“Can we understand “place identity” as not only a social construction, but as part of a fluid process?”
“Society does not exist independently of human agency”
(Bhaskar (1989a:3)
This paper will argue that, after Bhaskar’s statement on society (above), that all identity is socially constructed, that all society is formed through social interactions and further, that all ‘places’ are formed through social interactions. It is these interactions that assemble the distinctiveness of place though a never ending fluid process of identity construction of a place or of an individual. Let us be careful not to be too humanistic in understanding identity construction. This is not an empowered construction, consciously undertaken, although such brief moments can and do occur. Rather this is a discursive process; a structuring structure (Bourdieu 1990). The apparent geographic distinctiveness of place, the ‘sense of place’ as it were, facilitates social interactions that are formed through the locality making the identity of the place shift through the very nature of the interactions that form it. At the heart of the argument is that the individual’s very embodied experience of place; in ‘being’ the Place and the Self are both constructed. Through social interactions, place becomes constructed as part of a fluid process.
It has recently been remarked (May 2000, Carter 2007, Antonsich 2009) that there has been a lack of empirical work done on the nature of the relationship between the individual self, or individual identity and that of place or place-identity. In his recent article Marco Antonsich attempts to close this gap in knowledge with the aid of theories from Environmental Psychology. Antonsich hopes to “rescue this personal, intimate dimension...” (Antonsich 2009:119) from the social constructivists that describe such relationships as mere “social(izing) logic” (Ibid.). By this he is referring to a concern of Harold M. Proshansky and his colleagues that place and identity relations are often understood by geographers through an understanding of power relations and political processes (c.f. Keith & Pile 1993, Harvey 1991, Massey 1994). Further, Antonsich attempts to place his work against place-identity just about “[...] embodying various social categories such as gender, sex, race etc” (Antonsich 2009:119). Instead he wishes to understand a more personal, intimate embodied role of place and the Self. Due to inherent problems with cross-discipline work, his synthesis on this theory does not appear complete. What his work does do is bring together two areas of theory in a very complimentary and enlightening way that ultimately provides insight into a complex structure.
In answer to the title question this essay will first take a critical look at Antonsich’s 2009 paper before focusing on just a selection of geographers and psychologists to help understand further the relationship between people and place and how these two disciplines may indeed inform each other. We will then look at the work of Doreen Massey (1994, 1996) on place-identity, Joane Nagel, on the construction of ethnicity (1994) and Edward S. Casey (1996) to help us understand the fluctuating nature of ‘place’ in geography. Then, in order to explore the internalised process of construction of the self and its role in ‘place-identity’ construction, we will look at Proshansky’s et.al work on the Self’s perception of place and its role in self-identity composition. In order to exemplify the arguments in this essay, and by way of directing the work towards future research, I will overlay this theory onto a previously studied ‘place’; Borough Market in South London. A brief description, including a potted history of the place will now follow.
Borough Market is situated on the south side of London Bridge in the borough of Southwark, London. The market holds over 130 stalls selling ‘quality food products’ for both retail and wholesale. In 2006 it celebrated its 250th anniversary and stands today as an internationally recognised market. In its long history the market has changed many times. Historically it was purely wholesale until the ‘supermarket revolution’ of the late 1970s. In 1996 the Board of Trustees, who oversee the market’s direction, decided to change the focus of the market to high quality retail in an attempt to save it from total demise. Coinciding with the rise of the ‘foodie’ and TV chefs throughout English culture, this change proved very successful. The market consists of four separate areas; two covered speciality foods from across Europe, one stall area for UK producers and one area for its continuing wholesale trade. The market is currently undergoing drastic changes as SouthEastern Rail extends their lines running from London Bridge to Cannon Street. This has closed one area of the market, knocked down several front shop areas. Importantly, rather than damaging the market, as many feared, the rail company have provided an increase in space for the market to operate. The line has also removed shop fronts that have vastly improved the markets high street visibility. What is being described here is a ‘place’ that holds both a sense of geographic specificity whilst at the same time is a completely changeable, adaptable form. Before looking to how people understand how people sense the market as a distinct place, we must understand a little more about the markets history.
Although the official line from the market’s Board of Trustees is that it is ‘over 250 years old’, it is actually possible to trace the history of the market in the area to long before this. But accepting the trustees’ statement the market’s stalls and areas have still changed depending on internal and external forces (much like the new SouthEastern rail line alters it today). Its own internal structure of simple stalls and the people to work and visit there, allows the market to be highly adaptable. It is not tied to one building, or one street. As a wholesale market, Borough opens around 3am and closes by 11am Monday to Saturday. But the main retail market does not open until Thursday – Sunday. So depending on the day of the week, and the time of the day, the physical location of what we call ‘Borough Market’ changes. We are now beginning to understand the market as a fluctuating concept one that changes; not only through the decades and years, but through months days and even hours. Importantly, to Social Scientists, how the market’s identity is perceived changes just as rapidly. On busy weekends people flock to the market making it spill out into nearby streets, extending the boundaries of the markets in all directions as people’s ideas of accepted behaviour shift to allow them to perch on the side of the road eating over priced hamburgers. Not only does the market swell and shrink with the number of users, but they all come to a ‘different’ market. Those in the late 90s came to signify their own newly created category; that of a ‘foodie’. But by 2005 the market’s popularity and regular appearances on television filled the market with new weekend chefs who consume more lifestyle and expensive fast foods, than knowledge and rare European delicacies. Recently, those ‘real’ foodies have now had to leave to retain a sense of the ‘elite’ nature of their status. Alongside this new wave came the tourists seeking the ‘authentic’ London Market, one which is so clearly imagined (Anderson 1991). This complex image of a place will help us to ground the abstract notions discussed below.
Marco Antonsich paper sets out to improve understanding of the nature of the relationship between the individual Self and that of place by combining the disciplines of Humanistic Geography and Environmental Psychology towards reconsidering whether place and the Self “should be seen as [just] a product of social discourses” (Antonsich 2009:129). At the key position of Antonsich’s paper we see him argue against recent research that has put the emphasis back on social categories of identity (sex, gender, class, age etc) and away from the postmodern cultural materialism that has struggled with its own paradigmatic puzzles. Antonsich, as a criticism of the de-humanistic approaches to much of geography, wishes to place the individual subject, their intimate link to the physical locality (and the social formation) of place, back into the centre of the study. His work concentrates on tracking areas on “contestation, oppression, resistance empowerment and collective identification” (Ibid.:121). By doing so he does not need to qualify complex, and inherently abstract, social categories and instead can understand the relationship through the interplay of meaning between self identified ‘places’ (local, regional, national, European) and the subjects own sense of self. This focus on interplay keeps the subject and the place at the centre of the theoretical focus whilst facilitating empirical research. Although Antonsich provides little in the way of research methodology we know that his work crosses four European nations to capture a variety, though confessed not representative, selection of respondents where Antonsich conducted focus groups and semi-structured interviews with “local elites” (Ibid.:124). There is clearly inherent bias in the sample here as the data collected would be from people comfortable presenting themselves and talking on topics regarding power relations with place. Also, there is no depth to these conversations, which is concerning when you consider that Antonsich is after intimacy in his data. The paper should have provided more detailed information as to how the topics of ‘place’ and ‘individual’ self were approached in the focus groups and interviews as this would have greatly affected the conversation that followed. These simple issues question Antonsich’s data, and obviously his results, although they still prove descriptive as we shall see later. A word more should also be said of Antonsich’s methods. Although such empirical analysis is long overdue on this subject, simple focus groups of elite individuals should not be taken for granted. Instead a more place sensitive sociology could be devised around a more visual medium, one that could encompass a more grass roots connect with the society whilst producing data for both qualitative and quantitative analysis (c.f. Gieryn 2000). Additionally, to understand how the discursive nature of this relationship changes over time, it appears important to attempt a methodology that would encompass this process. A systematic collection of Oral Histories, with narrative analysis, may also highlight a changing nature of the relationship with place, whilst focused on the impact that was having the Self in question.
At the centre of Antonsich’s paper he presents a theoretical framework on the “ways in which place intervenes in the construction of the self” (Ibid.:124). Interestingly, although presented before the empirical data collected, he is not presenting a model that he has then tested. Rather, he sees the framework as one born from the analysis of the research alone. The framework consists of two major categories of place: personal (those related to the unique web of relations to the individual) and social (those that cannot be reduced down to the individuals own history alone). By understanding these two separate, yet discursive categories of place, Antonsich draws us a diagram on the process of identification. Through this he explores the construction of place as “discursively activated” (Ibid.:127) so that place is formed through the interrelations of ‘home’, ‘social identity’ and ‘personal identity’. Below I have recreated the diagram from the paper so that we may explore this framework.
Figure 1: Adapted from Antonsich 2009:125
The first thing to note when understanding the process that Antonsich lays out, is that the diagram is in two distinct sections; A and B (indicated above). The first section is based on his abstract categories of the personal and social, both a part of the meaning of place, but not apparently informing it. He places them as subcategories of place. In contrast, section B is characterised by its discursive nature. Each category is in a reflexive relationship with its neighbouring parts so that they are all constructed by each other. Later Antonsich argues that “however socially responsive or even socially created the Self might be, an individual, private dimension, remains” (Ibid,:127). This appears contradictory with his framework that appears to place the personal identity as a category defined by its relation to other categories. This is highlighted further when he argues that place can be “discursively activated” (Ibid.), so that the social-spatial category becomes the identifier of place. What is clear here is that Antonsich sees the framework as a hierarchical construction where ‘meaning of place’ is formed through the interplay of the subcategories. It is exactly here that we can see how a discursive nature of construction, one that informs and is informed by its neighbouring categories.
Let us use section B of Antonsich’s diagram and return to the example of Borough Market to see how discursive relationship helps us to understand a place-identity construction. Assuming one type of visitor, a ‘tourist’, enters the market: This individual, indicated by the ‘personal identity’ category above, intervenes in the construction in two ways; it signifies the authentic to the tourist and reinforces a sense of ‘home-city’ to those who live nearby. But the tourist is also constructed through this interplay with the market too, becoming ‘experienced’ of an authentic London market. Additionally, the tourist authenticates the market as a tourist attraction (re-enforcing as an identifier to other tourists), but reduces the markets ‘capital’ as an elite lifestyle market for the foodies. We see from this that as one person, one Self, intervenes in the process of place-identity construction, they are both constructing and being constructed themselves in an ongoing, fluid process. Although we see this process as discursive, Antonsich says that a personal dimension remains separate, whilst also saying that the personal and social identities do not relate to some essential quality attached to the individual (Ibid.:128). What we have left is an understanding of the structure of the process of identity construction that works through a series of inter-relations of categories that are both mutually dependant and self constructing. This makes the construction of identity a fluid process rather than a series of discreet actions.
As Antonsich clearly describes, geographers have gone to quite some lengths to understand and describe the “unique relation between self and place” (Antonsich 2009:121). To further explore this notion this paper will now turn to three key thinkers on the subject: Doreen Massey’s constellation of relations; Joane Nagel’s understanding of ethnicity construction and Edward S. Casey’s seminal anthropological text on the embodied nature of place.
Whilst discussing David Harvey’s postmodern argument that place is fixed in the construction of space. Massey highlights; ”[...]localities, as I see them, are not just about physical buildings, nor even about capital, they are about the intersection of social activities and social relations and, crucially, activities and relations which are necessarily, by definition, dynamic, changing.” (Massey 1994:136). This is a very clear position to start from. Massey rejects all notion of a stable or fixed concept of place, and by extension, of place-identity. Rather, Massey states that “[...p]laces can be conceptualised processes” (Ibid.:137) and what is interesting here is how Massey places the individual within this process by understanding it as being ‘conceptualised’, as an interpretation of a phenomenon, there must be a ‘self’ conceiving the concept itself. Rather than this being a simple logic of socialisation, Massey is placing the very nature of the embodied self at the centre of her idea. (An idea explored further later.)
“What gives place its specificity is not some long internalised history, but the fact that it is constructed out of a particular constellation of social relations, meeting and weaving together at a particular locus” (Massey 1994:154)
Massey uses the term constellation of relations to describe place in terms of a ‘power-geometry’ (Massey in Bird et.al 1993:61). What she is describing is a shifting notion of place, one that is both multiple and structured. Contrary to John May’s view (1996) that her progressive sense of place does not provide a suitable framework to explain these relations, she uses a very similar example as May to demonstrate her views: that of Kilburn High Road. This is a multicultural area that holds many identities for people at many times, unknowable by viable boundaries and linked through history to a very real global sense of place. Yet this place still maintains a distinct ‘sense of place’ throughout its changing history. After this we have a definition of place that is constructed out of a complex set of relations (as above), articulated together at a particular locality (Ibid.). To understand how this fluid nature of construction would work on a more traditional social category, let us take a quick look at the 1994 paper by Joane Nagel. In critiquing the idea of the inevitability of ethnic and cultural assimilation in the ‘melting pot’ of U.S society, Nagel describes ethnicity as a category that is in constant flux.
“Ethnic identity, then, is a result of a dialectical process involving internal and external opinions and processes, as well as the individual’s self-identification and the outsiders’ ethnic designations-i.e., what you think your ethnicity is, versus what they think your ethnicity is.” (Nagel 1994:154)
We can see from above that, for Nagel, such processes are mutually constitutive, an interaction played out with a social setting. Nagel demonstrates her position through numerous examples, such as the development of Afro-American ethnicity being defined largely by its powerful history, would be to deny the current political, social and economic processes that are part of the complex process of construction (Ibid.:153). Nagel provides detailed examples of such construction processes from ethnic ‘fraud’ to the effect of immigration on both domestic and foreign population, and the cultural construction of Imagined Communities with the work of Benedict Anderson (1991). Throughout the paper it is clear that there is “a model of ethnicity that stresses fluid, situational, volitional, and dynamic character of ethnic identification” (Nagel 1994:152). What is importantly to this paper is one of the few questions unasked by Nagel; where are such constructions played out? Or, more interestingly; what is the role of places in such constructions? From this we can see that in understanding the role of place in such constructions of identity we may gain insight into how identity, and as part of that ethnicity, is constructed. Further, and of interest to Nagel and the political issues regarding ethnicity, how can the construction of place be beneficial to the sustainability of communities? But this is a question for another paper.
Arguing against the architects of the world, for whom place is merely something constructed out of space, Edward S. Casey (1996) uses a phenomenological approach to put ‘place’ first. Rather than considering places as mere compartmentalisations of space, place is the particular in which space is defined around. What does this say for the construction of place? It is the embodied ‘being-in-place’ that helps us to understand the perception of the individual and hence their role in the social construction of place. Casey states that “there is no knowing or sensing a place except by being in that place, and to be in that place is to be in a position to perceive it” (Casey in Feld and Basso 1996:18). Here then, much like Massey above, he is placing the life experience of the individual at the centre of what it means to be in place. So that in experiencing, or even simpler, to be in a place, is to live, is to know the places where you live (Ibid.). Casey is then placing knowledge of the self, ones being, in ‘place’ so that locality comes before knowledge. But, as the phenomenological tradition teaches us, and Casey repeats, this is not a mutely passive condition, rather it “is to be actively passive; absorptive yet constitutive, both at once” (Ibid.). This relationship of place and identity provides an ontological specificity of place for the individual whist also being part of a never-ending dialogue of fluid construction.
By understanding the body’s involvement in place, Casey is exploring what it means for a body not only to be in place by what it means to stay in place, move within a place and move between places. Throughout his exploration of terms Casey is making a distinct and important point; that the lived-body is essential for the construction of place that “they interanimate each other” (Ibid.:24). For him, places gather life, histories and meaning and in doing so articulate the self in a constant process. Yet through this Casey prefers to call place an “event rather than a thing” (Ibid.26), and in this way they happen, they occur in space and time. A happening is a singular moment in time, one that will happen and then fade allowing another event to occur. This is a more discreet, exchange, nature of place-identity than we have been exploring so far but is reminiscent of Massey’s ‘constellations of meaning’, these are perceptual links between points and a shift in perception would cause a shift in meaning, or identity. Over time, these discreet interchanges, constantly occurring, would appear to be a flow of interaction between people and places.
Above we have seen that, contrary to Antonsich, Humanistic Geographers have no problem with placing the individual within the construction of place. Rather the very embodied Self is the key to its formation. But what of the internal, intimate nature of the self is in this construction?
“Both self and self-identity are structures which are ever changing during the entire lifecycle, not just during the formative years.” (Proshansky 1983:59)
This short sentence from Harold M. Proshansky (et. al) provides us an excellent entry into this area. Proshansky, before moving onto his topic of place-identity, wishes to remind us that the Self is a thing constantly forming yet retaining a distinct structure. He places the constant variability of self-identity at the heart of problems regarding geographic mobility and neighbourhood deterioration (Ibid.) and he clearly understands how changing aspects of a singular ‘place-identity’ has distinct ramifications on the Self. That said Proshansky places place-identity fully within the mind of the individual (as we would expect from a psychologist) as a ‘‘a sub-structure of the self-identity of the person” (Ibid.). Here then, not missed by Antonsich, is the idea that although the individual should be returned to the understanding of place-identity one must be careful not to insert an immutable concept where one does not exist. In other words, in trying to understand the relationship between the Self and place, one must not assume that either are discreet concepts. What Proshansky’s work does is provide us with an understanding of how ‘place-identity’ is perceived in the mind of the individual. This sub-structure is problematic and not tackled by Antonsich. What it does is produce two ‘place-identities’; one within the mind of the individual (Proshansky’s) and one as a geographical expression (e.g. Casey’s). At first this appears an irreconcilable issue with our notion of Self and Place identity construction being a fluid relational process but with the work of Casey, and his phenomenological approach (above), we can understand the body as being the mediator in what would have otherwise have been a difficult (mind-place) dualism. Interestingly, Proshansky finds the phenomenological descriptions of place identity by some theorists rather limiting (Ibid.:61), but when used as a method of understanding ones embodied relationship with place, not only when in difficult (‘homelessness’, for example) but also in a more habitual embodying sense of construction it can clearly be a useful tool.
Let us now ground this abstract discussion with an example to describe the process: a transactional event of place/self-identity construction as an individual passes through Borough Market. A self proclaimed ‘foodie’ discovers Borough Market many years ago. They find the sense of the ‘hidden London’ combined with the reinforcement of their own interest in elite foods to be supportive to their ego. After some time without a visit, they are reminded of the market and decide to go back. Even before arriving, a notion of the market’s identity is formed in their mind and the process of reinforcement begins. On arrival they find much has changed. The market’s once discreet little stalls offering tempting bites to pull in the buyers have transformed into to lunchtime (organic) burgers stalls. The population is now full of ‘suits’ consuming lifestyle lunches, to those out of town visitors on a day trip. There are many more people than they remember, and their favourite stalls are well visited by people suspected of not being a ‘real’ foodie. Our foodie buys their selection quickly and they leave for home. On reflection the market has become a place for the tourists and the weekend cookers. Her favourite little coffee shop is now visited my hundreds and is far from little. The market has changed and she decides instead to visit a different market on the other side of town. Apparently they have very good (expensive) olives there. This foodie’s idea of the market is distinctly changed and the very nature of the change in the market and her opinion of it are reflected in how she viewed the market before. No longer for the elite, but now common and not for her. The place is still reinforcing the identity, and will continue to do so in anecdotal tales of yesteryear, but not in the way they expected. The market’s loss of her visiting purse is comparably smaller. If it was ever a market for the elite foodies to obtain their foods, then that time has passed, in part, with the loss of this individual. Both the self and the place identity remain distinct, yet both are changed.
This paper has argued that place-identity construction is best understood as being a fluid process, one that is in a state of constant flux changing in relation to internal and external relations. We have seen that Marco Antonsich is concerned that such notions of place are dehumanising and argues that an intimate sense of the Self, one separate from, or at least not constantly a part of, a social moment should be retained. Antonsich uses theories from Environmental Psychology and his own, limited yet descriptive, empirical research to explore this towards re-introducing the notion of the intimate self with place-identity construction. One that remains separate from all social events. Yet we have seen, through Nagel, that such an aspect of the Self, one immutable and unchanging, is not present. Rather the Self is formed, as society and places are, through interactions. Additionally, as we have demonstrated above, work by academics such as Massey, Nagel and Casey, and Proshanksy, all agree on a fluid construction of place, one mediated through the embodied experience of the self, and in relation to, society. All aspects of the self are part of this inter-connectiveness that facilitates identity construction. This by no means that an intimate aspect of the self is lost, rather it’s very distinctiveness remains unique in its particular set of relations, understandable through time and articulated through place. The self, in this respect, becomes a “verb rather that a noun” (Antonsich 2010:126), and this is exactly like Casey’s place that ‘happens’. These “personal moments of place” (Ibid.) that are described by Antonsich’s respondents are also connected intimately with place as are the public, or social, aspects of the self. This structured pattern of relations, that Antonsich provides us a rather neat graphic for, highlights an important aspect of the nature of the relationship between people and place; that the individual and the place are being constructed simultaneously through interaction with each other, and at the same time an inherent singular sense of the individual and of the place is formed through that relation. It is this nature, this reflexive construction that makes place-identity construction so fluid.
“It has been said to rely on an ontological rather than a discursive notion of place” (Antonsich 2010:123)
Interestingly, this comment highlights what Antonsich really misses by bringing these two different disciplines together; that whilst humanistic geography can provide us with structures and literature on the ontology of place, it’s very character or being, Environmental Psychology can provide an understanding of the discursive nature of place-identity, in that it is an ongoing and fluid process. By understanding the dynamic and subjective nature of place and identity, whilst accepting the sense of being that place provides to the subject, we may begin to understand how place-identity is a fluid and dynamic concept one that is both ontological (providing a ‘sense-of-place’) and discursive (changing in response to its environment) at the same time.
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I beg your indulgence - Although this might at first appear a lengthy example, the various changes in the markets history and structure are both essential elements for it to act as a suitable illustration.
