne by Nasim Yazdani Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Deakin University September, 2017 To my sons Amir & Elia So that you know there is nothing you cannot do Acknowledgments I would like to express my great appreciation to Dr Mirjana Lozonovska, my principle supervisor, for her support, guidance, and valuable and constructive suggestions during the development of this thesis. I would also like to thank Dr David Beynon for his recommendations and valuable comments on the final draft of this thesis, and Professor Louise Johnson for her helpful suggestions in association with the research methodology. I also thank Dr Gay Breyley, for encouraging me to look for new ideas in contemporary park usage in Iran, and Dr Michele Lobo for her guidance in looking for different views, use, and interpretations of nature. I am grateful to Manningham Municipality in Melbourne for providing me with Ruffey Lake Park information, history, master plan, and design concepts, and also Iran’s Parks and Green Spaces Organisation for suppling the information in relation to Iran’s case study parks. I give thanks to Tehran Municipality Information & Communication Technology Organisation Press for giving me the permission for using the plans of Iran’s contemporary parks printed in ‘Tehran Parks Atlas’. I would also like to give thanks to all the people who kindly and patiently volunteered to participate in various stages of my research, and Iranian Cultural School in Doncaster for letting me hold group workshops there. I would like to thank my friends near and far for their encouragements and warm wishes. I would also like to thank my husband Shahram Molavi for his support and love, and my boys Amir and Elia Molavi for their patience, positive energies, and encouragements. I am greatly thankful to my parents for their unconditional support and my sister Negar Yazdani for her kindness and affection. Abstract Immigrating can be a difficult transition for people leaving their homeland to join a new and often vastly different community and culture. There is increasing interest in how a sense of place and a sense of belonging in new environments can be built in migrant communities. In the process of migration and living in a new physical, social, and cultural context, immigrants often need to uphold their cultural heritage to maintain psychological and physical stability, but they need to balance this with integration into the new society. To accommodate a cohesive multicultural society for all citizens, it is essential to understand how immigrants perceive their new environment and how they make connections in a new land through a process of cultural renewal. This thesis uses Australian context to explore culture as an issue in park design and interpretation, in addition to the importance of the physical environment in relation to perception, imagination, and meaning of place after migration. While the policy of ‘multiculturalism’ has had a rocky road in Australia since the optimistic 1970s, the impact of diverse cultures can be observed in cities and suburbs across the country. Urban green spaces, from private home gardens to public parks and botanical gardens, play an important role in the life of immigrants. Besides the psychological and restorative effects of these spaces, they are also places that provide opportunities for recreation, and social gatherings. For many ethnic communities, parks are central places in which they can celebrate collective cultural values, and hold events such as festivals. In particular, frequent visits to public park spaces by non-English-speaking immigrants in cities with white majority cultures draws attention to the ways these spaces are perceived and used differently by a wide range of people. This study aims to raise awareness of cultural factors as an important issue in park design and management, and investigates the influence of culture on both understanding and design of park landscapes. The thesis reviews different uses and appreciation of urban park landscapes by non- English-speaking immigrants, and develops an alternative predominant perspective of the Australian park landscape. It builds on theories of place, habitus, and landscape as cultural phenomena, and investigates new uses of park spaces by recent generations of immigrants to Australia. It questions the extent to which Australian public parks contribute to the sense of inclusivity, or alienation, experienced by non- English-speaking immigrant users of these spaces. The main focus is on the Iranian community of Melbourne, Australia, and their engagements with urban park spaces before and after migration in two different landscape contexts: Iran and Australia. The research explores the Iranian-Australians understanding of urban parks and their natural and cultural landscapes and includes a range of experiences of these environments in Iran and Australia (Melbourne). The approach acknowledges past studies and explores Iranian views of the interrelationship between people and the physical environment and how these contrast with Australian attitudes. Mythical notions of park landscapes that have evolved in Iranian and Australian cultures, and the desire of non-English-speaking immigrants in relation to the use of urban park spaces, have given rise to dialectical attitudes towards these spaces and their meanings. Subsequently, two different landscape myths, ‘Paradise’ and ‘Arcadia’, are examined as significant influences on landscape architecture frameworks, the former in Iran and the latter in Australia. It is argued that the ‘Paradise’ myth and Persian garden characteristics have infused landscape architecture and garden/park design in Iran and also other countries in the world. Furthermore, the ways nature ideologies and design frameworks have been referred through Iranian people’s engagement with park environments and their patterns of use in both contexts are discussed. Cultural landscapes, narratives, and ideologies are investigated to identify the social and cultural experiences and processes that shape those engagements and understanding. This thesis investigates historical, philosophical, and architectural park characteristics and seeks their influences on the usage of these spaces by observation, survey questionnaires, Q methodology with photographs, and semi-structured in-depth individual interviews. This study draws attention to the importance of physical settings, spaces of enclosure and stillness, and social and passive practices in urban park landscapes by non-English users. It raises a crucial question about how urban park planning and design in multicultural Australian cities can support non-English- speaking immigrants’ activities in these spaces, and thus foster social cohesion. Contents 1 Chapter One: Introduction ............................................................ 1 1.1 Multicultural Urban Landscape Design ............................................................... 2 1.2 Parks and Gardens .............................................................................................. 4 1.3 Cultural Aspects of the Landscape ...................................................................... 7 1.4 Theoretical Background of Cultural Landscape .................................................. 9 1.5 Aims of the Research ........................................................................................ 12 1.6 Objectives .......................................................................................................... 12 1.7 Research Questions .......................................................................................... 13 1.8 Project Description............................................................................................ 14 2 Chapter Two: Place Meaning ........................................................17 2.1 Place .................................................................................................................. 17 2.2 Place Definitions ............................................................................................... 18 2.3 Three-part Classification of Place in Main Research Areas .............................. 20 2.4 Different Approaches to Place .......................................................................... 22 2.4.1 Physical and Planning Approaches ............................................................................. 23 2.4.2 Psychological Approaches .......................................................................................... 26 2.4.3 Social and Activity-Based Approaches ....................................................................... 29 2.5 Habitus and Sense of Place ............................................................................... 31 2.6 Landscape and Identity ..................................................................................... 33 2.7 Cultural Factors Contributing to Landscape Identity in Iran and Australia ...... 35 3 Chapter Three: Australian Mythical Landscape and Its Role in a Multi-Cultural Society ........................................................................38 3.1 Landscape Myths and National Identity ........................................................... 38 3.2 Anglo-Australian Landscape Myths .................................................................. 40 3.3 The ‘Bush’ and ‘Arcadia’ in Australian Cultural Landscape .............................