Boundary spanning in social and cultural geography

This article situates interactions between German- and English-language social and cultural geographies since the mid-twentieth century within their wider intellectual, political and socio-economic contexts. Based on case study examples, we outline main challenges of international knowledge transfer due to nationally and linguistically structured publication cultures, differing academic paradigms and varying promotion criteria. We argue that such transfer requires formal and informal platforms for academic debate, the commitment of boundary spanners and supportive peer groups. In German-language social and cultural geography, these three aspects induced a shift from a prevalent applied research tradition in the context of the modern welfare state towards a deeper engagement with Anglophone debates about critical and post-structuralist approaches that have helped to critique the rise of neoliberal governance since the 1990s. Anglophone and especially British social and cultural geography, firmly grounded in critical and post-structuralist thought since the 1980s, are increasingly pressurized through the neoliberal corporatization of the university to develop more applied features such as research impact and students’ employability.     

Recently completed doctorates in social and cultural geography

The Black Men of Labor is a local social club whose parade marks the beginning of New Orleans' parading season on Labor Day weekend. Coincidentally, the homosexual, predominantly White male Southern Decadence party and parade is that same weekend—hosted by a large gay community living primarily in New Orleans' French Quarter. Although these two parading groups appear outwardly different, both parades make claims to the same street at different times. We call their politics ‘parallel politics’ because the parades have similar political motivations, yet they literally parade in parallel, and therefore fail to connect and protest their socio-spatial marginalization together. This missed opportunity led us to consider how these two parades territorialize space and project a unified community identity. Territoriality, according to Sack (1983 Sack, R. 1983. Human territoriality: a theory. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 73: 55–74. [Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), is an attempt to control a geographic area and establish differential access to it. Moving beyond previous work on parades as observed performances, boundary markers or negotiated representations, we show how parades create a territorially-based identity through cultural nodes, and how their exclusivity is both a process and outcome of territoriality. We argue that territoriality and identity are fused, which forecloses the possibility of collective action between these two communities. We find that parade territorialities simultaneously and complexly establish both social and spatial claims.     

Italian political culture in historical perspective

This article examines Austrian policy towards the Italian states from the Congress of Vienna to the revolutions of 1848. It argues that the paramount concern of Habsburg policy was not revolution, but rather the maintenance of a hegemonic position in the peninsula against threats from the Habsburgs’ traditional enemy ‐ the French. Revolution caused significant concern only because it might provide the French with a pretext for intervention in the peninsula. Consequently a number of strategies were adopted both to forestall insurrection (vigorous policing, encouraging moderate reform programmes, armed intervention), and to retain influence over the peninsula's rulers (diplomatic pressure, dynastic and military alliances, promises of assistance against unrest). However, by the 1830s the Austrians were faced by increasing challenges to their position of dominance. This was in part because of the personal ambitions of individual Italian rulers, but it also reflected the changing situation in Paris after the July Revolution, and in Vienna after the death of Francis I.     

Geographical practice in Mexico: the cultural geography project

Since Mexican geography was initiated, its practice has been closely related to the objectives and activities of the hegemonic regimes and ruling activities within the territory. A short passage through our history might clarify why we have not been able to avoid conservatism, illustrate how cultural geography has developed in recent years, and explain why Mexican geographers are so dependent on theory from abroad. Historically, just like in other territories, mapping and teaching were the main practices developed with different targets and different contexts, in the evolution of the country. Since colonization in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, new discoveries and the display of new natural resources has demanded the knowledge and register of new places, especially on maps. This activity was primarily undertaken by foreigners: the Spaniards colonized and conquered new spaces and resources, seizing and exporting minerals like gold and silver, tropical products such as sugar cane, coffee and cacao, and animals such as the beaver (Wolf 1994).     

The cultural biography of a Western Australian war memorial

In common with other western countries, there is resurgence in war commemoration in Australia indicating a serious pursuit of identity and a national story on a collective and personal level. A widespread academic and popular interest in war memory and material culture such as war memorials has emerged. War memorials often find their way on to heritage registers. This paper advances cultural biography as an approach to determine the significance of war memorials arguing that this may give a deeper understanding of its community meaning than present methods. Emerging in archaeology cultural biography considers the way that social interactions between people and objects over time create meaning. Using the Katanning war memorial statue in Western Australia as a case study, this paper argues that a cultural biographical approach may uncover a deeper cultural significance resulting from a focus on relationships than from the traditional focus on the memorial as object.     

From number to name: symbolic capital,places of memory and the politics of street renaming in New York City

Numerous studies have highlighted the importance of street naming as a strategy for constructing ‘places of memory’. This paper draws upon Bourdieu's theory of symbolic capital to examine two key moments in the history of street renaming in New York City: the renaming of the avenues on Manhattan's Upper West Side in the latter nineteenth century and the street renamings in Harlem a century later. The aim of such a comparative case study approach is to demonstrate how the symbolic capital associated with street naming may be linked to an elite project of symbolic erasure and forced eviction, on the one hand, and the cultural recognition of a historically marginalized group, on the other. Both cases consider attempts to rename formerly numbered streets and avenues, and the benefit of considering them together is that they illustrate the multiple interests—as well as the exclusionary politics of race, class, and gender—involved in such shifts from ‘number’ to ‘name’. In doing so, this paper extends the current literature on street naming as a commemorative practice by linking it to a broader relational view of place-making, memory, and symbolic capital.     

Country report: The ambiguities of social and cultural geography in Greece

This paper contributes to debates on the empirical and conceptual potentials of anti-essentializing notions such as ‘thirdspace’ with the aim to open new epistemological and political grounds. Based on the findings of ethnographic research, I critically examine two spatial strategies (the deliberate creation of an ethnic neighbourhood, and the securing of a community centre) that Latin American immigrants in Toronto, Canada, developed to appropriate urban space and lay claims to equal rights. The case of Latin Americans' struggle for belonging in Toronto serves to reflect on how and why new immigrant groups today (re)construct collective identity spatially. I argue that immigrants strategically essentialize their identities in and through place in order to make themselves visible and their voices heard. Ethnic places represent sites of resistance and creation where immigrants construct their own subjectivities while also redefining dominant notions of inclusion and citizenship. Although locally grounded, these new immigrant identities remain fluid and engage with multiple forms of exclusion

[The] situation is simply sad; the [Latin American] community … is one of the most orphan communities … in [Toronto] … [We] don't even have a place where to dig our own grave basically. If there is need to get together … a meeting … there is no place. We have to be looking for a basement … for a recreational centre to give us a room … If there is a social or cultural event, we do not have a place where … we can present what we have … [It] is sad and it is a reality. (Cesar Palacio, city councillor candidate to Toronto's 2003 municipal elections, interview, 2 May 2003, translated from Spanish)     

The mobilities of forced displacement: commemorating Karelian evacuation in Finland

In this article I discuss the mobilities of forced displacement. I analyse the politics of mobility by connecting the multiple scales of experienced mobility with the representational and non-representational strategies of sense of place. The aim of this article is twofold: to illustrate the different collective cultural narratives of displacement, and the ontological bodily memories. Three narratives of Karelian displacement are discussed. To capture the bodily memories, I also apply the philosopher Jacques Derrida's (1995) ideas on khora. Khora originates in Plato's Timaeus. Derrida's one interpretation of khora is a half-way-place, which is midway between space and time. I argue that khora as a non-topological concept deepens the understanding of existential place relations and also provides a fresh conceptual basis for the analysis of non-representational aspects of experiential place. Empirically, I focus on the commemoration of Karelian evacuation in Finland. I argue that the festivity called the Trail of the Displaced consists of several culturally representational and embodied non-representational mobilities which explain the complexities of spatial belonging among displaced communities.     

Eclectic and pragmatic: the colours of Dutch social and cultural geography

In the Netherlands, human geography has traditionally been an applied, practical science. Close ties have always existed with spatial planning and regional-economic policy. With good reason, the first generation of planning specialists—in the 1960s—consisted largely of people trained as geographers. Geographers were also the socio-spatial engineers of the welfare state (de Pater 2001b; de Pater and de Smidt 1989).     

A walk of art: the potential of the sound walk as practice in cultural geography

Some of the most experimental and exciting work using sound and spatiality has come from the art world. This essay traces how an exciting hybrid of sound art and walking – the sound walk - has evolved over the last century. Examining the latest examples of sound walks in London and New York, and reflecting on the author's experience of creating a sound walk route, this essay focuses on the potential of this medium to create flowing, multi-sensory and embodied ways for social and cultural geographers to research the outside environment. The essay concludes that the medium could also be useful for presenting site-specific cultural geography to the public in an accessible and inclusive way.