506362

2013
CGJ21310.1177/1474474013506362Cultural geographiesHill

Article

cultural geographies

Time and the practice of 2014, Vol. 21(3) 411­–427

© The Author(s) 2013
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DOI: 10.1177/1474474013506362
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Lisa Hill
University of Bristol, UK

Abstract
This essay explores the temporality of Deleuzian ontology by recounting a day spent engaged in
the practice of charcoal burning. Charcoal was an essential component of the iron industry, and
by the late 16th century it was being consumed in vast quantities in the blast furnaces of large
ironworks. The production of charcoal involves burning wood under controlled conditions to
drive off water vapour and volatiles, creating a fuel that can reach the temperatures necessary to
separate iron from its ore. Deleuze’s three syntheses of time offer a means of transformation of
events and their relations. Taking his ideas on process, repetition for itself, and difference in itself,
I seek to demonstrate that the temporality of the present exceeds the here and now. In doing
so, I also seek to reveal the role of the past in the present, or the always already present nature
of the past.

Keywords
charcoal burning, Deleuze, landscape, post-industrial, time

Introduction
It is perhaps unsurprising that within cultural geography the implications of non-representational
theory have largely been thought out spatially, with relatively little attention given to the dimen-
sions of time. As Rose suggests, this is particularly the case in recent geographical engagements
with the philosophy of Giles Deleuze.1 ‘In many ways it is odd that [the] question of time has not
been a central concern for geographers interested in Deleuze’, he writes. Instead, ‘the geographic
implications of Deleuze’s work . . . have been thought primarily in terms of space’, yet ‘Deleuze’s
concept of time is a far more central and necessary component of his ontology than space’.2 By
contrast, this article seeks to place time at the forefront by exploring the temporality of Deleuzian
ontology. Recounting a day spent as participant-observer during a charcoal burn taking place in the
Forest of Dean over the late May bank holiday weekend of 2009, this article considers the complex
temporal layering of past, present and future through the practice of charcoal burning.

Corresponding author:
Lisa Hill, University of Bristol, Tyndall Ave, Bristol BS8 1TH, UK.
Email: lisa.hill@dunelm.org.uk
412 cultural geographies 21(3)

As both an archaeologist and a cultural geographer, I have a strong interest in the past and its
relationship with the present and future. As such, I am also interested in theories of time, and in
particular how time might be conceptualized under the broad banner of non-representational the-
ory, enabling us to re-think the role of the past in the present. The Forest of Dean provides a rich
case study in rural de-industrialization, and, as I mean to demonstrate, the always already present
nature of the past. Lying in west Gloucestershire, in the angle formed by the rivers Severn and Wye
as they approach their confluence, it was reserved for royal hunting before 1066 and survived until
1919 as one of the principal Crown forests in England − the largest after the New Forest. Charcoal
was an essential component of the early iron industry, and by the late 16th century it was being
consumed in vast quantities in the blast furnaces of large ironworks located throughout the Forest.
Although from the mid-19th century much of the Forest’s charcoal was supplied by chemical
works, several families continued the tradition of charcoal burning into the 20th century. The last
charcoal burner of the Forest began his trade after the First World War, and was active until the
1950s.3 Charcoal burning is now carried out twice a year at the Dean Heritage Centre during the
late May and August bank holiday weekends, as a demonstration of traditional industry for visitors
and ‘heritage tourists’, and as an opportunity for charcoal-burning enthusiasts to meet, to share
knowledge, and to exchange stories.
The production of charcoal can be traced back over several millennia. Charcoal was first used
as a fuel for smelting in the Bronze and Iron Ages. Its properties were crucial to the defining indus-
trial practices of these periods, for no other fuel could reach the temperatures necessary to extract
metal from its ore, and thence to melt the metal for casting. Wood, for example, burns at relatively
low temperatures due to its high water content and complex compounds of carbon, hydrogen and
oxygen in the form of cellulose and lignin, and is therefore not suitable for smelting. Charcoal is
made through the carbonization of wood. Heating under controlled conditions, in which the
absence of air prevents complete combustion, breaks down complex compounds in the wood and
drives off moisture and gases. The resulting charcoal has a high carbon content and burns at tem-
peratures in excess of 1000 degrees Celsius. For those who first chanced upon the properties of
charcoal − its ability to transform ore into metal, and henceforth into axe heads, spear heads, leaf
swords, sword hilts, brooches and bracelets, as well as coins and ingots of various kinds for trading
− the immanent relations of proliferating couplings must have offered a multiplicity of possible
futures.
Charcoal burning in the Forest of Dean has had a profound impact on the development and
character of the region. The practice was widespread by the 13th century, causing considerable
damage to woodland. Despite a ban in 1270, many people were making charcoal into the late
1270s, and 2685 charcoal pits were recorded in the Forest in 1282.4 Charcoal continued to be con-
sumed in large quantities by ironworks, particularly the blast furnaces established in or near the
Forest from the late 16th century, but by the end of the 18th century the iron industry had begun to
replace charcoal with coke. Large furnaces in Britain started experimenting with coke-smelting,
which created opportunities for new innovations. However, ironworks in the Forest of Dean were
slow to respond to the adoption of coke, in part because coal mined in the Forest was thought
unsuitable for coke production. At the same time, the Forest’s ironmasters had an ample supply of
charcoal, which continued to be used into the early 19th century. Eventually, however, furnaces in
the Forest began ‘charking’ coal to produce coke in a manner similar to the production of charcoal.
The first coke blast furnace was built near Cinderford Bridge in 1795. Production was short-lived
however, as the weekly output of a mere 20.3 tonnes5 meant it could not compete with ironworks
in South Wales and Staffordshire. Later experiments proved more successful. The Forest’s appar-
ently abundant raw materials and industrial advances attracted a number of entrepreneurs to the
Hill 413

area, including David Mushet, previously manager of Alfreton Ironworks in Derbyshire. By 1819
Mushet had started work on his new ironworks at Darkhill, where he allowed local businessman
Moses Teague to experiment with coke-smelted iron, using local Low Delf coal from the Bixslade
collieries.6
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries matter-energy flows of iron ore, coal, water,
lime and wood were amplified in the Forest, and series of positive feedbacks brought further inno-
vations. Money flowing into the region increased the flow of entrepreneurial incomers, both of
which helped fuel coal extraction and iron production, which in turn triggered flows of mechanical
energy in the form of steam and created opportunities for further experimentation with iron, coal
and steam technology. However, since the turn of the 19th century the Forest has experienced a
steady decline in flows of matter and energy. Instead, a series of negative feedbacks − from the
Foresters’ objections to an influx of wealthy entrepreneurial incomers or ‘foreigners’7 like Mushet,
to the near exhaustion of accessible raw materials − have reduced the region’s ability to sustain
matter-energy flows, particularly in the face of competition. Stifled innovation and infrastructural
development were among the unintended consequences of collective human action against the
‘foreigners’, as the interests of local free miners and wealthy capitalist incomers came into conflict,
leading to a series of destructive riots and crippling strikes.
While many areas of Britain continued to develop and flourish, the Forest of Dean suffered radi-
cal deindustrialization, with most of the area’s iron mining and large foundries having disappeared
by the end of the 19th century, and the last large coal mines being closed during the 1960s. Drawing
on its timber resources, what characterizes the Forest today are the flows of visitors who come to
enjoy its amenities as a leisure space and to ‘experience’ its history at sites such as the Dean
Heritage Centre − where they can purchase charcoal produced in the Forest in the traditional way.
This charcoal does not support heavy industry, but is instead used to fuel barbeques at a series of
dedicated sites throughout the Forest. Like many of the Forest’s past industrial enterprises,
charcoal burning is now part and parcel of the Forest’s growing leisure industry − as a practice
itself, as a source of fuel for barbeques, and in artwork.

A Deleuzian philosophy of time8

If Deleuze developed what might be described as a ‘philosophy of time’, it is to be found in
Difference and Repetition9 and Logic of Sense,10 for time takes a much less prominent role in
Deleuze’s later work11 and in his joint works with Felix Guattari. The crucial role of time in these
early works is based around Deleuze’s thinking on process, repetition for itself, and difference
in itself. In essence, Deleuze offers us a philosophy of time that is ‘difference as becoming’ in
which difference is freed from identity. Instead, difference is temporal, and time a multiplicity.
Consider for a moment Nash’s Black Dome (Figure 1).12 Located on the Forest of Dean Sculpture
Trail in 1986, Black Dome is made from 900 poles of charred larch. It is intended to ‘return’ to
nature, to rot down gradually, leaving a mere vestige of the original form. Nash took inspiration
from charcoal burning sites, initially encountered during his work in Grizedale Forest, Cumbria,
and later in the Forest of Dean. In December 2005, I visited Black Dome, and I captured its slow
decay in a photograph. I witnessed the moisture that condensed on each piece of charred larch, I
watched as a robin sorted through the leaf litter, and I listened as a single leaf fell from the adja-
cent oak. None of these things existed in the same time, the same present. Instead, the events
surrounding each of them actuated a present. Each present includes other things, but it does not
include their present in the same way that they encompass it. I survey the scene, and in doing so
I draw together past and future into the present according to the event of my moving forward
414 cultural geographies 21(3)

Figure 1.  Black Dome by David Nash, Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail, December 2005.

with my research. The robin defines a different present according to the food it seeks to locate,
its evolutionary traits − operating over countless generations − enabling it to root out a tasty
morsel. The sculpture itself decays, determining a present and a synthesis not only of its past, but
of the damaging feet of small children who climb over it, the variations in moisture, and the
action of organisms that feed on its decay. The last leaf falls from the oak as winter takes hold.
These presents include one another but they do so without transformation. There is a present in
which the robin is peripheral to my research. There is another present in which my research is
insignificant in the decay of Black Dome. Each determines its own times. The past that sees the
development of the robin, from fledgling to fully functioning adult, is not the same as the past
that led me to this research, just as the future storm that threatens the old oak tree is not the same
as the future headache that threatens the completion of this article. All of these times are relative
as processes folded into each other.
It is in Difference and Repetition that Deleuze sets out his three syntheses of time. In the first
synthesis, understood as habit, the present is the primary locus, with the past and future becoming
dimensions of the living present. In the second synthesis, the present and future become dimen-
sions of a pure past. And in the third synthesis, past and present are understood as dimensions of
the future. As processes, Deleuze’s syntheses of time offer a means of transformation of events and
their relations. Importantly, the syntheses are mutually dependent, and as such it makes little sense
to discuss them separately. Instead, in the paragraphs that follow, I seek to offer a brief overview
of the temporality of Deleuzian ontology.
Following Newton, our everyday modern conception of time is based upon a quantitative chron-
ological or linear model, with time divided into seconds, hours, days, centuries, millennia. As such,
time is an empty container of discrete, atomistic durations that can be split interminably into a
fraction of a moment. According to such a model the present is always beyond our grasp, for how-
ever we choose to carve things up there is always an instant that eludes us that is ‘now’. Under
Hill 415

linear conceptions of time, past and future are also interminable. Think back into the past, as far
back as you can imagine, and you will always be able to envision a moment before − a moment
before this moment before that moment and so on . . . Think forward into the future and the same
is true, for time itself has no end. Bergson called this notion of time spatialized13 − spatialized
because it acts as a container, so that everything happens in time. In other words, time marks such
happenings but it remains separate or exterior to them, it is not absorbed by them. In essence, time
is transcendent.
To put it another way, while Newtonian time can explain the separation of moments in time, it
provides no explanatory basis for the continuity of these moments − as we see in Zeno’s arrow
paradox.14 If our consciousness were structured in such a way that each moment occurred in strict
separation from every other, then we could never apprehend the unity of our experiences, nor
would we be able to perceive enduring objects in time. Of course, this is not the only conception
of time. During the 20th century a number of philosophers challenged linear notions of time, seek-
ing to replace them with a more existential conception. Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre − all developed
existential accounts that moved beyond linear, spatialized time as that which sits outside human
action and experience.15 Instead, time is posited as lived. According to lived time, past, present and
future have a very different emphasis and role. As human beings we are defined by our projects and
our plans. We are future-looking. And in lived time it is the future that is the most important dimen-
sion of time. It is the outlook the past has given to us, and it is where the past exerts its influence.
Past and future meet in the present. While in linear time the present is afforded a certain privilege
as the only time that actually exists, in lived time the present would be hollow were it not for the
future that propels us forward and the past that shapes our destiny. However, lived time is based
upon a humanistic model that in its very essence is subjective in nature.
Drawing on Bergson’s concept of duration or durée,16 Deleuze offers us an alternative concep-
tion of time, one that allows for the ontological immanence that he takes from Spinoza. Key to this
is the idea that the present passes. If the present passes it must pass into the past, and as such, unlike
in linear models of time, the past must exist alongside the present. However, the past does not have
the same qualities of the present. For Bergson the past is a virtuality, which operates in contrast to
the actuality of the present. Bergson’s past is ontological; it is a pure past that exists beyond the
horizon of human psychological past. In other words, it is not just my past that conditions my life,
it is the past itself that does so. My own memories arise within a wider historical context that is not
of my making, a historical context that must nonetheless be negotiated each time I engage with the
world. And it is in such moments of engagement that the actualization of the virtual occurs. The
past (duration) is always there virtually, and is actualized in the present. But the past is not simply
what has happened. Drawing on Proust, Deleuze shows us that the nature of the past (duration) is
to be found in difference. This is not difference based on identity, nor is it a dialectical or Hegelian
difference. The difference that Proust espouses is based on difference in duration or that which dif-
fers with itself.17 Differences between identities (e.g. my table and my dog) and differences as
dialectic do exist, but they exist in the present not in duration − they are spatial rather than tempo-
ral. According to Deleuze, duration is a virtual multiplicity where difference differs with itself, a
realm of temporal difference from which the present is actualized. In other words, ‘we do not move
from the present to the past, from perception to recollection, but from the past to the present, from
recollection to perception’.18
Central to the temporality of Deleuzian ontology is Nietzsche’s eternal return. Often understood
as the continuous cycle of things over time, the eternal return is not the return of the same but the
return of difference, pure difference, or difference in repetition. ‘Historians sometimes look for
empirical correspondences between the present and the past’ writes Deleuze, ‘but however rich it
416 cultural geographies 21(3)

may be, this network of historical correspondences involves repetition only by analogy or
similitude’.

In truth, the past is in itself repetition, as is the present, but they are repetition in two different modes which
repeat each other. Repetition is never a historical fact, but rather the historical condition under which
something new is effectively produced.19

Take for example the production of an iron crossbow bolt.20,21 Supported by a burgeoning char-
coal burning industry, by the 13th century the Forest of Dean was an important centre of medi-
eval iron production and a vital source of weaponry − especially the manufacture of crossbow
bolts. The blacksmith begins by taking a rod of iron and plunging it into the glowing embers of
the forge, heating the metal to around 1300 degrees Celsius, creating a bright yellow heat. He
removes the metal from the heat, takes it to his anvil, and begins pounding it with his hammer.
Each strike makes a short, hollow ‘ding’, apparently the same sound delivering the same out-
come over and again as the structure of the metal is modified. Yet each stroke is not the same,
it differs from all those that have gone before, from the strike we heard a moment ago to that
heard in almost the exact same spot some twenty years past. To be sure, there is sameness and
similarity here, but each piece of metal, each strike of the hammer, each blacksmith differs from
all that have come before and all that will come after − because each introduces difference, the
return of pure difference. Each strike of the hammer produces differences in relations between
the whole of the past that are destined to return differently in the future within any new strike
of the hammer. Each deformation in the developing crossbow bolt produces differences in rela-
tions between the whole of the past that are destined to return differently in the future within
any new deformation of the bolt. And so on. A variation in intensity changes past and future
relations. As Deleuze suggests, ‘repetition is a condition of action before it is a concept of
reflection’,22 but as time wears on, the blacksmith might notice a slight variation in his tech-
nique that he might choose to develop over time, or the user of his crossbow bolts might notice
a slight variation in the accuracy of the projectile that he reports back to the blacksmith. Either
way, some differences will not go unnoticed, and, if found to be desirable, they will be planned
into the future manufacturing process.
For Deleuze then, the eternal return is not the return of the same but the return of difference,
the recurrence of difference itself, the ‘being of that which becomes’.23 Deleuze takes from
Nietzsche the belief that the only thing that is real is becoming: ‘there is no being beyond becom-
ing’.24 Being is becoming, being is multiplicity, difference. By bringing together Spinoza’s imma-
nence and Bergson’s duration, Deleuze develops a philosophy that enables us to grasp the rich
vitality of life − for duration both gives rise to the present and is itself of the present, and as such
the present always has a greater potential for transformation than might at first be expected. In
other words there is always more than presents itself, an excess beyond that which is experienced.
The world both is and is not what it seems.
And the future? According to Deleuze, it is unactualized difference. The future has the same
character as the past − it is difference, pure multiplicity. It comes to us without pre-givens or con-
stants. It is the same virtual return of difference that defines the past. As such, the future is not
empty but brimming with possibilities. But what returns does not do so in stable formed identities:
a dog, a brick, the emotions of love or hatred. It does so as the virtuality that constitutes them. The
eternal return is the being of becoming, and the future a virtual difference that has not yet actual-
ized itself into a particular present. It is pure chance. And when the future actualizes itself in the
present, in the same way as the past, the return crystallizes into identities − pure temporality
Hill 417

becomes spatiality as we are faced with a particular situation that has emerged from the multiplic-
ity that has returned.

The practice of charcoal burning

Located halfway up the slope on an area of level ground, the charcoal burning platform has been
prepared for the burn. The Hearth Master25 has prepared the hearth by clearing the ground, and
cordwood is laid out in large piles, along with soil and freshly cut turf. The hearth is always sited
in a well-sheltered spot, as wind blowing on the stack can cause the fire to burn too fiercely, creat-
ing the potential for the whole stack to become fully ignited. A nearby shelter is constructed from
wooden poles with a white tarpaulin pulled over, and houses a wooden table holding cups, tea,
coffee and milk. The table is flanked by two long, wooden benches. A blackened kettle sits on a fire
located at the front of the shelter, built upon a hearth of stones. The traditional, earth-covered forest
kiln is seen now only in charcoal burning demonstrations. The charcoal burner prepares the stack
using knowledge passed down over generations. Like the rules of a football game,26 the ‘blueprint’
of the charcoal stack, its planned design, is an after-the-fact appropriation that takes its lead from
the process of charcoal burning from which the layout and structure of the stack actually emerged,
and continues to evolve, even today, to the extent that although each stack is a repetition of previ-
ous stacks, it is also unique. While each stack begins with the construction of a central flue, around
which wood is stacked − a process that is repeated two or three times over in order to achieve a
stack of necessary proportions − the precise configuration, the look and feel of the stack, is never
an exact repetition. There is always some difference. The original design follows and applies itself
to forces of variation that are endemic to the stack and that constitute the real conditions of the
stack’s emergence.
The stack begins with a modest square-shaped flue, as volunteers take it in turns to place selected
pieces of cordwood in a layered lattice (Figure 2). As they walk to and from the wood piles, they
perform an intricate dance around each other and the forming stack. With the flue secure and built
to an adequate height, they begin to place the cordwood against it, layered in concentric circles, in
an activity known as ‘dressing the stack’. Experienced volunteers are ‘drawn out of themselves’,
instinctively knowing which wood to select from the pile and where it should be placed in the stack
− without hesitation. Novices watch and try to emulate, but are too self-conscious, too indecisive
in the selection of wood and its placing within the stack − their reflective sense of themselves as
subjects makes for awkward participation. Blighted by indecision and reticence, the novice is
unable to get a feel for the wood and her hand to eye coordination fails. By contrast, the seasoned
charcoal burner is able to look beyond each individual piece of cordwood, to reflexively assess the
potential position it might occupy within the stack. This kind of operation involves an almost
instantaneous calculation of the size and shape of the cordwood, its location within the pile, the
actions of other volunteers, and the qualities of the developing stack. The habitual practices associ-
ated with charcoal burning are embodied. This is the contraction of the past in the present, an
operation that excludes understanding and memory. In conscious reflection we pull images from
our memory and analyse them with understanding, but in the experimental selection and placing of
cordwood past errors are recorded by the experienced volunteer that allow her to move beyond
each instant of reflection and practice. As Dewsbury notes,

untethered from the determinate mappings of discourse, the . . . body articulates an embodied knowledge
that is immediate in not necessarily allowing us a comprehensive understanding of what is going on, but a
capacity that sanctions our negotiation through what is happening, literally enabling us to ‘go on’.27
418 cultural geographies 21(3)

Figure 2.  Archaeological sketch of stack flue.

Figure 3.  Building the charcoal stack, May 2009.

The body develops reflex expressions that emerge in response to the material world, that are
future-oriented, directly sensed potentials. However, as Massumi suggests, ‘it would be a mistake
to equate the reflex with the purely physical’ − for perception is punctuated with intentions and
memories, ‘shimmers of reflection and language’.28 According to Deleuze, an operation such as the
placing of cordwood on the developing stack is not a repetition until two such actions are drawn
together. Perhaps the volunteer notices a patterning that provides greater stability; she draws on
Hill 419

memory and applies it to the current task to create a novel movement and series. As such, the past
and future meet through processes of retention and anticipation.
The object of the activity is the stack, from the initial cordwood chimney to the turfed and earth-
covered dome, from the first glowing embers to the cooled, blackened charcoal. The stack quickly
becomes the focus of the volunteers. It orients them, directing their movement, gestures and speech.
The stack is constructed on the charcoal burning platform, a space modified by each and every
volunteer. It is a field of potential within which the volunteers move, or are induced to move. As
we have seen, the notion of the virtual is central to Deleuzian ontology. In contrast with the pos-
sible, the virtual is real, but it is also inaccessible − directly at least. It is pure relationality, the
‘in-itself’ of transformation that is contemporaneous with the present. In the moment of actualiza-
tion, the virtual offers to us a series of alternative directions. Each moment comprises a ‘virtual
field’ of potential for what is yet to come, for what might be actualized through the as yet unknown
and unforeseen interaction, composition and amalgamation of a profusion of energies and forces.
A volunteer reaches for a piece of cordwood from the pile at the exact same time as another lays
her hand upon it. In its location and shape the cordwood beckons to all the volunteers, but this piece
in particular seems to generate a greater field of attraction. The volunteers’ eyes meet as both
instantaneously withdraw.
Although the construction of the stack is a team-based exercise, it remains a largely non-
discursive activity. It is only when there is uncertainty as to how to continue that verbal com-
munication begins. The novice checks her work and plots her next move, asking: ‘What about
that gap?’ Her question may be vocalized, as she seeks advice and assurance from those around
her. An experienced charcoal burner observes a problem with the developing stack: ‘We’re a bit
too upright around at the back here at the moment’. His comments briefly divert attention,
directing activity to the rear of the stack. An experienced volunteer asks: ‘Are we going up
another layer?’ His question goes unheard, yet the Hearth Master initiates a new layer almost
immediately. In each case, the flow of action, of footstep after footstep with cordwood in arms,
propels the volunteers towards the stack. In some instances, however, there is a moment of hesi-
tation. Such moments have their own duration, the force of which is so great that they bring
forth a whole series of possible new moments, new encounters and configurations that gather
and multiply. Filled with doubt and uncertainty, expectation or concern, these moments cast an
almost imperceptible shadow of feelings that although unintelligibly felt and unthought-out can
become so overwhelming as to induce reflection, thereafter enacted in speech and action. As the
future actualizes itself in the present, it settles into identity. Pure temporality becomes spatiality
as we are faced with a particular situation that emerges from the multiplicity that has returned.
Yet difference is immanent to the present. Each moment is steeped in difference, carrying with
it the potential to disrupt any given identity. There is always more than meets the eye, an excess
beyond that which is experienced.
There is a brief hiatus in activity when the supply of cordwood is exhausted. Experienced
charcoal burners survey the stack. The consensus is that shape of the stack is not quite right; it is
too upright, ‘a bit straight all the way round’. The Hearth Master delivers a final wheelbarrow of
cordwood and work begins anew in an effort to achieve the desired plan; a stack that will burn
evenly and can be readily controlled, a stack that is less liable to collapse and will not catch fire
or get ‘too lively’. The completed stack is quickly encased in turf, as volunteers are induced to
move once more, weaving around each other, between the stack and pile of turf, transforming the
event-space anew. Starting from the base, volunteers place individual pieces of turf, intricately
overlapped to help render the stack air-tight. Taller volunteers complete the top of the stack,
leaving the chimney exposed. Two experienced volunteers take up long-handled shovels and
420 cultural geographies 21(3)

Figure 4.  Covering the charcoal stack, May 2009.

begin to cover the turf with soil. Shovel after shovel, the soil is carefully laid over the turf in
order to seal the stack. Placing loose soil on the stack is a delicate task; requiring skill and con-
centration to counter the effects of gravity, to prevent each particle of soil from rolling, sliding
or creeping down the slopes of the stack. By employing a strategy of light layering and patting,
the soil is gently added to the stack and each particle is flattened, reducing its propensity to roll
and at the same time increasing its contact surface area, and hence creating enough friction to
overcome the force of gravity. Again, the stack as object and as subject-marker continues to ori-
ent the volunteers, to hold their attention and their gaze, even those who are no longer active in
its construction.
Indeed, there is a palpable sense of anticipation as the stack is lit. The Hearth Master takes a
long-handled shovel, traditionally known as a ‘shool’, and with it gathers embers from the fire
nearby. He drops them down the chimney of the stack, where they act as the incendiary ‘charge’.
Shovel loads of white heat and amber glow make contact, sending plumes of smoke back up the
chimney and into the surrounding air. The ambient scent of wood smoke stimulates olfactory
impulses that bring forth swirling sensations, memories and emotions, from childhood bonfire
nights with roast potatoes and making toast on open fires in the depths of winter. Just as the present
passes away into a pure past, so the past can be retrieved in the present. This is a representational
process, an active form of memory. It depends upon a contrast drawn between past and present −
such that a thing in the present becomes a representation of something in the past. Once a past
present is selected from the general past through memory, it is positioned in relation to the present
for which it has been selected. As such, memory operates via reproduction and reflection. It is not
a passive process.
A volunteer bends to pick up a pan filled with embers. He takes a step closer. Bending at the
waist and knee, fingers outstretched, he moves to grasp the handle. Does he pause? Was there a
sense of expectation, a knowing of the pain that was imminent? A knowing that was unintelligibly
felt, an inexplicable sense of dread and foreboding so fleeting as to almost go unregistered, and yet,
was it there? The future was but a virtual difference that had not yet been actualized into the
Hill 421

Figure 5.  Lighting the charcoal stack, May 2009.

present. Anything could have happened. Time overtakes him, creating a present that he could not
foresee and that he could not escape. His skin touched the searing heat for barely a second, before
he recoiled, jumping back and crying out in pain. The burning sensation grows in intensity, as
nerves send a swarm of impulse messages to the brain, but he is embarrassed and seeks to hide his
discomfort. With added determination, he takes a pair of gloves from the table and delivers the
ember-filled pan to the stack.
The Hearth Master mounts a step-ladder placed against the stack and fills the chimney with
kindling (Figure 5). Traditionally, a curved ladder or ‘round ladder’ was used to reach the top of the
kiln, fashioned from young, naturally curving stands. He remains atop the ladder, while a volunteer
collects kindling in a basket. As more kindling is added, thick, white smoke begins to rise from the
stack, billowing upwards, lifted on thermals and carried by the breeze. An experienced volunteer
checks the stack for escaping smoke. He plugs any gaps with soil to ensure that the stack is airtight,
turns to the heath-master and says, ‘It’s started crackling a bit. She’s talking to you.’ In this way the
stack as object-marker of the subject can also be understood as ‘part-subject’, as that which attracts
attention and action (almost) of its own will.
Meanwhile, a child demonstrates the efficacy of the one-legged stool used by charcoal burners
to prevent sleep while tending their stacks.29 The end of the leg is tapered to a point, so that the
weight of a human occupant will drive the stool into the ground, hence providing a modicum of
stability by preventing the stool from shifting position. However, the work required to stay upright
on a one-legged stool is done by muscles in the legs of the human occupant, which together with
the single leg of the stool give stability by creating a tripod arrangement. Human and stool are
entwined in complex relation, holding in equilibrium the forces of gravity and the upward push of
the ground, stool and human that keep the assemblage upright; they are mutually dependent, such
that each is holding the other in place. If the human part of the balance equation fails − as when the
leg muscles relax during sleep − the relationship breaks down, and the stool and its human occu-
pant collapse on the ground. Presumably this is enough to rouse all but the deepest of sleepers, to
resume their vigil and tend their stack.
422 cultural geographies 21(3)

Figure 6.  Archaeological sketch of charcoal burners’ stool.

This complex coupling of human and stool, which is replayed night after day after night and
over again during repeated burns, inevitably creates a series of bodily regimes: a hunching of the
back as the subject leans forward, arms resting on thighs for balance and comfort; and enhanced
muscle tone in the quadriceps, hamstrings and calves. The body takes on permanent alignments as
a result of this work − shaped by the past, performed in posture and comportment, and in the repeti-
tion of bodily action. Becoming-stool. This becoming, like all becomings, is ephemeral, it is incon-
sistent and illusory. Being moulds itself into specific forms that constitute the world of our
experience. Yet ‘there is no being beyond becoming’.30 It is the constantly changing character of
everything, the folding and unfolding of all that is. Duration is difference, difference that may
actualize into definite identities but such identities are never fixed. There is only becoming, the
eternal return of difference.
The Hearth Master adds another basket of kindling to the stack. He pulls each piece of splin-
tered wood from the basket and tosses it with precision into the chimney. Picking up the stick used
for stoking, he carefully ascends the step ladder once more. He stokes the stack, both compressing
the kindling and encouraging air circulation. In doing so, he draws air into the upper layers of the
chimney, fuelling the stack with oxygen, heat and wood to create a chain reaction that grows in
intensity.
Once the stack has ‘got going’ it can be closed. The Hearth Master begins the process by throw-
ing turf over the top, and is joined by two experienced volunteers. The turfed stack is then covered
with soil, leaving a series of tiny smouldering vents from which small quantities of smoke continue
to escape. More soil is added to seal off the vents, smoothed and patted to close all gaps in the
stack. Then, taking a long stick, the Hearth Master makes a series of regular holes in the upper layer
of the stack, from which great plumes of white smoke quickly escape.
While the stack is sealed carefully − in order to ensure that the cordwood is burned in a con-
trolled and restricted atmosphere − the process of putting holes back into the stack is important in
drawing the fire to the top, at first, and then later to the middle and base. The white smoke that
emerges from these holes is mainly water vapour; after about six hours it will turn blue, at which
point all the water vapour and volatiles will have been driven off and the top layers of the stack will
have been transformed into charcoal. The first holes must then be closed and new ones opened
approximately nine inches further down, dragging the fire down to the middle and eventually to the
Hill 423

Figure 7.  Fuelling the charcoal stack, May 2009.

lower layers of the stack. Although many charcoal burners can tell the difference between white
and blue smoke by smell alone, it can sometimes be difficult at night to assess whether the smoke
emitted from the stack is white or blue. Holding a cold shovel in the smoke is one method used to
check the stack, as when the smoke is white the water vapour will condense on the shovel, showing
that water and volatiles are still being driven from the cordwood, as is their ‘habit’. ‘What organ-
ism is not made of elements and cases of repetition, of contemplated and contracted water, nitro-
gen, carbon, chlorides and sulphates, thereby intertwining all the habits of which it is composed?’31
writes Deleuze. A passive synthesis of events is laid bare as wood becomes charcoal.
By late afternoon, a number of locals have joined the group of volunteers. The stack must be left
now to ‘get going’. It no longer needs or demands attention, which instead shifts to the shelter, to
locally home-brewed Perry Cider, to conversation and conviviality. The atmosphere is festival; the
celebration of a good day’s work, of friends reunited and new acquaintances made. ‘If you want a
bit of Forest dialect, here’s the gentleman’, I’m told. With video camera in hand, I record the rendi-
tion of the killing of two dancing bears in the Forest during the spring of 1899. The true story is
told in an epic poem. On 26 April 1899, four Frenchmen and their two performing Russian black
bears arrived in Cinderford, as part of a tour of the Forest. As the muzzled and chained bears
danced around the town, entertaining its inhabitants, a rumour began circulating that the bears had
killed a child. When the rumour reached the local pubs, drinkers poured into the street and started
to chase the bears and their keepers − from the town of Cinderford to the village of Ruardean. Both
bears were killed and their keepers badly beaten. The people of Ruardean were blamed for the
attack, but the perpetrators are actually believed to have lived in Cinderford. Fourteen colliers and
labourers were put on trial at the Littledean Police Court on 3 May 1899, charged with ill-treating,
torturing and maliciously killing two bears and assaulting their keepers. All but two were found
guilty. The story has a curious effect. Through words, language and linguistics we create sensations
− of revelry and folly, mockery and rage. Sensations are also created in tone and style, and in a
language not of our own that ‘summons forth’ others. Language is always more than representa-
tion. Forest dialect conjures a sense of past people and past times, of customs, beliefs and localism.
424 cultural geographies 21(3)

Yet the poem in its timbre and rhyme also creates a sense of tragic comedy. There is the unmistake-
able accent of ‘Forest humour’, which is reinforced by the gravelly voice and comic
performance.
Not for the first time during the day, I am experiencing a series of intense sensations that are
induced by my surroundings and by the objects associated with charcoal burning, with which I am
becoming familiar. I have developed a series of actions and postures necessary for building the
stack. I have consumed Perry Cider and listened to stories from the past, told in Forest dialect. But
it is only as I prepare to leave that the effects of constant exposure to wood smoke become appar-
ent. A tightness has developed in my chest and breathing becomes painful, as if my lungs are filling
with shards of glass. Particles of smoke have infiltrated my body and have temporarily brought
about unwelcome changes in my respiratory system, irritating and inflaming my airways. With
every breath, every expansion of my lungs, I have breathed in toxins and particulate matter con-
tained within the enveloping wood smoke. I have developed charcoal burner’s cough. Ultimately,
the changes brought about in my body induce conditions and sensations that do not belong to the
modern western world to which I am accustomed. The experience has precipitated an encounter
with the past.

Conclusion
The scent of wood smoke never fails to bring back memories of that day − for the temporality
of the present exceeds the here and now. I bring the past to bear upon the present moment
through my engagements with the world. And it is in such engagements that the actualization
of the virtual occurs. This is the ontological moment. However, it is not just my past that is
brought to bear; it is the entirety of the past. My own past does not exist outside the broader
historical context within which I am immersed. The past is a legacy that I cannot escape, even
though it may not be of my making. Past events create an expectation in terms of what is yet to
come, a series of habits and events that synthesize past and future. At the same time, past events
return to or remain in the present, while the present itself is always passing. As such, the past is
always already present.
The principal aim of this essay was to explore the temporality of Deleuzian ontology by recount-
ing a day spent engaged in the practice of charcoal burning. I discussed the development of the
charcoal-burning stack as the repetition of a planned form passed down over generations, which
although it begins in the mind as a representation, has the potential to carry with it variations that
are an emergent property of the stack itself. I documented the construction or ‘dressing’ of the
stack, highlighting the actions of volunteers who appear to have developed a reflexive response,
displaying an embodied knowledge about each piece of cordwood and its place within the stack.
This momentary contraction of the past in the present is an operation that excludes understanding
and memory, allowing the volunteer to move beyond each instant of reflection and practice. I
focused upon a series of moments, at which point, for example, the volunteers reached a stage in
the development of the stack when they did not know how to continue, revealing the role of the
body as a source of our sociality, our speech and action − for as the future actualizes itself in the
present, it settles into identity. Pure temporality becomes spatiality as we are faced with a situation
that emerges from the multiplicity that has returned. Yet difference is immanent to the present.
Each moment is steeped in virtual difference, carrying with it the potential to disrupt any given
identity. The notion of the virtual is central to Deleuzian ontology. In contrast with the possible, the
virtual is real, but it is also inaccessible. It is pure relationality, the ‘in-itself’ of transformation that
is contemporaneous with the present. In the moment of actualization, the virtual offers to us a
Hill 425

series of alternative directions. Each moment comprises a ‘virtual field’ of potential for what is yet
to come, for what might be actualized through the as yet unknown and unforeseen interaction,
composition and amalgamation of a profusion of energies and forces. As such, there is always more
than meets the eye, an excess beyond that which is experienced. Consider the contact of skin with
the hot metal handle of a pan, for example. The future was but a virtual difference that had not yet
been actualized into the present until that fateful moment. Another human-non-human coupling
that induces us to act differently is that of man and stool. As hours pass, the human occupant of the
charcoal burner’s one-legged stool takes on the postures of the charcoal burner and those of the
stool. This is the emergence of relational ontologies, of beings-in-formation and ‘becoming’. By
describing the ‘habit’ of water vapours and volatiles as they are driven from the cordwood in the
controlled heat of the burning stack, I sought to highlight the ‘passive synthesis’ of events, the
more-than-human expressions of the ‘lived’ present. Finally, by documenting the changes brought
about in my own body, which precipitate an encounter with the past, I highlighted the aura of
objects and places, and their capacity to haunt.
It will not have escaped the reader that my process of documentation involved the use of archae-
ological drawings and photographic images, alongside a largely objective, but nuanced and detailed
style of writing − for I would argue that it is only when one takes a step back, adopting the role of
detached observer, that it is possible to document these moments. As such, this process of docu-
mentation shares some commonality with the practice of archaeology − the meticulous recording
of remains, their position in the assemblage, their composition, age, indications of wear, and so on.
But instead of documenting the material traces of human activity, I have sought instead to uncover
something of the in-between. My overall goal has been to focus upon relations, their temporality,
and to reveal as much as possible of those fleeting moments that occur before contemplation.
Archaeology deals with the traces of human activity by focusing upon the material remains. It is
the objects of human activity that are the subject of archaeological drawings. However, these draw-
ings are often suggestive of human−non-human interactions and encounters. For example, they
include tool marks and wear, traces of their manufacture and use, of skill and error. The archaeo-
logical drawings included in my account of the charcoal burn are also suggestive of such
human−non-human couplings. Both the one-legged stool (Figure 6), drawn diagrammatically
upright, as if in suspended animation, and the diagram of the developing stack chimney or central
flue (Figure 2), are haunted by the absence of human interaction, the always already present nature
of the past.
But beyond offering an illustration of Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of time, this essay has
sought to demonstrate the complex layering of past, present and future in the practice of char-
coal burning. A growing band of charcoal burning enthusiasts take great pleasure in recreating
the charcoal burn. They share not only knowledge and camaraderie, but a deep nostalgia for the
past. They use traditional tools and techniques passed down over generations. They display
instinct and awareness, care and love. Gilles Deleuze’s ‘philosophy of time’ provides just one
possible framework for documenting and thinking-through the unfolding of an event such as
the charcoal burn. I am all too aware that pairing ethnographic observations with an exposition
of the temporality of Deleuzian ontology might, for some, raise questions as to motive or ratio-
nale. In response, I would argue simply that time itself takes centre stage in this ethnographic
context; as such, theories addressing the manner by which time operates − at the most basic
ontological level − become a necessary part of the story. Importantly, putting Deleuze to work
with this ethnographic case study has enabled me to explore the manner by which the temporal-
ity of the present exceeds the here and now. Evocations of the past are imbricated in the prac-
tices and experiences of the charcoal burn, in movements, postures, gestures and affects.
426 cultural geographies 21(3)

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Pete Ralph for inviting me to his charcoal burning weekend, and I would like to thank
all the volunteers for their warmth and generosity. I also would like to thank Tim Cresswell and two anony-
mous referees for their comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit
sectors.

Notes
1. Notable exceptions include J-D. Dewsbury, ‘Performativity and the Event: Enacting a Philosophy of
Difference’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 18, 2000, pp. 473−96; J-D. Dewsbury,
‘Embodying Time, Imagined and Sensed’, Time and Society, 11, 2002, pp. 147−54; M. Rose, ‘Envi-
sioning the Future: Ontology, Time and the Politics of Non-representation’, in Ben Anderson and Paul
Harrison (eds), Taking Places: Non-Representational Theories and Geography (Farnham: Ashgate,
2010).
2. M. Rose, ‘Envisioning the Future’, p. 345.
3. VCH, A History of the County of Gloucestershire: Volume 5: Bledisloe Hundred, St. Briavels Hundred,
The Forest of Dean, Ed. N. M. Herbert (1996), p. 346.
4. VCH, A History of the County of Gloucestershire, p. 346.
5. J. Meredith, The Iron Industry of the Forest of Dean (Stroud: Tempus, 1996), p. 96.
6. Meredith, The Iron Industry of the Forest of Dean, p. 100.
7. Mining in particular was hard, physical, often dangerous and almost exclusively male work, and the
bonds formed through such distinctive forms of labour forged a cohesive but enclosed community. The
customary rights of the Forest reinforced these bonds, drawing a clear distinction between those born in
the Forest and so-called ‘foreigners’ or ‘outsiders’ – for to be considered a true ‘Forester’, one must be
born in the Hundred of St Briavels. Males born in the Hundred who are over the age of 21, and who have
worked in a mine for a year and a day, can still register to be a free miner. Residents of the Hundred who
are over the age of 18 also have the right to graze sheep and pigs in the Forest.
8. For an excellent introduction to time in Deleuzian philosophy, see J. Williams, Gilles Deleuze’s Philoso-
phy of Time: An Introduction and Critical Guide (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011); also
see T. May, Gilles Deleuze: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 41−71.
The following passages include material that has been adapted from these sources.
9. G. Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, trans. by P. Patton (London: Continuum, 2004).
10. G. Deleuze, Logic of Sense, trans. by C.V. Boundas (London: Continuum, 2004).
11. Note, however, that time is central to G. Deleuze, Cinema 2: The Time Image, trans. by H. Tomlinson and
R. Galeta (London: Continuum, 2005).
12. Example developed from Gilles Deleuze’s Philosophy of Time (pp. 5−7), in which Williams uses a cem-
etery scene to illustrate the multiplicity of time.
13. H. Bergson, Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness (New York: Cosimo,
2008).
14. Zeno gives an example of an arrow in flight. He states that in any one (duration-less) instant of time, the
arrow is neither moving to where it is, nor to where it is not. It cannot move to where it is not, because no
time elapses for it to move there; it cannot move to where it is, because it is already there. In other words,
at every instant of time there is no motion occurring. Thus, if everything is motionless at every instant,
and time is entirely composed of instants, then motion is impossible.
15. E. Husserl, On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time, trans. by J.B. Brough
(Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1991); M. Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. by J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson
Hill 427

(New York and Oxford: Blackwell, 2005); and J-P. Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenom-
enological Ontology, trans. by H.E Barnes (London: Routledge, 2003).
16. Bergson, Time and Free Will.
17. M. Proust, Remembrance of Things Past: The Past Recaptured, trans. by C.K. Scott Moncrieff (Ware:
Wordsworth, 2006).
18. G. Deleuze, Bergsonism, trans. by H. Tomlinson and B. Habberjam (New York: Zone Books, 1991), p. 40.
19. Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, p. 112.
20. The arrow-like projectiles fired from a crossbow are called bolts or ‘quarrels’. Much heavier than arrows,
they were usually made from iron.
21. Expanded from Gilles Deleuze’s Philosophy of Time (pp. 116−17), in which Williams illustrates the
eternal return of difference through the pounding of a hot metal rod.
22. Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, p. 113.
23. G. Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, trans. by H. Tomlinson (London: Continuum, 2006), p. 46.
24. Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, p. 23.
25. Traditionally, the master burner is known as the Hearth Master. The Hearth Master would often employ
an apprentice or labourer known as a Wood Collier.
26. B. Massumi, Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect and Sensation (Durham and London: Duke
University Press, 2002), pp. 71−88.
2 7. J-D. Dewsbury, ‘Performativity and the Event’, p. 484.
28. Massumi, Parables for the Virtual, p. 75.
29. The stack must be monitored closely day and night, both to draw the fire down through the stack by seal-
ing holes in the upper layers and opening new ones further down, and, importantly, to ensure that the fire
does not become as great as to engulf the entire stack and destroy the crop of charcoal.
30. Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, p. 23.
31. Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, p. 96.

Author biography
Lisa Hill completed her DPhil at the University of Oxford in 2012, and is currently based at the University of
Bristol. Her work is located at the interface between cultural geography and contemporary archaeology, using
non-representational theory to re-examine our engagements with the material world − particularly in the
context of post-industrial and post-disaster landscapes.