Where are we?
Let’s check in with the overall philosophy of the course:
1. Understanding society, space and power is best achieved through critically analyzing landscape--in person, as image, on video, in our imaginations.
1a. Comparing landscapes (such as in Austin and Newcastle) deepens our understanding of society, space and place.
2. Critically analyzing landscape is best done by getting out there and experiencing space, writing about it, sharing these writings, and connecting these to academic writing where applicable.
Let’s check in with the overall philosophy of the course:
1. Understanding society, space and power is best achieved through critically analyzing landscape--in person, as image, on video, in our imaginations.
1a. Comparing landscapes (such as in Austin and Newcastle) deepens our understanding of society, space and place.
2. Critically analyzing landscape is best done by getting out there and experiencing space, writing about it, sharing these writings, and connecting these to academic writing where applicable.
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Week 1:
Mitchell; not what landscape is or means but what it DOES—how it works as cultural practice
Cresswell; what is place? What is the difference between space and place?
Let's do a recap of these:
What is space?
What is place?
What is landscape?
The power of ethnography--what is it?
Week 2:
Emmerson et al.; the main learning this week was around doing observations and reflecting on this experience. There is a lot of material based on our class on the lecture notes for that week (March 1 & 2).
[Check out the 'slides']
Week 3: De Certeau
Really pleased with this—really captured that way De Certeau creates a series of binaries in his work that are meant to juxtapose broad structures and forms of control with and individual agency (which he sees as resistant to and transgressive of such forms of control):
[Check out 'slides']
So if you have these points clear in your mind you are doing really well at the 1/3 stage.
If you are lost, let’s talk together and I can bring you up to speed.
Mitchell; not what landscape is or means but what it DOES—how it works as cultural practice
Cresswell; what is place? What is the difference between space and place?
Let's do a recap of these:
What is space?
What is place?
What is landscape?
The power of ethnography--what is it?
Week 2:
Emmerson et al.; the main learning this week was around doing observations and reflecting on this experience. There is a lot of material based on our class on the lecture notes for that week (March 1 & 2).
[Check out the 'slides']
Week 3: De Certeau
Really pleased with this—really captured that way De Certeau creates a series of binaries in his work that are meant to juxtapose broad structures and forms of control with and individual agency (which he sees as resistant to and transgressive of such forms of control):
- Strategies (state power) vs. tactics (what individuals do)
- Practices (things people do in the city) vs. representations (visions of urban life through which urban planning takes place
- God's eye views (top down) vs. views from the street [video]
- Language (the system) vs. speech (the ways people use the system to creatively express themselves)
[Check out 'slides']
So if you have these points clear in your mind you are doing really well at the 1/3 stage.
If you are lost, let’s talk together and I can bring you up to speed.
Goals:
- Practice the ethnographic study of landscape using field visits, images, and written texts;
- You should have done this twice now:
- A static reading (weeks 1-2)
- A reading in motion (weeks 2-3)
- Outline the ways that diverse landscapes work together to produce the regions where we live and study;
- Our in class exercises
- Our in class exercises
- Design independent research inquiry into landscapes;
- Not yet, but we are getting close [more today]
- Collaborate with diverse (and remote) groups in developing a comparative research agenda for the study of landscapes in distinct regions;
- Our in class exercises
- Identify the politics of place-making in two geographically distant regions with shared pasts of indigenous dispossession, resource extraction, and post-industrial reconfiguration.
- Starting to get there—we will accelerate this in coming week. For now we have been trying to get you attuned to the landscapes and space around you; soon we will talk more about their politics.
- Improve ability to write and communicate in both academic and non-academic environments
- Writing small tasks builds…and the reckoning is near!
WRITING
So far you should have two solo writing tasks complete:
So what do I do with the writing I have?
You have two options:
NB: You will need to use ONE of your first FOUR writing tasks for that first assignment.
We have two more writing tasks for the first half of semester:
Everything Counts! It will be used in either your portfolio OR your first assignment.
Help, I have not done writing for some of the weeks because [insert excuse], what should I do?
Now is your opportunity to catch up.
So far you should have two solo writing tasks complete:
- A static reading (weeks 1-2)
- A reading in motion (weeks 2-3)
So what do I do with the writing I have?
You have two options:
- Turn one of these into your first assignment due APRIL 1
- Keep it for your portfolio to be submitted at the end of semester.
NB: You will need to use ONE of your first FOUR writing tasks for that first assignment.
We have two more writing tasks for the first half of semester:
- Sense & Space (for next week, Week 5)
- Pandemic Landscapes (For Week 6)
Everything Counts! It will be used in either your portfolio OR your first assignment.
Help, I have not done writing for some of the weeks because [insert excuse], what should I do?
Now is your opportunity to catch up.
Assessment Update:
First assignment
FRIDAY APRIL 1, 11:59pm
What is it?
A written task with images (or video or sound—but submission for those has an extra step)
How long is it?
700-1000 word MAX.
Do not go over 1000 words.
How many images? Up to 5.
OR one video/ sound recording to go with words.
What do we do:
The Written/Visual Assignment asks you to complete an early piece of writing based on the first 4 TASKS of the course.
The aim is to connect one of these tasks (we will be doing several that you can choose from) with literature from the course, and to develop your ethnographic writing skills along the way. You will be asked to use images and words in this assignment.
How do I do this?
Take one of your four tasks and EXTEND it.
Portfolio:
Due at the end of semester. Keep up to date with your tasks (including shared tasks with UT) and as we go into the second half of the semester we will spend more time on this. There will likely be 7-8 eligible tasks for inclusion, plus an opening and closing essay.
First assignment
FRIDAY APRIL 1, 11:59pm
What is it?
A written task with images (or video or sound—but submission for those has an extra step)
How long is it?
700-1000 word MAX.
Do not go over 1000 words.
How many images? Up to 5.
OR one video/ sound recording to go with words.
What do we do:
The Written/Visual Assignment asks you to complete an early piece of writing based on the first 4 TASKS of the course.
The aim is to connect one of these tasks (we will be doing several that you can choose from) with literature from the course, and to develop your ethnographic writing skills along the way. You will be asked to use images and words in this assignment.
How do I do this?
Take one of your four tasks and EXTEND it.
- Give it a title
- Set up the space/landscape
- Describe it
- Analyse it*
- Make reference to readings in the course AND additional ACADEMIC readings
- Use 3-6 academic sources in your writing [quality analysis not quantity of citations]
- Where do I find these sources? In our course so far, and explore sources that use this material.
- It really depends on which of your tasks you choose to do for the first assignment.
- USE SUBHEADINGS
- See my Google Scholar tips.
Portfolio:
Due at the end of semester. Keep up to date with your tasks (including shared tasks with UT) and as we go into the second half of the semester we will spend more time on this. There will likely be 7-8 eligible tasks for inclusion, plus an opening and closing essay.
FOR NEXT WEEK
3 readings about Senses.
Please take the time to do a SENSORY observation of space.
IT CAN BE ANY SENSORY ETHNOGRAPHY.
You will need to write down 300 words or so describing the sounds you hear, but also record some sounds.
Consider the question—which SENSES dominate the soundscape?
Which are drowned out?
How does this change in different places/ times of the day?
We will run class on ZOOM next week.
3 readings about Senses.
Please take the time to do a SENSORY observation of space.
IT CAN BE ANY SENSORY ETHNOGRAPHY.
You will need to write down 300 words or so describing the sounds you hear, but also record some sounds.
Consider the question—which SENSES dominate the soundscape?
Which are drowned out?
How does this change in different places/ times of the day?
We will run class on ZOOM next week.
GENDER AND LANDSCAPES
Part I: Gender, embodiment, space
What is gender?
What does it mean to say something is gendered?
GROUP TASK
How does gender relate to space and power?
Give me 5, write them down so I can upload them.
What is gender?
What does it mean to say something is gendered?
GROUP TASK
How does gender relate to space and power?
Give me 5, write them down so I can upload them.
How about our reading:
1. Siemiatycki et al
2. Criado Perez
What is/are the author/s trying to say? [what is the ARGUMENT?]
How do they say or show it? [Methodology or Approach]
What does it say about space and power/ place/ landscape? [Significance].
1. Siemiatycki et al
2. Criado Perez
What is/are the author/s trying to say? [what is the ARGUMENT?]
How do they say or show it? [Methodology or Approach]
What does it say about space and power/ place/ landscape? [Significance].
What do I do with this?
Taking it into the field:
Thinking about….
Embodiment
“Bodies are not just the subjects of medical and natural sciences: bodies shape who we are and are always connected in some ways to the world we live in. Not all bodies are equally valued or treated equally: some bodies are valued more than others.”
Woodward, Kath. "Gendered bodies: Gendered lives." Introducing Gender and Women’s Studies (2015): 97-113.
What kinds of body differences are at play in space, in landscape?
When and where are different bodies in/out of place?
Emotions and affect:
“By taking seriously women’s experiences of space and place, and treating the personal as political, feminist geographers were alert not only to the emotions and feelings that women experienced in particular places and spaces, but also to how emotions framed and circumscribed sexed and gendered experiences of place and spaces.
Feminist accounts of subjectivity, to be sure, were now diverging from humanist accounts. Where humanistic [accounts] tended to posit a coherent, bounded, self‐aware and universal human subject, feminist geography was illuminating the incoherences, permeabilities, opaquenesses and specificities of human subjectivity.”
Pile, S. "Emotions and affect in recent human geography." Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 35, no. 1 (2010): 5-20.
What do we call this?
Embodiment and space, place
Seetha Low:
Embodied spaces.
“Embodied space is presented as a model for understanding the creation of place through spatial orientation, movement, and language.”
“These understandings require theories of body and space that are experience-near and yet allow for linkages to be made to larger, social, and cultural processes.[..] underscoring the importance of the body as a physical and biological entity, lived experience, and a center of agency, a location for speaking and acting on the world.” (pp. 9-10)
Low, Setha M. "Embodied space (s) anthropological theories of body, space, and culture." Space and culture 6, no. 1 (2003): 9-18.
Taking it into the field:
Thinking about….
Embodiment
“Bodies are not just the subjects of medical and natural sciences: bodies shape who we are and are always connected in some ways to the world we live in. Not all bodies are equally valued or treated equally: some bodies are valued more than others.”
Woodward, Kath. "Gendered bodies: Gendered lives." Introducing Gender and Women’s Studies (2015): 97-113.
What kinds of body differences are at play in space, in landscape?
- Gender
- Race
- Dis/Ability
- Age
- Class
When and where are different bodies in/out of place?
Emotions and affect:
“By taking seriously women’s experiences of space and place, and treating the personal as political, feminist geographers were alert not only to the emotions and feelings that women experienced in particular places and spaces, but also to how emotions framed and circumscribed sexed and gendered experiences of place and spaces.
Feminist accounts of subjectivity, to be sure, were now diverging from humanist accounts. Where humanistic [accounts] tended to posit a coherent, bounded, self‐aware and universal human subject, feminist geography was illuminating the incoherences, permeabilities, opaquenesses and specificities of human subjectivity.”
Pile, S. "Emotions and affect in recent human geography." Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 35, no. 1 (2010): 5-20.
What do we call this?
Embodiment and space, place
Seetha Low:
Embodied spaces.
“Embodied space is presented as a model for understanding the creation of place through spatial orientation, movement, and language.”
“These understandings require theories of body and space that are experience-near and yet allow for linkages to be made to larger, social, and cultural processes.[..] underscoring the importance of the body as a physical and biological entity, lived experience, and a center of agency, a location for speaking and acting on the world.” (pp. 9-10)
Low, Setha M. "Embodied space (s) anthropological theories of body, space, and culture." Space and culture 6, no. 1 (2003): 9-18.
Please watch these two videos. One is about India and the other Spain.
What from these resonates with you?
What from these resonates with you?
