Professional Documents
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Street Signs: Centre For Urban and Community Research
Street Signs: Centre For Urban and Community Research
S t r e e t S i g n s
Margarita ARAGON Michael STONE
Brown Youth, Black Fashion and a White Riot, 2007 Social Housing in the UK and US: Evolution, Issues and
Progress
Brian W. ALLEYNE William (Lez)HENRY
Personal Narrative and Activism: a bio-ethnography of Projecting the 'Natural': Language and Citizenship in
"Life Experience with Britain" Outernational Culture
Mette ANDERSSON
The Situated Politics of Recognition: Ethnic Minority,
Colin KING
Play the White Man:The Theatre of Racialised
Centre for Urban and Community Research
Youth and Indentity Work. Performance in the Institutions of Soccer
REVIEWS page 43 Further information and how to apply: UK and EU students: Admissions Office, telephone 020 7919 7060 (direct line), fax
Parade of the Denizens by Hilde Stephansen page 43 020 7717 2240 or e-mail admissions@gold.ac.uk; Overseas (non EU) students: International Office, telephone 020 7919
Gender as Choreography by Emma Jackson page 44 7700 (direct line), fax 020 7919 7704 or e-mail international-office@gold.ac.uk;
City of Disappearances by Rachel Jones page 45 For further information about the Centre: Please call 020 7919 7390; e-mail cucr@gold.ac.uk or visit www.gold.ac.uk/cucr/
Fallout: Reflecting on Exploding Methods Conference
by Allan Day, Joe Deville,Yael Gerson page 46
List of contributors page 48
C e n t re Fo r U r b a n a n d C o m mu n i t y R e s e a rc h
Goldsmiths College Phone: +44 (0) 20 7919 7390
edited by Roger Hewitt University of London Fax: +44 (0) 20 7919 7383
New Cross Email: cucr@gold.ac .uk
Emma Jackson
London Website: www.gold.ac .uk
Britt Hatzius SE146NW www.goldsmiths.ac .uk/cucr
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November 10:The commemorative event fear-driven and security-obsessed racist imaginary. Dave
Landau of ‘No One is Illegal’ made a strong case for the
In November 2007, around 140 people came to an event relationship of far right organising and state anti-
at Goldsmiths about the Battle of Lewisham. We opened immigration laws, and made a plea for the anti-racist
the day by screening the Rock Against Racism movement to seriously reckon with the politics of
documentary ‘I Shot the Sheriff’ (5). Both Lewisham '77 immigration. Finally, Jarman Parmar of the Lewisham Anti-
and the local branch of ‘Unite Against Fascism’ brought Racist Action Group , made the connection to the on-
exhibitions on the story of racism locally. going struggle against racism locally. The day confirmed
the central principle of the Lewisham '77 project: that
there is no single correct version of history, but instead
The first session explored different memories of 1977. history is something to be contested and discussed.
Ted Parker, then an SWP organiser and now principal of Rather than simply romanticising the events of 1977
Barking College, told the story of the organisation of the (although it is right to see them as heroic), the event made
anti-fascist mobilisation, powerfully evoking the it clear that there are a number of competing narratives
extraordinary passion and commitment of rank and file into which it fits. Exemplified by a disagreement over
leftists(6). Balwinder Rana, still an SWP activist, told the whether the soundtrack to the event - blasted out of the
story of the routine attacks by the National Front in the window of a flat on Clifton Rise from speakers set up
1970s in Kent and South London on Asian and leftist between pots of geraniums - was Bob Marley's ‘Get Up,
targets, and of the defence organised by the Asian Youth Stand Up’ or Junior Murvin's ‘Police and Thieves’ - no
Movement and SWP. The anarchist Martin Lux single memory can claim a monopoly. Was the Anti-Nazi
contextualised the events of 1977 against a longer story League, which arose out of the day, the culmination of a
of mounting conflict between fascists and anti-fascists vibrant tradition of militant anti-fascism, or a diversion
through the 1970s. Lez Henry, formerly of Goldsmiths away from it? Which was more significant, the presence of
Sociology, described the routine harassment of black the “white” left or of local black youth? Was the black
youth in the area by white adults influenced by the NF, and presence in the confrontation the result of spontaneous
by the police. He also described how resistance to this anger at racism, or part of a conscious and sophisticated
was informed by mounting political consciousness, analysis of the political situation?
exemplified by the black history teaching black youth
organised locally. John Lockwood, a teacher who was
imprisoned and banned from teaching south of the river A second point of contention was over to what extent
for his participation in the Battle of Lewisham, told the the Battle of Lewisham model can be imposed today.This
story of the Deptford Anti-Racist Committee (DARC) was exemplified by the heated debate over whether
and its involvement in the planning of the August 13th calling the NF then (and particularly the BNP now)
demonstrations. The session was concluded by chair “Nazis” is an effective anti-racist strategy or whether it
Malcolm Ball, who reflected on the way that the events of plays into a Little England patriotic WWII narrative. It was
that day changed the lives of so many of the local people. also exemplified by the debate over the continued
This session was followed by a screening of five films relevance of the “no platform for fascists” policy and, for
commissioned for Lewisham '77. Local collaborative film- example, whether it should be applied to the handful of
making project Deptford.TV have agreed to help film and NF hands who march through Bermondsey every year.
archive the Lewisham '77 process. A number of
Deptford.TV film-makers filmed the September walk,
which CUCR PhD student Paolo Cardullo edited into a Lewisham '77: Into the future
ten-minute film. Students from the Goldsmiths Screen
Documentary MA made a number of short films with Lewisham '77 continues as a project. We intend to
veterans of 1977. continue collecting memories of 1977 in all their diversity
and contentiousness, and using these as part of a
multimedia intervention that we can use with children and
A second session moved from commemorating the day to young people locally and further afield. If you want to get
thinking through its contemporary significance. Paul involved, please get in touch (b.gidley@gold.ac.uk).
Gilroy, formerly of CUCR and Goldsmiths Sociology, gave
a powerful list of some of the things that stood out about
Notes:
that day in 1977 (such as the “masculinism” and
(1) See "Lewisham '77" in Street Signs Autumn 2007
“smashism” of much of the left, but also the presence of
(2) Buy it from http://www.geocities.com/ pasttensepublications/
large contingents of women), and some of the things that
(3) http://www.myspace.com/martin_lux_antifascist
have changed today (such as the presence of guns on the
streets of South London). Les Back of Goldsmiths (4) For video of the walk, see http://lewisham77.blogspot.com/2007/09/red-
saunders.html. For photos see http://lewisham77.blogspot.com/2007/10/battle-of-
Sociology made a moving and thoughtful intervention, lewisham-commemorative-walk.html.
reflecting on the parasitical nature of racist ideology - (5) http://www.lovemusichateracism.com/about/who-shot-the-sheriff/
which now speaks a language of “identity” co-opted from (6) For Ted's memories, see http://lewisham77.blogspot.com/2007/08/ted-parker-
remembers-battle-of-lewisham.html
multiculturalism - and of the “nervous system” of today's
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Midori
Tristan Fennell
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Harking Back
Alex Rhys-Taylor
“I do not know, sing the bells of old Bow,” But even that which seems to have dissipated into the
Oranges and Lemons, Old English Nursery Rhyme, atmosphere retains certain findableness(2). We can,
drawing on a number of resources, develop a synaesthesic
'ideal typification' of a past. Moreover, within and between
our own experiences, it is possible to approach a
consideration of how this multi-sensory experience
relates to the sociality the past once contained.
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churches can be expected to have held sonic supremacy transmission of communal culture, to the role of the
across the era's landscapes. The only real challenges to heaving, mechanically amplified heterogeneous cultural
their supremacy were those presented by the Thunder of dissonance imparted by the sonic-spaces of the cities we
Almighty God, or cannons being fired by His local know today.
representatives, what we don't know is what role these
sounds played within the experience of the individual or But, as you can also imagine, a selectively sampled misty
the sociality they stretched across. But there are caricature of one isolated space does not suffice to
narratives that might inform a guess. construct a reliable typification of a sonic sensorium past.
In order to gain a better idea of the operation of the role
In 1665 on Cheapside, at south east of extent of the of ambient audition in the past, it helps to sample on
walled City of London(3), stood(4) the weather cocked evidence from other spaces equally well documented and
belfry of St Mary le Bow, wherein hung the famous Bow mythologized, of which London provides many. So, staying
Bells. From here the voluminous Bow Bells chimed in within the temporal frame of 1665 but moving out of the
bursts throughout the day, their reverberations used to towering gates of the fortified City of London. That, is
signal everything from curfews to church services. There moving about a mile and a half eastwards and slightly
are a number of reasons that the Bells could be said to north, towards Bishopsgate and then across the fog laden
be 'famous', having purportedly sung the siren song that marshy artillery range once frequented Henry the Eighth
lured Dick Whittington back into London, and having also and his men. From here we move slightly southward
contributed a giant shrug of the shoulders to the closing again, beyond the burial ground of 'Spital fields and into
stanza of the old English nursery rhyme, Oranges and the parish of Stepney; one of several hamlets that graze in
Lemons. However, their greatest source of fame lies in the shadow of the City of London's tower and walls.
the fact that it is from the Cockerel shaped weather vein From where we now stand, within an uninterrupted
atop their old belfry that the term 'Cockney' apparently eastward line of sight stands the slender whitewashed
derives its initial usage. The story being that those tower of St Mary Matfelon's chruch.
typically strident bodies born within the equally In the hundred years that follow 1665 the space we are
vociferous range of the Bow Bells' resonations were about to sample will change dramatically, becoming home
those referred to as “Cocknies, and eaters of buttered to the increasingly industrial production of the silks and
tostes”(5). cloths that we just saw peaking through the fog at
Cheapside. Soon thereafter it will become home to the
This particular narrative belongs to the commons of markets of Petticoat Lane and Spitalfields, the latter built
London, presided over by black-cab drivers and in the upon the old burial ground we just passed over. In about
scripts of tour bus guides. However the folkyness of the three hundred years from 1665, on the other side of
story should not detract from the potential veracity of its industrialization, the area will change again, with the fabric
claims, nor the sociological insights that they offer us, factories and warehouses giving way to masses of
both into the role of audition in the past, and to a community housing, beneath which will stand shops
historicising of the present.Through an extension of this where Taiwanese fabrics, gloriously coloured with
story we can postulate the relation of a soundscape patterns of Africana, will pass through the hands of
otherwise disappeared - an assemblage of the regular traders into the hands and onto the heads and backs of
sounding of bells, sporadic bursts of thunder and London's many diaporas.
occasional cannon - to sociality. Akin to that which has
been said about pre-modern sociality throughout But pay attention to the 'present' at hand: early October
Europe(6), in its largely uncluttered and divisible form, the 1665, the thawing muddy ground of the here and now and
soundscape of Cheapside 1665, especially the bells, can be the walk just undertaken from Cheapside out of the
heard yoking bodies to an arrangement of territory, City's Walls.We can imagine having toes no longer numb
identity and sociality, and in the process rooting to a by uncomfortably cold and damp from the trek through
discernable space, the generations living within the bells' the marshland, the discomfort exacerbated by the
audible range. Consequently it serves the narrative of a breathlessness induced by the walk. We can imagine the
teleological progress to compare this ideal type East thick morning vapour having largely lifted to unveil, in the
London soundscape of yesteryear, wherein the solitary distance, activities of a village in the day - trading,
bell dominated and assured the uninterrupted conversing and a drove of pigs being coerced along a tree
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lined track dappled by emerging sun light on the horizon. around the white chapel into their place as it had done
We can also imagine, I'm sure, the presence of squawking for generations before them, eventually imparting the
of hawks circling above, struggling over the weighty name of the tower in which the bells were housed to the
carrion scavenged from a nearby butcher. And again, we area. Thus we can imagine the sound of the bell, its
can imagine the squawks drowned by bells, but this time solitary tones fusing the pre-modern individual to a
with a different tone and song, chiming, as they would territory via its near uninterrupted ritualistic repetition.
have done from the thirteenth century onwards, from a
whitewashed tower in the near distance. But, listening harder, I cannot help but feel that this notion
alone displays a certain deafness of the imagination.
The area arrived at above, now known as Whitechapel, Again, don't forget we're dreaming of 1665. There are no
has a well documented multi-cultural pedigree and a oft aeroplanes, no sub-woofers, no sirens, no traffic, no air-
narrated history commonly told in terms of 'waves'(7) of conditioning or ventilation units and none of those grand
demographic change effected by migration.To summarise, rivers of electricity, sewerage and clean water built by the
first, in the late seventeenth century came the French Victorians. More to the point, unlike today,Thames Water
Protestant Huguenots who found a place in the emerging and their cohorts, Clancy Docrwa, are not in the act of
small scale industrial weaving shops, amidst the poverty of slowly, painfully and noisily, “replacing” our “Victorian
their exile. The Huguenots were, in time, followed by water mains”(11). Across the soundscape of the pre-
Jewish migrants who filled the spaces (including the places industrial city there are none of those things that
of worship) arduously carved by their Huguenot supposedly connect us, yet also often exceed their
progenitors. More recently the area has became the function to disconnect sociality. So what else can we
famous home to a configuration of Bengali communities, imagine hearing around the Whitechapel?
largely with origins in the Sylhet region of Bangladesh,
who followed the paths pioneered ancestors who, for Return for a moment to Bow Bells of Cheapside which
two hundred years or more, worked merchant navy still stand and sound out today.Today given the city's sonic
shipping paths between Sylhet to Calcutta, and from congestion it is unlikely that anyone other than the suited
Calcutta to London. While there is record of this women and men eating in the vegetarian restaurant(12) in
movement along the paths from Sylhet for centuries(8), the converted crypt of St. Mary-le-Bow would hear the
the greatly enlarged opportunities that emerged for Bow Bells. As a consequence those within audible range
Sylhetis within the Empire's Merchant Navy following its of the bell are a lot less likely to be “Cockneys and eater
depletion in the Second World War made highly of buttered tostes” than they are “Hurried city workers
accessible the channels for movement along which many and eaters of under salted Thai green curry”. In the late
bodies flowed throughout the late twentieth century(9). 1600's, however, other than for the mild dampening effect
Quite literally in some instances, churches that were once of occasional mist or the silencing effect of snow, it is easy
synagogues became mosques. While each wave is a to forget that there was little suffocate the chimes of St.
unique historical event, with its own specific contours, Mary-le-Bow and stop it reaching the environs of the St.
with the more recent arrival of a new wave of work Mary Matfelon's white chapel. Certainly the walls that
hungry Eastern European, East London and Whitechapel constituted the boundary of The City would not have
in particular, maintains their pedigree as a natural home provided a sufficient soundproofing - their hardened walls
to a generative interplay between the city's thirst for being more involved, as Dick Whittington might testify in
labour and ruptures bought by cultures that quench this the act of amplifying the seductive song of the bells
thirst. therein. Nor was there anything hindering the
reverberation of chimes from other nearby churches
Yet prior to the 1685 ‘Revocation of the Edict of Nantes’ colouring those ringing from St. Mary Matfelon's white
that drove so many Huguenot's into the burgeoning chapel.While the Bells of St. Mary Matfelon's were audible
industries of the area, the oft performed narratives of to those residing beneath the 'white chapel', who
historical process lead to an assumption that the pre- succumbed to the temporality and practices the marked
industrial way of life around St. Mary Matfelon's tower out by the bells, also audible on any given day were those
had been as free from 'external' influence, and therefore of nearby churches, St. Mary Aldermary, St. Olaves and
flux, as that of any village.Taking what we suspect of how those famous intonations of St. Mary le Bow(13), each
the church bells root the parishioner, parish and parish marking out their own times and spaces, yet a time and
life together, at a glance the immutability of pre industrial space that leaked into one and others.
life seems a reasonable proposition: At the same time as
St. Mary-le-Bow was fixing the allegiances of its Cockney Today at the site St. Mary's Matfelon's white chapel, which
parishioners, a large bell built at the nearby bell was destroyed in the same war that opened up
foundry(10) rang from the heights of St. Mary Matfelon's opportunities to the economic needs of Bengalis that
famous whitewashed bell tower.As sure as the church of came to populate the area, stands Altab Ali Park(14). In the
St. Mary le Bow inscribes 'Cockney' on its parishioners, park, within the still visible foundations of the old church,
the bells of St. Mary Matfelon fixes the parishioners one can hear an incredible array of sounds at any given
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moment. Of the most voluminous are of course the of the world manifest within their ears. Traceable in a
ubiquitous screeching of sirens and bombastic bubbles of capability discernable still today and through which we
bass boiling over and above the white noise of the traffic might develop both an understanding of where and who
grinding past chattering steel café tables on which 'they', the residents of the Olde City were, as well as
excitable mobile phones rest. On Fridays especially at enriching an idea of where and who 'we' are today.
lunch time, the Adhan (Islamic call to prayer) emanating
from both the East London Mosque and other smaller
mosques provides a complex overdub, increasing in tonal References:
complexity with each repetition, to the industrialized Ackroyd, P (2000) ‘London -The Biography’ London:Verso
sounds of the street. Occasionally the mix is accompanied Ali Asghar, A (1996) ‘Bangladeshi Community Organisations in
by the enthusiastic bell ringing rehearsals undertaken by East London’ London: Bangla Hertiage Publishing
semi-secular campanologists taken to yanking out a Corbin, A (1998) ‘Village Bells Sound and Meaning in the
discordant counterpoint to the indelible melodies Nineteenth-century French Countryside’ London, New York:
churned out by ice-cream vans stopping in nearby Columbia University Press
housing estates. Kershen, A (2005) ‘Strangers, Aliens and Asians: Huguenots,
Jews and Bangladeshis in Spitalfields 1660-2000’ London:
As some Cockney custodians of myths of Ye Olde Bow Routledge
Bells might bemoan, the chaotic, fluid and ever shifting Sandhu, S (2003) ‘Come Hungry, Leave Edgy London Review
sensorium of East London today necessitates the of Books October 9’
emergence of fluid metropolitan bodies capable of Schwartz, H (2003) ‘The Indefensible Ear’ ,’A History in Bull’,
existing without the roots that the solitary bell provided M and Back, L eds.The Auditory Culture Reader London: Berg
but at home with many micro allegiances and aversions Smith, B R The Acoustic World of Early Modern Britain Chicago,
forged, in part, through the polyphony of their surrounds. University of Chicago Press
Such is the volume and heterogeneity of these sounds
that the “indefensible ears(15)” routinely caught amongst Notes:
them, wrought with tension as they may be, find their best (1) It could be argued that there is a record of gustatory experience that is even
option in succumbing to, and inhabiting, the shifting extra- fuller than that of haptic and scopic, in the forms of recipe books and, despite
minor alterations, the endurance of many food stuffs and cooking traditions
local, trans-global spaces conjured through the area's throughout history. See Kate Colquhoun (2007) “Taste” for a rich account of
sonic composition. Britain's Gustatory history.
(2) Smith, B R (2003:128)
(3) (at least a mile West from where the East End might now be said to start)
Yet even with such a brief harking back we might hear (4) This spire would soon be burnt down in the Great Fire of the following year,
how, contrary to the narratives that hang on the Old Bow to be re-built on the same Norman foundations as one of Sir Christopher Wren's
many commissions at the end of the century.
Bells, certain points in the material life of a city like (5) Ackroyd, P (2000:72)
London have long had a knack adding the effect of (6) Corbin, A (1998:95)
(7) Kershen, (A 2005)
'elsewhere's' and 'other times' to the everyday (8) Sandhu, S (2003)
imaginations of its residents. As sure as the sounding of (9) Al Asghar, M (1996:58)
(10) The Whitechapel Bell Foundry has an entry in the Guinness book of records
bells has endured across temporality, so too has the as the longest standing industrial business in the world. It was also the foundry that
tendency of the lived materiality of the City towards the forged 'The Liberty' Bell, and the famous bell 'Big Ben'.
production of metropolitan bodies. Further still it has (11) Please Wait While we Replace London's Victorian Water Mains is a sign to be
found pinned to road works everywhere across London throughout 2006-07 - as
done so in a way that precedes any machinic production though it's the Victorians fault they haven't been replaced before now.
of consumable hybrid identities akin to those equated (12) “The Place Below” a Vegetarian Cafe open in the oldest Norman Crypt in
Britain, 7:30-15:00 weekdays
with the spaces produced through post-industrial (13) These churches, most of which were being restored or re-designed under the
constellations:With the audibility of so many bells across instruction of Sir Christopher Wren throughout the post-Great Fire Years of late
1600's, were soon to be accompanied by the polyphonic bells of Sir Thomas
the Whitechapel area in the seventeenth century, and Hawksmoore's masterful creations, Christchurch Spitalfields and St Mary
with the arrival of so many more in the eighteenth, it is Woolnorth's, in the early 1700's
not such a stretch to conceive that the imaginations of (14) Altab Ali park is named after a young Bengali Man who was killed in the
Whitechapel area by the racist muscle of the National Front in the late seventies.
those within audible range of their chimes have long been (15) Schwartz, H in Bull, M and Back, L (eds.) (2003:487)
inculpated into formation of extra-local territories.
Inculpated, that is, through the interruption of their daily
routines by the wind-born vectors that effectuate dreams
and fears pertaining to a 'somewhere else'.
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Photographs
Laura Cuch
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Citadels in Conflict
Santiago Escobar
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24 hours in Dubai
Mark Rainey
Peering through the window into the darkness conversation: He asks what we would like to see.
below I can make out well-lit bridges over a dark Remembering a billboard I saw in the airport I ask,
sea, connecting one island to another. It is 5.00 am “How about the Old Town?”. He replies, “It hasn't
and we are beginning our approach to Dubai. But been built yet”.
things can be deceptive at such early hours, after a
long overnight flight. As the sun begins to rise, it ***
becomes clear that we were not over the sea, but After spending some time driving through the city, I
had been passing above the desert. The lights below realise that it's not the towering skyscrapers, but the
marked out roads cutting through the undulating countless amount of construction cranes that catch
sand. In this sense they were still bridges - arteries my eye. Many of the buildings we pass are still only
connecting one pocket of population to another. shells, frameworks yet to get their glass skin.
We begin our final descent into Dubai and by this Everything is being built. Everything has just been
point the light of the city has all but dissappeared in built. Dubai has that fresh, clean feeling you find in
the morning sunshine. some North American cities. Yet despite being only
one small city, Dubai is in someways outdoing that
*** North American drive for bigger and better.
A bus transports us from our plane to the arrivals Construction has begun on the world's tallest
terminal. As if to signal what we should expect from building, the Burj Dubai. The exact height has so far
this city, we pass a new terminal, still under been kept secret, preventing anyone from building
construction - an extension an already very large, one higher(1). At the base, supporting it all, will be
very modern airport. The construction cranes are the world's largest shopping mall. The infamous
hovering over the place like vultures. There is Palm Jumeirah Islands, along with The World, are
something skeletal about this building site, as if a being constructed out in the coast. Special
giant whale belly had been left to decompose in the overpasses have been built to reach them. There are
desert. All that's left is this massive ribcage, waiting so many workers involved that many are
to be bleached by the sun. Only, this isn't something transported to the area by boat - also a way to keep
decomposing, but rather composing itself. This is this underclass out of sight and mind. It is thought
the “miracle” of Dubai - skeletons are being raised that half of Dubai's population lives in a worker's
up, waiting to be given life in the scorching heat. The camp.
desert is a place of extremes and an extreme effort
has created this city. ****
Our friend has taken a day off from running his
*** business to show us around. But constant calls to his
Whatever the financial cost of shifting millions and mobile phone mean he eventually pulls up outside
millions of tons of sand, whatever the environmental his office. It is in a section of the city that is
cost of turning the desert into a permanently green considered old - that is, all the buildings were built
space, whatever the social cost of this playground between 20-30 years ago. He explains to us that it is
for the rich being built through underpaid, a lower middle class neighbourhood, with mainly
marginalized labour, whatever the cost - it will be Indian residents and some of the most affordable
done. housing in the city. But it's all coming down. There
are plans to build a new subway station here and to
*** simply get rid of this “out of date” housing. A
Dubai is contingent. Everywhere billboards advertise testament to the pace of Dubai's development: even
its future. It is still much more a vision than a the middle-classes have become the victims of
tangible city. This is the time to visit - when things gentrification.
are still raw, under creation, when everything has yet
to take its final shape. Our friend meets us at the ***
airport and, after letting us catch a couple hours Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, the Emir of
sleep in the hotel, picks us up in his BMW. A telling Dubai between 1958 - 1971 and 1979-90, had a
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saying: "My Grandfather rode a camel, my father Any sense of place is lost in the various shopping
road a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a centres of Dubai, which are in effect the same as any
Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his in the world. Dubai has been described as the Las
son will ride a camel." In this saying is the key to Vegas of the Middle East, a statement that reflects
Dubai's success. The oil won't last, it will run dry. To more on the city's relative cultural freedoms rather
rely on it would only see a return to the innocuous than any obvious amount of casinos.
Dubai of the past. He and his son, Sheikh Maktoum
bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who ruled between 1971-79 ***
and 1990 - 2006, set up a sustainable economy that We spend the evening at the Marina, outside a hotel,
looked far beyond the oil booms(2). They were smoking from hookahs. Although it is now a well-
responsible for transforming Dubai from being a established part of the city, many of buildings
small fishing and trade port centred at the mouth of towering over us are still under construction. The
Dubai Creek, to being an economic and commercial construction cranes light up as night falls.They look
powerhouse in the Middle East. Many global like halos hovering over the skyscrapers, as if this
companies have their MENA (Middle East North were some holy place. But this only amplifies the
Africa) headquarters in Dubai, not only because it is superficiality of it all. Each new building has to mark
a tax haven, but also because of its status a very itself out from the rest, to distinguish and separate
secure and stable city in the Middle East. But Dubai's itself. One office tower is built in the shape of a
ambitions lay well beyond the Middle East. It has the space shuttle, which lights up a bright blue at night.
largest man-made harbour in the world and recently Another has a spiralling shape, while others simply
purchased P&O, giving it ownership over the U.K.'s try to extend higher than the rest. This is Dubai: A
port operations. There are billions of dollars of city of landmark buildings, a city of office and
investment pouring into Dubai, apparently business icons. How many unique buildings can you
outweighing foreign investment into China(3). The take before it all gets a bit boring?
vision is to establish Dubai as a global economic
centre. ***
Our friend, a son of an Indian immigrant to Dubai in
*** the 70's, has lived here most of his life.While driving
The Maktoum family are descendants of Bedouin around the city, he points out areas that were still
chieftains who settled in the Dubai area in the only desert three or five years ago. Before we head
1920's, when it was still a British controlled back to the hotel he takes us to some of the most
territory.The ruling Emir of Dubai is also appointed recently developed sections of the city. They are
Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates. It is the mainly Arab-style villas for the super rich. These
ruling Emir of Abu Dhabi who holds the Presidency. areas are hidden behind large security walls, running
alongside green avenues. Names such as “Dubai
*** Hills” and “Lakeside Villas” remind me of being in the
Politically narrow, but tax free. Undemocratic, but a pseudo-communities of the North American
high standard of life. One ruling family, but a very suburbs.
global city.These are the tensions of a successful city
in the contemporary Middle East. ***
Back in the airport we wait to board our plane. This
*** mid-transit global shopping mall is the central hub of
Dubai certainly destroys the usual conceptions we Emirates and the centre of Dubai's turning world.
have of the Arab world. It is global city, with large With this airport the first major steps to an
Indian, Pakistani, and Chinese communities, mixed economy beyond oil were made. An American
with the traditional Arab population. European marine, on leave from Kuwait but still in uniform,
tourists flock here for the sun and shopping, and stops us. “Where am I?” he asks. “Dubai”. “I know
businessmen from around the world live and work that. I just mean what is this place?”
in Dubai. There is a word to describe this: hybrid.
However, it is a hybridisation solely for the wealthy Notes:
(1) Labour Unrest Hampers Burj Dubai Work, no author cited.
and elite. www.khaleejtimes.com. 22nd March, 2001 (Accessed Oct. 14th 200)
(2) Dubai's oil revenue now only accounts for 6% of its GDP- a rather modest
amount. See Afshin Molavi, “Dubai: Sudden City” National Geographic 211.1
*** (Jan. 2007) p. 106
(3) Adam Nicolson, “Boom Town”,The Guardian, Feb. 13th 2006.
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Itacas Project
Manuel Vazquez
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“I am sick and tired of repeating my self… take off your he had done photography before. He clenched his lips
hats and no eating in the lab, lunch time was over and shook his head saying “emmm, kinda.” “Have you
twenty minutes ago…”. Walking towards the door he used a camera before?” Simeon looked down at me,
stuffs the last bit of patty in his mouth, crumples up the knitted his brow, smiling he gave an affirmative “yea.”
greasy patty bag, pulls on the ribena straw, whilst “See you already know the difference between
squeezing the box and mumbles,“ I wasn't even eating.” photography and picture taking.” I told him as we
“Adrian turn off your mobile phone”. “Bruv I'm at one stepped off the zebra crossing and through the
nine eight, i’ll call you back i’ll call you back.” “That's it Norwood road gate of Brockwell park. We headed up
GET OUT.” hill toward the country house in the middle of the
park, during which I showed Simeon the features of
Simeon had already been introduced and was sitting, the camera. I began by framing our surroundings and
waiting patiently to be given instructions. Before I began pressing the shutter release. After several clicks our
to question the irony of chasing young people out and conversation was ignited by the quick spotting of
away from our inclusive, creative learning project, I interesting shapes and colour, captured through
handed Simeon a camera.Taking the batteries from the alternate clicking sounds from both cameras. Each
charger, I told my colleague Kareen we were going out time I focused the camera on a seemingly interesting
to shoot. I felt as though I was abandoning her, probably subject he commented by framing his own subject and
her nod followed by a long stare triggered a gulp of releasing his shutter. I saw an unfolding confidence and
guilt. Feeling a little guilty I urged Simeon to come with sensitivity transcend through ‘snap shot-ing’ to
me. We walked towards Brockwell park I asked him if photography as Simeon honed in on delicate details of
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linguistic codes. This is obvious in the case of the doctor or Goffman's theory of indexicals is useful and helps us
postman. The doctor has a linguistic code (a professional understand the importance of not simply codifying the rules
way of talking) and less obviously a dress code, the postman that are followed by people but to understand how the rules
has a uniform - a recognised way of dressing, and less are used for individual purposes. In terms of institutional
obviously a linguistic code. Both of them are expected to codes, when these are broken, sanctions are imposed against
conform to the many rules associated with their roles - e.g. offenders. Whilst recognising that rules are inherently
doctor-patient confidentiality; the delivery of letters to indexical, without supplementary information they become
households. Similarly, most other roles involve rules and meaningless or incomprehensible. This became particularly
expectations imposed by the working or social context - apparent when I interviewed my artists. If we refer to 'this'
though some can be embraced by the subject alone. or 'that' we need to have additional information about the
frame or context of the subject. (see Goffman
Of course, the rules and expectations of most roles are 1974:Chap.5).
inexactly defined - they are barely more than intuitively felt
guidelines to the correct behaviour for a particular social One further question of interest here is where do the roles
position in a given situation. At first, it is difficult to identify learn the roles that we perform? Garfinkel (1967) suggests
the uniform and linguistic code of the artist. However, that without realising it, we go through life tacitly adding bits
Goffman (1990) associated 'role' with another key concept of information to indexical expressions. If people fail to do
'career'. Speaking generally, we might view 'career' as a this, they become frustrated. Thus you learn the role of the
subject's journey through life. Goffman claims that these artist by imagining yourself in the role - the rules, the
two forms, 'role' and 'career', link social interactions to the lexicon, the indexicals, and so on. In photography, for
production of social structures (and their changing relations instance, one such very general rule might be, trying to
of power). 'Roles' give people identities - and 'career' gives impose a pattern of experience in a photograph - or
an analysis to their movements. recognising the aesthetic enjoyment by others of the pattern
you have imposed.
In his earlier work, Goffman describes 'roles' as
performances that can be either sincere or cynical
depending on what the performer believes. He goes on to Bibliography
define roles that we detach ourselves from and this insight Garfinkel, H. (1967) Studies in Ethnomethodology,
has been useful in terms of analysing my artists' pluralities Englewood Cliffs (re-issued Cambridge: Polity, 1984)
of self which became apparent during interview and Goffman, E. (1974) Frame Analysis, Boston, Northeastern
observing them during exhibition previews. University Press.
Goffman, E. (1990) The Presentation of Self in Everday Life,
As we noted, the roles we perform are accompanied by Harmonsworth, Penguin.
rules. Some rules, Goffman claims are used in 'foggy' Highmore, B. (ed), (2002) The Everyday Life Reader, London,
everyday settings and are subject to many contingencies Routledge.
and therefore we become confused about how to follow Lefebvre, H. (2005) The Critique of Everyday Life, vol 3,
them. Thus, working by rules, warns Goffman, is always London,Verso.
problematic for sociologists. No matter how many
categories we use (in our analysis); there is still a degree of
ambiguity, which can enter the interpretation.
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Border Country:
a visit to the grave of
Raymond Williams
Steve Hanson
Raymond Williams's grave at Clodock Church quietly re- Raymond and Joyce Williams's gravestone, situated in a field opposite
Clodock churchyard, which is now full. Hatterall Ridge can be seen on
places him in his formative landscape, among some of the
the horizon, it marks the line of Offa's Dyke and the border between
residents of his beloved Black Mountains.This site is a mesh England and Wales (we're in England here).
of the present and landscape, biography and history.
Clodock is a medium walk, or a short drive, from Pandy,
Williams's birthplace. I walked here on the day BBC Radio
Wales broadcast Dai Smith's discussion of ‘Border
Country’,Williams' novel about:
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the use of the penny as a standard in England, with the same Jonathan Harris, one of the few writers to attempt a
silver content as coins in Francia, creating national and rehabilitation of Williams's tarnished image, has described
international trading. how a young Edward Said drew comparisons with Williams's
Welsh identity politics, cathecting them into his 'own
The remains of conflict cover Wales. Here, in the Black Palestinianness in America' (Harris, 2004: 64). Fred Inglis, in
Mountains, and in its many castles. Not 'just' symbols, but his biography of Williams, situates Said 'at the intersection of
previous sites, of inter-national, inter-cultural, power so many borders - Palestine, Columbia University New York,
struggles. Loaded locations, now defused with their gift wealth and poverty, man of the idealistic Left in a country
shops, romanticised, aestheticised information points, where Leftism is intolerable…' (Inglis, 1995: 14). Williams's
interactive displays and tearooms. The relatively recent work is translatable, into other languages of course, but
widening of recognition for, as well as access to, the Welsh other places, cultures and situations too.
language, bears testimony to its politicized suppression.
Largely unrelated to Mediterranean forms, trying to learn it, Here in the Black Mountains, the landscape also frames the
as I am, effectively puts you in a trench between cultures. A culture. The potential for the mining communities of South
short distance from Williams's grave is Ewyas Harold, site of Wales to exist was formed thousands of years previously,
the first castle of a Norman lord on Welsh territory. This latent in the chaos of volcanic eruption and glaciation.
castle was short-lived, but the Norman conquest shattered Blorenge, one of the Black Mountains, changes geologically
and re-formed the power networks of the area. In 1073, the half way through. Blaenavon, on the southwest side of it,
Normans ravaged Ceredigion and Dyfed, moving into areas mined coal and produced iron from the one side rich in
the 'English' had never penetrated. By 1086, the ancient minerals. But the nearby towns of Abergavenny and Pandy -
kingdom of Gwent, emerging from Roman Britain and the on the other side of the mountain - are culturally very
Silurian people, was erased from the map. Clodock Church different, partly due to this geological accident. So, Raymond
itself is of Norman origin. This area is steeped in both the Williams's father worked on the railways, not in the mines.
folklore and reality of cultural imperialism and displacement. Williams's concept of 'cultural materialism' can be applied
Further up the Ewyas valley, it is not unusual to see huge here in macro.
Hercules aircraft flying almost impossibly low. Even further
up, near to the church at Patricio, lies the torso of a James Hamilton described Williams's 'popular
passenger airliner, used in a different era of political characterization as a mushy “culturalist”, ostensibly
resistance, for the SAS to practice on. These themes are interested only in an impressionistic recovery of
certainly relevant to Raymond Williams, both academically "experience" and culture as simply "a whole way of life"'
and personally: (Hamilton, 2005: 812).Yet standing in this landscape, there is
nothing which is separable. Splitting things into neat, discrete
'How do people go away from a home? How do they, packets, isn't the point and this 'popular characterization'
through education, retain links with a community? What is it loses its stigma, becomes a merit. Of course, there are
about certain human values that make you want to cherish dominant themes, border lines, be they geographical or
them? These are questions you could ask on the borders of class-cultural, but they are constructed precisely so that we
Spain or Afghanistan. Of course it's a specific Welsh issue, but can manage the absolute, the total. Taking myself to this
it's a passionate world story that he tells.' (Smith, 2007). astonishing spot suddenly brings the sum of the area's
narratives together in a huge, overwhelming surge.
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Pandy is where Williams was first exposed to class struggle, Eagleton and Tariq Ali. For me, the account of Williams's
in the form of a General Strike action during which his funeral, with its sometimes agonistic, academic celebrities, is
father Harry - the signalman at Pandy and more politicised much less interesting than the context Inglis places
than most - lost his job with GWR in 1926. The event is Williams's death in.The sudden shock of his passing in 1988,
fictionalised in ‘Border Country’. Raymond Williams was very near to Margaret Thatcher's third term, heralding trade
only a child when this happened, but the waves of influence union defeat and the dawn of a more instrumentalised era,
rippling out from the event are obvious. It is no surprise that has left its mark, even if that mark takes the shape of an
‘Border Country’ and ‘The Long Revolution’ were published absence for subsequent generations:
virtually back-to-back. Again, Jonathan Harris states that
'Williams was exploring representations of merged personal 'The values that come through at the end of Border
and collective pasts and futures: how both are made and Country are the ones that Raymond Williams wanted to
remade in real and varied “discursive forms”' (Harris, 2004: emphasise in the 1950s. Could an industrial working class
65).The General Strike framed him as much as the geology survive the new consumer world of the 1950s, the world of
framed the industry of the area, and the railways themselves mass advertising, of television? And if it could, then what was
were inseparable from that. Fred Inglis described how, 'all his the nature of those values beyond particular institutional
life, Williams simply hated that softening, even tone of the descriptions, the nature of life lived in detail in the 1940s
English ruling class even when it was truly meant well, that and 50s? And his answer is in some senses ambiguous, which
class drew the best people of the opponent class away from is that things are changing and that there is no point in
the strong, living webs of connection, and located them at an simply trying to take that forward in a mechanical fashion.'
unbridgeable remove from the places and the people to (Smith, 2007).
whom they belonged.' (Inglis, 1995: 37).
I teach Cultural Studies in an art college and show first year
Yet Inglis is also careful to point out that 'Williams himself undergraduates Williams's very lengthy entry on 'Culture',
answered to those voices when they called' (ibid) heading from Keywords. Culture as a 'way of life' can be a
off with a scholarship, eventually becoming 'a Don'. But it's frighteningly wide concept, but from this I try to explain
what Williams said when he answered 'those voices' which how we might break it down over the coming weeks. One
is important, something true of his contemporaries, Richard student complained that there was 'too much culture' in
Hoggart and later, Stuart Hall and Paul Gilroy, to name some one of his lectures. On that day, for his purposes, he had a
obvious examples. Inglis cites Terry Eagleton's 1988 point. Many of the students are trying to gain entry to the
memorial speech at Conway Hall, describing how Williams production sites of mass communications and
routinely said things nobody expected to hear in the upper consumerism, the emergence of which both Williams and
echelons of privileged academia. Inglis goes on to say that Hoggart tried to account for. Yet visiting this landscape
Williams 'broke with the established, calmly superior made me realise the absurdity of such a statement under
assumptions and way of talking in England, but did so with a Williams's terms, as though the student had suddenly
manner, an idiom and diction themselves so unassailably complained about having too much water in his water.
assured that those on the wrong side of the break couldn't
see how to stop him. And then, into the space made by the It's due to Williams' and Hoggart's creation of the subject as
break, he dropped his own calm commonplaces about I understand it, as well as some of the political and social
human connection, about solidarity and equality, about processes they were beneficiaries of, that I am teaching at
those things we had been most fired by as young idealists…' all. This is an important strand of Williams's 'Long
(Inglis, 1995: 11). Revolution' (1965):
Williams stood against conservative literary traditionalism, 'Williams says that cultural and social formations, deep
formulating a new model in 'cultural materialism', which in structures of life within these societies are translatable from
turn partly gave birth to Cultural Studies as a subject. Jeff one generation to another provided that questions of
Browitt gives as good a potted summary of Williams's power and empowerment, of priorities and decision
project as is possible: He reminds us of 'Williams's central making, are understood to be about conflict. And that
concern with "culture": how it is deeply and unavoidably conflict is a class conflict.' (Smith, 2007).
implicated in the workings of social domination, but also,
importantly, of social resistance.' (Browitt: 118-9). This tells Harry Williams, Raymond's father, was eventually re-
us 'not only to how to go about oppositional cultural employed, but Pandy Station itself is now gone, eclipsed by
criticism, but also about how to fashion theoretical the new road from Hereford to Abergavenny. This road
responses out of the lived experience of the present and, seems to turn Pandy into 'a few, separated clutches of
just as importantly, the moral-political example set by buildings' (Inglis, 1995: 2). Williams's term 'mobile
Williams.' (ibid). privatisation' (1974) seems painfully literal here, enforced
even. Pandy is a location to be missed in a blink as you speed
Inglis opens his biography with Williams's funeral and past, on the way to Abergavenny, where shop windows
reception at the Angel Hotel, Abergavenny. A theatrical currently display 'SUPERTOWN OR SUPERSTORE'
gathering of the 'New Left', with walk-on parts by Terry posters. It is clear that Abergavenny has, with its Caffe Nero,
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Waitrose and projected Asda, both yielded to and level it's quite simply the rediscovery of a family album.You
attempted to resist homogenising pressures. Again, Jonathan can see the lineaments, it's what in posher society,
Harris has described some recent studies of '”placenesses” aristocracies you would call heritage. This is our heritage.'
- and the corresponding “placelessnesses” and (Smith, 2007).
“displacements” inherent in processes of modernization',
which he relates to Williams's project as a whole (Harris, The intellectual legacy of Williams, coupled with my visit to
2004: 66). his final resting place and the landscape it is situated in,
yields an acceptance of the temporary, shifting nature of
Discussions of class are much more nuanced these days, both society and culture. But it also speaks of the
drawing together complex webs of identity politics, gender importance of understanding and being suspicious of what
and race issues. Jonathan Harris, while attempting to rescue we are told to be the 'natural' or 'normal' processes via
Williams from ignominy, outlines how the expansion of which culture, society and their landscapes morph, as well as
cultural studies into identity politics and globalisation, has the often unseen sites of struggle which engender these
both absorbed and overtaken Williams's legacy. Harris constant, painful rebirths. I suspect these contrasting
claims that he was '…oblivious to virtually all the aspects of impulses will be as essential to our coming decades as they
identity, body and 'life-style' politics that have come to were to his, and much of his writing remains effective as a
dominate the interests of cultural studies scholars' (2004: set of approaches to them.
64). Yet Harris also writes of Williams's optimism, his
perhaps historically-situated ability to speak of culture as a
connected whole, brimming with possibilities. Williams's
project was concerned with the transformation of society.
Harris then goes on to describe the fractured, individualistic
state of our contemporary cultural discourses (ibid). References:
Elsewhere he has described, via an unfortunate metaphor, Browitt, Jeff (2005) Book Review: ‘Para leer a Raymond
how Terry Eagleton's ‘The Idea of Culture’ finally called time Williams’. International Journal of Cultural Studies 2005; 8;
on Cultural Studies' vaunted radicalism: like an exhausted 118-119.
pit, he wanted it closed down.' (Harris, 2001: 109). Clodock and Longtown history.
http://www.archenfield.com/Longtown.htm No author
Western cultural identity may now lie with how we mix our cited (accessed 14/09/07).
gender and sexualities with our blend of national identities, Hamilton, James (2005) Book Review: ‘Raymond Williams's
ethnicities and single-issue causes.With our Nike and tweed Sociology of Culture: A Critical Reconstruction’. In Media
even, or how our iPod shuffle unfolds. All are legitimate, Culture Society 2005; 27; 812.
progressive, or at least highly pleasurable, discursive Harris, Jonathan (2001) Book Review:‘Teaching Culture:The
postmodern forms. But I would argue that all of them are Long Revolution in Cultural Studies. Visual Culture In
linked to wider processes of nature and culture, which do Britain’ Vol.2, No.2. 108-111.
unite us all. The links to broader notions of cultural Harris, Jonathan (2004) Putting the 'Culture' into Visual
materialism are explicit, though often, as with many Culture: the Legacy and Challenge of Raymond Williams.
ideological forms, hidden from immediate view. In this way, I Visual Culture In Britain Vol.5, No.2. Here, Harris is arguing
see Williams's older, unitary project of cultural studies, now for a re-assessment of Williams's under-acknowledged 1981
'discredited' as capitalized 'Cultural Studies', as merely on text Culture, in the context of visual studies.
hold, or latent. It is no coincidence that such an interregnum Inglis, Fred (1995) ‘Raymond Williams’. London: Routledge.
should occur during our current era of western Smith, D. (2007) Discusses Raymond Williams' Border
individualism, underwritten by our often ethically Country. BBC Wales, September 12.
questionable, potentially short-term, era of western plenty. http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/arts/sites/literature/pages/bord
Williams has momentarily receded in the text. Of course, er_country.shtml (accessed 12/09/07, the same day I visited
his work will never suddenly become directly, 100% relevant the grave). Dai Smith has written much on Williams's Welsh
again, the work itself discounts the possibility and rightly so. identity politics, perhaps slightly undermining the
Cultures change, but some of the broader models via which accusations of Williams's total ignorance of such things.
they change can be translated. Williams, R. (1965) ‘The Long Revolution’. London: Penguin
(originally Chatto & Windus 1961).
The struggles in 'Border Country' may be different to ours, Williams, R. (1974) ‘Television: Technology and Cultural
but Williams tried to give us frameworks to address Form’. London: Collins.
'struggle' as a subject, which have much more longevity than Williams, R. (1976) Keywords. London: Fontana.
his own lifespan: Williams, R. (1981) Culture. London: Fontana.
'I think for each generation to rediscover this is to Williams, R. (1987) ‘Border Country’. The Hogarth Press
understand that perhaps your grandparents had a sex life (originally Chatto & Windus, 1960).
and that your uncle and aunt went to the pub, and things
Williams's fiction has had a rough ride since his death.Yet his unfinished People of the
happened on the mountain tops, that the worries and fears Black Mountains project can retrospectively be seen to shadow Alan Moore's lauded
and psychological difficulties you had were also theirs, in a novel 'Voice of the Fire', which also mines layers of time in one location. Iain Sinclair's
main excursion from London, Landor's Tower, also explores many of the ancient and
recognisable location and within recognisable walls.At some contemporary myths of the area, especially those surrounding the Vale of Ewyas.
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Public Character
Diego Campos
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In August 2007 Greenwich Council ran a competition complement to 'The Happiest Place on Earth'. We
called 'Tour de Greenwich', to celebrate the recent even spotted two dads with a tray full of pints of lager.
Tour de France, with the theme of 'riding around the
borough'. My entry was with a series of pictures While trying to convince my nervous child that the
accompanied by an abstract, a sort of photo diary, show was a big treat, I was really trying hard to put my
portraying my son scootering around the derelict sociological imagination at work: it would be painfully
riverside of the peninsula. The diary won a prize for easy to explain it all with commercialisation and
the adults' section, namely vouchers from the bike commoditisation of children's public space, with
shop which sponsored the competition, but I asked for notions of safety and comfort in the Disney's ideology
my son to be included in the award.After a few weeks, of the mall, and with more recent studies on the role
the Labour councillor for Woolwich offered me three of middle class family's children-consumers. I am
tickets to see the musical 'Disney on Ice’, featuring aware that the sociological literature around the
‘The Incredibles' at the O2 Arena, normally worth 30 above subjects is vast and offers insights, but instead I
pounds each. started questioning my own work and visual research
on the riverside.As Patricia Holland remarks, referring
Puzzled, but curious, we went, despite my complaints to the ground breaking work of Colin Ward, writing
to the astonished council officers that the show wasn't on anarchism and urbanism:
suitable for a child. Obviously, I was wrong: the arena
was packed with screaming children and enthusiastic 'The self conscious realism of this urban imagery
parents, who were not troubled by having to pay for sought to reject the moralism and the Romanticism
the extras, such as three quid for an ice cream, two which linked children with the rural and with organic
quid for a small bag of popcorn, in addition to all the nature, but in treating the town as a space for
souvenirs and gadgets that are an obligatory discovery it created its own urban ruralism. Children
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On a bright fresh November morning I met a group of see the inscription 'all for each and each for all',
students at the Firepower museum located in the testifying to the co-operative principle of returning
Woolwich Arsenal, of the London Borough of profits to the community.The signs of the street also
Greenwich in South East London. Firepower is tell us of more recent changes: the newly opened mini
dedicated to the Royal Artillery, who have been market selling food and drink from Lithuania, Latvia,
stationed in Woolwich since the 1800s. The museum Bulgaria Russia and Poland.
sits within the site of the former Woolwich Arsenal
which was hidden from public view until 1997. The We walked to the Woolwich free ferry whose origins
Arsenal has been established since 1700s and as long can be traced back to the 1300s when regular boats
ago as the 1500s the site was the dockyard for Henry linked the two shores. The present day free ferry
VIII's navy. Many of the guns and ammunition which service can be dated back to 1844 when it was
maintained the order of colonialism and imperialism established by the London Metropolitan Board of
have been made at the Arsenal ever since. The Works. The river can also be crossed via the rather
Arsenal's most famous legacy is the football team eerie foot tunnel. The entrance is strangely hidden
which began as a workers kick about on nearby away at the somewhat unkempt rear of the Woolwich
Plumstead Common. It is strange to think that the Waterfront Leisure Centre. It would be easy to
Arsenal is now closed while the lunchtime players mistake it for a ventilation shaft. NO busking, littering
were unknowingly laying the foundations for one of loitering, spitting, animal fouling. Entering the lift, one
the biggest business in the UK. has the strange sensation of gradually sliding down to
the entrance to the tunnel while watching CCTV
For centuries immigrants have arrived into London screens of the tunnel's occupants, ghostly figures
travelling up the Thames and it is from here that passing out of view and the camera's eye. Minutes
Britain set out on her engagements with the world. later you walk the same path knowing that you too
Henry VIII's dockyard was the place where some of will be watched by the lift's next occupant. The man
the most lavish warships of the 17th Century were on the stool in the lift seems more interested in his
constructed. The fortunes of Woolwich and nearby paper.
Plumstead have long been tied to the demand for
bullets, guns and shells, which varied with the wars and I always find it difficult to imagine the past when I visit
conflicts that Britain was involved in. Museums curate those obligatory historical sites on holiday. If it is hard
stories of the past and the present, erasing some to picture the Woolwich of the past through its
histories, celebrating others. Firepower and its sister present day remains, its potential future announces
museum 'the Greenwich Heritage Centre' tell us little itself with confidence. Woolwich, once part of Kent,
about the consequences of all this industry beyond the situated at the edge of what was once called the
local.While the Boer War resulted in a scorched earth Thames Estuary, has had its imagined territories
policy and the internment of women and children in redrawn again under the policy initiative that is the
Kitchener's concentration camps in Southern Africa, Thames Gateway. The gateway stretches forty miles
back in Woolwich it brought prosperity to the working along the estuary from Canary Wharf in London to
classes and economic independence for many women. Southend in Essex and Sittingbourne in Kent. It is
Two world wars brought tremendous prosperity to Europe's largest regeneration programme, aiming to
Woolwich. In the 1914-18 period 75,000 people, remedy post industrial 'decline and decay' and
including almost 30,00 women and children worked at producing a 'unique location landscape'. We are
the Arsenal. Traces of civic pride and working class standing in a zone of change marked out for the
solidarity can still be seen when walking around the future eastwards growth of London, building a city the
area: at the Plumstead Radical Club, in meeting halls, size of Leeds as London extends itself to the coastal
chapels, and at the site of the former co-operative towns of Kent and Essex. It promises the wedded bliss
building in Powis Street. Looking up from the rather of the 'need' for development with a seemingly
grim 'Woolwich Work and Learn Centre' you can still insatiable the desire for shopping and homes. Standing
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at the river looking eastwards, we see expansive sky, development of what was probably sold as 'starter
traces of industry long gone and ongoing, and homes'. The scale seems strangely domestic after the
hundreds of high rise blocks being built along the river magnitude of the river and the Arsenal. I feel like
bank. Luxury high-rise living stands shoulder to everyone is either behind the curtains watching telly
shoulder with council blocks.The view is the same, the or watching us. We wonder further, through an
rents aren't. This is a hint of the developer's wet industrial estate with incongruous fibre glass
dream for Woolwich. By 2012 it is anticipated that sculptures and then come upon the Thames Barrier
120,000 homes and 180,000 jobs will have been (the 8th wonder of the world apparently) all silver
created in the Thames Gateway "growth area". and shiny, built to protect London from tidal surges. In
Undoubtedly many of the new Eastern European 1956 1000 homes in Silvertown were destroyed by
Woolwichites will provide the casual labour force for flooding. I read that it raised a lot more often then it
the construction sites that will build the dream of the used to. I feel glad I live up a hill and wonder about the
south east London to come. In providing such 'flexible' wisdom of building all of those new homes and
labour, they will unintentionally postpone the industry businesses on the flood plain east of the barrier.
from its need to modernise and offer decent and safe
working conditions. While the walls surrounding the Occasionally huge ships pass by, reminding us that the
Arsenal finally came down in 1997 after almost 100 Thames is still a working river.We are standing in what
years of Ministry of Defence secrecy, new walls and has long been the backyard of London, where dead
gates have reappeared, protecting the residents of the cars go to die, where the dirty work is done and bad
Berkeley Homes Arsenal development from the locals smells linger in the air. The mythological home of
on the other side of the busy road . cockney gangsters and salt of the earth dockers and
their wives. Students tell me they never realised that
We had to abandon our plan to ride the Woolwich this part of London even existed. Others are
free ferry. Workers in visvests looked on while three reminded of other riverside cities, like Amsterdam.We
men bobbed about on a small boat grappling with pass a very busy aggregate plant, a noisy belt
ropes and seemingly going round in circles. “What's transports tonnes and tonnes of gravel and sand off a
going on?” I asked. “Pontoon has come off its ship.The raw materials of the London to come blows
mooring” he said. “The ferry can't go until it's done. in our faces. We wonder how long this plant will last
The wash will be too much for them”. I reported this wedged between the hyper reality of the O2 arena to
back to our group confident with my new found the west and the Woolwich development to the east.
nautical expertise.“Pontoon has come off its mooring; We finally end up at the pub we were looking for, the
It's the wash you see”. Walking out of Woolwich on Pilot Inn, on the end of a row of uncanny uninhabited
the riverside path I manage to accidentally loose terraces with grubby net curtains. The pub is
most of the group. due to my fast pace (this is speed marooned in the English partnership acres of tarmac
psychogeography not flânerie, I have been in London and weed which are gradually turning into temporary
too long to be able to walk slowly without nature reserves behind the miles of freshly painted
considerable effort). I hope the lost ones embrace the plywood fencing.
psychogeographical spirit of today's walk.We continue
along the Thames path, passing fishing lakes between It is both a reminder of things as they were and things
council blocks - a trace of some imaginative urban to come. The spectacle of Canary Wharf shines
design before the maniacal health and safety officers bronze in the setting sun, the O2's new LCD screens
made it their mission to ensure that no one would wink in the distance. It has been a journey of contrasts
ever be at risk ever again. On the north bank, in and surprises, fragments of the past and glimpses of
Silvertown, stands the Tate and Lyle factory which the future with a little grit in our eyes.
processes sugar beat into golden syrup. 'From
strength came forth sweetness'.The path runs out and
now we are in a little Brookside-type brick
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Woolwich Walk:
David Kendall
References:
(2007) Encarta World English Dictionary
Lefebvre, Henri (2003) Key Writings, Continuum, London
& New York pp.50-56
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Jenny Downing
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Manuel Vazquez
‘traces’
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Bricklane Walk:
Jaemini Kim
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Jennifer Muscarella
Only the smell of history as a set
of unattractive doors stand alone,
unopened.
19 Princelet Street
'¿Puedes oírme?
dice el pavimento en Brick Lane
¿Puedes oírme?
grita la tierra en Colombia
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‘Only you’
This photograph was taken on the 2nd of October 2007. I had only just arrived in
London, with no friends, feeling a little lonely. It was a rainy day, the clouds were so
heavy they made the sun look very weak.The scene was shot from a moving bus. Seeing
that only person in the street made me wonder whether anyone else was feeling as
lonely as me. The city is always filled with people, but once alone, can seem so heavy
and comfortless.
‘Great Tension’
Taken in front of the Parliament during the protests on the 8th of October 2007, calling
for the British Troops to move out of Iraq. The helicopter hovering in the air and the
camera pointing towards a ground alert reflected, in this hazy light, my feelings on the
day.
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During the Soviet times bread and milk could be In order to get to the other side of the square, you
purchased with a coupon in Estonia. The coupon has have to find your way in a maze of small shops and
now been replaced with a magnet card and at this boutiques from one end to the other. Adding insult to
point I don't mean a credit card. In order to have a injury, part of the Viru mall belongs to the Finns, so
lunch in the NoKu or KuKu bars in the centre of technically it's them who own the legendary part of
Tallinn, you need three recommendations on your key Tallinn now. Viru mall drew the line between the
card application. A pretty high price for a lunch. In the chosen and the regular Estonians, as over the top
Soviet times, being a KuKu club member meant having consumerism is available only for successful people.
views that did not necessarily concur with those of the The rest probably don't feel so comfortable on the
reigning powers. For the Estonian cultural elite, shiny steps of the merchandise palace, the door of
spending time in KuKu was like hiding away in a which can be symbolically opened with a gold coin.
fortress. Membership was vouched for because Young people like to hang around there, but what the
everybody had to be able to trust everybody else. It young rebels don't understand is that by choosing to
had to be clear, that the words spoken in KuKu stayed spend time in a supermarket instead of going home,
in KuKu. Although the intelligentsia doesn't need a they give away what little control they have over their
political sanctuary nowadays, KuKu and NoKu are still lives. Parents could not keep as good eye on them as
closed to the random person on the street. It seems supermarkets do. The whole shopping paradise is
that it is the intention of the club members to isolate covered with a net of cameras that tape every move of
themselves into an “ivory tower” with their co- our young independents.
conspirators. NoKus nature as a “youth culture club”
embraces a conflict - youth and creativity should go Tallinn's city centre and the old town is becoming
hand in hand with liberal views and openness to more and more a controlled space, governed by the
everything new. business sector. By the side of the buildings, dozens of
outdoor cafes litter Tallinn's streets in summertime,
The whole central Tallinn is segmented into closed covering a big part of the town hall square and other
zones.This is a sign of our hyper-individualized society. places. This is not a 'chilling' place for the citizens any
Introvert spaces that represent security, hygiene and more.This is not a place for kids to sit on the sidewalk
privacy actually induce fear and paranoia. It says loud and eat ice cream. This is another commercial space
and clear: everything outside is dangerous! Barrier with a ticket price.You have to buy your way into the
separated living quarters as Tiskre and closed streets Town Hall Square profit carousel in order to spend
in the centre of Tallinn like Kentmanni (the front of the time there. Public space doesn't exist anymore to
USA Embassy) should make us worry less, but actually satisfy the needs of the city residents, but those of the
all kinds of concealed control mechanisms are being tourists. This is not solely Tallinn's problem, but an
practised on us. In big company buildings, corporations, overall tendency in the capitalist world. In young
factories, or even academic and artistic buildings like in capitalist countries the income gaps between different
The Estonian Academy of Arts secret passwords, codes groups are bigger and the effects therefore more
and key cards must be used in order to move around notable.
inside the buildings. Herein lies another paradox -
universities, schools and academic institutions should During the Soviet times the shorelines of Tallinn were
symbolize the idea of freedom and equality. parted from the city and turned into closed military
zones. Today, Tallinn's bay is open only quite
As in many world cities, Tallinn's public space is sporadically. Mainly it's private owned territory or
decreasing rapidly. A big part of public space in the closed territory, that belongs to the City Government.
centre of Tallinn was invaded, when city government Part of it is occupied by the factory houses and
sold the Viru square to businessmen and the public harbour buildings from the Soviet times. These
square was taken over by a huge mall. industrial districts could be turned into a public part of
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the cityscape. In 2006 there was a flash of hope, when As public space being invaded by businesses and
the City Government announced that the old Patarei previously public space has been privatized, private
prison building right on the shore will be renovated for space has taken over the role of public space in the
the new building of the Estonian Academy of Arts. society. Activities are practised there that used to be
Later this project was overturned as being too part of parks and squares before. People gladly spend
expensive and the building is turned into a museum time in the malls. There are no homeless people and
until further notice. drunks, so it is considered a safe environment. Only
clean and nice people moving around, who forgot that
Moving the Art Academy to Patarei prison building they are the stalkees, objects of the surveillance. In the
would have been a good example of how restricted centre of Tallinn you are never alone with your friends.
space with a negative aura can be turned into a public There's always someone else who knows what time
space with a positive aura. Well, relatively public, you crossed a street, met your buddies and which ATM
because you would still need a keycard to get in there. you used to take out money in order to buy a bottle
On the other hand, a battle would have been lost in of wine. Letting all this sink in would cause a serious
the centre of Tallinn, where the Art Academy building fits of paranoia and the artificially created notion of
stands out in the middle of all those hotels and stores safety would collapse. The Paranoiac, as we know, is
like a sore thumb. dangerous to himself as to the people surrounding him
or her.
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TV Drama as Sociology:
In Praise of ‘The Wire’
Keith Kahn-Harris
had from across the street. The subterfuge of asking to It's strange to relate that to find the most indispensable
photograph through the window had been sensed and in current text in urban sociology you have to turn to one of
the last image we took the photographer is reflected in the less well known cable TV channels - in the UK at least.
the window, capturing my presence and the situation we The American series ‘The Wire’, currently being shown on
had produced. FX, brings the contemporary urban condition to life in a way
that few sociological monographs have ever done. It is also
The photograph is, I think, an exemplar of one way in - and those who haven't seen it will have to trust me when
which “methods not only represent but also shape social I say that this is not mere hyperbole - the best TV drama
realities, have implications for the processes and politics ever made (and yes I did watch The Sopranos).
through which our research is crafted, as well as our own
situated subjectivities as researchers.” (Exploding The city of Baltimore is The Wire's setting and its subject,
Method:A New Scholars Symposium 2007).The image of but it also transcends its location to offer a radical and
the barbershop reflects the social and ethical drama on uncompromising examination of the American city. The
each side of the lens. The men continue with their programme emerged out of the work of the journalist David
performance of a private ritual in a public space, allowing Simon, a former crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun. In
me to observe through the window but turning their 1991 he published the book ‘Homicide:A Year on the Killing
backs to the lens. Meanwhile, I am captured within the Streets’, based on the workings of Baltimore's homicide unit.
image as the object of my own study, frozen in the The book provided the inspiration for ‘Homicide: Life on the
alternative world of the barbershop that I am not a part Streets’, one of the most sensitive and ground-breaking cop
of. But I think that what is interesting about this scenario shows, which ran from 1992 to 1999.
is not me, my presence or subjective response, but rather
the work that the camera is doing.This is not an exercise Simon later went on to co-write with Ed Burns (a former
in reflexivity, the impact of me on the field, rather it is police officer) the extraordinary ‘The Corner: A Year in the
about the impact of method - the camera. Its presence, Life of an Inner-City Neighbourhood’. Based on a year's
the process through which my research is crafted, has observation of an African-American West Baltimore family
produced a different social reality. torn apart by drug addiction (and drug dealing), it displays a
sensitivity and acuity of observation that makes it every bit
While I failed to capture the object of my study in this the equal of classic American ethnographies such as ‘Tally's
instance, the photograph is not necessarily a bad image or Corner’ or ‘Street Corner Society’.As in these other works,
a failed image. Instead it shows two things: that our the corner becomes the location in which larger social
respondents can always choose to disengage or not to processes are played out and negotiated. In ‘The Corner’,
look back, and that as researchers we are literally in the Simon and Burns show how the 'war on drugs' has caused
field, even when we think we are not a part of the social immense damage to the American city. With devastating
reality that we are observing. We may use cameras to authority born from detailed immersion in the lives of those
observe in private, hidden by the lens and apart from the affected, they show up the sheer inadequacy of most
social situation, but somehow our presence is betrayed by political responses to the 'problem' of the inner-city.
the medium, which is after all a two-way lens.Thirdly, the
image shows how observation undermines itself. It is a From his in-depth exposure to both sides in the drug war,
misnomer that photographs are an objective method of Simon went on to develop ‘The Wire’. The first series was
recording, that they can, or even claim to, capture 'the aired in the US in 2002 and three subsequent series will be
real' unproblematically. I set out to capture the social followed by a final run, to begin in January 2008. At first ‘The
interaction in a barber shop. Instead I captured my own Wire’ resembled a classic, if superior, cop show - police and
reflection.The lapse between by intention, what I thought drug dealers confront each other in an endless game of cat
I was photographing, and the end product is indicative of and mouse ('the wire' of the title referring to phone taps
the unfolding and shifting nature of social reality and the and other surveillance devices used in investigations). But it
complexity of the camera as a method of recording. It quickly became apparent that the programme had much
illustrates that instead of recording, or even looking for, greater ambitions than the ‘CSIs’ or ‘Law and Orders’ of this
objective realities captured in photographs we are more world. Indeed, Simon has described the show as:
likely to find meanings, though they may not be the ones
we intended.
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‘…a meditation on the death of work and the betrayal of the underpinned with a strict moral code. There are also
American working class... a deliberate argument that horrifying characters such as the drug lord Marlo who
unencumbered capitalism is not a substitute for social orders assassinations without compunction for the slightest
policy; that on its own, without a social compact, raw defiance. But most of all there are a host of ghetto residents
capitalism is destined to serve the few at the expense of the desperately struggling to find dignity in a hopeless
many.’ environment - the drug dealers and users trying and failing
to escape 'the game', the teenagers trying to find options
This is a long way from the preoccupations of most where there are none. There are few real heroes among
American TV shows. them, but few real villains too.
‘The Wire's Baltimore is ravaged, dysfunctional, post- ‘The Wire’ 's four seasons have told four interconnected
industrial, scarred by massive social divisions. The projects stories whilst tracking the lives of an ever-expanding cast of
of West Baltimore are ghostly places, full of burnt-out and characters. The show features hundreds of speaking parts,
boarded- up hulks of houses (used as burial places for drug many of them played by unknown actors recruited locally .
murder victims in series 4). The slick venality of the political This ability to simultaneously pursue major social themes
class is contrasted with the all-but-abandoned school whilst paying respect to the extraordinary diversity and
system (also portrayed in series four) The city's sleek new richness of individual human lives is the mark of truly great
dockside apartments and entertainment complexes contrast drama. It also makes the programme supremely watchable.
with the death of the working docks (the focus of series I wanted to write this piece partially because, as a fan I am
two). pretty evangelical about The Wire. But I also think it raises
questions that are relevant for anyone with an interest in
The institutions that serve the city are seen as corrupt and sociology. I do not just mean the questions about race, the
corrupting, not just in the obvious sense (although that too), city, drugs and crime that are the focus of the show, but also
but in the subtle ways in which institutional politics subvert questions concerning where sociological knowledge come
good intentions. Time and again, the police investigations from. Few would dispute the ability of journalists such as
that form the focus of the show come close to bringing in David Simon to produce books like The Corner that are
the major drug lords, but time and again the higher-ups in every bit the equal of academic ethnographic monographs.
the police hierarchy squander the possibilities of long-term But how sociology can incorporate dramatic works is a
successes for short-term publicity gains. The possibilities much more difficult issue. Academic sociological writing
that education can provide to ghetto youngsters are rarely engages and motivates the way good drama or good
undermined by the inanities of 'teaching to test'. Yet at the fiction can. How do we use that engagement and motivation
same time, bureaucracies also spawn moments of idealism, in sociological work and to what end? What does it mean
even heroism.The most mean-spirited and cynical careerists that the most penetratingly sociological critique of post-
in the programme sometimes demonstrate moments of industrial capitalism comes from a TV drama, rather than
care, compassion and drive. The converse is true of course from a sociologist?
as well as the 'heroes' of the show are all deeply flawed in
some way. Another issue that The Wire raises is the ability of
corporate capitalist culture to produce works of critique.
And then there is the issue of race. Baltimore is 65% African- The programme is made by HBO in the states. This
American, making racial politics a persistent feature of the subscription-only cable channel's lack of reliance on
city and the show. The tensions and possibilities the city's advertising revenue means that it can withstand some of the
demographics produce are teased out with exquisite more brutal commercial pressures. Even so, it is
subtlety. An important storyline in series three and four is extraordinary how the channel has stuck with a show that
the attempt by a white city councillor to run for mayor is hardly cheap to make and has always had poor audience
against the black incumbent. Series two focuses on the ratings. Outside a fairly rarefied critical audience, sections of
mostly white working class dockers and the complex the African-American community and residents of
relationship they have to the political system. Baltimore, The Wire is obscure and uncelebrated (even
more so in the UK). Is the survival of this explicitly critical
The show features a wider range of black characters than show a product of its obscurity? Does HBO stick with it for
perhaps any other show on American TV. They run the its critical success alone?
gamut from odious state senators to the drug 'fiends' of
West Baltimore. Inevitably, for a show that focuses on crime There is something about The Wire that generates
and deprivation, residents of the black ghettos caught up in rhapsodic tributes from its fans. Those who read The
the drugs war are a major part of the show. Here again, our Guardian will know that Charlie Brooker, the normally
notions of hero and villain are undercut and played with.The curmudgeonly and cynical TV critic, becomes a misty-eyed
most likeable character in the entire show is Omar Little, evangelist when talking about the programme. It does that
who makes his living sticking up drug dealers and is a to people. It's well worth anybody's time to find out why.
fearless, funny, articulate homosexual whose amorality is
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REVIEWS
I had a quick chat with Eva Lis about the exhibition. ‘It
attempts to address issues of migration, displacement and
dislocation’, she said. ‘It reflects my personal story – for
most of my life I have lived the ghost-like existence of a
migrant. I wanted to express the feeling of inbetweenness
that comes with living on the margins, of being present but
not quite there, invisible and constantly moving.’
A mobile art installation by Eva Lis Comments left by passers-by suggested they had been both
fascinated and slightly disconcerted by the experience. One
read ‘Wots that? Is it the ghost train? Are you in the circus?
Wot is it?’ Another ‘You shouldn’t have that here, it’s scary
for the children’. As I stood there pondering, a young mum
with two small children came by. She spent quite a while
studying the display, not sure what to make of it but clearly
intrigued. So was her young daughter. I overheard the mum
asking:‘ Do you like it or do you think it’s a bit strange?’ ‘It’s
a bit strange’ the girl replied enthusiastically. I’d like to think
that meant she liked it.
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more with everyday life. There is definitely a pro- complexities of queer theory.
ethnography thread to this book, Angela McRobbie and References:
Judith Halberstam come in for criticism at various points for Nayak (2003) 'Race, Place and Globalisation:Youth Cultures
reading off bodies rather than engaging with what various in a Changing World' Oxford, Berg.
practices mean to people. Conversely, this book also Nayak, A. and Kehily, M.J (2008) 'Gender,Youth and Culture:
demonstrates that those committed to studying everyday Young Masculinities and Femininities' Basingstoke, Palgrave
life have much to gain through engaging with the MacMillan.
‘City of Disappearances’
‘City of Disappearances’, edited by Iain Sinclair, London: Hamish Hamilton, 2006
Tracing the endless transformations of London's intricate distinction between fact and fiction, and I suppose that many
web of activity throughout time and space is a difficult and of the authors here have embellished their stories- either
seemingly impossible task to undertake. Embracing the on purpose or without intention due to the workings of the
complexity and challenge of this overwhelming imagination and memory over time.
endeavour, Iain Sinclair delves into the depths of London's
past in ‘City of Disappearances’. Sinclair's aim is to uncover This brings us to another important aspect of a book of this
the often hidden traces of the city's history that continue to kind:‘City of Disappearances’ highlights the role of memory
haunt the present and beyond through a series of vignettes and imagination in how we view the city in the present and
recounted by an array of authors (including Patrick Keiller, into the future. Memory is inextricably linked to our
Marius Kociejowski, Jeff Nuttall, Will Self, and Rachel perception of the present and inevitably shapes the 'real' city
Lichtenstein). through our eyes and subsequently through our interactions
with it. Lee Harwood notes that the remembrances of the
In ‘Disappearances’ the city becomes text and its streets, various authors sometimes corroborate each other:“So the
shops and inhabitants come to life through the words of pieces of the puzzle at times fit together”. While Sinclair
these writers. Sinclair declares at the outset of the comments that “more frequently, they [these
anthology:“I hoped that the city would begin to write itself”. memories/puzzle pieces] do not: we revise, talk ourselves
Each author has been called upon by Sinclair to produce an up, airbrush shame”. Whether the remembrances of these
anecdote regarding an aspect of London that is no longer authors is wholly accurate is beside the point, their
there, be it a friend, an enemy, a complete stranger, a strip memories exist and by this very existence claim
club, library or even an entire street. The musings of these authenticity.
writers (contributions received often with much coaxing
from Sinclair) span several centuries and generations and ‘Disappearances’ is both a captivating and frustrating book
across many areas of London. Although the stories are to read. I believe it is an important text and Sinclair's efforts
written separately and apparently without direction or to attempt to capture the elusive unwritten (until now)
specific brief (other than that mentioned previously), many history of London is impressive and inspiring. To be given a
of the tales tend to converge and overlap. Sinclair has glimpse of someone else's experience of London, especially
grouped these vignettes into broad categories, such as in such a varied and vast offering is a rare treat. It is
Bibliomania, Secret Histories and Eastending, in order to frustrating, however, to be given only a short snippet- to be
provide some anchor for the reader to grab hold of while interrupted abruptly and taken from one enthralling
navigating London's past. However, for the most part the memory to the next without warning. For instance, I had
reader is taken on a journey through the labyrinth of become quite attached to Majer Bogdanski and all his
London in a manner that brings to mind Walter Benjamin cohorts in Rachel Lichtenstein's tale of the Friends of
and his penchant for getting lost in the city. Evoking the non- Yiddish society in Brick Lane and did not want that story to
linearity of Benjamin's ‘Arcades Project’ (as well as its end. I had to put the book down for a short while to digest
considerable length) Sinclair's compilation weaves together the intensity of this story and to let go of the loss of these
these strands of seemingly disparate material in a jigsaw-like characters in order to ready myself for the next tale. This
manner. Like the 19th century figure of the flâneur, I felt like is perhaps what Sinclair has intended in recalling the
a spectator meandering through the metropolis, being privy 'disappeared'; the losses and absences that either fade away
to sights and events that I could not have otherwise or are suddenly removed force us (willingly or unwillingly)
encountered. It felt rather voyeuristic to read some of the to move on to the next occurrence in the city. Yet the
lurid narratives recalled in the pages of this book, as they are memories of the previous encounters never fully subside
told with many personal, intimate and revealing details. and continually resonate within ourselves and within the
Because these are remembrances, however, there is no city of London.
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For all news, events, seminars and conferences organized by the CUCR please refer to
webiste: www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/cucr/html/news.html
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REVIEWS page 43 Further information and how to apply: UK and EU students: Admissions Office, telephone 020 7919 7060 (direct line), fax
Parade of the Denizens by Hilde Stephansen page 43 020 7717 2240 or e-mail admissions@gold.ac.uk; Overseas (non EU) students: International Office, telephone 020 7919
Gender as Choreography by Emma Jackson page 44 7700 (direct line), fax 020 7919 7704 or e-mail international-office@gold.ac.uk;
City of Disappearances by Rachel Jones page 45 For further information about the Centre: Please call 020 7919 7390; e-mail cucr@gold.ac.uk or visit www.gold.ac.uk/cucr/
Fallout: Reflecting on Exploding Methods Conference
by Allan Day, Joe Deville,Yael Gerson page 46
List of contributors page 48
C e n t re Fo r U r b a n a n d C o m mu n i t y R e s e a rc h
Goldsmiths College Phone: +44 (0) 20 7919 7390
edited by Roger Hewitt University of London Fax: +44 (0) 20 7919 7383
New Cross Email: cucr@gold.ac .uk
Emma Jackson
London Website: www.gold.ac .uk
Britt Hatzius SE146NW www.goldsmiths.ac .uk/cucr
S t r e e t S i g n s
Margarita ARAGON Michael STONE
Brown Youth, Black Fashion and a White Riot, 2007 Social Housing in the UK and US: Evolution, Issues and
Progress
Brian W. ALLEYNE William (Lez)HENRY
Personal Narrative and Activism: a bio-ethnography of Projecting the 'Natural': Language and Citizenship in
"Life Experience with Britain" Outernational Culture
Mette ANDERSSON
The Situated Politics of Recognition: Ethnic Minority,
Colin KING
Play the White Man:The Theatre of Racialised
Centre for Urban and Community Research
Youth and Indentity Work. Performance in the Institutions of Soccer