Representation

Literally means something that is ‘standing for, or in place of something – whether literally or symbolically’

The following are all examples of ‘representations’

•Objects are representations 
•Images are representations 
•Maps are representations 
•Landscapes are representations 
•Even words/language!  are representations

e.g. your lawyer is your representative in court 

Conveying things to people, words are the best tools to convey things to people, yet you still fee like you are struggling with words sometimes

“In every city and every town there’s a place,
A special place where people meet. Not a mythical place but somewhere real, a place that exists,
Not in the past but now.
In my city there’s a place just like that. You won’t see a street sign for it and you can’t find it on a map, but it’s there,
Right under everyone’s feet, thousands and thousands of feet have stood there,
The new building’s old too now… but not as old as Coles Corner.
For years lovers, friends and families have met here on this spot.
There must be so many people that are here in Sheffield and in this world
Who are alive because a love bloomed after meeting here…

On Coles Corner,
In Sheffield, the city where I live.”
Richard Hawley, Coles Corner - talks about how everyne would meet at coles corner, full of stories on people meeting here life now changed- coles corner for lots of people is still a significant place, sense of place even though it has changed. intangible things that are prt of our sense of place, feelings atmospheres and emotions. places like this that for us have that signifiance? 

•Learn what ‘representation’ means for Geographers, and why this is important •

Explore some of the problems with representation - why it is a bit trick and difficult to use 

•Explore some approaches that have tried to address these problems. Chiefly:
–Feminist Geography
–Emotional Geographies
–Non-Representational Theory
–Affect
–Embodiment and Performance

signpost that these are parts of geography which you will encounter in your way here, ways in which the concept of representation is spoken about ^^

•What is a good representation? The closest possible reflection of reality?

for example a mirror, perfect representation yet there are assumptions behind that:

This assumes:

•Image < Real - asssuming the image is less than the real thing - inferior 

•Image = deceptive while reality is truthful

For human geographers

Images aren't just a passive reflection of reality, images are performative and can bring particular realities into being

•Images don’t just reflect reality – they are performative
(i.e. they can help bring particular realities into being)

For example:
•Tourism

LOTR filmed in New Zealand- they market themselves as being 'middle earth' landscape was filmed in new zealand and CGI- fictional landscape- if you go to New Zealand you can go to tours which will show you parts of the landscape that were filmed 

this is an example of how these images brought new zealand into reality images and realities do have a definitive effect on reality, businesses sprung up

Every representation constructs a particular ‘truth’ about a place or situation and perhaps obscuring other 
– some factors are highlighted and others are hidden

For example:
•Mental maps of places- not just physical, how you're thinking and imagining these places 

Space and place can be experienced differently by differently people at diff times e.g. Poulton-le-fylde both these ideas about Poulton are representations , shows how dpeending on what reality you come form your perspectives are different 

•All knowledge is ‘situated’ i.e. experienced from a particular place. Consequently, there can be many different truths or representations of the same situation. 

maps, images, photos and drawings are representations these all come from a particular place. 

e.g. Mr and Mrs painting wealthy landowners, yet if you were a wage labourer working on their farm this image may look different to you.

world map- depending on what characteristics you choose to focus on - the map of the worl dcan look different.

the idea of obbjective knowledge is difficult because it comes from somewhere- there can always be a different standpoint on a certain situation. 

•So instead of asking “how well does this representation conform to reality?” trying to be a mirror , we can ask different questions:

–Whose reality is this image/description/object representing?
–From whose perspective is this situation being viewed?
–How are power relations involved in this? Whose representations are being marginalised?
whose experiences are being foregrounded

–Above all, this approach dismisses the idea of a universal, ‘objective’, view from everywhere.
- every perspective is coming from somewhere

–So what ‘position’ am I coming from in all this?
- important to ask yourself, your positionality, what standpoint aM i writing from?

these questions are similar to the ones asked when looking at landscapes- common themes

1) Emotional Geographies 

 •An exciting and interesting sub-discipline associated with scholars such as Liz Bondi and journals   like Emotion, Space and Society

•Focus on how  understanding our emotions  can connect us to the people and places around us 

•For example…

•Flood of emotions: emotional work and long-term disaster recovery
Whittle, R., Walker, M., Medd, W., Mort, M. 02/2012 In: Emotion, Space and Society. 5, 1, p. 60-69. 10 p.

Hull 2007 people's recovery, very intensive, qualitiative approach- asking people to reflect on their feelings.

focusing on peoples' emotions enabled us to understand flood recovery differently 

•How many people were affected?
•How long before they were back in their homes?
•What was the level of economic damage caused by the flood?

Generally official newspaper, policy understandings of recovery ask these questions ^^

These are good questions but they miss out important things- very particular understanding of recovery going on- assuming that the floor itself was the low point and then after that things would get gradually better - not so distant future things better 

•A better understanding of who was affected (including children and young people and ‘indirect’ impacts)

•Better understanding of the timescales involved and a more nuanced understanding of flood recovery processes

•How to better support those affected by flooding: http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/cyp-floodrecovery/project-film/

really it is a roller-coaster ride (copy graph) if we had not looked at emotions we would not have noticed this- focusing on emotions allows us to pinpoint what support people may need after a flood. more people are being affected than we thought- some people ended up looking after their relatives- children were really affected. 

looking at peoples emotions as part of the recovery process helps us look at what goes wrong and how we can better help people in future. 

How can we account for those aspects of everyday life which defy representation?

how can attempt to engage with these aspects of everyday life which defy representation

- struggle to put things into words

- the birth of a baby is hard to put into words 

2) Non-Representational Theory is an attempt to deal with the situations  that defy our way of describing something e.g. birth of a baby

•Nigel Thrift
•Complex! But, in general, these focus on…
–What people do rather than on what they say
–‘Affect’: background moods, atmospheres- feelings that are hard to put into words but you can't label as an emotion. emotons - I feel angry. affect is the actual feeling of anger in your body before you can experience it affect is the sensation itself but emotion is the label that is put on it 
–Being and becoming
–Bodily performances, including mundane and everyday

Generally more interessted in actions, what people do rather than what they say, how they go about their lives. 

With an emphasis on the fact that these are  all social – i.e. how these experiences  connect us to people and places around us… 

something impermanent about this, things changing, rather than things being static. 

•How can we really study pre-cognitive and pre-verbal?
You're trying to get at something that is not inherently not able to be represented but the only way you can get is through representation

•Focus on personal feelings at expense of acknowledging social construction of these feelings and differences between different people/social groups.
•To what extent can we rationalise and explain our feelings?

Hard to study because it is hard to rationalise emotions

•How can you research – and then write about – affect, embodiment, performance??

everyday performances, quite a lot of creative methods have sprung up 

NRT things that are intelligible  involving arts, drawings 

3) Researching Affect

Affect is about the embodied experiences before they become conscious

it is about the feelings themselves which are definitely affecting us but tricky to describe 

gut feelings

however, once you write about them you're representing them

About embodied experiences before they are registered by conscious thought and become emotions – as emotions socially constructed.

Focus on practices rather than representations of everyday life.

Consider feelings – tangible but difficult to describe such as the atmosphere in the room.

However, once you write about them, you are representing them.

Example of affect being written about is the manchester hauntings paper - it uses the idea of haunting and ghost as a metaphor - talking about commute to manchester as this man passes derelict places of manchester- these derelict places are remanents of manchesters working class history- how the past affects the present. 

uses the metaphor of haunting of how the historical legacy of manchester is affecting the present  - about places and atmospheres the wwhole paper about that.

•Researching the way that the past can still live on – and influence – the present day…

Edensor, T. (2008) 'Mundane hauntings: commuting through the phantasmagoric working class spaces of Manchester, England', in Cultural Geographies 15: 313-333

This paper explores the haunted realms of everyday mundane space. Based on the author's journey to work by car, a series of sites that evoke an absent-presence of working-class life are depicted. It is argued that these spaces, including housing estates, old railways, patches of derelict ground and old cinemas, are replete with ghostly effects. Drawing upon the examples provided, the article goes on to examine in more detail these hauntings, focusing upon the sensual, half-recognizable and imaginary qualities that are provoked by absences, vestiges and peculiar recontextualizations. It is contended that such sites are particularly haunted because unlike the more dynamic spaces of regenerated urban space, the past lingers in people, spaces, textures and things and is not so rapidly disposed. The paper concludes by investigating the ambiguities produced by the ghostly absent-presence of the working class, both in lived space and in academic discourse, and evaluates the advantages of spectral indeterminacy. 

4) Researching Performance and Embodiment

how peopel can research performance and embodiment 

•What does performance mean for Geographers?

Three key themes (from Rogers 2014)

–Performance and identity

–The embodied (or experiential) qualities of performance - the bodily experience of a performance

–The relationship between performance and the everyday

•See Social Geographies lecture block!!

•From Judith Butler, Femnist geographer… Identities as created through performance, not pre-existing, ‘natural’ categories. Creates the possibility of subversion…

•For example, relationship between sexuality and space: how can we perform identity differently to challenge dominant expectations? (Bell et al. 1994)

everyday life is a performance - walking down the street is a performance too ,how you dress, interact with people

ideas of masculinity & feminity are due to these everyday performances

•Geographies of the performing arts

. •How are these practices of identity skilful, playful or experimental?

•For example, Amanda Rogers: https://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/amanda-rogers(c69dc831-7a53-4fc5-9c91-ad2e129bc2f3).html

•How can using and acting out scripts help ethnic minorities challenge stereotypes by creating more complex portrayals of identity?

• Theatrical methods, scripts to challenge dominant ideas/ stereotypes placed on ethnic groups to creat more realistic portrayals of identity  

•… is a key concern of non-representational theory

“For non-representational geographers, performance is all those small actions, skills and ways of going on through which we continually create everyday spaces. As such, the world is always ongoing and never finished, it is not a reflection but a continuous composition (Thrift, 2003b: 2021). Performance is vital and full of life, and as such it is productive. - creates things  This means that through our actions we create our everyday realities and that the world is not something that we are separate from.” (Rogers 2014 p782)

Good summary ^ 

Simpson’s 2011 work on street performance.  Performances are:

•Improvisational
•A response to rhythms and moods of the space and passers by
•BUT in turn, they also change those spaces and interactions, creating affective responses that create new spaces and places…

Buskers, concrete example, this research looks at how these performances are improvisations- buskers responding and interacting to passerbys - playful, take their ques from audience - creates new atmosphere in street.

how performance is intimately linked to space and place 

•Learn what ‘representation’ means for Geographers, and why this is important

•Explore some of the problems with representation

•Explore some approaches that have tried to address these problems. Chiefly:
–Feminist Geography - idea that all knowledge, all position - everyone is coming from somehwere not a universal, objective perspective - positionality 

–Emotional Geographies- asking people how they feel, how these can enable us to see how people are connecting with spaces and places

–Non-Representational Theory- experiences of feelings themselves before we can verbalise them- the things we struggle to put into words 

–Affect - look at NRT 

–Embodiment and Performance – body is involved in this as a playful actor that responds to places and spaces- and through your body that youre feeling atmosphere and responding 

•Don’t try and understand everything BUT do read with a curious and open mind

. •Movement away from attempts to create objective or universal forms of knowledge

•New focus on perspectives of those who are marginalised

•New and creative research methods and ideas about what can be studied: emotions, affects, performances, etc.

•Big links with the social geographies block that follows…

basically a movement away from objective knowledge  trying to open up space for people whose experiences are currently marginalised. opens the door to what can be studied e.g.  emotions and feelings get marginalised but they are a legitimate part of our experiences should be studied.