Short Abstract
:
“Did you know that in Slocava there is a special sheep, well-adapted for walking on steep mountain[s] and pastures?” asks the (semi-)touristic promotional text for the annual Bicka festival, held in the village of Solcava in the Kamnik-Savinja Alps in Northern Slovenia. On the level of content, the question suggests an embodied and emplaced perspective stemming from an active engagement with pastoralist landscapes, and, on the level of form, it introduces the topic of a detached, reifying (tourist) gaze and leisure landscapes – a distinction commonly found, if framed differently, in (some) anthropological writing on the topic of the landscape. Reflecting go-along walk of a livestock drive (which indeed included walking on steep slopes) conducted by a family from Robanov kot valley and their commitments to tourist promotion of “traditional” ways of life, the paper will, “from a native’s point of view”, reflect on a (supposed epistemological and even ontological) shift form “experience to image”, arguing that such steadfast distinctions are practically unsustainable and theoretically counterproductive.
