On Space: an experiential relationship

“Experience is not the origin of our explanation, but what we want to explain.” (Scott 1991: 797)

About a month after a friend passed I finally decided to visit this spot for the first time. To visit him where he would often have his smoke break. To visit the memories that I have of him. I smoke as I drank my coffee. This is the first time I have ever sat here alone. I can feel the vibrations of the industrial fans; I recollect when I sat here with him and how I would wonder whether it was the fans, my racing thoughts, or a combination of the two that made me feel anxious. I see the butts and roaches strewn on the ground and wonder how many of them grazed his lips. My ass becomes cold sitting on the cement and I remember how he often had a blanket laid out to sit on. And it goes on… I’m sitting within something more than the physical materials of this location. I recollect stories that he told me – they’re retold in my head in his deep gentle voice. This time the stories reveal something new to me. They’re much more profound than I had initially realized. And that was his gift, the ability to plant seeds that continue to grow with or without his presence. I can feel his presence - the beauty that exists here I attribute to him. I begin to cry. Not for his death, but for his life. I sob for the power that he had revealed through simple words, and what it continues to reveal to me. He continues to live. To be here. My tears stop when I see something that I have desired to find for a some time, something difficult to find in such perfect form. I had never spoken of this aloud, but I know he knew. 

Several perfectly intact leaf skeletons were scattered on top of the damp soil in the garden. They fell there to nurture growth in the next season. Their presence communicated to me that they were not to be taken, but were a part of this place. One single lead lay on the cobblestone, at the edge of the garden. An offering. This one was to be picked up. It did not want to return to the soil- I knew it was for me. As I knelt down to pick it up I noticed the placement of leaves at different stages of their preservation, the process of their creation laid before me.

My eyes begin to well up again.  Thank you, beautiful friend.

I reflect on this and begin to realize how this particular space has been constructed in a specific and personal way for me. My own emplacement within it, as well as this ethnographic account of it is not only my own construction of this place (Pink 2008), but also an entry point into examining the agency of place and land. Indigenous scholars Leanne Simpson (2014) and Kathleen Absolon (2011) point to the intimate relationship held between bodies and land (or place), and how being in tune with this connection is a site of teaching, learning, and understanding. It is in seeing, listening, feeling, being aware of and actualizing the two-way relationship that exists between land (or places) and us that the agency of land is realized (Absolon 2011; Simpson 2014). Places speak through the ways that they make us feel. This connection is interpreted and understood as feelings or emotions; the phenomenological or affective is how Western philosophers often approach this sort of feeling conjured through space.

The experience outlined above allows for interpretation of an affective or phenomenological connection between memory and place. The very fact I felt drawn to this particular location to visit a friend that had passed onto the next world is indicative of the strength that place has in holding memory (Basso 1988). I was helped in remembering my friend by emplacing myself where we spent time together, where he shared stories and wisdom with me. In visiting this place I emplaced myself in the memories of his presence – the closest way I could be with him again. My presence in this particular setting triggered aspects of what Casey (1996) outlines as the lived body, being in place. I perceived this place with the memories of past interactions in this place, while also having my senses conjure my bodily memory. The sounds and vibrations of the industrial fans made me feel as I had often felt in his presence, the smell of the trees, the sight of the skyline all interacted to take me to when I was in his presence.  This can be understood through Basso’s concept of ‘interanimation’ where place integrates with body as much as body with place (in Casey 1996: 22). My memories of my dear friend live in this place; they provide the setting that allows for me to re-experience his presence, similarly to how Basso (1988) outlines the embodiment of place that allows for the Western Apache to re-experience their ancestors. It is not only my memories of him that exist here. This was his regular smoke break spot. Many people spent time with him here; I can’t even fathom the amount and breadth of stories and lessons that had been shared in this location. The knowledge that sits here. I assume he also spent much time here alone. This place exists as a powerful monument:

The power of place consists in its non-tendentious ability to reflect the most diverse items that constitute its “midst”. In many regards place “is” its midst, being in the midst of its own detailed contents it is what lies most deeply amid its own constituents, gathering them together in the expressive landscape of that place. (Casey 1996: 28)

This power of this place is one of reflection. It always has been for me (alone or with others), and its reflective power has grown. Now, when I sit here alone, I not only reflect on memories of a dear friend, but am also reminded of my own research interests: the layering and co-existence of the industrial world and the natural world. This site being a nook where both industrial and natural can be felt at once. Stepping into this alcove you are separated from the physical bleakness of a concrete alley by the barrier formed by bushes and the canopy of leaves hanging above.  It is a getaway from the physical dreariness, however this beautiful nook cannot protect from the industrial sounds bellowing through the alleyway.

            Upon deeper reflection on how this place is entangled with my personal memories, feelings, realizations, I understand this place more as a happening or an event (Casey 1996). It is out of chance, rather than necessity, of events that took place in this site – what Massey (2005) refers to as ‘throwntogetherness’ – that have constituted my perception of what this place is and what it means to me. The experience that I have attempted to outline in the beginning of this essay is a significant event for me, and reflects my personal growth on multiple levels: it is where I came to a more fully aware understanding of the power and beauty of the spirit of my deceased friend; it taught me about a physical object, its creation, and its natural life cycle; on reflection of all of this it also revealed to me on a practical level Lefebvre’s (1991) conceptualization of the production of space.

“Though all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it all arises out of experience” (Kant 1950[1787] in Casey 1996)

Thinking through this all has allowed me to outline my own construction of space, or the production of space at the individual or micro level. However, I am not alone in having profound experiences in place, that shape my relationship with place and the meaning that particular places hold. Only through grappling with how I, as an individual, construct space have I been able to more deeply engage with Lefebvre’s production of space.

The core of the theory of the production of space identifies 3 moments of production: first material production; second the production of knowledge; and third the production of meaning. This makes it clear that the subject of Lefebvre’s theory is not ‘space in itself’ not even the ordering of material objects and artifacts ‘in space’. Space is to be understood in an active sense as an intricate web of relationships that is continuously produced and reproduced. The object of the analysis, consequently, the active processes of production that take place in time. (Schmid 2008: 41)

There are entanglements of relationships, with memories and feelings that happen in place on an individual level as I have attempted to outline. Though, it is necessary to note that not all people have profound experiences and attachments to particular places, and not all places have had people attach significant meaning to them.

This all becomes more complicated upon realization that we are rarely alone in places, thus there is a multiplicity of ways that space is produced, and reproduced on various planes, that all interact with one another. The vignette above provided me with the micro understanding with which I could expand to understand a macro space with which I am more familiar. For the remainder of this essay I will shift gears and grapple with the complexity of the phenomenological dimensions of the production of space in Hamilton, Ontario, where I plan to complete doctoral research fieldwork.

            Within the last five years the groans and condescending apologies that I inevitably received each time I mentioned that Hamilton is my hometown have almost completely come to an end. I’m now more likely to get a keen response such as, “Oh! That’s a total up and coming place” when I mention Hamilton. The largest employer in the city has shifted from manufacturing to health sciences; there have been many newcomers over the past decade; the population demographics are shifting; and the real estate market has become the hottest in the country (Fitzgerald 2017). There are many factors at play, including the relative affordability of the housing market compared to Toronto, which is just sixty-one kilometers down the highway. However, for the purpose of attempting to understand Lefebvre’s triadic logic in the production of space (Schmid 2008), I will simplify the complexity of the mechanisms at work in constructing ‘Hamilton’. I focus on one rapidly transforming streetscape, that is often labelled as gentrification, a 850-metre strip of James Street North.

            My intent much like Sage (2013)[1] is not to label the transformative dynamics of the street but to examine their mechanisms.  The transformation on this street is rapid, with once empty storefronts being filled with businesses, restaurants, galleries, and studios. I was once able to walk down the street and recognize nearly every face, now the newcomers outnumber those that have lived on the street for some time.

Viewed from a phenomenological perspective, the production of space is thus grounded in a three-dimensionality that is identifiable in every social process. Lefebvre demonstrates this by using the example of exchange… The exchange relationship also contains an affective aspect, an exchange of feeling and passions that, at one and the same time, both unleashes and chains the encounter. (Schmid 2008: 40)

I look to Schmid’s (2008) explanation of Lefebvre’s phenomenological dimensions of the production of space in, the perceived, the conceived, and the lived. These dimensions do not work alone, yet what follows is me teasing them apart in order to understand and explain. Individuals perceive space through their senses: sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste, thus this is one plane through which space is constituted (Schmid 2008). However, it is not simply the material environment experienced through senses that informs perception of space. Memory is contained within senses (Sutton 2001; Seremetakis 1993) thus a particular sensuous experience may trigger a memory associated with a different time and/or place. This memory will in turn affect how the space is perceived. For instance, on James Street North, when I hear a honk of a car horn I am reminded of the long-time Italian presence on this stretch of street that has all-but vanished. Or when I see an &ASPI%ABF#HCI!HEBFOHSD......

In order for individuals to perceive space they must have first conceived of that space in thought (Schmid 2008). People’s conception of space is associated with constructions of that space that have come in the form of how that space has been represented by others such as through newspapers or movies, or through how the place has been represented by logos or slogans. My own conceptions of James Street North are informed by my previous interactions in that space, coupled with constructions representing that space. For instance  “You can do anything in Hamilton” is a popular slogan that has come out of James Street North. Though this slogan intends to project a bright hopeful future, to me it also positions Hamilton as an empty terrain in need of being filled. You can do anything in Hamilton paints Hamilton as a type of Wild West, where there are no laws or rules of what it is, or what it should be, that it is a blank slate for newcomers to fill. This conceptualization becomes most visible in walking into new businesses owned by Torontonians on James Street North, that create a Toronto boutique aesthetic in Hamilton.[2]    

People don’t simply perceive of and conceive of spaces, but they live in them (Schmid 2008). People experience place not only through their own perceptions and conceptions of that space, but also through interacting with others and the differing conceptions and perceptions that others have of that space. Understanding that there is rapid population growth and increasing numbers of people coming from outside of Hamilton to both reside and visit reveals the mechanisms for such rapid transformation. There is a vast expanse between how long-term residents experience and know Hamilton, versus newcomers.

Long time residents of Hamilton have entrenched conceptions of what James Street North is and means; it has been produced and reproduced for them in a particular way. Newcomers come to the city and perceive and conceive of it as an empty terrain in need of being filled. The disparity between these two perceptions and conceptualizations manifest in how people interact and live in space. Due to this extreme disparity and constant of interaction, there is a rapid dynamism in the way people perceive of, conceive of, and live with/in James Street North. This produces and reproduces the space at a rate that enables people to distinctly see, feel, and experience the transformative nature of space in this particular location.

As Schmid (2008) alludes, it is impossible to take a representative snapshot of space, and describe it, label it and theorize about it. An informant in Anthropologist Christina Moretti’s work on public space in Milan presents a useful metaphor in conceptualizing the temporality of space, a sand dune (Moretti 2016). This metaphor helps in understanding that space is ever-shifting and changing in appearance as well as composition and thus necessitates different interactions and navigations in and with it, but at its essence it is remains a sand dune. Space is consistently being produced and reproduced. It is allusive and ever-changing, but that does not necessitate that that there is no continuity or inability to ever understand or realize what a space is. Perhaps the temporality of space is best understood outside of description with language.

Approaching the study of space in my hometown has been extremely difficult, due to my own imaginings of it coupled with my perceptions and understandings of how and what others imagine it to be. Due to such deeply seeded connections to and understandings of the nuanced makeup of Hamilton, I know words are inadequate. Film is one medium through which the temporality of space can affectively be communicated[3]. Even further, multi-media Anthropological work such as Christine Walley’s collaborative ‘Exit Zero’ project[4], and Elizabeth Povinelli’s ‘karrabing- keeping country alive’ project[5], exemplify how typical academic research can be combined with oral history projects, websites, film, and art projects to provide an entry point into for immersion and interaction with space. Such immersion provides opportunity to experiment (Walley 2015) with the multiple dimensions and understandings of space.

Through this essay I have attempted to convey the complexity not only of the mechanisms of how space is produced, but also the unattainable nature of adequately representing space. I have focused mainly on the highly nuanced affective/phenomenological plane on which space is constructed. It becomes even more complicated when considering the interactions of the multiple planes of human existence that interact in the production of space. I jumped between physical locations and types of experiences that seemingly have no connection beyond my own imaginings and connections. I included this seemingly large disjuncture in order to convey yet another complication that exists in attempting to fully realize how space is produced, personal connections and imaginings. Through this attention to the phenomenological, it was my goal to communicate the necessity for modes of representation beyond the written theoretical to be included in academic discussions on the production of space.

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[1] Sage’s 2013 doctoral dissertation focuses on the dynamism of the art scene on James Street North as a site of urban pilgrimage and refuge.

[2] There have been two instances within the past ten years, of which I am aware, wherein blogs or newspaper articles restaurant and bar owners have blamed Hamiltonions for their lack of success. They have positioned themselves as saviours in bringing ‘culture’ and ‘cool’ to Hamilton before Hamilton was ready for it. These business owners have received much backlash for their comments, in one case had their comments removed from the record, and in the other removed the blog post completely.

[3] See the work of Anthropologist and filmmaker Shannon Walsh, such as Jeppe on a Friday and À St. Henri, Le 26 Août for a Lefebvrian visual understanding of the temporality of space.

[4] See: http://www.exitzeroproject.org/

[5] See: http://www.karrabing.org/media-projects

Works Cited

Absolon, K. E. 2011. Kaandosswin: How we come to know. Fernwood Publishing

Bachelard, Gaston. 1994 [1958]. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon Press. Chapter 1: The House. From Cellar to Garret. The Significance of the Hut (pp. 3-37); and Chapter 2: House and Universe (excerpt, pp. 38-56).

Basso, Keith. 1988. “Speaking with Names”: Language and Landscape Among the Western Apache. Cultural Anthropology. 3(2): 99-130.

Casey, Edward. 1996. How to Get from Space to Place in a Fairly Short Stretch of Time: Phenomenological Prolegomena. In Steven Feld and Keith Basso, eds. Senses of Place. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press (pp. 13-52).

Fitzgerald, Sean  “In Hamilton, Ont., an onslaught of millennials escaping the bidding wars and mortgages of Greater Toronto.” The National Post, January 9, 2017. Accessed April 18, 2017. http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/in-hamilton-ont-an-onslaught-of-millennials-escaping-the-bidding-wars-and-mortgages-of-greater-toronto.

Jackson, John Jr. 2004. An Ethnographic Filmflam: Giving Gifts, Doing Research, and Videotaping the Native Subject/Object. American Anthropologist, 106(1):32-42.

Lefebvre, Henri 1991 [1974]. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell. Chapter 1: Plan of the Present Work (excerpt, pp. 26-59), Chapter 2 Social Space (excerpt, pp. 68-129, 164-168), and Chapter 4: From Absolute Space to Abstract Space (excerpt, pp. 285-291).

Massey, Doreen 2005 For Space. London: Sage. Chapter 12: The Elusiveness of Place (pp. 130-142) and Chapter 14: There are No Rules of Place and Space (pp. 163-176).

Moretti, C. (2015). Milanese Encounters: Public Space and Vision in Contemporary Urban Italy. University of Toronto Press.

Nadia Seremetakis, C. (1993). The memory of the senses: historical perception, commensal exchange and modernity. Visual Anthropology Review, 9(2), 2-18.

Pink, S. 2008. An urban tour The sensory sociality of ethnographic place-making. Ethnography, 9(2), 175-196.

Sage, V. E. (2013). ARTS IN THE CITY: VISIONS OF JAMES STREET NORTH, 2005-2011 (Doctoral dissertation).

Schmid, Christian. 2008. Henri Lefebvre’s Theory of the Production of Space: Towards a Three-Dimensional Dialectic. In Space, Difference, Everyday Life: Reading Henri Lefebvre, edited by Kanishka Goonewardena, Stefan Kipfer, Richard Milgrom, and Christian Schmid. London: Routledge (Pp. 27-45). 
Scott, Joan. 1991. “The Evidence of Experience,” Critical Inquiry, Vol. 17(4):773-797

Simpson, L. B. 2014. “Land as pedagogy:  Nishnaabeg intelligence and rebellious transformation.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education and Society, Vol. 3(3): 1-25
Sutton, D. E. 2001. Remembrance of repasts: an anthropology of food and memory.

Walley, C. J. (2015). Transmedia as experimental ethnography: The Exit Zero Project, deindustrialization, and the politics of nostalgia. American Ethnologist, 42(4), 624-639.

Walsh, S. Jeppe on a Friday. DVD. Directed by Shannon Walsh and Arya Lalloo. Montreal: Parabola Films, 2013.

Walsh, S. À St. Henri, Le 26 Août. DVD. Directed by Shannon Walsh.  Toronto: National Film Board of Canada, 2011.

This essay was originally submitted: April 25, 2017 for assignment in Dr. Gastón Gordillo's course at UBC: ANTH 421 - The Anthropology of Place and Space