‘A Still Ecstasy of Freedom and Enjoyment’: Walking the City in Charlotte Brontë’s Villette

This article situates Charlotte Brontë’s writing within the context of mid-nineteenth-century discourses of gender and travel, and posits that Brontë contributes to the discursive construct of the flâneuse through her writing about women walking the city in her letters from Belgium and in the novel Villette (1853). Through a critical framework drawing together literary historicism on women in the Victorian city and mobility theories of embodied and sensory movement, the analysis reveals how Brontë foregrounds the experience of the body in her writing of women walking, and uses this as a mode through which to explore gendered discourses of mobility, and especially women’s urban walking. It argues that Brontë offers a new model of female urban spectatorship which privileges the body of the flâneuse as the prime site of knowing the city; this positively reconfigures the possibilities for autonomy and agency that urban walking affords, while at the same time making the body a site through which ambivalence about women’s mobility is expressed. The article reveals Charlotte Brontë to be a writer actively engaged with discourses of mobility and modernity that have been overlooked in her work, and situates Brontë as a significant contributor to debates about women and the city. It advances literary histories of city walking by locating Villette as a key participant within the field, and contributes to Brontë studies by revealing new perspectives on the significance of women’s travel in her works.     

Inside Tallis: Reconstructing the Interiors of Tallis’s London Street Views

This paper will examine how the physical reality behind Tallis’s illustrations can be illuminated to explore the commercial, domestic and social dimensions of Tallis’s London. It will explore the range of material culture available, and how this can be used to analyse interior space, in particular through English Heritage’s Architectural Study Collection. Two preliminary case studies will investigate the future potential for looking behind the façades of early Victorian London.     

The emergence and institutionalization of feminist geography in Ghana

Abstract

The emergence and institutionalization of feminist geography in Ghana was in tandem with the global feminist movement in the 1970s and its subsequent international women’s conferences. This paper discusses the pioneering work and research at the Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana, and its effect on the institutionalization and diffusion of feminist geography in Ghana. Through research and external collaborations, the need for gender as an academic discipline was strongly argued for and instituted as an undergraduate course at the Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana. These external collaborations with other feminist geographers in international geography associations and universities served as a boost as they created opportunities for highlighting the spatial variations in the role and situation of particularly women’s lives in Ghana. Subsequently, there was a diffusion of feminist geography research and its institutionalization as an academic sub-discipline in Geography departments in other Ghanaian universities. These notwithstanding, the departments of Geography in Ghanaian universities are still dominated by male faculty members. Moreover, research work has been mainly in the field of human geography more than the physical aspects calling for the mainstreaming of gender issues in all the systematic branches of the discipline.     

Changing recess geographies: children’s perceptions of a schoolyard renovation project promoting physical activity

ABSTRACT

Insights into children’s perceptions of their changing recess geographies are absent. The current paper provides qualitative evidence from 5 renewed schoolyards by investigating children’s perceptions of their new schoolyards. Ten focus groups (2 at each school) including go-along interviews were conducted, in total 57 4 to 8 graders (28 girls). The functional aspects of the altered child–environment relationship were assessed using Gibson’s concept of affordance, and changes in the meanings ascribed to the schoolyards by the children were studied by engaging a concept of place. Our findings reveal that schoolyards offering multiple potential affordances for physical activity seem more likely to engage a broader group of children in recess physical activity. The analysis, however, could point to a difference between places designed for children’s play and places where children actually play. To optimise actualisation of the potential affordances for recess physical activity, involving children throughout intervention planning and decision-making is crucial.     

Rewilding education? Exploring an imagined and experienced outdoor learning space

ABSTRACT

This paper follows the progress of a small rural primary school in the UK as it goes about cultivating a new vision of the future by transforming its outdoor spaces. Exploring the significance of these outdoor spaces as they are imagined, made and experienced, from the first design stages to the first days of use, the paper considers how feelings about children’s access to and engagement with nature are entangled with cultures of protection and surveillance. Using observations from a multimodal ethnography, including video tours and photography workshops alongside observant participation and interviews, the paper illustrates how, in practical terms, changing an educational landscape can also shift a school culture, giving children greater freedom outdoors to live, learn and grow together.