Meanings of urban park landscapes as insiders and outsiders

This paper explores different understanding of urban park landscapes by Iranian immigrants, and develops an alternative predominant perspective of the Australian park landscape. It questions the extent to which Australian public parks contribute to the sense of inclusivity, or alienation, experienced by non-Anglo immigrant visitors of these spaces. The main focus is on the Iranian community of Melbourne, and their engagements with urban park spaces before and after migration in two different landscape contexts: Iran and Australia. This study applies Q methodology with photographs as a research method. Findings reveal that historical icons and cultural landscapes play a prominent role in inspiring meaning in Iran’s park environments, while socio-cultural activities, restoration, and bonding with the past have great importance after migration. This study also examines which landscape settings evoke the meaning of ‘paradise’ — as an important cultural concept in constructed natural landscapes — for the Iranian respondents in both contexts.