Understanding Cultural Geography: Places and Traces

UNDERSTANDING CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY

This new and comprehensive book offers a holistic introduction to cultural geography. It integrates the broad rangeof theories and practices of the discipline by arguing that the essential focus of cultural geography is place. The bookbuilds an accessible and engaging configuration of this important concept through arguing that place should beunderstood as an ongoing composition of traces.

The book presents specific chapters outlining the history of cultural geography, before and beyond representation,as well as the methods and techniques of doing cultural geography. It investigates the places and traces of corporatecapitalism, nationalism, ethnicity, youth culture and the place of the body. Throughout these chapters case-studyexamples will be used to illustrate how these places are taken and made by particular cultures, examples include theFreedom Tower in New York City, the Berlin Wall, the Gaza Strip, Banksy graffiti and anti-capitalist protestmovements. The book discusses the role of power in cultural place-making, as well as the ethical dimensions of doingcultural geography.

Understanding Cultural Geography: Places and traces offers a broad-based overview of cultural geography, ideal forstudents being introduced to the discipline through either undergraduate or postgraduate degree courses. The bookoutlines how the theoretical ideas, empirical foci and methodological techniques of cultural geography illuminateand make sense of the places we inhabit and contribute to. This is a timely synthesis that aims to incorporate a vastknowledge foundation and by doing so will also prove invaluable for lecturers and academics alike.

Jon Anderson is a Lecturer in Human Geography at the School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University.His research interests focus on the relations between identity, culture and place, in particular the actions, practicesand politics that such relations produce.

UNDERSTANDING CULTURAL GEOGRAPHYPlaces and traces

Jon Anderson

First published 2010 by Routledge2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canadaby Routledge

270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2010 Jon Anderson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or

hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataAnderson, Jon, 1973–

Understanding cultural geography : places and traces / Jon Anderson.p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.1. Cultural geography. 2. Human geography. I. Title.

GF41.A475 2009304.2—dc222009008209

ISBN 13: 978–0–415–43054–8 (hbk)ISBN 13: 978–0–415–43055–5 (pbk)ISBN 13: 978–0–203–87237–6 (ebk)

ISBN 10: 0–415–99286–9 (hbk)ISBN 10: 0–415–43055–5 (pbk)ISBN 10: 0–203–87237–1 (ebk)

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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.

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List of figures viiList of tables xiList of boxes xiiiAcknowledgements xvii

1 INTRODUCTION 1

2 THE HISTORY OF CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY 13

3 BRANCHING OUT: TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE FAMILY TREE OF CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY 26

4 KNOWING (YOUR) PLACE 37

5 TAKING AND MAKING PLACE: THE STUFF OF POWER 53

6 COUNTER-CULTURES: GLOBAL, CORPORATE AND ANTI-CAPITALISMS 68

7 THE PLACE OF NATURE 89

8 THE PLACE OF ETHNICITY 104

9 SENSES OF PLACE: SCALES AND BELIEFS 119

10 MAKING AND MARKING NEW PLACES: THE CULTURAL GEOGRAPHIES OF YOUTH 132

CONTENTS

11 (B)ORDERING THE BODY 153

12 SWIMMING IN CONTEXT: DOING CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY IN PRACTICE 166

13 A CULTURALLY GEOGRAPHICAL APPROACH TO PLACE 176

Bibliography 183Index 203

CONTENTSvi

1.1 The place of Trafalgar Square 6Source: Christian Bortes http://www.flickr.com/photos/bortescristian/2326849401/

1.2 The traces of Alison Lapper 7Source: David Nurse (Menscrifa) http://www.flickr.com/photos/81824281@N00/2902047797/

1.3 Post-imperial traces in Trafalgar Square 7‘RWC’ source: Ed Lovelock http://www.flickr.com/photos/ed_lovelock/10671967/‘Ashes’ source: Luca Belleti http://www.flickr.com/photos/bitful/43188156/‘Olympics’ source: Robin Hamman http://www.flickr.com/photos/robinhamman/24043938/

1.4 ‘Poll tax’ riots, Trafalgar Square, 1990 8Source: Neil Hester

1.5 Criminal Justice Bill demonstrations, Trafalgar Square, 1994 8Source: Peters Forsland

1.6 Iraq war protests, Trafalgar Square, 2003 9Austin Taylor Labourn http://www.flickr.com/photos/30479808@N03/2855724041/

1.7 Designated Riot Area, Trafalgar Square 9Source: Banksy/Lazarides

2.1 Inspirations for the American branch of the cultural geography family tree 20‘Sauer’ source: http://people.cas.sc.edu/ajames/Bing_Symp/1956%20Photos/Sauer.jpg‘Lowie’ source: http://www.americanethnography.com/img/robert-lowie.jpg‘Kroeber’ source: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/ANTH/emeritus/kroeber/kroeberinfield.jpg‘Boas’ source: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAboas.jpg

2.2 Artefacts in the cultural landscape 21

Barns:‘1’ source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ddnlj/2680683753/ Southern State, ddnlj.‘2’ source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/geliza/3152160835/ Upstate New York, Geliza

F IGURES

‘3’ source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/20314119@N08/2705276126/Wisconsin, Boodie 131‘4’ source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/686880246/ Oklahoma,Woodley wonderworks‘5’ source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/atelier79033/2873132621/, Upstate New York, Ed Brodzinsky‘6’ source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lensman45/2712751644/Neffsville, Lensman 45

Houses:‘A’ source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcmorr/654271199/ Iowa, McMorr.‘B’ source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sunsurfr/457613520/ Alabama, sunsurfr‘C’ Cannery Row, Monterrey Bay, source: Author‘D’ Alamo Square, San Francisco, source: Author‘E’ source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/silvery/3138621906/ Bryan, Texas, Si1very‘F’ source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21066820@N06/2084344682/New Mexico Pueblo, jefg99‘Map’ source: http://www.csiss.org/classics/content/15 (from Wissler’s map of the culture areas of the

Native American United States (1948)

6.1 Commodifying patriotism 74Source: Brains

6.2 Diesel ‘protest’ 87Source: Diesel

7.1 The place of Uluru 89Source: Yuko Kootnikoff http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewco/72071400/

9.1 Traces of belonging in Belfast (from left to right) 122‘1 and 2’ source: Mike Gregory http://www.flickr.com/photos/g_travels/2080533976/‘3’ source: Ian Cowe, www.flickr.com/iancowe‘4’ source: citysoundslikecolour http://www.flickr.com/photos/tachismes/264040428/

9.2 Belfast’s (b)orders 123‘Shankhill’ (2 images) source: Susan Moore

9.3 Boxed in Amir Khan 128Source: The Sun

10.1 Traceurs and traces: free-running places (clockwise from top left) 140‘Statue’ source: sujathafan http://www.flickr.com/photos/sujatha_fan/2671004494/‘Above traffic’ source: Daniel Ilabaca, www.daniel-ilabaca.co.uk, Jon Lucas | Photographyhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/jonlucas/204150906/‘Stairs’ source: Mute http://www.flickr.com/photos/mutephotoblog/103108395/‘Building & Bench’ source: Jean-Christophe/ Parkour GMX

10.2 Graffiti messages 144Source: Author

10.3 A head full of facts . . . 148Source: Author

10.4 The graffiti artist graffiti-ed 149Source: Author

10.5 A ‘completely pointless and mindless piece of vandalism’? 151Source: Author

FIGURESviii

11.1 Hybrid and transgressive genders 159Source: Author

13.1 The World Trade Center 178Source: Shayna Marchese http://www.flickr.com/photos/87538314@N00/218783201/

13.2 The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center 179Source: Macten http://www.flickr.com/photos/macten/237364092/in/set-72157594274390075/

13.3 The Freedom Tower 181Source: 2005 Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP/dboxhttp://www.renewnyc.com/plan_des_dev/wtc_site/new_design_plans/Freedom_Tower/default.asp

FIGURES ix

2.1. Environments and cultures: determinism and possibilism 19

2.2. Geographies of the cultural landscape 23

3.1. Representational cultural geography 30

3.2. Non-representational cultural geography 33

5.1. Defining traces 57

The Publishers have made every effort to contact authors and copyright holders of works reprinted in UnderstandingCultural Geography. This has not been possible in every case however, and we would welcome correspondence fromindividuals or companies we have been unable to trace.

TABLES

1.1 Culture in context: the case of Laos 2‘Laos’ source: Luan Prabang Provincial Tourist Department

1.2 No bikes on the sidewalk: all geographies are regulated 4‘Santa Cruz’ source: Author‘Thai Parks’ source: Claire Cutforth‘Thai Palace’ source: Claire Cutforth

2.1 Places as palimpsests 22‘Rome Palimpsest’ source: Author‘Westbury Palimpsest’ source: Neil France

4.1 The cultural geographies of location 39‘5102’ source: Author‘SA1’ source: Author‘Location’ source: Author

4.2 A bridge between people and place: the case of Mostar 42‘The reopened Mostar Bridge’ source: Erkan Black

4.3 Expressions of a sense of place 43‘Green River’ source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/noise64/2880106776/ Noise 64.‘Smokestacks’ source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gordongerard/3017009123/

Gordon Gerard McLean.‘Steel Bridges’ source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/1033802020/ Wally G‘Stone Light’ source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/1108617755/in/

set-72157600947831176/. Wally G‘Tug Boat’ source http://www.flickr.com/photos/11606523@N06/2079412059/ Tom Turner.‘Tinker Creek’ source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/49859104@N00/1429145066/in/

set-72157601106791030/ star shooter supreme.

4.4 ‘If I wanted to be disturbed I’d go and stay in a nightclub’ 45‘Door label’ source: Author

BOXES

4.5 Typical Cardiff? The world in One City Road 48‘City Road’ (12 images) source: Author‘California’ (6 images) source: Author

4.6 Dreaming past places: detecting Victorian London today 50

4.7 Trace-chains: ‘Castles 641 Starbucks 6’ 51‘Castles 461’ source: Wales Tourist Board

5.1 Regulating cultural places: acts of dominating power 55‘Signs’ (8 images) source: Author

5.2 Ordering places: punishments and penalties 56‘Ordering’ (2 images) source: Author

5.3 The creation of cultural orthodoxy: ordering and bordering the trains of South Wales 57‘Arriva Loud’ source: Author‘Arriva Wander’ source: Author‘Arriva Twerp’ source: Arrive Trains Wales

5.4 To dominate is to define 58

5.5 What’s in a name? 59‘USA Evil’ source: Author

5.6 Do you always do as you are told? 61

5.7 Acts of resistance 62‘Fuck Authority’ source: Author‘Road Closure’ source: SchNEWS‘Bodily resistance’ source: Author‘Saddam Statue’ source: Brainyskeeta http://www.flickr.com/photos/brainyone/343784711/

5.8 Freedom of speech as both domination and resistance 64‘Condemn’ source: sgrah http://www.flickr.com/photos/samgraham/100732531/‘Behead’ source: JGBasar http://www.flickr.com/photos/96813319@N00/152508999/‘Freedom’ source: http://www.whoknew.us/archives/2006/02/‘Dominate’ source: lakerae http://www.flickr.com/photos/lakerae/99609804/

5.9 The trace-chains from one act of resistance: the case of Brian Haw 65‘Haw Commons’ source: Norman Craig‘Haw Tate’ source: Tate Britain

6.1 Breaking (b)orders: the fall of the Berlin Wall 69

6.2 Minimising labour costs: a case in Jakarta 71

6.3 Big Macs and big profits: the merging of capitalism and music culture 73

6.4 The power behind transnationals’ power: the Bretton Woods organisations and the growth of corporation culture 76

6.5 Whose town is this? 78‘California’ (4 images) source: Author

6.6 Cultural and geographical (b)orders of Freeport Mine, Indonesia 79

6.7 Power and dis/organisation in anti-capitalist movements 82

BOXESxiv

6.8 The methods and means of taking place in anti-capitalism 84‘Pink 1’ source: Rebecca Jackman, Lebanon Anti-War Protest March, London 2006http://www.flickr.com/photos/becj/406781888/ wandering becs‘Pink 2’ source: Debbie Elnahas, Funk the War Peace Protest, DC March 19, 2008http://www.flickr.com/photos/kathydoucette/2346919690/‘Pink 3’ source: DJBones, WTO protests in Seattle, November 30, 1999http://www.flickr.com/photos/djbones/125536340/‘Pink 4’ source: Mr Walker, Anti WTO Protest, Sydney, 2002http://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_walker/2833565165/‘Yellow 1’ source: DJBones, WTO protests in Seattle, November 30, 1999http://www.flickr.com/photos/djbones/125536340/‘Yellow 2 & 3’ source: RyanPile.com http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryanjpyle/496086287/‘Black 1’ source: Woodkern Images, James Mattil http://www.flickr.com/photos/woodkern/

1763924662/‘Black 2’ source: Chris Harris, Seattle, for the image of Starbucks during the 1999 WTO

Riots in Seattle, archived at www.magnobeam.com‘Black 3’ source: Liz Highleyman http://www.flickr.com/photos/liz_at_blackrose/535339967/

6.9 Debating and destabilising doxa 86

7.1 Should you climb Uluru? 90

7.2 Nature as Other to human culture: a place to be protected 92

‘Fell’ source: David J Glaves, Exeter, Whitendale Fell, Forest of Bowland, archived athttp://www.flickr.com:80/photos/davejglaves/3012540106/‘Colley Hill’ source: 604Plonker http://www.flickr.com/photos/11714573@N00/184380063/

7.3 Nature as Other to human culture: a place to be tamed 93

7.4 Nature as Other to human culture: a place to be exploited 93‘Three Gorges Park’ source: TimS http://www.flickr.com/photos/tims/150280389/‘Three Gorges Dam Construction’ source: Etherflyer http://www.flickr.com/photos/etherflyer/99049363/

7.5 Temples and trees in Ankhor Wat, Cambodia 98‘Ankhor’ (2 images) source: Author

7.6 A ‘compromise’ with nature: humans and nature at Lake Minnewanka, Banff, Canada 98‘Minnewanka’ (2 images) source: Author

7.7 ‘How the canyon became grand’ 99‘Grand Canyon’ (2 images) source: Author

7.8 This is how I feel it 100

7.9 Killing nature or killing culture? 102

8.1 Tight control: the (b)ordering affects of barbed wire on Native Americans 107

8.2 Diversity and segregation? 111‘Diversity and Segregation’ source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/graphic/0,5812,1395103,00.html

8.3 Cultural racism: Aborigines in Australia 112

BOXES xv

8.4 Cultural racism: Gypsies in the UK 113

8.5 Cultural racism: Blacks in America 113

8.6 Cultural racism in wartime 115‘Manazar’ (3 images) source: NPS 2007 National Park Service http://www.nps.gov/manz/, accessed March, 2007

8.7 Mixophobia and mixophilia at the Notting Hill Carnival 116‘Notting Hill Carnival’ source: Author

9.1 Birds nests, homes and Olympic dreams 125

9.2 A place of tension: geographical and religious disputes in Israel/Palestine 126‘Palestine’ (5 images) source: Karen Chalk

9.3 Senses of place in tension: hybridity hidden? 130

10.1 The mall as a cultural boundary zone 135

10.2 Scallies taking and making place 137

10.3 Youths in the hood, up to no good 138‘Hood’ source: http://static.sky.com/images/pictures/1665087.jpg‘Hood Demo’ source: http://londonist.com/attachments/London_Ricky/hoodie_sign.jpg

10.4 Graffiti traces 142‘Shush’, ‘Resistance’, ‘Drunk Tag’ source: Author‘Designated Grafitti Area’ source: Joel Saundershttp://www.flickr.com/photos/joel_saunders/2885993244/in/pool-banksy‘Metro Tag’, ‘Flower 1’, ‘Flower 2’ source: Author‘Banksy’ (2 images) source: Banksy / Lazarides

10.5 This is my place: graffiti as a sign of cultural and geographical ownership 145

10.6 Field diary: graffiti on Queen’s Walk, London 146‘South Bank’ (7 images) source: Author

10.7 Graffiti brands the London Olympics 149Source: http://www.currybet.net/cbet_blog/2008/08/olympic_dissent_2012.php

11.1 ‘If we don’t smoke, they will call us feminine’: smoking and masculinity in Indonesia 156

11.2 Re(b)ordering the feminine body 160

11.3 Patriarchy re-(b)ordered? Women rule okay in Chongqinq, China 163

BOXESxvi

As John Donne famously identified ‘no man is an Iland’ and, in a similar way, no book has one author. In light ofthese truths, I would like to gratefully acknowledge those who although may not be cited on the cover, havenevertheless contributed key traces to these pages.

Thanks go to those who have kindly given permission for the use of their photography, including: Christian Bortes,David Nurse, Ed Lovelock, Luca Belleti, Robin Hamman, Neil Hester, Peter Forsland, Austin Taylor-Labourn, NeilFrance, Senol Demir, SchNEWS, JG Basar, Rebecca Jackman, Debbie Elnahas and Kathy Doucette, Etherflyer,Mike Gregory, James Mattil at Woodkern Images, Chris Harris, Ian Cowe, David Glaves, Joel R. Altschuler, SteveKaiser, Andy and Joel Saunders, Yuko Kootnikoff, Shayne Marchese, Susan Moore, Karen Chalk, and Claire Cutforth.Every effort has been made to contact the rights holders of images used. For those not mentioned, we will be pleasedto include their names in any future editions of the book. Thanks also go to the editorial team at Routledge for eggingme on towards the finish line.

I would like to personally thank Susan Moore for lending her ear to my moaning, Katie Jones for her inspiration onyouth cultures, and Heather Morecroft for her ability with Endnote. Most importantly, I want to thank ClaireCutforth for her patience and support, and my family, for always being there.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

KEY

We live in a world of cultural places. You and I, and thatperson across from you in the library/café/bedroom(delete as appropriate) are in the cultural world. We livein it, we survive it (hopefully), and we contribute to it,every day and night. The purpose of this book is to helpus get a handle on why our world is like it is, what ourrole in it might be, and how we can sustain or change it.To this end, this book offers a culturally geographicalapproach to place. It exists to give us insights, feelingsand understandings of our place in the world.

‘ . . . DOES NOT TAKE PLACE IN A VACUUM’

Working out a culturally geographical approach to placeinvolves thinking about the terms ‘culture’ and‘geography’. Let’s start with ‘geography’ first. Geographycan often seem an abstract term, an abstract disciplineeven. Useful perhaps for knowing the capital of Icelandfor Christmas games of Trivial Pursuit, but not muchelse. This book argues that geography is anything but

abstract. One way we can evidence this argument isthrough using a popular cliché borrowed from highschool science classes, ‘X [in this case, “cultural life”] doesnot take place in a vacuum’. Things, ideas, practices, andemotions all occur in a context, in a broader world thatinfluences, values, celebrates, regulates, criminalises,sneers or tuts at particular activities and objects. Interestin this context, and how it influences, values, celebratesetc. is one thing that geography and geographers do. AsCook (in Clifford and Valentine, 2003: 127) identifies,‘so much depends on the context’. Context can influencewhat actions we choose to make and how we choose tomake them, it can influence how these actions are judgedby ourselves and others, and thus how successful andsignificant they turn out to be. Context is therefore vitalto take notice of and understand, yet in everyday life it issomething we often ignore – we are so used to it that itbecomes ordinary, obvious, and even natural. Cresswell(2000: 263) describes this through using the South EastAsian phrase ‘the fish don’t talk about the water’; innormal life we are often like fish in that we don’t talkabout our geographical context. Geographers, however,are weird fish, we seek to sensitise ourselves to the ‘water’.Geographers swim in and investigate context.

1

INTRODUCTION

So, what are the appropriate contexts for geographicalstudy? Context can be thought about in a variety of ways.Geographical context is often thought about in terms of national or political territories, physical landscapes or exotic places. These contexts are often clear, iden-tifiable spaces which may be hotter or drier, colder or wetter, and defined by particular languages, laws, and customs that may be different or similar to our own. Each context will have an influence – and often

be influenced by – the activities occurring in that place.For example: in many countries religious, cultural orpolitical laws influence what clothes are appropriate for different genders (see Box 1.1 for an example); in others seasonal conditions influence working and sleep patterns; whilst in yet other contexts ideologies offreedom and technologies of movement coincide toinfluence the degree of mobility within and betweenterritories.

INTRODUCTION2

In Laos, South East Asia, the Provincial TouristDepartment of Luang Prabang offers advice to visitorsto sensitise them to the geographical and culturalcontext of the country. As excerpts from their advice

leaflet illustrate, the cultural context of Laos outlinesappropriate ways to dress in particular places, and how the dominant religion influences how our bodiesshould stand in this place.

Box 1.1

CULTURE IN CONTEXT: THE CASE OF LAOS

Laos

Political territories or physical landscapes are, however,not the only contexts that geographers can study. Anyplace or area, at any scale, or in any circumstance, couldbe thought about as a geographical context. For example,on a macro scale, we could think of Planet Earth as acontext and how it influences and is influenced by theactivities going on within it. At a micro scale, we couldthink of the room in which I am typing these words as ageographical context, or even the messy desk on whichmy computer rests – and explore how it influences andis influenced by the activities going on here. (If you areinterested, there is lovely July sunshine coming throughmy office window, making it a rather nice day for lifegenerally, thanks. This means that in all probability thedesk won’t be tidied today and not much more will bewritten! Sorry Ed.) Alternatively and imaginatively, wecould think of other contexts for geographical explo-ration. A public square – and how it seems to encouragesome uses and users rather than others, a field (ditto, butmaybe for non-humans too?), a home, a wall, a coastline.What about the contexts of a classroom, a street, a pub,or a sports field? What about a theatre, a mine, amuseum, a library . . . ? What activities are accepted asnormal in these places? what behaviours are frownedupon? how are they regulated? do people conform tothese regulations, and what happens if they don’t? Theseare all crucial critical questions that geographers employto analyse the contexts they study (see Box 1.2).

Alongside political spaces, physical landscapes andsocially engineered places – at a variety of scales – areother forms of geographical context that we could study.Perhaps we could think about contexts of communi-cation as relevant ‘media spaces’ for investigation. Wecould for example study the mainstream media or virtualspace, spoken languages, written codes, or even non-verbal communications and how these influence (and areinfluenced by) particular groups. Other geographicalcontexts could include places of the body, for examplethe head, the heart, the skin even, in both material andmetaphorical senses. These are perhaps unorthodox butnevertheless fascinating geographical contexts, and maybeyou can think of others. In sum, geographical contextscan exist wherever there are human (and non-human)activities; the trick is to acknowledge them, work outwhat produces them, and what effect they have.

X MARKS . . .

We have established then that geographers have aninterest in context. But if we turn back to our initialcliché, ‘X [in this case, “cultural life”] does not take placein a vacuum’, we should identify that this statement hasother key components to it. We have focused on thevacuum (or context) component, but there is, of course,the initial activity – the X – that occurs too. Geographyis equally concerned with this X, as it marks the spotwhere this activity interconnects with context. As thisbook deals with cultural geography, the question arises:what are appropriate cultural activities for geographers tostudy? The book argues that culture includes the materialthings, the social ideas, the performative practices, andthe emotional responses that we participate in, produce,resist, celebrate, deny or ignore. Culture is therefore theconstituted amalgam of human activity – culture is whathumans do. In this light, culture can include a range,perhaps even an endless range, of things. It includesaspects of society, politics and the economy, and can beidentified or categorised by a range of different (andsometimes overlapping) groups. It is commonplace, forexample, to hear the word culture being prefixed by termssuch as ‘pop’, ‘chav’ or ‘high’; by ‘capitalist’, ‘democratic’or ‘class’; by ‘western’, ‘dance’ or ‘nomadic’; by ‘Islamic’,or ‘sporting’ or ‘youth’. Cultures can be ‘mainstream’,‘sub-’ or ‘counter-’. Culture then can be seen as encom-passing a wide spectrum of human life, it is not a separateentity from society, politics or the economy, butinfluences (and is influenced by) them all.

What cultural geography seeks to do, therefore, isexplore the intersections of context and culture. It askswhy cultural activities happen in particular ways inparticular contexts. It is interested in exploring howcultural activities and contexts interact, influence andperhaps even become synonymous with one another. Itoperationalises this interest through identifying that theproduct of the intersection between context and cultureis place. As our introductory cliché tells us: ‘X [in this case,“cultural life”] does not take place in a vacuum.’ In this(final) instance, the key component of this cliché is ‘takeplace’. This component confers two important meanings.The first is that the incident in question took place, in the sense that it occurred, it happened. Second,

3INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION4

The following images outline the regulations imposedon a range of geographical contexts. In the municipalityof Santa Cruz, California, all visitors are reminded thatit is considered normal not to start fires or feed wildlife;in Thailand’s parks it is accepted that people won’tsmoke or drink; and in Bangkok’s Royal Palace youshouldn’t sit on the walls.

Box 1.2

NO BIKES ON THE S IDEWALK: ALL GEOGRAPHIES ARE REGULATED

Santa Cruz

Thai Parks

Thai Palace

however, there is a clearly geographical element to thisphrase: the cultural activity literally took place. It aggres-sively, passively, intentionally, or otherwise, took a placeand contributed to its meaning and identity. From aculturally geographical point of view, therefore, placescome by their meanings and identities as a result of thecomplex intersections of culture and context that occurwithin that specific location. Cultural geography exploresplace – these confluences of culture and context – to helpus to know and act better in the world around us.

MAKING TRACES, MAKING PLACES

From a cultural geography perspective, places are takenand made by intersections of culture and context. Inmore detail, places are constituted by imbroglios of traces.Traces are marks, residues or remnants left in place bycultural life. Traces are most commonly considered asmaterial in nature (material traces may include ‘things’such as buildings, signs, statues, graffiti, i.e. discerniblemarks on physical surroundings), but they can also benon-material (non-material traces might include, forexample, activities, events, performances or emotions).We can therefore see visible traces in places, but we canalso sense them in other ways (we can hear them, smellthem, even taste them or feel them), as well as being ableto think on them, reflect on them, and perhaps – in ourmore sentimental moments – reminisce about them.Traces can therefore be durable in places both in amaterial sense (they have longevity due to their solidityand substance as things), but may also last due to theirnon-material substance (they may leave indelible markson our memory or mind). As traces are constantly pro-duced they continually influence the meanings andidentities of places. In both material and non-materialform they function as connections, tying the meaning ofplaces to the identity of the cultural groups that makethem. Traces therefore tie cultures and geographiestogether, influencing the identity of both. As a conse-quence of the constant production of traces, placesbecome dynamic entities; they are in fluid states oftransition as new traces react with existing or older onesto change the meaning and identity of the location. It isargued here, therefore, that places should be understood

as ongoing compositions of traces. Cultural geography inter-rogates these traces, their interactions, and repercussions.It critically appraises the cultural ideas and preferencesmotivating them, and the reasons for their significance,popularity and effect.

Let’s take an example to illustrate the culturallygeographical approach to place advocated here (see Figure 1.1).

This is a photograph of a place. More specifically it’sa photograph of a place constituted by numerous traces:a statue, on a column, in a public square, with twofountains. Do you recognise where it is? What do youthink these traces stand for? This is one of the firstquestions cultural geographers ask themselves: what dotraces stand for? Taken literally, the statue, for example,is clearly standing on a column, which itself is standingin this square. (It is a material piece of cultural life stand-ing in a geographical context.) But taken metaphorically,cultural geographers are asking what traces stand for inthe sense of what do they represent. Cultural geographersbelieve that traces can embody or represent ‘ideas’, andin this case this public statue was commissioned, devel-oped, sited and maintained to foster particular valuesystems of particular groups. In other words, culturalgeographers argue that traces are not neutral, they standfor particular cultural preferences or ideas about what theworld should be like. Through doing this, these traces tryto persuade us to agree with and support these culturalvalues too.

So let’s look at this photograph again. It’s a statue ofAdmiral Lord Nelson, raised to 61.5 metres altitude bythe column that bears his name, in Trafalgar Square,London. The naming of the square is by no means inci-dental. It commemorates Nelson’s greatest naval victoryover combined French and Spanish fleets in 1805. Whywould the city planners of the 1800s want to create thisstatue and plaza? It has been argued that this place canbe understood as a space of empire (Gilbert and Driver,2000), built to commemorate British leadership andvictory. It represents the military might and power of the British as a people and as a state. It seeks to inspirepride and patriotism in the country and demonstrate thevalues and urban design expertise of a civilised, industrialnation. So when cultural geographers look at this photo-graph, they do not simply see a statue, on a column, in a

5INTRODUCTION

public square with two fountains, they see a materialcultural trace, tightly bound up with a range of culturalideas. These traces come together to constitute the placeof Trafalgar Square.

In fixing our attention on the traces which constitutea place, geographers are in effect interpreting and trans-lating places. They do so by interpreting and translatingthe traces (be they material or non-material) into themeanings intended by their ‘trace-makers’. However, aswe know in our own lives, there are many differentopinions, thoughts and judgements about the meaningsassociated with any given trace. Translations may not onlychange with particular cultural groups, they may alsochange over time. We could ask ourselves, for example,whether the ideas of the nineteenth-century trace-makers

in Trafalgar Square still have currency and influence overus today? Do their ideas remain as strong and sturdy as Nelson’s Column itself, or do they lurk in the shadowsof the square which has been taken over by new trace-makers?

In 2005, a statue called ‘Alison Lapper, Pregnant’ byartist Marc Quinn was unveiled on a plinth in TrafalgarSquare (see Figure 1.2). This material trace is a sculptureof a pregnant nude woman who has phocomelia, a condi-tion which resulted in her being born with no arms andshortened legs. The conjunction of Alison Lapper andHoratio Nelson can be read as highlighting differencesbut also continuities between the nineteenth-century andtwenty-first-century traces in Trafalgar Square. Thestatue of Alison Lapper clearly does not celebrate war

INTRODUCTION6

Figure 1.1 The place of Trafalgar Square

and victory (as Lapper herself stated, ‘At least I didn’t get there [Trafalgar Square] by slaying people’ (Ebony,2005: 37)), it may, therefore, celebrate a victory for a‘post-imperial’ Britain (as Pile puts it, 2003: 30), wherefemininity, maternity and differences in ability areaccepted and publicly endorsed. (It also perhaps drawsour attention to the disabling injuries incurred by Nelson that are not conspicuous in his statued form.)Contemporary pride in victory is also now ‘post-imperial’in nature as Trafalgar Square remains the focus fornational festivities, as witnessed by the celebrations heldfor English wins in international competitions, be theythe Rugby World Cup, the Cricket Ashes or London’sOlympic Bid (see Figure 1.3).

Thus in fixing our attention on socially engineeredplaces such as Trafalgar Square and the social ideas moti-vating them, we begin investigating the value systems andcultural preferences of these places’ ‘trace-makers’. Wecome to recognise that these places are made by many

7INTRODUCTION

Figure 1.2 The traces of Alison Lapper

Figure 1.3 Post-imperial traces in Trafalgar Square

agents, not just the original planner, designer, or archi-tect. We see that anyone who uses these places has thecapacity to edit and re-edit them, adding their owncultural ideas through their specific cultural actions. Inother words, with all the actions we participate in weinevitably take and make place (we, whether we like it ornot, inevitably leave traces). In fixing our attention onthe ways in which ideas, objects and actions take andmake place we come to realise that places – and what theyrepresent – are not fixed. As actions and ideas change overtime, places become dynamic states of transition. In someplaces, the ideas, things and practices may change veryslowly, almost imperceptibly, yet, in others, changes mayoccur by the season, the day of the week or by the hourof the day. One thing is certain, change is inevitable.

Be they relatively dynamic or relatively stable, themeanings and identities of places are often taken forgranted, something we no longer consider and take noticeof. Perhaps out of habit, custom or apathy, we often actin line with the dominant cultural ideas of a place, thuspractising our agreement with or ambivalence towardsthem. In some cases, however, the cultural ideas motivat-ing places are not taken for granted. In these cases theideas may be highly contentious, generating disagreementand conflict among different cultural groups. In thesecases, particular groups may no longer go along with theexisting uses of these places, they may wish to challengethese uses and the ideas they stand for. Here the users ofa place overtly change from being passive recipients of dominant place-makers’ intent, into actors who pur-posely seek to edit places in new, contrasting ways.Through leaving their own traces in places, differentgroups can criticise one set of cultural ideas, and perhapsoffer alternatives to them. Here are some examples fromTrafalgar Square.

In each figure, particular traces have made TrafalgarSquare into a different place. In Figure 1.4, members of the public riot against the Poll Tax (or CommunityCharge) in 1990. Here, rather than supporting and cele-brating the British state, they take and make a TrafalgarSquare that celebrates dissent, popular protest and evenanarchy (see Mills et al., 1990). Some may argue that freespeech and assembly are bastions of British democracy,and thus such demonstrations emphasise the strengths ofthe British political system. However, Figure 1.5 illustrates

INTRODUCTION8

Figure 1.4 ‘Poll tax’ riots, Trafalgar Square, 1990

Figure 1.5 Criminal Justice Bill demonstrations, TrafalgarSquare, 1994

9INTRODUCTION

Figure 1.6 Iraq war protests, Trafalgar Square, 2003

a rally in 1994 against the Criminal Justice Act, a piece ofBritish legislation which criminalised this precise form offree speech and assembly. In further defiance of this legalstatute, Figure 1.6 depicts the Anti-Iraq War demonstra-tion of 2003 where British and American foreign policywas the focus of dissent. Each of these incidents creates adifferent challenge to the dominant interpretation ofTrafalgar Square as a place of national pride and unity.Taken together they symbolise a place that has come torepresent a site of recurrent division and disenfranchise-ment between the public and politicians, it stands for thetypes of ideas the former hold and the cultural activitiesthey will employ in order to confront the ideas andactivities of the latter. This alternative translation ofTrafalgar Square is recognised by the stencil from thepolitical-artist Banksy on the plinth of Nelson’s Column(Figure 1.7). In citing Trafalgar Square as a ‘designated’riot area, Banksy intentionally plays with notions of powerand authority, highlighting how the public is now author-ing the cultural geography of the square in a way notsanctioned by the state. In sum, therefore, these examplesshow that the identity and meaning of Trafalgar Squareis not straightforward. It is not simply a place of patrio-tism, but also a place of civil disobedience against thenational state. It is, like all other places, a composite ofcultural ideas, activities, histories, presents and possiblefutures. Due to the multiple traces that come together to

Figure 1.7 Designated Riot Area, Trafalgar Square

make it, Trafalgar Square is, as Gilbert and Driver (2000:29) put it, a ‘contradictory’ place.

TRACES BEGET TRACES . . .

So cultural geographers translate the coming together ofmultiple traces in places. They interpret the materialthings, the cultural activities, the social ideas and thebroader contexts that constitute places in order to makesense of the world around us. Although material things(such as Nelson’s Column) may leave more durable tracesin places, cultural activities such as celebrations or protests,even more mundane everyday activities like commutingor shopping, despite being more transient in nature, areequally important traces to investigate. These activitiesmay themselves leave some material traces (such asproperty damage after riots, pollution after commuting,litter and waste after shopping), but they also leave non-material traces in people’s hearts and minds. (A BBCTelevision documentary on the Poll Tax riots in TrafalgarSquare stated, for example, that the activities of bothprotesters and police ‘scarred the nation’ (BBC, 2005).)Such emotional and psychological traces – be they indi-vidual or collective – may be emphasised, concealed orspun by other actions in different, but related, contexts(for example, through reportage and comment on eventsin media spaces). These ‘trace-chains’ of things, activities,emotions and contexts have significance not simply forthat generation of place and its identity. As we live in thecultural world, our attachment to places can be strength-ened or eroded through these traces. These trace-chainsare also significant as they may motivate similar actions inother places. For example, they may prompt law changeswhich affect the cultural context in future, or may changecultural attitudes among protesters, politicians and thepublic which produce new spaces of understanding,repression or dialogue. Thus when cultural geographersstudy place they study material objects, cultural activities,social ideas and geographical contexts. They investigatehow these material and non-material traces, these emo-tions and ideologies, come together with spatial contextsto constitute particular places in time, and how theseplaces impact on other sites that may be geographically ortemporally disparate.

NON-HUMAN TRACES

However, it is not simply humans that contribute tracesto places. Non-human actions and interactions also shapethe cultural geographies of places. This non-humanactivity may come in the form of ‘natural’ disasters,weather events or animal activity. If we continue ourexample of Trafalgar Square, pigeons and their interac-tions with context and culture have played a key role inshaping the cultural geography of place. Pigeons leavetheir own inimitable traces (guano) on the statues ofNelson and Lapper, and these traces react with rainwaterto produce an acidic fungus which dissolves the masonry(McClure, 2005). How these traces and their perpetra-tors are dealt with by the authorities highlight key aspectsof the cultural relations between humans and non-humans (in this case, living birds and non-living statues).Are these birds tolerated or celebrated, are they protectedor killed? In practice, a range of tactics have been used tokeep Trafalgar Square a pigeon-free zone. Falcons havebeen used to discourage pigeons, bird seed sale andpigeon-feeding have been outlawed, whilst netting andmesh is used to discourage roosting. As a consequence ofthe removal of the majority of pigeons from TrafalgarSquare, not only are the monuments preserved, but theplace is easier to market for other uses (such as a settingfor feature films).

SUMMARY: ONGOINGCOMPOSITIONS OF TRACES

Cultural geographers therefore analyse and interrogate allthe agents, activities, ideas and contexts that combinetogether to leave traces in places. In the example above wehave focused on a material context in the case of TrafalgarSquare, but as stated, cultural geographers focus on a wide range of contexts, not simply material, but also thenon-material: for instance, emotional spaces, languagesspaces, or virtual spaces. The traces left in this range ofcontexts may be material or non-material, durable ortemporary, left by humans or non-humans. They mayproduce the intentions desired by the trace-makers, orhave unintentional effects on the agents and their audi-ences. These traces may overlap one another, synergise

INTRODUCTION10

11INTRODUCTION

together, or come into conflict with one another. Theymay change over time, thus making the identities andmeanings of places dynamic, but nevertheless these tracesoften remain in place as shadows and echoes of places past.The traces may generate other traces in other places,linking places and traces together in chains that maybecome entangled and (con)fused. By understandingplace as an ongoing composition of traces it facilitates theinterrogation of these traces and how they come to confercultural meanings to geographical sites. We can come tounderstand and critically act in place through interro-gating the ideas motivating traces, the frequency andmanner in which theses traces are repeated and reinforced,their popularity and persuasiveness, the influence of theircomposers, and how they react with other competingtraces-in-place. Through doing so, this book maps aculturally geographical approach to place.

A CULTURALLY GEOGRAPHICALAPPROACH TO PLACE

A culturally geographical approach thus encourages us totake a critical understanding of the places around us, aswell as our position within them. It critically evaluatesplaces as ongoing compositions of traces. In summary,this approach asks the following questions:

• What cultural traces dominate a particular place?Who and what do these traces stand for? In otherwords, whose place is this anyway?

• Are the traces in this place challenged and resisted?If so how?

• What do these alternative traces stand for? Whoseplaces do they seek to make, and what would theseplaces be like?

• What are the consequences of this ongoing compo-sition? What trace-chains are set in motion, andwhat cultural orders and geographical borders arebeing established, new or otherwise?

As the culturally geographical approach also positions uswithin our world, two further questions are raised:

• Do these changes have any effect on how we shouldthink about place? and

• Do these changes have any effect on how we shouldact in place?

As you may have identified, the questions raised byculturally geographical approach to place can be remem-bered through the shorthand of the emboldened acronymfound in these queries (Trace: Traces?; Resisted?;Alternatives?; Consequences?; Effects?). In the chaptersthat follow, this book will further interrogate these tracesand places through a culturally geographical approach.In each chapter we will look at different cultures andgeographical contexts and interrogate the ways in whichtraces come together to define places and peoples. In eachchapter we will answer the questions posed above, and introduce both empirical examples and theoreticalideas which facilitate understanding about how the worldaround us is generated, and our role within it.

Before we employ our culturally geographical approachwe begin this book by outlining two chapters on ‘wherecultural geography has been’. These chapters give us aclear overview of the history of the discipline, covering the development of the definitions of, and approaches to, the terms ‘culture’ and ‘geography’. Chapter 2 outlinesthe main changes encountered by the discipline up to the late twentieth century. It begins with an investi-gation of the connections between culture and geographyin this history of exploration, and journeys through to the artefactual approach of Carl Sauer. Chapter 3 charts the emergence of a ‘new’ cultural geography in the latter decades of the twentieth century. It outlines two contemporary approaches that are often seen in oppo-sition: the representational and the non-representational.The chapter outlines the key differences – but also the important similarities – between these theories andemphasises how this book’s approach to place as anongoing composition of traces effectively combines them.

In Chapter 4 our focus turns directly to place. Itoutlines differing definitions and understandings of theterm, and how places are central to human tracings of belonging and community. It will introduce notions of orders and borders to help explain how places come to unite human identities and cultural geographies,giving us our ‘sense of place’. Chapter 5 explores thenotion of power. This chapter interrogates conventional

understandings of power as ‘domination’ and ‘resistance’,and how these are inevitably tied to culture and geog-raphy. It will illustrate how, in practice, these conventionalterms are often entangled together, producing contesta-tions and multiple traces in places.

The remaining chapters take these ideas and investi-gate how a range of different cultural traces combine toinfluence the places around us. Chapter 6 focuses onperhaps the dominant culture in the world today: theculture of capitalism. It investigates the contested tracesof capitalism through mobilising the theoretical instru-ments of power and place, the geographical connectionsbetween places across the globe, and their impact onnotions of community and identity. Chapter 7 exploresthe relation of cultures to nature. It investigates howdifferent cultures naturalise ‘nature’ in different ways andto different ends. Chapter 8 investigates how ethnicityimpacts on how places are taken and made. It explores a range of bordering tactics that seek to purify some but partner other ethnic traces to produce the idealcomposition of place for particular cultural groups.Chapter 9 explores how senses of place can be createdaround geographical scales, but also around cultural ideas.It investigates how traces such as patriotism and religioncan combine to strengthen but also complicate our ownsense of place. Chapter 10 centres on the traces motivatedand engendered by ideas of age. This chapter examines

how adult and youth cultures interact to take and makethe places around them, focusing on examples of freerunning and graffiti. In Chapter 11 we explore the placeof the body. Specifically we investigate the manner inwhich traces can be written on the body through ourgender and sexuality. We see how these bodily categoriescan be culturally and geographically controlled throughinvented roles and relations, before exploring how thesecontrols are subverted or resisted through processes ofindividualisation. From these chapters we see that we areinextricably part of the cultural world. We are part of thisworld as citizens, but also as cultural geographers. As it isimportant to consider how we relate to and act in thisworld Chapter 12 outlines a range of common methodsfor doing cultural geography. It begins by outlining keyissues for any project on ethics and access, before giving abrief introduction to methodologies that seek to explorethe language of the word (namely interviews and theanalysis of cultural texts), and the language of the world(through embodied practices and ethnography). Finally,Chapter 13 brings together the threads outlined inUnderstanding Cultural Geography: Places and Traces. Itencourages readers to think critically about their ownexperiences and perceptions of living in cultural places andcontributing to cultural geography. Let’s begin this book,therefore, by finding out where cultural geography hasbeen.

INTRODUCTION12

Culture has come down to us as a very complexword indeed, highly suggestive in its meanings, andrich in its possibilities. By contrast, its history incultural geography – at least until quite recently –has been rather more restricted.

(Mitchell, 2000: 16)

This book takes a culturally geographical approach toplace. As the introduction has outlined, its interpretationof cultural geography focuses on the creation and com-bination of traces: in particular, geographical sites; it looks at how places are generated through complexamalgams of culture and context. Yet this version ofcultural geography isn’t how the discipline has alwaysbeen. Ideas of culture and geography are not somethingthat have been invented by this book, or discovered fully formed by a single individual for us to put intooperation; rather, cultural geography has a history.Versions of the discipline have been developed by variousscholars, in various parts of the world, right up to thepresent day. The purpose of the next two chapters is tooutline this history; it tells the story of the ideas, practicesand scholars that have come to define past and presentversions of cultural geography.

THE HISTORY OF CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY AND THE GOD TRICK

On the face of it, charting the history of culturalgeography seems to be a relatively straightforward task.However, in truth, it is a difficult and complex under-taking. Such a task is risky for both the writer and thereader because it invites both to fall for the ‘god trick’.As Buttimer identifies:

An invitation to speak on the state-of-the-art in thehistory of geographical thought is surely a tempta-tion to play what Donna Haraway (1988) has called the ‘god trick’ – to assume an Archimedeanor sovereign gaze from nowhere over an the entirearray of stories which geographers tell about theirpractices.

(1998: 90)

As Buttimer points out, the ‘god trick’ is an idea conjuredup by Donna Haraway and it suggests that we can betempted to act as if we know everything, that we can see everything, that we can re-write history and even con-temporary society because we are god-like in omnipotence

2

THE HISTORY OF CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY

and omnipresence. This is a trick because we are, ofcourse, not gods. It is only through reading, experience,intuition and reason that we build our arguments andevidence our versions of history. Through sleight of handwe create our stories by cutting and splicing together acomplex and entangled history into a version of eventswith clear threads and a persuasive weave. This is thereforewhat this chapter does: it takes the history of culturalgeography and – with luck – translates its knotty com-plexities into a something we can get to grips with. So let’sbegin learning the ropes.

A GENEALOGY OF CULTURALGEOGRAPHY

There are many ways to splice together the historicalthreads of cultural geography. Duncan uses the idea of‘heterotopias’ (1994: 402), whilst Oakes and Price call theghostbusters to investigate the ‘hauntings’ of the discipline(2008: 118). This chapter however adopts the idea ofgenealogy to knot together a family history of culturalgeography. As with our own families, it is possible to lookthrough history and make out the connections, legaciesand influences that our forebears have had on the way weare today. We can discern who has been important andwhat significance they have had over our family. We canmake out certain patriarchs or mad uncles. We can dis-cover how their ideas influenced, and were influenced by,the ideas and necessities of the time, and we can explorewhat relevance they have, if any, today. So, as with yourown families, even if you don’t like your auntie, or agreewith her views, you can still be interested in why shethinks like she does, how she was perhaps a child of her time, and what differences there are between yourideas and hers. So it is possible to illuminate aspects of our own ideas and identity through shining a light on ourancestors, and this is the case for the history of culturalgeography, as Anderson and Jacobs outline:

Exploring the genealogy of one’s professionalendeavours [in this case the history of culturalgeography] offers much more than a stimulatingexercise. In looking back, in taking up a reflexiveposition in relation to one’s disciplinary identity, it

is possible to excavate the modalities of knowledgewhich have come to structure perspectives in thepresent.

(1997: 12)

In knotting together a family history of cultural geog-raphy, we become aware that ideas about what ‘culture’and ‘geography’ could be are undoubtedly influenced by the time and place of their creation. There are, in otherwords, historical and geographical signatures on differentbranches of the family tree. As Castree identifies, thesesignatures are carved by a nexus of influence that includesboth broader society, as well as discussion within thediscipline of geography itself:

Geography has always been a contested enterprise:it has no essence. The discipline, like all others, hasconstantly changed its spots in response to externalpressures and internal debates.

(Castree, in Castree and Braun 2001: 4, emphasis added)

These external pressures – from broader societal changesand events, and internal debates – arising from intel-lectual and philosophical disagreement from within thediscipline itself, have influenced the way cultural geog-raphy has been practised throughout history, dating backto the early threads of the discipline in Western Europeand North America of the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies. It is at this time and in these places that webegin tying together our history of cultural geography.

GEOGRAPHERS, EXPLORATIONS AND EMPIRICISM

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, geographybecame instituted in an era of exploration. The novelistJoseph Conrad clearly identified the connection betweengeography and European exploration by marking threephases in the geographical exploration of the world(1926). As Godlewska and Smith (1994) point out, thefirst phase – ‘Geography Fabulous’ – occurred in thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries, where early sciencecombined with mythology and magic to marvel at the

THE HISTORY OF CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY14

new world of discoveries. The second phase, the phasethat concerns us here, Conrad named ‘GeographyMilitant’. This involved more systematic and practicalexploration, and, as we shall see, the political conquest ofnew territories (after Godlewska and Smith, 1994: 1).The success of this phase led to the third – ‘GeographyTriumphant’. Sponsored by the growing industrialpowers of Western Europe, ‘militant’ geographers wentout in the field and sought to systematically explore ‘new’areas of the physical and human world. In this period,physical and human geography were closely aligned, andtogether they literally created the maps and encyclopaediaswe use today. They navigated the seas and documentedthe lands and people that had been little known in theirhome countries.

Thus, in the era of ‘Geography Militant’, much culturalgeography was concerned with filling in the detail onempty maps, indeed, cartographically creating the mapsthemselves. According to Driver (2000), a key figure andinspiration to the geographers of the time was the explorerand naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. As Pyne (1998:29) outlines, von Humboldt was akin to geography’s veryown Indiana Jones:

What Beethoven was to the music of the Romantic period, what Napoleon was to its politics,Humboldt was to its science. . . . Born 1769,Alexander von Humboldt explored South Americafrom 1799–1804. He had paddled up tropical riverslike the Orinoco, scaled peaks like Chimborazo,sketched the ruins of lost civilisations, experimentedwith electric eels, watched fruit eating bats andcarnivorous alligators, measured latitudes andmountain slopes, and obsessively collected, morethan sixty thousand specimens in all. . . . Here wasthe naturalist as Promethean hero.

If von Humboldt was Indiana Jones-like in terms of his style, we can also categorise his endeavours in termsof their substance. In mapping the genealogy of thediscipline it is important to not only determine whatgeographers studied, but also how they studied it. VonHumboldt and his fellow explorers can be categorised as‘empiricist’ in terms of how they studied the world. Butwhat does ‘empiricist’ mean? Empiricist geographers

observed and documented the world around them. Theyapproached their work from the premise that throughconscientious observation and faithful recording the truthof relationships between species and environments couldbe captured. In short, empiricists felt that the truth of theworld was out there, as long as they looked in the rightways and in the right places. Empiricism therefore placedweight on the accuracy, rationality and neutrality ofscientists and their fieldwork observations. The popu-larity of empiricism spread, universities and scientificinstitutions (such as the Royal Geographical Societyinaugurated in 1830 in London) were founded in orderto collate, study and disseminate the knowledge gatheredfrom these explorations.

FROM EMPIRICISM TO POSITIVISMAND DARWIN’S LEGACY

As empiricist ‘facts’ began to be collated from explo-rations across the globe, the style and substance of thegeographic enterprise developed. From the empiricistdata collated from different places, geographers hypothe-sised about the nature of the relationships between speciesand the environments they inhabited. As patternsbetween observations were identified, theories to explainthese relationships were suggested. This move fromsimple collation of observations to theorisation on theseobservations can be categorised as the shift from empiri-cism to positivism. This move was seen as strengtheningthe geographical enterprise in two interrelated ways: First, it made geography appear more ‘expert’ as moreexplanations were being suggested and subsequentlytested. Second, it created the need for more geographicexploration – if the best theories were to be produced,further fieldwork was essential to make sure they wererigorously developed and accurate. Due to the closealignment between human and physical geography at thistime, the growing geographic enterprise looked to natural science ideas for theoretical inspiration. Of keyinfluence in this area were ideas generated in the fields of ecology, botany and biology, particularly those ofnatural scientist Charles Darwin.

Darwin’s thinking can be considered a small butimportant step in instigating the phase of geographic

15THE HISTORY OF CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY

endeavour Conrad identified as ‘Geography Militant’.Before Darwin many thinkers explained environmentalconditions through the role of God in nature (Lindbergand Numbers, 1986). Darwin’s thinking displaced these‘holistic’ and ‘divine’ ways of understanding and replacedthem with ‘modern’, scientific explanations. This mar-ginalisation of the magical, what Adorno (1991) andWeber (1978) called the ‘disenchantment of the world’,favoured explanations found through geographicalinquiry and scientific logic. Darwin’s own explanationscame from lengthy explorations in the ‘New World’ andwere published in The Origin of Species (1859). At thistime Darwin developed laws to explain variation inspecies through a combination of adaptive mutation,genetic inheritance and environmental influence. InDarwin’s own words:

we see beautiful adaptions everywhere and in everypart of the organic world . . . all th[is] results . . .from the struggle for life. Owing to this struggle,variations, however slight and from whatever causeproceeding, if they be in any degree profitable to the individuals of a species, in their infinitelycomplex relations to other organic beings and totheir physical conditions of life, will tend to thepreservation of such individuals, and will generallybe inherited by the offspring. . . . I have called thisprinciple, by which each slight variation, if useful,is preserved, by the term Natural Selection. . . . Butthe expression often used by Mr Herbert Spencer ofthe Survival of the Fittest is more accurate andsometimes equally convenient.

(Darwin, 1996: 2)

In other words, Darwin’s hypothesis, that has come toform the basis for the almost universally accepted theoryof evolution, emphasised the relations between speciesand their environment. According to this idea, differentspecies adapt through habit and genetic mutation to bestsurvive the climatic and environmental conditions theyexist in. The best adapted species survive and flourishwhilst less adapted species struggle, fall victim to otherspecies, and ultimately die out. Darwin’s notion drew theattention of geographers interested in human cultures.Perhaps this theory could help explain the variation of

human cultures in different places? The geographicalapplication of Darwin’s ideas came to be known asEnvironmental Determinism.

HUMAN CULTURES ANDENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINISM

Environmental determinism . . . represented the firstattempt . . . at generalisation by geographers duringthe modern period. Instead of merely presentinginformation in an organised manner; either topicallyor by area, geographers sought explanations for thepatterns of human occupation of the earth’s surface.Their major initial source for explanations was thephysical environment, and a position was establishedaround the belief that the nature of human activitywas controlled by the parameters of the physicalworld within which it was set.

( Johnston and Sidaway, 2004: 46, my emphasis)

Darwin thus theorised that the environment played adetermining role in non-human species’ adaptation andsurvival. As Johnston and Sidaway suggest, this notion of environmental determinism was adopted by geog-raphers (such as Ellsworth Huntingdon (1913) andGriffith Taylor (1947, 1961)) to explain variations inhuman cultures in different places. For these geographers,particular cultures were produced due to the overwhelm-ing influence of the natural conditions they developed in; in short, cultures themselves were environmentallydetermined.

Environmental determinists not only accounted forcultural difference on the basis of environmental dif-ference, they also offered judgements on the relativeadvancement of the cultures discovered through explora-tion. For them, the strange cultures encountered in the new world were often deemed not simply differentfrom those of the west, but barbaric and uncivilised in comparison to them. Their hypothesis followed that a direct relationship could be identified between thelatitude of an environment (a proxy for temperateness ofclimate) and the civilised nature of the human culturefound therein. They reasoned the higher the latitude (ormore temperate the environment, such as those found in


Western Europe, the home of many of the geographersundertaking exploration), the more evolved, advancedand civilised the culture produced. The lower the latitude(or more tropical the environment), the more savage,barbaric and uncivilised the culture would inevitably be. As Livingstone outlines, this crude causal relation-ship between latitude and cultural advancement, waswidespread:

Consider, for instance, the analysis of Edinburghgeologist, geographer, and explorer JosephThomson, who, during a short life travelledextensively in East Africa. In 1886, during a periodof convalescence between trips, he spoke to theBirmingham meeting of the British Associationabout his experience in Niger and Central Sudan,an address that appeared later that year in theScottish Geographical Magazine. Here he paused toreflect on the moral-evolutionary impact of climaticconditions:

‘It is fact worthy of our attention that, as thetraveller passes up the river [Niger] and finds acontinually improving climate . . . he coincidentallyobserves a higher type of humanity – better orderedcommunities, more comfort, with more industry.That these pleasanter conditions are due to theimproved environment cannot be doubted. To thestudent with Darwinian instincts most instructivelessons might be derived from a study of therelations between man and nature in these regions.

(1992: 223)

In short, therefore, the environmental determinist thesiscame to be interpreted in ways that played to westernperceptions of cultural superiority and advancement.Indeed, it could be argued that its popularity was basedin no small part on the way it pandered to westerncultural prejudice. The environmental determinist thesiswas also popular because such prejudice also had apolitical dimension. Due to the relative ‘superiority’ ofwestern states and their cultures, a moral justification wasinstalled to ‘help’ the ‘less civilised’ cultures ‘improve’themselves. Thus through the process of geographicaltheorisation, a broader social and political projectgathered momentum: the project of colonisation of these

newly discovered places through the spread of westernculture.

GEOGRAPHY AND EMPIRE

The opening up of the world through cartographic andgeographic exploration thus commenced a process ofEuropean colonisation. As geographers identified newresources, labour and trade routes, states ‘imposed politicaland military control, battled or bargained with local rulingelites, [and] confronted or diverted local opposition’(Godlewska and Smith, 1994: 56). All aspects of westernculture were spread into these new areas. States sub-jugated and took control of foreign tribes, their land andresources. Religious, political and economic influencestook and made places in line with western cultural values.This spread of European culture was sometimes peace-ful, but often bloody, and either through the bible or thebayonet western powers exercised their control over the new world (see Driver, 2000). Geographers thereforedid not simply study and theorise cultures but had a handin spreading their own – as Godlewska and Smith argue,at this time geographers and the project of empire weretied by an ‘umbilical connection’ (1994: 2).

Such empire building, underwritten by theories ofenvironmental determinism, thus instigated major eco-nomic, social and political differences to the culturalfabric of the world. This phenomenon itself came to bethe focus of geographical investigation as scholars soughtto explain, and perhaps even justify, the new process of colonisation that had been set in motion. They did so by (re)turning to Darwinian ideas of survival of thefittest. German theorist Friedrich Ratzel (1896) appliednotions of environmental determinism in an attempt to not only explain differences between cultural groups,but also their associated political organisations andnational states. If, theorised Ratzel, strong organismsneeded enlarged ecological spaces to develop within andgrow, then why not human cultures and, more speci-fically, political states too? For Ratzel, some states wouldbe culturally strong and better disposed to thrive. Thesestates would have a growing population and subsequentneed for more resources. It made sense, therefore, thatstrong political states required more territory – or living



space (lebensraum as Ratzel called it) – in order that theyflourish. It was only ‘natural’ that this living space shouldbe obtained through annexation and subjugation ofweaker states. Ratzel thus reasoned that colonisation wasa necessary process for all parties as it allowed the strongto thrive, but also ‘raised’ the status of the weak throughinter-breeding (Ratzel, 1896). From this hypothesis,Ratzel not simply explained the growth of empires, butalso legitimated them. One can imagine how such ideaswere seized upon by those states who saw themselves as strong and worthy of expansion – it was not simplygreed or security that justified their growth – from thisperspective it was only ‘natural’ and ‘right’ that suchexpansion took place. Indeed, Ratzel’s ideas were closelyconnected to the eugenics and nationalist ideologies ofNazi Germany in the early decades of the twentiethcentury (and following the Second World War fell intodisrepute due to this association (Dodds and Atkinson,2000)).

However, the notion of environmental determinismdid not pass without criticism. Many scholars expresseddisquiet over the use of geographical ideas to justify andlegitimate empire-building tendencies. For example, theRussian theorist Peter Kropotkin argued that nature wasfar from being ‘red in tooth and claw’ (Tennyson, 1850);he postulated that successful species worked synergisticallytogether through mutual aid and co-operation, ratherthan aggressive competition (Kropotkin, 1915). Othergeographers refuted the idea that humans were passiveagents solely responding to environmental conditions.These scholars responded to environmental determinismwith their own ideas, captured under the heading ofenvironmental possibilism.

HUMAN CULTURES ANDENVIRONMENTAL POSSIBILISM

Environmental possibilists, including geographers such asthe Frenchman Paul Vidal de la Blache, Scot PatrickGeddes and Englishman Richard Hartshorne, explainedvariations in cultures in different ways to environmentaldeterminists. They argued that cultures and cultural varia-tions were not formed by environmental factors alone. For them, the environment was simply one factor that

influenced, rather than determined, the production ofcultures. From their observations, environments offeredpossibilities from which human groups could generate theirown activities and processes, they did not render inevitablecertain destinies and outcomes. From this perspective,therefore, humans were not considered to be passiveautomatons responding to the natural world; rather, theywere active agents creating their own cultures and to someextent their environments. These geographers alsostopped short of placing crude negative valuations on thedifferences identified between these new cultures and theirown. They did not resort to crude prejudices of superiorityand inferiority, cultures in other places were not better orworse than those in the west, simply different. For envi-ronmental possibilists the nature of the geographic projectwas also fundamentally changed. For them the mostimportant geographical scale was not the nation state and its expanding colonial potential, rather the sub-national region and its constituent localities. Politically,these ‘regional geographers’ were closer to the mutual aid and civic participation ideas of Kropotkin, than the lebensraum of Ratzel. De la Blache, for example,catalogued the different cultures of the regions of Francein order to show the diverse yet common culture of theFrench people (de la Blache, 1941). He argued that thisculture tied these localities together in the face of theiraggressive European neighbours. Geddes, for his part,wanted to encourage civic rehabilitation, devolving powerback to local communities so they could have greaterparticipation in the democratic process and politicaldecision-making (Geddes, 1912).

This political project had implications for the wayenvironmental possibilists conducted their geography. For them geography involved a return to the empiricistcataloguing of the era of exploration. The objective wasto identify variations in lifestyles in different regions, and document the specific material artefacts produced byeach culture in each place. This documentation perhapsincluded cataloguing agricultural equipment, housingstyles or clothing types – the particular material things thatwere hewn from the physical environment and came tobe associated with, perhaps even define, the culture of aregion. Environmental possibilism was therefore an essen-tially descriptive cultural geography which sought todocument and catalogue in order to establish the extent,

nature and difference (or indeed similarity) betweenparticular cultures in different places.

SUMMARY: GEOGRAPHY,ENVIRONMENTS AND CULTURES

It is clear, therefore, that environmental determinists andenvironmental possibilists had fundamentally differentideas about the relations between cultures and the envi-ronment. They disagreed about what produced variationsin cultures, what should be investigated to explain thesedifferences, and what political actions these differenceslegitimated. Table 2.1 generalises these key differencesbetween environmental possibilism and determinism.

Environmental possibilism thus stood in oppositionto the geographical project of positivism, state expansion,and environmental determinism. These possibilist ideaswere not limited to Europe, but also took root across theAtlantic in the United States. Here geographers in theBerkeley School at the University of California developedthese notions into a particularly American branch of thefamily tree. It is this branch that we now look to in orderto continue our genealogical tracing of culturalgeography.

THE AMERICAN BRANCH OF THE CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY FAMILY TREE

Akin to the regional geographers of Europe, the mainbranch of cultural geography in America was rooted in a strong antipathy to environmental determinism.Environmental determinism had taken hold in the UnitedStates through the work of Ellen Semple (1941) andEllsworth Huntingdon (1913), and the Berkeley School,led by Carl Sauer, turned to the work of the regionalisttradition in Europe to reassert the empiricist documenta-tion of cultures that they favoured. European chorologicalcataloguing – i.e. the documentation of cultural differenceand distribution – led this branch of cultural geographyaway from positivist theorising and back to fieldworkstudy, recording specific objects and associating them with particular regions and cultural activity. As Solotexplains, Sauer, ‘believed that geography should bedevoted to the collection of areal facts and not to thesearch for general principles’ (Solot, 1986: 509), or inSauer’s own words,

Underlying what I am trying to say is the convictionthat geography is first of all knowledge gained byobservation.

(Sauer, 1963, 400)

Sauer thus looked to re-establish the empiricist traditionin geography in America, and legitimated this decision by grafting his fieldwork valorisation to a new philo-sophical lineage. Rather than taking intellectual insightfrom the natural sciences (as environmental deterministsand possibilists had done), Sauer looked to anthropology for philosophical impetus. Here he turned to the anthro-pological work of Robert Lowie (1917) and AlfredKroeber (1952), who themselves were directly influencedby Frank Boas (1911, 1912). This anthropologicalstarting point helped Sauer justify a new type of culturalgeography, one that focused on cultural groups and their geographical spread as ends in themselves, ratherthan as means to generate theoretical posturing, empire-building, or nationalistic fervour. (see Figure 2.1).


Table 2.1 Environments and cultures: determinism andpossibilism

Environmental Environmental determinism possibilism

Source of key Natural science Natural scienceideas

Methodology Positivist law Empiricist making fieldwork

Cultural agent Environment Environment and people

Geographical National/global Regional/localscale

Social values Commerce People

Political ends State/military Mutuality/civic participation

GEOGRAPHIES OF THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

Sauer thus forwarded a cultural geography that mixed thechorological tradition of Europe with the anthropologicalinterest of North America. This formed a branch of thediscipline that differentiated cultural groups by thematerial artefacts they produced in, with and from thelandscape around them;

To put this in Sauerian terms, the task was todescribe the morphology – that is, the shape, formand structure – of a given landscape, and in so doingto reveal the characteristics, trace, distribution andeffectivity of the human cultures that had inhabitedand moulded it.

(Wylie, 2007: 23)

Sauer argued that by studying the landscape itself thekeen geographer could read off the cultures that inhabitedit. For Sauer, therefore, the relationship between the‘environment’ and ‘culture’, was better put in terms of‘landscape’ and ‘culture’ (perhaps reflecting his anthro-pological rather than natural science inspiration). Theinterconnection between landscape and culture was farfrom being the environmentally determinist interpreta-tion of previous branches of the discipline, in fact forSauer, the onus of agency was the other way around. Nolonger was ‘man [sic] a product of the earth’s surface’(Semple, 1911: 1); rather, cultural geography was, ‘thestory of how human beings have transformed the earth’(Wallach, 2005: 2). As Sauer put it:

The natural landscape is being subjected to trans-formation at the hands of man, the last and for

us the most important morphologic factor. By hiscultures he makes use of the natural forms, in manycases alters them, in some destroys them.

(1925: 52, my emphasis)

So, for Sauer the onus of agency in the relationshipbetween culture and landscape was reversed. For himhuman cultures were the most important factor influ-encing the metamorphosis of any place. It was humanculture that moulded the natural landscape, and throughthis interaction the natural landscape was transmogrifiedinto a cultural product.

Echoing the European regionalists, Sauer felt that inorder to identify cultures through landscapes it wasnecessary to document the material things laid downonto them by the humans involved (see Figure 2.2). ForSauer, ‘the geographer, therefore, is properly engaged incharting the distribution over the earth of the arts andartefacts of man [sic], to learn whence they came and howthey spread’ (Sauer, 1969: 1, my emphasis). This interestin the material inscriptions on a landscape resonates withthe notion of trace-making that forms the basis for thisbook.

Our culturally geographical approach to place alsoshares with Sauer the recognition of the dynamic natureof geographical sites. Sauer identified the changing natureof landscapes through drawing attention to the waysinscriptions on the landscape build up over time. Henoted that every generation lay down their products ontothe landscape, ‘superimposing’ their cultural artefacts onthe ‘remnants of older’ ones (1963: 343). In this way,Sauer postulated that landscapes should be understoodas palimpsests – as surfaces with multiple inscriptions thatbuild up over time and mark the presence and passing of different cultural groups (see Box 2.1).

Of course, by reversing the onus in culture–landscaperelations, Sauer drew attention to the agency humans canhave in the physical world. Sauer himself was disquietedby the increasingly technological, rational and environ-mentally destructive tendencies of western industrialcultures and gravitated towards landscapes in which amore ‘harmonious’ (Parsons, 1987: 156) relationshipbetween humans and the land could be ascertained. Sucha predisposition had two notable effects. It not only tiedSauer into the Romantic tradition that predated his work,


Figure 2.1 Inspirations for the American branch of thecultural geography family tree

Sauer Lowie Kroeber Boas


Figure 2.2 Artefacts in the cultural landscapeThis branch of the cultural geography family tree focusedon artefacts in the landscape, such as barn and housing typesin different areas of America, or how indigenous tribes weredistributed in different locations.

House D House E House F

Map

Barn 1 Barn 2 Barn 3

Barn 4

House A House B House C

Barn 5 Barn 6

but also led him and his colleagues to focus their atten-tions on more historical landscapes where, they argued,these sorts of relations could more easily be found. Forthe Berkeley School, therefore, cultural geography cameto focus on landscapes found away from cities anddeveloped hubs, and on folk or antiquated cultures. AsWallach puts it:

his aversion to the modern world explains whySauer’s own courses in . . . cultural geographystopped somewhere about 1850. . . . Sauer believed– this is hardly an exaggeration – that human historyhad peaked sometime before 1900.

(Wallach, 2005: 2)

SUMMARY: CULTURAL GEOGRAPHYAND THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

We can see that Sauer’s version of cultural geographyinvestigated the transformation of natural landscapes intocultural ones (after Price and Lewis, 1993: 1). Thisinvestigation focused primarily on empiricist fieldworkdescription rather than positivist law-making, and soughtto document the material artefacts produced by thespecific culture in question and how these productschanged the appearance and function of the landscape.It documented the distribution and scope of theselandscapes, and traced their historical progression. Theempirical interest centred more on rural and historicallandscapes, rather than the commercial modern land-


The idea of landscape as palimpsest suggests thatinscriptions are left in a cultural landscape by differentgenerations over time. The inscriptions of differenthistorical cultures can be seen in the above examples ofRome, Italy and Westbury, England. In Rome, builtforms can be identified in the foreground that remainfrom ancient times (now protected by modern-dayfences from modern-day tourists), to eighteenth-century

churches and nineteenth-century civic buildings (centreand back left), as well as twentieth-century monuments(back centre) with twenty-first-century scaffolding. InWestbury, Iron Age ramparts are written over with aneighteenth-century white horse. Modern-day farmingsystems complete the ongoing composition of place aspalimpsest.

Box 2.1

PLACES AS PAL IMPSESTS

Rome Palimpsest Westbury Palimpsest

scapes of contemporary America. This branch of thecultural geography family tree therefore focused more onthe products of cultures, rather than the processes thatgenerated them, it centred on the shape, rather than theshaping of the landscape. As Solot puts it:

[Sauer] believed that the proper objects of study incultural geography are material manifestions ofculture – land use, settlement patterns, technology,and other artefacts . . . it encouraged the study ofphysical changes in particular traits or in thelandscape itself rather than the processes of changeaffecting culture itself.

(Solot, 1986: 508)

Such an approach to cultural geography therefore focusedon questions concerning the nature of objects and theirdistribution, morphological questions of ‘what?’ and‘where?’, and the connections between the two. The keycharacteristics of this branch of cultural geography areoutlined in Table 2.2.

GEOGRAPHIES OF THE CULTURALLANDSCAPE AND THE THORNYQUESTION OF CULTURE

This American branch of the discipline thus focusedprimarily on the study of cultural artefacts. Whilst thiswas a project of note, interest became focused on thecause of the variations in cultural products. If the agentcausing variation was ‘culture’, what exactly was thisthing called ‘culture’? Sauer was silent on this thornyquestion, as Price and Lewis critique:

How then did Sauer conceptualise culture? Mostevidence would suggest that he devoted little effortto the question. . . . Sauer loosely employed the termto describe and distinguish the range of humandiversity . . . it was an heuristic tool, not anexplanatory concept.

(Price and Lewis, 1993: 11)

Sauer’s silence on the thorny question of culture led tointernal debates within the discipline of geography,particularly in the UK. Scholars such as Jackson (1989),Duncan (1980) and Cosgrove (1989) all questionedSauer’s heuristic use of the term culture, and the lack ofcritical analysis of the processes and practices thatcontributed to its production. If, in Sauer’s words, ‘theshaping force [that transformed the landscape] . . . lies in . . . culture itself ’ (1963: 343), they considered itlogical to investigate what this thing called cultureactually constituted. Sauer’s preference for field studyover theoretical reflection meant he devoted little effortto this question and its associated analysis. In light of this, many commentators turned to Sauer’s own anthro-pological inspiration in an attempt to gain insight intowhat this thing called culture could be.

WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED ‘CULTURE’?

For Sauer’s anthropological antecedents, culture was‘superorganic’ in nature. This ‘superorganic’ view, heldby scholars like Kroeber and Boas, supposed that culturewas something that existed independently of humanbeings; it was an entity that operated under laws of itsown, with the agency to govern human behaviour froma distance. As Zelinsky (one of Sauer’s students puts it,cited in Jackson, 1989: 18):

We are describing a culture, not the individuals whoparticipate in it. Obviously, a culture cannot existwithout bodies and minds to flesh it out; but cultureis also something both of and beyond theparticipating members. Its totality is palpably greaterthan the sum of its parts, for it is superorganic andsupraindividual in nature, an entity with a structure,


Table 2.2 Geographies of the cultural landscape

Source of key ideas Anthropology

Methodology Empiricist fieldwork

Cultural agent Culture

Geographical scale Landscape

Social values Romantic/environmentalist

Political ends Anti-technology/pro-tradition

set of processes, and momentum of its own, thoughclearly not untouched by historical events andsocioeconomic conditions.

(Zelinsky, 1973a: 40–1)

From this perspective then a culture was something thatoperated beyond human power struggles, it was a reifiedentity above society that controlled humans as if theywere marionettes, remotely dictating their actions andreactions. It can be argued, therefore, that such a super-organic conception of culture had the effect of simplyreplacing the deterministic role of the environment thatSauer disliked so strongly with the determining role ofthis unexplained and apparently inexplicable thing calledculture. As a result, many scholars became frustrated atthe lack of theoretical or practical purchase such anapproach gave them to understand and explain many ofthe pressing issues of the latter twentieth century. It wasargued that the social unrest of modern societies requireda cultural geography to not simply question the ‘what’and ‘where’, but also the ‘how’ and ‘why’. In short, it wasargued that a new branch of cultural geography wasrequired.

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, we have seen the development of thefamily tree of cultural geography up to the end of thetwentieth century. From its roots in the natural scienceof Darwin and the empiricist geographies of environ-mental determinism, we have seen it branch off intoenvironmental possibilism, and graft in anthropologicalideas to bloom into the cultural geographies of landscape.Each of these generations has formed through respond-ing to the contemporary external context in which itoperated, but also by learning from the strengths andweaknesses of those branches that predated it. It isimportant to recognise that each branch had its timewhen it was the dominant way in which cultural geog-raphy was studied, and although each generation hasbeen taken over by new growth, old branches have notentirely died away but continue to develop and influencethe discipline as a whole.

In the next chapter we continue to map the growth of cultural geography into the twenty-first century. Wewill see the development of the discipline from the‘representational’ to the ‘more than representational’.From these shoots we then come to (re-)establish thisbook’s approach to the cultural geography of place.

SUGGESTED READINGS

The following texts are useful to explore the issues raisedby this chapter.

Books

In terms of books, there are a number of excellentoverviews and anthologies covering the family history ofhuman geography.

Johnston, R. and Sidaway, J. (2004) Geography andGeographers: Anglo-American Human Geography since1945, 6th edn. Arnold: London.

Johnston and Sidaway provide a major survey of the keydebates, thinkers and schools of thought in human geography.An ideal text to explore further the foundations of culturalgeography, especially environmental determinism andenvironmental possibilism.

Livingstone, D. (1992) The Geographical Tradition.Blackwell: Oxford.

David Livingstone (1992) offers a critical account of thedevelopment and revolutions through which culturalgeography has emerged, in particular the role of Darwin inthe founding of the discipline, and role of race and empire.

Driver, F. (2000) Geography Militant: Cultures ofExploration and Empire. Blackwell: Oxford.

Driver traces the emergence of the modern culture ofexploration and how it produced and disseminatedgeographical knowledge in the age of empire.

Agnew, J., Livingstone, D. and Rogers, A. (eds) (1996)Human Geography: An Essential Anthology. Blackwell:Oxford.

This anthology gives concise insight into some of the keywritings of the discipline. It includes Donna Haraway’s


illusion of the ‘God Trick’, what Peter Kropotkin thinks‘Geography ought to be’, and excerpts from the work of Boas,Vidal de la Blache, Semple, and, of course, Carl Sauer. Anextended introduction to Sauer can be found in the‘Morphology of Landscape’:

Sauer, C. O. (1925) The Morphology of Landscape.University of California Press: Berkeley.

Journals

In terms of journals, Solot usefully reprises the work ofCarl Sauer:

Solot, M. (1986) Carl Sauer and cultural evolution.Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 76(4),508–20.


INTRODUCTION

In the last chapter, the genealogy of cultural geographywas outlined up to the last decades of the twentiethcentury. We saw how the family tree of the disciplinedeveloped from a focus on environmental determinism,through ideas of environmental possibilism, and on tothe cultural geographies of landscape. This chapter takesus from the twentieth into the twenty-first century and charts the contemporary developments within thediscipline. More specifically, it takes us from culturalgeographies of representation, and the types of under-standing this is seen to privilege, and towards a culturalgeography that identifies gaps and silences within thisstudy. The chapter then outlines how cultural geog-raphies have moved beyond a focus on representation andtowards ‘non-representational’ as well as ‘more-than’representational geographies. The chapter charts thisdevelopment, the implications it has, and how they bringus to the culturally geographical approach to place thatthis book suggests.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND TOREPRESENTATIONAL CULTURALGEOGRAPHY

As we have seen, new generations within the family historyof cultural geography are conceived due to externalpressures and internal debates. As the American geographyof Carl Sauer engaged with the nineteenth-and earlytwentieth-century landscapes of rural and Latin America,so new generations of cultural geographers, particularly inthe UK, wanted their cultural geography to engage withthe urban society of the late twentieth-century. From the 1960s onwards, social and economic changes hadprompted a range of new social movements based on raceand gender. Anti-war and student protests questionedgovernments and states, and environmental groupscampaigned against industrial pollution. Cities and ruralareas underwent substantial change through economicrestructuring, whilst different areas of the globe becameat once independent from colonial rule and increasinglyinterdependent within a corporate global economy. A cultural geography that was oriented towards rural andrelic landscapes did not have the empirical capacity tousefully engage with these external changes. Similarly, a

3

BRANCHING OUT: TWENTY-F IRST-CENTURY

DEVELOPMENTS IN THE FAMILY TREE OF CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY

cultural geography that had no sense of culture asbrokered through struggle between competing socialactors had no political capacity to engage with thesecontemporary circumstances. Sauer’s cultural geographywas beginning to seem ‘antiquarian’ (see Duncan, 1994;Cosgrove and Jackson, 1987; Jackson, 1989) and ‘sterile’(Cosgrove, 1989) and in order to remain politically andacademically relevant, a range of scholars set about re-orientating cultural geography away from the relic andtowards the ‘representational’.

REPRESENTATIONAL CULTURALGEOGRAPHY: FROM ANTHROPOLOGYTO ECLECTISM

In order to do so, representational cultural geographersbranched away from a solely anthropological bias, andturned towards a range of social science disciplines forinspiration. These included humanism (including theworks of Relph, 1976; Buttimer and Seamon, 1980,Tuan, 1974; Lowenthal, 1967), feminism (e.g. Haraway,1988, 1991), social and cultural theory (e.g. Foucault,1973, 1980; Lefebvre, 1968, 1971) and increasingly to‘post-’ theories (including post-modernism (Harvey,1989), post-structuralism (Doel, 1999; Murdoch, 2006)and post-colonialism (Loomba, 1998; Jackson andPenrose, 1993)). Grafting cultural geography to thiseclectic array of social science ideas facilitated a numberof changes to how culture was understood.

WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED ‘CULTURE’? CULTURE IS HUMANPRACTICE

Due to this shift in philosophical lineage, culturalgeography was no longer tied to the superorganic notionsof Sauer’s antecedents. For representational culturalgeographers, culture was no longer ‘the agent’ creatinglandscapes (Sauer, 1963: 343); rather, agency was accred-ited to humans themselves; we were the active producersof cultural products and processes. As Anderson and Gale(1999: 3) outline, culture was no longer a separate entityacting above and on human beings, rather it became,

a process in which people are actively engaged . . .[it was] a dynamic mix of . . . practices that people create not a fixed thing or entity governinghumans.

(Anderson and Gale 1999: 3)

In this approach culture remained about what peoplemake, how they make it, and the effects that theseproducts have. But crucially, the theoretical source of thiscultural production was not some outside force, but thepeople themselves. Here, culture is not what is done topeople; rather, it is what people do. Different cultures areproduced when individuals get together to live their livesdifferently.

WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED ‘CULTURE’? CULTURE IS SYMBOLAND SIGNIFICANCE

Representational cultural geography also considered thematerial manifestations of culture in a different way toSauer. Instead of his focus simply on the nature and effectof cultural products – an ‘antiquarian object fetishism’(Price and Lewis, 1993: 3), it was argued that thedefinition of culture centred on the significance and valuegiven to these practices and products by different socialgroups. Influenced by work in semiotics and discourseanalysis (see de Saussure, 1967; Barthes, 1973, as well asFoucault, 1973), geographers recognised it was notsimply what groups produce that was important toforming culture (the institutions, commodities, rituals,artistic forms etc.) but also the meanings given to theseentities. Geographers recognised that cultural productsare not just important in terms of the form and functionof the things themselves. To paraphrase a famous MarxBrothers line, for them ‘a cigar is not just a cigar’, but alsorepresents something else: an idea, a value system, evena joke. In this sense, cultural products and processesfunction as signs, and it was up to geographers to decodetheir meanings.

So this ‘new’ cultural geography did not want to limit itself to investigating the material entities of aculture; it wanted to explore and understand the mentalassociations that places, things, and processes had for

27DEVELOPMENTS IN CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY

different cultural groups. Where Sauer would have justlooked at landscape and artefacts, this branch of culturalgeography considered places, materialities and mentalassociations; Cresswell explains this ‘combination’approach to cultural objects with reference to the exampleof a church. From this new perspective:

Places . . . are combinations of the material andmental and cannot be reduced to either. A church,for instance, is a place. It is neither just a particularmaterial artefact, nor just a set of religious ideas; it isalways both. Places are duplicitous in that theycannot be reduced to the concrete or the ‘merelyideological’; rather, they display an uneasy and fluidtension between them.

(Cresswell, 1996: 13, my emphasis)

Thus this new cultural geography considered both thesubstantive and symbolic – summed up by the title ofJackson’s seminal book Maps of Meaning (1989). Whatthis cultural geography sought to do was investigate themeanings, the symbolic values and cultural ideas thatwere inscribed into different entities and processes byvarious cultural groups, and the spatial ramificationsthese had.

WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED ‘CULTURE’? CULTURE IS POLITICS,CULTURE IS POWER

Through focusing on materialities and meanings, repre-sentational cultural geography illustrated how under-standing cultural struggle was crucial to understandingthe landscapes around us. By focusing on the ‘combin-ation’ of the mental and material, it was suggested thatcultural products are not passive; rather, they activelyinfluence behaviour by creating and perpetuatingparticular meanings. It was how different groups cele-brate, resist, or disapprove of various products andpractices (and their meanings) that was vital to under-stand. Landscapes, therefore, become the medium ofcultural struggle between different groups; geographieswere created through the contestation and conflictbetween various cultures who valued things and activities

in different ways. Recognition arose, therefore, thatculture was political – if some meanings became domi-nant then some cultures could be encouraged whilstothers could be repressed. As a consequence, geographerswould have to question how particular valuations becamethe most dominant in any given location. This concep-tualisation of culture meant that issues of power becamecrucial to any analysis of cultural geography (see Chapter5). Questions regarding who has the ability to convert oroppress what became orthodox were fundamental. Thestudy of culture thus became the study of power andpolitical struggle; representational cultural geographerssaw the landscape as,

the materialization of the ongoing struggle torepresent the norms, values and meanings thatdefine the community. Thus, reading the landscapeinvolved examining how dominant agents inscribedthe world as well as how those inscriptions wereregularly undermined.

(Rose, 2002: 458)

WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED ‘CULTURE’? CULTURE IS ‘TEXT’

We write the culture in which we live.(Bolter, cited in Thomashow, 1995: 184)

Not only did this representational cultural geographyforeground issues of conflict and struggle in its assessmentof cultural landscapes, it also began to adopt a moreinterpretative rather than morphological methodology tostudying it. It introduced the idea of cultures andlandscapes as ‘texts’.

Texts are usually considered to be written material:books, manuscripts, poems, even maps. It is common forus to identify how these texts can often be read, orinterpreted, in different ways. In a novel, for example,some readers will argue how the hero is really a villain;others can guess the murderer before the final page.Others enjoy the author’s interpretation but question it,whilst others still go along for the ride until the story’sconclusion. The possibility of these different readings orinterpretations in relation to books, poems, or even othercultural ‘texts’ like films, is often familiar to us. In relation

DEVELOPMENTS IN CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY28

to the cultural landscape, due to the introduction of newways of configuring culture – as webs of significance andmeaning that different groups can interpret in differentways – many cultural geographers began to use the ideaof texts to help us understand how we should configurelandscape in this representational cultural geography. AsCosgrove and Jackson (1987: 96) outline:

Conceptualising landscapes as configurations ofsymbols and signs leads inevitably towards method-ologies which are more interpretative than strictlymorphological. . . . This interpretative strand inrecent cultural geography develops the metaphor oflandscape as a ‘text’ to be read or interpreted as asocial document in the same way that CliffordGeertz (1973) describes anthropology as theinterpretation of cultural texts.

As Aitkin (in Flowerdew and Martin, 1997: 198) hasidentified, these cultural geographers ‘read’ landscapes,along with the other cultural processes and institutionsthat go together to constitute them, as ‘texts’. Instead ofseeing the cultural landscape as simply the entity that isproduced by culture from a ‘natural medium’ (followingSauer); the landscape in this new cultural geography issomething that is inscribed with a range of meanings byvarious social groups. Landscapes therefore became signsor symbols that we read everyday – they tell us how tobehave, whether to walk or don’t walk, whether to keepoff the grass, where to smoke; they tell us where we areallowed to go and what we are allowed to do there. It was up to cultural geographers to study the meanings of these ‘texts’, work out the meanings attached to them,the politics underpinning them, and how these were(re)produced.

REPRESENTATIONAL CULTURALGEOGRAPHY AND THE LANGUAGEOF PLACE

Thus not only did this new cultural geography look atthe same materialities in new ways, be they culturalartefacts as meaningful entities, or landscape as texts, italso led to the construction of completely different

objects of study. As Jackson put it, there was a move awayfrom geographies, ‘that focus[ed] exclusively onlandscape’ (1989: 9), and a turn towards looking at thevarious places that become contested by different culturalgroups. The notion of place was introduced to usefullybind together the various new ideas that this branch ofcultural geography focused upon. In the first instance,place allowed geographers to make tangible the active roleof humans in creating culture, and the importance ofpower in controlling and making rules that definegeographical sites. However, it also allowed geographersto move away from looking at landscapes as a whole,perhaps as more unified, monolithic or even staticentities, and to focus instead on sites of different types atdifferent scales. These places could be conventional sitessuch as towns, plazas or parks, but they could also be atscales both beneath and beyond – for example, they couldbe rooms or nation states (after Sack, 2004: 243). Placescould also be located within films or other culturalproducts (unifying the idea of place as a ‘text’ that couldbe read), or indeed as literal or metaphorical sites, e.g.places of the body, of wild nature, or the imagination.Thus, as Duncan identifies, new vocabularies led to newobjects of study, the notion of place came to be the sitearound which the study of the social and the spatial couldbe effectively combined. The age of place had arrived inrepresentational new cultural geography.

SUMMARY: REPRESENTATIONALCULTURAL GEOGRAPHY

Representational cultural geography therefore broadenedthe array of legitimate subjects and objects that werewithin the geographers’ compass. As Cosgrove put it, now‘cultural geography is everywhere’ (1989), as Shurmer-Smith cleverly has it, cultural geography is ‘all over theplace’ (1994). At the end of the twentieth century thesechanges led to cultural geography becoming:

one of the most exciting areas of geographic work atthe moment. Ranging from analyses of everydayobjects, views of nature in art or film to studies of themeaning of landscapes and the social construction ofplace-based identities, it covers numerous issues. Its


focus includes the investigation of material culture,social practices and symbolic meanings approachedfrom a number of different perspectives.

(McDowell, 1994b, cited in Gregory et al., 1994: 146)

The representational branch of cultural geographythus introduced a departure of sorts from the forms ofstudy that preceded it. It instigated a turn away from apurely anthropological heritage towards a more eclecticarray of humanist, feminist and critical theory influences.It argued for a culture that was produced by humansthemselves, acting to take and make place in line withtheir own political values and preferences. It shunned apurely empiricist epistemology to position researcherswithin their studies, and combined empirical explorationwith theoretical analysis to get a better understanding of the world ‘out there’ (see Chapter 12). The key facetsof representational cultural geography are outlined inTable 3.1.

Cosgrove and Jackson sum up this representationalcultural geography as follows:

If we were to define this ‘new’ cultural geography itwould be contemporary as well as historical (butalways contextual and theoretically informed); socialas well as spatial (but not confined exclusively tonarrowly defined landscape issues); urban as well asrural; and interested in the contingent nature ofculture, in dominant ideologies and in forms ofresistance to them. It would, moreover, assert thecentrality of culture in human affairs. Culture is nota residual category, the surface variation left unac-

counted for by more powerful economic analyses; itis the very medium through which social change isexperienced, contested and constituted.

(Cosgrove and Jackson 1987: 95)

CRITIQUE OF REPRESENTATIONALCULTURAL GEOGRAPHY: THEORIESAND THINGS

Despite its many advances, there has been a growingcritique of this combinational approach to cultural geog-raphy. The critique centres on how a focus on represen-tation privileges certain aspects of human and culturallife, and ignores other important dimensions. The rootof this critique is that representational cultural geographyhas become preoccupied with two interrelated elements:theories and things.

First, it is argued that representational culturalgeography has become distracted by theories. Throughadopting a range of social science theorisation, it is arguedthat this branch of cultural geography has becomeobsessed with the languages and discourses used to interpret the world around us. As a consequence,geographers are said to inhabit their own ‘wordy worlds’(Thrift, 1996), and through doing so have becomedetached from the actual world itself. As Duncan (1994:404) puts it:

The new [theoretical] vocabulary is sometimesdismissed as simply constituting the private, idio-syncratic language of a small group of geographers.

It is suggested therefore that an interest in theory has ledmany cultural geographers to be more concerned withdecoding ideas than engaging with practical actions (afterCurry, cited in Price and Lewis, 1993: 12). An obsessionwith theory is argued to put these geographers at risk of being abstract and distant from people’s everyday lives.

The accusation of elitism and abstraction fromeveryday life is also central to the second element of thiscritique. It is argued that representational culturalgeography has become preoccupied not only with theoriesbut also with things. Through focusing on interpretation


Table 3.1 Representational cultural geography

Source of key ideas Humanism, feminism, critical theory, cultural studies

Methodology Theory and practiceCultural agent Cultural groupsGeographical scale PlaceSocial values Importance of differencePolitical ends Ambivalent?

and decoding, geographers have centred their attentionon intentionally created and durable cultural artefacts –on ‘things’. These ‘things’, such as Nelson’s Column, arestatic and symbolic enough to be interpreted with a cul-tural geographer’s expert theoretical armoury. Yet whatabout other aspects of existence? What about less durableand more temporary events? What about improvisedpractices or processes? What about activities social actorsget involved in that are not as ‘thought through’ as thecreation of an architectural edifice?

This critique centres, therefore, on how interest in theexplicit representation of things and their subsequenttheoretical interpretation has led to the silencing of otherlanguages and intelligences we use to engage with theworld. As Whatmore suggests, this preoccupation has led to ‘a sense in which the life seems to have been sucked out of the worlds we variously study’ (Whatmore,1999: 260, also cited in Greenhough, 2004: 255), or asGreenhough puts it, we have,

become [so] fixated by the language of the word,with the politics and practice of representation, that[our] accounts run the risk of forgetting the languageof the world.

(Greenhough’s emphasis, 2004: 255)

THE LANGUAGE OF THE WORLD:SCOWLS AND GOOSEBUMPS

‘Had enough?’‘Yeah.’‘I just wanna sit out here for a minute.’‘Look at you.’‘What?’‘Usually you have this intense sort of scowl ofconcentration on your face, like you’re doing all thisfor a school project or something. . . . Look – it’sgone. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you lookedalmost happy.’‘I can’t describe what I’m feeling.’‘You don’t have to.’‘Goose bumps.’

(Tyler to Johnny Utah, after his first moonlit surf, in Point Break, 1991,

Director: Kathryn Bigelow)

Refocusing the ‘geographical sensibility’ (Anderson andSmith, 2001: 9) towards the ‘language of the world’ hasthus formed new growth on the cultural geography familytree. But what do these geographers refer to when theyspeak of the ‘language of the world’? Like the Johnny Utahcharacter in Point Break (above), we have all been in situa-tions where we can’t find the words to express ourselves,to talk about how we feel, or why we do things. Ourbodies may betray our experiences – we may blush, shiver,get goosebumps, but we can’t adequately translate ourexperiences in to words. How do we try to communicatewhat a kiss feels like, how falling in love affects us? Howit feels like to be underwater? To surf? When the ball hitsthe back of their net, or worse, ours? How do we commu-nicate loss? On other levels, how do we discuss why wedo mundane, everyday things, e.g. why we shop where we do, why we doodle, why our habits have taken hold of us they way they have? Sometimes these issues not only elude our capacity to ‘think things through’, but also our capacity to verbalise them. In this situation weresort to other types of language to express ourselves – wemay create art, cry, begin a new society, or start a war.This focus on experiences, practices and feelings that arebefore or beyond conventional linguistic representation iswhat geographers refer to when they speak of the‘language of the world’. It is these hard to pinpoint butessential moments that the critique of representation seeksto focus on.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE WORLD ANDTHE ‘NON-REPRESENTATIONAL’

As we have seen, representational geography is critiqueddue to its overemphasis on theories and things. Thescholarly impulse to draw attention back to experiences,practices and feelings that are beyond or before repre-sentation – the ‘languages of the world’ – coalesce underthe banner of ‘non-representational’ geographies. Non-representational geography defines itself as different to –as before or beyond – representation. It begins from theassumption that representation is partial and does notnecessarily include all aspects of cultural life in ourstudies. As Nigel Thrift, one of the principal instigatorsor this new branch of cultural geography, puts it:


the varieties of stability we call ‘representation’ . . .can only cover so much of the world.

(Thrift, 2004: 89)

A non-representational geography therefore begins witha focus on practices, on the experiences rather than thethings that constitute our world. In the words of Lorimer,it centres on the, ‘everyday routines, fleeting encounters,embodied movements, precognitive triggers, practicalskills, affective intensities, enduring urges, unexceptionalinteractions and sensuous dispositions . . . [that make] a critical difference to our experiences of . . . place’ (2005: 83). It is argued that this range of experiences arenot simply interesting asides to the fundamentalgeographies of theories and things, rather they are ‘at theroot of the geographies that humans make every day’(Smith, 2002: 68).

Thus non-representational cultural geography centreson aspects of life that we may engage in without reallyhaving worked out why. It is often experimental, workingin areas its proponents like to consider as a ‘brave newworld of fringe science’ (Lorimer, 2005: 88). In thisworld, cultural geographers explore dance (McCormack,2003), musical performances (Wood and Smith, 2004),engagements with nature (Szersynski, et al. 2003),sensory affects (Rodaway, 1994) and artistic expression(Kaye, 2000). It is hoped that by engaging with experi-ences beyond and before representation parts of ourengagements with place that are often obscured can beaccounted for. Why do some experiences make our hairsstand on end? What do these experiences move us to do?How do they define us in relation to our world? AsDewsbury (2003: 1910) anticipates, refocusing the geo-graphical sensibility may help us answer these questions:

If representation at its present limits misses the realitythat we seek to capture through it, maybe art [forexample] . . . ‘stands as both the medium of thisfailure and the agency for the hope of its restitution. . .’ (Heathfield, 2000, page 21). For me this is aboutgetting back to a moment of prediscursive expe-rience; to recommence everything, all the categoriesby which we understand . . . the world. . . . I thinkthis means moving against the general rub ofrepresentation.

THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE NON-REPRESENTATIONAL:METHODOLOGIES AND RESEARCHPRACTICES

As we have seen in previous chapters, we can define thesubstance of each branch of the cultural geography familytree not simply by what it studies, but how it studies it.‘Moving against the general rub of representation’ hasimportant implications for the methodological dimen-sions of cultural geography. Researchers have turned awayfrom methodology that relies overwhelmingly on textsand other representational devices to make sense of theworld. These methodologies, it is argued, tend to focuson linguistic forms of communication – i.e. verbalisedand thought-through ‘talk’ – that respondents use torepresent their experiences, rather than focusing on theexperiences themselves. As Hinchcliffe (2000: 578)outlines,

the turn to performativity has [had] importanteffects on research practices. Interviews, focusgroups, surveys, discourse analysis [see Chapter 12]– all of these have a tendency (by no meansinherent) to concentrate on ‘what’ is being said. Indoing so, they sometimes miss what Thrift neatlycaptures as language’s performative function as often ‘simply to set up the intersubjective spaces of common actions, rather than represent them as such’.

(Thrift, 1996: 39)

Thus it is argued that these ‘spoken’ communicationsoften fail to capture the ‘language of the world’. Thisproblem is compounded when such communications arecut, pasted and rendered context-less in academic papersand books, in these circumstances even the bodilyexpressions and (un)spoken nuances that give life to thewords uttered are lost (see Latham, 2003). In response tothese critiques, some researchers have turned away fromany preponderance with methodologies that attempt tosolely make sense of the world post-event. To chart new ‘non-representational’ maps, geographers haveexperimented with methodologies that engage with theexperience of the world in their moments of creation.


Interventions are also now timed in event (or in situ, inthe ethnographic tradition) with geographers participat-ing, observing and filming phenomena, as well as request-ing participants themselves to document events (throughphotographs, film, narration etc.) to create real-timerecordings. These documentaries can then be used asrecords in themselves, but also used as cues to generatefurther post-event perspectives through conventionalinterviews and focus group discussion (see Chapter 12).

SUMMARY: NON-REPRESENTATIONALCULTURAL GEOGRAPHY

Moving against the general rub of representation and into the world before or beyond the rationally thoughtthrough, has thus generated a new ‘non-representational’branch of the cultural geography family tree. It is aresponse to the preoccupation with theories and things.This preoccupation, it is argued, has led to a partial view of the world, with many of the unintentional,unanticipated, and emotional moments that define ourcultural lives being unaccounted for. The key facets ofnon-representational cultural geography are outlined inTable 3.2.

Despite the advances offered by the ‘non-representational’, this book argues that this branch of thecultural geography family tree is not without itsweaknesses. As we will see, the problem with focusingexclusively on experiences before or beyond the ‘represen-tational’ is that it is impossible to escape the language ofrepresentation itself.

THE PROBLEM OF NONREPRESENTATION

How can we represent that which lies beyond thescope of representation?

(Davidson et al., 2005: 11)

Although there is a world beyond words (e.g. bodilyfunctions (reddening, sweating), movements (trudging,dancing, falling), and expressions (smiling, wincing,shrugging)), this world does not exist in isolation, it isinevitably tied to processes of representation. The prob-lem with non-representational cultural geography is theassumption that we can escape the world of represen-tation. As soon as the language of the world is uttered or then heard by others, the forces of representation have taken hold.

The idea that we cannot escape the world of repre-sentation may seem abstract, so let’s explore an example.When we think quietly to ourselves – just like you mightbe thinking now how hungry you are, or when thischapter will finish, this may involve an instinctive feeling that we understand as hunger, boredom or confusion.We register this feeling in words in our heads. We havethe impulse, we give a word to it, we thus have a way of understanding the impulse in our world; we have ameaning to understand our physical and emotional state. Languages therefore help us to understand ourpersonal world, and also to communicate this world to others. We must remember, of course, that these languages aren’t the feelings themselves, but stand in forthem, like a lawyer for a defendant. So whenever we uselanguage, we are involved in representing. In this way of considering the world, all ‘language’ is representa-tional. Dance, architecture, art, may be non-linguistic,but they are still languages of communication. They maybe no more adequate than spoken or written English,Arabic or Paraguayan at conveying what your first kiss felt like to another person, but we nevertheless usethem to try. Similarly, these languages may be used tocommunicate non-thought through things – they maybe used impetuously, impulsively, or ‘instinctively’, toexclaim or profane an experience. Knowledge is thereforepractical and it can be non-cognitive, but it is neverthelessrepresentational in the broadest sense.


Table 3.2 Non-representational cultural geography

Source of key ideas Performance theory, phenomenology, passionate sociology

Methodology Everyday practiceCultural agent Cultural groups and individualsGeographical focus Intimate scales: bodies, actionsSocial values Importance of emotional and

everydayPolitical ends Ambivalent?

Thus as soon as we ‘contemplate’ the language of theworld (Dewsbury, 2003) we transform it into somethingdifferent from the original impulse. In short, we morphit into a form of representation. In this situation, howcan we write, talk about, and research the language of theworld in a non-representational way? How do you say –in whatever form, the unsayable? Bondi (2005: 438)recognises this problem, she states:

non-representational geography has been character-ized by a wariness of forms of meaning-making thatmight somehow sequester those elusive qualities of quick and lively geographies that always exceedrepresentability. Herein lies the paradox of non-representational geography: how can our own textsever honour that which lies beyond the scope ofdiscourse?

The paradox of the non-representational is therefore thatwhatever new methodologies or ways of writing areemployed, the products of research can never be theexperiences or practices themselves. Our written reports,papers and books, even our multimedia and film inter-ventions (especially at conferences or lectures) remain re-presentations. Even though scholars want to ‘get at’the worlds beyond words, they are confined within theworld of representation to communicate it.

STANDING UP FOR . . . RE(- )PRESENTATION: THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ‘SO WHAT?’ QUESTION

We have seen therefore that engaging with the non-representational is a significant step in the developmentof cultural geography, but it cannot occur without atonce also engaging with the representational. Althoughsome cultural geographers have begun to, ‘draw backfrom advancing interpretative claims about the practiceswith which they engage’ (Bondi, 2005: 438), this booktakes the position that it is not a ‘bad thing’ to engagewith representation. It is not only inevitable, simplythrough the choice of words, images or practices used toshare experiences; but it is also a fundamentallyimportant thing to do. It is through giving value to our

improvised, unexpected and uncanny experiences of theworld that we generate our cultural ideals. Perhaps it iseven more crucial to value these experiences and practices(such as growing in love, being intoxicated with passion,falling in fear etc.) as it is these that move us to action,that form our life decisions, and come to define us asindividuals (as Dewsbury notes, ‘these are not lightmatters for they forge the weight of our meaningfulrelation with the world’ (2003: 1907)).

Furthermore, it is not just ‘expert’ cultural geographersthat decode meaning in both ‘things’ and ‘practices’, butall humans. Indeed, engaging with both ‘things’ and‘practices’, and then giving meaning to them, helps us allto answer perhaps the most important question of all: the‘so what?’ question. As both students (in essays, disserta-tions or papers), and as citizens making real decisionsabout the ‘good life’, this ‘so what?’ question helps todefine ourselves in relation to these practices, things andplaces. Our work as cultural geographers and our lives aspeople then become more than simply experiencing anddescribing events. They become about sharing what theseevents mean to us on an individual level, finding out whatothers say they mean to them, and allowing our audienceto take in these positions and work out their ownimpulsive and thought-through opinions on them.

We have come to a position therefore where the studyof the representational and the non-representationalwithin cultural geography is not an either/or choice. Thetension between the newest branches of the culturalgeography family tree exists, but this book argues it canbe harnessed to progress cultural geography in new andinnovative ways. Adopting a third option, that breaksdown the closed logic of either doing representational ornon-representational study favours, ‘a different, moreflexible and expansive logic of the “both-and-also” ’ (Soja,1999: 258). We are moving towards a culturallygeographical approach to place.

A ‘BOTH AND ALSO’ APPROACH: A CULTURALLY GEOGRAPHICALAPPROACH TO PLACE

The approach of this book, of looking at culturalgeography through places and traces, endeavours to


combine not simply the material and its meaning, not only theories and things, but also emotions andexperiences. It is not simply a cultural geography ofrepresentation or non-representation; rather, it is bothand also. It does not seek to rely on old divisions betweenthought and practice (see Nash, 2000: 657), nor ofempiricism and theory; the point is to consider,

how contemporary [culture] is based as much uponthe elaboration and reproduction of particularaffective capacities as it is upon the manipulation of representations.

(Thein, 2005: 14)

Such an approach has a, ‘commitment to . . . understand. . . practice and performance that refuses to privilegemental representations’ (Hinchcliffe, 2000: 567), but atthe same time, refuses to exclude these representations too. In the words of Bondi, it seeks to ‘incorporate ratherthan bracket off representational, narrative or substan-tive meanings’ (2005: 444). This, therefore, is a moreentangled and combinatorial cultural geography that isnot non- or simply representational, it is to borrowLorimer’s useful phrase, a cultural geography that is‘more-than representational’ (2005: 84).

CONCLUSION

The culturally geographical approach to place as detailedin the remainder of this book builds on the manystrengths of the cultural geography family tree that hasbeen outlined in Chapters 2 and 3. A culturally geog-raphical approach to place involves analysing andinterrogating all the agents, activities, ideas and contextsthat combine together to leave traces in places. The traces left in this range of contexts may be material or non-material, durable or temporary, left by humans ornon-humans. They may produce the intentions desiredby the trace-makers, or have unintentional effects on theagents and their audiences.

Taking a culturally geographical approach to place hasa number of important implications. First, it suggests that places can be claimed and counter-claimed, in otherwords, places can be fought over. As places are taken and

made by different cultural groups claims are staked for‘ownership’ of that area. Staking these claims mayproduce a range of outcomes: in some cases ‘other’ groupswill no longer be able to use that area – they are displacedboth geographically and culturally; in some cases theplace may become a battleground – a ‘no man’s land’ as‘ownership’ of it becomes an issue of disagreement; inother cases the area may become shared by a number ofgroups, producing a ‘hybrid’ home-place for groups withdiffering identities and ideas.

Second, this approach suggests that battles for placeare never over – places are ongoing compositions of traces.However fixed or substantial a place, its identity and itsactivities appears, it is always up for grabs and open tonew traces. Boundaries can always be crossed, so placescan always be changed. As a consequence of this, theclaims cultural groups make on places have to be perpet-ually guarded from challenges and resistance. Places have to be constantly maintained. Third, therefore, partof the culturally geographical approach to place is tointerrogate how such places are ordered and bordered (see Chapter 4), and how particular cultural geographies are maintained or changed. Through analysing theseongoing compositions we thus interrogate who ulti-mately decides on the nature of our places, and byextension, who decides on our culture, and our world?We ask, whose places are these anyway?

Finally, taking a culturally geographical approach toplace also involves positioning ourselves in the world westudy. Through doing so we have to critically reflect onour own actions. We begin to consider our own culturalviews, the actions we take, and the traces they produce.We are encouraged to ask ourselves what cultural viewsdo we, do you, want to endorse, and want to resist? Weask what we, what you, want the world to be like? Whatis your sense of place? What could it be? What should itbe? In the chapters that follow we will look at differentcultures and geographical contexts and interrogate theways in which traces come together to define places and peoples. In each chapter we will introduce bothempirical examples and theoretical ideas which facilitateunderstanding about how the world around us isgenerated, and our role within it. The book continues bydevoting a chapter to a key category in our culturallygeographical approach – the notion of ‘place’.



SUGGESTED READINGS


Books

Jackson, P. (1989) Maps of Meaning. Routledge: London.

Peter Jackson’s 1989 book Maps of Meaning is seminal tothe representational branch of cultural geography. It marksout its significant departure to the traditional approach ofSauer, focusing on the role of meaning, value, and symbolicsignificance in our cultural places.

Journals

A range of journal articles discuss the relative merits of therepresentational branch of the cultural geography family tree.These include the following:

Cosgrove, D. and Jackson, P. (1987) New directions incultural geography. Area, 19(2), 95–101.

Cosgrove and Jackson sum up the critique of traditionalcultural geography offered by the representational branch ofthe family tree.

Duncan, J. Duncan, N. (2004) Culture unbound.Environment and Planning A, 36, 391–403.

Mitchell, D. (1995) There’s no such thing as culture:towards a reconceptualisation of the idea of culture ingeography. Transactions of the Institute of BritishGeographers, 20, 102–16.

Price, M. and Lewis. M. (1993) The reinvention of cultural geography. Annals of the Association of AmericanGeographers, 83(1), 1–17.

Cosgrove, D. and Duncan, J. (1993) On ‘The reinven-tion of cultural geography’ by Price and Lewis. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 83(3), 515–19.

Nash, C. (2002) Cultural geography in crisis. Antipode,34(2), 321–5.

The above authors debate the relative merits of this branchof the cultural geography family tree, assessing whether this‘reinvention’ of the discipline sparks a ‘brave new world’ ora ‘crisis’ for the discipline.

Non- or more-than-representational approaches to culturalgeography are usefully discussed in the following papers. Ofthese, perhaps Bondi is the most accessible.

Bondi, L. (2005) Making connections and thinkingthrough emotions: between geography and psychother-apy. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers,30, 433–48.

Thrift, N. (2004) Intensities of feeling: towards a spatialpolitics of affect. Geografiska Annaler, 86(1), 57–78.

Lorimer, H. (2005) The busyness of ‘more-than-representational’. Progress in Human Geography, 29,83–94.

INTRODUCTION

As the cliché used in Chapter 1 tells us: ‘cultural life doesnot take place in a vacuum.’ As we have seen, a keycomponent of this statement is ‘take place’, and it is thiscomponent we shall explore in detail in the following twochapters. Chapter 5 focuses on how groups take placethrough the exercise of power. It investigates how powercan be understood and how it affects both culture andgeography. In this chapter, we focus on the different wayswe can understand the notion of ‘place’ itself.

Place is one of the trickiest words in the Englishlanguage, a suitcase so overfilled that one can nevershut the lid.

(Hayden, 1997: 112)

In the lived world we cannot escape places; they are allaround us, making up the fabric of our cultural life. As Rodman (2003: 204), points out, ‘we are as situatedin place as we are in time or culture’, just as we cannotstep out of time, we cannot extricate ourselves away fromthe vast array of materialities and meanings associatedwith place.

THE DIFFERENCE THAT PLACEMAKES . . .

Places are at once the medium and the message of culturallife. They are where cultures, communities and peopleroot themselves and give themselves definition. Placesthen are saturated with cultural meanings. They are our ‘home’, our ‘backyard’, our ‘turf’. Similarly, we canfeel ‘out of place’, displaced, and outsiders in particularplaces. Places then are crucial for understanding who we are and where we fit in to the culture and geographyof our lives. Seeing the world as a world of places is, asAgnew tells us, ‘a political as much as an intellectualmove’ (2004: 91). For example, seeing the world as aworld of places is fundamentally different from seeing it as a world of spaces. Although we may use the termsplace and space interchangeably in everyday conversation,when used in the field of cultural geography we shouldbe sensitive to the difference that place makes.

if space is where culture is lived, then place is a resultof their union.

(Lippard, 1997: 10, my emphasis)

4

KNOWING (YOUR) P LACE

Places and spaces could not be more different. Spaces, asLefebvre tell us, are ‘empty abstractions’ (1991: 12),whilst places are ‘drenched in cultural meaning’ (Preston,2003: 74). Spaces are scientific, open and detached;places are intimate, peopled and emotive. You may travelthrough spaces (perhaps isolated in a car or train), butyou will live your everyday life in places. Place then is thecounterpoint of space: places are politicised and cultured;they are humanised versions of space. It is from the emptyabstraction of space that different cultures take and make place. As Kaltenborn puts it, ‘geographical spacebecomes place when human beings imbue it withmeaning’ (1997: 176).

Places then are ‘carved’ out of space by cultures. Incontrast to space, places are meaningful, they root peopleboth geographically and socially, and are fashioned byculture from context. Places are understood as beingcreated predominantly by humans, as elaborated furtherin the following definition:

Place refers here to something we humans make. Aplace is made when we take an area of space andintentionally bound it and attempt to control whathappens within it through the use of (implicitand/or explicit) rules about what may or may nottake place. This bounding of rule-making leads tothe creation of place at any scale, from a room to anation-state.

(Sack, 2004: 243)

Here Sack emphasises the idea that place is a construction‘carved’ out of space by human culture. However, Sack’sdefinition requires minor qualification. First, it isimportant to note that although places are human con-structions, we should be open to the influence that non-human actors have in taking and making place. Asoutlined in Chapter 1, birds and animals can influenceplaces, whilst the non-human environment also plays a role in effecting place. Think, for example, of the traces left by beavers in a place – their felling of trees,construction of dams and the subsequent pooling of riversystems all have a dominant effect on their chosenhabitat. Another example of non-human actors takingand making place could involve mosquitoes – the tracesthat they leave in and on people, animals and harvestscan have significant effects, particularly in some regions

of Africa and Asia. Think too of the devastating effectsof hurricanes, typhoons and tsunamis. Even whilstwalking my dog I am aware of the trivial traces that heleaves on every lamp-post he passes. In other words, thewealth of actors – or place-makers – that we need toconsider in authoring place does not solely involve thehuman, but also animals, insects and other non-humanspecies and processes.

Second, Sack suggests that places are made when theyare intentionally bounded. This idea perhaps characterisesthe majority of places; it is often the case that culturalgroups intentionally take and make place in line withtheir cultural values to not only define themselves, but also an area and its use in a certain way. However, it is also possible for cultural activity to unintentionallyinfluence the meaning of a place. This may happen if wedon’t really think through our actions in a place, or areignorant of the traces they may leave (perhaps in termsof pollution or environmental health). It is important for cultural geographers to be sensitive to the degree ofintentionality actors exhibit in places, and diagnose howobjectives (or lack of them) help us define and judge thecultural activity in question.

Third, Sack considers the importance of scale whenengaging with place. Places can indeed be considered ata range of scales, as Pocock suggests, ‘place may refer toone’s favourite chair, a room or building, increasing to one’s country or even continent’ (Pocock, 1981: 17).In addition, we can also consider place more figuratively,we can study places of the body (for example, our skin,stomachs, or physical form (see, for example, KenworthyTeather, 1999; Bell et al., 2001, and also Chapter 11),but also consider places of the mind or imagination. Theimportance of scale, and how places combine consistentlyor in tension at every level, is a key dynamic for the studyof cultural geography (see, for example, the case of trace-chains, below).

With these minor qualifications in mind, place thenrefers to something that both humans and non-humansmake. A place is taken and made when traces are left withintent or by accident, and these traces form borders thatattempt to control the ongoing composition of activities.Place can occur on any scale, and it can be both materialand imaginary. Place locates and defines the culturalgeography of our lives.

KNOWING (YOUR) PLACE38

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

We can build on this brief introduction to place byturning to Agnew and Duncan (1989: 2). According toAgnew and Duncan, place has three constituent parts:location, locale, and sense of place. Location refers to placeas an ‘objective’ point in space, a node, for example,which is ‘so-and-so’ far from another node. Location cantherefore be defined by grid co-ordinates, or lines oflatitude or longitude. However two-dimensional thisversion of place appears, we can detect the groundswellof vibrancy inherent in the term: we can sense that placematters. For example, real estate agents identify the threemost important aspects when buying property are‘location’, ‘location’ and ‘location’. Here, it is not somuch the property itself that is crucial, but where it is,the crucial where of location one might say (to paraphraseCresswell, 1996, see Box 4.1). Hotel chains also use theidea of ‘location’ to advertise the key positioning of theirproperties for ease of use of their customers. Here it isnot just that these amenities are located carefully atspecific nodes or points, but also that they offer a placeof safety and familiarity in perhaps an unknown orabstract area.

No locale like home

The second notion that Agnew and Duncan identify isthat of locale. Locale can be understood as the built,natural, and social environment generated by culturalrelations – it is the composite of all the traces that cometogether in one place. Locale therefore provides thesetting for everyday routine and social contact – in thewords of O’Loughlin and Anselin (1992: 16), ‘locale isthe setting of interaction and the contextuality of sociallife’. As such, locale comes close to identifying thecharacter and feel of a place, a point usefully outlined byMassey and Jess:

Very often, when we think of what we mean by aplace, we picture a settled community, a localitywith a distinct character – physical, economic andcultural. It is a vision which has entered the Englishlanguage in phrases such as . . . ‘no place like home’.. . . Places are unique, different from each other;

they have singular characteristics, their owntraditions, local cultures and festivals, accents anduses of language; they perhaps differ from each otherin their economic character too: the financialactivities of the City of London mould the natureof that part of the capital; the wide open fields ofEast Anglia give a particular feel that ‘it couldn’t beanywhere else.’

(1995: 46)

The notion of locale therefore invites us to consider how traces contribute to a place’s unique character. Whattraces define the locale of our own places, for example?What are the material artefacts that define your area (for example, what clothes, products, or services defineit?), and what non-material practices are represented inyour place (e.g. what languages, dialects, belief systems,rituals, and emotions can be associated with your place?)?

Sense of place: ‘place must be felt to make sense’ (Davidson and Milligan, 2004: 524)

The third constituent part of the notion of place,according to Agnew and Duncan, is sense of place. Senseof place refers to the emotional, experiential and affectivetraces that tie humans into particular environments. Astouched upon in Chapter 3, this aspect of place has notalways been central to social science study, marginalisedin the general antipathy to studying emotional connec-tions. However, sense of place is the key way in whichhumans, culture and environment are united together.We can perhaps imagine our own places and the ways inwhich we might be tied to, or defined to some extent, byour connection with place. Perhaps we have genealogicallinkage to the land through our ancestors owning a houseor a farm, perhaps we are connected due to the destruc-tion of a favoured place or haunt. Perhaps we are con-nected to place due to our religious beliefs, due toeveryday rituals, or to the geography of key events in ourlife. These place attachments, or senses of place, are oftenindividual, but sometimes collective. Perhaps culturallyimportant senses of place are commemorated or pro-tected (through National Parks or memorial gardens);

39KNOWING (YOUR) PLACE

perhaps more individual senses of place are ritualisedthrough holiday excursions, special visits or pilgrimages.Some cultures value and celebrate this often intangiblesense through words that point to this special connectionbetween humans and place at different scales. The Welsh,for example, have the word ‘hiraeth’ to point towardstheir national sense of place, suitably explained by Elmes(2005: 98):

‘hiraeth’ [he-rye-th] is that sense of belonging orhomesickness that Welsh people feel in their heartswhen a long way from the Valleys of the south orthe mountains of the north. Now it may be that thisspecial sense of emotional attachment to a place, oflonging and belonging, is much the same the worldover . . . and maybe this sense of magical connectionto a country and culture is simply yet another ofthose myths of ‘localness’. Yet I’d bet there’s scarcelya single Welsh man or woman who doesn’t recog-nise . . . ‘hiraeth’ as representing something for themthat’s very special and very, well . . . Welsh.

This sense of place is thus fundamentally important indefining our connection to geographical areas, and whythey become significant to our own sense of who we are.As Seamon notes, ‘it has become clear that we areemotionally related to our environment and that we must give scholarly attention to human attachment toplace’ (Seamon, 1984: 757). When focusing on theseattachments we can begin to see that our own identityand that of our cultures are closely aligned to the identityof place. This close alignment is worth commenting on further.

THE CO-INGREDIENCE OF PEOPLEAND PLACE

Approaches to ‘place’ have suggested the vitalimportance of a sense of belonging to human beings.The basic geography of life is not encapsulated in aseries of map grid references. It extends beyond theidea of location . . . Crucially, people do not simply


Box 4.1

THE CULTURAL GEOGRAPHIES OF LOCATION

Location SA1 5102

The image on the right is apartment ‘5102’ in Bristol,England. Its name locates this building purely in termsof its co-ordinates of longitude and latitude. In a similarway, SA1 (centre image) represents a postcode locationin Swansea, South Wales. In the 1990s, the SA1location was deprived and, for many, undesirable. Inthe twenty-first century it is the focus of regeneration,

with its postcode the centre of marketing campaignsand prestigious marina-related development. From10036 in Times Square, New York, or 90210 inBeverly Hills, Location is where it’s at. Even in lessprestigious areas of Cardiff, Wales, hotel chains use theidea of location to market the geographical proximityand desirability of their services.

locate themselves, they define themselves through asense of place.

(Crang, 1998: 2, my emphasis)

As Crang outlines, the notion of a sense of place leads usto consider how who we are is fundamentally connectedto where we are. From this perspective, our identity – oursense of selfhood – is a geographical thing, it is charac-terised to some extent by our geographical and culturalcontext. In short, our identity is defined by place. We canconsider this in our own lives: If you had to think of, let’ssay three, ways to describe yourself, perhaps many ofthese will be ‘geographical’ in nature: I’m a student, afemale, from Washington State, USA; I’m black, a swim-mer, from Sydney; straight, Tower Hamlets, London. Aswe will see later in this book, all these identity positionsare to some extent geographical, but we can see at thisstage how in some instances we explicitly define ourselvesin relation to place (e.g. Washington State, Sydney,London). This connection between the identity of selfand the identity of place has been explored further byCasey (2001). Casey argues that the relations betweenself and place are not simply connected, but they aremore this – they are conflated. As Casey explains:

we can no longer distinguish neatly betweenphysical and personal identity . . . place is regardedas constitutive of one’s sense of self . . . Therelationship between self and place is not just onceof reciprocal influence . . . but also, more radically,of constitutive coingredience: each is essential to the being of the other. In effect, there is no placewithout self and no self without place.

(2001: 684)

What Casey is arguing here is that geographical contextis integral to humans’ identity. He posits that throughinhabiting places, involving a range of everyday mun-dane practices as well as special one-off experiences, a person–place relationship is inevitably developed. This relationship, he argues, affects both the identity ofplace – it involves humans taking and making placethrough leaving a range of traces in different sites; butalso affects who we are – traces and their meaning cometo influence how we feel and respond, as well as coming

to define how we think about the world and where we belong. As a result, as Casey points out, ‘places [beginto] possess us . . . insinuating themselves into our lives’.(Casey 2000: 199)

It is important to recognise, therefore, how co-ingredient relationships are always developed betweenhuman selves and their geographies, at a range of scales.This relationship often prompts political action whenthese sites are threatened (see Anderson, 2004), andperhaps grief and mourning when they are lost. Forexample, I still feel a sense of outrage and loss over thecouncil selling my local park to housing developers.(How could they?! That’s where I played football as a kid! Its part of me, gone!) Low (1992: 179) illustrates a range of rather more evocative examples, including anelderly man who wept when two giant palm trees in alocal plaza were felled: ‘he had spent his entire life underthose palm trees – they were like friends and made hisbench a special place’. Box 4.2 outlines the case of MostarBridge, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the role that thisgeographical site had in defining the identity of thosefrom this area of the world.

GAINING A SENSE OF BELONGING:CULTURAL ORDERING AND GEOGRAPHICAL BORDERING

Following Agnew and Duncan (1989), place has multipledimensions. It can be considered as a straightforwardlocation, in terms of its cultural locale, as well as the senseof attachment it provides. The combination of thesemultiple dimensions gives us an impression of not onlywhere we are, but also who we are; it tells us whether webelong in a particular place. In some places we may feelcomfortable or have a sense of home, in others we mayfeel as if we are a fish out of water, its cultural traces maybe strange, making us feel scared or dislocated. Traces oflocation, locale and sense of place therefore give us afeeling of belonging, or not belonging, to a particulargeographical site.

Senses of belonging to particular places are thuscreated by a variety of traces. In many cases, the intentionof these traces is to regulate who enjoys this sense ofbelonging and who doesn’t. Traces can designate the


‘home’ place for material things, non-material attitudes,performative practices, and groups of people. When suchtraces are successful it becomes clear some activities, waysof life, actions, and languages are welcome in some places,but others are not. This regulation is explained further inBox 4.4.

The effect of traces like those examined in Box 4.4 isthat some activities and people are welcome and acceptedin some places, but others are not. Places then are

culturally ordered by traces. Signs, regulations and lawsseek to create cultural order by ascribing some people and activities a sense of belonging, but disregarding or ignoring the claims of others. Importantly, however,this cultural ordering goes hand in hand with a geo-graphical bordering. As traces order our sense ofbelonging, barriers, frontiers, walls and wire reinforce thisorder through physically imposing limits to movement,people, and places. This dual process of cultural ordering


Mostar Bridge in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina wasdestroyed during ethnic conflict between Muslims andCroats in November 1993. This is how Mostariansdescribed their loss:

On the first day the shelling started at about 2 o’clock; it lasted all day. We heard a mortarwhistling and we threw ourselves down. When Ilooked up I saw a cloud of dust, yellow like the sun,I knew then our bridge had gone. I felt like all true Mostarians, as if part of my body had beentorn off.

I remember the river was red as if it had turned toblood. Fifty-year-old men were crying like babies.I know my family are only mortal, that we’ll alldie sooner or later, so I was ready for anyone’sdeath. But not the Old Bridge.

I can somehow accept that my mother and myhusband had been killed in the war. People die,they disappear, but not the Old Bridge, it hadbeen here since 1566. I had a feeling that life had stopped, that we would all disappear with the Old Bridge. When they can destroy eternity,what has man become?

Men, women, and children were killed and raped in the war. But to consciously destroy the

Old Bridge that was sacred to all Mostarians hurtus to the core.

(all cited in BBC, 2001)

The bridge was so fundamental to Mostarian identitythat it was rebuilt, reopening in July, 2004 (see Figure 4.1). The redevelopment was seen as symbolicof the healing of divisions between the Muslims and the Croats, intentionally seeking to re-establish the connections between people and place. As Sulejam Tihic, Bosnian Presidency Head stated, ‘Thereconstruction of the Old Bridge is a victory for Bosnia-Hercegovina, ethnic coexistence and tolerance’(BBC World News, 2004).

Box 4.2

A BRIDGE BETWEEN PEOPLE AND PLACE: THE CASE OF MOSTAR

The reopened Mostar Bridge


Despite the importance of sense of place to our identitythis dimension of life remains difficult to articulate and express. As Huxley notes, ‘touch the pure lyrics of [place] experience and they turn into the verbalequivalents of tripe and hogwash’ (cited in Gold andBurgess (1982: 3). To encourage the consideration of how person–place relationships can be expressed – without resorting to the worst excesses of tripe andhogwash – there follows some examples of how a sense of place can be ‘rooted in the core of one’s being’ (Tuan, 2004: 48). The first example is fromAmerican nature writer Annie Dillard, recording herrelations to an island in her book Pilgrim at TinkerCreek.

I come to this island every month of the year. Iwalk around it, stopping and staring, or I straddlethe sycamore log over the creek, curling my legsout of the water in winter, trying to read. TodayI sit on dry grass at the end of the island by theslower side of the creek. I’m drawn to this spot. I come to it as to an oracle; I return to it as a manyears later will seek out the battlefield where helost a leg or an arm.

(Dillard, 1975: 18)

The final example is from Benioff’s story about a mancondemned. Before beginning a prison sentence Montywalks with his dog (Doyle) through the neighbourhoodthey’ve grown up in:

Monty and Doyle walk west, pausing behind afence to watch a basketball game, the teenageplayers taking advantage of the warm air, one lastgame before school. Doyle sniffs posts that stinkof yesterday’s piss. Monty assesses the ballersquickly, accurately, and disdainfully. The pointcan’t make an entry pass to save his life; the twoguard has no left; the big man down low

telegraphs his every shot. Monty remembers aSaturday when he and four friends owned thiscourt, won game after game after game until thelosers stumbled away in frustration, an Augustafternoon when every jump shot was automatic,when he could locate his teammates with his eyesclosed and slip them the ball as easy as kissing thebride.

. . . This is his favorite spot in the city. This iswhat he wants to see when he closes his eyes in the place he’s going: the green river, the steelbridges, the red tugboats, the stone lighthouse, thesmokestacks and warehouses of Queens. This iswhat he wants to see when his eyes are closed,tomorrow night and every night after for sevenyears; this is what he wants to see when theelectronically controlled gates have slammed shut,when the fluorescent lights go down and the dim red security lights go up, during the nighttimechorus of whispered jokes and threats, the gruntsof masturbation, the low thump of heavy bassfrom radios played after hours against rules.Twenty-five hundred nights in Otisville, lying on a sweat-stained mattress among a thousandsleeping convicts, the closest friend ninety milesaway. Green river, steel bridges, red tugboats,stone lighthouse.

(Benioff, 2003: 12/7)

Thus we can see that sense of place not only involvesemotional connections – or tracings – to particulargeographical areas. These tracings come to define whowe are. In a way these emotional connections come to define our own sense of place, our identity in relationto our culture and geography. We can see this inrelation to the positive connections expressed by the examples above, but these emotional and identityconnections can also be negative too. Tuan (1974) and Relph (1976), for example, have identified how

Box 4.3

EXPRESSIONS OF A SENSE OF PLACE

continued

and geographical bordering occurs in all places at all scales,from prisons, to cities, to national frontiers. For example,I’m sure we have put up signs, even barriers to our ownbedrooms at some stage in our lives (me, aged 12!).Through undertaking this practice we are effectivelysaying ‘Keep Out! This place is mine!’ In the case of myroom, these signs impose my will over the cultural orderof this place – I decide what goes up on the walls, andwhat TV stations I watch. I decide who can come in, and who is unwelcome here. Through establishing these ordering traces, this place comes to define me –there is reciprocity between its posters, music, and smells(!), and me. However, these signs do not function on their own. They work hand in hand with the materialborder of my bedroom walls and door to geographicallyclassify my place (this material border marks where my room begins and ends). The process of laying down

traces therefore attempts to both culturally order andgeographically border places. All traces perform this dualfunction, within any geographical border there is alwaysa cultural order, and every cultural order requires andbrings into being a geographical border. Thus this(b)ordering process attempts to define the organisationand limits of a place, as well as the cultural group whoclaim it.

WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?

Groups therefore seek to use their traces to establish acultural and geographical system of order in a location.Traces are used to control and regulate belonging andidentity. In the words of Cresswell, they create a systemwhere:


affection for place (topophilia) can be counterposed bydislike, aversion, or hate for place too (topophobia).Horror films, for example, play on cultural topophobia,

perhaps locating their main protagonists in woods atnight, or in other ‘haunting’ locations. Can you thinkof other examples?

Box 4.3 ( cont inued)

Green River Smokestacks

Stone light houses Tug boat Tinker Creek

Steel bridges


The image above depicts a sign found on a hotel roomdoor. It reads, ‘if I wanted to be disturbed I’d go andstay in a nightclub’. Placing this trace on a hotel roomdoor has the effect of suggesting how the occupant viewsthe nature of that place: it is not like a nightclub and soloud nightclub-like activities (e.g. dancing, shouting, orpartying) are not appropriate here. By implication, thehotel room is a place of quiet, a place of privacy, a placeto sleep. By publicising this view the occupant seeks to influence the behaviour of other hotel users andpersuade them to conform to the occupant’s preferreduse of place. Thus through this trace, its expectations ofbehaviour, and its positioning, particular preferred usesof place are revealed. How we are expected to behave ispublicised, and we should conform to these expectations

if we wish to belong. If these expectations of behaviourare followed, the place of the hotel corridor will becomea place of quiet. Its identity will be established.

The above sign is thus one example of how tracescan seek to influence the nature of places. It illustrateshow there can be expected ways of behaving in parti-cular places, and that certain people or actions aredeemed appropriate in particular places but not others.However, many places do not need ordering signs tomaintain their identity. In these cases, cultural uses ofplace are engrained into the population, and are learnedand inherited through daily practice. These uses ofplace are often only revealed when incorrect place useis undertaken. We can use the statement above toillustrate this:

‘If I wanted to ——, I’d go to the ———.’

Fill in the blanks in a range of ways. Put in activities in places that make sense to you, but also ones thatdon’t. For example, ‘If I wanted to play football, I’d goto the library.’ In my culture, I would never do this –playing football in the library is not considered anappropriate use of place. There are no signs in thelibrary telling me not to play football; there is no needfor them: the majority know what a library is for, andgenerally conform to its expected use. Those who maynot know look at others and pick up cues of behaviouras they pick up their short loans. Thus from thisjuxtaposition, and my reaction to it, it becomes clearto me how certain activities are expected in certainplaces. They are woven into the very fabric of thoseplaces, whilst others are not. Let’s look at anotherstatement:

‘If I wanted to be ——, I’d go to the ———.’

Fill in these blanks as you see fit. For example: If I wanted to be educated, I’d go to the university.

Box 4.4

‘ IF I WANTED TO BE DISTURBED I ’D GO AND STAY IN A NIGHTCLUB’

continued

Door label

Someone can be ‘put in her place’ or is supposed to‘know his place’. There is, we are told, ‘a place foreverything and everything in its place. Such use of[traces] suggests a tight connection between geo-graphical place and assumptions about normativebehaviour.

(2004: 103)

By ordering and bordering place in this way, those whoestablish control are not only saying who and whatbelongs in a place, but are also saying who or what doesnot belong. In this process groups are included as part ofa culture, but groups and activities are also excluded.‘Purifying’ (Sibley, 1995a, 1999) places in this way has a number of effects. First, it gives us a strong sense of place – this place is ours to defend, a place to live andmaybe even die for. But at the same time such border-ing traces also function to exclude, clearly defining who is not part of our gang, our tribe, and our place. AsNewman and Paasi (1998: 191) suggest, the border is ‘the point of contact or separation’, and ‘usually createsan “us” and an “other” identity’. In this sense, therefore,which side of the bordering trace you are on defines whoyou are. This sense is what is referred to when we saysomeone is from ‘the wrong side of the tracks’. Of course,if bordering traces are unclear, there exists a grey areawhere the identity and ownership of a place is notexplicitly ordered. In these cases, places exist as a ‘no-man’s land’.

The notion of ordering and bordering place thuscreates a sense of identity for both places and their

peoples. Cultural groups may feel loyalty, ownership andresponsibility for their places, and often seek to protectthem from changes that are unwanted or unwelcome. Itis therefore important to study the nature of new tracesin any place and the trace-chains they set in motion.What changes do new traces seek to make? Which groupsseek to encourage them, and which groups seek to retainthe status quo? Where do these traces come from? Theintimacy of our own places often leads us to consider that the origins of new traces should be local in nature.However, particular locations are often affected by traces originating in other areas. The ways in which suchnew traces affect places, and how we think about themas a consequence, are important issues to consider.

CROSSING BORDERS: PLACES AND THEIR TRACE-CHAINS

Despite the presence of orders and borders, places oftenremain influenced by the connections they have to othersites, at other scales. A whole host of traces, from a rangeof scales, come together to influence local places. Whenwe think about defining places we, therefore, have toconsider the traces that cross borders and contribute to the ongoing composition of geographical sites.

Processes associated with ‘globalisation’ are one keyexample of traces that cross (b)orders. The spread ofcapital and media communication across the globe, therelocation of jobs and industries, the threat of environ-mental catastrophe, and the migration and mobility of


Fair enough? If I wanted to be entertained, I’d go tothe university. Fair enough?! Both statements may be true some of the time, but maybe not others. Perhapsthis statement throws into relief a grey area, theambiguity and ambivalence inherent in some activitiesand states, in some places. In this grey area, orderingand bordering processes are not complete. They are open to change and there is a possibility for a range

of positions to be taken. You could be educated orentertained at university, perhaps vice versa, or perhapseven both. This position raises a number of questionsabout universities, but also other places in which grey areas exist. What does this ambiguity say about the nature of these places? What does it say about theregulating processes that go to define them, and the other trace-making activity in them?


people from their traditional locales, are all examples oftraces that emanate in one place, but have repercussionsin others. These traces cross geographical and cultural(b)orders and set in motion new effects in other localplaces. One example of how such traces can affect placeis given by Doreen Massey (1993). Massey illustrates howborder-crossing traces affect her local high street inLondon. Simply by walking up Kilburn High Road sheidentifies ‘the world in her city’ (after Wrights and Sites,2006: 107). I undertook a similar exercise in my town ofCardiff; these are the images of shop fronts and posterson ‘City Road’ (see Box 4.5).

The ongoing composition of traces that define anyplace are therefore never purely local in nature. Despitethe existence of cultural and geographical borders, it isimpossible to insulate a place from networks of trace-chains. Even those places that seek to cut themselves offfrom a wider world (for example nations like Cuba orNorth Korea), are still defined by their (lack of) relationsand sense of threat from ‘other’ places (and vice versa).Places are therefore never located in isolation; trace-chains tie places together into networks of similarity anddifference. The existence of trace-chains therefore hasimplications for how we think about borders. Borderscan be effective at keeping people out and in, as well asordering the culture in a particular place. However, theyare not the only traces that define the identity of peopleand places. Trace-chains also contribute to the ongoingcomposition of place. Places, then, are not only definedinternally, but also by the trace-chains that connect themto the broader world. As Massey puts it:

Instead . . . of thinking of places as areas withboundaries around [them], they can be imagined asarticulated moments in networks of social relationsand understandings, but where a large proportionof those relations, experiences and understandingsare constructed on a far larger scale than we happento define for that moment as the place itself, whetherthat be a street, or a region or even a continent.

(Massey 1993: 153)

There is, therefore, a ‘constitutive interdependence’(Massey, 2007: 21) between places. Every place is anongoing mix of traces that are purely local and non-local.

Places are therefore connected together, but each remainsa unique composition within these trace-chains. No place will ever be the same as another. This may be dueto the individual combination of local and global tracesin one location, or due to the influence of traces from the past.

TRACE-CHAINS FROM THE PAST

Places then are produced by an ongoing composition oftraces emanating from both the local and the global. Butnew traces do not act on their own, rather they combinewith previously constructed traces to order and borderplace identity. As we saw in Chapter 1, places can bedefined by the stirrings of past cultural traces. I am surewe all have reminisced about events and meanings that,although in the past, continue to affect a place’s meaningin some way. Richard from East 13th Street gives us oneexample:

When people from this block come into this gallery,they may seem to be looking at that painting overthere or whatever-it-is over here, but what they arereally doing is remembering. That’s where we hadthe bar that Junior sold drinks for fifty cents. That’swhere we had the pool table. That’s where I met mygirl friend. That’s where that dude got shot. That’swhere little Elizabeth was crowned Princess of East13th Street and did her victory dance.

(Richard of East 13th Street, quoted in Lippard, 1997: 261)

Perhaps you can think of other examples from your own experience. I still ‘see’ my local park where I playedfootball as a kid, even though it is now covered by sub-urban sprawl. These traces from my past still influence the nature of that place for me. In other sites, perhapsthese past-traces are commemorated; perhaps they remainin built form, or only stir in our memories when we re-trace our steps in places. However they remain, it isclear that although places change, traces of the past do not necessarily leave them (see Box 4.6). Places then do not necessarily correspond to a straightforward time


The world in my City Road consists of a range of tracesfrom a range of geographical places. Traces areinscribed from Wales and Britain, from Western andEastern Europe, and from the Americas, Asia and

Africa. The businesses pictured in the above images arethe traces set in motion by globalising processes, buthave real effects on my local place. We could see otherborder-crossing traces in City Road if we considered


Box 4.5

TYPICAL CARDIFF? THE WORLD IN ONE C ITY ROAD

He claimed to be typical Cardiff: part Portuguese, Irish, Italian and something slightly more exotic, froma further flung soil that he hadn’t yet managed to trace.

(O’Reilly, 2003: 30)

City Road



the origin of residents in this place (from semesteringstudents, transient East Europeans, second-generationimmigrants, and lifelong locals), or if we investigatedthe environmental, political, and economic influenceson this place. The traces found in my City Roadhighlight how ‘typical Cardiff’ is defined not simply by its local, or Welsh traces, but also by these border-crossing traces. Cardiff, then, is not wholly defined byits isolation from other places – it is not defined just by its borders – it is also defined by the ‘trace-chains’that tie it into places all over the world. Trace-chains are those connections that cross borders, tying

one place to another in different and interesting ways.Following Massey, you can walk down your own streetand identify the range of local traces that come to defineyour place, as well as how these combine with trace-chains emanating from locals elsewhere.

Here are some examples you could consider fromstreets in Santa Cruz and San Francisco, California.How do these traces connect these places together?What do these traces tell us about the culture in theseplaces, particularly perhaps in terms of ethnicity andnation (see Chapters 8 and 9)?

Chinatown, San Francisco Chinatown, San Francisco Beefeater Gin (London) advert in SanFrancisco

Noah’s New York Bagel House, Santa Cruz

Chinatown, San Francisco Chinatown, San Francisco

line, moving forward from the past to the future, butmeanings linger, re-erupt, or disappear, as human culturalactivity affects them. As Battista et al. comment, placesare

not made up of simple linear histories, which stretchfrom the past in smooth lines towards a vanishingpoint in the far-off future. Histories scrumple up,times past pop into the present, modifying them forall time. [Places] in the present wobble as stories fromthe future and the past shimmer in front of them.

(Battista et al., 2005: 439)

SUMMARY: PLACES AND TRACE-CHAINS

The cultural orders and geographical borders of any placeare thus influenced not just by traces at the local level, ortraces in the present, but by trace-chains that affect placefrom across the globe and places-past. With these pointsin mind the important thing to focus on is the diagnosisof trace-chains that make each individual place. Whattraces come together to take place? What do these tracesstand for, and where do they come from? Do they comefrom the local or the global, from the present or the past(see Box 4.7)? From this diagnosis we can begin tounderstand the nature of a place. How does each trace


‘It’s as if I’m in a dream,’ Sally told me. We sattogether in a pub just off the Strand at the end ofher guided walk, advertised as following ‘In thefootsteps of Sherlock Holmes’. But here she spokeof a private enthusiasm, her fascination with theRiver Fleet, an ancient waterway now buriedbeneath the modern city. ‘I’m well aware,’ she wenton, ‘that as I walk around London I’m in a dream,imagining it as it was. If I walk down FarringdonRoad, which is the dreariest road imaginable, I’mnot looking at what’s there now, I’m looking, youknow, at what it was like before.’

Sally told me that she saw . . . past lives of theriver . . . She saw open pasture and distanthillocks. . . . At other times the river was dark andfilthy, cast in shadows by a canyon of tenementsthat overhung the banks and led down to itsmouth at the Thames. Sally remembered seeingcoarse cloaked women emptying their slop-buckets into the water, butchers with greasyleather aprons hacking at cow carcasses andallowing the discarded entrails to float away, orcoal barges with their sails down losing their loadsoverboard as they tried to navigate a narrow

course. Sometimes the river appeared completelydried up, buried under rubbish and built over withtumbledown yards and alleys of slum dwellings.Down there, she said, everything was pitched indarkness, but the sky was hazy and bright, areflection of the gas-lit world of respectable streetson the ground above. Then with a start Sallywould find herself back in Farringdon Road, onceagain confronted with the roar of modern traffic.

Like the other London enthusiasts whom I met,Sally claimed to be able to perceive the pasts of thecity in the present. I was told that this ability wasa solitary gift, not easily communicated to others.On walking tours, for instance, she reported thatcustomers often failed to share her vision.Sometimes you get somebody, who says, ‘I can’tsee that. Where is medieval London?’ You know,‘You’ve not shown me anything’. And then I realizethat a lot of it is in my head. I can see thingsmentally which have gone. You explain it to peopleand some of them can do it, but not everybodydoes. They can’t seem to imagine how it haschanged.

(Reed 2002: 129)

Box 4.6

DREAMING PAST PLACES: DETECT ING VICTORIAN LONDON TODAY

affect our sense of belonging? Are some traces defended,and some resisted? How, and why? These are questionsthat we will return to in the next chapter.

CONCLUSION. PLACING TRACES

every person leaves some residue of their passing andof their actions on their physical surroundings.

(Battista et al., 2005: 448).

Place is vital to human life. As Relph puts it, ‘to behuman is to live in a world that is filled with significant

places; to be human is to have and know your place’(1976: 1). Through our everyday actions, whether inten-tional or otherwise, we leave traces that take and makeplace. As traces combine, cultural orders and geographicalborders are established that attempt to define and controlthe identity of a place. These orders and borders give usour sense of whom and where we are, they give us oursense of belonging. However, as traces combine fromdistant as well as local places, as well as from the presentand the past, borders are crossed and orders change.Place, and our belonging to it, is therefore not fixed in areal sense; it is dynamic and evolving: places are ongoingcompositions of traces.


In this Welsh Tourist Board advert for Wales, a viewfrom the inside of Cardiff Castle is shown. The castleitself has clear geographical borders. It has walledfortifications that mark its perimeter, keeping theunwanted on the outside, and protecting thoseaccepted and desired. With this image of the castle inmind, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Wales oftoday retains its strong borders, resolutely ordering itsplaces and culture from those ‘foreign’ and ‘other’. Thetagline to the advert: ‘Castles 641, Starbucks 6’ also playsto this sense of place. With its proud heritage andtraces-of-the-past so far outscoring the modern and

global traces symbolised by the coffee chain Starbucks,(in)famous for its omnipresence on many high streets,the Tourist Board is highlighting how ‘pure’ the cultureand places of Wales are.

Although Welsh borders may be strong, trace-chainsstill influence the location, locale and sense of Wales.Starbucks may not be dominant (see Chapter 5), butits traces do register in this place. The borders of Walesare therefore not absolute and can be crossed. This factis demonstrated by the possibility (and desire) fortourism in the first instance. The presence of these‘foreign’ traces amongst those of the past therefore givesa hint of the cosmopolitan nature of Wales. Thiscombination of the local and the global, the past andthe present, generate the unique composition of tracesthat is Wales.

That is one reading of the above advert. You willsurely be able to come up with others. Similarly, therewill be many possible readings of your local place. Howdo trace-chains combine to influence its identity? Whatare the affects of local and global traces on your senseof place? Do trace-chains change your sense of home?Do they threaten it, make it more cosmopolitan, orenhance it? Do people seek to defend their bordersfrom trace-chains? Which ones, and why?

Box 4.7

TRACE-CHAINS: ‘CASTLES 641 STARBUCKS 6’

Castles 461

Places then are not ‘nouns’ – they are not fixed andsolid things; rather, they are ‘verbs’, they are doings, andthey are always active. Cultural geographers thereforeanalyse and interrogate all the agents, activities, ideas andcontexts that combine together to produce these places.Attempts can be made to order and border it, and definethe connections it has to the wider world. The nature of these actions means that places can be divided andsegregated, or related and united. Taking and makingplace is therefore a political and cultural action. It involvesand produces relations of power between different culturalgroups in different areas. The exercise and agency ofpower, and how it affects place, is to be explored in thenext chapter.

SUGGESTED READINGS


Books

Cresswell, T. (2004) Place: A Short Introduction.Blackwell: Oxford.

Cresswell, T. (1996) In Place/Out of Place. University ofMinnesota Press: Minneapolis.

Tim Cresswell offers an insightful introduction to the notionof ‘place’, as well as an exploration of how people and practicesare accepted or marginalised within different geographies andcultures.

Massey, D. (1993) Space, Place and Gender. Polity:Cambridge.

Massey, D. (2007) World City. Polity: Cambridge.

Oakes, T. and Price, P. (eds) (2008) The CulturalGeography Reader. Routledge: London and New York.

Doreen Massey introduces us to globalised senses of place,both in terms of her walk down Kilburn High Road (1993,reproduced in Oakes and Price, 2008), but also in terms ofglobal cities, such as London (2007).

Relph, E. (1976) Place and Placelessness. Pion: London.

Here Relph outlines different definitions of place, and howthese relate to ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ identity positions, andnotions of ‘placelessness’.

Journals

Casey, E. (2001) Between geography and philosophy:what does it mean to be in the place-world? Annals of theAssociation of American Geographers, 91 (4) 683–93.

Casey draws on humanist and phenomenological positionsto outline how place and personal identity are closely related.


INTRODUCTION

The study of culture is . . . closely connected withthe study of power. A dominant group will seek toestablish its own experience of the world, its owntaken-for-granted assumptions, as the objective andvalid culture of all people. Power is expressed andsustained in the reproduction of culture.

(Cresswell, 2004: 124)

We have seen how vital place is to cultures. In taking andmaking place different cultural groups generate an arrayof traces that have the effect, intentionally or otherwise,of arranging, managing, shaping, and transforming placesin line with their belief systems and political values. Aswe all leave traces through our everyday actions, we allcontribute to taking and making place. As Maxey (1999:201) outlines, the cultural world

is produced through the acts each of us engages withevery day. Everything we do, every thought we have,contributes to the production of the social world.. . . We are in a sense all activists, as we are allengaged in producing the world.

Of course, sometimes we are not aware of the traces we leave in places, sometimes they are temporary and lack significance – perhaps footsteps in the grass as wewalk across the park. But sometimes they are morethought through and attempt to have a wider politicaland cultural meaning; perhaps we decide to buy a free-trade product, or go to a victory parade, perhaps we stand for our national anthem, or engage in some formof demonstration or rally. When we engage in these moreexplicitly political and cultural activities perhaps we begin to ask ourselves some questions. Who decided thatthese products are ‘fair’, or that we should celebrate some victories and not others? Who decided on thenational anthem, and how we should respond to it? Whathappens if we didn’t respond in the accepted way? Why are political demonstrations necessary? In short, we perhaps begin to ask: if I am a trace-maker, then whyisn’t the world produced in my image?! It seems thatsome trace-makers are more important than others in making the cultural world. How do some trace-makersacquire this capacity, and what do people do to per-petuate or change this situation? All these questions areconnected to issues of power.

5

TAKING AND MAKING PLACE: THE STUFF OF POWER

TAKING AND MAKING: THE STUFFOF POWER

As Maxey has told us, the cultural world is producedthrough the acts each of us engages with every day. Eachof these acts is a demonstration of power. In a basic sense,therefore, power can be defined as the ability to act. As aconsequence, we all have a certain level of power; we canall leave traces in places. Traditionally, however, powerhas been considered as more than simply the power toact. Power has traditionally been considered as the powerto influence others, to change what they do and where theydo them (see Weber, 1994; Marx, 1984, 2003). To exer-cise power in this sense, your acts must transform places.Foucault (1980, 1984) considered power in this way. To him, power is a transformative capacity; it is the abilityto transform the traces of others in order to achievecertain strategic goals (see also Cresswell, 2000: 264). Ina basic sense, therefore, we all have a degree of power, yetthe power to transform how we act and how we think isof paramount importance. This is the power to createculture and place.

When individuals and group act, there are always geo-graphical consequences. Traces are made, orders issuedand borders constructed. It is through geography –through taking and making place – that power is exer-cised, made visible, and has effects. The struggle for placeis therefore both the manifestation of cultural struggleand the medium of that struggle, it is in place that poweris constituted and played out. Studying place allows usto read power struggles but also to identify who haspower to transform them. As we have already noted, thepower to transform place isn’t exercised by all peopleequally within a society. Certain groups have moreopportunity to exercise this power than others. Thispower may be exercised by our parents in the familyhome, bullies or teachers at school, or the police inbroader society. The groups who already control cultureand places can be considered as having this power totransform: they have ‘dominating power’.

DOMINATING POWER

Dominating power is that power which is successful incontrolling or coercing the action of others (see Lukes,

1974). This is the power that can make individuals actagainst their own interests. Through imposing a range ofordering and bordering traces, dominating power manip-ulates, encourages, or enforces people to act in certainways in certain places. Such traces could be the simpleconstruction of signs that request good behaviour,appealing to the spirit of individuals of ‘fair play’ orcultural collegiality (see Box 5.1). They could also involvethe threat of cultural exile or ‘othering’ through failingto conform to conventional codes. Often the pull ofbelonging – wishing to remain tied in to the identity of a people and a place – is powerful enough to ensureconformity and conventional behaviour.

Other means of cultural control are also used. Groupsmay, for example, impose their will on others throughthreat and the exercise of punishment (see Box 5.2). Thispunishment may involve the removal of cultural ‘goods’(e.g. money through fines, freedom through imprison-ment or curfew, or identity through designation as‘criminal’), or the imposition of physical injury (throughcorporal or ultimately capital punishment). In other casescontrol is achieved when individuals ‘go along’ withdominating traces simply because it’s the most straight-forward thing to do. In many cases, as Gramsci has noted,‘ “spontaneous” consent [is] given by great masses of thepopulation to the general direction imposed on social lifeby the dominant fundamental group’ (Gramsci 1971:12). Sometimes we just go along with (b)ordering tracesbecause it makes life easier. Thus cultural control can beexercised through threat, through manipulation, orsimply through acquiescence. Dominating traces thencan be material and non-material, affective in physical,symbolic, and psychological ways.

DOMINATING POWER AND THEIMPLEMENTATION OF IDEOLOGY

Dominating power is thus power which is successful atmaking people obey. It makes people conform to anothergroup’s vision of what the world should be like, whetherit is in their interests or not. Dominating power is thussuccessful in imposing its ideology on particular places.Ideology, as Ryan outlines, ‘describes the beliefs, atti-tudes, and habits of feeling which a society inculcates in

TAKING AND MAKING PLACE: THE STUFF OF POWER54

order to generate an automatic reproduction of itsstructuring premises’ (cited in Wallace, 2003: 239). Inother words, ideology comprises the particular ideals andbeliefs of one cultural group and presents them as the‘common sense’ for all. This ideology – this ‘commonsense’ – may not be fair or equitable, indeed it often seeksto control place for the dominating group’s benefit. (AsTabb notes, ‘the rich and powerful set the rules and therules, not surprisingly, favour the rich and powerful’(cited in Smith, 2000: 1)). Ideology thus often producesforms of prejudice and repression, as Sharp et al. identify:

patriarchy, racism, and homophobia are all faces ofdominating power. . . . [This] power engendersinequality and asserts the interests of a particularclass, caste, race or political configuration at theexpense of others.

(2000: 2)

Thus relations of inequality – differences of wealth,privilege, and status – are tied directly to the outcomesof dominating power. Through the imposition of domi-nating traces, groups create the orthodox ‘common sense’

55TAKING AND MAKING PLACE: THE STUFF OF POWER

The images above are examples of dominating powertransforming the actions of people. The signs above tellpeople where to walk and don’t walk, which sides ofthe tracks to stay on, how to act in a particular area,where to stay away from, or how to dress. They are at

once orders and borders – they attempt to culturallyorder a particular area, as well as geographically borderpeople and actions. You can do this there, but not here.This is the power that takes and makes place.

Box 5.1

REGULATING CULTURAL PLACES: ACTS OF DOMINATING POWER

Signs

way that cultural life should be. In many ways, therefore,dominating power is about the power to define. Groupswith dominating power define the cultural order, theyget to construct conformity. Dominating power is thus the ability to define what a culture considers to benormal and appropriate behaviour, the definition of basicnotions such as right and wrong, what is acceptable orimproper, what should be tolerated, and what should not.Dominating power creates systems of ‘normality’ that weall should conform with to be ‘good citizens’. Throughthis conformity, these particular cultural preferencesbecome less political and increasingly normal. As timegoes on, these values don’t seem like one point of viewanymore; they come to seem like the natural course ofthings, the best way to be. This creation of culturalorthodoxy reaches it zenith when individuals can nolonger imagine any alternative to the cultural values theyare conforming to. Bourdieu (1984) calls this situationthe arrival of cultural ‘doxa’, when the cultural world is

made to seem as if it were not only normal, but as‘natural’ as motherhood and apple pie (see Box 5.3).

DOMINATING POWER ANDDEFINING TRACES

Dominating power is thus the power to define. If onecultural group can achieve this power it can authorise itsown version of reality as the ‘official’ one; it can create acommon sense view that the majority of people subscribeto, and ultimately ensure the reproduction of its ownculture. As cultural geographers we can be sensitive to the range of definitions given by the dominant. Whichtraces are seen as appropriate in a given location? Whichconform and which are controversial? Which traces areseen as ‘natural’, ‘normal’ or ‘novel’? A typology of theseconstructions and examples of the cultural definitionsascribed to them is given in Table 5.1.


Above left is a sign at the Piazza della Bocca Della Veritàin Rome, Italy. It designates a range of behaviours thatare banned at this site (including littering, bathing,fighting and graffiti writing). As the sign warns (in bothItalian and English), ‘trangressors will be severely

punished’ (we will discuss transgression in more detailbelow). The image on right (in both Welsh andEnglish) outlines the financial punishment for parkingin the ‘wrong’ place.

Box 5.2

ORDERING PLACES: PUNISHMENTS AND PENALT IES

Ordering

The above images are part of a series that seek toestablish ideologies of behaviour on the trains andrailways platforms of South Wales. To the traincompany, some things are ‘obviously’ too loud (see theimage on the left) – be it overly floral wallpaper,shouted conversations, or amplified MP3 players. Bydescribing this behaviour as ‘obviously’ out of place thetrain company seek to inculcate the passenger into their point of view, increasingly the possibility they will agree and acquiesce to this ordering of behaviour.Similarly, the centre and right images attempt to

impose an ideology of action. By satirising those whoare ‘anti-social’ (be he the ‘Supertwerp’ who vomits onplatforms, or the ‘Wander Woman’ who lets her childrun loose on trains) passengers are encouraged toidentify with good behaviour and be a ‘good’ citizen.By identifying someone who behaves ‘badly’ andsatirising their behaviour as anti-social attempts toreproduce the ordering and bordering premises desiredby the train company. Surely only a ‘supertwerp’ wouldact anti-socially on a train?


Box 5.3

THE CREATION OF CULTURAL ORTHODOXY: ORDERING ANDBORDERING THE TRAINS OF SOUTH WALES

Table 5.1 Defining traces

‘Natural’ traces ‘Normal’ traces ‘Novel’ traces

Doxa Orthodox UnorthodoxEssential Popular Different from the ‘norm’The only way to be Mainstream ‘Other’ than expectedEveryone Us ThemConforming Appropriate InappropriateIn place In place Out of placeCommon sense Conventional ControversialNatural Clean PollutingTrue Right WrongOrdinary Good Evil

Arriva Loud Arriva Wander Arriva Twerp

As Table 5.1 outlines, traces can be judged as ‘natural’,‘normal’ or ‘novel’. Each of these categories includes arange of pejorative descriptions which seek to apply tothem moral and political values. For example, a ‘natural’trace will be described by a dominating group as ‘essen-tial’, as ‘right’, as ‘good’ or ‘appropriate’ in a particularplace. Can you think of an example of these ‘naturaltraces’ in a place of your choice? Other traces may bedescribed as ‘normal’. These traces may be popular,mainstream or orthodox (and if we think about the musiccharts, ‘pop’ music is a good example of a ‘normal’ trace).Although such traces are mainstream they have yet toattain the status of a ‘natural’ trace; as a consequence other traces can be accepted as equally valid, if a littleunconventional (e.g. jazz, heavy metal, or emo music).‘Novel’ traces in turn are seen as dangerous, risky, andinappropriate in particular places. In many cases they are seen as ‘dirty’ (see Box 5.4), in some cases even ‘evil’ (Box 5.5). If dominating power is successful, defi-nitions of traces as ‘natural’, ‘normal’ or ‘novel’ will be

unquestioned by the general population. The moral andpolitical values given to these traces will then influenceour behaviour. The more ‘natural’ a trace seems to be, the more likely individuals will conform to it, unable tothink outside the box and dream up alternatives. Themore ‘novel’ (or unorthodox, different, strange, dangerousetc.) a trace appears, the easier it will be to marginalise and outlaw.

DOMINATING POWER ANDHEGEMONY

Dominating power thus works to instil its own culturalvalues on the traces of society. These values are not ‘true’or ‘natural’, but groups attempt to persuade us that theyare. As Jordan and Wheedon explain:

It is through these [dominating traces] that we learnwhat is right and wrong, good and bad, normal and


Dominating power seeks to influence how we thinkand how we act in different places. It does so by givingpositive meanings to acts of conformity, and negativemeanings to acts of deviance (or non-conformity). One example of this pejorative framing of particularactions, peoples, or places is to claim they are ‘dirty’ or ‘polluting’.

For Douglas (1991), notions of order and disorderare often allied to ideas of cleanliness on one hand, anddirt on the other. As Douglas outlines, dirt is ‘the by-product of a systemic ordering and classification ofmatter, in so far as ordering involves rejecting inappro-priate elements . . . [dirt is] that which cannot beincluded if a pattern is to be maintained’ (Douglas,1991: 35, 40). Dirt therefore is matter out of place, as Freud suggests, ‘dirt seems to us incompatible with civilisation’ (1930: 56/7, cited in Sibley, 1999:135). Who would want to be dirty, with all its cultural

connotations of lack of hygiene, disease, smell andsqualor? Even the generation of this question reflectsthe success of the cultural orthodoxy of clean/good,dirt/bad. There are many examples of the ways in which places and the activities and people in them aredeemed to be dirty and polluting, and thus matter ‘out of place’. Papayanis (2000) for example hasresearched the dominant perceptions of the sex industryin New York, and how, he states, ‘sex in public is, quite simply dirt’ (2000: 350), whilst Sibley’s work(1999) on gypsies in Hull graphically depicts how thiscultural group is seen to be ‘polluting’ mainstreamplaces (see also Chapter 11). Describing these practices,peoples, and places as ‘dirty’ generates a ‘commonsense’ opinion about these traces. It seeks to perpetuatethe ordering of culture and the bordering of place,keeping some behaviours and people in one place, andout of another.

Box 5.4

TO DOMINATE IS TO DEF INE


Dominating power seeks to influence how we thinkand how we act by defining actions in particular ways. When an action, person, or place is defined, itshows how one particular group values that entity; thedefinition demonstrates its significance to that culture.For example, a culture is unlikely to give its state build-ings comedic or satirical names; similarly a road is more likely to be named after a cultural icon, ratherthan a pariah. Whole countries can even be named inparticular ways, as the following example illustrates.

The ‘axis of evil’

Following the attacks on the World Trade Center on11 September 2001, the USA made attempts to trackdown those who instigated them. This process has not been straightforward since the battle is not against an enemy which can be physically located within a nation state, but rather it is a battle between culturalideologies – between ‘free-market capitalism anddemocracy’ on one hand, and ‘terror’ on the other (as least from the point of view of the USA). WhenPresident of the United States, G. W. Bush attemptedto geographically (b)order his enemy through exercis-ing his dominating power. He did so in a speech on 29 January, 2002:

[Our goal] is to prevent regimes that sponsorterror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Someof these regimes have been pretty quiet sinceSeptember 11th. But we know their true nature.North Korea is a regime arming with missiles

and weapons of mass destruction, while starvingits citizens. Iran aggressively pursues theseweapons and exports terror, while an unelectedfew repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom.Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility towardAmerica and to support terror. . . . States likethese, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axisof evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.

(Democratic Central, 2008)

In this speech Bush defines the actions and nature ofhis ideological enemies in two ways. First, he geo-graphically borders the enemy as he sees it. He locatesthe focus for his ire on North Korea, Iran and Iraq.Second, Bush attributes a value or moral judgement on those within these borders. To him, they are ‘evil’.Bush has exercised his power to define to create amorally divided cultural world. To Bush, the world is also now geographically divided between the axis of evil on one hand and the allies of the USA on theother. He is attempting to convince as many as possiblethat these countries are actually evil, and this should be the ‘common sense’ view. The extent to which we accept Bush’s attempt to transform the world in this way depends in no small part on whether weuncritically accept his dominating power or seek toquestion it. It is worthwhile to note not everyone shares Bush’s vision. Hugo Chávez, President ofVenezuela, describes the United States and its allies as an ‘axis of evil’ (BBC, 2006), whereas on the otherside of the world the following graffiti from a Cardiffstreet makes its views clear:

Box 5.5

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

USA Evil

abnormal, beautiful and ugly. It is through themthat we come to accept that men are better leadersthan women, that Black people are less intelligentthan Whites, that rich people are rich because theyhave worked hard and the poor are poor becausethey are lazy.

(Jordan and Weedon 1995: 5)

If those with dominating power convince us that theircultural values are ‘natural’ they can be said to haveachieved ‘hegemony’. Hegemony is the dominance of onecultural group over another, acquired through a range ofprocesses including coercion, regulation, as well as thewilling acquiescence of citizens, even though this acqui-escence may be against their interests. Hegemony thusrefers to a situation where it has become accepted thatthis cultural group will dominate over all others, it isordinary and natural that this hegemomic group ‘rulesokay’. In these cases, a hegemonic group has been suc-cessful in transforming their own values and beliefs intothe ideological order of their culture. Do you live in acultural hegemony? Can you imagine an alternative tothe current system of cultural control? Do you always dowhat you are told to do by those with dominating power(see Box 5.6)?

DISOBEDIENCE ANDTRANSGRESSION: STEPPING OUT OF LINE

As we all have the ability to act, we all have a degree of power. Although dominating groups use persuasionand punishment to ensure conformity with cultural(b)orders, some people don’t always do what they are toldand use their power to step out of line. This process of stepping out of the cultural and geographical (b) ordersconstructed by a dominating group is known as‘transgression’.

You committed a transgression when, intentionally orotherwise, you didn’t keep off the grass, you overtookacross chevrons or you jumped the queue. On all theseoccasions, you literally and metaphorically crossed theline, the cultural and geographical (b)order. By doing so,whether you did it intentionally or by accident, you

raised the possibility of another way of being. By crossingthe line to unorthodoxy you made doxa and hegemonyvisible for what it was – not the only way of being, butsimply one way of being. You put a question mark in theminds of all those who witnessed your actions – why didthey do that? How can they get away with that? If theycan, why can’t I? Through the act of transgression the‘natural’ (b)order became reduced to a political orderrather than the only way of life.

Turning borders into orders, or lines into questionmarks, occurs through acts of transgression. Transgressionraises questions about who is in control; it questionsauthority – in the words of Sargisson – it, ‘represents an opportunity for thinking differently about somethingwe might otherwise take for granted’ (2000, 104).Transgression opens up places to alternative futures,enabling the possibility of thinking and acting differently.Transgressive acts are therefore dangerous for those with dominating power. Transgression bends, blurs orbreaks the (b)orders holding their hegemony together,with the power to transform no longer clearly held by onegroup alone. Transgression can therefore set in motionsignificant changes to how places are taken and made. Asa consequence, its transformative potential is often inten-tionally harnessed by many groups within society. Theseintentional acts are known as resistance.

RESISTING POWER

Resisting power is that which seeks to intentionallyoppose, challenge and dispute acts of domination.Resisting power seeks to transform the traces of dominat-ing groups and dismantle their cultural orthodoxy. Actsthat reform, reconfigure or reject the traces and places ofcultural orthodoxy come in many different forms.Resisting power can involve,

very small, subtle and some might say trivialmoments, such as breaking wind when the king goesby, but it can also involve more developed momentswhich discontent translates into a form of socialorganisation which actively co-ordinates people,materials and practices in pursuit of specifiabletransformative goals.

(Sharp et al., 2000: 3)


Power as resistance therefore comes in small, subtleforms, such as not stopping at a red light or not clearingup after your dog. Drinking in class, putting your feet onthe chairs, even sitting on tables, can be seen as intention-ally breaking cultural and geographical (b) orders. Eventhough the absolute, concrete effects of these activitiesmay be marginal, they should not be overlooked as formsof symbolic and direct confrontation with dominatingpower. They all seek to take and make place in a differentway than that intended by the dominant.

Resistance can, of course, be more organised than this.The value and meanings of places can be subverted andchallenged through resisting groups taking and makingplace through demonstrations, rallies, coups or revolu-tions. There are a range of examples illustrated below (see Box 5.7).

Resistance and domination are therefore both acts ofpower. How we define these acts is, on the face of it, astraightforward process. Dominating power has thecapacity to transform our behaviour; resisting power


From early childhood we are taught to obey, to do the‘right’ thing. We assume this is for our own safety andthe well-being of society at large. Even so, we’d like to believe that we wouldn’t obey just any order.Wouldn’t we? The following excerpt is taken from a Channel 4 documentary called Five Steps to Tyrannywhich shows we often obey, sometimes even withoutthinking.

Vox pops

‘Do you always do what you’re asked?’‘Nah!’‘Hmmm, no, not always.’‘No.’

As the narrator of the documentary comments: ‘Afamous psychology experiment in the 1960s by StanleyMilgram demonstrates how wrong these people are. Weoften obey with little questioning.’

The experiment ran as follows:

A man on a train asked fellow passengers whether theywould mind giving up their seat so he could sit down.This was a novel request as there were many spare seatsnearby, and the man was in good health. All passengersqueried the oddness of the request, but one in twopassengers (50 per cent) did what they were asked andgave up their seat. The experiment was conducted for

a second time, but on this occasion the man was accom-panied by an actor in a police-style uniform. When this ‘authority figure’ was present, every single passengerdid what they were asked (100 per cent obedience).Professor Philip Zimbardo (Dept of Psychology,Stanford University) commented on the experiment asfollows:

‘Many of us have the tendency to act withoutthinking. That’s when we have danger, when wecan get people to act on these impulses, on theseconditioned habits, without stopping to say, ‘Well,why? Why should I do this?’ In the course of humanhistory there have been more crimes committed in the name of obedience than in the name ofdisobedience. So it’s not the disobedient, it’s notthe rebel, its not the unusual kind of deviantperson who is the threat to society, the real threatto all societies are the mindlessly, blindlesslyobedient people who follow any authority’ (inMcIntyre, 2001).

If any cultural group achieves hegemony thendominating power can become a dangerous thing.Although the above example is trivial in nature, whencitizens begin to act without thinking, they may beginto impose and perpetuate injustice, even if they assumethey are doing the ‘right’ thing.

Box 5.6

DO YOU ALWAYS DO AS YOU ARE TOLD?


In each of these images, places are taken and made toresist the impositions of dominating power. Be itthrough graffiti, street parties, physical resistance, ormonument destruction, the authority of dominatingpower to order and border place is contested. In thefirst image, graffiti on a Cardiff monument commem-orating military victory is defaced with a slogan thatsays ‘Fuck Authority!’ This slogan, written illegally on

this monument, openly flouts the conventional(b)orders of this place. Who is in control here now? (theresisting power of graffiti is outlined in more detail inChapter 10). The second photo highlights a street party in the UK where the normal use of place – forcars and mobility – is resisted by campaigners who haveshut the street down to traffic and chose to dance thereinstead. In the third picture a single protester physic-ally resists police at an anti-nuclear demonstration inGermany, using her body to inconvenience dominatingpower and the way it seeks to use place. Fourth, US soldiers destroy a statue of Saddam Hussein inBaghdad. Here the dominating power of Saddam’sregime is symbolically destroyed by the resisting powerof the US military.

Box 5.7

ACTS OF RESISTANCE

Fuck Authority

Road Closure

Bodily Resistance

Saddam Statue

seeks to prevent this transformative potential. However,in many ways any act of power contains both these elements: it is both transformative and restrictive – it notonly seeks to stop the imposition of one cultural (b)order,but also to impose its own. The same act of power can dominate some groups and places, but at the same timeact to resist the ideas and manoeuvres of a competinggroup. Acts of power are thus both progressive andrepressive, they seek to liberate but also impose. It isimportant, therefore, to diagnose the ways in which one act of power dominates, and the ways in which itresists. What cultural (b)orders does it seek to challenge,and which ones does it seek to impose? Let’s undertake this diagnosis for some of the photos depicted in Box 5.7(p. 62).

In the case of the street party image above, thecampaigners shown have exercised their power to takeand make the street for a carnival. Through so doing theyare resisting the dominant use of place – for cars andtraffic – and seek to impose their own (b)orders whichmake manifest their own cultural ideology: streets should be for people not for cars. In the fourth image,the US soldiers dismantle a statue of Saddam Hussein.Through this exercise of power the soldiers are thus at once resisting the cultural ideology and dictatorialregime of Saddam, but at the same time imposing a newideology which in time will construct new (b)orders inline with western values. Let’s look at some more images (see Box 5.8, p. 64).

How individuals and groups use their power to takeand make place is the very stuff of cultural geography.How different cultural groups exercise their power, what(b)orders they seek to impose and resist reveals muchabout their own ideology and the places they seek tomake. Despite attempts to impose cultural ideology andconformity within a place, the nature of power means thatsome groups will always cross the line and practise trans-gression and resistance. Further questions thus ariseconcerning how actors deal with those that openly resistcultural ideology. Is it possible, for example, to maintaincultural (b)orders and allow free speech? What trace-chains are set in motion by transgression and resistance,and what is the consequence for the ongoing compositionof place?

THE STRUGGLE FOR PLACE: DOMINATION, RESISTANCE, AND TRACE-CHAINS

The ongoing competition between acts of power are vital to consider in cultural geography. The tactics usedby both sides – tactical traces if you will – often revealmuch about the cultural ideologies of the groupsinvolved, and contribute significantly to their respectivesuccess and failure. For example, in some cases one groupmay use oppressive acts to deal with opposition (forexample, the use of martial law, violence, or prison). For them, these tactical traces intend to re-establish orderin the face of a dangerous threat. However, such tracesmay have the unintended effect of generating sym-pathy and support for their opposition who are seen assubject to draconian responses from a heavy-handedauthority. (Think for example of the emotions stirred by any bully picking on an underdog, soldiers attackingchildren, or police using violence against peacefulprotesters.)

Alternatively, groups may choose not to retaliate tointentionally transgressive activity and allow resistance to take and make place in unorthodox ways. Ignoringresisting activity may seem a sign of weakness on behalfof the dominating group; however, in some cases suchdisregard can pacify its challenging threat. Such a tacticsees resistance activity in line with the notion of the‘carnivalesque’. The carnivalesque involves the, ‘tempo-rary suspension, both ideal and real’ of the conventional(b)orders of cultural society (Bakhtin, 1984: 10). In thecarnival, dominating power licenses dissent, thereforeeffectively turning a blind eye to some deviancy, in orderthat control is maintained in the long term. Employingsuch a strategy therefore says something about how the dominating group frames the nature of resistance, but also their own power. Perhaps resistance is seen as a necessary homeostasis mechanism for a healthysociety – far from it amounting to a wholesale challengeto the dominant (b)orders it is simply a way of letting off steam before its instigators return to life-as-normal.However, adopting such a strategy involves clear risks for the dominating group. As Shields (1991: 91) pointsout, carnivals have the potential to be far more than‘steam release’ valves, they offer ‘the enactment of



These images are photos from Hong Kong, the MiddleEast, London and the US. They all respond to thecartoons shown in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005 that satirised the prophet Mohammedand the religion of Islam (see Gudmundsson, 2006).Each act of power that is shown here at once seeks to

dominate and resist the actions of others. Can youdiagnose the trace-chains that are occurring here – what does each act seek to achieve? What culturalideologies do they stand for, and which ones do theyresist? Which traces do you agree with, and why?

Box 5.8

FREEDOM OF SPEECH AS BOTH DOMINATION AND RESISTANCE

Freedom Dominate

Condemn Behead

alternative, utopian social arrangements’ which may setthe scene for further transgressive traces elsewhere andwhen.

Diagnosing the ongoing competition between acts ofpower is therefore a complex but crucial exercise instudying the struggle for place. Trace-chains can be setin motion by acts of domination and acts of resistancethat are difficult to predict, with unintended and unfore-seen outcomes often occurring. The unpredictability of

trace-chains is omnipresent, as Foucault famously states,‘People know what they do; they frequently know whythey do what they do; but what they don’t know is whatwhat they do does’ (1984: 95). Who could have pre-dicted, for example, the trace-chains set in motion by thecartoons of the prophet Mohammed in the Danishnewspaper (above), or by the following example of oneanti war protest at the House of Commons, London (see Box 5.9)?


Brian Haw set up a peace camp in Parliament Square,London, in 2001. By taking and making this placethrough this action he sought to challenge the militarymight of the nation state, and following the secondinvasion of Iraq by the USA and its allies in 2003, hisactions became symbolic of the public antipathy towardsthis conflict.

Haw’s actions explicitly used the right to peacefulprotest within a democracy to challenge the decision toinvade Iraq. To protest in such close proximity to theHouse of Commons issued a challenge to decision-makers. In one sense it represented the strength ofdemocracy, embodying the right to peaceful protest forall; however it also reminded the media and passingcitizens of the dominating power of elected politicianswho chose to invade another country without public

support or legal mandate. Should the politicians ignoreHaw’s protest, treat it as the carnivalesque, or shouldthey re-take the place of Parliament Square?

In 2005, politicians responded through enacting the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act. This Act made it illegal to protest within a 1 km radius ofParliament Square, unless that protest had specificauthorisation of the police. This law had the directeffect of removing Brian Haw’s peace camp from thelawns of the House of Commons. This set of traces canbe interrogated in terms of acts of domination andresistance. As stated, it could be interpreted that BrianHaw was exercising his power to resist by taking placewith his peace camp. From this perspective it was theBritish state that was engaging in dominating powerthrough both the act of war, and then by making illegalall political activities occurring in close proximity toParliament Square. However, according to Labour PeerLord Bragg, it was the protester that was exercisingdominating power:

[Haw’s peace camp] was dominating the whole ofParliament Square and no one else could demon-strate their freedom of speech there. In terms offreedom of speech he can still stand there, and saywhat he wanted to say, but [he has to] apply to thepolice.

(ITV, 2007)

Box 5.9

THE TRACE-CHAINS FROM ONE ACT OF RESISTANCE: THE CASE OF BRIAN HAW

Haw Commons

From Bragg’s perspective, it was the scale (both inphysical size and temporal duration) of Haw’s peacecamp that was crucial, rather than what he was saying.Its scale prevented others from expressing their freedomof speech in Parliament Square, and so effectivelydominated the area. That place had become a peacecamp, not an open place for political expression. Doyou agree? Which side are you on?

We can see that it was the wish to resist militarismand impose peace that prompted Haw’s actions. These actions in turn prompted the Serious OrganisedCrime Act. However, this was not the end of the story.Further trace-chains were set in motion when ArtistMark Wallinger responded to this piece of legislation.Wallinger disagreed with the legislation, stating that, ‘It doesn’t seem right that the police have the power to allow or disallow certain people’s protests’ (ITV,2007). Wallinger’s response was to reconstruct Haw’speace camp in Tate Britain art gallery (see below). Thisgallery was within the 1 km ‘exclusion zone’ created bythe Serious Organised Crime Act, and the reconstruc-tion was placed so it poignantly crossed this (b)order.

Wallinger’s act thus brought further attention to boththe original protest and the legislation that outlawed it, creating a further trace in this chain of dominationand resistance. Sir Nicholas Serota, Director of the Tate Gallery, identifies how the government framed the peace camp as ‘polluting’ both aesthetically andsymbolically in the place of Parliament Square (but, ofcourse, not in the place of Tate Gallery).

Mark is exposing the way in which Governmentworks in this country, the way in which society has structured the way in which we tolerate certainkinds of protests and not others. Well, the SeriousOrganised Crime [& Police] Act is rather a drasticway of getting rid of an aesthetic eyesore.

(ITV, 2007)

Does the reconstruction of the peace camp in an art gallery mean that the protest is still effective? What roledoes place play in influencing the meaning of anyprotest?

66 TAKING AND MAKING PLACE: THE STUFF OF POWER


Haw Tate

CONCLUSION: POWER IN ANDTHROUGH PLACE

We have seen in this chapter how crucial the practice ofpower is to cultural geography. It is through cultural acts– the exercise of power – that places are taken and made.Geographical places and cultural acts are the tangibleexpressions of power, and through these trace-makingexercises, and the meanings attributed to them, culturestake both shape and place. Power can be exercised by allindividuals, yet the power to transform place is of para-mount importance. In some cases power can dominate –transforming the actions and places around us, in otherspower can transgress or resist, attempting to challengethe ideology of those controlling our cultural world.Through acts of domination and resistance, traces, placesand meanings are fought over. Traces that were once‘natural’ can be questioned and contested. Similarly,traces that were once deemed as ‘novel’ can become partof the mainstream. Power thus is at the root of culturalgeography, creating, stabilising and destroying orders andborders. Through so doing, power endlessly shapes theongoing composition of traces that places come to be.

This book proceeds to interrogate traces and placesthrough a number of examples. In each chapter we willlook at different cultures and geographical contexts andinterrogate the ways in which traces come together todefine places and peoples. In the next chapter we explorewhat could be argued to be the most powerful culture ofour time: the culture of capitalism.

SUGGESTED READINGS


Books

Gramsci, A. (1971) The Prison Notebooks. Lawrence andWishart: London.

Gramsci offers an advanced but important introduction toideological power, change and critical theory.

Pile, S. and Keith, M. (eds) (1997) Geographies ofResistance. Routledge: London.

Sharp, J. et al. (eds) (2000) Entanglements of Power:Geographies of Domination/Resistance. Routledge: Londonand New York.

More accessibly, Pile and Keith provide an excellentintroduction into notions of power related to resistance,whilst Joanne Sharp (et al.), offer a sophisticated account ofhow power is ‘entangled’ through acts of domination andresistance.

Scott, J. (1985) Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms ofPeasant Resistance. Yale University Press: New Haven andLondon.

Jordan, T. (2002) Activism! Direct Action, Hacktivismand the Future of Society. Reaktion Books: London.

Scott’s 1985 book gives interesting empirical examples ofhow resistance can be practised in everyday, mundane ways,whilst Jordan outlines more spectacular forms of resistantpractice and the potential utopia these promise.


INTRODUCTION

In this chapter we turn our attention to the perhaps themost influential cultural practice of our time: the cultureof capitalism. Capitalism takes and makes place through-out the globe, leaving traces that affect the commoditieswe buy, the livings we earn, our methods and motives for travel, and the meanings associated with them.Capitalism affects our identity, our senses of place, andhow (b)orders connect and distinguish them. Capitalism,therefore, is not just about making money, it comes toaffect who and where we are. As a consequence it is anessential focus for geographers interested in culture.

CAPITALISM RULES OKAY?

Capitalism is the dominant form of economic organisa-tion across the globe. Yet it is not a new phenomenon; the Ancient Greeks used coins as currency to represent atrade in products and services. So why is capitalism

so important to culture in the twenty-first century? The answer lies in its scale of operation. Even a genera-tion ago, different systems of economic and culturalorganisation were in real competition with one another.Via the ‘cold war’, western-style capitalism and Soviet-style communism battled to prove which mode ofoperation would be the best (or indeed the least worst!)for the world. With the fall of the Berlin Wall (see Box 6.1), perestroika and the dismantling of the SovietUnion, capitalism has become the dominant system ofeconomic organisation. As Gough tells us,

Following decolonisation and the collapse of statesocialism at the end of the 1980s, few areas of theworld resist the logic of capitalist markets.

(Gough, 2000: 17)

In terms of economic organisation then, as Porritt (2005)outlines, capitalism is the only game in town.

6

COUNTER -CULTURES: GLOBAL, CORPORATE AND ANTI -CAP ITAL ISMS

CAPITALISM: MAKING MONEY

In terms of substance, the culture of capitalism is basedon trading products, experiences, and services. It usesmonetary currencies to represent the exchange value ofthese entities, with the aim of making profit through thesale of commodities on the market. The means to makemoney in capitalism are privately owned. These meansmay include the ownership of factories that makeproducts; the registering of patents, trademarks, andcopyrights; or the ownership of resources, entertainmentvenues, or land. As these means are in private hands,capitalism offers a democratic dream – as we are all privateindividuals, we all have the potential to make products,sell them, and generate currency. However, in practice the market is competitive, with many traders seeking tosell their products to consumers. As a consequence, not

all individuals can be successful. Capitalism is thus oftendefined by those who successfully trade products andservices, and those who are limited to selling their labourto help others manufacture and provide these products.This is the traditional distinction made by Karl Marxbetween the bourgeoisie (the owners of the means ofproduction) and the proletariat (the workers). Accordingto Marx,

the most fundamental division in society . . . laybetween those who owned the means of production(the machinery and buildings of a factory, forinstance) and those who had nothing more to sellthan their labour power, the ability to perform paid work.

(Cloke et al., 1991: 29)

69COUNTER-CULTURES

The Berlin Wall, erected in 1961, separated West Berlin(in West Germany) and East Berlin (in the GermanDemocratic Republic). This physical border representeda clear geographical and cultural divide between twovery different systems of economic and cultural organi-sation: capitalism to the west and communism to theeast. Ronald Reagan (when President of the UnitedStates) made it clear that he thought this (b)order shouldbe removed to allow capitalism to spread. Reagan madethe following speech at the Brandenburg Gate, WestBerlin, on 12 June 1987. His comments could be heardon the eastern side of the Wall:

Behind me stands a wall that encircles the freesectors of this city, part of a vast system of barriersthat divides the entire continent of Europe. From the Baltic, south, those barriers cut acrossGermany in a gash of barbed wire, concrete, dogruns, and guard towers. Farther south, there maybe no visible, no obvious wall. But there remainarmed guards and checkpoints all the same – stilla restriction on the right to travel, still an instru-

ment to impose upon ordinary men and womenthe will of a totalitarian state. Yet it is here inBerlin where the wall emerges most clearly; here,cutting across your city, where the news photo andthe television screen have imprinted this brutaldivision of a continent upon the mind of theworld. Standing before the Brandenburg Gate,every man is a German, separated from his fellowmen. Every man is a Berliner, forced to look upona scar. . . . General Secretary Gorbachev [of thethen Soviet Union], if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and EasternEurope, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! (http://www.reaganlibrary.com/reagan/ speeches/ wall.asp).

The cultural and geographical border of the BerlinWall fell on 9 November 1989, and Germany wasofficially reunified on 3 October 1990. Capitalismbecame the hegemonic mode of economic organisationin the world.

Box 6.1

BREAKING (B)ORDERS: THE FALL OF THE BERL IN WALL

Within capitalist culture the distinction between thosewho own the means of production and those who onlyown their labour power is crucial as it secures differentopportunities to make currency. Selling your labour onthe market will realise you financial advantage (to thetune of X dollars, or pounds, or euros etc. per hour). Yourtime, creativity, and effort are translated into cold, hard cash. However, your labour is also translated intoadded value for your employer’s product, so in turn theyrealise an economic advantage from your labour, oftenone that is far greater than that achieved by you. Bothparties therefore ‘win’ through the transaction, yetemployers always make more money. This process ofmaking (more) money is a key defining element of theculture of capitalism. The generation of profit is thedifference between the cost of producing the good orservice and its retail price.

THE SECRET TO MAKING MONEY:MINIMISING AND EXTERNALISINGCOSTS

In order to make profit it is necessary for any capitalistto maximise the difference between cost price and retailprice when trading on the market. This can be achievedthrough minimising and externalising costs. One way in which owners can minimise their costs is to drive down the price of the labour they buy. Employers andemployees are thus often in dispute with one another –employers will seek to lower wages, whilst employees willseek to raise them.

Due to differences in standards of living and employ-ment opportunity, workers in different places will offertheir labour to potential employees at a range of prices.As employees will look for the lowest possible labour cost(with the skill set that can do the job required), ownersare prepared to move their productions systems aroundcountries, continents, even across the world in order tominimise cost. The profit motive of the culture of capi-talism therefore produces geographical consequences. As firms move their production practices to maximiseprofit, jobs that have held together communities andfamilies in one place are lost, with significant culturalrepercussions. The jobs that are created in new locationsalso set in motion a range of cultural changes, often withmixed responses (see Box 6.2).

The cultural values of capitalism can therefore be madefor employers through minimising labour costs, but othercosts can be externalised all together. Costs that can beexternalised – known as ‘externalities’ – are those coststhat can be passed on to sectors of society not directlyinvolved in the primary economic transaction. Forexample, owners of the means of production not onlyrequire labour, but also a safe and secure transportationnetwork, a healthy workforce, a repository for waste, and a generally stable political condition for successfuloperation. Owners take on many of these costs them-selves, but it would cost any private individual anexorbitant sum to ensure the establishment and mainte-nance of the entire infrastructure necessary for profitmaking. As a consequence, the costs of this infrastructureprovision are passed on to others. Nation-states (i.e.taxpayers) pay for transportation networks, welfare provision, military forces and even armed conflict toenable capitalist operations to continue. Society also paysa cost by allowing common property resources such as the air, water systems, and the biosphere to be used byprivate companies to absorb their waste. The costs of these facilities are thus ‘external’ to those that have tobe exclusively met by businesses; they are met instead bybroader society and the state.

Driven by the profit-logic of capitalism, companiesbehave like ‘externalising machines’ (Monks, 2006: 7).Private individuals transfer as many costs to broadersociety as possible, thus maximising their profits. Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface, the world’s largestcommercial carpet manufacturer, puts it this way:

Running a business is a tough proposition, there arecosts to be minimized at every turn, and at somepoint the corporation says, ‘you know, let somebodyelse deal with that. Let’s let somebody else supplythe military power to the Middle East to protect theoil at its source, let’s let somebody else build theroads that we can drive these automobiles on, let’slet somebody else have those problems’, and that iswhere externalities come from, that notion of, ‘letsomebody else deal with that – I got all I can handlemyself’. So, the pressure’s on the corporation todeliver results now, and to externalize any cost thatan unwary or uncaring public will allow it toexternalize.

(2006: 7)

COUNTER-CULTURES70

71COUNTER-CULTURES

Many of the brands we wear are made in Jakarta,Indonesia. Perhaps look at the label on your sneakers,jeans or t-shirt that you are wearing now and see if theyare ‘Made in Indonesia’. Firms such as Gap, Adidas andNike have moved their production systems to SouthEast Asia because the labour costs in these areas areamongst the cheapest in the world. As a consequenceof this shift in production, Jakarta is now ringed withvast factory and worker compounds, known as ‘eco-nomic processing zones’. Although these zones offerjobs, they also offer a completely different way of lifeto the traditions of Indonesia. As journalist John Pilgerinvestigated:

In these factories are thousands of mostly youngwomen working for the equivalent of 72 pence perday. At current exchange rates, this is the officialminimum wage in Indonesia, which, says thegovernment, is about half the living wage andhere, that means subsistence. Nike workers getabout 4% of the retail price of the shoes they make– not enough to buy the laces. . . . At a factory I saw, making the famous brands, the youngwomen work, battery-style, in temperatures thatclimb to 40 degrees centigrade. Most have nochoice about the hours they must work, includinga notorious ‘long shift’: 36 hours without goinghome. . . . these are capitalism’s unpeople. Theylive with open, overflowing sewers and unsafewater for many, up to half their wages go ondrinkable water. . . . The result is an urbanenvironmental disaster that breeds mosquitoes.Today, a plague of them in the camps has broughta virulent form of dengue fever, known as ‘break-

back fever’. . . . It is a disease of capitalism – themosquitoes domesticated as the camps grew.

(Pilger, 2001)

The culture of capitalism has thus re-made the place ofJakarta for the workers in these factories. The environ-mental, health and human rights conditions in theseeconomic processing zones are a direct result of theprofit-driven motive of capitalists who (b)order thisplace. The need for income means that many live andwork in these conditions, however unappealing theymay appear. As Michael Walker (of the Fraser Institute,a marketing think tank) points out:

Let’s look at it from the point of view of the ruralpeasants who are starving to death . . . the onlything that they have to offer to anybody that isworth anything is their low cost labour. And in effect . . . they have this big flag that says,‘Come over and hire us, we will work for ten centsan hour. Because ten cents an hour will buy us the rice that we need not to starve . . . andrescue us from our circumstance’. And so whenNike [for example] comes in they are regarded by everybody in the community as an enormousgodsend.

(2006: 8, emphasis in original).

Whether the effects of the spread of capitalism are ‘anenormous godsend’ or exploitation is open to debate.In what ways are the traces set in motion by capitalistculture progressive and in what ways are they repressive?How are we tied into these traces? Can we do anythingto change them? Should we?

Box 6.2

MINIMIS ING LABOUR COSTS: A CASE IN JAKARTA

The extent to which publics are ‘unwary or uncaring’about the external costs of the capitalist system will beexplored later on in this chapter.

CAPITALISM: IT ’S THE ECONOMY,STUPID. BUT ITS CULTURE TOO!

Although it is traditional to define capitalism simply interms of its economic organisation, it is difficult to definecapitalism as purely economic in nature. As we have seen,capitalism is equally defined by its cultural dimension,and the profit motive is its primary defining logic.Beyond this, however, a whole array of cultural institu-tions (including the media, government, and the police)are closely connected to the economic base of capitalism.In a Marxist analysis, over the long term the economicbase (or substructure) of capitalism will be underwrittenby the cultural institutions of its dominating powers (the superstructure). In other words, governments arelikely to support and aid capitalism as they see a broadersocietal benefit in doing so (the example of nation-statespaying for transport networks, security, and welfaresystems can be cited as one example of this). However,the relationship between the cultural and economicaspects within capitalism can be interrogated in otherways too.

The economic and the cultural within capitalism areclosely related. Products bought and sold under capita-lism not only have an economic price, but also a culturalvalue. Products gain their desirability, their necessity ortheir kudos, through the multifarious cultural systems in which they are used. It is thus cultures that givesmeanings and values to particular goods and services.Indeed it is sometimes these meanings and values that aremore desirable than the actual utility of the productsthemselves. In turn, these products, or material traces,have particular affects on the places and cultures we livein. They work to perpetuate or erode not only materialcircumstances of society (traces have affects generatedthrough their use, manufacture or disposal), but also our non-material circumstances as they affect the par-ticular ideas and value systems that take and make ourplaces (some examples are given in Figures 6.1 and 6.2, below).

Capitalism thus involves both economic and culturaldimensions. Cultural groups give value and meaning toan economic product, making it more or less desirable.Yet in capitalist culture the reverse is also true – theeconomy gives a monetary price to cultural practice (thusmaking it more or less affordable). This process of bring-ing cultural life into the economic realm (and vice versa)is known as the process of commodification. As Scottoutlines, commodification is the process by which,

goods and services . . . are increasingly produced bycapitalist firms for a profit under conditions ofmarket exchange.

(Scott, 2001: 12)

The process of commodification is another example of(b)ordering. It is a process that injects into one productor activity, already imbued with culture and geography,a dose of capitalist value. Through so doing, that productor activity is in some sense ordered and bordered bycapitalism: it has become a commodity. Capitalism hasbecome so successful at injecting culture with its valuesthat it is increasingly difficult to distinguish where the original culture ends and the capitalist commoditybegins (see Barnes, 2005: 62/3). When we go to a culturalevent – for example a sports stadium to watch a match –the ground, the team, the ball, the cheerleaders, even the players, are sponsored by capitalist firms and theirproducts. The popular music we hear at half time is used to advertise goods and services; the artists are even paid to place products in their songs (see Box 6.3below). Culture and capitalism are thus increasinglyinterpenetrated, both give value to each other – cultureis used to sell product, whilst product is used to createculture.

Capitalism is thus successful because it is not simplyan economic system, but also a cultural one. Capitalismhas its own cultural logic – the search for profit – yet this logic is most successful when it combines with the preferences and values of other cultures in order to makemoney. The combination of capitalism and other cultures transforms certain commodities into ‘goods’rather than ‘bads’. When such a transformation occurs,other cultures can be used to make capitalists’ money.The following examples go some way to illustrate howthis combination can occur.

COUNTER-CULTURES72

As we have seen in the previous chapter, the desire for many to be part of a group and ‘belong’ is defining.In the UK one beverage company was argued to havecommodified this cultural trait into their product. AsDavidson (2007) reports,

A Carling TV ad featuring a flock of starlings andthe strapline ‘Belong’ has been cleared by theadvertising watchdog, following complaints fromthe public and pressure groups that the ad impliedalcohol contributed to peer group popularity. TheTV spot, created by Beattie McGuiness Bungay,shows two starlings and then a flock of starlingsflying together in patterns across the sky in tandemwith a track by the group Hard-Fi.

(see http://www.carling.com/beer/download_belong_wallpapers.html for

further examples)

Pressure groups (such as Alcohol Concern) expressed dismay that in their view the advertising campaignpersuaded people that a beer was being shown as repre-

sentative of the culturally desirable ideals of belonging,friendship and fun. In their view, the impression wasgiven by Carling that their product will give you culturalacceptance and popularity. If you accept this view, the aims of capitalist culture (making money) are beingrealised through grafting them to the ideals of a pre-existing culture. In this way, the original culture nowincludes traces of capitalism. Belonging has beencommodified.

Capitalist culture also commodifies ‘belonging’ feltthrough a sense of geographical connection (see Chapters4 and 9). In the following example, patriotism is used tomarket product, encouraging us to think that we shouldsupport a company’s espoused national affiliation, andthus enhance our own (see Figure 6.1).

The co-ingredience of people, place as well as productis clearly evident in this example. We can see how ourcultural affiliations may affect how we ‘read’ this trace –for example, if we are English, American, or Australianthis advert may leave us cold, our lack of identificationwith Wales may mean that this trace means nothing tous, and thus we are unlikely to buy (into) it. However, if

73COUNTER-CULTURES

No longer content to see their adverts filling the gapsbetween music tracks, McDonald’s is biting into the music itself. The fast-food company blamed by many forAmerica’s obesity epidemic is offering rappers £2.80 forevery time their snack-inspired track is played on the radio.The chain has already sponsored the worldwide tour of thepop trio Destiny’s Child, and one of the act’s songs, ‘Cater2 U’, features the refrain ‘I’m lovin’ it, I’m lovin’ it’. That also happens to be McDonald’s current advertisingslogan.

The rapper Jay-Z mentions both Roc-A-Wear clothes and Armadale vodka in his song ‘All I Need’. He

owns both. Other rappers seem to mention upmarketbrand names – known as ‘mad props’ in hip-hop argot – just because they like them. Hence the rapper BustaRhymes wrote a song entitled ‘Pass the Courvoisier’. Salesof cognac increased by 6.1 per cent last year. ‘The mainthing is to allow the artists to do what they do best,’ said Tony Rome, president of Maven Strategies, themarketing firm hired by McDonald’s to organise the stunt.‘We’re letting them creatively bring to life the product in their song.’ Maven claims it was responsible forintegrating Seagram’s gin into five rap songs last year.

Box 6.3

BIG MACS AND BIG PROFITS : THE MERGING OF CAPITAL ISM ANDMUSIC CULTURE

‘Rappers are lovin’ it as burger chain buys a slice of their act’ (from Chris Ayres in Los Angeles, The Times, March 31, 2005)

you are Welsh, it may strike a chord with you and a senseof pride and identification may influence you to buy thisproduct, especially perhaps on a national day or Welshsporting occasion. This marketing strategy therefore seeksto harness a particular cultural preference in order to sell an (increasingly cultural) product. Yet capitalism isnot neutral in this process. Through co-ingrediently con-necting people and place to product, cultural ideas begin to get associated with material things (in this case patriotism with (a particular) beer), but also thematerial things begin to influence how we think aboutour culture. It ‘wouldn’t be Wales without SA’ thuscomes to illustrate how both culture and the economybecome so co-ingredient that they come to mutuallydefine each other. In this way, patriotism, perhaps evena nation, is being re-bordered as a commodity.

Capitalism has thus been successful in re-borderingcultural life in line with its own values and preferences.This process is not just happening in a few isolatedlocations. It is happening where you live, and where

everybody else lives too. Can you think of examples ofhow capitalism affects culture in your place? The processof the commodification of culture raises a number ofquestions concerning the affect of capitalism on theidentity of places and people: does what you buy (into)say something about who you are? (Do you, for example,identify with the slogans: ‘I am Starbucks’, or ‘I’m a PC’?)Does intention have anything to do with your purchasinghabits? Would your answers change if you consideredconsumption an act of endorsement rather than simplyan act of purchase? Does your place change due to capitalism commodifying its traces?

Capitalism thus puts a price on cultural life, andthrough recognising and selling desirable traits fromparticular cultures, capitalists and corporations begin toinfluence these very traits themselves. Some commenta-tors go so far as to say that commodification has reached‘into every nook and cranny of modern life’ (Thrift,2000: 96); that whilst the purpose of capitalism used to be to ‘sponsor culture’, it now has the capacity to ‘bethe culture’ (Klein, 2001: 30). Do you agree with theseclaims? If so, what consequences does the spread ofcapitalism have for cultural life in different places? Is theubiquity of capitalism inevitable? Can we think of alter-natives to this system? Has capitalism become doxa?

It is important to note at this stage, however, that theprocess of commodification is not just about bringingdifferent cultures into the capitalist world. It is also abouthow the world itself has been tied into a particular typeof capitalism. Commodification is defined not simply bycapitalists from particular locales injecting a dose ofcapitalism into the culture of their town or country (forexample in the case of Brains Beer in Figure 6.2), it isbeing achieved by global capitalists, operating throughtransnational corporations, that come to affect both theeconomies and cultures in almost every place. Thus, aswe will see, capitalism has not simply commodifiedculture; it is commodifying culture on a global scale.

CORPORATE CAPITALISM

Through communication technology, aviation, shipping,satellite monitoring, media systems and the Internet, allaspects of trade are becoming increasingly globalised.

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Figure 6.1 Commodifying patriotism

Through modern communications I can be ‘cold called’from sellers in Mumbai, contact my local high street bankvia a call centre in the sub-continent, order an Americanbranded sneaker from a warehouse in Yorkshire that wasdesigned in Europe, manufactured in South East Asia,with the profits going to Grand Cayman.

The dominant players in this global capitalist activityare transnational corporations. Transnational corpora-tions are, as their collective name suggests, companiesthat operate beyond the limits of nation states. Up untilrecently, this has meant that corporations are integratingonce geographically disparate sourcing, manufacturing,marketing and selling processes into one company struc-ture, usually controlled by headquarters in its country of origin. As a consequence, the traces created by corpora-tions no longer have limited local affects. Transnationalcorporations create trace-chains through place depen-dencies, with markets, peoples, and up- and down-streamcompanies reliant on decisions made in distant places for the sustainability of their livelihoods. They createtraces in the environment, with economic valuations of land often being preferred to local cultural valuations,dispossession of tribes becoming common place astraditional homelands are traded for economic expansion,and pollution and trans-boundary waste becoming asignificant problem.

Transnational corporations thus operate beyond thegeographical borders of nation states. However, nowoperating beyond these borders is not simply a geographi-cal issue. When Stiglitz (2005: no page) identifies thatglobalisation is the, ‘increasing economic integration and interdependence of countries and companies’, he isreferring not simply to the geographical integration ofeconomies and cultures across the globe, but also identi-fying that a new set of power brokers have emerged into‘global culture’. Corporations, it is argued, are becomingso powerful within the global economy that they are asimportant as countries (maybe even more so).

In 1998 I was invited to Washington DC to attendthis meeting that was being put together by thenational security agency called the Critical ThinkingConsortium. I remember standing there in thisroom and looking over on one side of the room andwe had CIA [Central Intelligence Agency], NSA

[National Security Agency], DIA [DefenseIntelligence Agency], FBI [Federal Bureau ofInvestigation], Customs, Secret Service, and then onthe other side of the room we had Coca Cola,Mobile Oil, GTE and Kodak. And I rememberthinking, ‘I am in the epicenter of the intelligenceindustry right now.’ I mean, the line is not justblurring, it’s just not there anymore. And to me itspoke volumes as to how industry and governmentwere consulting with each other and working witheach other.

(Barry, 2006: 32)

Marx, writing in the nineteenth century, would haveargued that capitalism and the political institutions of thestate were always closely aligned (with the ‘superstructure’of culture and politics working to underwrite andlegitimise the ‘substructure’ of economic organisation inthe long term). However, as Stiglitz observes, now,

the problem is that multinational companies havesuch tremendous reach and power that they candominate the governments of impoverished nationsand muscle their way past regulations.

(2005)

Stiglitz’s concern is that the rise of globalisation hasmeant that transnational corporations may be able to notonly operate beyond national borders, but also beyondnational orders too. As illustrated in Box 6.4, this meansthat unelected corporations are able to order and re-border the world in line with the cultural logic ofcapitalism. Stiglitz’s concern is based on the immenseeconomic wealth of transnational corporations. Writingin 2003, Kingsnorth identifies that of the 100 biggesteconomies in the world, 51 are corporations, whilst 49 are nation states. He cites that General Motors has abigger economy than Thailand, Mitsubishi is moreeconomically powerful than South Africa, and Wal Martmakes more money than Venezuela. In some instancescorporations exercise their growing economic muscle byworking hand in hand with nation states (as Barryidentifies, above), whilst in others they use their powerto dominate governments. In both cases they operate tosecure their own capitalist objectives.

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So how did corporations become so dominant? Thesituation where corporations are as important, andperhaps even more important, than countries is not due to natural selection or innate superiority. It has been facilitated by a number of institutions thatoperate beyond the level of nation states; namely theInternational Monetary Fund, the World Bank, andthe World Trade Organisation.

The World Bank (WB) and International MonetaryFund (IMF) were established following the BrettonWoods conference held in USA in 1944. Based on free-market principles, these organisations were designed toregulate trade and maintain economic stability on aglobal scale. The World Trade Organisation (WTO)was established with similar principles, but much later,in 1995. As Lamy (writing when Commissioner forTrade at the European Commission) explains, theseorganisations,

provide a framework in which member countriesnegotiate how to regulate trade and investment,and ensure the respect of the rules agreed bycommon accord. [They] help us move from aHobbesian world of lawlessness, into a moreKantian world – perhaps not exactly of perpetualpeace, but at least one where trade relations aresubject to the rule of law. [They are] the bestbulwark against unilateralism.

(Lamy, 2003)

These organisations thus maintain order in the globalcapitalist system. They create the rules that regulate trade, offer protectionism opportunities for growingeconomies, loan money to countries that have cash-flowproblems, and fund development processes in lessadvanced economies. In theory, therefore, these ‘BrettonWoods’ organisations function as useful controllingmechanisms for the global economy, giving everyone a

‘fair’ crack of the whip. However, in practice their roleis not so straightforward.

Although the Bretton Woods organisations aresupposed to act unilaterally from nation states andcorporations, their free and fair operation is oftencompromised. In the first instance dominant nationstates retain power over them. As Kevin Watkins(Oxfam) states, ‘the real power in these [WTO andWorld Bank] meetings and what gives them realauthority is that you’ve got the US Treasury, theEuropean Union, and Japan, all getting together to see how they’re going to run the global economy. Andof course what they do is run the global economy in their own interests’ (Kevin Watkins, Oxfam, BBC2000).

Second, it is possible for transnational companies to influence the direction and agenda of meetings. AsMonbiot states, in practice the ‘democratic structure[of these organizations] has been bypassed by “greenroom” meetings organized by the rich nations, bycorporate lobbying, and by secret and unaccountablecommittees of corporate lawyers’ (Monbiot, 2003). Inpractice, therefore, it is often the case that the globaleconomy is not overseen by independent authorities;rather, by dominant groups that seek to run theeconomy ‘in their own interests’.

One example of this is the General Agreement onTariffs and Trade (GATT). This General Agreement,first signed in 1947, was designed to provide aninternational forum that encouraged free trade forcorporations by regulating and reducing tariffs ontraded goods. However, GATT also confers rights tocorporations to take sovereign governments to court if countries impose any national laws that militateagainst global trade. In effect, as Buttel (2003) outlines,this general agreement ‘has essentially been establishedto permit offshore veto . . . of environmental regu-lations [and] . . . measures for enhancing social security

Box 6.4

THE POWER BEHIND TRANSNATIONALS’ POWER: THE BRETTON WOODS ORGANISATIONS AND THE GROWTH OF CORPORATION CULTURE

Through transnational corporations, capitalism hascome to connect together disparate locales and cultures,and corporations themselves have thus gained tremen-dous influence in spreading these cultures, as well as theirown. The growing economic and cultural influence ofcapitalism thus raises questions concerning how localcultures are affected by processes of global commodifi-cation. Why do I, for example, wear a New York Yankeesbaseball cap when I’ve never played baseball or been toNew York? How can the brand that is J-Lo try to con-vince me she is ‘Jenny from the [my?] Block’ on anadvertising hoarding in my local neighbourhood? Howis global capitalism interacting with different cultures inlocal places, and how in turn does this affect ourculturally geographical identity?

CAPITALISM: DISNEYFYINGAND MCDONALDISING LOCALCULTURES?

Capitalists seek to take and make place in order tointentionally perpetuate their own profit-making culture;through doing so they may (un)intentionally support thevalues and customs of some cultural groups, or dismantleand extinguish the cultures of others. The spread ofcapitalist culture brings with it many benefits. It offersjobs, new investment, and the opportunity to buy newproducts; however, it can also be so overwhelming thatit can dislocate people from their local cultures, changevalue systems, and disenfranchise us from conventionalpolitics (see Box 6.5).

From one perspective, the spread of corporate capital-ism is often seen as the ‘McDonaldisation’ of globalculture, where the ‘principles of the fast-food restaurantare coming to dominate more and more sectors . . . ofthe world’ (Ritzer 2002: 7). This McDonaldisationallows us to get a Big Mac on nearly every street corner,or buy a pair of Levis on every high street, thus makingevery town from New York to Nairobi familiar to us (ifnot like home). Whether this process is progressive is up for debate: to what extent does this promote a homog-enisation of culture, where cultures in every-place aresimilarly defined by corporate values rather than local(e)customs? And to what extent does this matter? Toynbee(2001: 191) argues that the spread of corporate capitalismis not having positive affects:

Sometimes it seems as if a tidal wave of the worstWestern culture is creeping across the globe like a giant strawberry milkshake. How it oozes over the planet, sweet, sickly, homogenous, full of ‘E’numbers, stabilisers and monosodium glutamate,tasting the same from Samoa to Siberia to Somalia.Imagine it in satellite pictures, every canyon andcrevice pink with it and all of it flowing out from the USA. Just as world maps were once pinkwith the colonies of the British Empire, now they are pink with US strawberry milkshake, for‘cultural globalisation’ is often just a synonym for Americanisation. . . . the milkshake of the mindis spilling across frontiers, cultures and languages,Disneyfying everything in its path.

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. . . by unelected and unaccountable trade regimes’.The effects of this General Agreement will becompounded by others (such as the General Agreementon Trade in Services).

In effect, therefore, these global institutions confer a degree of power and authority to corporations over a nation state that has never been experienced

before. It is now corporations alongside, and some-times in control of even major nation states, thatcommodify culture and re-(b)order place. Cultural andgeographical power is thus held by a new group ofactors acting on a vast scale. In effect these actors aretaking and making place through the processes of global commodification.


Jackson (2004) argues that although corporate capitalismand globalisation are having affects in many places, localcultures often resist the dominating power of trans-nationals. From this perspective, corporate capitalismdoes not have its own way; rather, global commodi-fication is an ‘incomplete, uneven and contested process:an unfinished project whose contours are shaped bylocally specific social and cultural practices’ (2004: 166,see also Appadurai (1996). A trivial example of how localcultures can ‘indigenise’ the process of ‘McDonaldisation’can, unsurprisingly, be found in the food sector. Spicesare added to burgers in the subcontinent, for instance,

and the ‘Indianization’ of Italian–American pizza is seenin the Punjab through the addition of tikka massala sauce(see Jackson, 2004: 166). Can you think of how certaincommodities of global capitalism are indigenised indifferent places? How does capitalism respond to localcultures where you are? (See Box 6.6.) However, in somecases, the arrival of corporate capitalism leaves little room to indigenise their dominating effects. This chapterprogresses by outlining how a growing number of cultural groups are seeking to shake up the ‘strawberrymilk’ of corporate capitalism by resisting its spread intotheir cultural geographies.

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The power of corporations and their success atcommodifying culture means that our everyday placesare often composed by many capitalist traces. Fromshops, services and advertising, these traces are oftenaccepted as ‘normal’, even ‘natural’ in our public places(in contrast to traces left by other cultures, for examplegraffiti, see Chapter 10).

For example, in Union Square, San Francisco, corpo-rations’ advertising dominates the skyline. Althoughsuch traces are commonplace, many are beginning toquestion the right of these traces to influence ourcultural sites in this way (as the following sections willinvestigate further).

Companies . . . have re-arranged the world to putthemselves in front of you. They never asked foryour permission. . . . Companies scrawl their giantslogans across buildings and buses trying to makeus feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff. Theyexpect to be able to shout their message in yourface from every available surface.

(Banksy, 2005)

Box 6.5

WHOSE TOWN IS THIS?

California

ANTI-CAPITALISM: SUPERHEROES’AND ‘FLAMING DILDOS’

Corporations are powerful only because we haveallowed them to be. . . . Their power is an artefactof our acquiescence . . . The struggle between peopleand corporations will be the defining battle of the twenty-first century. If the corporations win, liberal democracy will come to an end. . . . We must,

in others words, cause trouble. We must put thedemo back into democracy.

(Monbiot, 2001: 356, 17, 358)

As we have seen in Chapter 5, dominating power oftenprompts resisting acts. With the rise of corporatecapitalism this potential has been realised through a setof cultural interests that seek to resist the taking andmaking of place by corporate interests.

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In the Freeport Mine in Indonesia, little effort is madeto indigenise corporate capitalism’s effects on the localculture and geography. The transnational corporationFreeport own the biggest gold mine in the world, alongwith the third-largest copper mine, in the Papuaprovince of Indonesia. Company director JamesMoffett gained a mining licence in Papua in 1967 afteralleged bribery of the Indonesian dictator GeneralMohammed Suharto (see Kenny, 2006). In a specialinvestigative report, the New York Times noted that:

Freeport has built what amounts to an entirelynew society and economy, all of its own making.Where nary a road existed, Freeport, with the helpof the San Francisco-based construction companyBechtel, built virtually every stitch of infrastruc-ture over impossible terrain in engineering featsthat it boasts are unparalleled on the planet.

(see also Kenny, 2006)

The taking and making of Papua by the Freeporttransnational has been dominant in its effects. Freeporthave ordered and bordered their mine and the areaaround it in line with the cultural logic of capitalism.Since 1996, Freeport have paid the Indonesian militaryto remove indigenous people from the areas surround-ing the mine, (b)ordering them away from ancestral

homelands. The several thousand Amungme andKamoro people who lived in the area were relocatedinto refugee settlements, as well as gravitating to themining town of Timika, previously home to a smallpopulation. As the New York Times reported: ‘NowTimika is home to more than 100,000 in a Wild Westatmosphere of too much alcohol, shootouts, AIDS and prostitution, protected by the military’ (see Kenny,2006). Without access to their traditional land and with little prospect of employment, the local people arelosing their social and cultural cohesiveness. Alcoholabuse and drug dependencies are more common. Thishas led to what some have called ‘cultural genocide’ (formore on cultural genocide, see Chapter 8).

In May 2000, Australia’s Mineral Policy Institutedescribed Freeport’s mine as having ‘the world’s worstrecord of human rights violations and environmentaldestruction’. In 2005, CEO James Moffet declared his income to be $64.8 million. Between 1992 and2004 Freeport contributed $33 billion in direct and indirect benefits to the Indonesian government,approximately 2 per cent of GDP. The dominatingpower of this transnational corporation, over and abovethe national government, raises questions about who really orders and borders the place of Papua,Indonesia. More broadly, is it corporations that nowrule the world?

Box 6.6

CULTURAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL (B )ORDERS OF FREEPORT MINE, INDONESIA

The detailed plan is clear. At 7 a.m. today, the 20 people who make up the ‘Ivy Dog Shit Cluster’will run amok in sector D, the north of Seattle. Theywill be followed by the ‘Superheroes’, the ‘FlamingDildos’ and the ‘Red Noses’. Meanwhile in SectorG, the ‘Eugene Anarchists’, the ‘Sky Cruisers’ and‘Radical Emma’ will lead 300 turtles, plus cows and butterflies, into the Battle of Seattle. Backed by flying squads of doctors, lawyers and journalists,they will link with 80 other protest groups in 10other sectors, converging in marches of up to50,000.

(Vidal, 1999)

Who would have thought, even a year ago, that sixty thousand people would turn to greet delegatesof the World Trade Organisation? Who’d havethought that trade unionists would be marchingwith environmentalists – people dressed as turtlesmarching with sacked steelworkers, the topless lesbian avengers mingling with farmers? Church-goers with the anarchist black-block? The massprotests helped focus worldwide attention on whatthe WTO really stands for – and it crumbled under the pressure. Forget all their talk about ‘free trade,’the WTO is nothing more than a nasty littleorganisation fighting for the rights of multinationalorganisations to dismantle every country’s labourand environmental laws.

(SchNEWS, 1999)

Resistance activity against corporate capitalism hasbecome rife since the 1990s. From Seattle, where ‘super-heroes’ and ‘flaming dildos’ met with turtles and lesbianavengers, to Genoa, Venezuela, Prague, and probablysomewhere close to where you live, there have beenprotests against the growing power of corporate capital-ism and its effects on cultural geography. On 1 May2000, for example, there were anti-capitalism protests in75 cities on 6 continents of the world. As Buttel (2003)notes, these have occurred not just in developed nations,but in all areas of the globe:

While we in the North almost always presume thatthe essence of the movement is that of periodic

protests by citizen-protesters from OECD countriesagainst institutions located in the North (such as the WTO, World Bank, IMF, or G8) or corp-orations headquartered in the North, the lion’s shareof protests have actually occurred in the globalSouth. Protests have been particularly common inBolivia, Argentina, Thailand, India, Brazil, andIndonesia.

Taking a culturally geographical approach to place wecan interrogate these resistance activities against corporatecapitalism. We can ask, what do these cultural tracesstand for, and how should we understand their challengeto corporate capitalism?

DENATURALISING CAPITALISM

Anti-capitalist activities combine a range of groups includ-ing the environmental movement, peace and humanrights groups, the women’s movement, developmentgroups, and union representatives. As we have seen, theyoccur in places across the world, including both the‘north’ and ‘south’. The diverse and international natureof these resistance activities have led many to identify theparadox of an apparently ‘anti-globalisation’ movementbeing itself global in its reach and scope. However, as Klein (2002: XV–XVI) argues, the globalisation ofresistance was almost inevitable due to the tangibility of the affects of corporate capitalism on many across the world.

The irony of the media-imposed label ‘anti-globalisation’ is that we in this movement have been turning globalisation into a lived reality,perhaps more so than even the most multinationalof corporate executives or the most restless jet-setters. . . . Like so many others, I have beenglobalised by this movement.

From Klein’s perspective, the naming of this move-ment as ‘anti-globalisation’ was something imposed bymedia actors. As we have seen, the ‘power to define’ is an important aspect of cultural geography, conferring a particular value and meaning to groups and theiractivities. In one sense, the ‘anti-globalisation’ label is

COUNTER-CULTURES80

accurate; these movements stand against the increasingcommodification of local cultures by corporations actingon a global scale. However, the irony identified in an‘anti-globalisation’ movement operating on a global scale cannot be escaped. Perhaps this imposition of thismoniker by the media is thus an attempt to satirise andrender impotent these resistant groups? In any case, from Klein’s point of view, the global element of theseresistant activities is vital to their cause. From herperspective: ‘the face-off is not between globalisers andprotectionists but between two radically different visionsof globalisation’ (2002: 6). So from this view, protestersare not ‘anti-’ globalisation, but ‘pro’ a different form of globalisation. Wallach emphasises this point:

Our movement is at a turning point . . . They labelus ‘anti’ – we have to shake off the label. We’re fordemocracy, for diversity, for equity, for environ-mental health. They’re holding on to a failed statusquo; they’re the ‘anti’s. They are anti-democracy andanti-people. We must go forward as a movement forglobal justice.

(cited in Kingsnorth, 2003: 219)

Thus we can see that these resistance activities have both a progressive and repressive dimension to them(they seek to forward particular cultural ideas and resist others). It seems these activities are ‘anti’ com-modification by corporate capitalists and dominantcountries, and for a redistribution and redirection of their power; as the following examples go some way toillustrate:

We may feel intimidated and overwhelmed by their[corporations’ and countries’] sheer size and power,but it is in the essence of capitalism that their poweris already ours. We are the ones that create theirwealth – we have only to redirect that wealth cre-ation in the interests of all. . . . This is the meaningof anti-capitalism – the promise of moving beyondcapitalism to a more radically democratic, self-governing, self-sustaining world.

(Bircham, 2001: 3)

‘Capitalism’ is a word which emerged in the eigh-teenth century to describe a system in which a few

control production to the exclusion of the many.The crucial point to understand is that capitalismand a true market economy are not the same thing.In a true market economy, many small firms, rootedin real communities, trade and compete with eachother. Under capitalism, large, rootless transnationalcorporations with no responsibility to anyone buttheir shareholders destroy real market economiesand monopolise production. Let’s be clear here – the idea is precisely to abolish capitalism, and withit the institutional form of the limited liabilitycorporation.

(Korten, cited in Kingsnorth 2003: 213)

ANTI-CAPITALISM: WHAT DOES IT STAND FOR?

We can see therefore, that this movement seeks to nameitself as ‘anti-capitalist’ and, due to this stance, stands fora significant change to capitalist’s cultural (b)orders. AsJordan observes, there is something ‘culturally transfor-mative’ about this movement (2002: 95), or in the wordsof Jennifer from the Infernal Noise Brigade (a musicensemble set up to provide the musical accompanimentto protests in Prague), ‘I don’t just want to edit whatalready exists, I want an entirely new revolutionary world’(BBC, 2000).

However it remains unclear what this ‘entirely newrevolutionary world’ seeks to be. Some elements of it are emerging (see Box 6.7), but there are few preciseintentions and thought-through objectives for thismovement. That, to the anti-capitalists themselves, isprecisely the point: in the words of Zapatistan ‘leader’Subcomandante Marcos, their aims ‘don’t fit in thepresent, but are made to fit into a puzzle that is yet to befinished’ (cited in Jordan, 2002: 40). Their potencytherefore lies in the sense that an alternative is possible,at least when they are involved in action:

The first time I participated in one of these countersummits, I remember having the distinct feeling thatsome sort of political portal was opening up – agateway, a window, a ‘crack in history’, to useSubcomandante Marcos’s beautiful phrase. This had

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little to do with the broken window at the localMcDonald’s, the image so favoured by televisioncameras; it was something else: a sense of possibility,a blast of fresh air, oxygen rushing to the brain.These protests – which are actually week-longmarathons of intense education on global politics,late-night strategy sessions in six-way simultaneoustranslation, festivals of music and street-theatre – arelike stepping into a parallel universe. Overnight, thesite is transformed into a kind of alternative globalcity where urgency replaces resignation, corporatelogos need armed guard, people usurp cars, art is

everywhere, strangers talk to each other, and theprospect of radical change in political course doesnot seem like an odd and anachronistic idea but themost logical thought in the world.

(Klein, 2002: XXIV)

Through practice therefore activists are taking andmaking places that were once controlled and givenmeaning by capitalist interests, and re-imbuing themwith alternative meanings and values. As one activist inLondon put it, ‘on eighteenth June we owned this placefor a day. Totally owned it. It was magic’ (BBC, 2000).

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From the perspective of those within it, part of theprogressive agenda for this ‘anti-capitalist’ movementis adopting a different approach to the practice ofpower. As Kingsnorth puts it (2003: 31):

Autonomy is clearly a key part of it. Every [protester] you talk to will tell you that autonomy– real, local control of their community, eco-nomically and politically – is a hard-fought-forprinciple, rather than an expedient political move.They will tell you, too, that autonomy doesn’t for them mean independence, dropping out,isolation – it means control of their own destinies.Linked with that is the commitment to com-munity democracy – real control, by all, atcommunity level, however difficult it may be toimplement.

This approach to power, for people ‘doing it forthemselves’, is very different from the indirect form of representation many citizens participate withindemocratic countries, and far removed from individualssuffering under dictatorships or military juntas. This form of autonomy when devolved down to theindividual level involves the re-creation of power struc-tures and decision-making. Instead of ‘organisation’

this is commonly known as ‘disorganisation’. Suchdisorganisations replace hierarchies of decision-makingwith ‘flat’ structures where there are no conventionalleaders. As Jordan puts it, these,

Flat heirarchies [enable] co-ordination [so] all who want to participate do so. [They are an]ethical statement. They are a belief that all whoparticipate in a dis/organisation have something(not necessarily the same thing) to contribute and that forms of co-ordination must strive todraw all the worth they can from everyone’s contribution . . . as well as leaving space forspontaneous reinterpretation of actions . . . thereis no privileged decision-making point.

(2002: 69/70)

This disorganisation, alongside the lack of nominateddecision-maker or decision-making point makes the actions of disorganisations difficult to predict – and therefore difficult to know where this form ofresistant activity will end up. Will it involve revolutionor recuperation (see below for an explanation of thelatter idea)? Due to this unpredictability, it also makesthis movement difficult to control, as the followingsection outlines.

Box 6.7

POWER AND DIS/ORGANISATION IN ANTI -CAPITAL IST MOVEMENTS

SUMMARY

We have always been told that what they callglobalisation is an inevitable process. What we havedone as a movement is to clearly demonstrate thatit is not – that it is something manufactured by aspecific set of interests and sold to us as somethingirresistible.

(Lori Wallach, US Trade Lawyer from ‘PublicCitizen’ watchdog, in Kingsnorth, 2003: 220)

We can see that the cultural traces of anti-capitalismtransgress the (b)orders established by processes of corpo-rate commodification. In practising resistance, they turnits lines into question marks, challenging the inevitabilityof its way of taking and making place. Through theiraction they reveal capitalism to be simply one way oforganising economic and cultural activity rather than ‘theonly game in town’. The doxa of corporate capitalism is thus transmogrified through protest into a simpleorthodoxy, as ‘normal’ rather than ‘natural’, and as aconsequence the possibility of other ways of being arefacilitated. This process therefore makes doxa seem likeorthodoxy, then turns orthodoxy into ‘somethingmanufactured by a specific set of interests and sold to usas something irresistible’. Through a combination ofaction and intuition, activist have ‘take[n] down the firstfences – on the streets and in their minds’, and replacedthem with a new set of (b)orders that represent a new wayof being (see Box 6.8, pp. 84–6).

THE CONSEQUENCES OF ANTI-CAPITALISM

Dominating groups within the culture of corporatecapitalism respond to anti-capitalist protests in a numberof ways. As activists have started using the term ‘anti-capitalism’ (rather than say ‘anti-globalisation’), so thedominant culture has started to adopt this terminologytoo. This is significant in two senses. First, the anti-capitalists are beginning to influence the terms of thedebate, thus the ‘power to define’ has subtly shiftedbetween groups. Second, due to this shift in terms andpower, so the debate itself has changed. Instead of its

being solely about ‘terrorism’ or tactics, it is aboutcapitalism and the Bretton Woods organisations. Thusthe debate is no longer simply about the culture of anti-capitalism, but the culture of capitalism itself.

The radical anarchist contingent the Black Blocrenamed itself the Anti-Capitalist Bloc. Collegestudents wrote in chalk on the sidewalks: ‘If you think the IMF and World Bank are scary, waituntil you hear about capitalism.’ The frat boys at American University responded with their ownslogans, written on placards and hung in their win-dows: ‘Capitalism bought you prosperity. Embraceit!’ Even the Sunday pundits on CNN started sayingthe word ‘capitalism’ instead of just ‘the economy’.

. . . After more than a decade of uncheckedtriumphalism, capitalism (as opposed to euphemismssuch as ‘globalisation’, ‘corporate rule’ or ‘the grow-ing gap between rich and poor’) has reemerged as alegitimate subject of public debate.

(Klein, 2002: 12)

In this move we can see the first step perhaps in the shiftin trace meanings from ‘natural’, to ‘normal’, not simplyby the anti-capitalist movement, but by the dominantcapitalist culture too. As Smith suggests, these actionshave led to the traces of ‘free trade, globalization, andneoliberalism . . . unmasked [within the mainstream] associal and political projects with decisive agendas,masquerading as economic inevitabilities’ (2000: 2). Thiserosion of doxa has not perhaps gone so far as alteringthe balance of dominating power away from capitalism,but it is significant nonetheless: the doxa is now beingdebated (see Box 6.9, p. 86).

Changes in these debates have set in motion furthertrace-chains in different places. Dominating authoritiesin some places have sought to resist anti-capitalism byadopting more repressive and violent policing towards it. In protests in Genoa, for example, where 200,000activists gathered, dozens were hospitalised during clasheswith police, whilst one protester was killed (Hooper,2008). These responses to anti-capitalist activity representan attempt to redraw the (b)orders between groups andvalues by re-emphasising who has the dominant abilityto determine places. However, these re-tracings also

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COUNTER-CULTURES84

When analysing these resistance traces it is alsoimportant to examine the tactics used to represent the ideas of these cultural groups. With such a ‘disor-ganised’ movement these tactics are suitably diverse and always developing. However, insight into the rangeof tactics used to take and make place can be gainedfrom studying protests in Seattle (1999) and Prague(2000). At these events, three clear strategies wereadopted.

Pink party

The first strategy was to take and make place througha party. Following in the tradition of Mardi Gras,carnivals, and street parties against cars and capitalismin the UK and across Europe, this strategy involvedmusic and dancing and simply through weight ofnumbers, revelry and humour, a new place would becreated through their traces in the city streets.

Yellow non-violent civil disobedience

The second strategy was more confrontational, yetmaintained a non-violent commitment to both peopleand property. Activists dressed up in foam suits to

Box 6.8

THE METHODS AND MEANS OF TAKING PLACE IN ANTI -CAPITAL ISM

Pink 3

Pink 4

Pink 1

Pink 2

85COUNTER-CULTURES

accentuate their passivity in the face of any securityforce or riot police charges, but were intent on bearingwitness to the WTO meeting and drawing attention to the cultural objectives being forwarded by this group.

Black bloc: taking and making offence/a fence

The final strategy involved ‘black bloc’ tactics withbalaclava-ed activists taking the fight to who they seeas the representatives of corporate capitalism. For theirprotest they literally took and made place by removingpaving stones, destroying shop windows, and fightingriot police. Violence to property and people is thus partand parcel of this tactical strategy.


Yellow 1

Yellow 2

Yellow 3

Black 1

Black 2

have the effect of backfiring on capitalism and theinstitutions that defend it. By underlining their authoritythrough violence and repression, capitalism and the statemake themselves seem at once powerful, but also underthreat.

A further way in which capitalist culture has respondedto this resistant activity is through attempting to ‘recup-erate’ it. Recuperation is a process where groups,

appropriate antagonistic expressions and renderthem harmless through transformations and inte-gration into some form of commodity.

(Aufheben, 1996: 34)

Recuperation then is an extension of the process ofcommodification. Recuperation not only packages upcultural life into a saleable commodity, it also transforms

COUNTER-CULTURES86

Bruno Latour outlines the culturally transformativeshift from traces being valued as ‘natural’ to ‘normal’,or ‘normal’ to ‘natural’ in the following quotation:

Take some small business owner hesitatingly goingafter a few modest shares, some conqueror trem-bling with fever, some poor scientist tinkering in his lab, a lowly engineer piecing together a few more or less favourable relationships or forces, some strutting and fearful politician: turnthe critics loose on them, and what do you get?Capitalism, Imperialism, Science, Technology,

Domination – all equally absolute, systematic,totalitarian. In the first scenario, the actors weretrembling, in the second, they are not. The actorsin the first scenario could be defeated; in thesecond, they no longer can.

(Latour, 1993: 125/6)

Through anti-capitalist protests, we can see how the(b)orders and values of corporate capitalism are beingdestabilised. Debate is being held over its nature,substance and power, and thus the scenario is madepossible where it could be defeated.

Box 6.9

DEBATING AND DESTABIL IS ING DOXA

The diversity of the anti-capitalist movement isrepresented in this broad array of tactical choices forresistance. Each give a different timbre and feel to thebroader objectives of the movement, and the type of world it seeks to create. I’m sure every one of us will respond to each strategy differently, revealingsomething about our own cultural disposition, as wellas the activists’. Indeed, our and others’ responses tothese tactics become crucial to the subsequent trace-chains that are generated by these actions.


Black 3

the cultural activity through the process, removing anychallenging aspects and rendering the original culturalchallenge harmless. Recuperation therefore is effective attaming the threatening aspects of a cultural trace andabsorbing it back into the main cultural system. Anexample of this recuperation process in relation to anti-capitalism is outlined below (see Figure 6.2).

In this example, the ‘novelty’ of protest activity isrendered harmless by recuperating it back into thecultural mainstream. Here protest is associated withfashion and clothing products, thus reducing it to a trend,or a political expression that can be articulated throughconsumption. Here, therefore, capitalism has beensuccessful in not only neutering a threat, but also inforwarding its own cultural objectives in their place. In this way, recuperation is a form of ‘culture jamming’(see Jordan, 2000). Culture jamming is usually used byminority groups to undermine and subvert the meaningsand representations of dominant cultures. However, inthis case capitalist culture has ‘jammed’ anti-capitalistculture, commodifying it for its own ends.

Despite the relative successes of anti-capitalist protest,the example of recuperation illustrates how pervasivecapitalist culture can be. Its durability and inventivenessallows many practices and products, however challengingand transgressive, to be absorbed within the system andthus commodified. This commodification retains tracesof the transgressive meanings of the original, but with

their absolute challenge disarmed. Perhaps these ‘carnivalsof anti-capitalism’ become therefore an anti-capitalismcarnivalesque? Massey ponders this conundrum when shestates, ‘it is sometimes hard to see how resistance can bemounted without its subsequently, and so quickly, beingrecuperated’ (2000: 281).

CONCLUSION

Someday I want to be rich. Some people get so richthey lose all respect for humanity. That’s how richI want to be.

(Rita Rudner, Comedian)

We’ve seen in this chapter how capitalism is both an economic and a cultural system. The globalisation of capitalism has resulted in corporations having agrowing influence; some would argue dominating power,in taking and making places across the world. Culturesof (corporate) capitalism have thus had the effect ofwielding significant power over local communities andnation states; they have generated new dependencies,challenged traditional democracies, and commodifiedcultures and places. We have also seen, however, how(corporate) capitalism has bred new ways in which thetraces of its culture are being judged and resistance tothem practised. By transgressing the (b)orders of capitalistculture (either through satire in the case in Rita Rudner,through naming, non-violence, or full frontal attack), itsorthodoxies are revealed and raised into debate.

We can, and perhaps have to, make our own cases asto whether capitalist traces deserve to be dominant,maintained or changed. How could alternatives beimagined? Can different notions of value offer a sub-stitution to economic trading (e.g. ‘time’ dollars, seeBoyle, 2000)? Is resistance of any sort futile to the ‘onlygame in town’? By adopting a culturally geographicalapproach to capitalism we can ask what traces do each of us make that (un)intentionally support either capi-talism or anti-capitalism? What traces do you, and the wider public, want to contribute to either culture, andwhat trade-offs (in terms of violence, freedom or democ-racy, for example) are acceptable in moving towards these ends?

87COUNTER-CULTURES

Figure 6.2 Diesel ‘protest’

SUGGESTED READINGS


Books

Marx, K. and Engels, F. (1984) Collected Works.Lawrence and Wishart: London.

For a classic critique of capitalism look no further than Marxand Engels, in particular the Communist Manifesto.

Ritzer, G. (ed.) (2002) McDonaldisation: The Reader.Pine Forge Press: Thousand Oaks.

Ritzer’s edited volume outlines what he sees as the‘McDonaldisation’ of global cultures by trans nationalcorporations.

Klein, N. (2001) No Logo ®. Flamingo: London.

Klein, N. (2002) Fences and Windows: Dispatches fromthe Front Lines of the Globalisation Debate. Flamingo:London.

Klein offers a more journalistic perspective on front lineprotests against corporate globalisation, but adopts an oftenexplicitly geographical perspective in her arguments.

Kingsnorth, P. (2003) One No, Many Yeses: A Journey tothe Heart of the Global Resistance Movement. Free Press:London.

Kingsnorth offers one of many insights into the range of protests against capitalist culture occurring across theplanet.

Journals

Jackson, P. (2004) Local consumption cultures in aglobalizing world. Transactions of the Institute of BritishGeographers, 29 (2), 165–78.

Jackson argues how global capitalism can be indigenised intolocal contexts, whilst Smith (et al.) give their reactions to theglobal protests in their local places:

Smith, N. (2000) Guest editorials: Global Seattle.Environment and Planning D, Society and Space, 18 1–5.

Websites

Information on the birth, development and impact of corporate capitalism can be found at http://www.thecorporation.com/ whilst a range of websites offer up to theminute news and reactions to campaigns; these includeSchNEWS.org and Infoshop.org.

COUNTER-CULTURES88

INTRODUCTION

As we have argued throughout this book, places areongoing compositions of traces. These traces can be bothmaterial and mental in nature. They can take physicalshape as things, events, and processes, and they caninvolve emotional, intellectual, and psychological con-nections. As we will see in this chapter, how differentgroups think and feel about places is as important as thephysical form places take. This is because our thoughtsand feelings about place often directly influence how we act in the cultural world. Nature is a key example ofthis process. In this chapter we explore how our thoughtsand feelings about nature influence how we take andmake its places.

Let’s begin with an example: the place of Uluru,Northern Territory, Australia (see Figure 7.1). Uluru isa place. Materially it’s a rock of natural sandstone inNorthern Territory, Australia. To the white settlers of the nineteenth century it was named Ayers Rock bysurveyor William Gosse, after the Chief Secretary ofCentral Australia, Henry Ayers. To the Aboriginalpeople, it is called Uluru. To many it’s a place of tourismand commodification (Uluru attracts 400,000 visitors a

year (Popic, 2005)), to others it’s a sacred place, similarto a synagogue or sanctuary. To some it offers a physicalchallenge, to others a place of worship, or it is simply arock in the middle of nowhere. How should we makesense of this ‘place of nature’? How should we act in it?Should it be protected or exploited? Should it beworshipped, or climbed? (See Box 7.1, p. 90.)

Uluru then is a place of nature. But this natural place is (b)ordered by a range of often conflicting cultural meanings. Nature here represents tribal ideas of

7

THE PLACE OF NATURE

Figure 7.1 The place of Uluru

sacredness and dreamtime, as well as national ideals ofadventure. Each set of (b)orders seeks to imposeparticular rules of behaviour on the rock, permittingcertain actions but outlawing others. Where do thesecompeting ideas come from? Can they be balanced? Howwould you adjudicate between them? We can see that,

according to survey data, Europeans are more sensitiveand sympathetic to the Aboriginal culture’s constructionof the rock, perhaps acknowledging the similarity of thisnatural entity to the cultural entities of the Acropolis andthe Pyramids. (As Rosalind King, curator of the OctoberGallery, London, puts it, ‘It’s a sacred site. It would be

THE PLACE OF NATURE90

As Popic (2005) documents,

Climbing the rock is now a point of contentionbetween two different cultures. The Anangu, thelocal Aboriginal people who in the 1980s wererecognised as the traditional owners of the areacovered by Uluru Kata-Tjuta national park, do not want visitors to climb Uluru. Under tradi-tional law, climbing is prohibited to everyoneexcept senior men initiated into Anangu culture.. . . ‘That’s a really important sacred thing that you are climbing,’ says one senior traditionalowner. ‘You shouldn’t climb. It’s not the real thingabout this place. The real thing is listening toeverything . . . This is the proper way.’ And the message of culturally sensitive tourism appearsto be getting through. Surveys conducted bygeographer Richard Baker from the AustralianNational University showed the number of peoplewho climbed or intended to climb Uluru, hadfallen from 43 per cent of park visitors in 2003 to 35.5 per cent in 2004. Interestingly, Bakerfound that Australians and the Japanese were the most keen to climb the ancient rock, whileEuropeans were the least likely.

But for many Australians, the issue evokesheartfelt feelings of cultural ownership and personal freedom. Ken Duncan, an Australian landscape photographer who has produced someof the most iconic shots of Uluru since the 1980s, is fervently against any ban on the climb. ‘Of course people should be able to climb it,’ he

says. ‘You know what we call it now? Ulu-rules.Aboriginal people have no more claim on it thanany other groups. We as Australians and as touristsare being locked out of this beautiful icon.’Although Parks Australia denies the suggestion,Duncan believes the powers-that-be will even-tually close the climb. ‘Where’s the adventure left in this country? I’m embarrassed to take mydaughter to a place that’s so sanitised, so con-trolled. It’s got to be spiritual to everyone, not justAboriginal people. It’s the heart of our nation.’

These claims of inclusiveness fail to take intoaccount the wishes of traditional owners, countersDavid Ross, director of the Central Land Councilwhich represents the Anangu. Aboriginal peoplehave had their claims disregarded for generations,he says, and points to the particular distress felt bytraditional owners at the large number of climberswho have met their death or been injured on theRock. ‘It’s like someone coming into your houseand dying in your living room. It’s not your faultbut you still feel bad about it. That stuff justdoesn’t seem to be taken into account.’ Accordingto Parks Australia, 35 people have died whileclimbing since the 1980s, while scores of othershave been injured. Ross believes what is needed isa different kind of respect for this national icon,particularly from Australians, many of whomconsider it their birthright to climb. ‘You can’tclimb over the Acropolis any more,’ he says. ‘Youcan’t climb the Pyramids, so how come you canstill climb the rock?’

Box 7.1

SHOULD YOU CL IMB ULURU?

like walking into a church and trampling all over thealtar’ (see Popic, 2005). However, the Japanese tend tobe more sympathetic to the settler community’s construc-tion of Uluru. Why is nature seen as a playground for human activity by these groups? Whose Ulu-rulesshould rule? Should Aboriginal people decide on how therock is used, just because they were there first?

The case of Uluru illustrates that the place of natureis looked at very differently by different cultures. In thischapter we will investigate the different cultural (b)order-ings of nature. We will see that dominant ideas of nature(from a western perspective at least) border it outside andapart from human culture. We will see how this view isused to create a variety of ‘common sense’ actions in the natural world: some groups seek to ‘protect’ nature,some to ‘control’ it, and some to ‘exploit’ it. However,many cultures challenge this dominant idea of nature.Alternative (often non-western) ideas of nature see thenatural world not as apart from human culture, but,rather, as thoroughly imbued by it (and vice versa). Theseideas of nature prompt us to freshly consider how we feelabout nature, as well as the contributions that we maketo the ongoing composition of ‘natural’ places. In otherwords, they affect our decision about whether we shouldclimb Uluru.

The nature of nature

What is ‘nature’ to you? Perhaps what springs into ourhearts and minds is a favourite environment, an imagefrom our youth, or from a ‘nature’ documentary off the telly. We might not be able to put it into words acoherent answer to the question, ‘what is nature?’, butwe know ‘nature’ when we see it (perhaps even when wefeel it). From my own schooling, when we were asked tobring in ‘natural’ things into class, I remember someonebrought in their photos of the barren, windswept ScottishHighlands. To me, this was nature. But why? The only‘reasoning’ I could come up with was that these photoshad no human beings in them (the fact that I knew that there had to be a human there to take the photo I conveniently overlooked!). To me, then, nature wassomething where human culture was absent.

In this example lies not only the orthodox way inwhich the nature of nature has been framed in many

industrialised countries, but also the problem with it.Nature has been traditionally framed as somehow out-side or beyond culture. If culture is something humans construct, if it is something that humans do, then nature is something and somewhere they don’t. Nature is something pristine and unsullied by human interference;it has yet to be tainted by cultural ‘pollution’. So in this traditional framing there is a clear distinctionbetween nature on one hand, and culture on the other.This binary dichotomy separates the developed from thenatural, and the human from the non-human; it separatesculture from nature. Maskit outlines this point of view;from this perspective:

[Nature] must have a certain purity to it. It oftenmust have a certain remoteness to it. It should showno (or few) visible signs of civilisation – roads,houses, power lines, and the like are all things thatmake a place less wild.

(Maskit, 1998: 266)

The idea of nature being outside culture is the dominantway nature is framed in the west. It is the ‘natural’ wayin which people respond to questions about nature, oftenassuming that there is no other way in which nature canbe identified. The following comments echo this culturalperspective on the nature of nature:

B: What does [nature] mean to you?A: Mostly uninhabited land. I would not expect

to find much human activity there. I wouldn’texpect to find structures other than maybe a makeshift camp that somebody put up at one point in time. Where the flora are totally in control of what’s happening, and you’re definitely a guest when you show up.

I feel it means that there’s a place we can still go andget away from people and things, and everybody elsehasn’t been there and set up a McDonald’s already.

(Bertolas, 1998: 267)

The notion that humans are apart from, rather than apart of nature originated in the Judeo-Christian heritagethat dominates Renaissance- and modern-scientific views.In the pre-modern world, nature was understood as the

91THE PLACE OF NATURE

world of spirits and gods (as it remains in many aboriginalcultures today). Such divine and enchanted ways of look-ing at nature were displaced with the onset of Christianity(and, later, modern notions of science). Christianityregarded nature as created but not inhabited by God, and in God’s absence humans were assigned the role of controlling nature. This role has been interpreted as one of stewardship by some (see Attfield, 1991), butalso as a right to exploit by others (e.g. Francis Bacon, 1604).

As a consequence of this Judeo-Christian influencemany argue that the separation of human culture from

nature is profoundly ingrained in the West. As Castreeand MacMillan argue, this separation has become, ‘sofamiliar and fundamental to be unquestionable’ (2002:208). From their point of view, this bordering of naturehas become doxa. Such (b)ordering brings with it notonly geographical classification – nature is here, cultureis there – but also cultural expectations about how the material world of nature should be treated. Theseexpectations are outlined in the Box 7.2, 7.3, and 7.4 thatfollow. Each of these practices competes to be acceptedas the ‘common sense’ way to deal with the natural world.


If nature is other from culture then many argue natureshould be protected. Environmentalists and conserva-tionists argue that the independence of nature isvaluable, and as such nature should be valued in and of itself, regardless of its utility for humans. This‘ecocentric’ (Devall and Sessions, 1985), or ‘biocentric’(Goldsmith, 1996; Seed, 1988) approach often leads to the reinforcement of difference between nature and culture by ‘ring fencing’ nature protection intoparticular areas (such as national parks or naturereserves). Within these physical borders, humaninterference is limited. As these are areas reserved fornature, only certain human activities are deemed

appropriate (such as mild recreation or education).From this perspective, nature is a place to briefly visit,with specific routes for human traverse. Nature is nota place in which we make our lives, just our recreation(after White, 1995).

Box 7.2

NATURE AS OTHER TO HUMAN CULTURE: A PLACE TO BE PROTECTED

Fell Colley Hill


If nature is other from culture then some argue that itis not nature that should be protected from culture, butrather the other way around: it is humans and their culture that should be protected from nature. Herenature is framed as wild, uncontrolled and a threat tohumans; and as a consequence is a place that should be‘tamed’. This taming allows cultures to exert theircontrol over nature to pacify its threat. Thus rather thanhuman culture being excluded from places of nature, itis extended into them. Examples of this practice includeland defences to control the worst excesses of the wildocean, and the control of rivers to divert or limitflooding. The following extracts from McPhee’s bookThe Control of Nature (1989) go some way to illustratea number of ways in which nature is seen as a threat tohuman culture, and thus warrants particular measuresto control it.

A fascinating report from three battlefields inhumanity’s global war against nature.

(New York Times, Sleeve Blurb)

Three epic struggles with nature form the subjectof this book. Each takes place in a part of theworld where people assert their right to live,

despite nature’s stubborn refusal to provide theconditions for safe human existence.

(ibid.)

Unaware of the people who depend for a living onthe economy of the New Orleans and the Delta,the [Mississippi] river in one of its natural cyclesis trying to shift its mouth more than a hundredmiles to the west. The United States likes thingsas they are, and its Army Corps of Engineers hasdeclared war on nature. A gigantic fortress, partdam, part valve, attempts to restrain the river’sflow.

(ibid.)

Nature, in this place, had become an enemy of thestate.

(ibid.: 95)

Our opponent could cause the US to . . . lose herstanding as first among trading nations . . . we arefighting Mother Nature . . . it’s a battle we haveto fight day by day, year by year; the health of oureconomy depends on victory.

(Narrator of a US Army corps video, in ibid.: 98)

Box 7.3

NATURE AS OTHER TO HUMAN CULTURE: A PLACE TO BE TAMED

In framing nature as outside human culture, a thirdpractice suggests that the common sense way to dealwith nature is not to protect or tame it, but to exploitit. As a place yet to be influenced by human culture,nature offers a range of free resources that can be tappedby cultures to allow them to meet their own ends.Examples of this can be found in many places. Culturesexploit nature for its forestry products (e.g. timber and

land), its geological harvest (e.g. oil, gold, coal, heat),and increasingly its air space (e.g. wind energy). Thefollowing example illustrates how natural water coursescan be dramatically exploited by human culturethrough the construction of dams to provide hydro-electric power.

The Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze River(Figure 7.2) in China is the world’s largest hydro-

Box 7.4

NATURE AS OTHER TO HUMAN CULTURE: A PLACE TO BE EXPLOITED

The idea of nature being outside culture thus leads toa range of practices that compete to be accepted as the ‘common sense’ way to deal with the natural world.Ideas of protection, taming, and exploitation seem very different, but all resort to the idea of nature as somehowother than culture to forward their desired ends. AsCastree and Braun identify, all:

posit a foundational distinction between the socialand the natural and assumes that the latter is, atsome level, fixed and/or universal. Thus, where[environmentalists] urge us to ‘save’, ‘live in har-mony with’, or even ‘get back to’ nature, [developersmay] propose to ‘manage’, ‘control’, or ‘dominate’nature as if [it] were a domain different to, andseparate from, society.

(2001: 4–5)

Questions therefore arise as to how we should decide on the most appropriate way to deal with the materialworld of nature: should we protect, tame or exploit

nature, and why? These issues form the crux of culturallygeographical debates surrounding nature conservation,urban and industrial expansion, and sustainability. Wewill return to these important issues later in the chapter;at this point however we focus on the ‘problem’ with theorthodox idea about nature. As noted in the example ofthe Scottish Highlands photograph, due primarily to theabsence of people, this vast expanse seemed like natureto me. However, I conveniently forgot that a humanmust have been in the landscape in order to take the snap. Similarly, in all of the examples outlined above,whether they involve protection or exploitation, humansare in some way taking and making the place of nature.Whichever practice is chosen, all these actions areaffecting nature in a real sense. Even by simply recreatingin nature, humans have the effect of re-creating it. Thusdespite this dominant perspective bordering nature assomehow outside culture, we can see that through practicenature becomes thoroughly imbued by culture. Culture andnature are irrevocably intertwined.


electric project. The dam stands 185 m high and is 2.3km long. The reservoir created behind the damsubmerges 632 square km of land, and is 660 km long.The dam, when fully operational, provides 18,000

megawatts of electricity for China’s growing economy.The power of nature is thus harnessed by humanculture to forward the cultural need for power, indus-trialisation and capitalist expansion.


Three Gorges Park Three Gorges Dam Construction

Making Nature

The realisation that the material world of nature is thoroughly imbued by culture is something that thesocial sciences, including cultural geography, haveexplored in detail in recent years. Through practices of protection, taming, and exploitation, humankind has grown in its ability to fashion, mould and managethe natural world, in ever more absolute ways. As Castreeand Macmillan point out:

Nature is increasingly being reconstituted mate-rially, even down to the atomic level . . . nature isbeing physically ‘produced’.

(2002: 209)

Marxist geographers would consider this reconstitutionas the destruction of ‘first nature’ – the fall of a pristine,wild, and unsullied natural world, and the gradual trans-formation of this world into a resource for the capitalistsystem. ‘First nature’ is thus transformed into ‘secondnature’ – commodified as an input to the industrialsystem (e.g. coal as fuel, trees as timber, cows as meat,milk or leather producers), or into ‘third nature’, wherehumans manipulate the very genetic coding of non-human flora and fauna in order to gain more profitableor patentable commodities.

Such material reconstitution of nature has led manyto suggest that nature in its ‘traditional’ form – assomething outside of culture – no longer exists.McKibben, for example, heralds human’s transforma-tion of the natural world as the ‘end of nature’ (1989).He states,

We have changed the atmosphere and thus we arechanging the weather. By changing the weather, wemake every spot on earth man-made and artificial.. . . We have deprived nature of its independence,and that is fatal to its meaning. Nature’s indepen-dence is its meaning; without it there is nothing butus.

(McKibben, cited in White, 1995: 182, my emphasis)

However, if we begin to think of humans and nature as interacting – with humans to some extent making

nature through their cultural actions, we can also beginto consider how nature affects human cultures too (forexample through processes such as the weather, seasons,and droughts, through the threat of predators, throughthe opportunities for food, shelter, recreation etc.). Withthis reciprocal interaction in mind, can it really be saidthat nature is independent from human culture? Indeed,was it ever true that ‘nature’s independence is its mean-ing’? If we begin to seriously explore these questions then my common sense view of nature as outside cultureis challenged. I’ll have to look again at the naturalness of nature.

Challenging the nature of nature

As this book argues, from a culturally geographicalperspective we need to interrogate common sense becauseit is never anything of the kind. Common sense under-standings are not ‘natural’, even when they are about‘nature’; rather they are traces that are defined as such by a particular cultural group. As Wilson tells us, it isimportant to ‘play close attention . . . when our physicalsurroundings are sold to us as “natural” ’ (1991: 12).According to Whatmore (in Cloke et al., 1999: 4–11),when we consider nature we should remember that:

1 the representation of nature is not a neutral processthat simply provides a mirror image of a fixed reality,

2 representations of the natural world should not betaken at face value, they have social meaning,

3 there are many ways of seeing the same thing – needto situate ways of seeing in social and historicalcontexts of representation.

My initial response to the question ‘what is nature’ – anapparently human-less vista of the Scottish Highlands –is thus not a ‘natural’ response at all. It was a responseconditioned by the cultural context I have been broughtup in. I was conforming to the orthodox way that themajority of my culture consider nature – as somehowoutside human culture. However, if we look at othercultures we often see a very different approach to the ideaof nature.


Competing cultural approaches to the placeof nature

First Nations’ people in North America look upon thenatural world not as something outside them and theirculture, but as something connected both physically andpsychologically to their way of life. As the following CreeTribal Elder puts it:

RB: To some [wild nature] means an area where notmany people live.

CREE TRIBAL ELDER: Yes, that’s true. That’s why Idon’t like it.

RB: Is there a Cree word for wild [nature]?CC: No, we don’t – many times I’ve smiled about

that word, and I just shake my head at it. It’s aview from a different point of view. I say tomyself, ‘That’s the white people – lost totalspiritual contact with the world’. . . . Because itshome to me . . . it could never be ‘wilderness’.Like wilderness means somewhere you were lost.

(Bertolas, 1998: 106)

As Frawley recognises, the interconnectedness of natureand culture is also part and parcel of Aboriginal society:

For Aboriginal Australians, nature and culture areinextricably bound together in the Dreaming – the time when the world, including Aboriginalpeople and their law, was created. Belief systemsassociated with the Dreaming link specific placeswith Dreaming events, and give every person, livingand dead, a place within a physically and spirituallyunited world. The landscape is not, therefore, a composite of external physical objects, but is made up of culturally defined features of mythicalsignificance.

(1999: 272)

And in Haiti, nature and its species are central to cultural life:

When a child is born in the countryside, theumbilical cord may be saved and dried and plantedin the earth, with a pit from a fruit tree placed on

top of the cord. The tree that grows then belongs tothe child. And when the tree gives fruit in five or sixyears, that fruit is considered to be the property of the child, who can barter or sell it. Trees in Haiti are thus thought to protect children and are some-times referred to as the guardian angel of the child. However if the tree should die or grow in adeformed manner, that would be considered an evilomen for the child who owned the tree.

(Wolkstein, in Mcluhan, 1996: 86)

By broadening our outlook to see how other culturesenvisage nature, we can identify that, for them, natureisn’t apart from culture at all. Not only is it not apartfrom culture now (due to a growing human interferencemarking the end of a ‘first nature’), but also it never hasbeen whilst homo sapiens have existed. If we look to othercultures in this way we can see beyond our own dominantframings of nature. We can to begin to think of the relationships between humans and nature in a differentway.

BEFORE AND BEYOND NATURE-CULTURE

As we have seen, there are many ways to look at thenature of nature. The common sense view of nature inthe west may remain the ‘normal’ way many people seethe non-human world, yet alternative ideas can be foundin different cultures across the globe. These ideas focuson the ways nature and culture connect to one another,rather on how they are separate and distinct. In theseideas, they focus on how nature and culture are mutuallyproduced and entangled. An example of this new way offraming nature is outlined by White (1995: 184/5). Heoffers a new way of framing nature by first critiquing the orthodox view, cited by McKibben (above), and thenoffering his own alternative:

When McKibben writes about his work, he com-ments that his office and the mountain he views from it are separate parts of his life. They are un-connected. In the office he is in control; outside heis not. Beyond his office window is nature, separate


and independent. This is a clean division. Work andnature stand segregated and clearly distinguished.

But, unlike McKibben, I cannot see my labour asseparate from the mountains, and I know that mylabour is not truly disembodied. If I sat and typedhere day after day, as clerical workers type, withoutfrequent breaks to wander and look at the moun-tains, I would become achingly aware of my body.I might develop carpal tunnel syndrome. My body,the nature in me, would rebel. The lights on thisscreen need electricity, and this particular electricitycomes from dams on the Skagit or Colombia. Thesedams kill fish; they alter the rivers that come fromthe Rockies, Cascades, and Olympics. The elec-tricity they produce depends on the great seasonalcycles of the planet: on falling snow, melting waters,flowing rivers. In the end, these electrical impulseswill take tangible form on paper from trees. Nature,altered and changed, is in this room.

For White, then, nature is not something separate fromhis everyday existence, but something intimately con-nected to it. It facilitates, limits, threatens, and improveshis cultural life. In this view the place of nature is definedby its connections and ties to the places in which he lives.In a similar way to Massey’s Kilburn High Road, orseeing the world in our own street (see Chapter 4), herethe place of nature is both inside and outside his world,both intimate to it and abstract from it, both controllableand uncontrolled. In this perspective, therefore, a rangeof tracings can be identified between what once wasdeemed to be disparate culture and nature, and it is theparticular composition of these tracings that come todefine the place in question.

In this view, both nature as an idea and nature as amateriality are deemed inherently connected to the cul-tural world, and vice versa. Places are therefore ongoingcompositions of traces that are not wholly ‘cultural’ in alimited sense (just of human construction), or wholly‘natural’ (just of non-human construction). Instead weneed to diagnose the different traces that are made in eachplace, the different human and non-human trace-makers,critically examining (as far as possible) their intentions,outcomes, and the meanings given to them by the actorsinvolved.

SOCIONATURE

One geographer who has undertaken such an approachis Eric Swyngedouw (1999). In his study on how watercan be (b)ordered, he coins the term ‘socionature’ inorder to illustrate how just one container of water can betraced to include the intimate and the abstract, as well asthe human and non-human.

For example, if I were to capture some water in acup and excavate the networks that brought it there,‘I would pass with continuity from the local to theglobal, from the human to the nonhuman’ (Latour,1993, 121). These flows would narrate interrelatedtales . . . of social groups and classes and the power-ful socioecological processes that produce socialspaces of privilege and exclusion, of participationand marginality; chemical, physical, and biologicalreactions and transformations, the global hydrologi-cal cycle, and global warming; capital, machinations,and the strategies and knowledges of dam builders,urban land developers, and engineers; the passagefrom river to urban reservoir, and the geopoliticalstruggles between regions and nations. In sum,water embodies multiple tales of socionature ashybrid.

(1999: 445/6)

It is possible for us to take a place familiar to us and tracethe cultural and the natural influences that compose itssubstance both in terms of it material form, but also themeanings associated with it. Adopting this perspectivethus no longer focuses on ourselves and nature, butourselves-in-nature, and indeed nature-in-ourselves (asWhite notes, above). In other words, it reminds us of the‘constitutive coingredience’ of people and place (seeBoxes 7.5 and 7.6).

Viewing nature as ‘socionature’ thus requires a furtherrefocusing on how we should think about the places ofnature – not as general types, but as specific compositionsof unique traces. Coupled to this, it also requires a furtherrefocusing about how we should act in the places ofnature: how do we contribute to these ongoing com-positions, should we protect or develop the uniqueconnections found in this place? However, this perspective



In these photos, the ancient temples of Ankhor Wat,Cambodia, are literally entangled by the roots oftropical trees. These roots often dwarf the impressivetemple structures, in some cases destroying the walls,in others supporting them. Here nature and culture are irrevocably intertwined.

Box 7.5

TEMPLES AND TREES IN ANKHOR WAT, CAMBODIA

At Lake Minnewanka, near Banff, Canada (below left),the sign on the foreshore (below right) explains howhuman culture and nature has interacted in this place.The sign reads (in English and French) as follows: ‘LakeMinnewanka – A compromise with nature. This lakehas been artificially raised twice: 16’ by the Devil’sCanyon Dam in 1912 and an additional 95’ in 1941.Beneath these quiet waters lie the remains of the old

dam across Devil’s Canyon, off the point across the baythe foundations of the old village at Minnewankalanding lie preserved beneath many fathoms of water.The natural scene has been altered but nature has donemuch to heal the scars wrought by man.’ Here natureis deemed to be an aesthetic balm remedying the uglyinterventions of humans. It is in this way that humansand nature interact in Minnewanka.

Box 7.6

A ‘COMPROMISE’ WITH NATURE: HUMANS AND NATURE AT LAKEMINNEWANKA, BANFF, CANADA

Ankhor

Ankhor



In the case of the Grand Canyon, Arizona, Stephen Pyne (1998) argues that the natural and cultural arecoingredient in how this ongoing composition isunderstood.

The canyon . . . most visitors actually see [is] acultural canyon, the Grand Canyon as a place withmeaning. This landscape has been shaped by ideas,words, images, and experiences. Instead of faults,rivers, and mass wasting, the processes at workinvolve geopolitical upheavals and the swell of

empires, the flow of art, literature, science, andphilosophy, the chisel of mind against matter.These determine the shape of Canyon meaning. . . and that meaning depends less on the scene’sphysical geography than on the ideas throughwhich it can be viewed and imagined. These ideasare not something added . . . like a coat of paint,or taken from it, like a snapshot, any more thanthe river was something added to a prefabricatedgorge. They have actively shaped the Canyon’smeaning, without which it could hardly exist as acultural spectacle.

(Pyne, 1998: XII–XIII)

Box 7.7

‘HOW THE CANYON BECAME GRAND’

Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon

Minnewanka

also gives us the opportunity to refocus our attention awayfrom how we ‘know’ nature in a narrow representationalsense (for example nature simply stands for the ‘other’)and begin to consider our understandings of naturebeyond the representational (see Chapter 3). How does thesocionature in specific places make us feel? How can wesense the ongoing composition of socionature?

‘PLACE MUST BE FELT TO MAKESENSE’ (DAVIDSON AND MILLIGAN,2004: 524)

We ought to say of [nature] not only – this is whatit looks like, but, this is how I feel it.

(Watson, 1983: 392)

As we saw in Chapter 3, engaging with the more-thanrepresentational is important to understand the relationalconnections humans have with their world. From thisperspective, the places of nature ‘must be felt to makesense’. When we imagined nature in the question askedat the beginning of this chapter, part of this answer wouldhave involved how we felt in the face of our ideas ofnature. For me, the windswept expanses of the ScottishHighlands make me feel liberated, open to the elementsand at once energised, but perhaps slightly humbled and scared by the immensity of the landscape, thecenturies over which it has evolved, and my insignificancein the face of it. Places, and their natural and culturalcompositions, then involve a relational sensibility. Theyprovoke emotions that define and connect nature andculture together (see Box 7.8).


There follows a number of extracts which highlighthow some people articulate their relational sensibilityto socionature.

Thinking back . . . I appreciate why I come to themountains; not to conquer them but to immersemyself in their incomprehensible immensity. . . . There is something about mountains thatmove the soul. They arouse a powerful sense ofspiritual awareness and a notion of our own tran-sient and fragile mortality and our insignificantplace in the universe. They have about them anethereal, evocative addiction that I find impossibleto resist. They are an infuriating and fascinatingcontradiction. Climbing rarely makes sense butnearly always feels right.

(Simpson, 2003: 58)

I was standing on the bridge, not sitting, and it[the muskrat] saw me. It changed its course, veeredtowards the bank, and disappeared behind anindentation in the rushy shoreline. I felt a rush of

such pure energy I thought I would not need tobreathe for days.

(Dillard, 1975: 171)

Aboriginal cultures talk in different ways about theirrelational sensibilities to nature. With experiencegathered by hunting and living in the natural world,their knowledge is built up through practical tasksrather than recreation (see Ingold, 1993). This knowl-edge is often articulated in stories, with places, spiritsand culture woven together into their fabric. In thefollowing extract, Jack McPhee (1989: 113), an aborigi-nal elder living in Australia, tells of his emotional andspiritual engagement with the natural world:

A place could be a cave, rock, a pool, anywherewhere a big snake could be or where he comes nowand then. I’m not talking about a real snake in thesense of something you can see, I’m talking abouta very old spiritual thing. . . . Our sacred sites aremore to do with the spirits, and they can’t be datedbecause they’ve always been there. There used to

Box 7.8

THIS IS HOW I FEEL I T

HOW SHOULD WE ACT IN PLACE?

[H]ow can we defend some uses (and non-uses) of nature over others? How can we protect the environment if everything is up for grabs?

(Cronon, 1995: foreword)

If places are ongoing compositions of the natural and thecultural, prompting a range of relational sensibilities andemotional responses, we return inevitably to the keyquestion we raised at the beginning of this chapter: shouldwe climb Uluru? In other words, how should we con-tribute to the entangled traces in the ‘place of nature’?What cultural ideas of nature should we support, whattraces should we leave, and how do these affect the natureof that place?

To some extent the orthodox view of nature as outsideand distinct from culture helps us answer this question.By creating an external reality outside culture we have aguide to which our actions in nature can be compared(in a similar way to how Ratzel and Kropotkin did in thenineteenth century, see Chapter 2). From this compari-son, we can make an argument as to what practices areappropriate in nature (i.e. protection, taming or exploita-tion). However, if we accept that culture and nature havealways been subject to ongoing mutual interference wecan no longer ‘step outside culture’ to understand natureas a separate entity. This leaves us with no ‘right’ answer

as to how we should act in nature. How we treat naturaltraces is up for grabs. What should we do? Are naturaltraces more important than cultural ones? If so, whatactions does this legitimate? Are cultural traces moreimportant than natural ones? In what circumstances,where? (see Box 7.9, p. 102).

How we choose to act in nature, or whether we decideto climb Uluru, thus says something not only aboutourselves, our own culture, but also about how we valuethe cultures of others. It says something about how wevalue nature as an idea, as a relational sensibility, and asa material thing. It answers questions concerning theplace of nature, and our place in it.

CONCLUSION

As we have seen in this chapter, how different groupsthink and feel about places is as important as the physicalform places take. Our thoughts and feelings about naturecan directly influence the actions that we take and howwe contribute to the natural world. There are manydifferent ways in which nature can be (b)ordered. As wehave seen, the orthodox (b)ordering of ‘nature’ in thewest is as something outside and apart from human‘culture’. This idea leads some cultural groups to protectnature, some to control it, and some to exploit it.However, in other cultures nature is seen as thoroughly


be a sacred site on the way back from the Cometmine . . . it has been there for hundreds andhundreds of years . . . you could always count ongetting a drink of water there, even in droughttime.

Unfortunately, white people didn’t understandhow special this place was. Someone went and duga hole there, probably a prospector, hoping thewater would build up, but of course it didn’t, itjust died away. You see, in doing that he killed

Gadagadara, a snake with a strange head shapedlike a horse’s, who had placed his spirit there tolive and keep the water for the people.

Engaging with our relational sensibilities to socio-nature therefore highlights another key tracing in the constitutive coingredience of people and place.These traces can ‘move’ us, prompting re-evaluationsof relationships, as well as prompting us to act inparticular ways in nature.


imbued by culture, and vice versa. In these cultureshumans are a part of nature not apart from it. This view prompts us to consider anew how we should acttowards the imbroglios of natural and cultural traces inthe world.

Places then are composed by the ongoing interdepen-dence of natural and cultural traces. These traces involvethe emotional and the cognitive, include cultural beliefsand practices. In some ways perhaps cultures enhance

nature; in others nature will threaten culture. Our actions in places thus will contribute to these ongoingcompositions, and how we think nature should be mayinfluence these actions most of all.

The material nature we inhabit and the ideal naturewe carry in our heads exist always in a complex relationship with each other, and we will mis-understand both ourselves and the world if we fail


Whaling has a long tradition in Japan. The oldestJapanese book, Kojiki, written in the eighth century,mentions whaling activity, and harpoons have beenused since the seventeenth century to kill these mam-mals. However, such cultural tradition was banned in 1986 under international legislation. This legislation(b)orders the sea into particular zones, for example the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary (established in1994), in which all commercial whaling is banned.Japan resisted the imposition of this sanctuary, and has been given special permission to hunt whales forscientific purposes within these waters. In 2008, theJapanese fleet killed just under 1000 whales (McCurry,2008). The Sea Shepherd Society, and its leader PaulWatson, attempts to uphold the spirit of the sanctuary.They are clear about how they should act in defence of nature; as Watson states, ‘I would choose life overdeath, and the life of the whale mean[s] more to methan a cultural right to kill’ (1994: 68).

Clashes between these cultural (b)orders, whatMitchell (2000) terms ‘culture wars’, are often dra-matic. In 2008, ‘stink bombs’ containing butyric acidwere thrown onto whaling ships by the Sea ShepherdSociety (McCurry, 2008). Watson himself was shot by Japanese coast guards whilst attempting to stop thehunt (only his Kevlar vest stopped the bullet hitting his heart). Should cultures be allowed exemption from legislation in line with their traditions andcustoms, even if this means non-human animals are

threatened with death, or even extinction? Is directaction appropriate to stop the killing of nature?

On land, the radical environmental group EarthFirst! argue that due to our interdependence withnature, the use of violence is legitimate when defendingthese traces. Wild places should be defended as we arepart of nature – they are our historical and spiritualhome. As Abbey outlines:

If a stranger batters your door down with an axe,threatens your family and yourself with deadlyweapons, and proceeds to loot your home ofwhatever he wants, he is committing what isuniversally recognised – by law and morality – asa crime. In such a situation the householder hasboth the right and the obligation to defendhimself, his family, and his property by whatevermeans are necessary. . . . For many of us, perhapsmost of us, [nature] is as much our home, or a lotmore so, [than] our ever expanding industrialculture. And if [nature] is our home, and if it isthreatened with invasion, pillage and destruction– as it certainly is – then we have the right todefend that home, as we would our private rooms,by whatever means are necessary.

(in Foreman and Haywood, 1987: 7/8)

In your view, is direct action, violence to property (oreven people) justified in defending natural traces fromcultural ones?

Box 7.9

KILL ING NATURE OR KILL ING CULTURE?

to explore that relationship in all its rich andcontradictory complexity. . . . The struggle to liverightly in the world is finally not just about rightactions, but about the ideas that lie behind thoseactions . . . to protect the nature that is all aroundus, we must think long and hard about the naturewe carry inside our heads.

(Cronon, 1995: Foreword)

SUGGESTED READINGS


Books

Soper, K. (1995) What is Nature? Culture, Politics andthe Non-human. Blackwell: Oxford.

Castree, N. (2005) Nature. Routledge: Abingdon.

Soper and Castree both provide ideal insights into nature as geographers study it. They introduce different culturalunderstandings of nature and how ideas and ideals of naturecontest the minds and hearts of cultures.

Castree, N. and Braun, B. (eds) (2001) Social Nature.Theory, Practice, Politics. Blackwell: Oxford

Cronon, W. (1995) Uncommon Ground: TowardReinventing Nature. W.W. Norton & Co.: New York.

Castree and Braun outline how nature can be consideredsocial, introducing ideas of hybridity into the nature debate.Whilst Cronon, particularly in the Introduction to hisvolume, raises important questions about how we shouldconsider the place of nature in the situation where culturesmaterially influence its form and composition.

Devall, B. and Sessions, G. (1985) Deep Ecology: Livingas Nature Mattered. Gibbs M. Smith: Layton.

McKibben, B. (1989) The End of Nature. Bloomsbury:London.

Devall and Sessions offer a radical view on nature as outsideand independent from culture, whilst McKibben suggeststhat this nature is at an end due to the influence of culturein once-natural places.

Szersynski, B., Heim, W. and Waterton, C. (eds) (2003)Nature Performed: Environment, Culture and Performance.Blackwell: Oxford.

Szersynski (et al.) demonstrate the importance of emotionsand practices to how we think about and produce theculture-natures around us. Chapters focus on activism,performing environmental identities, and the differentarchitectures and infrastructures that connect the naturaland the cultural together.


INTRODUCTION

As we have seen cultural geography is all about takingand making place. Every action we engage in contributesto the cultural world, leaving a trace that affects theidentity of who we are and where we are. We have seenin the previous chapter how our ideas and ideals aboutplace – how we think places should be and what tracesare appropriate in them – affect our actions in place.Places come to be ordered and bordered in line with ourideas as regulations are constructed to classify places forparticular people and uses.

In this chapter we explore questions concerning theform and substance of the cultural traces which (b)orderour places. Cultural values, ways of behaving, even ways of looking come together to order and borderplaces, making some people and behaviours acceptablein one place, but unacceptable in another. Traditions,appearances, and actions can make us feel comfortable orgive us a sense of home, but also make us feel as if we area fish out of water where cultural traces are strange andnovel. Traces in places can therefore act to unify and bindus into a group, into an ‘us’ with our own place, but theycan also disconnect and divide us, separating ‘us’ and ‘our

place’, from ‘them’ and ‘theirs’. This process of ‘othering’,of culturally and geographically distinguishing betweencultural groups on the basis of action, value, and appear-ance, is the subject of this chapter. What happens whenone of ‘them’ is in ‘our’ place? How do we feel andrespond when ‘they’ transgress our borders? What are thebases for acceptable existence in a place: who must yoube? What must you look like?

In this chapter we explore how ‘othering’ occurs onthe basis of ethnicity. We will see how three main(b)ordering mechanisms are used to maintain a geo-graphical and cultural purity between ethnic groups,namely: genocide, tight control and partnership. We willturn to ideas of the ‘stranger’ to understand how and whythese mechanisms remain within cultures, as well aslooking at how a ‘mixophobic’ attitude creates the natureof the places we live in. The chapter ends by raisingquestions concerning the absolute nature of ethnicdivisions and how alternative conceptions of identity mayrecognise similarities between ethnicities, rather thandifference. Should groups have a right to an alternativeculture in your place? Should difference be tolerated, orregulated? Does diversity threaten or enhance culture?Who gets to decide, and why?

8

THE PLACE OF ETHNICITY

WHAT IS ETHNICITY?

We have seen in Chapter 2 that, during the history of colonialism and cultural geography, the process of‘othering’ was widespread. Using theories of environ-mental determinism, ethnic differences between groupswere used to distinguish between cultures, their place, andacceptability. Notions of European superiority (nowdiscredited) were employed to legitimate unequal relationsbetween humans from different ethnicities, culminatingin slavery and even genocide. Ethnic difference thereforewas, and still remains, crucial to bordering culture and place.

Ethnicity can be understood as a cultural and geo-graphical identity that emerges when a group share acommon ancestry, origin and tradition. Ethnicity maybe related directly to race, but may also connect togeographical territory, world view, custom, ritual andlanguage. Ethnic difference can be identified when acultural group has linguistic, anthropological and perhapsgenetic variation when compared to others. These ethnicdifferences are often visible; it can be seen through skincolour, but also through customs, clothing, rituals andpractices. We can ask ourselves what it feels like to be partof an ethnic group? Is it an important element in youridentity? We can consider what the dominant ethnicgroup in our own neighbourhood might be, or in ourown country. We can consider if there any ethnicminorities, and what sort of places they seek to create. Inour increasingly populous and globalising world, it iscommon for people from different ethnicities to try andtake the same places. How is this process (b)ordered, andwhat affect does it have for how we think about, and actin, these places?

Kellerman (1993) notes three key ways in which adominant ethnic group engages with minority ethnicgroups. Kellerman states that dominant cultures oftenseek to deal with ethnic minorities in three key ways:through genocide, tight control and partnership. Thischapter focuses on these three (b)ordering mechanisms,all of which seek to ‘appropriately’ accommodate ethnicdifference. Each seeks to (b)order the identity of ethnicgroups in a specific way, attempting to generate a‘common sense’ view of these groups and the geographicaland cultural places they should occupy within society.

GENOCIDE

The material (b)ordering of place is often a brutalbusiness. Although one might consider it highly unlikelyto attempt to (b)order cultures through the mass murderof people on the grounds of ethnic difference, in bothpast and contemporary societies there are instances wheregenocide is practised. Historically, European colonisationof Africa and South America involved the direct andindirect genocide of millions of indigenous peoples. Inthe sixteenth century, for example, 24 million people inCentral America were killed through disease, impover-ishment and subjugation at the hands of the Spanish,French and British (see Johnston, 1986). In the twentiethcentury Nazi Germany practised genocide against Jews,most notably during the the Second World War. Casesof genocide have also occurred during the Balkan wars,in clashes between China and Tibet, and in East Timorand Indonesia. In these cases, the difference representedby the cultural ‘other’ has been deemed a significantthreat to the existence of the dominant culture. Thepresence of a different ethnic group, and the cultural,linguistic and religious alternatives they offer, have beenseen as a risk to the hegemony of the practices within thatplace. There follows a case to illustrate this process. Itfocuses on Rwanda in the 1990s, specifically on the civilconflict between the rival ethnic tribes of the Tutsi andthe Hutu.

All Tutsi will perish. They will disappear from theearth slowly, slowly, slowly. We will kill them likerats. When you kill rats you don’t spare the babies.

(Radio broadcast, cited in McIntyre, 2001)

In Rwanda in 1994, the Hutu held power throughmilitary government. In this position they employed arange of tactics to marginalise the Tutsis, the minorityethnic group. One innovative, but wholly effective,mechanism they used to (b)order their place was throughthe control of a national radio station: Radio TélévisionLibre des Mille Collines. This was a western-style radiostation, broadcasting popular music and comedy, andwas amazingly popular. As Frances D’Souza, a humanrights expert notes, this radio station was used by theHutus to transmit anti-Tutsi propaganda:

105THE PLACE OF ETHNICITY

What the government needed to do was to try toincite the people about the ‘danger’ that was facingthem, as an excuse to slaughter their perceivedenemies. This very trendy radio station began toconvey messages of absolute horror: ‘Cannibals!’‘They eat men these Tutsi! They will tear out yourstomach, your liver, your heart! They will eat your children!’ I think that this fear must translateitself eventually into a release that is very very violent.

(McIntyre, 2001)

Through radio broadcasts, alongside soldiers on theground, a doxa of opinion was spread that stated thesurvival of the Hutu ethnic culture could only be realisedthrough the elimination of the Tutsi. As Denis Bagaruka,a Hutu, remembers:

We heard the radio telling us to ‘cut down the tall trees’. These trees were the Tutsis. We werelistening to the radio, and because of this and whatthe soldiers were urging, we started to kill ourneighbours.

(ibid.)

Such explanations may seem terrible, but they wereeffective. Over 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed during the Rwandan genocide. Such shockingtreatment of difference was realised through a combi-nation of three factors: the absence of a free and openmedia (how would you respond if the radio stations inyour country told you that a certain ethnic grouprepresented a clear and present danger?), a latent distrustand fear about ‘other’ ethnic groups, and a dominantgovernment seeking to exploit this situation in order tocontrol and (b)order place. In the same way as ‘dirt’ canbe used to signify inappropriate and inferior groups andbehaviours (see Chapter 5), dehumanising rhetoric wasused to compound the ‘otherness’ of the Tutsi. No longerwere Tutsi valued as human beings, albeit those with adifferent ethnic world view, they became different andalien, no better than ‘rats’ or ‘trees’. Through comparingTutsi to non-human species, species that the agriculturalworkers of the country knew required control andremoval in their everyday lives (Rwanda’s economy ispredominantly based on coffee plantations), the Hutu

attempted to normalise and naturalise both the threatposed by the very presence of Tutsi in Rwanda, and thenecessary response. Such dehumanisation thus made the practice of genocide – or ethnic cleansing – literallyremoving the ‘dirt’ from their cultural place, somehowan appropriate and ‘natural’ solution to the existence ofa rival ethnic group.

TIGHT CONTROL

The second mechanism dominant cultures use to borderplaces of ethnicity is what Kellerman terms ‘tightcontrol’. Tight control involves the creation of laws andpolicies to regulate the movement and activities ofparticular ethnic groups in specific places. In other wordsit involves the use of legal statute and enforcement to take and make place for ‘normal’ society on one hand,and segregating deviant ethnicities into ‘other’ places.This process, as we will see in the upcoming examples, is often used as a step towards the annihilation of that ethnic minority – not in the same way as that usedin the genocide example – but, rather, through controlthen assimilation. By enclosing minorities into specificareas mainstream groups remove their ability to take and make place in line with their cultural beliefs. As a consequence these cultures are effectively neutered,often lie dormant, and sometimes die. In this scenariothe remaining groups have little alternative but to beassimilated into mainstream culture and adopt orthodoxbeliefs and practices.

A key example of ‘tight control’ was practised onNative American Tribes in what became the UnitedStates, and Aborigines in Australia.1 Box 8.1 outlines theformer example, drawing on Razac’s (2002) account ofthe role that a specific (b)ordering tool – the applicationof barbed wire – had in structuring place for the settlerpopulation, and against indigenous tribes.

In this example we can see that in order to create the ‘new nation’ of America it was felt necessary to wipeout ‘other’ ethnicities that did not conform in culture to the values and practices of the white settlers. The thorough challenge of nomadism, sharing, and co-operation of Native Indians, compared to thesedentary, self-interested (see Adam Smith, 1979), and

THE PLACE OF ETHNICITY106


[Barbed wire] has always been efficient enough toperform its designated tasks: to define space andto establish territorial boundaries.

(Razac, 2002: IX)

Barbed wire has been used in a range of cases, from theFirst World War trenches, to the concentration campsof the Second, as well in defining places in contem-porary society e.g. military compounds, prisons or evenprivate backyards. It is effective in keeping people in,and keeping people out. This segregation capacityrenders barbed wire a specific (b)ordering tool to realiseat once the geographic and cultural control of an areaby one cultural group. In the case of Native Americans,the use of barbed wire by the white settler societies wascrucial in (b)ordering place to the detriment of theindigenous populations. As Razac argues, in this casebarbed wire’s ‘direct political impact has been crucialto . . . the physical elimination and then the ethnocideof the North American Indians [sic]’ (ibid.: 4).

By the end of the century, barbed wire was usedto parcel off . . . Indian lands. It chopped spaceinto little bits and broke up the communalstructure of Indian society. Barbed wire made theIndians’ geographical and social environmenthostile to them, so that it became a foreign terri-tory where the tribal way of life was unimaginableand where nomadic wandering and hunting wereimpossible.

(2002: 22/3)

The installation of barbed wire was thus the first stepin changing the (b)orders of Native Americans’ cultureand geography. It had the effect of cutting NativeAmericans off from their hunting grounds, neuteringtheir warfare tactics (based on surprise attacks onhorseback), and impeding their nomadic way of life.Tight control was then further instigated as the 1887

Dawes Act authorized the zoning and segregation ofland to the now settled tribes. Barbed wire was thusused to keep Native Americans within a designatedplace: the reservation. Despite the physical limits ofthese reservations, some aspects of tribal life remained.In Grant’s 2003 book Ghost Riders, a useful account isgiven of two senators returning from Oklahoma’sreservations shocked by the culture that persisted there:

‘There is no selfishness, which is at the bottom ofcivilization. The tribes were still sharing all theirfood and possessions with their kinfolk. They were more impressed by displays of generositythan the accumulation of private wealth.’ ‘Weneed to awaken in [the Native Americans] wants.In his dull savagery he must be touched by thewings of the divine angel of discontent. . . .Discontent with the tepee and the starving rationsof the Indian [sic] camp in winter is needed to get the Indian out of the blanket and into trousers– and trousers with a pocket in them, and with a pocket that aches to be filled with dollars! . . .this is the first great step in the education of therace.’

(2003: 195)

It was realised therefore, that the existence of the tribe, albeit in (b)ordered reservations, still offered afunctioning alternative to the burgeoning capitalist and nationalist system being introduced by the whitesettlers. Instead of cultural assimilation, a pluralismexisted: the Native American culture may have beenlimited but it remained intact alongside that of the settlers. To the white population, this pluralismmeant the threat from Indian culture remained. Thereservations required further transformation:

The next task was transforming the [native popu-lation] into American citizens. As long as a tribe’s

Box 8.1

T IGHT CONTROL: THE (B )ORDERING AFFECTS OF BARBED WIRE ONNATIVE AMERICANS

continued

competitive white culture was seen as threatening thesuccess of the new nation. As Jackson and Penrose (1993)argue, such tight control is undertaken to blunt theresistance of the existing group to the imposition of newcultural (b)orders – and thus allow the new group toimpose their values and accrue benefits from so doing.Through this process the possibility arises to establish anew ‘sense of place’, a new collective identity withoutinternal threat, and establish a collective strength as aconsequence (see Chapter 9).

This ‘tight control’ is not only a historical but also acontemporary phenomenon. There follows one suchexample, focusing on the how gypsies and travellers aretreated in the UK in the twenty-first century.

TIGHT CONTROL: THE (B)ORDERINGOF GYPSY CULTURE INCONTEMPORARY BRITAIN

The case of gypsy culture presents an archetypal exampleof how mainstream society engages with a minoritygroup. Gypsies represent a completely transgressivechallenge to the cultural orthodoxy of western, settled,white society. Neither gypsy nor mainstream culturemakes concerted attempts to accommodate the differencethat the ‘other’ culture presents. The subsequent tightcontrol of gypsy places by the mainstream makes explicitboth the geographical and the cultural nature of(b)ordering mechanisms.

The gypsies are a race . . . like any ethnic people they want their own community among their own

people, they have their own heart, thoughts, theirown culture.

(David Jones, Welsh Gypsy, cited in Waterhouse, 1993)

As Jones outlines, gypsies have their own culture. Like all cultures, they take and make place in line withtheir own values and principles. As Sibley (1999) identi-fies, gypsies integrate rather than separate their work,residence and leisure spaces. Instead of commuting towork, or having different locations for their home and recreation, gypsies combine these places into thetemporary sites they occupy. (Like ‘old-fashioned’ housesin mainstream society, on these sites gypsies separate their toilet areas from their living areas, deeming the close proximity of defecation and living space to be‘dirty’). Thus the ‘threat’ posed by gypsy culture to themainstream is not that of ‘anarchy’. They do not threatenstructureless places in an absolute sense; they do, how-ever, embody and create an alternative cultural order tothe mainstream.

Perhaps the key defining order of gypsy culture is itsnomadic nature. Gypsies travel about, traditionally inhorse-drawn Romany caravans, but more recently inmodern vehicles. This nomadism is perhaps the mostimportant difference between gypsy and mainstream culture, and offers a particular threat to mainstreamorthodoxy. It leads to the absence of ‘territorial fixity’ intheir lives – they are not anchored in place like ‘normal’society. This freedom of movement gives gypsy culturethe capacity to elude conventional (b)ordering practices.How do you (b)order something that has freedom ofmovement?


sense of community stayed strong, the tribe couldresist the Indian’s new and forced status as aprivate individual. For this reason, the tribe hadto be obliterated. The Indian could be an indi-vidual integrated into American society only when his tribe no longer existed. The project ofthe reformers, humane people concerned about

the Indian’s fate, was intended to change theminto farmers who fully believed in the concept ofprivate property. . . . After implementing measureswhich threatened to physically eliminate theIndian, the United States turned its Indian policyto cultural destruction; in other words, ethnocide.

(Razac, 2002: 18)


Mainstream culture in the UK has sought to (b)orderand tightly control gypsy culture in three key ways. It has‘stopped movement’, ‘stopped sites’ and ‘enforced settling’.Particular legislation such as the Public Order Act 1986has attempted to ‘stop movement’. These laws have givenpolice the authority to deny access and use of roads tocertain cultural groups. This legislation has been used to restrict the mobility of gypsy and traveller commu-nities, as Chris Fox, when Assistant Chief ConstableWarwickshire Police, stated,

Control [of traveller and gypsy groups at one campsite] was lost because large numbers of peoplearrived from different directions. We’re workingwith local forces to prevent these gatherings. We canactually stop anybody going somewhere if there’s aliability to cause a breach of the peace.

(Waterhouse, 1993)

Thus through the use of this legislation, gypsy nomadismhas been curtailed in the UK – the dominant ethnicgroup has been successful in ‘stopping movement’. Second,gypsy and traveller culture has been tightly controlledthrough ‘stopping sites’. The spontaneous creation ofgypsy camps has been restricted through the introductionof specific legislations such as the Criminal Justice andPublic Order Act (1994). This not only removes localcouncil’s statutory obligation to provide gypsy sites, but also restricts one of the only options left to travellers:unauthorised camping on undesignated areas. If gypsiesdo not desist from camping on any site ‘as soon as isreasonably practicable’, ‘under Section 62 vehicles maybe seized and removed’ (McKay, 1996: 162). Refusal to leave can result in three months’ imprisonment.

Third, gypsy and traveller culture has been controlledby ‘enforced settling’. With places effectively (b)orderedthrough movement and site restriction, gypsy andtraveller communities have been left with little optionbut to buy their own land to maintain their culture (in asimilar way to the reservations in the US). However, nowin settled locations, existing planning laws work to restrictthe type of culture that can be practised there. Wheretravellers do not conform to planning law, sites have beencompulsorily purchased, often at sub-market prices, andthen leased back to travellers under stringent conditions.In these cases, sites are often surrounded with barbed wire

and security lighting, tightly controlling this culture in avery real sense (see for example, Undercurrents, 1996;Monbiot, 1996).

The threefold process of tight control has thus had theeffect of geographically and culturally restricting gypsyculture. Anne Bagehot, once a gypsy liaison officer withSave the Children and later a worker for the GypsyCouncil for Education, describes the consequences of this (b)ordering process: ‘Speaking as an individual’, shesays, ‘my personal view is the phrase “ethnic cleansing” isnot over the top’ (McKay, 1996: 162). Tight control is thusused in both historical and contemporary society againstethnic minorities that are deemed a threat to the main-stream. This control does not lead to ethnic cleansing inthe sense of genocide, but seeks this goal throughrestriction then assimilation. Without the ability to takeand make place in their traditional way, the platform from which ethnic minorities can exercise their culture is removed. If groups can no longer physically take and make place, successful (b)orders can no longer beestablished, and cultures can no longer exist. Ethnicminorities are forced to adapt to the cultural borders ofthe mainstream.

SUMMARY: STRANGER DANGER?

The two (b)ordering mechanisms we have examined thusfar – genocide and tight control – have been used by thedominant culture to remove minority ethnic groups fromthe culture and geography of their places. In these cases,an alternative ethnicity within their place is deemedinappropriate if it does not fit with the ideal of place asconstructed by the mainstream. To them, places musthave a degree of ethnic purity. As a consequence, thisinappropriate group – this dirt, this stain – must becleansed from their place. In these cases, the ethnic otheris a ‘stranger’.

The ‘stranger’ is an idea suggested by Simmel (1950)and refers to those who are out of place within a specificcultural and geographical (b)ordering. As Bancroft(1999) outlines, the key aspect of the stranger is this outof place presence:

Perhaps most important[ly], the Stranger isdisturbing through proximity. . . . the proximate


other is disturbing, threatening to overthrow thatpsychological unity [of place].

In cases where genocide or tight control is practised,ethnic others remain strangers to the dominant group.Ethnic difference is seen as transgressive, its presencethreatening the hegemonic stability in that place. Thethreat of the stranger thus disturbs the meanings andownership of place, to paraphrase Cresswell (1996: 60),the presence of the stranger means that:

1 The meaning of the place will change.2 If the meaning of the place changes, the place itself

will change.3 The new meaning will be their meaning (the

meaning of the stranger).4 The place in question will become their place

(the place of the stranger).

In the empirical examples outlined above, neither thedominant nor the minority ethnic culture seeks acommon ground with each other. The idea of absolute,pure places and identities holds sway – both groups seekto maintain the coherence of the culture and geographyof their places and are unwilling or unable to adapt orcompromise their sense of place to include the ‘other’. As a consequence, the strangeness of these cultures islikely to remain a danger to mutual co-habitation in aplace. As neither seek to understand each other’s traces,nor make efforts to tolerate or allow for their difference,the chances of a partnership are slim.

PARTNERSHIP

According to Kellerman, the third method used tocontrol ethnic groups is that of ‘partnership’. In cases ofpartnership each ethnic culture does not necessarily wishto remain ‘strange’ to the other, nor seek the completepurity of its culture and geography. In these cases, anelement of common ground is sought and differentethnicities seek to co-exist in one place.

If ‘partnership’ is practised by the dominant culture,often through governments and state institutions, inte-gration of diverse ethnicities is not deemed ‘novel’ or

‘bad’, rather it is orthodox and normal. In this scenarioan ideal society is created when ethnic minorities are granted equality, with each culture taking theopportunities the ‘other’ offer (e.g. through employment,economic development, and cultural stimuli). Keyexamples of this approach occur in many of the cosmopolitan cities of the west. London, New York,Toronto and Paris all have a broad range of ethniccultures within their places. These places herald toleranceand multiculturalism, as Ken Livingstone, when Mayorof London, celebrated:

This city [London] . . . typifies what I believe is thefuture of the human race and a future where wegrow together and share and we learn from eachother (GLA, 2005). . . . ‘There was a saying that cityair makes you free[,] and the people who have cometo London [–] all races, creeds and colours [–] havecome for that. This is a city [where] you can beyourself as long as you don’t harm anyone else. Youcan live your life as you choose to do rather than assomebody else tells you to do. It is a city in whichyou can achieve your potential. . . . London is thewhole world in one city.

(cited in Massey, 2007: 1/4)

The claim that the world’s cultures can be found inLondon is difficult to dispute: 300 languages, 50 non-indigenous communities with populations of 10,000 ormore, and virtually every race, nation and culture canclaim at least a handful of Londoners (see Benedictus,2005). Despite this, how well integrated are thesedifferent cultures? Do cultures mix in London, do theyremain plural, or do they assimilate into one broadculture? (see Box 8.2).

Attempts at partnership have resulted in a diversity of ethnic cultures in London. However, as Box 8.2 illus-trates, it is clear that different ethnicities take and makeplace in ways that result in a degree of segregationbetween them. This segregation is due in part to bothhistorical and economic issues:

The large concentration in south London on the Black Caribbean map is said to have originatedin 1948, when many people from the Empire


Windrush, the first boat bringing large numbers ofmigrants from the Caribbean, were housedtemporarily in old air-raid shelters in Clapham. TheCaribbean areas in west London and north-eastLondon are centred on the other two cheap housingdistricts of the time, in Notting Hill and Hackney.

(Lewis, Senior Demographer at the GreaterLondon Authority, 2005)

Although historical and economic factors can explain a degree of segregation, ‘self-segregation’ is also argued to be a cause of the residential choices illustrated in Box 8.2. According to Lewis, ‘self-segregation’ canpartially explain the ‘Black African’ map’s similarity tothat of the ‘Caribbean’: ‘If you were a Nigerian studentcoming to London in the 1960s you might think youstood a better chance in south London, where there


Box 8.2

DIVERSITY AND SEGREGATION?

Diversity and Segregation

are already lots of black people’ (Lewis, 2005). Self-segregation thus refers to the process where ethnic groupsdecide of their own free will to congregate together, andnot disperse to create a more ‘multi-cultural’ neighbour-hood. Although it may be unsurprising that ethnicitieswant to be amongst groups they feel share their ownbeliefs and take place in a similar way, such a processresults in the absence of cultural difference. In such cases,despite a formal wish for partnership on behalf of thestate and governmental institutions, a sense of the ‘other’as a ‘stranger’ may remain.

Self-segregation can therefore serve to maintaindivisions between officially equal ethnicities and militateagainst an integrated multi-cultural partnership. Self-segregation is an example of an informal (b)orderingmechanism, one instituted by ordinary people rather thanthrough state policy. Further examples of informal(b)ordering mechanisms include cultural racism. Racismin the form of name-calling, joke-telling, and even

violence serves to create a culture of repression and threaton one side, and superiority on the other. Such racismoccurs in many places across the globe, as outlined inBoxes 8.3, 8.4, 8.5 and 8.6.

We can see in these Boxes that even within cultureswhere partnership and equality is favoured, informalprocesses of fear, prejudice and loyalty towards specificcultural ideals leads to practices of informal borderingsuch as self-segregation and racism. In these cases, even if ethnicities share the place of the ‘other’, they rarelyinteract with ‘them’. A Community Cohesion Reviewreport, commissioned by the UK Home Secretary, sumsthe situation up as follows,

many [ethnic] communities operate on the basis ofparallel lives. These lives often do not seem to touchat any point, let alone overlap and promote mean-ingful interchanges.

(2001: 9)


Despite land rights gains in Australia, Mellor (2003)identifies key attitudes that maintain ethnic (b)orderswithin Australian society.

About 2 months ago we went to Alice Springs andon the train we had this one person who wasgiving us the history of Aboriginal culture, all theway from Adelaide . . . Yeah, and he was tellin’ the people on the train the ways of the Blacks, thatthey were dirty and stink.

I’ve been called a ‘nigger,’ ‘abo,’ and things likethat, things that are said to other Aboriginalpeople, and I think in the 90s, you know, weshouldn’t be dealing with that any more.

I reported it to the coppers, and um, and I had onefemale copper stare at me in the face, and she told

me that I loved it, and that being Black, and Iquote, ‘being Black, I asked for it’, and ‘I was thatdrunk, how the hell do I know that I was raped?’

I remember I went up to the police station up hereonce to [register] a car . . . And after about 45 minutes of just standing there, any way, I said,‘excuse me lady, I’ve been here bout 30 minutes,40 minutes.’ And she says, ‘the only reason Ididn’t see you was because you’re not standingunder the light.’

How would you feel being subject to such treatment?How would you feel if your cultural and geographicalposition was defined in this way? How would you takeplace in response? Is such racist behaviour ‘fair game’to the ‘strangers within’? Should attempts be made tohave more respect for difference?

Box 8.3

CULTURAL RACISM: ABORIGINES IN AUSTRALIA


Can we make jokes about ethnicities? Should humourbe used to test the borders of acceptability, ethnicprejudice, or racism? In 2006, the BBC reprimandedone comedian, Jimmy Carr, for crossing the line ofacceptable behaviour when he told the following jokes(from Farndale, 2006):

The male gypsy moth can smell the female gypsymoth up to seven miles away – and that fact alsoworks if you remove the word moth.

When people say: ‘These travelling people, we’vegot to move them on,’ I say: ‘Isn’t that playing intotheir hands?’

Are these jokes racist? Are they as bad as the treatmentof Aborigines in Australia (Box 8.3)? Was the BBCright in reprimanding the comedian telling them? Dothey play a role in making us examine any prejudiceswe may have about a minority group?

Box 8.4

CULTURAL RACISM: GYPSIES IN THE UK

Despite advances of black politicians in senate andpresidential elections, prejudice towards non-whiteethnic groups remains strong in some states. AsMangold (2007) reports, although on the face of it allethnicities are equal, ‘stealth racism’ is still apparent inthe Deep South.

Three rope nooses hanging from a tree in thecourtyard of a school in a small Southern town inLouisiana have sparked fears of a new kind of‘stealth’ racism spreading through America. It allbegan at Jena High School last summer ( Jena hasa mixed community, 85% white, 12% black). Ablack student, Kenneth Purvis, asked the school’sprincipal whether he was permitted to sit underthe shade of the school courtyard tree, a placetraditionally reserved for white students only. Hewas told he could sit where he liked. The followingmorning, when the students arrived at school, theyfound three nooses dangling from the tree. Mostwhites in Jena dismissed it as a tasteless prank, butthe minority black community identified thegesture as something far more vicious. ‘It meant

the KKK, it meant “niggers we’re going to kill you,we’re gonna hang you ’til you die”,’ said CaseptlaBailey, one of the black community’s leaders. Oldracial fault lines in Jena began to fracture the town.It was made worse when – despite the school headrecommending the noose-hangers be expelled –the board overruled him and the three whitestudent perpetrators merely received a slap on thewrist.

As racial tension grew last autumn and winter,there were race-related fights between teenagers intown. On 4 December, racial tension boiled overonce more when a white student, Justin Barker,was attacked by a small group of black students.He fell to the ground and hit his head on theconcrete, suffering bruising and concussion. Hewas treated at the local hospital and released, andthat same evening felt able to put in an appearanceat a school function.

District Attorney Reed Walters, to the astonish-ment of the black community, has upgraded the charges of Mr Barker’s alleged attackers toconspiracy to commit second degree murder and

Box 8.5

CULTURAL RACISM: BLACKS IN AMERICA

continued

Ethnicities thus may share places, but often lead ‘parallellives’. They live in diversity, but also in ‘solitude’(following how the French-speaking and English-speaking cultures in Canada have often been described).To some extent each maintains their own culturalpractices, language, religions and customs. They havelittle desire to fully integrate into one culture, as Steinernotes in a different context, each group are together butapart, ‘standing with their backs to each other’ (2001:145, cited in Kymlicka, 2003).

MIXOPHOBIC OR MIXOPHILIC?

Do we fear difference and want to preserve existingidentities and prevent potential threats to us? Or dowe celebrate difference?

(McGhee 2003: 394)

Through the three (b)ordering processes we haveexplored in this chapter (i.e. genocide, tight control andpartnership), dominant ethnic groups seek to exercisetheir power through realising geographically their culturalidea(l)s. Through genocide and tight control, groups lookto keep ethnicities apart, emphasising division rather than diversity. These characteristics correspond to whatBauman calls ‘mixophobia’ (1995: 221). In these places

ethnic minorities are not treated equally, but fear,prejudice and a loyalty to the ‘in group’ results in culturalmarginalisation, or even cleansing, of the ‘out’ group. In these places, ethnicities demonstrate loyalty to ‘us’ andantagonism to ‘them’. These idea(l)s about culturaldifference create separate places for each group.

In attempting to adopt more ‘partnership’ engage-ments, some cultures are demonstrating a more‘mixophilic’ approach (Bauman, 1995). Here, ethnicitiesare more outward looking, looking to loosen their(b)orders and have more flexible and open idea(l)s abouttheir places and concomitant identities. Here the desirefor what Young (2000: 221) refers to as a ‘differentiatedsolidarity’ is in evidence; difference is accommodated on both sides, with tolerance and mutual respect beingsought through interaction and practice (see Kwan,2004). In a globalising world, increasingly affected bycapitalist culture, media communication and popula-tion mobility, how durable and fixed are absolute notions of ethnic identity? Should we, as McGhee asks, seek to defend traditional ethnic positions, or look to forge new connections and celebrate difference? As we haveseen in previous chapters, ideas of hybridity and mutualinterference of once-separate identity positions areincreasingly acknowledged. What implications do these ideas have for how we think about ethnicity andplace?


attempted second degree murder. If convictedthey could be 50 before they leave prison. MichelleJones is sister to one of the boys charged. She isadamant that her brother Carwyn will not get afair trial in Jena. ‘If he’s tried here, the jury willpick who they want. I have no doubt that they willconvict those boys of attempted second degreemurder.’

The above example illustrates how Jena is (b)orderedon grounds of ethnicity (from the courtyard tree, the school, to the broader town and perhaps even thejudiciary). Has cultural assimilation in Jena worked?Are all ethnic groups equal? Whose culture dominatesin this example? How is resistance practised?



Following the attack by Japanese forces on PearlHarbor on 7 December 1941, the United States gov-ernment bordered 120,000 Japanese-Americans intoconcentration camps, one of which was the ManzanarWar Relocation Center, California.

Although many were legitimate US citizens, andwere ‘completely American in speech, dress, and man-ner’ those with Japanese ethnicity were deemed to bethe ‘stranger within’ (NPS, 2007). In 1943 the WarRelocation Authority Director Dillon S. Meyer, statedit was the self-segregation of ethnicities in Californiathat bred distrust and ignorance of the ‘other’: ‘It wouldbe good for the United States generally and I think it would be good from the standpoint of Japanese–Americans themselves, to be scattered over a muchwider area and not to be bunched up in groups as theywere along the coast’ (NPS, 2007).

Following a legal case, Japanese–Americans wereallowed to return to their homes on 2 January 1945.Speaking during his Presidency in 1988, RonaldReagan said the following about this wartime relocationpolicy:

120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry living in theUnited States were forcibly removed from theirhomes and placed in make-shift internmentcamps. This action was taken without trial,without jury. It was based solely on race. . . . Yes,the nation was at war, struggling for its survival,and its not for us today to pass judgment uponthose who may have made mistakes while engagedin that great struggle. Yet we must recognise thatthe internment of Japanese Americans was justthat: a mistake. . . . It is not in spite of, but becauseof our polyglot background that we have had allthe strength in the world. That is the Americanway.

(NPS, 2007)

Manzanar is now a heritage site. Illustrated below aresome comments from visitors to that site.

Box 8.6

CULTURAL RACISM IN WARTIME

Manazar


As we have seen above, Notting Hill in West Londonserved as a destination for many black Caribbeans inthe late 1940s and 1950s. In 1959, the first NottingHill Carnival occurred, taking and making place toinitially celebrate African and Caribbean culture, thenpredominantly Caribbean music and culture in the1970s, and now arguably presents the face of a multi-cultural London. As outlined in the extract below, howthis event has taken and made place over the course ofits history charts how the attitudes of Britain, itspopulation and its institutions, have changed frombeing mixophobic in nature, to increasingly mixophilic.As Melville (2002: 1) states:

The Notting Hill Carnival is the largest streetfestival in Europe, attracting two million people.The Carnival parade is great fun – a succession offloats, lorry mounted sound systems, and platoonsof peacock garbed masquerade ‘camps’. These arethe elements familiar from the founding carnivaltraditions of the Atlantic Rim: New Orleans,Mardi Gras, and the Carnivals of Port of Spain,Trinidad, and Rio, Brazil.

As the advert suggests, ‘everyone is welcome’ at theNotting Hill Carnival. The young woman can beconsidered to exemplify the range of cultures mixingthere: white in this case, but not exclusively so. Thiswhite person’s identity is fused with Caribbean rootstypified by her dreadlocked hair and colours of t-shirtand jewellery (green, yellow and red).

In its promotional imagery, as in popular imagi-nation, the Notting Hill Carnival is confirmationof the health and vitality of postcolonial, multi-cultural Britain. Images of young people, blackand white, in shared celebration, of policemengrinding with passing ragga girls, suggest a trans-racial coalition. Such an interculture surely exists

in London, [yet the] carnival is no celebration ofa pre-existing harmony, but an attempt to founda multicultural community, sometimes in the faceof extreme adversity.

The Carnivals of 1975 and 1976, in particular,were marked by confrontation between blackyouth and the police. Tensions had always beenthere. With some justification, black Londonersregarded the British police as forces of arbitraryoppression. Throughout the 1970s . . . there was scarcely a single black person in London whohad not been stopped and searched by police,

Box 8.7

MIXOPHOBIA AND MIXOPHIL IA AT THE NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL

Notting Hill Carnival

Phillips suggests that in the modern world, notions offixed and absolute ethnic identity are ‘over-simplifiedconstructions’ (2006: 30). As the example of the NottingHill Carnival outlines, ethnic identities are often no longer pure or absolute in their composition, ratherthere is a diversity in their constitution and a permeabilityin the (b)orders which construct their places and iden-tifications. Ethnic identity, and identity in general, is thusargued to be more flexible, diverse and less coherent thancommonly suggested. Following Massey (2007: 4), it ispossible to suggest that the place of the Notting HillCarnival is open rather than bounded, hospitable ratherthan exclusive and excluding. Through moves beingmade towards partnership on all sides, Notting HillCarnival has become an ethnic ‘meeting place’ (Massey,2005). Does such an argument mean that ‘pure’ placesno longer, or have never, existed? If (multi)cultures needto be ‘renewed in every generation’, how will yourgeneration contribute to the ongoing composition ofethnic traces in places?

CONCLUSION

In this chapter we have explored questions concerningthe form and substance of the cultural traces which(b)order our places. We have seen that, in many placesethnic difference offers a systematic challenge to the(b)ordering practices of dominant cultures. As a conse-quence, cultures have responded through adopting threemain (b)ordering mechanisms to maintain a geographicaland cultural purity of place, namely: genocide, tightcontrol and partnership. Each seeks to (b)order both theidentity of ethnic groups in specific ways, attempting togenerate a ‘common sense’ view of these groups and thegeographical and cultural places they should occupywithin society.

In many cases, the difference represented by thecultural ‘other’ has been deemed a threat to the dominantculture. The presence of a different ethnic group, and thecultural, linguistic and religious alternatives they offer,have been seen as a risk to the strength of the ‘natural’practices within that place. As a consequence, dominantcultures have practised a ‘mixophobic’ attitude to the‘other’, viewing them as a ‘stranger’, a place invader whothreatens their ownership of culture and geography.


many numerous times. This, combined with . . .police containment tactics, made confrontationinevitable. . . . Some years, barriers appeared onmajor roads; attempts were made to close thecarnival before darkness fell; and the tactics ofclosing off exits in order to channel the crowd incertain directions always led to frustration andanxiety.

But the history of carnival also marks outBritain’s multicultural evolution – an unplannedprocess Stuart Hall has called ‘multicultural drift’. . . . The genuine multiculture that hasemerged around the music of Afro-America, the Afro-Caribbean and in the past decades Afro-England is nowhere plainer in evidence. [Thecarnival is] where Brits of all complexions cast off

the[ir] social inhibitions; where the fundamentalhybridity, the ultimate heady concoction ofLondon’s multiculture, is finally, clearly under-stood. Notting Hill Carnival draws on the musicof the Black Atlantic and the forms of the Afro-Caribbean in particular. But it is forged in thelocal circumstances of London. . . . We would dowell to remember, too, that it has been born instruggle and conflict, and that the multiculture it represents needs to be renewed in every gener-ation. It needs defending, not only from thosewho still view difference with suspicion andmixture as betrayal, but also from the corporateraiders who are keen to harness the vitality ofmulticulture for their own ends.

(Melville, 2002: 1–4)

Box 8.7 (cont inued)

However, there are alternative ways in which ethniccultural difference is accommodated. In some casesequality between ethnicities is championed and differencecelebrated. Examples such as the Notting Hill Carnivaldemonstrate that it is possible for cultures to mix,producing traces that at once defend durable values butalso invent new solidarities within cultures. Such eventsoffer the opportunity for ‘the enactment of alternative,utopian social arrangements’ (Shields, 1991: 91), andthrough their success offer potential insights into howfuture ethnic idea(l)s, and the new places that go alongwith them, could be made.

SUGGESTED READINGS


Books

Sibley, D. (1995) Geographies of Exclusion. Routledge:London.

Here Sibley argues that western culture is based on exclusion.He suggests that powerful cultural groups place ‘others’(including marginal ethnicities) as outsiders, ‘purifying’ theirown locations, breeding fear, and excluding marginal voices.

Jackson, P. and Penrose, J. (eds) (1993) Constructions ofRace, Place and Nation. UCL: London.

Jackson and Penrose offer sustained analyses of how ‘race’and ‘nation’ vary from place to place, how these spatiallyconstruct cultural life, and territorially express racist andnationalist ideologies. Particularly useful chapters includethose on Aboriginal Australians and Muslim culture.

Bauman, Z. (2002) Foreword. Individually, together. InBeck, U. and Beck-Gernsheim, E. (eds), Individualization.Sage: London. XIII–XX.

Bauman, Z. (1995) Life in Fragments. Blackwell: Oxford.

Bauman’s work illustrates his argument that cultural life isincreasingly fragmented, liquid, and negotiated. He giveskey insights into the role that individualisation may play inthe construction and exclusionary nature of our culturalgeographies.

Journals

Phillips, D. (2006) Parallel lives? Challenging discoursesof British Muslim self-segregation. Environment andPlanning D, Society and Space, 24, 25–40.

In this paper, Phillips challenges ideas of ethnic mixing andself-segregation in the UK.

NOTE

1 A further example of tight control in the form of a new settling society in a nomadic cultural area is the case of white settlers in Aboriginal Australia. Abrief empirical example is outlined below fromPilkington’s (2002) account of her family’s experienceof this (b)ordering: ‘All those who arrived withCaptain Stirling, and others who settled before 1830,had the right to choose an area of land wherever theyfancied. . . . The Nungar people, and indeed theentire Aboriginal population, grew to realize what thearrival of the European settlers meant for them: it wasthe destruction of their traditional society and thedispossession of their lands. Bidgup and Meedocomplained to Yellagonga after several attempts atunsuccessful hunting trips. “We can’t go down alongour hunting trails,” Bigdup told him, “They areblocked by fences. And when we climbed over the fence, one of those men pointed one of thosethings – guns – at us and threatened to shoot us if wewent in there again,” said an irritated Meedo, “Thereare huts and farms all over the place. Soon they willdrive us from our lands”. Cut off from their naturalfood source, the Nyungar people expected these whitesettlers to share some of their food with them. . . .When the brothers were caught spearing a sheep theywere the first of many Nyungar men to be brought into be sentenced under English law. They receivedseveral years imprisonment and were transported tothe Rottnest Island Penal Colony. The white settlerswere a protected species; they were safe with their lawsand had police and soldiers to enforce these rules. . . .It became apparent then, that the Aboriginal socialstructure was not only crumbling, but it was beingtotally destroyed’ (Pilkington, 2002: 13–15).


INTRODUCTION

As we know, the identity of self and the identity of placeare closely connected. In this chapter we explore how oursense of place can be formed by allegiances to differentgeographical scales, but also different cultural beliefs. Canwe belong, for example, at different scales at the sametime? Do our religious beliefs work to strengthen orundermine a geographical sense of place? We will explorethese questions by first examining two scales at which oursense of place is developed: the local and the national.We will see how our sense of place is generated at eachscale, and how these senses in some way coincide, but insome ways conflict with one another. In the second halfof this chapter we examine senses of place relating tobelief systems. We explore how these identity positionssynergise or compete with our more ‘scalar’ senses ofplace. The combination of religious and scalar affiliationhas profound affects for how we consider our sense ofplace both culturally and geographically. Can we havemultiple senses of place that sometimes contradict oneanother? Is our ‘place’ fixed and solid, or dynamic andfluid? We look for answers to these questions byexploring ideas of multiple identities and individual-

isation. We conclude by considering how these ideas can affect how we think about our senses of place, andwhat influence they have on our actions in the worldaround us.

A SENSE OF PLACE: MY (LOCAL)BACKYARD

We form a sense of our-selves and a sense of our-placesat a range of scales. The local scale is perhaps the mostimmediate and the most obvious, and it is at this levelthat we begin. At the local scale there are a range ofpossible (b)ordering mechanisms that define both our-selves and our-places. Do you, for example, identify withyour electoral constituency? Perhaps with your post- orzip-code? These are types of geographical (b)ordering that give important meaning to our lives. Electoral con-stituencies determine who we vote for, what politicalparty represents us at the local level, and by extension,the national scale. Post- or zip-codes determine our placewithin a national house ordering system. My street getsit own postcode, demarcating my ‘manor’, and those ofmy neighbours, from others, so our post arrives in the

9

SENSES OF PLACE: SCALES AND BEL IEFS

correct place. However, I would find it difficult to attachmyself to these (b)orders in any meaningful way beyondthese administrative functions. It may be different if I werea postman or a councillor, but these (b)orders leave mecold, there is no ‘sense of place’ for me, and my heart andmind, here. There are, however, types of (b)orderingmechanism that lie at the local level that give me a strongersense of self and place than those imposed on me byelectoral administrators or postcode gurus. These(b)orders are those that I take and make myself throughmy everyday actions. In my neighbourhood, my work,and my local leisure places I leave traces through my dailyinvolvements and actions. In these places I not onlycontribute to their definition and meaning, butconcomitantly generate my own sense of who I am andwhere I belong. A short example will explain what I mean.

A PERSONAL CASE: THE BACKYARDOF MY YOUTH

I remember as a child the routes I used to make on mybike, cycling to friends’ houses, or walking to school,knowing which alleys I could go down, or whose gardensI could sneak across. Through creating these routes I putdown roots in these places, through my practices I tookand made these places as my own, albeit temporarily.These places were my travel lines, my mobility, my densand haunts, rather than simply an abstract alley orgarden. In this way they came to be parts of my life; andstill in a way are. For example, I remember events andincidents through remembering places in which theyhappened. When I go to visit my parents now, it is as ifI can revisit my old self through going back to theseplaces, even if they have changed in appearance andfunction during the intervening years. These places, thenand now are my manor, my backyard.

Through these actions I therefore trace myself into mybackyard, and my backyard into myself. The intimate,everyday interaction with the local generates traces thattie us into this sense of place. Having a coffee in yourlocal café (see Laurier and Philo, 2003; Latham, 2003),going to ‘your local’ pub, competing in the local leagues,going to the town carnival or village fair: these practicesbuild up a (local) sense of who we are. These are literal

senses of a geographical location – they are the smells,sights, textures etc. that give us senses of our own placein a cultural order, as well as contributing to the defini-tion of the place in which the events occurred.

From family contacts to friendships, from local gossipto the local newspaper, everyday practices build up asense of local place. This direct, often face-to-face, formof interaction is unique to the local scale. Only at thelocal scale can people share a personal affinity, onlythrough everyday contact can extended families can cometo know people and generate a trust and social capital (seePutnam, 2000). At other scales it is harder to generatesenses of place through such means. For example, sensingyour place at the national scale is a very different process.Even in these times of mobility and mass communi-cation, at the national scale you can never know everyone.National senses of place are therefore not based on faceto face contact in the ‘local’ way; alternative (b)orderingmechanisms are needed to re-place us.

NATIONAL SENSES OF PLACE:PATRIOTISM

Patriotism is not commonly considered an exampleof a sense of place. But why not? Patriotism mayindeed be the most fervent sense of place now inexistence. It is fervent, it can be passionate, becauseit can draw on all the inarticulate feelings that wehave for our house with the picket fence andaugment them with articulated images, ritual,rhetoric, and music.

(Tuan, 2004: 47)

We often consider our sense of place at the national level.It is something that, in the vast majority of cases, we areborn into, and thus to an extent national identity becomesa ‘natural’ thing. However, like many other examples wehave seen in this book, sensing our place at the nationalscale is anything but natural. According to BenedictAnderson (2006), our sense of place at the national levelis ‘imagined’. Nations are ‘imagined communities’because it is impossible to know, meet, and talk to all thecitizens at a national scale in the same way as it is in avillage or neighbourhood. National unity and fraternitytherefore needs to be imagined, rather than directly lived.

SENSES OF PLACE: SCALES AND BELIEFS120

Although nations may need to be imagined, they are notin any way fake or false – their (b)orders are materiallydefended and their idea(l)s lead many to kill or die forthem. So how is a nation imagined into being?

We tend to see national identity as natural almostlike the air we breathe, when in fact it is a very recentphenomenon in human history. For most of historypeople identified with much smaller culturalcommunities than modern states . . . they identifiedwith their local village, their parish or their city.

( James Anderson, 1992)

Specific (b)ordering mechanisms were introduced in themedieval period to re-scale our sense of place away fromthe local and towards the national. Chapter 8 has shownsome of the ways in which a national sense of place havebeen generated in both historical and contemporary times(e.g. through genocide, tight control, or partnership).Other (b)ordering mechanisms include inventive re-placements for the extended family into the everyday lifeof the ‘subject’ (for example a monarchy or head of stateon stamps and currencies). Belonging is establishedthrough the creation of flags (directly so in the case of theUnion Flag uniting Scotland, Wales, England andNorthern Ireland together in one symbol of togetherness,or the Stars and Stripes uniting the states of America), aswell as through music (e.g. national anthems), inventedrituals (such as patriotic days and cultural festivals, suchas Last Night of the Proms in the UK), and sportingcontests. In some places, patriotism is not simplyencouraged through these emblems and rituals, butforcibly imposed. In Thailand, for example, the nationalanthem is played twice a day, at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Atthese times it is required that all individuals stop whatthey are doing and stand still to respect the flag and thecommunity it represents. A ‘Patriotism’ Bill was evenformulated in 2007 that required motorists to ceasedriving when the anthem was played. As was reported atthe time,

The Bill’s supporters say road traffic should stopnationwide when the anthem is played during theraising and lowering of the flag ‘to preserve traditionand instil patriotism in Thais’. ‘The nationalanthem lasts only one minute and eight seconds, so

why can’t motorists stop their cars for the sake ofthe country?’ retired General and NLA memberPricha Rochanasen said.

(ABC, 2007)

Thailand is therefore a clear example of how a sense ofnational place is projected into the everyday lives of itscitizens. The dominating power of the state and thepolice services seek to (b)order the times of 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. (for 78 seconds in duration) to make eachindividual respect the nation and forge a fraternity,equality and sense of collective belonging. AlthoughTuan (above) considers that the construction of a senseof place at the national scale is the most fervent inexistence, it is up to you to consider how successful the(b)ordering mechanisms of patriotism are. Perhaps yoursense of place at the national scale is strong, you are flagwaver and feel a fierce loyalty towards to your country?Perhaps your allegiance is mild, experiencing only anoccasional sense of place through common humour,musical taste, or sporting competition, for example?

A sense of place at the national scale is often mostexplicit when a nation is under threat. As we have seenin previous chapters, threat from the ‘other’ – fromcultural ideas and practices that are not our own – canthreaten our sense of place, and even our place itself.During wartime, or even pseudo-competition throughsporting tournaments, feelings of pride, loyalty andbelonging are intensified. Indeed it is at these times thatlocal and national feelings can coalesce to form one‘nested’ sense of place. Here a coherent scalar identity isformed for a nation and against those that would be indirect competition with ‘us’. It is at these times – whenthe (b)orders between competing groups are madeexplicit – that you come to realise which side you reallyare on. This is the case in Belfast.

DO GOOD FENCES MAKE GOODNEIGHBOURS? (AFTER POET ROBERTFROST,1 IN HARRIS, 2005)

Belfast is a place profoundly shaped by competingnationalistic senses of place. Physically part of the islandof Ireland, but politically connected through colonisation

121SENSES OF PLACES: SCALES AND BELIEFS

to Britain, different communities within Belfast demon-strate their loyalty to one of these competing culturalgroups through where they are, who they speak with, andwhat they do in this city (see Figure 9.1).

Belfast’s . . . geographies are clearly marked visuallyin the landscape, most obviously through flags, andcolour coding of kerbstones and lamp posts.2 . . .For inhabitants of the city, it is almost impossiblenot to know where you are (or at least make an

educated – or bigoted? – guess), with cultural,political and religious markers ranging from theobvious to the extremely subtle.

(Reid, 2005: 488)

There are a range of different (b)ordering mechanisms in Belfast which categorise, define and divide senses of place. Actors leave traces in places to mark their turf as both local and national(ist). As Morrissey andGaffikin note:


Figure 9.1 Traces of belonging in Belfast

Street murals in Belfast are one clear example of traces of belonging. Each seeks to outline historical events and nationalallegiances that bring the past and the patriotic into these local places. Such traces designate and reinforce a sense ofcollective belonging or un-belonging, depending on which community you are in.

the deliberate use of flags, emblems, graffiti and wallmurals that characterize contested cities serves notonly to demarcate against the outsider, but also toaffirm the faith of the insider. . . . [H]istoricalnarratives and symbols are summoned to supportnationalist projects (Mann, 2000; Comaroff andComaroff, 2000). In contested space, these serve tosimultaneously proselytize to the believer, whileinciting the infidel. Thus, ‘the political cultureintentionally invests cultural landscape with con-tentious ideological messages – obvious and subtlemnemonic and didactic devices that remind citizensof their loyalties and responsibilities’ (Keirsey andGatrell, 2001: 2).

(Morrissey and Gaffikin, 2006: 875)

Local and nationalist senses of place are thus traced intothe landscape of Belfast through murals, flags and graffiti.These traces remind citizens which side of the nationaldivide they are on. They persuade certain forms of actionand behaviour and perpetuate (b)orders that divide thelocal community.

Perhaps the most obvious of these divides are thesecurity walls that separate the two communities (seeFigure 9.2). These borders physically and psychologicallydivide peoples, creating senses of place for insiders andoutsiders. Such divides therefore create both external and internal ghettos for the inhabitants of Belfast (seeO’Hara, 2004). A ‘psychology of spatial confinement’(after Reid, 2005: 488) has been established that limitsphysical movement, but also communication and attitudetowards difference. Shirlow’s research on neighbourhoodsin Belfast (see Brown, 2002, Shirlow, 2005) demonstratesthat division exists on a number of levels. According toShirlow:

• 86.3 per cent of housing areas in Belfast aresegregated (i.e. with greater than 61 per cent ofinhabitants from one cultural community).

• 68 per cent of 18- to 25-year-olds living in Belfasthave never had a meaningful conversation withanyone from the other community.

• 72 per cent of all age groups refuse to use healthcentres located in areas dominated by the othergroup.

• Only 22 per cent will shop in areas dominated bythe other group, whilst 58 per cent travel twice asfar as they have to to shop, or go to a leisure orhealth centre.

• 62 per cent of unemployed people refuse to sign onin their local social security office because it is in anarea dominated by the other group.

Such physical and psychological separation leads to an entrenchment of pride and loyalty towards onecommunity, and fear and distrust of the other. This often erupts in violence, even after the Irish RepublicanArmy’s (IRA) ceasefire in 1994 (see Shirlow, 2005; Hill, 2002).


Figure 9.2 Belfast’s (b)orders

SUMMARY

In the case of Belfast it is unclear how far good fencesactually make good neighbours. Competing imaginariesof nationhood conflict in Belfast, and physical (b)orderswork to compound the political difference and distruston both sides. Here the imagined communities ofnationality are perpetuated and compounded by those of locality to create a strong sense of place that isexclusionary. By imagining then creating a (b)orderedcommunity with a ‘common interest’, there are those thatare ‘in place’ but also those that are ‘out of place’. Suchimagined communities often breed the stereotyping of‘others’ as strangers (see Wren, 2001, and Chapter 8).These synergistic scalar senses of place thus create ‘parallellives’ within Belfast (see also Chapter 8), where a city ismixed but its population does not.

Thus we can see from this example that a dual senseof place can be experienced; identity can be sensed at both the local and national scale. In the case of Belfast, the sense of place at the local scale reciprocallycombines with senses of place at the national scale toproduce a synergised and strengthened ‘nested’ sense ofidentity. In some cases, however, these dual senses of place can come into conflict with one another. In thesesituations, loyalty to a locale can be put in tension withloyalty to a national scale, as we will see in the nextsection.

LOCAL v . NATIONAL: NIMBYISM AND THE ‘NATIONAL INTEREST’

In many cases local and national senses of place are inconflict. The ‘local interest’ seeks to defend the ongoingcomposition of traces that is their locality, yet the‘national interest’ often means that these places areredefined by traces imposed for the good of the nation.In such instances, the orthodox approach to Not In MyBackyard campaigns (or NIMBYism) is to dismiss orderide them. As Blacker (2008) notes, it is natural todismiss NIMBYs as ‘irresponsible and self-protective, [as]enemies of progress and the national interest’. Yet we cansee that this approach seeks to forward the aims of thenation, rather than the attachment to the local that placesus in our everyday life. To repress NIMBYism is to

progress the cultural values of the nation at locals’expense. This was the case at the Beijing Olympics (seeBox 9.1).

Geography . . . is finally knowledge that calls upsomething in the land we recognise and respond to.It gives us a sense of place and a sense of community.Both are indispensable to a state of well-being.

(Lopez, 1998: 143)

So far in this chapter we have seen how senses of placecan be generated at different geographical scales. Fromeveryday practices in local places, to invented traditionsat the national scale, senses of place effectively tie us into a set of communities and belonging, they make these places ours. The need to be part of these scalarcommunities is strong (as Lopez suggests, above).However, it is worthwhile considering how these scalarattachments interact. In some cases the local and nationallevels coincide, strengthening our loyalty to place. In others they conflict to put our identity and loyalty in problematic relations. In such instances we are placed in tension, we become the (b)order zone: how do we decide between our place in a locality and our place in our nation? How far would you go to defendyour local place from the national interest? Do your localattachments fade in the presence of national goals?

VALUES AND PASSPORTS

We can see that in some cases our senses of cultural andgeographical place are not always coherent. This isespecially the case when we add into this mix senses ofplace that do not come directly from geography as such,but rather from cultural ideas and beliefs. These identitiesor communities of interest (rather than communities ofterritory in the strictest sense) come in the form ofethnicity (as we saw in the previous chapter), but alsothrough other cultural ideas such as religion or valuesystems. Attachments generated through these culturaltracings often serve to (con)fuse our senses of place evenfurther.

A brief and perhaps trivial example serves to introducewhat I mean. The relationship that football clubs inEngland have to their locality is becoming increasingly


(con)fused. Through globalisation they have long sincestopped fully and exclusively representing their localplace. Clubs field players that haven’t been born orbrought up in their local backyard, rather they buy thebest players they can to represent their club and their fans.Recently in the English Premier League, many clubs arenot only failing to field players from their local backyards;sometimes they have no players from the nationalbackyard either. This situation occurs frequently at clubslike Arsenal. Traditionally (b)ordering the Woolwichthen Holloway area of London, now the club representssomething different, as current manager Arsene Wengeroutlines, ‘We represent a football club which is aboutvalues and not about passports’ (BBC, 2006). At Arsenal,individuals are still signing for a club that is rooted in alocation, but the associated senses of place that go alongwith place are changing. In this case senses of place arenot bounded by roots or geographic attachments; ratherconnections are made through shared values rather than

scalar origins. The situation raises a key question: howdo ‘values’ combine with ‘passports’ to give us a culturaland geographical sense of place?

RELIGION AND A SENSE OF PLACE

In the current global climate, there are a range ofinterests, values and community identifications that are,at first sight at least, not explicitly connected to place.Gender, brand loyalty, class affiliation and political partysupport can all be read to be place-less to some degree.Religion is perhaps another example. Religion is first andforemost a belief and value system centred on powers and deities beyond the human. People all over the worldbelieve in religions. You don’t necessarily have to be bornin a particular place to be a Buddhist or a Christian. Tosome extent you can choose your god regardless of geog-raphy. These are, on the face of it at least, communities


In August, 2008, China hosted the Olympic Games.Through television coverage the Games gave China theopportunity to project its national sense of place intothe world’s living rooms. However this opportunitycame at a high local cost. An estimated 1.5 millionpeople were forcibly evicted from their residences forthe construction of main stadium (the Birds Nest) andits related projects (although Chinese official statisticsput the figures at 6000 (see Anon, 2006)). Eviction forthe Games and the good of the country did little topacify the sense of loss locals suffered about theirdisplacement. This loss moved many to extrememeasures, as one resident stated,

They might demolish the house at any time. I feelvery scared in my heart – scared and lonely. If theycome by force I will try my best to negotiate withthem. If they don’t negotiate with me, I have noother way. I can only pour petrol [around me] and

be burnt together with the people who have comefor us. I can’t let them do this – take my things soeasily and cheaply.

(Su Xiangyu, in Anon, 2006b)

Developers shouldn’t use the Olympics to takeour homes (Ma Xiulan); We don’t oppose theOlympics. But it’s wrong for them to demolishour house. It’s wrong.

(Liu Fumei, in ibid.)

As these quotations illustrate, the connections that tiethese people to their local place are strong. Althoughthe sacrifice of their homes is in the national interest,their local connections remain stronger than thosewhich tie them to the imagined community of thenation. So much so, that they would rather resist the dominating power of the state and sacrificethemselves rather than live without this connection.

Box 9.1

BIRDS NESTS, HOMES AND OLYMPIC DREAMS

of interest, rather than communities of place in the firstinstance (see MacKinnon, 2002).

This is not to say, however, that place no longermatters for ideas-based communities. Geography isthoroughly imbued in all these group affiliations (genderfor example will be more thoroughly discussed inChapter 11). With regard to religion, all belief systemshave sacred sites at the local level, for example churches,synagogues or mosques, where individuals can congregateto worship. At the supra-local level there are also sacredsites where key events in the development of that religiontook place – Bethlehem, Palestine, Medina, Mecca,where people throng to on pilgrimages. These religiousaffiliations thus engage with place at a variety of levelstying their practitioners and places together into complexwebs of cultural significance.

Of interest here is how these different sets ofbelongings come together in different places. How donational identities cross-cut, compound or conflict withother identities, for example religious identities? In somecases, geographical place itself is the point of conflictbetween different religious groups (the Belfast exampleis a good case of this: here national affiliations elide withreligious beliefs – Unionists are Protestants whilstRepublicans are Catholics – and these differences seek tofurther compound difference between communities).Box 9.2 outlines another example of how geographicalplace is the point of conflict between two religions, in thiscase between Jews and Muslims and the disputedterritory of Israel/Palestine. In other instances, it is ourbodies and selves that are the ‘place’ of tension, as thenext section goes on to discuss.


There is insufficient space here to fully explicate thegeographical, religious and cultural entanglementsassociated with the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Togeneralise is to grossly simplify, however, for ourpurposes here such generalisation is possible. Duringthe Second World War, Jews were systematically persecuted and killed by Nazi forces and their sym-pathisers across Europe. Following the cessation of this conflict, a United Nations Special Commission,supported by the United States and the Soviet Union,recommended that a Jewish state should be created,covering the biblically significant lands of Palestine. In this decision territorial (b)orders would broadlycoincide with religious ones. However, such a decisionoverlooked the senses of attachment felt by thosealready occupying this place. The (b)ordering of Israelonto Palestine involved the dislocation of manyMuslims who felt they had overwhelming rights to this particular backyard. Where could (b)orders bedrawn to please all parties? Could separate states,coinciding with religious affiliations, ever practicallywork?

Decades on from the Second World War, the issueis still politically debated and violently fought over. In2003, Israel began erecting a wall to divide what theysee as Palestinian land on one side and Israeli land on the other. The wall, which is three times the heightof the Berlin Wall, and will be 700 km long whencomplete, is seen as a ‘vital security barrier’ by those onthe Israeli side, an ‘apartheid wall’ by those on thePalestinian side, and illegal under international law bythe United Nations (Jones, 2005). The wall has had theeffect of cutting off movement between communities,affecting businesses, destroying families, and furtheralienating cultures on either side. As one inhabitant ofBethlehem states,

We are living in a prison. If you are surroundedby a wall, who will come to you? And where can we go? I have five children, and none of themhave seen Jerusalem. I have tried to go: I told thesoldiers, ‘I want to take my children to see the OldCity.’ But I am not allowed.

(in Harris, 2005)

Box 9.2

A PLACE OF TENSION: GEOGRAPHICAL AND REL IGIOUS DISPUTES INISRAEL/PALEST INE


The following images depict the scale of wall beingconstructed, as well as some of the graffiti painted onit. What interpretations do you have of these culturaltraces?

In this case, geographical territory is the very unit oftension and conflict, with different senses of nationaland religious place attempting to (b)order this area inline with their ideals. There seems to be little scope for‘plural’ lives to be lived here. If both communities aretied together (as the graffiti of the donkeys, above,suggests) then how can a more multi-cultural place beimagined?


Palestine

BOXED INTO A SENSE OF PLACE?

Conflicts between scalar and religious senses of place donot only occur in a traditional territorial sense, they alsooccur at the geographical scale closest in – the scale of thebody (after Rich, 1986). There follows an example about

a boxer, Amir Khan (see Figure 9.3). This boxer may notbe known to many – a boxing career is short and oftenover in one punch – but during his moment in the publiceye his situation exemplified how geographical andcultural (b)orders can be written on a body, even whenthey are conflict, and how they can be used to establish


Figure 9.3 Boxed in Amir Khan

ideas about appropriate behaviour and action (see alsoChapter 11).

Can you be a Muslim and a Brit? The Muslim boxerAmir Khan would be forgiven for feeling that hisgeographical and cultural (b)orders were a place oftension. Radical Islamic cleric Omar Bakri Mohammedbelieves Khan’s pride in his nation is an insult to hisreligion:

Amir Khan is not a good example for Muslims. Hewears shorts with the Union Jack on them. That isa sin. He should not be wearing the flag becausesovereignty is for God. His only allegiance shouldbe to the Prophet Mohammed. The ideal situationwould be to have a Muslim team not registered toany state so he can represent the Islamic community.

(cited in France, 2008)

Bakri even goes as far to say that Khan is ‘deviant’ for hisallegiance to the country of his birth. It is clear here, thatfrom Bakri’s point of view at least, to defer one’s religiousidentity to that of one’s nation is untenable. Indeed why should nation states be the representative scale forsporting contests? Why is this imagined communitymore important than others? Could not local, religious,or ethnic affiliations be used instead? In contrast to Bakri,Islamic journalist Alam (2004) views Khan in a differentway:

There is something very exciting about [Khan;] ayoung British Muslim representing his country inthe Olympics. It defies the stereotype of the Muslimas an indigestible minority or cultural parasite.British Muslims are rarely celebrated as heroes –Khan’s stellar performance in Athens could changeall that. They have few genuine role models who areproudly British and faithfully Muslim. . . . Hisfamily has been seen at ringside, hysterically wavingthe British flag and, at times, the Pakistani one. It’shard to miss his proud dad sporting a Union flagvest, but look closer and there’s a Pakistani cricketT-shirt underneath. Khan’s dual identity issomething he shares with many second and thirdgeneration British Muslims. . . . Yes, he is Muslimand Asian and all the things that make him sounique and inspiring, but at the end of the day, he

is just a British lad who wants to put everything he’s got into being successful at the sport he loves.Amir Khan is a home-grown champion. And he is ours.

From Alam’s perspective, it is possible to unify nationalidentity and religious affiliation. Indeed this hybridity is exciting rather than threatening. For Alam, suchhybridity helps to publicise, educate and dispel prejudiceagainst religious minorities, for those who share nationalidentification with Khan, they may become more open-minded to his minority religious belief (in the UK atleast). As he is ‘ours’, in both British terms due to hisbirth, in Pakistani terms due to his family roots, and inIslamic terms due to his religion, all three communitiesare potentially bound closer together, at least for theduration of his success.

JANUS US?

Senses of place can thus be sited in a strictly geographicalsense but also culturally written into our bodies. Throughthese multiple senses of place it is often the case that weare sited in contact zones, being pulled over (b)orders,with different attachments and connections stretchingour identity to breaking point. This situation has beenidentified by Garton Ash (2005). Garton Ash highlightshow our geographical and cultural identity increasinglyfaces the ‘Janus Dilemma’. Comparing senses of place tothe Roman god of bridges and thresholds, he suggeststhat identity can be thought of as having many ‘faces’.Each face looks in a different direction, and our identityforms a bridge between competing and often contra-dictory positions. How do we manage the contradictionsand tensions of this Janus dilemma? Writers such asBauman suggest that it is our ‘responsibility’ (2002: XV)to re-(b)order our lives in ways that suit our own Januslocations. Rather than relying on traditional imaginaries,such as the local, national, or even the religious, we need‘produce, stage and cobble together’ (Beck, 1992) newand individual senses of place. For Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (1995, 2002) this process of ‘becomingindividual’ can liberate us from those conventional tiesthat connect but also limit us. What new places will be


taken and made through these processes? What newcultural affiliations will be created, and what new tracesgenerated? Can we imagine a world beyond the nationor beyond religion? What would it look like?

CONCLUSION

In this chapter we have investigated how practices – suchas anthems, cycling tracks and wall constructions – andthings – such as flags and emblems – are employed togenerate particular senses of place. It has explored howsenses of place can be personal and how they can becollective, how they can be instigated by everyday actionsbut also by invented rituals. These tracing practices canoccur at the local, neighbourhood scale, but also at otherscales up to the nation state and beyond. They cancombine with other trace connections, working tostrengthen particular senses of place, but also problema-tising and placing in tension who we think we are. Dueto this combination of culture and geography in ouridentity, our senses of place,

are no longer necessarily or purposively . . . scalar,since the social, economic, political and culturalinside and outside are constituted through the

topologies of actor networks which are becomingincreasingly dynamic and varied in spatialconstitution.

(Amin, 2004: 33)

In other words, and as this book has argued throughout,our senses of place are not only defined by geographical(b)orders, but also by cultural imaginaries that transgressand change them. Our senses of place therefore,

come with no automatic promise of territorial . . .integrity . . . they must be summoned up astemporary placements of ever moving material andimmanent geographies, as ‘hauntings’ of things thathave moved on but left their mark, as situatedmoments in distanciated networks, as contouredproducts of the networks that cross a given place.The sum is [senses of places] without prescribed orproscribed boundaries.

(Amin, 2004: 33)

Our senses of place thus ‘fold together the culturallyplural and the geographically proximate and distant’(Amin, 2004: 37). Through our own practices andchoices they are dynamic ongoing compositions that fuse together the cultural and the geographical, often in


The case of the boxer Amir Khan thus demonstratesthe tension that can be placed on the sense of who weare. Senses of place that combine the ethnic, religiousand national are, as in Khan’s case, often explicit andvisible. In some situations, however, such hybridity is purposely hidden. For example, in the French edu-cation system legislation has been passed that bans allschool pupils from publicly wearing religious symbols(e.g. crucifixes, stars, veils etc.). In the eyes of Frenchlaw, the place of the school is not a place for beliefsystems: religious iconography is out of place here.Although it applies to all religions, this position has not

been welcomed by the Muslim community. In responseto the ban, Muslim Iraqis kidnapped two Frenchjournalists and demanded its repeal if the hostages wereto be released. In this case many acts of power seek totake and make place: from wearing religious jewelleryon the body; to publicising your religion in school; to banning iconography in education; to restricting thefreedom, movement and safety of hostages. How wouldyou respond if one cultural group threatened your senseof place in these ways? Does it matter if people arebanned from expressing their religious identity incertain places? Why?

Box 9.3

SENSES OF PLACE IN TENSION: HYBRIDITY HIDDEN?

unique and contradictory ways. How we weave togetherour ‘locals’ and our ‘nationals’, alongside our beliefs and our religions, will come to define the places of ourfuture.

How could anyone think a culture stands still? Orthat we hand it over intact like a book? It’s more likethe retelling of a story. It changes every time we putour own spin on it and pass it on. We add our ownlittle bits, forget others and get some of the storycompletely mixed up. [Through considering cultureand geography like this] I felt more at ease with myplace. . . . I had begun to carve out the idea thatthere might just be a place for me here but I wouldhave to make it. . . . I try to piece together the partsof the collective memory, the essence of mygeneration that may be meaningful to [me]. Is it thesea stories and the stories of movement; is it the storyof unbelonging? The story of global connections andyet local attachment, of boundary disputes, ofchanging the very idea of [nationalism] and religion?What it is that binds us? How will we reinvent thisheritage together?

(Williams, 2002: 182, 190)

SUGGESTED READINGS


Books

Anderson, B. (2006) Imagined Communities: Reflectionson the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Verso: London.

Essential reading is Benedict Anderson’s ImaginedCommunities in which he examines the global spread ofnations as imagined entities, and explores the processes of their creation.

Said, E. (1979) Orientalism. Vintage Books: New York.

Edward Said examines how these imagined communities,particularly those in the Orient, are looked at from anoutsider’s perspective.

Beck, U., Giddens, A. and Lash, S. (1994) ReflexiveModernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in theModern Social Order. Polity: Cambridge.

Beck, U. and Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2002) Individualiza-tion. Sage: London.

Ulrich Beck (et al.) gives us further insight into processes ofindividualisation and how these influence the formation,maintenance and connection of our identities to places acrossthe globe.

Journals

Shirlow, P. (2005) Belfast: The ‘post-conflict’ city. Spaceand Polity, 10(2), 99–107.

Shirlow gives detailed examination of Belfast, NorthernIreland, as a place of conflict between traces that are local,national, religious, real and imagined.

NOTES

1 Ariel Sharon, when President of Israel, also usedFrost’s words to make the ‘Peace Wall’ betweenIsrael and Palestine seem ‘natural’. It was a goodfence to make good neighbours (see Harris, 2005).

2 Unionist areas will make use of the colours of theUnited Kingdom’s ‘Union’ flag (red, white andblue), while nationalist areas will make use of thecolours of the Irish Republic’s Tricolour (green,white and orange).


INTRODUCTION

As we have seen, cultural geography is all about takingand making place. Every action we engage in contributesto the cultural world, leaving a trace that affects theidentity of who we are and where we are. Places are(b)ordered in line with our ideas, with cultural andgeographical regulations constructed to classify places forparticular people and uses. We have seen in previouschapters how places become (b)ordered in line withorthodox ideas about culture and nature, about ethnicity,about nationalism and religion. Our own individualsenses of place are created within and increasingly acrossthese (b)orders; our own places sometimes fit snuglyamongst the (b)orders constructed by the mainstream, atother times we have to create new places in order to beourselves. This chapter focuses on one cultural groupwithin western society that traditionally has no sense ofplace within the mainstream. As a consequence, thisgroup takes and makes place on the margins, redefiningthemselves in ways that give us new insights into thecultural geographies around us.

This chapter explores the cultural geographies ofyouth. Youth culture is an example of a group that defies

conventional (b)ordering mechanisms. They are ‘in-between’ and often across (b)orders. Youths are no longerchildren, but they are not yet adult. This ‘liminal ’positioning has consequences for the places that they cantake and make within the cultural world. In this chapterwe will look at some of the ways in which culturalgeography has looked at youth culture. How youths canbe angels or devils, goodies or hoodies. We explore howyouths have attempted to make place within and beyondconventional (b)ordering mechanisms through practicessuch as graffiti and free running. From these explorationswe consider how youth culture can influence how wethink about, and act in, place.

(B)ORDERING YOUNG PEOPLE: ACT YOUR AGE

As we have seen in previous chapters, binary classifi-cations between entities or things is one way in whichcultures (b)order places (for example, the world isclassified into culture or nature, and the economy orculture). Another such example is the distinction betweenage groups; one way we can classify ages is into ‘children’

10

MAKING AND MARKING NEW PLACES: THE CULTURAL

GEOGRAPHIES OF YOUTH

or ‘adults’. On the face of it such a (b)ordering mecha-nism is useful as it designates between ‘grown ups’ and‘kids’, between those who are morally and legally respon-sible for their actions, and those who may need some sortof protection or education as to the cultural ‘ways’ of theworld. However useful this dichotomy may be, itseither/or format provides a problem for some age groups.‘Older people’, middle-aged people, as well as youths andteenagers do not obviously fit into this conventionalcategorisation. The example of young people illustratesthis. In some senses youths are still children – they are infull-time education and remaining legally ‘minor’; yet inothers they are not: they are too old for playgrounds, theycan stay out late(r), and do not need constant parentalsupervision. At the same time, however, youths are notyet ‘adult’; they can’t vote, drink, or drive, yet they stillexperiment with their own music, drugs, languages, andpractices. Youths therefore live in a ‘grey area’ betweenthe distinctions of ‘child’ and ‘adult’, when they are toldto act their age, are they being told to grow up, or realisethat they are not grown up yet? Youths are therefore inan ‘in-between’ position within modern culture. AsSkelton recognises, they are:

at once children (in full time compulsory educa-tion), teenagers (socially defined as difficult, moody,rebellious and trouble-making) and young people(celebrated as the future, full of energy and life).

(Skelton 2000: 82)

Youths’ ambiguity in relation to this child/adult(b)ordering mechanism thus leads to problems for theirsense of place within mainstream culture. Whilst youthsmay be told to ‘act their age’ they may also be told to‘know your place’. In this ambiguous position betweenchild and adult, what is the place of youth within ourculture and geography?

WHITHER THE PLACE OF YOUTH?

The place of ‘children’ in mainstream culture is clear. AsValentine (1996a) has shown, the idea of children as‘little angels’ has led to places being especially (b)orderedfor them. The concern for children in open public space,from ‘stranger danger’, abduction or paedophilia has led

to children being appropriately (b)ordered with a careror parent, in the home, in education, or in a designatedplay space. The child is therefore adequately controlledwithin mainstream places – restricted for their ownprotection, but also kept away from adult places so thesecan function as smoothly as possible. Adult places are alsoclearly defined within the mainstream. Places of the pub,the club, work or gambling are not arenas in which youwould expect to see children; these are places to whichyou only gain access when you reach a certain age.Indeed, in general terms, Valentine has suggested that all‘public’ places have become naturalised as adult in nature,the orthodox use of these places is restricted for thoseoutside this categorisation (Valentine, 1996a, see alsoHill and Bessant, 1999). In this situation, with children’splaces and adults’ places appropriately separated and(b)ordered; where is the place for and of youth cultures?As Wyness (2006: 24) argues, youths are ‘not part of thesocial world that counts’; due to youth’s in-between agea concomitant cultural and geographical ‘grey area’ is alsoproduced. Youths are ‘out of place’ in the mainstream.

YOUTHS AS IN-BETWEEN: YOUNGPEOPLE AS ‘L IMINAL’ BEINGS

Youths therefore occupy a grey area within the main-stream; in terms of their age and the places they can gothey do not quite fit into the orthodox (b)orderingmechanisms of our cultural geography. Youths are therefore in-between conventional categories; they canbe understood as ‘liminal’ beings. Liminality, accordingto van Gennep (1960) refers to a position on the threshold or margin, at which activities and conditionsare most unstable and uncertain. For Turner, liminalbeings are constituted through their existence on:

a margin or limen, when the past is momentarilynegated, suspended, or abrogated, and the future hasnot yet begun, an instant of pure potentiality wheneverything, as it were, trembles in the balance.

(Turner 1982: 44)

Youths can be seen as existing on this margin. Their pastas children is ‘negated, suspended or abrogated’ yet their

133THE CULTURAL GEOGRAPHICS OF YOUTH

potential as adults is not quite yet realised. Youths aretherefore ‘threshold people’ (Turner, 1969). They arelocated between cultural (b)orders, ‘literally occupying athreshold or borderland space, straddling, subverting,and disrupting boundary lines of separation and contact’(Jones, 2007: 17). As Turner states, they are ‘neither herenor there; they are betwixt and between the positionsassigned and arranged by law, custom, convention andceremonial’ (Turner 1969: 95). In Bhabha’s terms,youth’s status is liminality made flesh, they are ‘neitherone nor the other, but something else besides, in-between’(Bhabha 1990: 224, emphasis in original).

Youths thus have a liminal status, and although thismeans they have no place made for them by the main-stream it does not mean they have no place at all. Liminalstatus, as Turner tells us, is a place of ‘pure potentiality’,it is place that can be oppressive, but is also enabling (seeFoucault, 1982). As we have seen in Chapter 5, whereverthere is domination there is also the opportunity forresistance, thus the place of the (b)order is, ‘filled not onlywith authoritarian perils but also with possibilities forcommunity, resistance and emancipatory change’ (Soja,1996: 87). In the words of Bhabha, it offers the potentialto ‘give rise to something different, something new andunrecognisable, a new area of negotiation of meaning and representation’ (Bhabha 1990: 211). Later in thischapter we will explore two practices through whichyouth culture contributes ‘something different, some-thing new’ to the ongoing compositions of places. Wewill broadly introduce these by beginning in the locationwhere youths generally take and make their place: theytake their culture to ‘the street’.

TAKE IT TO THE STREETS

Without a place (b)ordered for them by adult culture,youths have to take and make their own places whereverthey can. Matthews et al. (2000) use the term ‘the street’as way of encompassing the places in which youths claimto articulate and express their culture.

We use the term ‘the street’ as a metaphor for allpublic outdoor places where children are found,such as roads, cul-de-sacs, alleyways, walkways,

shopping areas, car parks, vacant plots and derelictsites. . . . To young people the street constitutes animportant cultural setting, a lived space where theycan affirm their own identity and celebrate theirfeelings of belonging. In essence, these places are‘won out’ from the fabric of adult society, but arealways in constant threat of being reclaimed.

(Matthews et al., 2000: 281)

In our own lives I’m sure we can remember how we havetaken and made ‘the street’. Through my everydaypractices I have turned waste ground into my playground, car parks into skate parks, industrial estates intovelodromes, and underpasses into hangouts. These areplaces on the margins of mainstream culture and geog-raphy and thus have been relatively easy to temporarilytake and make for (my) youth culture. To an extent, thesemarginal places are where (b)orders are more looselydefined. They are not necessarily policed or regulated ina strict, authoritarian way. As such, they are open totrangressive uses, especially those that are trivial orunthreatening. Even so, as a youth I enjoyed changingthe nature of these places. It was in some small way achallenge, a risk. Feeling marginal to the mainstreammade me seem almost invisible, I could play with, flirtand subtly transgress these places without ever reallyfeeling I was wholly challenging them. My mates and Icould explore the limits of the mainstream almostbeneath its gaze, creating places where we were in chargefor a short period of time – making a ‘temporaryautonomous zone’, to use the words of Hakim Bey (1991).Our practices thus did not resist the marginal positiongiven to us by the mainstream, but rather revelled in it. If we became too much of a threat – breaking into theschool yard or private property – we knew we could playon our liminal status and pretend we were just kidslarking about, and as ‘little angels’ we’d probably get awaywith it.

In true liminal style, therefore, I liked to hang aroundon the edges of both culture and geography. However,many youths directly test their own and the main-stream’s (b)orders by attempting to take and make adults’places. Matthews et al. (2000) identifies the ‘mall’ as akey example of this. Through this process, Mathews et al. argue that the mall becomes a ‘cultural boundary

THE CULTURAL GEOGRAPHICS OF YOUTH134

zone’, a place where youths contest and transgress the conventional cultural and geographical (b)orders ofthe mainstream, whilst adults seek to reaffirm and recon-stitute their (b)orders by removing youths from this place(as Box 10.1 describes).

SUMMARY

A (b)orderland, ‘is a vague and undetermined placecreated by the emotional residue of an unnaturalboundary. . . . The prohibited and forbidden are itsinhabitants.’

(Anzaldua 1987: 25)

Youths therefore live on the cultural (b)order. Dueprincipally to their liminal age they are classified asdifferent. They are not quite children, but not yet adult.In this situation, they reside in a ‘vague and undeter-mined’ position. They are the ‘prohibited and forbidden’.The dominant culture (in this case adult culture) hasattempted to remove from youths the ability to articulatetheir cultural idea(l)s and practise their activities. Inmainstream places their geography has been ‘delimited’and their ‘invisibility enforced’ (after Breitbart, 1998:306). As a consequence, youths have to get by on themargins of mainstream culture.

So far in this chapter we have focused on youth culturefrom the outside, maybe even from an adult perspective.


Matthews et al. outline how, ‘young people’s occupancyof some settings, such as the mall, can be interpreted as. . . a manifestation of a cultural politic that challengestheir marginality’. From this perspective, they arguethat, ‘the mall becomes a symbolic site of contest andresistance, a place infused through and through withthe cultural trappings of [liminality]. When there,young people are asserting the right of the “hybrid”, nolonger child but not quite adult, to be active agents inthe [taking and making] of place’ (2000: 282).

The mall is predominantly an adult place. Often youneed cars to get there. You need money or credit to buythings. These resource requirements thus have the affectof informally (b)ordering the place of the mall as placefor grown ups. However, youths are also out of placein other ways. The mall is a place for small groups, forcouples, for families. It is a place for walking and shop-ping, not skating or cycling. These activities and modesof behaviour are strictly controlled. Through securitypatrols, and closed circuit television, youths can bemoved on or thrown out of the mall for transgressingthese codes of behaviour. Jones (2007), in her work on youths’ cultural geographies, asked young peopleabout their experiences that took the place of the mall:

We went . . . into the shopping centre and wewent to Starbucks, and we sat there but again noneof us bought anything because we were all skint sowe got chucked out. All we wanted to do was sitdown but they wouldn’t let us . . . they were likesomeone is going to have to buy a drink, so Philbought a drink and they were like the rest of youare still being kicked out. Phil stayed because hehad the drink but it didn’t count for all of us.

(Helen and Molly, age 15)

M: People don’t like it . . . usually older people justwalking around town doing their shopping;they just don’t like big gangs of us walkingaround.

T: Even if you’re not doing anything bad. If you’rejust walking around,

M: It makes them feel vulnerable.S: They think you’re causing trouble. So you feel

that other people are like judging you andthinking bad of you even if you’re just doingnothing.

M: Because they stereotype us teenagers as troublemakers.

(Mark, Tom and Samir, age 16)

Box 10.1

THE MALL AS A CULTURAL BOUNDARY ZONE

continued

From this point of view, perhaps, youth culture all looksthe same. However, if we look more closely at youthcultures we can see that there is not just one ‘youthculture’ but many. Youth culture is not homogeneous innature; rather, it is heterogeneous. As we have seen in theprevious chapter, processes of individualisation mean weall find our own ways of weaving together our senses ofplace and identity positions, and these create a range of cultural groups that is as diverse for youths as any otherculture.

NEO TRIBAL PLACES

Just cos some people do it doesn’t mean we’re all thesame. Just cos we’re the same age doesn’t mean we’reall like that.

(Sophie, age 16, in Jones, 2007: 120)

Every generation of youth culture, in every place,produces its own groups. From ‘Teds’, ‘Mods’, and

‘Rockers’ (see Cohen 1979; Shields 1991), to ‘Chavs’,‘Emo-kids’, ‘Goths’ or ‘Punks’, youths have constructedfor themselves their own identity positions and senses ofplace. In my school there were ‘punks’ and ‘casuals’. Theyeach had their own culture, their own look, and their ownplace. Punks had mohicans, some skinheads, all hadleather jackets with stainless steel studs. Many hadtattoos, and all loved the Sex Pistols. Casuals woretrainers, jeans. They had neat, gelled coiffures. They woreSergio Tachini or Pringle jumpers. The punks congre-gated at one end of the corridor, the casuals at the other.My tutor room was in the middle: 1st year, new blazer,no-man’s-land. Who owned the corridor was the subjectof lunchtime punch ups.

Maffesoli refers to these cultural groupings of youngpeople as ‘tribes’, or ‘neo-tribes’ (Shields 1992a; 1992b;1996). As experienced at my school, these groupings havetheir own fashions, music, and linguistic jargon; they are maintained through shared beliefs, rituals and con-sumption practices (Shields 1992b). However these tribesneed not be permanent groupings; rather they are often


People think oh because we’re young people,people think we could do something wrong. Coslike when you go shopping in a group, they alwaysthink you’re gonna take something. Or when youhang out maybe near a shop, people think you’regonna do something wrong to the shop or breaktheir windows or whatever . . . sometimes peoplejust look at you really weirdly like, what are youdoing?

(Matilda, age 14, all cited in Jones, 2007: 119/120)

By taking place in the mall, youths experience thedifficulty of their liminal position. The place of the mallis not a youth’s place: they are assumed to betransgressive because of their cultural difference to themainstream, and adults on the whole successfully

defend their (b)orders; through monitoring andregulation they reclaim their place. Youths’ occupationof the mall is thus under adult control. Even if they dobehave, they may be out.

Why pick on us? It’s not fair we’re not doing anyharm. . . . Look at them there. They’re standingand talking [pointing to two adult couples] whydon’t they get picked on? We have a right to behere like anyone else.

(Girl aged 14, Newlands, from Mathews et al., 2000: 291)

Why should we go? We’re human too.(Girl aged 16, Grosvenor Centre,

in ibid.)


After Matthews et al., 2000.

temporary collectives created or joined for a short periodof time. True to the instability and creativity of theliminal position, these tribes are often transitory both interms of membership and existence. They can perhaps bethought of as experiments with attachments, the ‘tryingon’ of different cultures to see if they suit the identity ofthe young person. If they do, they are likely to be carriedforward into adult life.

Each ‘neo-tribe’ not only has different culturalpractices, but through them takes and makes differentplaces. Jones (2007: 136) found that different dimensions

of ‘the street’ were taken by different groups, in differentways. As a consequence, she states,

The spaces in and around the town centre . . .comprise a diverse topology of appropriated spaces(Lefebvre 1991) or temporary autonomous zones(Bey 1991) that have been claimed . . . by neo-tribes.

This can be demonstrated through the following exampleof ‘scallies’ (see Box 10.2).


According to Jones’s research, scallies were revealed asa significant grouping that occupied the central spacesof the town centre. As she states,

Scallies are instantly recognisable through theirdistinctive ‘group uniform’, gang formations andpractices of aggressive rituals. As a local variationof the national ‘chav’ phenomenon, scallies havea distinct clothing style and similar to chavs favourdesigner brand clothing, usually tracksuits andsports jackets, baseball caps and heavy goldjewellery.

(2007: 139)

This was evident in conversations when teenagers wereasked to describe the scally neo-tribe:

People who wear their collars up, and tracksuitbottoms and their socks pulled up over theirtrousers. It’s quite amusing because their socks arepulled right up to their knees. They wear Burberryhats and they wear chains and that.

(Hayley, who describes herself as ‘normal’)

You know people who wear trackies in their socksand that. And caps like half way off their head . . .

they all walk round with their caps like resting ontheir heads, thinking they’re dead hard.

(Ben, ‘normal’)

Alongside these fashions and bodily practices, Jonesidentified key places that were taken and made by this‘neo-tribe’. She stated,

Scallies have a dominant presence in the town centre particularly on a Saturday afternoon,where they congregate in large groups outsideMcDonalds’ restaurant. For scallies, McDonaldsacts as a socially central meeting point, as Susandescribes: ‘When they [scallies] go into town,there’s like a million of them. It’s like they’re onthis pilgrimage to McDonalds where they all hang out.’

(Susan, Goth)

As one scally put it:

Being a scally, it’s just like your mark, it’s the wayyou are. Like if you’re a scally, one part of it relatesto where you hang around. It’s basically your area.No one will mess with your area. Me and himhang around, don’t we? About 20 of us juststanding there it’s dead good.

(Jamie, Scally, ibid.)

Box 10.2

SCALL IES TAKING AND MAKING PLACE

MORAL PANICS

Scallies are therefore a good example of a neo-tribe, ayouth group with their own cultural and geographicalpractices. Such tribes can be seen as a threat to themainstream. Through the traces they contribute to main-stream places – congregating in large groups and oftendemonstrating aggressive rituals. It can be argued thatscallies assert a ‘geography of fear’ (Pain 1997, 2001).This threat can be felt by the range of others that use that

place – either other youth ‘neo-tribes’, or the dominantadult group. In such situations, youths are no longer the‘little angels’ of the child/adult binary, but become ‘littledevils’ (see Jenks, 1996; Valentine, 1996a). Such charac-terisation has led to ‘moral panics’ (Cohen, 1979), whereyouth tribes are seen to be posing such a serious challengeto the physical, psychological and moral (b)orders of themainstream that they require increased legislation andcontrol. One example of a moral panic has been thebacklash against ‘hoodie culture’ (see Box 10.3).


The moral panic against hoodie culture is clear in theUK. As McLean states, the overwhelming perceptionis that, ‘the hoodie is the uniform of the troublemaker’(McLean, 2005); Conservative Party Leader DavidCameron puts it this way, for some, he says, ‘the hoodierepresents all that’s wrong about youth culture inBritain today’ (2006). Such prejudice against an itemof clothing and the youth culture that wears it has led to many shopping malls banning hoodies from their premises; any clothing that obscures the face(hooded tops, baseball caps) will not be allowed. Rachel Harrington, vice-chair of the British YouthCouncil, says such decisions demonstrate a growingdemonisation of the culture and geography of youngpeople.

It’s yet another example of a trend – tarring all young people with the same brush and over-reacting to any behaviour by young people. Youcan understand shopping centres’ desire to pleasetheir customers, but it doesn’t seem to me to bethe best response. It’s very easy to create thestereotype of the young thug as emblematic ofsociety’s problems, rather than seek out the rootof the problems.

(cited in McLean, 2005)

Sharmarke Hersi, a black youth, was stopped by policeofficers for wearing a hoodie. He states, ‘It’s like somekind of moral panic. I was on the train not long agoand a lady was holding her bag tight because of mydress code. You sometimes see people crossing the roadto avoid you or putting their phone away’ (in Casciani,2005).

However, attempts to demonise and outlaw thehoodie often has the consequence of making it a morepopular trace amongst youths. As McRobbie identifies,

[The hooded top] is one in a long line of garmentschosen by young people, usually boys, andinscribed with meanings suggesting that they are‘up to no good’. . . . Moral panics of this type haveonly ever made the item, and its culturalenvironment, all the more attractive to those whoprefer to dis-identify with establishment figuresand assorted ‘moral guardians’ and who enjoy theoutlaw status of ‘folk devil’.

(McRobbie, Professor of Communications atGoldsmiths College, in McLean, 2005)

The demonisation of the hoodie by mainstream culture,making it a ‘novel’, unorthodox and unwelcome culturaltrace, has not had the intended affect on youths in the

Box 10.3

YOUTHS IN THE HOOD, UP TO NO GOOD

SUMMARY

Youth cultures, like all others, take and make places.These places can be on the margins or in the mainstream.Youths loiter in the margins to experiment with theirliminal status, flirting with adult practices and trying out new cultural expressions. In the mainstream, thesecultural traces are often not understood, deemed as athreat, and vilified. Moral panics ensue, seeking todemonise this ‘other’ group, further marginalising theirsub-culture and making any transition or assimilationinto the mainstream more problematic. The places ofyouth culture can thus, as Soja has identified, be, ‘filled

with authoritarian perils’ (1996: 87), but at the same timeoffer sites of creativity, invention and potential. Whentaking and making the street, youth culture can offer us new ways of experiencing and thinking about theworld around us. In its diversity and plurality, youthcultures offer bubbles of refreshment to the cocktail that is place. This chapter goes on to explore two of these bubbles – free running (or parkour), and graffiti.Both can be seen to offer new approaches to thinkingabout and acting in the places around us, and illustratefurther the complex interaction between minority and dominant cultures in the ongoing composition ofplace.


UK. Rather than making the hoodie unpopular,dominating powers have unintentionally reinforced thecultural kudos of the hoodie. Rather than acquiesing to the (b)orders preferred by adultist cultures, youths

have reasserted their claims to this cultural trace, eitherrevelling in or resisting the outlaw status it gives theirpresence in places.


Hood DemoHood

LIBERATING THE CITY: FREERUNNING

Free running suggests we have a choice, do we allowour cities to trap us, or liberate us?

(Tomlinson, in Christie, 2005)

Free running or parkour (the ‘art of movement’) is ayouth culture that has its origins in Paris, France.1 Freerunning seeks to use the built objects of a place as a kindof gymnasium, through running, climbing and acrobatics

the aim is to move through these objects as stylisticallyand efficiently as possible. In France free runners are known as ‘traceurs’, through their movements theyleave traces which influence how we come to see,experience, and think about the places around us (see Figure 10.1).

You just have to look, you just have to think, likechildren. This is the vision of parkour.

(Sebastien Foucan, Free Runner, in Christie, 2005)


Figure 10.1 Traceurs and traces: free-running places

Free running has thus taken the urge to jump betweenkerbstones or vault over bollards to a more organised andexpert level. The orthodox practices through which wemake the street (walking, cycling, or avoiding) are thustransgressed through free running. ‘Traceurs’ do notfollow these conventions. They use the built form of thestreet as something to experiment with, playing withlimits and physical (b)orders, and through so doing,influencing the way the street is understood and used.

Central to this new sport is a philosophy thatchanges the way free runners view their towns andcities. Obstacles become a kind of . . . springboardto launch off, leap from, or land on.

(Tomlinson, in Christie, 2005)

Cities have always been places of escape. When theybed down, when they cease to be that, whentramlines become too settled, everything is toostereotyped, these things start to die. What these freerunners are saying, in the most original and unex-pected way you can think of, ‘You [grown ups],you’re in tramlines. Come and escape with us.Think afresh.’

(Will Hutton, in Christie, 2005)

Through the difference that free running constitutes toour uses and approaches to the street, how does it pose athreat to orthodox uses of place? As traceurs climb overbollards, bus shelters or churches, do the conventionalmeanings and uses of these traces change? Are theysubverted, or even corrupted? Should the street be usedin this way? In a more experiential sense, can free runningliberate the city from it’s ‘tramlines’ and bring differentemotions to the daily commute? Can it take and makethe city into something different? For its practitioners,free running offers a,

Certain freedom and expression, something very realand very raw . . . When you take people out of theordinary you create something magical.

(Bear Grylls, Climber, in ibid.)

After the jump you’re in a state of . . . you feel asurge. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s the

happiness of creating something, achieving some-thing and doing it well. There is a sense ofaccomplishment that you’ve succeeded in everythingyou planned and you think ‘I’ve done it’, and youcan see it in my face. In your mind you’re walkingtall.

(Sebastian Foucan, Free Runner, in Christie, 2003)

Free running is therefore an example of a youth culturethat offers potentially positive ways for both youths, andindeed other cultures, to think and engage afresh withthe street. It contributes traces that are not necessarilydurable in a material sense, but may leave a permanenttrace in your memory if you see an acrobatic leap from aparking meter, or in your heart if you perform oneyourself. In this sense, therefore, it emphasises thecombined nature of the substantial, symbolic andpsychological composition of traces that come to defineour places. Did you jump over bollards as a kid? Do youpractise free running on your journey to university? If so,why? Why has the street become a place of walking ordriving? Should free running be encouraged, or banned?

THE WRITING’S ON THE WALL:GRAFFITI TRACES

Graffiti has been used to start revolutions, stop warsand generally is the voice of people who aren’tlistened to. Graffiti is one of the few tools you haveif you have almost nothing. And even if you don’tcome up with a picture to cure world poverty youcan make someone smile while they’re having a piss.

(Banksy, 2001: 3)

Graffiti is ‘unauthorized writing or drawing on apublic surface’ (Srivathsan et al., 2005: 422), and as suchit explicitly seeks to leave material and visible traces in places (see Box 10.4). These traces give a ‘voice’ togroups – they get to offer their opinion or state their case through their writings or drawings. In one sensetherefore the message of graffiti can easily be read.Graffiti’s message is in the words or images stencilled orsprayed on the wall (see Figure 10.2).


Graffiti can be simple but colourful tags, but can alsoinvolve images. As we will discuss below, whatever thenature of these traces, all say something about the

writer, and the location in which it occurs. How do youread these traces?

Box 10.4

GRAFFIT I TRACES


Shush Resistance

Drunk Tag Designated Graffiti Area



Metro Tag Flower 1

Banksy, Bristol Town Court

Flower 2

Banksy, Anarchy

However, as McLuhan (1967) recognises, cultures,‘have always been shaped more by the nature of the mediaby which men [sic] communicate than by the content of the communication’ (cited in Watson, 1994: 19).McLuhan is suggesting that the medium is as much a partof the message as what is said or drawn; and this is partic-ularly true for the case for graffiti. As Banksy (a famousUK graffiti ‘artist’) states above, graffiti gives a voice topeople who aren’t normally heard in the mainstream.The medium chosen to articulate this group’s message isnot the ballot box or the mainstream media. These placesare seen to disenfranchise rather than represent them.Resorting to taking and making place through graffititherefore says more than simply the stencilled wordswritten: it also says, ‘I am not part of your culture, but I still have a right to my say. This place is mine and youcan’t silence me’. The message offered by the medium ofgraffiti is thus often deemed a threat to the mainstreamas it symbolises the lack of absolute control any dominantgroup can have over a minority.

Thus in contrast to the non-material traces left by‘traceurs’, graffiti offers a visible and durable claim to theownership of place. As Srivathsan et al. state, ‘the [street]is ordered in the map but the contestations within aremade visible . . . through graffiti’ (2005: 427). Claimingtheir place within the street is a key reason youth culturespractise graffiti. As Nandrea outlines,

Graffiti takes many forms and serves many func-tions, but perhaps the most prevalent and certainlythe best publicized function of urban scrawl is tostake out gang territory, to lay claim to an alley, acorner, a roof, or an entire area symbolically fencedoff by gang signatures. In an amazing and whollyaudacious gesture, these urban gangs redraw all thelines of the city, simply overwriting proper legal andpolitical boundaries.

(1999: 113)

From this perspective graffiti challenges the orthodox(b)orders of the street and re-places them with new tracesthat redefine ownership and rules. Graffiti thereforesymbolically and literally takes place for particular youthgangs. This reading of graffiti is illustrated in Box 10.5.Box 10.5 is an extract from the film Falling Down (1993).In this scene, the main protagonist (William ‘D-Fens’Foster, played by Michael Douglas) sits on a rock tracedwith graffiti tags, in what he considers to be wasteground. Two unnamed gang members confront Douglasabout his right to be in their ‘backyard’.

In this extract there are many examples of resistanceand domination (and for an extended discussion of thesein the film more broadly, see Cresswell (2000)). In thischapter, however, it is worthwhile noting the symbolic,territorial and proprietary function of graffiti. Graffiti


Figure 10.2 Graffiti messagesAccording to this graffiti in Cardiff, we should use the electoral system to keep out right-wing fascist parties. On this trainin Rome, Italy, graffiti writers want us to know that ‘life is fast’. (The difficulty of writing graffiti on a train is referred tolater in this chapter.)

traced onto the rock by the gang members claims thisplace as theirs. This taking and making of place is clearto all those who can read this (b)ordering trace, andinvokes trouble for those who transgress it.

Graffiti tags therefore can be read as signs that con-struct new (b)orders and ownership for a place. As such,graffiti defiantly issues a challenge to the question ‘whoseplace is this?’ By explicitly taking place, and failing toacknowledge or value existing uses or ownership, graffitiseeks to ‘draw’ other claimants out into the open, making

them question their own ‘sense of place’, and testing thepower of their (b)order controls. In many places, thechallenge presented by graffiti to the dominant culturegains a swift and strong response. In Melbourne forexample, where a culture of graffiti was widespread, theauthorities clamped down on all forms of wall writing in2006. Police Minister Tim Holding stated the dominantcultural line when he said, ‘Graffiti’s not art, it’s vandal-ism and it’s something we all deplore’ (cited in Anon,2006). Young (Head of Criminology at Melbourne


GANG 1: What you doing, mister?FOSTER: Nothing.GANG 1: You’ re trespassing on private property.FOSTER: Trespassing?GANG 2: Loitering too.GANG 1: That’s right.FOSTER: I didn’t see any signs.GANG 1: What you call that?FOSTER: Graffiti?GANG 1: No, man.GANG 2: That’s not fucking graffiti!GANG 1: That’s a sign.GANG 2: He can’t read it, man.GANG 1: I’ll read it for you. It says this is private

property. No fucking trespassing. Thismeans fucking you!

FOSTER: It says all that?GANG 2: Yeah!FOSTER: If you wrote it in English, I’d fucking

understand it!GANG 2: Thinks he’s being funny.GANG 1: I’m not laughing.GANG 2: I’m not either.FOSTER: Hold it, fellas. We’ re getting off on the

wrong foot. This is a gangland thing, isn’tit? We’ re having a territorial dispute? I’vewandered into your pissing ground or

whatever the damn thing is . . . and you’reoffended by my presence. I understandthat. I mean, I wouldn’t want you peoplein my back yard, either. This is your home. . . and your home is your home. I respectthat. So if you would just back up a step ortwo . . . I’ll take my problems elsewhere.Fair enough?

GANG 1: What do you think?GANG 2: He should pay a toll. . . .GANG 1: Give us your briefcase, man.FOSTER: I’m not giving you my goddamn briefcase.GANG 1: Motherfucker, give us your motherfucking

briefcase!FOSTER: I was willing to mind my own business. I

was willing to respect your territory andtreat you like a man. You couldn’t let a man. . . sit here for five minutes to rest on yourprecious piece-of-shit hill? Want mybriefcase? I’ll get it for you, all right? Youwant my briefcase? Here’s my briefcase! [heattacks the men with a baseball bat]. Clearthe path, you motherfucker! Clear the path!I’ m going home!

(From: http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/f/falling-down-script-

transcript-douglas.html)

Box 10.5

THIS IS MY PLACE: GRAFF IT I AS A S IGN OF CULTURAL ANDGEOGRAPHICAL OWNERSHIP

University) emphasised the battle that was occurring overwho owned the streets, ‘The clean-up is an imposition ofa supposedly mainstream, or dominant, cultural view. Itis a denial of the diversity of cultural styles that actually

exist within a city space’ (ibid.). The ongoing battle forplace, and the questions that it raises about our own andother’s sense of place was a process I experienced on theSouth Bank in London (see Box 10.6).

Box 10.6

F IELD DIARY: GRAFF IT I ON QUEEN’S WALK, LONDON


South Bank

COMMODIFIED BY THE MAINSTREAM:GRAFFITI , ART, AND RECUPERATION

As we have seen in previous chapters, dominant culturesadopt a number of tactics to (b)order minority cultures.

In the case of graffiti, its threat can be painted over andscrubbed out, and its practice outlawed. However, graffitihas also been controlled by being assimilated into themainstream (see Figure 10.3). This process, akin to the‘partnership’ mechanism seen in Chapter 8, involves the


I had an odd sense crossing the Thames, away from theHouses of Parliament and along Queen’s Walk [seeabove]. Is someone going to tell me b*gger off cos I’mnot a biker, skater, junkie, hobo – I feel ‘out of place’amongst all this graffiti. Is this graffiti tolerated becauseits in the margins of this place (i.e. its not on the wallsof the Festival Hall, or the House of Commons, or TateModern, but underground)? Still, the juxtaposition ofdifferent cultures on Queen’s Walk makes you think:whose place is this? With the House of Commons soclose, who really is in control here? To be honest, I

wouldn’t want this graffiti in my backyard. So why do‘they’ allow it? If this can happen right under the nosesof the ‘powers that be’ then they can’t be that powerful,can they? Is graffiti allowed here because, in the way ofthe carnivalesque, it is looked upon as a benign andharmless act? Is it looked upon as something attractive,as a sign of a tolerant and ‘cultural’ city?2 Is it even atourist attraction? Right next to the London Eye doesit make London seem a more cosmopolitan and toler-ant city? Or does it just go unnoticed, is its marginalpresence invisible to the dominant authority?


South Bank

commodification of this cultural trace into somethingthat can be marketed and sold (see Chapter 5).

graffiti today is more than an illegal sub-culture – ithas become big business and . . . corporations arecashing in. Red Bull, Adidas, Puma, 55DSL and Lee Jeans have all incorporated graffiti into theirmarketing campaigns, so it is hard to walk down a major shopping street without seeing spray-can artdecorating shops.

(Asthana, 2004)

Graffiti has then moved from ‘the street’ to the ‘HighStreet’. The popularity, rebellion and marginality encom-passed by the medium and message of graffiti is beingused by capitalists as a new way to sell products to theyoung. Graffiti itself has also been turned into a com-

modity. Galleries stock graffiti images on canvas (seeabove), graffiti artists themselves have their stencils andspray paintings hung in galleries, and graffiti iconographyis used to brand Olympics (see Box 10.7). Some piecesof graffiti have become even more valuable than theproperty they are sprayed on. (A piece of graffiti inBristol, England was marketed as ‘coming with a freehouse’. The owners felt the artwork, sprayed illegally byBanksy, was more (financially) desirable than the houseon which it was painted. One of Banksy’s canvas worksrecently sold for more than £100,000 (see Anon, 2007)).As a consequence some graffiti artists have become rich and famous through commodification, rather thanoutlaws or criminals.

The commodification process thus raises questionsabout the meaning of graffiti. On the street we have seenhow graffiti traces can be threatening, but in the High


Figure 10.3 A head full of facts . . .

In these images graffiti is sold as art (in a shop in Cardiff) and is used to sell a fizzy drink (on a bus stop bill board in Dublin,Ireland). Has graffiti gone from a novel to a normal, even a natural trace through such usage?

Street they are transformed into money-earners, and inthe gallery, works of art. This process thus reminds usthat it is not simply the words and images of graffiti that are important, or the medium itself, but also contextin which graffiti is found. In Cresswell’s words what tells us most is ‘the crucial where of graffiti’ (1996). In‘the street’ graffiti is ‘temporary’, ‘wild’, ‘unexpected’ anda ‘noncommodity’. In the ‘high street’ or ‘gallery’ itbecomes ‘permanent’, ‘tame’, ‘expected’ and a ‘com-modity’ (1996: 50). In many ways, Cresswell is arguingthat the assimilation of graffiti into the mainstream has the affect of ‘recuperating’ it (see Chapter 5). Thethreat and transgression offered by the practice on ‘thestreet’ is removed when it is placed in the mainstream. Is this because graffiti itself has changed? Perhaps itswords and images no longer seek to challenge us? Orthose who are speaking have ‘sold out’ and thus are them-selves less threatening (see Figure 10.4)? Or has graffiti’spresence in different places changed the way we see this trace, and as a consequence, we have become moretolerant and accepting of this minority voice?

The material affects of graffiti are significant. Theytake and make place for youth cultures, and often prompttrace-chains within the cultural world as dominantcultural groups retaliate or commodify these claims ontheir place. However, in fixing our attention on the


The logo for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympicshas been unveiled in a star-studded ceremony inLondon. Based roughly on the figures 2012 andapparently inspired by graffiti artists, the image isaimed at the younger, ‘internet generation’ andwas hailed as ‘dynamic’ and ‘vibrant’ by organisers’(Carlin, 2008). ‘ “This is the vision at the veryheart of our brand”, said London 2012 organising

committee chairman Seb Coe. “It will define thevenues we build and the Games we hold and actas a reminder of our promise to use the Olympicspirit to inspire everyone and reach out to youngpeople around the world.” ’

(BBC, 2007)

Does this choice of logo represent the inclusion ofyouth culture and graffiti within the mainstream? Oris it an act of recuperation and commodification? Howdoes the context in which this and other acts of graffitiare found influence how we value and (b)order thiscultural trace?

Box 10.7

GRAFFIT I BRANDS THE LONDON OLYMPICS

Figure 10.4 The graffiti artist graffiti-ed.This piece of graffiti satirises and condemns the stencil artistBanksy due to the perception that he has moved to the main-stream, either by choice, or via recuperation.

material traces of graffiti and their cultural and geo-graphical significance, we may ignore the non-materialpractices that contribute to their creation. As in the caseof free running, it is often these non-material practicesthat motivate graffiti. It is the experience of performancethat is the desired goal, rather than the product ultimatelycreated.

THE PERFORMANCE OF GRAFFITI

The rush you get from doing graffiti and the respectyou get from your peer group is certainly veryaddictive. . . . Like the Streets song says, ‘Geezersneed excitement’, and if you’re young then graffitiis an easy way to get it.

(Fiasko, cited in Addley, 2007)

The performance of graffiti is for many ‘artists’ the pointof its practice. Accessing your ‘canvas’ can be a challenge,indeed the more (b)ordered the place, the more excitingthe project (see Ninjalicious, 2005). This, coupled to thebuzz of creating the tag, image or message itself, can beaffirming.

‘Why do we do it?’ It’s about respect. Obviouslythere’s the adrenaline from painting in a tube yard,they are really hard to get into these days. . . . It’sprobably similar to breaking into a house orsomething, it’s such a big mission. Finding it,breaking in, painting, getting away scot free . . .

(Twisted, cited in Asthana, 2004)

Halsey and Young acknowledge the importance ofperformative element of graffiti. They state, ‘graffitiwriting [is] an affective process that does things to writers’bodies (and the bodies of onlookers) as much as to thebodies of metal, concrete and plastic, which typicallycompose the surfaces of urban worlds’ (2006: 276). Inthis way, the difference of graffiti culture to the main-stream is accentuated. In graffiti culture, the paintingproduced is not necessarily the key to the practice. Thepoint is the act of painting itself. Ingold recognises thatsuch an emphasis is similar to the priority given to artisticperformance in non-western societies.

In many non-Western societies . . . what is essentialis the act of painting itself, of which the productsmay be relatively short-lived – barely perceivedbefore being erased or covered up. . . . The empha-sis, here, is on painting as performance. Far frombeing the preparation of objects for future contem-plation, it is an act of contemplation in itself. . . . in[western] painting, gestures leave their traces in solidsubstance, the resulting forms may last much longer,albeit never indefinitely.

(Ingold, 1993: 161/2)

In this sense graffiti does not only stand as a statementagainst dominant culture, but also represents a differentway of ‘framing’ the act of art- and place-making. Theperformance is the act that gives graffiti artists credibilitywithin the culture, not necessarily the finished product.It is the identity created by the performance that will bedurable within the culture, even once the graffiti has beenremoved:

People are always going to remember him becausehe was Ozone. People will always have a lot ofrespect for him. That’s the truth in graffiti. Andthat’s the reason I do it. I know when I die I won’tbe forgotten.

(Addley, 2007)

SUMMARY

What does graffiti tell us about place (after Nandrea,1999)? It reminds us that, in the first instance, wherethings happen is crucial. As emphasised in Chapter 1, ‘somuch depends on context’ (Cook, in Clifford andValentine, 2003: 127). The places that graffiti takes andmakes are at once altered by its presence, but at the sametime, the meaning of the trace itself is influenced too.Thus graffiti can be seen at once as ‘temporary’, and‘permanent’; ‘wild’, and ‘tamed’, ‘noncommodity’ and‘commodity’ etc.; but in the style of the liminal youthwho practise it, perhaps it ‘neither one nor the other, butsomething else besides, in-between’ (Bhabha 1994: 224).Graffiti is an act that makes us confront our own senseof place, our own (b)orders. Graffiti turns lines into


question marks, forcing us to consider whose world weare living in, what our (b)orders should be, and how weshould act as a consequence. With this in mind, howshould we read the piece of graffiti found on a wall inCardiff (Figure 10.5)?

CONCLUSION

We have focused in this chapter on a group whotraditionally have had no sense of place within the main-stream. Youth culture exists ‘in-between’ (b)orders,between the conventional categories of ‘child’ and ‘adult’.Through the individualisation process (as outlined inChapter 9) youths experiment within their liminal place,trying out different identities by forming ‘neo-tribes’ andstaking their claims in ‘the street’. As one graffiti ‘artist’states, the street is ‘where like all of us, sort of, theyounger people, or people in graffiti totally think it’ssomewhere where we can represent’ (in Halsey andYoung, 2006: 285). The material places youth culture

takes and makes are thus often marginal in nature, yetthey are also explicitly public – as a consequence theirrepresentations are often visible and widely read as adirect threat to the mainstream.

However transgressive youth cultures may be, we haveseen that they are not explicitly resistant in nature. Theirintention is not to edit or revolutionise the mainstream,but simply to take and make place for their own culture.Youth cultures may be categorised then as different, butalso indifferent to the mainstream. Youth cultures do notnecessarily care about how their traces are seen by themainstream. They are more concerned about how theyare seen and read by their own culture. Perhaps in thisdisregard of mainstream values lies their real threat.

However, when we look to the margins, we can seeinnovation and ideas which offer insights into how wethink about and act in places. Through practices such asfree running and graffiti, youth cultures leave traces inplaces that alter our experience of orthodoxy. They raisequestions concerning how we acquiesce to and accept the


Figure 10.5 A ‘completely pointless and mindless piece of vandalism’?

Is this graffiti an act of vandalism? Is it art? Is it political? What culture does it stand for, and what does it challenge? Doesit change how you consider the act of graffiti?

‘naturalness’ of the places around us, and how these(b)orders can be tightened or made more flexible in orderto remove or accommodate diversity. Youth cultures, likeother minority cultures, can help us think differentlyabout the world around us. Through their traces theychange both the culture and geography of place.

SUGGESTED READINGS


Books

Skelton, T. and Valentine, G. (eds) (1997) Cool Places:Geographies of Youth Cultures. Routledge: London andNew York.

Skelton and Valentine give insights into the cool places ofyouth culture ranging from experiences of clubbing,backpacking, and gang culture, and related issues of safety,danger, and moral panic.

Holloway, S. and Valentine, G. (eds) (2000) Children’sGeographies and the New Social Studies of Childhood in Children’s Geographies: Playing, Living, Learning.Routledge: London.

Holloway and Valentine offer a sociological take on thecompetency of youths as cultural actors and outline how thiscontributes to our understanding of their geographies, sensesof belonging, and issues of liminality. This latter issue canbe explored in more depth in Bhabha and Shields:

Bhabha, H. (1990) The Location of Culture. Routledge:London.

Shields, R. (1991) Places on the Margin: AlternativeGeographies of Modernity. Routledge: London and New York.

Journals

Nandrea, L. (1999) Reflections. ‘Graffiti taught meeverything I know about space’: urban fronts andborders. Antipode, 31 (1), 110–16.

Halsey, M. and Young, A. (2006) ‘Our desires areungovernable’. writing graffiti in urban space. TheoreticalCriminology 10 (3), 275–306.

Nandrea, and Halsey and Young tell us ‘everything theywere taught about place’ by traces of graffiti, whilstCresswell’s 1996 text ‘In Place/Out of Place’ has an excellentchapter about the writing on the wall.

NOTES

1 Interestingly, Paris has had major problems with itsyouth cultures. As Stewart outlines, many of itssuburbs has suffered from ‘a toxic combination ofpoor education in poor areas, and in some casessheer prejudice, creat[ing] a vicious circle whichmeans that those from ethnic minorities, heavilyconcentrated in large estates on the outskirts ofcities, can become trapped outside the job market’(Stewart, 2005). Youths, particularly ethnic youths,have thus become the ‘prohibited and forbidden’ inFrench society. When Interior Minister, the nowFrench President Nicolas Sarkozy threatened to‘clean’ youth cultures ‘off the streets’: ‘the louts willdisappear – we will clean this estate with a Kärcher’he said (cited in Willsher, 2005). Kärcher is a makeof high-pressure hose used to clean buildings.Youths are dirt to be washed out of mainstreamFrench places.

2 Also see the London 2012 logo on p. 149.


INTRODUCTION

As we have seen in this book, traces and places that weassume to be natural, to be the only way to be are oftennothing of the kind. The process of undertaking aculturally geographical approach to place criticallydisentangles these ongoing compositions of traces andsees them as constructions, rather than givens. In thischapter we turn specifically to what Rich (1986) describesas the ‘geography closest in’ – the body. This materialand somatic site can be considered as a place in the sameway as any other: it can be taken and made, givenmeaning, and be part of a set of trace-chains that affecthow we think about and act in the world around us. Theplace of the body is often assumed to be ‘natural’ and‘essential’ – the body has a biology, gender, sex andsexuality that are often seen to be as natural as the day wewere born. However, as this chapter will explore, thenaturalness of these statuses can be questioned as ourbody’s features are (b)ordered in numerous ways.Similarly, the identities and meanings of the places inwhich are bodies live are constructed too – the geographyof the body and the geographies it inhabits are far frombeing natural – how a body can be in place or out of place

is an affect of cultural values and acts of power. Thischapter investigates how the body is (b)ordered, and howthese (b)orders are changing. It explores how ideas ofmasculinity, femininity, hetero- and homosexuality aretransgressed, and how the place(s) of the body change asa consequence. We will see how once ‘naturalised’ and‘essentialised’ identities are increasingly crosscut andproblematised by the range of other identity and placepositions that we have been introduced to in this book.We will see how gender and sexuality are complicated byage, capitalism, religion, and nationality, for example. Wewill investigate the consequences of these new hybridtraces, how new places are being generated, and howcultural (b)orders are being changed to facilitate orcontrol them. We begin by looking at how gender can(b)order our bodies.

THE NATURE OF THE (B)ORDEREDBODY: GENDERED TRACES

Gender in its simplest form refers to the sexual organs you were born with. However, gender involves more thansimply our biological assets and capacities; it is associated

11

(B )ORDER ING THE BODY

with what it means to be boy or a girl, or a man or awoman: gender involves what it means to be ‘masculine’or ‘feminine’. Gender, then, is associated with the cultur-ally geographical aspects of meanings, appearances, prac-tices and places that make up the ‘proper’ ways of beinga male or a female body. According to Linda McDowell,gender represents: ‘differences between women andmen’s attitudes, behaviour and opportunities that dependupon socially constructed views of femininity andmasculinity’ (McDowell 1989: 170).

As de Beauvoir identifies, femininity and masculinityare not something we are born with, but something webecome through the cultures in which we are socialised.In her book The Second Sex, she claimed women were notborn, but made:

No biological, physiological or economic fatedetermines the figure that the human being presentsin society: it is civilisation as a whole that producesthis creative indeterminate between male andeunuch which is described as feminine.

(de Beauvoir, 1972: 295)

Tracings of gender on the human body are therefore farfrom natural, they are (b)ordered into norms accordingto cultural values and preferences. Such traces come inmany forms, from how we dress, to how we move, fromhow we act, to what we look like. In terms of clothing,for example, skirts are generally considered a feminineclothing item (the example of kilts in Scotland are anotable exception); the use of make-up is likewise afemale practice, as is the utilisation of a hand bag. In linewith these conventions, how would you respond to a manholding a hand bag and wearing a dress in your culture?Would your response depend on where the man was?Why? In the Pacific Islands, specifically Samoa, it is notuncommon for men to wear what we may considerwomen’s clothes. Here it is completely ‘normal’ for mento dress ‘in the manner of a woman’ (or fa’afafine).Fa’afafine are biological males who wear dresses andsarongs; in this culture it is accepted as ‘normal’ and‘natural’ for men to dress this way.

We can see in Islamic cultures how specific clothing(b)orders are naturalised, with women wearing the hijabor burka to demonstrate modesty over their physical form

in public places. Similarly masculinity and femininity are‘naturalised’ by cultures into accepted body shapes andsizes. Appropriate body shapes for men are generally big,muscular, and hard. Indeed, Johnston argues that theconstruction of this body shape through exercise is anattempt to ‘render the whole [male] body into a phallus’(1996: 330). In contrast, accepted body shapes forwomen include the absence of such overt musculature.In the west the feminine form is ‘appropriate’ whenslender, svelte or curvaceous.

Such naturalised body types correspond with specificbehaviour and activities that are deemed appropriate foreach gender. As Adelman and Ruggi (2008) identify,genders are culturally (b)ordered into particular ways ofholding and carrying their body. They argue that in thewest females are encultured into,

mov[ing] their hips emphatically from side to side,thus accentuating the waistline. They take longsteps, placing one foot in front of the other, armsmoving in such a way as to remain hidden behindthe body. . . . Males also take long steps, but theirarms and legs move in a parallel fashion, meant toaccentuate shoulders (strength) rather than hips(sexuality). Thus, corporeal technique is gendered –establishing an asymmetrical femininity and asymmetrical masculinity, which further promotesdifferent readings of the meanings of the body.

(2008: 565, emphasis in original)

These accepted ways of carrying the body are alsoextended into modes of tactility. In the west females aremore likely to show tactility towards their friends andfamily through hugs and kisses, whereas males may onlyresort to a firm handshake. Within families, fathers areless likely to be tactile with their children than mothers.However, in terms of sexual practice, it is more culturallyacceptable in the west for heterosexual men to be moreactive than heterosexual women. As Taylor and Jamieson(1997) identify, if women are sexually promiscuous they are likely to be negatively branded (their researchstudy sees promiscuous women defined as ‘little scraggies’or ‘nookie tramps’ by men within a northern UK city – the women’s lack of a permanent partner render them‘placeless’ and valueless within this culture). Such

(B)ORDERING THE BODY154

(b)ordering of the body is very different in other cultures.The fa’afafine in Samoa are open in their sexual relation-ships with either gender. ‘Natural’ (b)orders of ‘gay’ and‘straight’ have little cultural relevance here (there is nospecific Samoan term for ‘homosexual’ for example). InSamoa it is completely ‘normal’ for fa’afafine to have open sexual relations with men and women, withoutquestioning either group’s sexuality.

Our bodies are therefore culturally (b)ordered in termsof what we should wear, how we should carry ourselves,and who we should share the place of our body with.McDowell (2004) points out that our bodies can also be(b)ordered in terms of how we should perform them. In terms of physical behaviour western males ‘have developed a particular version of a tough, aggressive,sexualised street credibility’ (McDowell, 2004: 51). Hart(2008) acknowledges a similar ‘mukhayyamji’ style ofidealised masculinity amongst males in Palestine. Heremales are required to show physical strength, oftenthrough aggression and combat.

Although a true mukhayyamji would not go lookingfor trouble, should a fight break out, he should beprepared to enter it immediately to save the reputa-tion of himself and his neighbourhood. Describingthis responsibility of the young mukhayyamji,sixteen year old Ahmed told me: ‘If people knowthat the shabaab (“lads”) in your neighbourhood arestrong, others passing through keep their headsdown and don’t look at the women. They showrespect.’

(2008: 73)

The ‘mukhayyamji’ culture of masculinity thus requiresthat men be strong and ready for aggressive conflict inorder to represent the strength and vigour of their par-ticular place. Here the identity of their neighbourhoodis directly connected to the physical characteristics andperformance of the men who inhabit it. In the UK,McDowell (2004) cites Willis’ classic study of working-class men in the Midlands (1977) which emphasised asimilar requirement for physical robustness from the male body.

These young men’s sense of themselves as masculinerevolved around a tough aggressive and disaffected

stance at school, the disdain of intellectual interestsand achievement and the transference of similarbehaviour into leisure activities that involvedtoughness and embodied activities in the streets aswell as in sporting activities.

(McDowell, 2004: 49)

As Willis identified, a range of cultural activities alsocome to be associated with gendered norms. Men mayshun academic interests in favour of aggressive sports.Women may perform well in class, but not be expectedto pump iron in the gym (although see below). Thesports arena is, therefore, one place in which notions ofgender are often emphasised. As Adelman and Ruggi ask,‘just how strong or muscular can or should a woman’sbody be, and still be “feminine”?’ (2008: 567). Similarlywhat sports can be played by all groups, without calling into question the gender or sexuality of theindividuals involved? As Adelman and Ruggi cite, in theirresearch,

Volleyball [was considered] ‘so feminine’ that, asone player pointed out, it . . . cast a shadow of doubtover the masculinity of the boys and men whopractised it, i.e. carrying the stigma of feminizationand/or homosexuality.

(ibid.: 571)

Immediately from birth, culturally accepted norms ofmasculinity and femininity are thus (b)ordered onto ourbodies. Biology does not produce gender, but culturesdo. Particular roles and gender characteristics areconstructed through habit, everyday actions, as well asinvented ritual traditions. Nawi Ng et al. (2007) identifyone of these rituals and its affects on masculine identityin Indonesia (see Box 11.1).

SUMMARY

Bodies therefore have a ‘sense of place’ that is culturalrather than biological. Culturally constructed (b)ordersof the body influence how masculinity and femininity isunderstood in different places. As Jordan and Weedonpoint out:

155(B)ORDERING THE BODY

Our identities as girls and boys, women and menare formed in and through our involvement in socialpractices, from the family and schooling to culture,sport and the leisure industries. Cultural practicessuch as the media, marketing, the cinema, sport, literature, art and popular culture construct formsof subjectivity which are mostly gendered. This gen-dering suggests that certain qualities are appropriateto women and others to men.

( Jordan and Weedon 1995: 179–80)

These gender (b)orders vary between cultures, but allproduce normalised and naturalised roles for males andfemales. In any culture, ‘one form of masculinity ratherthan others is [always] exalted’ (Connell, 1995: 77), andthe same is equally true for femininity. These (b)orderseffectively limit the ways in which gendered bodies cantake and make place.

GENDERED (B)ORDERS: GENDEREDPLACES

Gender (b)orders are not simply cultural, they also havegeographical affects. Where are the appropriate places fordifferent bodies? Are all genders equally accepted in allplaces? In western culture one of the most obvious placesthat is (b)ordered according to gender is the place of thehome. Here it is a cliché that ‘a woman’s place is in thehome’. This naturalised position has in recent decadesbeen adapted and subverted (see below), but it stillremains the dominant way in which domestic places are(b)ordered.

Greenberg (1998: 70) cites that many men accept that ‘in the traditional home, women hold near totalauthority’ (also cited in Mackay Yarnal et al., 2004:688)). In this archetype, the male ideal is to go out towork and earn money, whilst the woman is the,


In Indonesia, boys go through a traditional religiousritual of circumcision at the age of 10–12 years. AsNawi Ng et al. state,

Circumcision, which is viewed as a sign of malematurity and adulthood, is celebrated in a villageceremony. During the ceremony, cigarettes are served to the guests, who are mostly teenageboys and friends of the boy being circumcised.Cigarettes are also believed to promote healing ofthe circumcision wound, which, according to theboys, is a belief shared by their parents and onethat has been practiced for many generations.

(2007: 798)

Through this process, cigarettes have become a symbolof cultural status and masculinity. Cigarettes indicatematurity, attractiveness, success and potency. As NawiNg et al. report,

For them, boys have to be brave enough to smokeotherwise they are seen as having an effeminatemanner. The smokers stated: ‘If we don’t followour peers and smoke, they will call us feminine.’Thus, smoking enabled them to reaffirm theiridentity as boys.

(2007: 800)

Such invented rituals and associated cultural statuscontribute to the gendered smoking rates in Indonesia.38 per cent of all boys smoke, but only 5.3 per cent ofgirls. This example illustrates how the place of the bodyis itself ordered and bordered with culturally distinctideas of appropriate behaviour for each gender. It isnormal and natural for boys to smoke in Indonesia. Itis abnormal and ‘out of place’ for them not to. Suchtransgression of cultural norms raises questions overtheir gender: if they do not conform, there must besomething wrong with the place of their body.

Box 11.1

‘ IF WE DON’T SMOKE, THEY WILL CALL US FEMININE’ : SMOKING AND MASCULINITY IN INDONESIA

‘backbone of the family, caring for children and thehouse’ (Miewald and McCann, 2004: 1051). In the place of the home, therefore, dominating power isexercised according to gender, as Miewald and McCann’sidentified in the homes of Appalachia,

My mother made all the decisions. My mom wasthe one that pulled our family through every crisisand everything that went on. My dad had no saywhatsoever. He just sat in the rocking chair androcked which ever child was little.

My dad didn’t know how to do anything. [He]didn’t even know how to take out the garbage. Hedidn’t know what you were supposed to do with it.He thought you threw the whole can away. It alwaysseemed to be my mother’s responsibility. Everythingwas her responsibility.

(2004: 2054)

The (b)ordering of the body is thus extended into thematerial geographies our bodies inhabit. Women’s bodiesmay be restricted to domestic places when they may reallywant to be in the world of business, be Formula 1 drivers,or army generals. Men are similarly (b)ordered intobusiness suits, when they may want to wear stockingedfeet and look after their, or other peoples’, children.Conventionally gendered bodies can therefore work torepress and restrict both genders and the places they cansuccessfully take and make.

GENDER (B)ORDERS: PATRIARCHY

Feminists refer to this (b)ordering process, and how it particularly affects women, as patriarchy. The termpatriarchy refers to, ‘the system in which men as a groupare constructed as superior to women as a group and so assumed to have authority over them’ (McDowell,1999: 13). In western societies, patriarchy is deemed an institutionalised process that enhances the idea of the superiority of men and the inferiority of women.Feminists argue that this is achieved through the legalsystem, the tax and social security system, as well aseveryday attitudes and behaviours. Pearson, in his workon surfing in Australia, identifies the process of patriarchy

occurring. He identifies a process of misogyny, acontinual devalorisation of women and their role, whencompared to the superior and exalted role of men.

‘Some time ago in the letters column some bravesoul pointed out that Tracks was profoundly sexist– like the surf scene it caters to. . . . What could youput instead of “chicks”? Well, might one suggest“lady” which is just a little better and of slightly lesscondescending nature? Point taken. All vessels shallhence forth be called ladies . . . Ed.’

(Tracks 53: 13)

‘How do you think it would feel to be walking set of animal functions? . . . The surfing woman ismeant to be a handbag, a decorative accessory forthe shaggin’ wagon like an expensive cassetterecorder. For comfort stops who can cook, fuck andmake your mates jealous by being as desirable aspossible while remaining loyal and clean; a faithfuldog who can do the shopping to keep the surfingbody beautiful functioning in its holy watery glory’(Tracks 2: 51).

(cited in Pearson, 1982: 129)

By referring to women as ‘chicks’, ‘dogs’ and ‘vessels’, onecan see that in surf culture femininity is to an extentdehumanised, framed as less important, simply an ‘acces-sory’ to what really matters. (Note too how faithfulnessand loyalty on the part of the female is expected if theyare to remain ‘clean’.) What really matters in this case isthe place of the wave; surf is the place of the male, whilsta woman’s place is in the margins (in this case, the placeof the camper van or the beach). In this way the culturalpreferences of bodily order are translated into materialgeographies: places are taken and made in line withgender roles and relations.

However, as we have seen in previous chapters, the(b)orders that repress and restrict can also offer opportu-nities and potential. Patriarchy, for example, can restrictwomen to places that are maternal, family oriented and domestic. As peaceable rather than political bodiesthey belong to the private and are out of place in thepublic sphere. Nevertheless, Ashe (2006) argues that suchapparently restrictive (b)orders have been used by women


to make substantial contributions to the public sphere.When women transgress accepted (b)orders and attemptpolitical action they may be framed in a ‘feminine’ way(as Ashe points out, women campaigners in NorthernIreland have been described as ‘pretty and defiant’ or ‘impossibly glamorous’, as well as being defined by thenumber of children they have brought up). However,these (b)orders also lend credibility and weight to thecampaigns they seek to make. As Ashe argues, due to their familial and maternal roles, these women have‘greater moral authority and a natural right’ to mountcampaigns (Ashe, 2006: 164, my emphasis). It is arguedthat this cultural status makes their opinions moresignificant and resonant than if they were made by amale.

It is important therefore to interrogate how (b)ordersof the body can both restrict and enable particular life choices. (B)orders offer both obstacles, but alsoopportunities. How do gender (b)orders confer particularsources of symbolic and cultural capital to particularbodies? How are all genders repressed but also liberatedby them? Raising such questions means that issues of gender domination or superiority become complex toanswer. Who gets to set the (b)orders of our bodies? Areboth genders equally restricted by them? In what places,how and why?

CHANGING (B)ORDERS: HOW BODILY IDEALS ARE CHANGING

Focusing on bodily (b)orders and the places they createallows us to also interrogate the power relations betweenmales and females, and hetero- and homosexuals. AsPanelli outlines,

adopting the . . . ideas of [bodily] power relationsenables [cultural] geographers to explore the basesand practices of power relations that unevenly affectmen’s and women’s experiences and access todifferent arenas and spaces.

(2004: 66)

Focusing on bodily ideals enables us to see these relativepower structures not as taken for granted ‘natural’(b)orders, but constructed to benefit certain groups in

certain ways. Some cultural groups may be complicitwith, or acquiesce to these (b)orders because they benefitfrom, or agree with them. However it is clear that whatever the relative powers at play, there is always an alternative to these (b)orders. As Blunt and Willisnote;

To think of [the body] as a social construction hasbeen politically enabling, allowing gender roles andrelations to be destabilised and resisted.

(Blunt and Willis 2000: 93)

As we have seen, the dominant way western cultures tendto (b)order our bodies are in line with the dualisticcategorisation we have noted elsewhere in this book. Weare born as male or female in terms of our gender, gay orstraight in terms of our sexuality. The naturalness of these(b)orders can be easily destabilised and resisted. Forexample, what about those people who are trans- or inter-gender? What of those people who are bi- or poly-sexual?What of people who have used medical advances tochange the gender of their birth? These individuals donot conform to the established (b)orders of cultural andgeographical classification. They transgress and questionthe established lines that take and make place. Theyoccupy what we have seen in the previous chapter is an ambiguous grey area, in the case of inter-gender aliteral ‘no man’s land’. Let’s consider some examples ofbodies that are out of place in terms of these conventional(b)orders (Figure 11.1).

Browne (2006) has conducted research on individualswho do not fit into orthodox (b)orders associated with gender and sexuality. Her respondents identifiedthemselves as women, but are not necessarily seen as such by mainstream culture – their size, shape, or surgical transformation means they transgress ‘naturalised’categorisations of ‘female’. Browne found that thesewomen’s cultural otherness also meant they had nogeographical place within the mainstream, even in such necessary locations as public toilets. As Browne outlines:

Where places are segregated into men’s andwomen’s spaces, such as toilets, ambiguous bodies


can be subject to violence and abuse. . . . Attributes,such as large frames, can often be associated withmen, constructing the sight of the body as male and consequently ‘out-of-place’ in women onlytoilets.

(2006: 128/9)

Browne’s respondents thus found themselves caught in aliminal or ‘in-between’ position (a position that we haveseen in Chapter 10 also besets youth culture). To themainstream they were not quite women, but also notquite men. They were somewhere and somebody in-between. Unlike the liminal position of youth culturehowever, these women had no possibility or desire to‘grow out’ of their position, even though the affect oftheir difference was a chronic displacement from themainstream. Some of Browne’s respondents explain theaffects of their difference as follows:

JANET: And you know they [other women] don’tlook at my face or anything they just lookat my build and look at my height andlook at my haircut and they just instantlyassume that I am some dirty man in thewomen’s toilets ( Janet: focus group).

LORRAINE: I can’t believe how rude people arethough, cos I have been in the toilets withyou.

JANET: I dread going to the toilets at (name of nightclub) on a Wednesday night Iabsolutely dread it, I just think ‘fuck I haveto go to the toilet’. And I hold it off as longas I can and I just think ‘no I have to go’.And I have to get someone to come withme because I just, I just get so many peopleshouting at me.

(cited in Browne, 2006: 129)

Being born or made into bodies that do not conform toconventional (b)orders therefore means that many indi-viduals have no place within some cultural geographies.It is clear that very real emotional traces are produced bythe transgression of bodily ideals. As Davidson (2003)has explored, such transgressions can result in phobiasand panic in certain places. In Davidson’s words, it can‘destroy one’s sense of relatedness to other people, andlocatedness in place, alienating the subject from thepractices of everyday life’ (2003: 3).

As soon as we recognise that the body and not justthe mind is ‘a medium of culture’ (Bordo, 1993: 65)then the question of how . . . self identities andbodies are maintained and disciplined in andthrough the agency of an (often hostile) culturalenvironment becomes crucial.

(Davidson, 2003: 17)

The (b)ordering of bodies and the geographies theyinhabit thus reminds us that it is not place itself that is a problem for many people, it is the cultural meaningsand associations imbued in them that render some groups ‘in’ and ‘out of place’. To paraphrase Kirby, ‘theproblem with place isn’t just place; it is the fact that thereare other people in it – other people who are creating it,


Figure 11.1 Hybrid and transgressive genders

determining it, composing it . . . is it surprising then, thatplace could seem a bit hostile?’ (1996: 99).

TRANSGRESSING BODILY (B)ORDERS: THE PROCESS OF INDIVIDUALISATION

Bodily (b)orders can thus make certain places hostile to some individuals and groups. However, as we havelearned in this book, all culturally geographical (b)orderscan be subject to transgression and resistance. Johnston(1996) focuses on how female body-builders are disrupt-ing the accepted norms of femininity and masculinity in relation to both the place of their bodies, but also the places in which these bodies are shaped (see Box11.2).

Another way in which traditional bodily (b)orders are being destabilised are through notions of ‘camp’.Camp, as Johnston (2002) points out, generally involves,‘representational excess, heterogeneity and gratuitous-ness of reference’ (Cleto, 1999: 3). Camp is normallyassociated with homo- or poly sexual bodies, yet bothheterosexual men and women can demonstrate campcharacteristics, either temporarily or as a persistentidentity trait. Camp therefore not only ‘works to under-mine accepted values and truth, especially the hetero-sexual definition of space’ (Binnie, 1997: 29, also citedin Johnston, 2002: 127) but also to ‘dismantle the staticconstructions of masculine/feminine and heterosexual/homosexual’ (Johnston, 2002: 128). Increasingly theinfluence of camp, gay and heterosexual characteristicsare hybridising traditional identity roles. Metrosexualmales may carry ‘murses’ (males’ purses). They may pay


Johnston uses the example of a gym in New Zealandto explore the ways in which traditional gender rolesand places interact, but also become perpetuated ortransgressed. In this particular gym she notes that,

Women are encouraged to participate in aerobicsand circuit training, away from the masculine sexedspace of the potentially violent ‘Black and BlueRoom’, a free weights training room. Womendominate the aerobics and circuit room, while themen dominate and actively discourage womenfrom participating in the ‘Black and Blue Room’.This particular gym confirms the construction offeminine and masculine spaces, and hence bodies.Within this environment the female body-builderprovides a challenge to hegemonic notions of sexand sexuality, as well as participating in dominantdiscourses which shape feminine bodies.

JENNY: One guy said, ‘Oh do you need a handwith that?’ And I was carrying it [the barbell] over to prepare to set up and to doan exercise and I said, ‘No I’m alright.’He said, ‘Oh are you going to use it?’and I said, ‘Yeah’, and he had his mouthwide open.

(cited in Johnston, 1996: 328/330)

In this example, Jenny is transgressing both theorthodox (b)ordering of the female body, as well as theconventional (b)orders of the gym itself. Female bodiesare ‘naturally’ (b)ordered as svelte and curvaceous, soto gain a physical muscularity directly resists these idealsand seeks to impose a different cultural and bodilyorder. Similarly, through her presence in the ‘Blue andBlack Room’ the naturalised order of this site as a placesolely for men is challenged. Here the place of thegendered body and the places that it inhabits are beingtaken and made in ways that resist dominant cultural(b)orders.

Box 11.2

RE(B)ORDERING THE FEMININE BODY

particular attention to their fashion choices and generalappearance and use hair products or make up. Similarlyall genders and sexualities may dance to certain genres ofmusic in a range of venues. With these complications,does dancing to ABBA in a ‘gay bar’, necessarily meanyou are gay? Would doing so enforce or challenge yourbody’s sexuality in the eyes of others? Why?

In a similar way, traditional bodily (b)orders can beundermined through changes in capitalism. Changes tolabour markets through technological developments,communication infrastructures and globalisation have ledto traditional job opportunities and distinctions beingeroded. As a consequence, much manufacturing labourhas been displaced from the developed economies andthe jobs that have taken their place are more associatedwith bodies that are highly tactile, deferential and serviceoriented. These new roles therefore complicate traditional(b)orders of both masculinity and femininity. Although,as McDowell identifies, ‘high-touch work’ may be‘constructed as “feminised” work in which a docile and. . . conforming body is written into the job description’(2004: 48), the traditional role of ‘breadwinner’ withina family is accepted as masculine. In this scenario, femalebodies have to transgress their (b)orders in order to gainemployment, whilst male bodies have to transgress their‘physical’ and ‘aggressive’ ideals in order to conform. Inpractice, evidence suggests that this process of adaptationmay be easier for women than for men, as the followingexamples illustrate:

In my interviews I found that many of the youngmen to whom I talked had clear views about thetypes of work they were prepared to consider,regarding most service sector work as ‘women’swork’ and so beneath their dignity. Even if they were prepared to consider employment in the shops, clubs and fast food outlets that were the mainsources of work . . . they often disqualified them-selves as potential employees by their appearance(piercings and tattoos as well as inappropriateclothes) and their attitudes during the recruitmentprocess, as employers read the surface signals ofbodily demeanour, dress and language as indicatorsof the underlying qualities they are seeking, or moretypically as characteristics they are careful to avoid.

. . . Many of them [who did get jobs] found it hardto perform the deferential servility required in theservice economy.

(McDowell, 2004: 51)

The traditional (b)orders of the body can therefore rendersome genders out of place in the new geographies ofcapitalism. Orthodox masculine bodies (strong, pierced,tattooed) are out of place in a new world (b)orderrequiring deference, tactility and servility. The mixingand mingling of capitalist and body traces thus de-stabilises accepted bodily norms. Similar destabilisationalso occurs when other cultural traces merge with thebody, for example religion and nationality. As Said(1979) identifies, religions such as Islam are often(b)ordered in the west as violent, oppressive and patr-iarchal. However, many in the west are now choosing to convert to Islam, instigating the ‘pioneeringendeavour’ of creating an American or ‘European Islamicculture’ (Ramadam, 2003: 163). The potentially difficult‘marriage’ between western values and those of Islamprompts a reconsideration of each culture’s traces.Mansson McGinty (2007) has looked at this phenom-enon, specifically the consequences produced by womenin Scandinavia who convert to Islam. In this research, the ‘new’ cultural geographies constructed throughindividualisation are clear:

What I find difficult in my life is that since I’mwearing the veil I am questioned. I find it very hardthat my intellect is questioned. [Apparently] youcan’t be intellectual or intelligent and Muslim at thesame time. That combination does not exist formost Swedes. In their eyes I have to be somewhatstupid if I, as a Swedish woman, decide to convertto Islam.

(2007: 477)

This may sound very, how can I say it, complacent,but I have always been slim and I have always had aremarkably good-looking body. And that has beena basis for many people in forming a judgment ofme. I was only a walking body. And even if you wearjeans and a T-shirt people can tell how you look.With the veil and so-called decent clothes I get


judged in a whole different way. Since people can’tsee my body they can’t think ‘wow, what a waist,what a sexy butt and what legs!’ Instead people haveto look into my eyes. Contrary to what most womenbelieve, it is not so much fun to be so-called ‘sexy’.It is not nice when people forget that you actuallycan have an IQ of 120. Because, in their eyes, if youare sexy you are also stupid. Then I get so damnpissed [whispering].

(2007: 480)

These quotations illustrate how gendered bodies canchallenge the relative (b)orders of Islamic and Swedishculture. From a western perspective, for a white Swedishwoman to decide to wear a veil must mean they are somehow abnormal, choosing a servile and apparently‘inferior’ position in contrast to the equality that definesSwedish cultural life. However, in their own inter-pretations of Islamic values, the respondents do not feelas if wearing a veil means deference or inequality. In their reading: ‘Islam says that it is not equality throughsameness [ jämlikhet] we should strive for but equality in the sense of having the same worth and opportunity[ jämställdhet]’ (ibid.: 478). In practice, the ‘transgressive’act of wearing a veil actually means that other aspects of their personality are noticed more (people just don’tsee them as ‘feminine’ or ‘sexualised’ bodies) and thus anew form of equality is attained. As a consequence, thismerging of different bodily traces produces new ways tobe ‘a woman’ that transgress the traditional (b)orders of both cultures.

We can see therefore that the individualisation processthat we encountered in Chapter 8 is one way throughwhich the dominant place(s) of the body can be de-stabilised. Through this process a world can be created‘which doesn’t have the same borders anymore’ (Beckand Back-Gernsheim, 2002: 211). The destabilisation of bodily ideals makes it important to chart the recon-struction of (b)orders that are produced in their stead. As the above example illustrates, these Swedish womenare changed through their conversion to Islam. YetSweden is also changed by having white, Islamic womenin it, and Islam is influenced too by its reinterpretationwithin a twenty-first-century European place. Throughsuch experiments about what it means to be somebody,

what cultural and geographical consequences result fromthese ongoing compositions?

THE CONSEQUENCES OF BODILYDIFFERENCE: (RE)ESTABLISHING(B)ORDERS

In the final section of this chapter we investigate fourconsequences of the ongoing composition of bodies andplaces. We explore how new bodily (b)orders are beingconstructed but also how traditional traces are beingdefended from transgression. Through doing so wediagnose the ‘natural’ place for different bodies withinthese cultures, and find out whose cultural places theseare anyway. In the first two examples we will see how adominant heterosexual culture has accepted homosexualbodies within the mainstream, but this acceptance has been geographically limited to certain places. First,the gay community is deemed as acceptable and appro-priate only in metropolitan areas. They are out of place inrural or non- urban sites. Second, the gay community has been segregated into specific areas of the metropolitanitself – with ‘gay ghettos’ being created that at once affirma gay identity, but also enforce its difference andmarginality from the mainstream. In the third example,we explore how certain gendered and ethnic bodies are out of place in Ireland. Finally, we explore how theorthodox (b)orders of western patriarchy are being re-constructed in one town in China (Box 11.3).

RE-(B)ORDERING NEBRASKA AS A HETEROSEXUAL PLACE

In Nebraska, the ‘Defense of Marriage Act’ (DOMA) hasbeen introduced to ban same-sex marriage, civil unionsand domestic partnerships. Rasmussen has argued thatthe threat posed by gay and lesbian difference representsa, ‘struggle over the very meaning, identity and self-determination of a place called “Nebraska” ’ (2006: 808).The ‘threat’ of gay couples taking and making a place inNebraska led to other communities within the stateuniting to repel them. ‘Norms’ of ‘traditional values’,‘nuclear families’, ‘heterosexuality’ and ‘democracy’ were


called forth, strengthening the mainstream culture’s senseof place. As Rasmussen cites,

The pro-DOMA forces adopted the strategy ofportraying gays and lesbians as a powerful minoritythat . . . wished to undermine the cultural identityof their Nebraska. . . . The pro-DOMA campaignportray[ed] advocates of same-sex unions as foreignto Nebraska and its values, a process of represen-tation that drew heavily on stereotypes aboutcultural belonging. . . . [It] was able to capitalize onboth the rhetoric of local control and pre-existingstereotypes associating alternative sexualities withmetropolitan areas. . . . The state natives wererepresented as rural, rooted and traditional [and]their opponents . . . as cosmopolitan, nomadicoutsiders.

(2006: 811/12)

As Rasmussen identifies, the ‘threat’ of gay couples takingand making a place in Nebraska led to other communitieswithin the state uniting to repel them. Stereotypes ofbelonging and identity were (re)established which placedgays amongst other minority groups in other areas (in thiscase, the city), and keeping rural places the ‘rightful’ placefor the traditional, straight, majority. As a consequence,gay people had no place in this idea(l) of Nebraska.

According to the mainstream ideal, at least as definedby those in Nebraska, the ‘normal’ place for the gay

community is in the city. Indeed, in many of the majorcities of the world there are thriving and vibrant gay areas(perhaps ironically called villages). The idea that is it‘normal’ for the gay community to find a sense of placein the city has been explored further by Nash (2006). Sheargues that although the creation of gay villages or‘ghettos’ in many urban areas affords this culture its ownplace within the mainstream, it also (b)orders thiscommunity into particular sites within the city, and is anobstacle to full acceptance by the dominant culture.

the gay ghetto [can be] regarded as an obstacle rather than a benefit to the liberation of gays andlesbians – a space at odds with and constitutive of adiminished and apolitical homosexual identity. . . .Activists argue that exclusively gay spaces wronglysegregate homosexuals from mainstream society inan oppressive and marginal ‘ghetto’. Several groupsdr[a]w a direct correlation between being forced to socialize in these segregated spaces and what [is]seen as ‘inappropriate’ homosexual conduct andlifestyles.

(2006: 3/5)

Nash argues here that although place is granted for thisminority group within the mainstream, their sense ofplace is still deemed ‘inappropriate’ by it. Non-heterosexual identities and traces may be accepted as‘normal’ by some, but still not as ‘natural’. Acceptance


In 2007, Chongqing in South West China planned to build a district based on a local custom which(b)ordered men subservient to their wives. InChongqing, women maintain dominance over theirhusbands, enjoying control over the home, work andfinancial environment. As Coonen (2007) reports, signsin the district will outline the dominant order: ‘Womenare never wrong; men can never refuse their needs.’

Men who transgress this order are punished by kneelingon a hard board or being forced to do the washing upin local restaurants. The idea of a formalising thismodern-day matriarchy has been approved by the localgovernment who wish to use this custom to attracttourists. Does this reversing of patriarchy heraldemancipation for women in Chongqing, or does itpander to western fetishes of domination?

Box 11.3

PATRIARCHY RE- (B )ORDERED? WOMEN RULE OKAY IN CHONGQINQ, CHINA

has therefore been partial, as a cultural group gays remainboth geographically and culturally marginal. What doesthis tell us about both cultures? What is the nature of the ‘threat’ posed by non-heterosexual bodies to themainstream? Are their biological differences and desirescorrupting to the common sense (b)orders of mainstreamplaces? Is partial acceptance a first step towards full‘partnership’?

PREGNANT AND ETHNIC BODIES:CITIZENSHIP IN IRELAND

In Ireland, processes of globalisation and immigrationhave set in motion the mixing of particular religious,ethnic and nationalist traces. The dominant culturalgroup in Ireland (white, Catholic, and perhaps male) hasworked to defend its (b)orders from those bodies that are deemed to be out of place there. One example of thisre-bordering is the 2004 Constitutional Amendmentwhich removes birthright citizenship (i.e. the right to beconsidered a natural citizen of Ireland) from any childborn to immigrant parents in this country. As Cox pointsout, this Amendment,

tells people in the starkest terms . . . that we do notwish them to know a sense of belonging [in and to Ireland]. It says that . . . genetic connection to thepure Irish race is a necessary prerequisite of Irishness.

(Dr Neville Cox, Trinity Law School, Dublin(cited in Tormey, 2007: 70))

According to this Amendment, therefore, the onlyappropriate tracing that warrants Irish citizenship is bloodand race. Being born or growing up in Ireland is notenough. To be Irish your body has to conform to a bloodlineage. Tormey (2007) argues that this Amendmentrenders certain bodies, particularly black, immigrant, andpregnant bodies, as transgressive in Ireland. Due to theirinherent visibility, these bodies have become ‘matter outof place’ (Butler, 1993). As McDowell, Ireland’s Ministerfor Justice, stated at the time, ‘anyone with eyes can seethe problem’ (Tormey, 2007: 69); these bodies are literallymarked out as trespassers, they do not fit the physicalnorm and are thus ‘othered’ as non-citizens in this place.

CONCLUSION

Our bodies are the medium through which we encounterthe world. The place of the body, and the places it takesand makes, are therefore vital to understand for culturalgeographers. As we have seen in this chapter, our bodiescan be gendered and sexed, but these subject positionsare not only something we are born with. They are also culturally constructed both materially and meta-phorically. Our bodies are therefore bound up with a range of cultural meanings that affect how we areexpected to act, where we are expected to be, and whowe are expected to be like. These bodily (b)orders presentus with opportunities and obstacles in our engagementwith the world around us.

Through acting in this world our bodies take andmake place. Our actions affect the meanings of the world,and our bodies become affected by the world’s competingtraces. Due to the limits of binary bodily (b)orders (for example of male or female, hetero- or homosexual),as well as the competing traces that affect our bodies (for example age, capitalism, religion and nationality), anincreasing number of people no longer ‘fit’ conventional(b)orders. How do these ‘other’ bodies and their tracescome to affect the ongoing composition of place?

We can see that destabilising the (b)orders of the body can have a number of affects on place. Dominant(b)orders may be strengthened, leading to the exile of challenging bodies, or they may be loosened forconditional acceptance, albeit with restrictions to themargins. These processes thus resonate to a degree with the control mechanisms outlined in Chapter 8.Challenging bodies may be outlawed, tightly controlled,or accepted through partnership (both in everyday lifeand in ‘civil’ union); each culture may even be equallyassimilated by the other. How particular bodies securepartnership, where, and why, is thus a key question toanswer through the study of the ongoing composition of place.


SUGGESTED READINGS


Books

Butler, J. (1993) Bodies That Matter: On the DiscursiveLimits of ‘Sex’. Routledge: London.

McDowell, L. (1999) Gender, Place and Identity:Understanding Feminist Geographies. University ofMinnesota Press: Minneapolis.

Judith Butler offers a relatively advanced insight into theimportance of the body as a geographical and cultural place,whilst McDowell gives a more accessible reading of therelations between the body and place, particularly withreference to gender.

Bell, D. and Valentine, G. (eds) (1995) Mapping Desire:Geographies of Sexualities. Routledge: London and New York.

Empirical examples of places of the body, gender andsexuality and how they are constructed and performeddifferently across the globe are outlined by Bell andValentine. Examples include places of sex and sexuality,gender in the home, and the body in cyberspace.

Cleto, F. (ed.) (1999) Camp: Queer Aesthetics and thePerforming Subject. A Reader. Edinburgh UniversityPress: Edinburgh.

Journals

A range of insights into mainstream and alternativesexualities, body places and gender constructions are exploredin the following journals. The paper titles illustrate thesubject matter examined therein.

Bondi, L. (1990) Feminism, postmodernism andgeography: space for women? Antipode, 22(2), 156–67.

Johnston, L. (1996) Flexing femininity: female body-builders refiguring the body. Gender, Place and Culture,3, 327–40.

Binnie, J. (1997) Coming out of geography: towards aqueer epistemology? Environment and Planning D,Society and Space, 15, 223–37.

Nash, C. J. (2006) Toronto’s gay village (1969–1982):plotting the politics of gay identity. CanadianGeographer, 50(1), 1–16.


INTRODUCTION

This book has begun from the premise that we are partof the cultural world. All our ideas and actions combineto produce places. This production occurs both in oureveryday activities, but also in the process of us investi-gating cultures and their locations – in doing culturalgeography. In their own ways, our research encounterstake and make place. They leave traces which mark ourpresence in a place during our research, then absencewhen we leave. The nature of the traces we leave sayssomething about our research methods, and says some-thing about us. What sort of research methods should weuse to investigate cultural geography, and what sort oftraces should we leave?

In this chapter we investigate some of the key methodsthat can be used to take a culturally geographicalapproach to place. As we know, this approach looks atplaces as ongoing compositions of traces. These traces areboth material (for example ‘things’ such as buildings,signs, or statues), but also non-material (i.e. events,performances or emotions). As a consequence of thisapproach cultural geographers need to employ researchmethods that can explore both types of traces. In essence,

therefore, we need to use methods that can investigateboth the representational and the non-representationalin cultural geography, to echo the words of Greenhough(2004) we need to use methods that can explore both thelanguage of the word and the language of the world (seeChapter 3). This culturally geographical approach toplace – this ‘more than representational’ cultural geog-raphy (see Lorimer, 2005), seeks to include both theoriesand things, but also emotions and feelings in its study.In order to do so, a range of different methodologies are required. In this chapter we outline some of the keymethods that can do just this. The chapter begins byexploring some of the key issues to be considered whenconducting any method, including access, operation andethics. It continues by outlining some of the methodsused by cultural geographers to understand the languageof the ‘word’, namely interviews and the analysis ofcultural traces. The chapter goes on to explore methodsthat go further into the language of the world, mostnotably emplaced and real-time methods includingethnography, before outlining how all these methodsoften combine through case studies to give us a culturallygeographical approach to place.

12

SWIMMING IN CONTEXT: DOING CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY

IN PRACT ICE

POSITIONING METHODS

The need to choose appropriate methods for any researchproject is vital. When choosing the best methods for yourwork it is important to remember the illusion of the godtrick. As Haraway (1998) informed us in Chapter 2, thegod trick is the fantasy that fools us into thinking that wecan stand apart from the world we are studying and gaina universal and detached view of it. However, we are notgods. We are thoroughly attached to the cultural worldswe study, and as a consequence can only gain a partial andpositioned view of it. As Cook and Crang (1995: 7) note,

rather than claiming some sort of Archimedeanpoint from which the world can be critiqued, theresearcher’s viewpoint is largely a product of socialrelations both within the academy and between itand the world at large.

When positioning ourselves and our methodologicalchoice we therefore need to remember that any researchencounter does not simply uncover the unmediatedworld of ‘others’, but it is facilitated and limited by ourinterrelation with this world (following Hastrup, 1992).Our relationship with the cultural groups and places westudy will significantly affect the type of access, operationand ethics we adopt to implement our methods, and thequality of the insight we get into ‘their’ world. Forexample, what is the relationship between you and thecultural geographies you wish to study? As a student, andpart of the academic community broadly speaking, whatorders and borders connect but also separate you fromthe cultural places you are interested in? Are you an‘insider’ to these places, or a strange and alien ‘other’?What implications do these relations have? How shouldyou present yourself to the groups you wish to explore?How can you cross (b)orders and gain access in ways thatwill avoid alienating you from ‘them’? How will you gaintheir understanding, and vice versa?

The (b)orders that connect and separate us fromdifferent cultural geographies mean that issues of access,trust and ethics are important to consider for researchmethodology. How, for example, do we begin to gainaccess to a particular culture? Access arrangements are ofvital importance; without them any research project isdoomed before it begins. In the first instance, gaining

access is made easier by doing background explorationon the nature of the culture under study (this can oftenbe achieved through the analysis of the traces producedby that culture, and this is discussed further below). Byusing the Internet, documentary material, contact direc-tories and other publicly available archives key issues canbe ascertained such as the key people and places to thatculture’s geography. But how do you present yourself tothis culture and its places? Should you sneak under their(b)orders and study this culture secretly, or should yougain permission to access their lives? What do you think?In what cases would covert study be appropriate? Whywould consent be important?

In some cases, secret investigation can be effective, andperhaps the only option available for research. Covertresearch can be justifiable on grounds of safety (whenrevealing your student status may endanger you or others,perhaps when studying gangs or turf wars for example),or when the nature of the culture you are studying meansovert access would be impossible (for example if studyingillegal activities). However, in the vast majority of cases,covert research is difficult to justify. Covert research notonly limits the types of circumstance you can readily gainaccess to without causing suspicion, but also makes itdifficult to maintain honest and open relations with thoseyou wish to study. At some stage during covert researchit is likely that your true identity will be revealed. At thisstage, such transgression often results in strong feelingsof antipathy not only towards you, but also to the broaderresearch community of which you are a part. Will theoutcomes of your research project outweigh the damagecaused by such antipathy?

Thus it is crucially important to consider the traces youmay leave during your research, even when deciding howto present yourself to those under study. Being open andhonest about the nature of your research, what it will beused for, and what you want from your respondents isoften not only the most effective course of action to gainthe best knowledge of their world, but also the mostethical. As Hay (2003: 39) defines, ‘ethical behaviourprotects the rights of individuals, communities and envi-ronments involved in, or affected by, our research’. Beingovert is often the most ethical course as it protects theinterests of those we may wish to study, giving them the opportunity to ‘sign up’ to research knowing all the

167DOING CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY IN PRACTICE

‘small print’ involved in their participation. Will they, forexample, have the option of being anonymised in yourwork, to speak off the record, or to read through yourfinished project before it is made public? In what circum-stances would such opportunities be appropriate, or not?

Ethical behaviour when gaining access to the cultureand places under study helps the successful operation ofyour research project. Acting professionally, courteouslyand with respect not only increases the chances of peopleresponding in kind, but also reflects well on the broaderacademic community. From the onset of recruitment(through letter, email, or personal communication),through operationalising your method, then leaving thefield, rapport and good relations ensure effective andethical research.

However, as we have seen with the examples of covertresearch, the best ethical approach is not the same in allcases. There is no one ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ course of actionand good practice will change with every research project.With this in mind, it is up to all cultural geographers tobe reflexive about their actions in place. Criticallythinking about your behaviour in all aspects of yourresearch – considering not only how you would feel beingcontacted in this way or that way, but also puttingyourself in your respondents’ shoes – these are often goodways of reflecting on how you should behave. In manyuniversities there are ethical guidelines to help you makethe best possible decision for your research project. Theseguidelines do not ban or outlaw particular types ofresearch practice, but encourage you to reflect on thepossible outcomes involved in one course of action oranother. Why did you make the decision that you did?Would another action be more appropriate? If you canrobustly justify your potential actions from such ques-tioning then it is likely your ethical imagination isproperly switched on. At this stage you are ready tochoose the methods that are correct for your study.

CHOOSING METHODS

Choosing a research method is not just a case ofpicking one that seems the easiest but picking themost appropriate relative to the knowledge that yourequire.

(Kitchin and Tate, 2000: 211)

Choosing the appropriate method is fundamentallyimportant to a successful research project. As Kitchin andTate point out, choosing methods is not a matter ofchoosing the easiest or quickest; rather, it is an issue ofchoosing the most appropriate method to access theinsights and knowledges you require. As we have seen inthis book, our understandings and constructions of thecultural world are not ‘natural’ in form and structure,they are generated by different cultural groups in differentcultural places. In order to conduct effective research wetherefore need to employ methods that can access thesedifferent constructions and understandings. It is vital thatour methods are capable of getting at the meanings,interpretations and belief systems of particular culturalgroups, as well as the emotions and feelings that maymotivate or move groups to take and make place. In thesecases, qualitative methods are often the most appropriateto employ.

Qualitative methods are a group of techniques whichhelp researchers gain access to the meanings ascribed tocultural traces and places. As Hakim outlines, qualitativeresearch offers insight into:

individuals’ own accounts of their attitudes,motivations and behaviour. It offers richly descrip-tive reports of individual’s perceptions, attitudes,beliefs, views and feelings, the meanings andinterpretations given to events and things, as well astheir behaviour; [it] displays how these are puttogether, more or less coherently and consciously,into frameworks which make sense of their expe-riences and illuminates the motivations whichconnect attitudes and behaviour, or how conflictingattitudes and motivations are resolved in particularchoices.

(Hakim, 1987: 26)

Qualitative methods therefore offer access to meanings,beliefs, and attitudes of individuals and groups. They canbe effective at accessing ‘thought-through’ interpretationsand representations of our world (through interviews);they can give insights into everyday or impulsive inter-actions (through ethnography); as well as interpretingmaterial traces (through the analysis and decoding of cultural traces). Qualitative methods are therefore

DOING CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY IN PRACTICE168

effective at accessing not only the language of the word,but also the language of the world. This chapter contin-ues by outlining in more detail specific methodologiesthat can do just this.

METHODOLOGIES AND THELANGUAGE OF THE WORD: TALKINGABOUT AND READING CULTURALTRACES

As Crang (2003) identifies, in recent decades the mostpopular methods in cultural geography have been thosethat attempt to access the language of the word. Thepopularity of the verbal and written word in methodologyis a direct consequence of the dominance of the represen-tational approach to cultural geography. As outlined inChapter 3, this approach focuses on the meaningsinscribed by cultural groups on a whole manner of traces,investigating how these are produced, transgressed andresisted. It assumes that meaning is constructed by a self-conscious, intentional process, resulting in rationallythought-through comments, texts and material products.As a consequence, through the correct method traces canbe decoded by the astute scholar into a coherent under-standing of the cultural geographies out there. The specificmethodologies employed to access the language of theword include interviews and the analysis of cultural ‘texts’.

As Ackroyd and Hughes define, interviews are,‘encounters between a researcher and a respondent inwhich the latter is asked a series of questions relevant tothe subject of research’ (1981: 66). In many senses,therefore, interviews are a variation of ‘normal’ inter-actions between people. They are dialogues that transferknowledge and information, predominantly throughverbal exchange. Interviews can range from a systematicinterrogation akin to a cross-examination by authorities,through to informal ‘conversations with a purpose’ (afterEyles, 1988). In whatever form they take, interviews seekto discern the experiences, thoughts and feelings of thoseunder study.

Interviews are therefore primarily used to access whatpeople say about their cultural geography. They are usefulin finding out how people interpret their worlds, themeanings they give to cultural traces either through

reasoned analysis or less coherent ramblings. Interviewsare self-reports of experiences, opinions and feelings, andthe success of this method relies not only on theindividual’s ability to comment on their own culture, butalso the interviewer’s ability to ask the right questions toaccess this knowledge. As Longhurst (2003) identifies, itis important that the researcher enjoys a degree of literacyon the topic under investigation before conducting aninterview. Although this may seem counter-intuitive –you are asking questions of an other because you don’tknow about their culture – background literacy is vitalso questions are not formulated that may prove embar-rassing (to yourself or your respondent) or waste time (forexample, are you asking the right questions to the rightperson? Do you need to ask them questions – can theinformation required be found through a website or otherdata source?).

From this background literacy a range of themes canbe generated to use in your interview. These themes can be employed in a number of ways. You may wish tofashion a range of specific questions to guide the interviewfrom a beginning, through a middle, to its end. This‘structured’ interview format (after May, 1993) is oftenuseful for those who may be inexperienced in or nervousabout conducting interviews, providing for them a pathto follow throughout the conversation’s duration. Thisformat is also useful if multiple interviews are going to becarried out and the results systematically compared (in thestyle perhaps of a mass-produced survey). In many cases,however, the structured format precludes the realisationof the greatest strengths of the interview method: theopportunity to build rapport between researcher andrespondent, and the discovery of the unexpected throughimprovised conversation. In order to realise these benefitsit is often the case that a more semi-structured approachis adopted.

Semi-structured interviews use the general themesobtained through background literacy to identify keyquestions or areas that the interview wishes to cover.From this, only a small number of questions will be askedin a strictly chronological order, perhaps questions thatseek to establish rapport and open conversation betweenthe involved parties. From these, the interviewer followsthe responses in a more improvised way, endeavouringto gain all the information sought, but not necessarily in


the order envisaged at the outset. In this way, semi-structured interviews allow the potential for a muchbroader discussion to occur than the researcher may have anticipated, with new ideas and avenues for explora-tion being discovered along the way (it also gives theinterviewer the opportunity to jettison questions as theyprove redundant or inappropriate). The semi-structuredapproach therefore requires a degree of confidence on thepart of the interviewer, but through establishing rapportthrough conversation this format often results in rich and highly detailed accounts of individuals’ experienceand life.

The third major variety of research interview is theunstructured interview. These dialogues have a generalaim – perhaps to talk about a life history, a campaign, ora culture – but have no specific questions set and are fullyimprovisational. These interviews are often selected whenthe interviewer and interviewee already enjoy a degree ofrapport so that trust and conversation are easily generatedand maintained. In many cases such interviews will beconducted following an extended period of ethnography(see below, and for examples, see Anderson, 2004). Inwhatever form employed – be it structured, semi-, or un-structured – interviews generate rich, detailed andtextured insight into cultural geographies. They can be tailored to take into account the positioning of theindividuals concerned, and thus make it possible for themto use their own words to give accounts of their experi-ences. These accounts depend on a good rapport beingestablished between researcher and respondent, the use of appropriate questions, but also the choice of anappropriate location for the interview.

PLACE AND CONTEXT IN INTERVIEWS

We have seen throughout this book that place matters.In this chapter more specifically we have seen that ourown positionality in relation to method matters too – our metaphorical place influences how we connect to ourresearch respondents. However, place also matters formethodology in a material sense as well. As every place is subject to different orders and borders, interview par-ticipants are subject to varying senses of belonging,comfort, or ease in a range of different sites. The choice

of location of an interview can therefore make a crucialdifference to the effectiveness of methodology. Consider,for example, the quality of information you may gainaccess to if interviewing women in a male-dominatedcontext, or homosexuals in a homophobic environment.Will your respondents feel like sharing their accountswhen they feel threatened or out of place, regardless ofyour sensitive questioning? The place of interview shouldtherefore be chosen for its capacity to put your respon-dents at ease and to ensure both your and their safety.The location may even be chosen for its ability tostimulate and prompt discussion about the issues you areinterested in. For example, talking to environmentalcampaigners about their relationship to the non-humanworld may be more effective in a wild location rather thanan office or living room; asking residents of Belfast towalk down their own street and comment on its muralsmay be effective in raising insights about their sense ofbelonging. Conversely, it may be inappropriate to talk to an alcoholic about their cultural geographies in a baror public house. The place of method therefore deservesas much reflexive consideration as issues of access orrecruitment.

The potential of interviews can therefore be realisedthrough being sensitive to the geographical context inwhich they are conducted. But context also needs to betaken into account in terms of the type of responsesgiven. In the first instance this involves listening.Although interviews directly involve asking questions,their potential is only realised if answers are produced.Listening to responses and judging their meaning are keyto conducting an effective interview. Are responses ironicor satirical? Are they meant as a joke, or are they deadlyserious? Being sensitive to these responses allows theinterviewer to judge the type of question that may beappropriate in following up this exchange. Does theresponse require clarification? Does it suggest anotherquestion, or does it say it all? Of course, the context ofresponses (be they the geographical place of the interview,or the meanings exchanged during dialogue) may be clearat the time the research is undertaken, but may be lostwhen the notes of the interview, or its recording (forexample through audio-digital capture) are played back.How will you ensure that the influences of this geograph-ical location, or the nuances of language understood in


conversation, will not be lost when they are transcribedonto a two-dimensional screen or into an essay?

THE ANALYSIS OF CULTURAL TEXTS

The transcription of interviews, along with a detailedaccount of the contexts in which these research tech-niques are conducted, are one example of a variety of textsthat can be used to access the language of the ‘word’.Field diaries, policy documents, graffiti, web-pages,campaign material, even documentaries or films can alsobe seen as texts that can be read to understand culturalgeographies. All these texts, in a similar way to othermaterial traces outlined in this book (e.g. statues, build-ings, parks, and places in general), can be interpreted anddecoded to gain insight into different cultures. AsCosgrove cites,

the kind of evidence that [we] now use for inter-preting the symbolism of cultural landscapes ismuch broader than it has been in the past. Materialevidence in the field and cartographic, oral, archivaland other documentary sources all remain valuable.But often we find the evidence of cultural productsthemselves – paintings, poems, novels, folk tales,music, film and song can provide as firm a handleon the meanings that places and landscapes possess,express and evoke as do more conventional ‘factual’sources.

(in Gregory and Walford, 1989: 127)

In this way, art, books, media and museum archives canbe used to interpret the worlds of exotic or mundaneplaces. Even films and adverts can be employed to get atcultural understandings (as Aitkin points out, in recentyears the prospect of studying cultural geography ‘inarmchair with popcorn’ has become as popular asfieldwork study in the traditional sense (1997: 197)). Aswe have seen throughout this book, there are many waysin which texts of all types can be read by different groups.It is vital, therefore, to take into account the context(both geographical and cultural) that existed when thesetexts were produced. How were meanings conveyed in

these contexts? What was their significance? It is onlythrough critically reflecting on the values of, for example,a swastika or a cross in different cultures in differentplaces, that we can appropriately read these cultural texts.As Jackson points out,

It is an impoverished view of culture that stresses text,sign or discourse to the exclusion of context, actionand structure. Meanings must always be related tothe material world from which they derive.

(1989: 195)

With this in mind, Doel (2003: 509) outlines five keyquestions that can readily be used to critically reflect onany cultural text:

1 How, why and for whom has the text beenconstructed?

2 What codes, values, dispositions, habits, stereotypesand associations does it draw upon?

3 What kind of personal and group identities does itpromote? And how do they relate to other identities?

4 More importantly, what kind of work does it do?And who benefits?

5 How might it be modified, transformed or decon-structed? How could this social space be inhabiteddifferently?

Doel’s final question brings to mind the range of ways inwhich different cultural texts and traces can be inter-preted by different groups. Are these traces seen as natural, normal, or novel (see Chapter 5)? In what waysare they recuperated, commodified or transgressed? Whatstrategies are adopted to resist them, and what trace-chains are set in motion as a consequence?

SUMMARY

The use of interviews and the analysis of cultural texts are key ways in which cultural geographers attempt toaccess the language of the word. As we have seen inChapter 3, these representational approaches tend todraw our attention towards rationally thought-through


explanations and intentionally constructed traces.Research becomes focused on individuals’ consideredresponses to questioning, and on traces that are planned,edited and modified before their completion. Thisresearch approach remains vital as it sheds light on keyaspects of places and traces. However, it is also partial as it tends to draw attention away from the everydayimpulses, habitual practices, and un-thought throughactions that go together to make up our world. There is, therefore, another language which produces our cul-tural geographies. This other language is hinted at ininterviews where communication before or beyond theverbal occurs, perhaps through ‘the blink of the eye andthe shrug of a shoulder’ (Herbert, 2000: 554). This othercommunication is the language of the world and adifferent set of methods has been adopted by culturalgeographers in order to access it.

METHODOLOGIES AND THE LANGUAGE OF THE WORLD:ETHNOGRAPHY AND EMBODIEDPRACTICE

Up until the turn of the century many research projectstended to concentrate on the language of the word. AsLatham points out, for this form of study ‘what reallymattered was talk’ (2003: 1999). However, as this bookhas argued, cultural traces are not simply associated withwords or things. Traces also include the complexities of cultural practice, the feelings that we have before or beyond verbal communication, the blushes, goose-bumps and shivers, as well as the emotions, impulses andmovements that affect us every day. Traces are not onlygenerated by thought-through and intentioned activity,but also by mundane and habitual acts whose consciousmotivation may have been forgotten, if it ever existed inthe first place. By using methods that seek to access onlythe language of the word these other languages are either ignored, silenced, or (mis)translated into a form ofcommunication that often does not do them justice.Interest in languages before and beyond the represen-tational has thus led to other research methods becomingpopular within cultural geography. A key method usedis ethnography.

Ethnography is a research method that seeks to notonly explore what people say, but also what they do. Itseeks to investigate the constitution and preferences of acultural group through engaging with their practices,emotions, and senses of place. As Cook and Crang (1995:4) state,

The basic purpose in using these methods is tounderstand parts of the world as they are experi-enced and understood in the everyday lives of peoplewho actually ‘live them out’

Thus ethnography is employed to ‘understand the worldand ways of life of actual people from the “inside”, in thecontexts of everyday, lived experiences’ (Cook, inFlowerdew and Martin, 1997: 127). In order to appropriately understand these cultural experiencesethnography involves a number of key elements:

In its most characteristic form it involves theethnographer participating, overtly or covertly, inpeople’s daily lives for an extended period of time,watching what happens, listening to what is said,asking questions – in fact, collecting whatever dataare available to throw light on the issues that are thefocus of the research.

(Hammersley and Atkinson, 1995: 1)

As Hammersley and Atkinson outline, ethnographyinvolves participation in the cultural geographies understudy. As this chapter has already acknowledged, we areall involved in the cultural world; however, throughethnography, our involvement in our respondent’s worldis explicit and open. Ethnographers gain their insightthrough becoming part of the cultural group under study,spending time in their places and becoming part of theirworld. Through sharing in their life, participation allowsethnographers to acquire a ‘native competence’ about theculture they are interested in (after Collins, in Bell andRoberts, 1984) and through this participation comescomprehension. As Herbert outlines, ‘ethnographyprovides unreplicable insight into the processes andmeanings that sustain and motivate social groups’ (2000:550). As noted above, ethnography can be undertakenovertly or covertly (notwithstanding the ethical dilemmas


involved in each approach, see above). Ethnography also requires an extended period of time for research,especially when compared to interviews or the analysis ofcultural traces. Getting under the skin of a culture, under-standing its meanings, practices and unstated ritualscannot be achieved in an afternoon. Although there is nominimum limit – time lengths will depend on theresearcher’s ‘literacy’ of the culture and the represen-tativeness of the time within it – ethnography ofteninvolves extended commitment (see Anderson, 2002).

As Hammersley and Atkinson suggest, ethnographyinvolves both participation and observation. In somecases ethnographers will adopt a ‘complete participant’position (where researchers get involved in all aspects ofthe cultural geographies being investigated, living theirlife from the inside) or a ‘complete observer’ position (forexample as a legal observer at a rally or demonstration)(after Gold, cited in Burgess, 1984: 80). Yet it is morecommon for a researcher to adopt a mixed position, bothparticipating and observing during their study. As Cookexplains, ethnography commonly involves:

researchers moving between participating in acommunity – by deliberately immersing themselvesin its everyday rhythms and routines, developingrelationships with people who can show and tellthem what is ‘going on’ there, and writing accountsof how these relationships developed and what was learned from them – and observing a com-munity – by sitting back and watching activitieswhich unfold in front of their eyes, recording theirimpressions of these activities in field notes, tallies,drawings, photographs and other forms of materialevidence.

(Cook, in Flowerdew and Martin, 1997: 127)

Ethnography thus involves both participation andobservation in order to understand a culture. However,because research is the product of the interrelationbetween the academy and the world at large, this methodoften presents a number of difficulties for the researcher.When doing ethnography, researchers live across the(b)orders between the academy and their study places.Although they remain part of the academic community,they are distanced from it due to a new positioning in

their ethnographic world. Similarly, although they arepart of the group under study, their observation andquestioning of it means they are always somehow disloc-ated from this world. Ethnography therefore places theindividual researcher in a difficult position: which sideare they really on? Will they ‘go native’, leaving theirresearch project to become a permanent part of theculture under study? What responsibilities do they haveto their relationships in each place? How possible anddesirable is it to leave a new world when the researchproject is complete?

Doing ethnography therefore makes explicit theemotional, personal, and very real attachments researchcreates between it and the world at large. These attach-ments become embodied within individual researchers,their own fully human nature making the research project both an intellectual as well as emotional event.Ethnography emphasises that scholars are not dispassion-ate and disembodied, rather, as McDowell notes, they are ‘touched by relations of power [and] feelings ofjealousy, envy, doubt, love, [and] possession [amongstothers]’ (1994: 241). These embodied emotions cannotbe hidden or ignored by the ethnographer, rather theyare used and harnessed to give new insight into what theexperience of that cultural world is like. These emotionsare often captured through field diaries.

As Cook and Crang (1995: 29) outline, field diaries are

some kind of record to how the research progresses,day by day, chart[ing] how the researcher comes tocertain (mis)understandings. Diaries should repre-sent the doubts, fears, concerns, feelings, and so onthat the researcher has at all stages of her/his work.How your understandings are affected by particularperspectives; your developing positionality in thecommunity; power relations which can be discernedin this, how your expectations and motives areplayed out as the research progresses; what youdivulge, and why and to whom and how they appearto react to this; how various aspects of the researchencounter make you ‘feel’ (e.g. swings) and how thisaffects what you do; what you dream about; whatrumours have come back to you about yourself andthe reasons for your presence in the community.


Field diaries are often used to keep an account ofexperiences within the cultural geographies under study.From writing scrambled notes on scraps of paper, throughto longer, more reflective, pieces, the field diary comes to capture the flavour and sense of being in a culturalplace. When reading it back, it offers a window back intothat three-dimensional context, offering a portal to theresonant emotions conjured up in that place. In this way,ethnography comes close to auto-ethnography – using theresearcher’s own experiences and life in the place of theother to shed light on this world. Such auto-ethnographyis not insular and narcissistic, but explicitly acknowledgesthe expanded field of academic inquiry, and researchers’inevitable positioning within it (see Okely and Callaway,1992; Ellis, 2004). As Cook outlines, autoethnography isnot about the researcher themselves, but about theinterrelations between worlds that we all occupy,

What have you ‘learned’ from reading it [my diary]?Not much about ‘me’, I hope. Its not a me-me-me-me-me-me-me-type narrative. Is it? I think it’s anit-me-them-you-here-me-that-you-there-her-us-then-so- . . . narrative. It’s an ‘expanded field’ thing.And you’re in it too. Aren’t you?

(Cook, in Moss 2001: 120)

Thus ethnography and the field diary can harness theresearcher’s own experiences in order to understandcultural geographies, but it is not only their experiencethat is sought through this method. Ethnography can besupplemented or replaced by other methods that seek toaccess respondents’ language of the world. Field diariescan be written by respondents to access both theirimpulsive and reflective responses to experiences incultural places. Researchers may also attempt to harnessvisual imaginations by asking respondents to take images(both still and moving) of their world. These images canbe used as cultural traces in themselves, but also be usedas cues for later commentaries by both respondent andresearcher to pick out meanings and emotions related tothat framed in the lens (see Holliday, 2000; Pink, 2001).

Through the use of these ethnographic and embodiedtechniques, glimpses of the language of the world arebrought into geographic inquiry. The thought-through iscombined with the impulsive and intuitive, a bricolage of

languages is employed to understand the lived experienceof places. By attempting to access this lived experience,these methods seek to convey not just what it meansto live within particular (b)orders, but also what it is like to live there. In this way, cultural geography caninclude our bodies in our writing and responses. It canengage not only our mind, but perhaps also our heart andsoul too.

In practice, methodologies that seek to access thelanguage of the word and those that explore the languageof the world often come together in case studies. Casestudies are empirical inquiries focusing on one particularplace and its (b)orders. These cases are not meant to berepresentative of broader phenomena; rather, illustrativeof the practices and traces that come together toconstitute the cultural world. It is in case studies that theprimary source of the world is brought together with thesecondary source of the word (cf. May 1993). In this waythe research questions set are explored ‘with the widestarray of conceptual and methodological tools that wepossess and they demand’ (after Trow, 1957). In casestudies, interviews, ‘textual’ analysis and ethnography areoften combined. The outcomes of different methods are triangulated. They are compared and contrasted, inorder to reinforce or contest a particular perspective,response or meaning (after Denzin, 1970).

CONCLUSION

This combination of methodologies that seek to accessthe language of the word and the language of the worldrefocus our attention on the inevitable fusion of therepresentational and the non- or more-than representa-tional (see Chapter 3). Our research will always rely oninsights that are before or beyond the spoken and writtenword, as well as the reflective and thought-throughresponses on these impulses and experiences. As ourprojects are a product of the interrelation between theacademy and the world of our respondents, it is appro-priate that both parties’ responses are integrated into ourwrite-ups (or presentations, films, artwork etc.). Howeverpartial and momentary, the interpretative claims ofrespondents and researchers are equally important inorder to ensure as broad and transparent a view as


possible on the cultural geographies under study. Asoutlined in Chapter 3, our work as cultural geographersand our lives as people is more than simply experiencingand describing events. Our purpose must be aboutsharing what these events mean to us on an individuallevel, finding out what others say they mean to them, andallowing our audience to take in these positions and workout their own impulsive and thought-through opinionson them. Such critical engagement with the world andits traces is the aim of a culturally geographical approachto place (see Routledge, 1996).

SUGGESTED READINGS

The following texts are useful to further explore theissues raised by this chapter. There are some excellenttextbooks on qualitative methods, both in general (e.g.Kitchin & Tate) and for cultural geography in particular(e.g. Shurmer-Smith). Key books and journal paperselaborate on specific methods in detail.

Kitchin, R. Tate, N. (2000) Conducting Research inHuman Geography: Theory, Methodology and Practice.Prentice Hall: Harlow.

Shurmer-Smith, P. (ed.) (2002) Doing CulturalGeography. Sage: London.

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TOWARDS A CONCLUSION

This book has taken a culturally geographical approachto place. In this final chapter we reiterate the key premiseon which this approach is built – how places can beunderstood as an ongoing composition of traces. We thenoutline one example, the case of the World Trade Centerand Ground Zero, New York, USA, to illustrate thisargument for a last time.

The culturally geographical approach to place is builton the premise that you and I are in the cultural world.We live in it, survive it, and we contribute to it, in all our actions. Cultural geography is interested in how andwhy we contribute to this cultural world in the way wedo. It is interested in the whole range of human practicesthat comes together to create the cultural world. Asculture is what humans do, cultural geography focuseson all the things, ideas, practices and emotions thatconstitute culture. In this light culture can include allaspects of society, politics and the economy, and can becategorised by a range of different (and sometimesoverlapping) activities. Culture can be ethnic, youth orstraight; capitalist, environmental or national; throughour own actions, culture can also come to be new and

exciting combinations of these broad categories.Whatever culture we focus on, this book argues that allcultural activity has vital and inevitable geographicalconsequences. As we have seen in Chapter 1, our culturallife ‘does not take place in a vacuum.’ Thus a key compo-nent of our cultural actions is that they take place.Straightforwardly, our actions take place in the sense thatthey occur, they happen; but more importantly they alsotake place in a geographical sense too. Our actionsaggressively, passively, intentionally, or otherwise, takeand make places. Through doing so our actions come to define and claim place in small but significant ways.As actors in the cultural world we go about taking andmaking place through our everyday actions. Although we may say that practice makes perfect, we may also saythat our practices make and take place.

Our actions and practices that we make in the culturalworld, and their consequences, this book understands astraces. These traces are most commonly considered asmaterial in nature (material traces include ‘things’ suchas buildings, signs, statues, graffiti, i.e. discernible markson physical surroundings), but they can also be non-material (including activities, events, performances oremotions). Cultures therefore leave visible traces in

13

A CULTURALLY GEOGRAPHICALAPPROACH TO PLACE

places, but we can also sense our traces in other ways (wecan hear them, smell them, even taste them or feel them).Cultural traces can therefore be durable due to theirsolidity and substance as things, whilst they can also leaveindelible marks on our memory or mind.

Due to the constant dynamism of cultural life, placesand their associated traces are not static in nature. Rather,they are lively, vibrant and open to change. Traces mayoriginate from cultural activity occurring in our proxi-mate locale – from actions occurring in our neighbour-hood, town or city, but traces may also derive fromcultural activity occurring elsewhere – from decisionsmade in places on the other side of the globe. Traces mayalso be contemporary – from actions in the present, butthey may also spring up from places-past as historicalactivities are remembered, re-enacted, or revived in thehere and now. Coupled to this, human traces may alsointeract with those generated by non-humans. Animals,weather events, viruses and climate changes all cometogether to affect the form, shape and structure of theongoing composition that is place. Cultural places, there-fore, are not straightforward or easy to read processes.They are at once unique, but they are defined by trace-chains that connect the contemporary to the past, thelocal to the global, and the human to the non-human.

Thus through a variety of traces, places are taken andmade. However, not all traces affect place to the sameextent. Some traces have the ability to transform theidentity and definition of place in important ways, whilstsome do not. Those traces that can transform place areknown as dominating traces and these enjoy the power toimpose their own ideas, value systems and beliefs ontoplaces – they have the ability to impose their own culturalorder. This cultural order transforms a complex, chaoticand up for grabs reality into a place that stands forparticular ideas, authorities and identities. It is thisprocess that generates a recognisable culture, it is throughthese acts of dominating power that groups publicise,perpetuate and strengthen their identity. Of course, thereis a reciprocal relationship between cultural and geo-graphical action: cultural practice inevitably involvesgeographical consequences, and vice versa. In this way,cultural ordering goes hand in hand with geographicalbordering. It is in physical places that cultures are mademanifest, with walls and wires, fences and frontiers,

marking out the extent of a specific cultural realm. These(b)ordering processes mark out the organisation and limitsof a place, as well as the cultural group who claim it. Itmarks out the geographical here and there, the culturalthem and us. It defines who and what belongs in thislocation, which groups enjoys a sense of place and, mostimportantly, which groups do not.

A culturally geographical approach to place thusinvestigates the relationships between people and places.It looks at how the ideas and prejudices about how a placedefines its (b)orders, and who and what is grantedbelonging as a consequence. It investigates how thesepolitics and prejudices mark out some traces as ‘normal’or ‘natural’, and how others are deemed as ‘novel’ andthreatening. It analyses how different cultural groups use their power to transgress or resist these (b)orders, and attempt to get their own meanings and interpre-tations of traces accepted into the dominant reading of a place. A culturally geographical approach sees trans-gression as destabilising (b)orders, as actions that turnlines into question marks. As (b)order crossings occur,conventional readings of place become disrupted. Whoseplace is this now, following these transgressions? Is it(still) ours? Do we belong? How should we behave? In many instances new traces change the identity of placeso much so that it seems strange to us. This strangenessmay affect us and our reactions to it – we may feel threat-ened, liberated, or excited; we may seek to perpetuate the revolution, or re-establish old (b)orders. In part,therefore, cultural geography is about locating ourselvesboth materially and metaphorically in the ongoingcomposition of place.

Places are thus the medium and the message of culturallife. They are where cultures, communities and peopleroot themselves and give themselves definition. Placesthen are saturated with cultural meaning. They are crucialfor understanding who we are and where we fit in to theculture and geography of our lives. Cultural geographersanalyse and interrogate all the agents, activities, ideas and contexts that combine together to leave traces inplaces. A culturally geographical approach to place swimsin the context of places, exploring their traces and howthese come to be constructed as (b)orders. A culturallygeographical approach is representational in nature – itlooks at what traces and place stand for, but it is also

177A CULTURALLY GEOGRAPHICAL APPROACH TO PLACE

non-representational – it explores the emotional affectsof these traces and (b)orders on our sense of place. Itlooks at the materialities and meanings, the artefacts andaffects, and the identities and intensities that come todefine places as ongoing compositions of traces.

A CULTURALLY GEOGRAPHICALAPPROACH TO PLACE: IDENTITY AND INTENSITY

Case: the World Trade Center, New York City, New York

When I first started working in the World TradeCenter, my first day here I was like ‘Wow!’ I wasoverwhelmed, I was like, ‘This is really New YorkCity, this is really what Wall Street is about!’

(Joanne Capestro, 87th Floor, North Tower, in Armitage, 2006)

New York. Skyscrapers. No-one ever had to ask whatthey stood for. They stood for New York. They stoodfor America. ‘Build me the biggest towers in theworld’ the architect of the World Trade Center wastold in the 1960s, and he did. And they stood forAmerica. That’s why they were destroyed.

(Narrator, Sim, 2004)

This was New York City’s darkest hour. The attackson the World Trade Center on September 11th2001 were a direct attack on the two biggest symbolsof the capitalist system.

(Stiglitz, 2005)

We turn to the case of the World Trade Center (Figure 13.1) to outline our culturally geographicalapproach to place for a final time. The above quotationsoutline three different, but interrelated ways in which acultural place – in this case the World Trade Center, NewYork City – is constituted by an ongoing composition oftraces. In the first quotation, Joanne Capestro, an officeworker who worked on the 87th floor of the NorthTower, explains what the World Trade Center means toher. To her it represents Wall Street, the financial heart

of New York City. To her, this building, in this street,embodies what New York as a city means – it meansmoney, and this means power. She is overwhelmed bythe fact that she is working in this place. It means she isliving her (American) dream.

In the second quotation, the idea that the WorldTrade Center can be read as a defining symbol of NewYork City is reinforced. Indeed, this quotation suggeststhat this building was constructed with this specificintention, to become an icon that represents the powerand authority of the city across the skyline. It also suggeststhat this symbolic meaning was not limited to thosewithin the American nation, but also had resonance far beyond their shores. Indeed the success of this symboland its resonance across the globe had an unforeseen and tragic consequence. The representational value of the twin towers made them a target for attack (Figure13.2).

The third quotation, from Joseph Stiglitz, a NobelPrize winning economist, refers directly to this attack.For Stiglitz, the World Trade Center stood not simply as a symbol of New York, but of America. An Americathat embodied the values and objectives of one form of cultural organisation in particular: the culture ofcapitalism. For him, it was the values of capitalism thatwere attacked as the building was hit by two hijackedpassenger jets on 11 September 2001.

In one sense, therefore, the World Trade Center wasjust a building. But for cultural geographers it’s not justa building. It’s a building that represented a street, a city,

A CULTURALLY GEOGRAPHICAL APPROACH TO PLACE178

Figure 13.1 The World Trade Center


Figure 13.2The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center

a country, and an economic mode of organisation, insum: the World Trade Center was a composition ofcultural traces. In one sense it was a material trace, madeof bricks, mortar and glass. In another it was an amalgamof non-material traces, of dreams and ambitions, of hopesand greed. The World Trade Center was constituted bytraces that derive in the local area, from its workers thatcommuted to work up in the sky, but also by traces thatcame from elsewhere – it was the world centre after all, one node in a network of trace-chains that inspiredboth celebration of and resistance against its dominant(b)orders. As the above quotations suggest, the dominantcultural ordering of the World Trade Center was capi-talist in nature. It became an icon of corporate capitalismthat, as we have seen in Chapter 6, is both culturally andgeographically transformative to many other culturesacross the globe. The geographical and cultural hege-mony of capitalism means that it is often seen as the bestand natural way to (b)order the world. However, thereare many ways to read all cultural traces, and althoughcapitalism’s ability to transform is often dominant, it isnever absolute. The attack on the twin towers illustratesthis point in a tragic and profound way: to some capital-ism is liberating and offers opportunity; to others it isexploitative and offers invasion. The ongoing composi-tion of the site of the World Trade Center will alwayshave these dominating and resisting traces bound upwithin it.

Ground Zero. On September 10th, this was 16 acresof real estate. A day later, it was sacred ground.Sacred to the people who were killed here. Sacred toan idea of America that was attacked. Nearly 3000people had been killed because they went to work inan icon. . . . Icons had become dangerous. After 9/11how would you go about building another one?

(Narrator, in Sim, 2004)

By taking a culturally geographical approach to place weknow that we are part of the cultural world. As aconsequence we know that our traces take and makeplace, and these traces come to define both ourselves andour place – both materially and metaphorically. With thisin mind, thinking how places could be, and should be,becomes a difficult and responsible project. What places

do we want our actions to produce? What do we wantour places to stand for, and what do we want them to say(about us)? In the case of the World Trade Center, onGround Zero, a new place could be born. Ellie Hartz,who lost her husband John in the attacks wanted this newbirth to make her feel that ‘we triumphed’ over 9/11 (inArmitage, 2006). Hartz doesn’t make it clear if, by this‘we’, she means her family, her city, her culture, orhumankind as a whole. Ed Hayes, lawyer to the architecthired to jointly design the future of Ground Zero, wantsa place that resists the values of corporate capitalism, ashe puts it:

I don’t want my mother walking down the streetdwarfed by a tower that is a monument to corporateinterests. Look: they are going to work and there isa guy at the top of that tower who they work for who doesn’t give a goddamn whether they live ordie. And these towers cannot reflect that theory oflife. They have to reflect something that values mymother as much as the guy that’s at the top of thetower.

(in Sim, 2004)

How would the new place of Ground Zero be orderedand bordered? What cultures would it unite and whichcommunities would it divide? What cultures would finda home and place of belonging at this site, and whichpeople and activities would be left dislocated and out of place? If you had dominating power, what would you do?

In practice, the taking and making of Ground Zeroillustrates the key assumptions underpinning our cul-turally geographical approach to place. The place ofGround Zero was designed by two ‘trace-makers’, Polisharchitect Daniel Liebeskind – winner of an internationalcompetition to plan the future of the site, and DavidChilds, an architect appointed by Larry Silverstein, ownerof the site. The different values and ideas of these twoarchitects resulted in the designs for Ground Zero beingkeenly contested.

Liebeskind, an immigrant who sailed into New Yorkharbour as a child past the inspiring vision of the Statueof Liberty, wanted Ground Zero to be a place where astory of freedom and hope could be told. Liebeskind


wanted a tower to echo the shape of the Statue of Libertyand sit in complement with the established skyline of thecity. In his words,

The sky [should] become home once again to atowering spire that speaks to our vitality in the face of danger and our optimism in the aftermath of tragedy. Man or woman doesn’t live by func-tion alone. There has to be something that raises our hearts and eyes above all the prosaic daily needs.

(in Sim, 2004)

Like Hartz, Liebeskind wasn’t specific about whichcultures should feel optimism as a result of his designs,and which places would be revitalised in the face ofdanger. Childs however had different views. AlongsideSilverstein, Childs wanted to maximise the rental area of the new site, which occupied a prime location indowntown New York. He also wanted to build as high

a building as possible to facilitate satellite and aerial communication. As Roland Betts, Chair of the GroundZero Site Committee put it,

Larry Silverstein wanted a tall tower . . . why? Tomake more money, more rental square feet. . . . Isaid to Silverstein, ‘You see this as your property.We see this as belonging to the citizens of New Yorkand the citizens of the world. The process we’rerunning is to engage with all these voices.

(in Sim, 2004)

Liebeskind had the blessing of the Mayor of New York,George Pataki, but Childs was on the payroll ofSilverstein, the owner of the site. Who did this placebelong to? Would the bought and sold legal traces ownedby Silverstein be stronger that those senses of belongingfelt by everyday citizens? It was Betts’ job to broker apartnership between the two camps. In practice, Childsgained overall control of how the replacement for theWorld Trade Center was (b)ordered, and Liebeskindoffered his collaboration. On 19 December 2003, thefinal designs for the Freedom Tower (Figure 13.3) wereunveiled.

In the designs for the Freedom Tower Childs’ influ-ence was clear. This building, when complete, would bethe tallest in the world, rising from Ground Zero to aheight of 1776 feet tall. Yet Liebeskind’s collaborationcould also be discerned – the symbolic height of thebuilding was no accident; it referred to the year of theUnited States’ declaration of independence. In practice,therefore, the Freedom Tower would become a place that stood for contested and contradictory ideas. It wasAmerica that would feel revitalised in the face of danger,and it was capitalist culture that would benefit from thebuilding’s vast dimensions. However, it remains to beseen how future cultures will read the value and symbolof this material trace. Will the place of the FreedomTower be seen as a triumph over adversity? If so, forwhich groups, in which places? Will it be a monumentto a nation, or corporate interests, or both? Will it signalhope and vitality in the face of danger, and how will itlink the past to the future, and this location to siteselsewhere? Will it bring about a revolution, or re-establishold (b)orders? In short, what sort of cultural world will


Figure 13.3 The Freedom Tower

the Freedom Tower stand for? Whose place is thisanyway?

New York is a city that is carved out as a compo-sition. That is what is so interesting about [thisplace], it’s about the composition of the whole city, almost like an organic work of art that isongoing.

(Liebeskind, in Sim, 2004)

A culturally geographical approach to place thus focuseson this range of trace making. It focuses on the material-ities and meanings, the artefacts and affects, and theidentities and intensities that come to define places asongoing compositions of traces. This interpretation ofculture is expansive, and as we have seen in this book,cultural geography covers a wide range of areas. We haveseen how different cultures naturalise ‘nature’ in differentways and to different ends. How a range of borderingtactics can seek to eliminate some ethnicities but partnerothers. How traces such as patriotism and religion com-bine to strengthen but also complicate our sense of place.How adult and youth cultures interact to take and makethe places around them, and how traces can be writtenon the body through our gender and sexuality. Thisinterpretation of culture thus may be expansive, but itdoes not preclude our ability to engage with the ‘so what’question.

THE ‘SO WHAT?’ QUESTION

Understanding places as unique compositions of tracescan make it seem difficult to pronounce on the rights andwrongs of particular cultures and their geographicalaffects. As Duncan and Duncan identify, ‘it is likeacknowledging that everyone is utterly unique. At onelevel this is true . . . but ultimately [this is a] paralysingperspective’ (2004: 398). Such a broad interpretation ofculture is thus open to the following critique:

Culture has become central by becoming vacuous.. . . [It] returns to its comfortable niche as acataloguer of difference.

(Mitchell, cited in Nash, 2002: 322)

This critique suggests that even though new branches ofcultural geography have responded to the externalpressures set in motion by the globalising and increas-ingly politicised climate of the twenty-first century, andthe internal debates prompted by new academic ideas andapproaches, the discipline has not ventured far from theapolitical empiricism of Carl Sauer. In other words,looking at cultures and their traces is interesting, but sowhat? What does studying the difference that place makesactually make to the cultural world?

The culturally geographical approach to place is aresponse to this critique. By asking what cultural tracesdominate a particular place and how different actionsmay resist them, by investigating what alternative thesetraces stand for and what trace-chains are set in motionby their practice, we return to our original premise thatwe are part of the cultural world. All our ideas and actionscombine to produce new generations of places. As aconsequence, it is not enough to chart the differentcultural traces that come together to form places. We mustsee ourselves as part of these places too. It is not enoughto decide that, for us, capitalism is good (or bad), or thatall ethnicities have a right to exist in our neighbourhood,city or nation (or not). We must choose actions thatsupport and endorse the traces that we believe in, or at least not acquiesce to those that go against our valuesand cultural geographies. Thus to undertake culturalgeography is not to engage in ‘cultural relativism’ (seeSchweder, 2000), because for each of us ‘not all ideas or uses of [place] are equally defensible’ (after Cronon,1995: Foreword). To conclude, we must use a culturallygeographical approach to help us better understand ourplace in the world around us, and use our thought-through and impulsive responses to this understandingto help us act better in our world.


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BIBLIOGRAPHY202

Figures in bold refer to illustrations.

Abbey, E. 102access 167Ackroyd, S. 169Addley, E. 150Adelman, M. 154, 155Adorno, T. 16adult places 133adults 133advertising 73, 78, 78, 116African Americans 113–4age groups, classification of 132–3Agnew, J. 37, 39, 41Aitkin, S. 29Alam, F. 129‘Alison Lapper, Pregnant’ (Quinn) 6–7Amin, A. 130Anderson, B. 120Anderson, James 121Anderson, K. 14, 27Anderson, Ray 70Ankhor Wat, Cambodia 98, 98Anselin, L. 39

anthropology 19anti-capitalism 79–87, 84, 85, 86anti-globalisation 80–1Anzaldua, G. 135artefacts, symbolic value 27–8, 30–1Ash, Garton 129Ashe, F. 157–8Asthana, A. 148, 150Atkinson, P. 172, 173Australia: Aboriginal society 96, 100–1, 106, 118;

cultural racism 112–4; Uluru 89–91, 89, 101;white settlement of 118

auto-ethnography 174axis of evil, the 59Ayres, Chris 73

Bagaruka, Denis 106Bagehot, Anne 109Baghdad 62, 63Baker, Richard 90Bancroft, A. 109–10Banksy 9, 78, 141, 144, 148barbed wire 106, 107–8Barry, M. 75

INDEX

Battista, K. et al. 50, 51Bauman, Z. 114, 129BBC 113Beck, U. 129, 162Beck-Gernsheim, E. 129, 162behaviour 45, 57, 57Belfast 121–4, 123, 126, 131belief systems. see religionbelonging, sense of 41–2, 44, 51, 54; Belfast 122;

commodification of 73–4, 74; national 121Benioff, D. 43Berkeley School, the 19, 22Berlin Wall, fall of 68, 69Bertolas, R. J. 91, 96Betts, Roland 181Bey, Hakim 134Bhabha, H. 134Bircham, E. 81Blacker, T. 124Blunt, A. 158Boas, Frank 19, 20, 23body, the 153, 164. see also gender; ambiguous 158–9,

164; borders 154–8, 158–64, 164; categorisation158; changing ideals 158–60; and citizenship 164;individualisation 160–2; power relations 158; andsense of place 128–9, 155–6; shape 154; trans-gressing borders 160–2

Bondi, L. 34, 35borders 35, 132, 177; Belfast 122–3, 123, 123, 124;

bodily 154–5, 158–64, 164; creating 44, 46;crossing 46–7; gendered 154–8; and graffiti 145;nature 92, 92; and self-segregation 112; and senseof place 119–20, 121; tight control 106–9; andtrace-chains 47; transgressing bodily 160–2; andtransgression 60; and youth culture 132–3

Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mostar Bridge 41, 42, 42both-and-also cultural geography 34–5Bourdieu, P. 56Bragg, Lord 65–6Braun, B. 94Bretton Woods organisations 76–7, 83Bristol 40, 40British Youth Council 138Browne, K. 158–9Bush, G. W. 59

Buttel, F. 76–7, 80Buttimer, A. 13

California, University of 19Cambodia,, Ankhor Wat 98, 98Cameron, David 138camp 160–1Canada, Lake Minnewanka 98, 99Capestro, Joanne 178capitalism 12, 68, 87, 181; and bodily borders 161;

corporate 74–7, 83, 87; cultural dimensions69–70, 72–4; denaturalising 80–1; effect on localculture 77–9; externalising costs 70, 72; global 74,74–5; hegemony 68; McDonaldisation 77–9;Marxist analysis 72; minimising labour costs 70,71; opposition to 79–87, 84, 85, 86; recuperation86–7; spread of 71

Cardiff 40, 40, 48–9, 48–9, 59, 62, 151Cardiff Castle 51, 51carnivals 116–7Carr, Jimmy 113case studies 174Casey, E. 41Castree, N. 14, 92, 94, 95Chavez, Hugo 59children 132–3, 133Childs, David 180–1China: Beijing Olympic Games, 2008 124, 125;

patriarchy 163; Three Gorges Dam 93–4, 94Christianity 92Christie, M. 140–1citizenship 164civic rehabilitation 18Cloke, P. et al. 69–70clothing 154cold war 68colonisation 17–8, 105–6commodification 72–4, 74, 78, 78, 87, 144communication 3, 33–4; non-verbal 172; spoken 32communications technology 74–5communism 68communities of interest 124–5, 125–6community, sense of 124conflict 8, 28conformity 54

INDEX204

Conrad, Joseph 14–5, 16constitutive interdependence 47context 1–3, 10Control of Nature, The (McPhee) 93Cook, I. 1, 167, 172, 173, 173–4Coonen, A. 163Cosgrove, D. 23, 29, 30, 171covert research 167, 172–3Cox, N. 164Crang, M. 40–1, 167, 169, 172, 173Cresswell, T. 1, 28, 46, 110, 144, 149Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 109Cronon, W. 101, 102–3Cuba 47cultural boundary zones 134–5, 135–6cultural ideas 8cultural landscape 20, 21, 22–3, 23cultural ordering 42, 44, 46, 50, 51, 177cultural orthodoxy 56, 57, 57cultural purity 104cultural relativism 181cultural struggle 28cultural superiority 17cultural texts 28–9, 169, 172culture 3, 5, 176, 181; and context 3; defining 3,

23–4; historical and geographical signatures 14; ashuman practice 27; and latitude 16–7; and nature94, 95, 96–7; nature as other to 91–4, 92, 94;politics as 28; and power 28, 53; products 27–8;and representational cultural geography 27–9;spread of western 17–8; and symbolic value 27–8

culture jamming 87culture wars 102

Darwin, Charles 15–6Davidson, J. 73, 159de Beauvoir, S. 154De la Blache, Paul Vidal 18dehumanisation 106Denmark 64, 65Designated Riot Area (Banksy) 9deviance 58Dewsbury, J.-D. 31–2, 34differentiated solidarity 114Dillard, A. 43, 100

dirt 58, 106, 108, 109, 112, 152, 159 disability 6–7disenchantment of the world 16dislocation 173disorganisation 82displacement 35Doel, M. 171dominant cultures 105dominating power 54, 61; acts of 54, 55, 55; creation

of normality 56, 57, 57; and free speech 64, 64;and gender 157; and hegemony 58, 60, 61; andthe imposition of ideology 54–6, 63; as power todefine 56–8, 58, 59

dominating traces 54, 177Douglas, M. 58Driver, F. 10, 15D’Souza, Frances 105Duncan, J. 14, 23, 29, 30, 39, 41, 181Duncan, Ken 90Duncan, N. 181

Earth First! 102economies, biggest 75education 133Elmes, S. 40empire, space of 5empire building 17–8Empire Windrush (ship) 110–1empiricism 15, 19enemies, defining 59enforced settling 109Environmental Determinism 16, 19, 19; and cultures

16–7; and empire building 17–8environmental possibilism 18–9, 19, 19equality 110–4, 117ethics 167–8, 172–3ethnic cleansing 105–6, 109ethnicity 12, 104, 117, 124; and cultural racism

112–4, 115; definition 105; and equality 110–4,117; and genocide 105–6, 109, 114, 117; andidentity 105, 114, 116–7; partnership 110–4, 114,117; tight control 106–9, 109, 114, 117

ethnography 172–4evolution 16experience, engagement with 31–2, 34

205INDEX

Falling Down (film) 144, 145femininity 154–5, 155, 156, 157, 160, 161feminism 27, 157–8field diaries 173–4fieldwork 15, 19, 172–4Five Steps to Tyranny (TV program) 61football clubs, and sense of place 124–5Foucault, M. 54, 65Fox, Chris 109France 130, 152Frawley, K. 96free running 12, 140–1, 140, 151free speech 63, 64, 64freedom of movement 108–9Freud, Sigmund 58

Gaffikin, F. 122–3Gale, F. 27gay community, Nebraska 162–4Geddes, Patrick 18gender 2, 12; ambiguous 158–9, 159; and borders

154–8; defining 154; and dominating power 157;individualisation 160–2; and place 156–7; traces153–6

genealogy 14General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)

76–7genocide 105–6, 109, 114, 117geographical bordering 42, 44, 46, 50, 51, 177geographical signatures 14geography 1–3; context 1–3; and culture 3, 5; and

exploration 14–5; historical and geographicalsignatures 14

geography of fear 138Germany, Nazi 18Gilbert, D. 10globalisation 46–7, 74–5, 77–9, 181God, role of 16god trick, the 13–4, 167Godlewska, A. 14–5, 17goods, cultural value 72Gough, I. 68graffiti 5, 12, 56, 59, 59, 62, 62, 123, 127, 127,

132, 140, 150–1, 151; as art 148–9, 148;commodification 147–50; definition 141; messages

144, 144; and ownership 144, 144–6; performanceof 150; recuperation 149, 149; the South Bank,London 146–7, 147; traces 141–7, 142–3, 148–9;as vandalism 145–6, 151

Gramsci, A. 54Grand Canyon, Arizona 99, 99Greenberg, A. 156–7Greenhough, B. 31, 166group loyalty 46gypsies 58, 108–9, 113

Haiti 96Hakim, C. 168Halsey, M. 150Hammersley, M. 172, 173Haraway, Donna 13–4, 167Harrington, Rachel 138Hart, J. 155Hartshorne, Richard 18Hartz, Ellie 180Haw, Brian 65–6, 65, 66Hay, I. 167Hayden, D. 37Hayes, Ed 180–2hegemony 58, 60Herbert, S. 172Hersi, Sharmarke 138heterotopias 14Hinchcliffe, S. 32hiraeth 40historical signatures 14Holding, Tim 145–6Holocaust, the 126home, the 156–7Hong Kong 64, 64hoodie culture 138–9, 139horror films 44hotels, and behaviour 45–6How the Canyon Became Grand: A Short History

(Pyne) 99Hughes, J. A. 169Hull 58humanism 27Humboldt, Alexander von 15Huntingdon, Ellsworth 16, 19

INDEX206

Hutu, the 105–6

ideas 5, 8identity 5; and conformity 54; essentialised 153; and

ethnicity 105, 114, 116–7; gay 162–4; national120–4; naturalised 153; and place 40, 40–1, 42,46; and self 41; and sense of place 119, 129;youths and youth culture 136–9

ideology: definition 54–5; imposition of 54–6, 57, 57,63

imperialism 17–8individualisation 12, 114, 119, 129, 136, 151, 160–2Indonesia 71; Freeport Mine 79; masculinity 155, 156inequality, relations of 55–6Ingold, T. 150International Monetary Fund (IMF) 76interviews 169–72Iran 59Iraq 59Iraq war protests 65–6, 65Ireland 164. see also BelfastIrish Republican Army’s (IRA) 123Islam 64, 64, 154, 161–2Israel 126–7, 127, 131Israeli–Palestinian conflict 126–7, 127, 131

Jackson, P. 23, 28, 29, 30, 78, 108, 171Jacobs, J. 14Jakarta, Indonesia 71Jamieson, R. 154–5Janus Dilemma, the 129–30Japan, whaling tradition 102Jess, P. 39Johnston, L. 160Johnston, R. 16Jones, David 108Jones, K. 135, 137Jordan, G. 58, 60, 82, 155–6Judeo-Christian heritage 91–2

Kaltenborn, B. P. 38Kellerman, A. 105, 110Khan, Amir 128–9, 128, 130King, R. 90–1Kingsnorth, P. 75, 82

Kitchin, R. 168Klein, N. 80–1, 81–2, 83knowledge 33Kroeber, Alfred 19, 20, 23Kropotkin, Peter 18, 101

labour 69–70, 71Lake Minnewanka, Canada 98, 99Lamy, P. 76landscape. see also cultural landscape: artefacts in 20;

changing nature of 20; and cultural struggle 28;palimpsests 20, 22, 22; as text 28–9

language 3, 41language of the world 31–2, 33–4, 166, 169–70, 171,

172–4Laos 2Lapper, Alison 6–7, 7Latham, A. 172latitude, and culture 16–7Latour, Bruno 86lebensraum 18Lefebvre, M. 38Lewis, M. 23, 111–2Liebeskind, Daniel 180–2liminality 133–4, 159Lippard, L. 37Liu Fumei 125Livingstone, D. 17Livingstone, Ken 110locale 39location 39–40, 40London: Brian Haw protests 65–6, 65, 66; ethnic

diversity 110–2, 111, 116; ethnic tension 116–7;historical 50; Kilburn High Road 47, 97; NottingHill Carnival 114, 116–7, 116; Olympic Games,2012 148, 149; the South Bank 146–7, 147; TateGallery 66, 66

Longhurst, R. 169Lopez, B. 124Lorimer, H. 32, 35Lowie, Robert 19, 20

McCann, E. 157McDonaldisation 77–9McDonald’s 73

207INDEX

McDowell, L. 29–30, 154, 155, 157, 161, 173McGhee, D. 114McGinty, Mansson 161–2McIntyre, E. 106McKibben, B. 95, 96–7McLean, G. 138McLuhan, T. 144MacMillan, T. 92, 95McPhee, J. 93, 100–1Maffesoli, M. 136mall, the 134, 135–6Mangold, T. 113–4Maps of Meaning (Jackson) 28Marx, Karl 69, 75Marxism 72, 95masculinity 154, 155, 156, 160, 161Maskit, J. 91Massey, D. 39, 47, 87, 97, 116Matthews, H. et al. 134–5, 135–6Maxey, I. 53, 54media spaces 3Mellor, D. 112Melville, C. 116methodology 166, 174–5; and access 167; analysis

171; case studies 174; choice of 168–9; covertresearch 167, 172–3; emotional involvement 173;ethics 167–8, 172–3; field diaries 173–4; interviews 169–72; listening 170–1; non-representational cultural geography 32–3, 34;observation. 173; participation 172–3; place andcontext 170–1; positioning 167–8; primary sources174; qualitative 168–9; recruitment 167–8;reflection 167; secondary sources 174; traces 166;triangulation 174

metrosexual males 160–1Miewald, C. 157Milgram, Stanley 61Mineral Policy Institute (Australia) 79misogyny 157Mississippi river 93Mitchell, D. 102mixophilia 114, 116–7mixophobia 114, 116–7, 117Moffett, James 79Mohammed, Omar Bakri 129

Mohammed cartoon protests 64, 64, 65Monbiot, G. 76, 79moral panics 138–9, 139morphology 20Morrissey, M. 122–3Mostar Bridge, Bosnia-Herzegovina 41, 42, 42mukhayyamji masculinity 155music 73

Nandrea, L. 144Nash, C. 163–4national identity 120–4nation-states 38, 75, 129Native Americans 96, 106, 107–8nature 101–3; borders 92, 92; compromises with 98,

99; control of 93; creation of traces 101; andculture 94, 95, 96–7; defence of 102; defining91–4, 92, 94, 95; exploitation 93–4; and place89–91, 102; reconstitution of 95; relationalsensibility to 100–1; socionature 97–100, 98, 99;and tradition 102

neo-tribes 136–9New Orleans 93New York 58, 110; Freedom Tower 181–2, 181;

Ground Zero 176, 180–2; World Trade Center59, 176, 178–82, 178, 179

New York Times 79New Zealand 160Newman, D. 46Ng, Nawi et al. 155, 156NIMBYism 124nomadism 108–9, 118non-human activity 10, 38, 177non-representational cultural geography 31–2, 33, 33;

critique of 33–4; methodologies and practices32–3, 34

non-violent civil disobedience 84–5, 84, 85normality 56North Korea 47, 59Notting Hill Carnival 114, 116, 116–7, 116

Oakes, T. 14obedience 61older people 133O’Loughlin, J. 39

INDEX208

Olympic Games: Beijing, 2008 124, 125; London,2012 148, 149

Origin of Species, The (Darwin) 16othering 104, 117

Paasi, A. 46Palestine 126–7, 127, 131, 155palimpsests 20, 22, 22Panelli, R. 158Papayanis, M. A. 58Paris 110, 140, 152partnership 110–4, 114, 117, 164Pataki, George 181patriarchy 157–8, 163patriotism 73–4, 74, 120–1Peace Wall, Israel 126–7, 127, 131Pearson, K. 157Penrose, J. 108performativity 32Phillips, D. 114Pilger, John 71Pilkington, D. 118place 3, 5; affinities to 37; approach to 35; and

behaviour 45–6; and belonging 41–2, 44; andchange 50–1; constituent parts 39–40; contradic-tory 10; creation of 38; culturally geographicalapproach 11–2, 176–82; culturally ordered 42, 44,46, 50, 51; danger of the stranger to 110; defining37–8; gendered 156–7; geographical bordering 42,44, 46, 50, 51, 177; graffiti and ownership of144–5; grey areas 46; and identity 40, 40–1, 42,46; and interviews 170–1; local scale 119–20; andlocale 39; local/national conflict 125; and location39–40, 40; maintenance of 35; meanings 8; andmethodology 170–1; national scale 120–4; andnature 89–91, 102; ownership of 35; palimpsests22; and power 54; and representational culturalgeography 29; research methods 166; scale 38; andspace 37–8; subversion of 61; trace-chains 46–7,48–9, 48–9, 50–1; and traces 5, 41–2, 51–2, 181;youths and youth culture and 134–6

place, sense of 39–40, 40–1, 43–4, 44, 130–1; Belfast121–4, 122, 123; and the body 128–9, 155–6;and borders 119–20; and identity 119–20, 129;local 119–20; local/national conflict 124; multiple

128–30; national 120–4, 128–9; non-geographical124–5; out of 123, 124; and religion 119; scaleand 119–25; and shared values 124–5; threats to130

Pocock, D. 38Point Break (film) 31politics 28Popic, L. 90Porritt, J. 68positivism 15postcodes 40post-colonialism 27post-modernism 27post-structuralism 27power 11–2, 28, 67, 177; acts of 63; in the anti-

capitalist movement 82; and the body 157, 158;competition between acts of 63, 65; creation ofnormality 56; and culture 53; definition 54;dominating power 54–60, 55, 55, 61, 64, 64, 157;exercising 54; and inequality 55–6; and place 54;and punishment 54, 56, 56, 60; resisting power60–6, 62, 64, 64, 177; trace-chains 63, 65–6; andtraces 54, 67; transformative capacity 54; andtransgression 60; transnational corporations 75, 77

Prague 84Price, M. 23Price, P. 14production, relations of 69–70profit 70, 72propaganda, ethnic 105–6protest 26, 41, 62. see also resisting power; anti-

capitalist 80, 84, 85, 86; Brian Haw 65–6, 65, 66;recuperation 87, 87; Trafalgar Square 8–9, 8, 9

psychological traces 10Public Order Act 1986 109punishment 54, 56, 56, 60Pyne, S. 15, 99

Quinn, Marc 6–7, 7

race 105racism, cultural 112–4, 115Rasmussen, C. E. 162–3Ratzel, Friedrich 17–8, 101Razac, O. 106, 107–8

209INDEX

Reagan, Ronald 69, 115recuperation 86–7, 149, 149Reed, A. 50reflection 167regionalists 20regulation 3, 4, 4, 55, 55Reid, B, 122relational sensibility 100–1religion 119, 124, 125–9Relph, E. 43–4, 51representation, engagement with 34representational cultural geography 26–7, 29–30, 30;

critique of 30–1; and culture 27–9; and place 29;and social science 27

resisting power 60–6, 62, 63, 64, 64, 65, 177. see also protest

Rich, A. 153Rodman, M. 37Rome, Italy 22, 22roots 120Rose, G. 28Ross, David 90routes 120Royal Geographical Society 15Rudner, Rita 87Ruggi, L. 154, 155Rwanda 105–6

Sack, R. D. 38sacred sites 89–91, 100–1, 126Said, E. W. 161Samoa 154, 155San Francisco 78, 78Sargisson, L. 60Sarkozy, Nicolas 152Sauer, Carl 11, 19, 20, 20, 22, 22–3, 23, 26, 27, 28,

181scale, sense of place and 119–25Scallies 137, 138Scott, A. J. 72Scottish Geographical Magazine 17Sea Shepherd Society 102Seamon, D. 40Seattle 80, 84Second Sex, The (de Beauvoir) 154

Second World War 115, 126segregation 106–9, 110–2, 111, 123self 41, 119self-segregation 111–2semi-structured interviews 169–70Semple, Ellen 19Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 65, 66Serota, Sir Nicholas 66sex industry 58sexuality 12Sharon, Ariel 131Sharp, J. et al. 55, 60Shields, R. 63, 65Shirlow, P. 123Shurmer-Smith, P. 29Sibley, D. 58, 108Sidaway, J. 16Silverstein, Larry 180–1Sim, K. 178, 180Simmel, G. 109Simpson, J. 100Skelton, T. 133Smith, N. 14–5, 17Smith, R. 83smoking, and masculinity 156social and cultural theory 27social science 27socionature 97–100, 98, 99Soja, E. 139Solot, M. 19, 23Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary 102space: definition 38; and non-human activity 38; and

place 37–8Srivathsan, A. et al. 144Starbucks 51statues, ‘Alison Lapper, Pregnant’ 6–7, 7stealth racism 113–4Stewart, H. 152Stiglitz, J. 75, 178stranger, the 104, 109–10, 117street, the 134–6, 137street murals, Belfast 122street parties 84, 84structured interviews 169Su Xiangyu 125

INDEX210

Suharto, Mohammed 79Swansea 40, 40Sweden 161–2Swyngedouw, Eric 97symbolic value 27–8, 30–1

tactility 154Tate, M. 168Taylor, Griffith 16Taylor, I. 154–5temporary autonomous zones 134terrorism 59, 178–82, 179texts 28–9Thailand 121theory, obsession with 30Thomson, Joseph 17threshold people 134Thrift, Nigel 31–2, 74tight control 106–9, 109, 114, 117, 164Tihic, Sulejam 42topophilia 44topophobia 44Tormey, A. 164Toronto 110Toynbee, P. 77trace-chains 10, 11, 181; historical 47, 50, 51, 51;

isolation from 47; and place 46–7, 48–9, 48–9,50–1; and power 63, 65–6; transnational corporations 75; unpredictability of 65

trace-makers 6, 7–8traces 5, 10–1, 20, 35, 176–7; and behaviour 45–6;

Belfast 122–3, 122; creation in nature 101;defining 56–8, 57; dominating 54, 177; freerunning 140; gendered 153–6; graffiti 141–7,148–9; and ideas 5, 8; interpreting 6; and locale39; non-human 10, 38, 177; non-material 10; andplace 5, 41–2, 51–2, 181; and power 54, 67;research methods 166; Trafalgar Square 5–10, 7;translating 6; transnational corporations 75

tradition 102, 104Trafalgar, Battle of 5Trafalgar Square 5–6, 6; ‘Alison Lapper, Pregnant’

6–7, 7; Criminal Justice Bill demonstrations 8, 9;Designated Riot Area 9, 9; Iraq war protests 9, 9;pigeons 10; ‘Poll tax’ riots 8, 8, 10; traces 5–10, 7

transgression 60, 177; bodily 160–2transnational corporations 75–7, 78, 78Tuan, Y.-F. 43–4, 120Turner, V. 133–4Tutsi, the 105–6

Uluru, Australia 89–91, 89, 101United Nations 126United States of America 21. see also New York;

World Trade Center; African Americans 113–4;anti-Americanism 59, 59; barn and housing types21; cultural racism 113–4, 115, 115; Defense ofMarriage Act (DOMA) 162–4; development ofcultural geography 19–22; Grand Canyon 99, 99;internment of Japanese–Americans 115, 115;Native Americans 96, 106, 107–8; Nebraska162–4; taming of nature 93

unstructured interviews 170

Valentine, G. 133values 58, 60, 124–5van Gennep, A. 133Vidal, J. 80violence 85, 85, 86, 102

Wales: commodification of national identity 73–4, 74; national sense of place 40, 51, 51; railways 57,57

Walker, Michael 71Wallach, B. 22Wallach, L. 81, 83Wallinger, Mark 66Watkins, K. 76Watson, J. W. 100Watson, Paul 102Weedon, C. 58, 60, 155–6Westbury, England 22, 22western culture, spread of 17–8whaling 102Whatmore, S. 31White, R. 96–7Williams, C. 131Willis, J. 158Willis, P. 155Wilson, A. 95

211INDEX

women. see also femininity; gender: in China 163;devalorisation of 157; out-of-place 158–9; role of156–7, 158, 161

World Bank (WB) 76World Trade Center 178, 178, 180; 9/11 terrorist

attacks 59, 176, 178–82, 179World Trade Organisation (WTO) 76writing 3

Young, A. 150Young, I. 114

youths and youth culture 132, 151–2. see also graffiti;bordering 132–3; bubbles of refreshment 139; free running 12, 140–1, 140, 151; heterogeneousnature of 136; hoodie culture 138–9, 139;identity 136–9; legal status 133; liminal status 132, 133–4; marginal status 133–4, 139, 151;moral panics 138–9; neo-tribes 136–9; outsideperspective on 135–6; place and 134–6; Scallies137, 138

Zelinsky, W. 23–4

INDEX212

Documents

Understanding Cultural Geography: Places and Traces