Here's a link to the book Landesque Capital: The Historical Ecology of Enduring Landscape Modifications:

https://books.google.com/books?id=HcNmDAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Landesque+Capital:+The+Historical+Ecology+of+Enduring+Landscape+Modifications&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj2yOb5uIj8AhW5QUEAHc8bAFwQ6AF6BAgJEAI

Based on the information you have provided, it appears that landesque capital and infrastructure are essentially the same thing. They both involve investments in the environment in order to enhance utility, productivity, and value, and they both serve to underpin social systems and the production and consumption of essential goods and services. The main difference between the two seems to be a matter of perspective, as landesque capital typically refers to modifications to the natural environment (e.g., soil, water, and mineral deposits), while infrastructure typically refers to man-made structures (e.g., roads, bridges, and public utilities). However, as the passage from Håkansson and Widgren suggests, there is often a blurred line between the two, making it difficult to draw a clear distinction between them.

However, within the larger picture, they are not the same thing. Both are important for economic development, but they are distinct from one another.

Matter of "goat's wool".

I advise you to focus your attention on much more pressing issues relating to "rural development".

Peter Donkor Thank you for your reply. I'm interested that you began by saying that landesque capital and infrastructure are essentially the same thing (albeit "based on the information you have provided"--maybe that was intended as a caveat?)--but at the end you said that "they are not the same ... they are distinct". It seems easier to see how they overlap than to explain how they differ--and yet, people working with the landesque capital concept (such as Håkansson and Widgren) take it as obvious that they are different.

Gioacchino de Candia Thank you for the career advice. I'll put you down as another vote for 'the two concepts are both the same'.

It strikes me that, to answer this question well, we could do with a good working definition of infrastructure to go alongside the one we have for landesque capital (i.e. ‘enduring landscape modifications’).

I have searched for a clear and straightforward definition of infrastructure, but I have not found one. I suspect the reason could be that different professions and disciplines (e.g. engineers vs. economists vs. geographers) understand infrastructure in different ways.

One possibility I think we should consider is that infrastructure usually has the characteristics of a public good or club good, whereas landesque capital is more of a private asset. This definition would help us to separate infrastructure such as public road networks and energy grids from landesque capital such as agricultural terraces that are held by a single farmer or household.

However, I don’t think that this is robust, because both infrastructure and landesque capital can (I think) be applied to assets that are built and maintained collectively, which also benefit groups and collectives rather than single individuals or households.

One common observation (which can be found throughout the Håkansson & Widgren book) is that landesque capital encompasses enduring landscape modifications, such as agricultural terraces or irrigation canals, that are in fact produced and maintained collectively, for the good of the community.

I have also heard scholars apply the term infrastructure to fixed assets (such as water harvesting structures or solar panel arrays) that provide basic or essential services (such as water, power), regardless of whether the population served is a single householder or a whole neighbourhood.

That last usage suggests that a key characteristic infrastructure is that it provides essential services—and this could apply equally to landesque capital.

But an asset that provides essential services could cover the case of houses as well as barns—yet I feel uneasy about classifying a house as either landesque capital or infrastructure, whereas a barn, in my eyes, readily accepts either label.

So, is it a key to either landesque capital and infrastructure that they underpin productive livelihoods (and not just provide essential services)? That is perhaps what the term capital implies, but infrastructure surely covers systems that provide essential services, such was water and sewerage, for consumption, regardless of whether those services are used in an economic livelihood. Perhaps this brings us a little closer to finding the characteristic that distinguishes landesque capital from infrastructure?

Perhaps these questions have already been resolved. As before, I will welcome any recommendations for further reading or references to scholars working on these topics.

Dominic Glover I didn't vote; are you taking fischi per fiaschi.

Gioacchino de Candia Evidently I misunderstood your expression. I thought “goat’s wool” meant that the two things were essentially the same. You might express yourself more clearly without obscure idioms. But, really, if you have nothing useful to contribute, don’t feel obliged to post an answer. Thanks, and merry Christmas.

Surely you misunderstood.

"Goat's wool" is not an obscure idiom: I have used it in other similar situations and it was understood perfectly.

Merry Christmas to you and, for next year, I renew my invitation to deal with more relevant issues.

What an unhelpful set of responses you have gotten to this question. In my view, landesque capital and infrastructure are related conceptually but are not the same thing. They are privileged in different approaches to and notions of what development means. ‘Infrastructure’ (capital ‘i’) almost always refers simply to built or engineered modernisation or ‘improvement’ to the environment / technical support systems for development, often (but not always – see for example ‘public health infrastructure’ or ‘sanitation infrastructure’) to address ostensible ‘needs’ such as intensified production (irrigation canals) or connect markets (roads). Landesque capital, in contrast, I see as more of a framework for understanding how a 'productive' landscape is constructed, rooted in an approach more informed by landscape and human ecology and strongly integrates consideration of social institutions, human labour, and creativity in histories of landscape change. It reflects an historical perspective and emphasises the social and co-produced nature of landscape and has temporal considerations that one does not associate with mainstream discussions around ‘infrastructure’.  TLDR, I think landesque capital is a more inclusive framework for conceptualising productive landscapes that is accommodating of what we might think of as extensively as well as intensively produced forms of infrastructure and takes temporality and human ecological relationships into account. I hope this reflection is helpful.

I think that infrastructure is actually a broader term, encompassing all forms of socio-technical assemblages that abilitate networks of humans/non-humans in flowing relationship. I like the definition that gives Larkin, here taken from a larger def provided by Alex Baker in "Evictions as infrastructure", which I think is dealing precisely with the object of your question:

«The term ‘infrastructure’ itself has stretched slowly over time, from an initial phase as a term used by development economists to describe fixed capital on which development might occur, to one more generally referring to a set of facilitating social relations (Furlong 2019). Infrastructures might also be understood as ‘objects which create the ground on which other objects operate’ (Larkin 2013). In this framing, infrastructure is a prerequisite, and decidedly about capacity-building in a recognisable sense.»

If I understand correctly, then, "landesque capital" might be seen as a specific form infrastructures assume. It also depends very much on your field, I think: this is the answer I would give as an urban sociologist/geographer, and it's quite the opposite from the one provided by Amber Huff :D

I'm grateful to Amber Huff and Tommaso Frangioni for their thoughtful and stimulating contributions to this discussion--also for pointing me to some further reading, which is exactly what I hoped for.

Amber's comment reminds me, helpfully, that not only materiality and technicality but epistemology, ontology, history and relationality could be among our analytical resources when we try to interpret what specific people might mean when they invoke infrastructure or landesque capital (or specific examples of either kind, situated in particular times, places and networks of relations).

Tommaso's perspective is, as he says, perhaps the opposite of Amber's, but his comment also reinforces the value of being sensitive to different disiplinary and professional perspectives, frameworks, and assumptions.

I find Larkin's definition of infrastructures as 'objects which create the ground on which other objects operate' appealing and intuitive in its concision and practical simplicity. Thank you, Tommaso, for drawing it to my attention.

At the same time, I also find it potentially unsatisfactory, if its implicit focus is on material objects--missing out the possibility that infrastructures also embody immaterial things, such as the social and productive and economic relations that enable and sustain infrastructures.

Perhaps Larkin intended that 'objects' could include symbolic and immaterial things, such as ideas, concepts and theories. If so, perhaps there is room for a connection to be made between the perspectives offered by Amber and Tommaso.

Personally, I wouldn't like this discussion to become too abstract. I'm still puzzling over different ways to think about infrastructure and landesque capital and whether they are indeed essentially the same or somewhat different.

In a separate conversation, Amber and I had a chat about whether biodiversity might also be considered a type of infrastructure, since it is also shaped by human agency and by human-nonhuman relations, and since it also creates enduring landscape changes, and provides services, and underpins and sustains human livelihoods, societies and cultures in both material and symbolic terms. That discussion led me to wonder whether such a conception (of biodiversity-as-infrastructure) necessarily leads towards commodifying and instrumentalising nature, or whether it could lead us in a more positive direction, towards a less anthropocentric understanding of the dynamic interactions between, and mutual shaping of, nature and society.

I have been following this discussion for a while, finding it quite interesting. Although I have not found time to read the book, I would like to make an intervention from a Marxian Agrarian Economy perspective.

The basic definition of capital is money, that is spent in a specific way: The capitalist does not spend money to obtain a specific good or service; s/he spends money to ultimately get more money (be it through production, trade or moneylending). It is not the function of a good (use value), but its capacity to fetch more money (exchange value) that is relevant. Capital is often held in private ownership.

The term infrastructure, however, does usually imply that a certain structure does have a certain practical function in facilitating productive or reproductive tasks. This means, it is an ubrella term for things that provide a specific type of use value. The ownership structure can be public, private or collective. It is thus a different kind of conceptual category than (landesque) capital.

My conclusion: Infrastructure can be (landesque) capital, if it is installed with the goal of making profits.

Thank you Sarah Graf - that is an interesting and helpful take on the question. I am not sure if it resolves my dilemma. I could imagine that an 'enduring landscape modification' (i.e. landesque capital; fixed capital investment that substitutes for land) could be built either/both for use value or for profit and accumulation--notwithstanding the fact that it gets called 'capital'. But maybe the answer is that we should be clear, when distinguishing between cases/scenarios, whether the value being mobilised/exploited is primarily a use value or an exchange value. Thank you for your contribution!

Hi! I realize I am too seldom on researchgate. What an interesting discussion! I will invite and Kristina Marquardt to this discussion as I know that they both have found the concept of landeque capital useful. It would be interesting to hear their comments

Klara