Law and the Kinetic Environment: Regulating Dynamic Landscapes

Within the field of legal geography, the spatial relationship of law to landscape is usually considered to be static. Environments are often considered fixed, and consequently inert, as places that literally don't go anywhere. Typically, then, it is what happens in these places, rather than the place itself, that commands academic attention. In contrast to this static viewpoint, Law and the Kinetic Environment considers how many landscapes are in flux and as a result, may be seen as dynamic. Natural phenomena, such as oozing lava, moving glaciers, or bubbling geothermal pools, challenge and test the normative conceptualizations of stability of place, property ownership, and legal regulation. Consequently, such dynamic landscapes enliven and transform law; offering new jurisprudential insights into what law is and how it operates in response to the kineticism that, this book argues is, to some degree, inherent in all landscapes.