Territory, Landscape and Law in Three Images of the Basque Country

Spending time in the Basque country while preparing a contribution to a workshop on landscape and identity focussed my attention on how the Basques were expressing their own identity in their own characteristic and lovely landscape. On arriving in Bilbao a few weeks before the regional elections in 2001, I read the Spanish newspaper El Mundo's description of the Basque landscape as a "Gulag", where the populace lived in fear of terrorism and xenophobia. This was hardly the first impression that came to my mind as I walked streets full of election posters, shoppers, and groups of people dropping in to bars to meet friends over a glass of wine.