GLST 490: Working with Place

Day 9: Chapter 4 (we're still ahead,

but that's OK)

Today's Agenda● We will start Chapter 4, and also have

presentations from several people.

Creswell, Chap. 4 – Working With Place

● This chapter focuses on how the notion of place can be 'operationalized' as a basis for research. It is divided into four subsections:

➔ the ongoing importance of place in a mobilized and globalized world at a couple of different scales;

➔ how places of memory get produced;➔ the production of place-identities for places to

live in, and➔ the creation of place at the larger scales of

region and nation-state.

Creswell, Chap. 4 – Working With Place

● For the first sub-section or theme, Cresswell cites the work of Geraldine Pratt at UBC on the experiences of Filipina domestic workers who are forced to leave their homelands – and often their children – in search of money for their families, and yet who seek to personalize what little space they have some control over, often only a room primarily used for sleeping in the room of their employer.

Cresswell, Ch. 4- Working With Place

● A second example is the work of Arturo Escobar who focuses on social movements in Latin America that are building on and encouraging 'place-based' attachments as a vehicle for resisting corporate, state, and techno-scientific takeovers of local communities. The main example cited is that of the Process of Black Communities (PCN) of the Colombian rainforest.

● Although the terminology is not used, this echoes the distinction made by John Friedmann concerning territory vs. function. In a territorial perspective a place exists for itself. From a functional perspective, it exists merely as a means to an end – for instance, as a source of raw materials or cheap labour.

Place and Memory● In this section, Cresswell notes that memory is both

personal and social. What determines what memories persist and which fade away? Why is it that government-sanctioned textbooks in Japan always seem to leave out Japanese war crimes – especially against the Chinese?

● Delores Hayden, in her wonderful book The Power of Place, points out that social memories need physical anchors – preferably not just one building or site, but a network of such sites. This concept led me to participate in a project in Vancouver called The False Creek Heritage Trail available in a virtual on-line version at http://www.newcity.ca/Pages/false_creek_trail.pdf.

Place and Memory● Hayden's insights are also useful from a heritage and

historical interpretation point of view – i.e. that the best way to do interpretation is to use the built environment and landscape as the 'text'. And in this she cites the example of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York (see http://www.tenement.org/Virtual_Tour/vt_hallruin.html).

Place and Memory (Contestation)● Andrew Charlesworth's work is also cited. He focuses on how

Auchwitz is and has been interpreted, and how both the Catholics and the Communists have attempted to de-emphasize the Jewish aspect of the tragedy, rendering the mainly Jewish victims largely invisible to suit their own ideological purposes. The Church even built a huge cross at the site where Jews were unloaded and sent to the gas chambers.

● Key sites in the immigration process (e.g. Ellis Island) can also be important places of contestation.

● Another sub-section/ theme in this chapter is one we have already touched on – how different social groups fight over neighbourhoods. Reid and Smith are quoted on how gentrifiers create “[n]ew boutique landscapes of consumption...[that] cater to their gastronomic, fashion and entertainment demands, and new landscapes are created with the construction of new office buildings: the workspace of the residents of the new city.”

New and Old Kits

The Selling of Place● Developers have long

engaged in the marketing of place – homes become condos with views, and part of a chic urban lifestyle. See for instance:

http://www.concordpacific.com/vancouver-condo-for-sale.htm● In suburban areas, the sense

of place is often created by naming the development after the natural feature it has displaced. Here the neighbourhood is called Walnut Grove.

The Selling of Place● A somewhat controversial

example of the 'selling of place' – or at least an attempt to get back to more traditional reference points – is the new urbanist movement, as demonstrated in Kentlands, Maryland. The movement takes as its starting point the way 'traditional' neighbourhoods were constructed in the pre-war era. See also Seaside and Celebration in Florida.

Places as Represented Through Media● In addition to the cachet that developers often try to give to their

'instant' communities, there is also the way various urban and rural areas have been represented in various media. This is something some of you will focus on. We all have stereotypical images of places like Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Ireland, and Tibet, to name a few.

Naming● As we have mentioned earlier, naming is also an

important mechanism for defining and contesting places. A recent example is the debate as to whether the Strait of Georgia (named after a British monarch, and a rather daft one at that) should be renamed the Salish Sea (see: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/03/09/bc-salish-sea-renamed.html

● Nation-states are also a relatively recent example of the 'inscription' of disparate territories with a new-found unity, since most nations on the face of the earth have only been created in the last century and a half. Nations unite people who, in many ways, have very little in common.