In post-colonial theory, ‘the mixture of charm and revulsion in the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized’ (H. Bhabha 2004). It is inherent in all colonial relationships; colonizers don’t care to be copied exactly, and ambivalence can lead to hybridization in the colonizers (‘going native’). Jorgenson and Tylecote (2007) Landsc. Res. 32, 4 use the concept in exploring urban responses to ‘areas in which the spontaneous growth of vegetation through natural succession suggests that nature is in control’.