Yale University, School of Architecture

Belonging: Towards a Theory of Identification with Place

Author(s): Neil Leach
Source: Perspecta, Vol. 33, Mining Autonomy (2002), pp. 126-133
Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of Perspecta.
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 126 / LEACH

:!! i NElL LEACH Architecture is often linked to questions otf cultural :

!! identity. For what sense would discourses :such as critical regionalism or gender and space make:

unless they assumed some connection betweeni

:!ili! identity and architectural space?' And yet archite

:ili:!!tural theorists have seldom broached the question
of how people actually identify with their environ-

ment. Instead they have been preoccupied almost

'('?::::::exclusively with questions of form,, as though cul-

:!iiiili'tural identity is somehow constituted by form
ii~i~i:: alone. It is clear, however, that if theorists are to

extend their analyses beyond any mere discourse

of form to engage with subjective processes of

!:i~i!Iidentification. This has long been acknowleged by

:!:::::cultural theorists, who have developed a sophisti-:
:cated understanding of the mechanisms by which

i i;::culture operates. For them culture is constituted:

:i:!i!:i'::not
i~iii- !course that imbues these objects with meaning,
by a syst

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 MINING AUTONOMY / 127

1+

::

.. 9J6- rllllE ~L~s~_ I 3~11~E~~e ?.;-"Vrl

j
-??-rrr*r " ~i~rrt~~r ~L~r.?

field
Cultural identity, therefore, emerges as of meanings and symbols associated with
a complex, This brings us close to Pierre Bourdieu's
national life."2
rhizomatic field of operations that engages with concept of habitus, as a non-conscious system of
- but is not defined by - cultural artifacts such it would be wrong to reduce thedispositions that derive from the subject's eco-
Of course,
as architecture. nation to mere narration, as though form were totallynomic, cultural, and symbolic capital. Habitus, for

It is perhaps by following the notion of the unimportant. Rather we have to recognise the nationBourdieu is a dynamic field of behavior, of posi-
nation as "narration" - of identity as a kind ofas being defined within a dialectical tension. It istion-taking, when individuals inherit the parame-
discourse - put forward by cultural theorist Homia tension, for Bhabha, between the object and its ters of a given situation and modify them into a
accompanying narrative: "signifying the people asnew situation. As Derek Robbins explains: "The
Bhabha that we can grasp the importance of under-
standing form as being inscribed within a culturalan a priori historical presence, a pedagogical object;habitus of every individual inscribes the inherited
discourse. The nation, for Bhabha, is enacted as a and the people constructed in the performance ofparameters of modification, of adjustment from
"cultural elaboration." To perceive the nation in thisnarrative, its enunciatory present marked in thesituation to position which provides the legacy of
way in narrative terms is to highlight the discur-repetition and pulsation of the national sign."3 If,a new situation." This approach supposes an inter-
sive and contested nature of identities: "To study then, the nation is a kind of narration, it is never anaction between social behavior and a given objec-
the nation through its narrative address does not abstract narration, but a contextualized narration tified condition. It is here that we may locate the
inscribed around certain objects. And it is within position of architecture in Bourdieu's discourse.
merely draw attention to its language and rheto-
ric; it also attempts to alter the conceptual object this field of objects that have become the focus of Architecture, in Bourdieu's terms, can be

itself. If the problematic 'closure' of textualitynarrative attention that we must locate architecture,understood as a type of "objectivated cultural cap-
questions the 'totalization' of national culture,as a language of forms not only embedded within ital." Its value lies dormant and in permanent
various cultural discourses, but also given meaningpotential. It has to be reactivated by social prac-
then its positive value lies in displaying the wide
dissemination through which we construct theby those discourses. tices that will, as it were, revive it. In this respect,

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128 / LEACH

JJ

.POP

}~~ ip ....... t

rr

.0 -K Fk ~
f i ...' ?...,

IF OF 40i

Shimon Attie, Linienstrass

raid on former Jewish resid

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 MINING AUTONOMY I 129

architecture belongs to the same category as other

tiona that orient it, Aituate it, temporalize it, and
cultural objects: make itfunction in a polyvalent unity of conflic-
tual programs or contractual proximities. In this
Although objects - .Auch as books or pictureA - can
view, in relation to place, Apace is like the word
be said to be the repoAitorieA of objectivated cul-
when it is A.poken, that is, when it is caught in a
tural capital, they have no value unleAss they are
proximity of an actualization, tranAformed into a
activated Atrategically in the preAent by those.eek-
term dependent upon many different conventionA,
ing to modify their incorporated cultural capital.
Aituated aA an act of a preAent (or of a time), and
All those objects on which cultural value has ever
modified by the transformations caufed byAucces-
been bestowed lie perpetually dormant waiting to
Aive contexts .. .Apace is a practiced place. Thus
be revived, waitingfor their old value to be used to
theAtreet geometrically defined by urban planning
eAtablish new value in a new marketAituation.5
is tranAformed into a Apace by walkers.'
In other words, what Bourdieu highlights is the
The problem of space is, for de Certeau,
need for praxis to unlock the meaning of an object.
ultimately a problem of representation. With
This comes close to the Wittgensteinian model
Maurice Merleau-Ponty he draws the distinction
wherein linguistic meaning is defined by use. Just
between geometrical space and anthropological
as words can be understood by the manner in
space, famously observing the impossibility of
which they are used, so buildings can be grasped
grasping the concept of space as a map, with his
by the manner in which they are perceived - by the
description of New York as seen from the top of
narratives of use in which they are inscribed.
the World Trade Center. De Certeau is close to
This opens up a crucial problem within an
Fredric Jameson's concern for cognitive mapping
architectural discourse that has traditionally been
in his quest for various tactics that overcome
premised almost solely on questions of form. It
this problem.8 Hence he formulates a "rhetoric
is as though narratives of use stand largely out-
of space" that amounts to an individualized pro-
side architectural concerns. As a result, there is
cess of spatial demarcation, based on a linguistic
no accepted framework for examining how people
model of narrativity. "The opacity of the body," de
make sense of place and identify with it. Without
Certeau notes, "in movement, gesticulating, walk-
this, the relation of architecture to cultural iden-
ing, taking its pleasure, is what indefinitely orga-
tity can hardly be addressed. In order for archi-
nizes a here in relation to an abroad, a 'familiar-
tecture to be understood in terms of cultural
ity' in relation to a 'foreignness'. A spatial story is
identity, some kind of identification with archi-
in its minimal degree a spoken language, that is,
tecture must have taken place. But how does this
a linguistic system that distributes places insofar
identification occur?
as it is articulated by an'enunciatory focalization',
This article attempts to address this ques-
by an act of practicing it."' The city turns into a
tion by sketching out a schematic framework for
theatre of actions, narratives of space, pedestrian
; ' ''

a tentative theory of identification with place

i~i~n
speech-acts: "It is a process of appropriation of
by bringing together three discrete theoretical
the topological system on the part of the pedes-
I?'k? r,, models. Starting with a theory of how we terri-
'il?

'?" trian (just as the speaker appropriates and takes

torialize and make sense of place through a pro-
on the language); it is a spatial acting out of a
cess of narrativization, it goes on to investigate
~?' ' ? ,: place (just as the speech-act is an acoustic acting
~1
how a sense of belonging to that place is achieved
out of language)." 10 It is about tours and not maps.
through performativities, before finally suggest-
P :??~ ?..
If any map is achieved, it is not some abstract
ing how eventual identification with a particular
;^'??

map, but an individualized "cognitive map" to use

.?; . place is forged through a series of mirrorings.
Jameson's term. In other words it is born of a strate-
'- ?

a '?;''
NARR AT IVIS AT IONS
gic engagement with the city, and does not reside
,??iiT?? -r:
in the city itself as a collection of buildings.
In The Practice of Everyday Life, Michel de Cer-
"'' "; '''

"""~"''''

"To walk," notes de Certeau, "is to lack a place.

?~??c

teau has developed a theory of territorialization

It is the indefinite process of being absent and in
through spatial tactics. Through habitual pro-
search of a proper."" As Ian Buchanon observes,
cesses of movement, by covering and recovering
this suggests the reliance of de Certeau on Lacan.2
the same paths and routes, we come to familiarize
For it is the traumatic mirror-stage - and the
ourselves with a territory, and thereby find mean-
seemingly paradoxical attempt to overcome that

ing in De
that territory. alienation through repetition, as demonstrated in
Certeau draws the distinction between
Freud's example of the child playing the fort-da
"place" (lieu) and "space" (espace). Somewhat con-
game - that establishes Lacan's primordial place
fusingly, he inverts their usual relationship so
in de Certeau's work. Space must be theorized by
that space becomes a contextualization of place.
means of the mirror-stage, and spatial practices
are none other than repetitive gestures aimed
at overcoming the alienation of all conceptual,
abstract space. As de Certeau comments: "In the ini-
Space occurs as the effect produced by the opera-

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130 / LEACH

the present, it conceals and dissimulates to

tiatory game, just as in the 'joyful activity' of the the con-
place can therefore be understood as an aspect
child who, standing before a mirror, sees itselfventions
as of which it is a repetition."17 of territorialization, and out of that belonging
one (it is she or he, seen as a whole) but another This has obvious ramifications for a theory
a sense of identity might be forged. The attrac-
of identification with architecture. Butler's inci-
(that, an image with which the child identifies tion of Fortier's application of performativity to
itself), what counts is the process of this 'spatial
sive comments on gender identity being definedplace is that it resists more static notions of dwell-
captation' that inscribes the passage toward the
not in biological terms, but in performative termsing emanating from Heideggerian discourse that
Toan identity that is "acted out" can be profitably seem so ill at ease with a society of movement
other as the law of being and the law of place. as
transposed to the realm of identification with and travel. What Fortier proposes is not some dis-
practice space is thus to repeat the joyful and silent
place. This makes possibile, of a discourse of course of fixed 'roots', but rather a more transi-
experience of childhood; it is, in a place, to be other
and to move toward the other."13 What de Certeau
performativity and 'belonging' as Vikki Bell has tory and fluid discourse of territorializationin the
articulates, then, is a model for how we make sense
shown.'8 "The repetition," she notes, "sometimesDeleuzian sense, which provides a complex and
of space through walking practices, and repeat
ritualistic repetition, of these normalized codesever renegotiable model of spatial "belongings."
makes material the belongings they purport to Fortier's model is essentially a rhizomic one of
those practices as a way of overcoming alienation.
simply describe."1' It suggests a way in whichnomadic territorializations and deterritorializa-
By basing his model of spatial appropriation
on linguistics, de Certeau emphasizes the narra-
communities might colonize various territories tions. For territorialization belongs to the same
through the literal performances-the actions,logic as deterritorialization. The very provisional-
tive aspect to spatial stories. Spatial tactics offer
ritualistic behavior and so on - that are acted
ways of making connections, and finding mean- ity of territorializations colludes with the ephem-
ing in otherwise abstract places. But de Certeau
out within a given architectural stage, and through
erality of any sense of belonging. Just as territo-
says little about the actual identification with
those performances achieve a certain attachment
rializations are always shifting, identifications
those spaces, being more concerned as a theorist
to place. remain fleeting and transitory, while leaving
with otherness than with assimilation.14 If, then, Central to this latter notion is the idea that behind traces of their passage. As Bell comments:
just as communities are imagined communities,
we wish to extend de Certeau's theory for making "The rhizome has been an important analogy here,
sense of place into one which establishes a mode
so the spaces of communities - the territories that
conveying as it does an image of movement that
of identification, we must also consider how these
they have claimed as their own - are also imag-
can come to temporary rest in new places while
spatial tactics help to forge a sense of identity. ined. "Imagining a community," as Anne-Marie
maintaining ongoing connections elsewhere."23
Fortier observes, "is both that which is created Butler's discourse extends Pierre Bourdieu's

BELONGING as a common history, experience or culture of debate

a about habitus. She adds the possibility of
group
Here we should turn to the work of Judith - a group's belongings - and about how
Butler, political agency, and of subverting received norms.
who has elaborated a vision of identitythe
that is
imagined community is attached to places Through
- its repetitive citational nature, that per-
based on the notion of "performativity."the location of culture."" Fortier has examined
Butler formativity has the power to question and subvert
is a theorist of lesbian politics, and her concerns
how through ritualized repetition of symbolic that which it cites. For mimicry, as Homi Bhabha
are to formulate a notion of identity that is often
acts, not conducted within an overtly religious has illustrated, is invested with the potential to
constrained by traditional heterosexual models
context, these imagined communities can "make destabilize and undermine, as in the case of polit-
and to offer a radical critique of essentializing
material the belongings they purport to describe."21 ical satire. Performativity, in this sense, is not
modes of thinking. According to Butler, our Crucially
actions these acts are performed within specific some uncritical and ultimately nihilistic accep-
architectural
and behavior constitute our identity, and not our spaces. tance of the given, but rather a mode of operation
biological bodies. Gender, she argues, is not an then happens through these stylized
What charged with a certain political efficacy. Moreover,
ontological condition, but it is performatively
spatial practices is that spaces are demarcated whereas Bourdieu stresses the production of the
produced. It is "a construction that conceals its groups by a kind of spatial appropria-
by certain subject through culture, for Butler, social struc-
genesis, the tacit collective agreement to perform,
tion. Through the repetition of those rituals, these tures have themselves been performed. Hence per-
produce and sustain discrete and polar genders
spaces are re-membered, with participants rein- formativity offers an obvious mode of challenging
as culturalfictions is obscured by the credibility
scribing themselves into the space, evoking corpo- those structures. In an age colonized by "fictional
of those productions."15 By extension - without
real memories of previous enactments. The rituals worlds" (as Marc Aug6 has described our present
wishing to collapse sexuality, class, race and eth-
are naturalized through these corporeal memory era), Butler locates performativity at the heart of
acts,
nicity into the same category - all forms of and the spaces in which they are enacted
iden- our cultural identity today.24
tity can be interpreted as dependent upon become spaces of belonging:
perfor- Yet if we are to understand belonging as a
mative constructs.16' product of performativity, we must still construct
Belongingq refer to both 'po&ae&AionA' and app-
We may rearticulate our identities and rein- an argument to explain exactly how this comes into
artenance. That i., practices of group identity
vent ourselves through our performativities. Here operation. The argument above merely assumes
are about manufacturing cultural and hidtorical
it is important to note that identity is the effect that a sense of belonging will emerge as a conse-
belongingq which mark out terrains of commonal-
of performance, and not vice versa. Performativ- quence of progressive territorialization, without
ity that delineate the politicA and ocial dynamicA
ity achieves its aims not through a singular perfor- fully accounting for this process of identification.
of fitting in.'22
mance - for performativity can never be reduced
to performance - but through the accumulative
The concept of 'belonging' as a product of
iteration of certain practices. For performativity
performativity enables us to go beyond the limita-
is grounded in a form of citationality - tions
of invo-
of simple narrative. It privileges the idea not
cation and replication. As Judith Butler explains:
of reading the environment, as though its meaning
'Performativity is thus not a singular 'act', were simply
for it is there and waiting to be deciphered,
Opposite
always a reiteration of a norm or set of norms, and of giving meaning to the environment
but rather
Michelangelo Merisi Caravaggio (1573-1610),
to the extent that it acquires an act-like status in
by collective or individual behaviour. Belonging Narcissus, Galleria Nazionale de Arte Antica, Rome.

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raml n her or. ccodig n o heexeral ordsothLLeq va asec o te'roeS
to Pryidetifcatin i alays lenc - he ne eflet ovesa to-fod mchaisn
spec a qustion ofrecognizig - ?tio may takeplace. no an obj
or m th sef intheothr. here Thesene ofi jctand
has b sio of thiswithin achitec- f the exernal wol nviron
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tht cnea ha '5.
cntiut f..
te bsur, hoosns b Rbet
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ment beng~bth rofetiv paricuarly?meoiaite vent-seves s a of ms-rcognze ourelvs i
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132 / LEACH

ality, authenticity, and all kinds of content while

are CONCLUSION
the projection of the self onto the external
world leads to a second type of reflection
merely projections. Buildings, according to Fred- - the
Identity, Freud once remarked, is like a gr
recognition of the self in the other. In of
ric Jameson, do not have any inherent meaning. lost case,
either loves and former identifications
these
a type of mirroring results leading to
They are essentially inert, and are merely invested a identifications,
fusing we could include architec-

with meaning.33 between self and other. Here we can recognize a

tural ones. Through a complex process of making
sense of occur
second order of mirrorings, for mirrorings
Walter Benjamin, however, adds a crucial gloss place, developing a feeling of belonging,
and eventually
to these processes of introjection and projection: not only in the engagement between the self andidentifying with that place, an iden-
the environment, but also between that engage-
tity may be forged against an architectural back-
Building9 are appropriated in a twofold manner:
drop. As individuals
ment and memories of previous engagements. An identify with an environment,
by use and by perception - or rather, by touch and
originary experience is repeated in so
all similar
their identity comes to be constituted through
Aight. Such appropriation cannot be underAtood in
that environment.
experiences. And that process of repetition rein- This relates not only to individ-
termA of the attentive concentration of a touridt
ual identity, but
forces of the original moment of identification. In also to group identities.
before afamouA building. On the tactile side there
Architecture
this sense habit - as a ritualistic replication of therefore offers a potential
iz no counterpart to contemplation on the optical
certain experiences - consolidates themechanism process for of inscribing the self into the envi-
Aide. Tactile appropriation iA accompliAhed not o
identification. ronment. It may facilitate a form of identification,
much by attention a" by habit. AA regardA archi-
The seemingly static model of identification and help engender a sense of belonging. From
tecture, habit determineA to a large extent even
forged through a reflection - as though in a mirror this point of view, architecture plays a potentially
optical reception. The latter, too, occurs much le.A
- appears at first sight to contrast markedly withimportant social role. The significant factor, how-
through rapt attention than by noticing the object
the more dynamic notion of identity based on per- ever - beyond the nature of our architectural
in incidental fazhion. ThiA mode of appropriation,
formativity. And yet, if we perceive the former environment - is our engagement with that envi-
developed with reference to architecture, in cer-
as being grounded in intentionality, we shouldronment. Identification is a product of the con-
tain circumstanceA acquireA canonical value. The
recognize the active dimension to the gaze itself. sciousness by which we relate to our surround-
taAkA which face the human apparatuA of percep-
For performativity is not merely a question ofings, and not a property of the surroundings
tion at the turning points of hidtory cannot be
physical performance. It extends also to modes ofthemselves. Nor does matter - in Butler's terms
.olved by optical meanA, that is, by contempla-
perception, such as the gaze. Butler has already- exist outside of discourse. As Mariam Fraser
tion, alone. They are ma.tered gradually by habit,
addressed how the gaze should be seen as the siteobserves, following Butler: "Matter does not 'e
under the guidance of tactile appropriation.34
of performativity in the context of race: in and of itself, outside or beyond discourse,
In Benjamin's terms, buildings are appropri- is rather repeatedly produced through perfor
I do think that there iL a performativity to the gaze
ated. They are introjected - absorbed within the tivity, which "brings into being or enacts
that iL not Aimply the tranAposition of a textual
psyche not just through vision, but also through which it names."38 This approach brings us
model onto a vizual one; that when we Aee Rodney
touch. We may extend this to include the full regis- to Bhabha's and Bourdieu's observations on the
King, when we dee that video we are alAo reading
ter of senses. Moreover, for Benjamin, these appro- ways in which culture operates. It allows us t
and we are alAo conAtituting, and that the reading
priations are reinforced by habit. Here memory understand architecture as a system of objec
iA a certain conjuring and a certain conAtruction.
plays a crucial role. Over a period of time, the sen- situated within a cultural discourse, deriving
How do we deAcribe that? It deemA to me that that
meaning from that discourse.
?0 r ca qCd4 t "f "t r LA a moda lity of performativity, that it iLA radical-
. ory impulses leave irMeso
ar, ~ r Wt06t,
s ttVr ization, that the kind of visual reading practice
All this helps us to reassess the relationship
between architecture and cultural identity. The me
t hat goeA into the viewing of the video iLA part of
sage is clear: we should focus not only on archit
what I would underAtand a" the performativity of
tural forms themselves - for we would be wron
what it iLA 'to race Aomething' or to be 'raced' by it.
tute our background horizon of experience. In this to dismiss these forms as irrelevant - but also on
So IAuppoAe that I'm interested in the modalitieA
sense, identification is as an ontological condition the narrative and performative discourses that gi
of performativity that take it out of it. purely
consolidated through memory. We could there- them their meaning.39 With time the specific fe
textualiAt context.37
fore reflect upon the model of the oneiric house tures of architectural forms tend to lose their prom

be extended to the gaze as the poten- nence, and slip into becoming part of an unnotic
This canof
offered up by Gaston Bachelard in The PoeticA
tial site
Space.35 It is precisely the odor of drying of an identification
raisins - with place, since any and marginal background landscape. If identity
parallelling Lefebvre's equally evocative viewing may be charged with a conscious a performative construct - if it is acted out li
descrip-
act of
politicized reading. Visual attachments some kind of film script - then architecture c
moment ofthe
tion of the sound of singing echoing through
cloisters - that points to the Proustian way
might in
therefore be read as containing an active, be understood as a kind of film set. But it is as
performative
which the oneiric house is a type of introjection ofmoment. What applies to the gaze a film set that it derives meaning from the activ
previous experiences.36 may equally apply to the other senses. What we ties that have taken place there. Memories of asso
Identification with a particular place mayis that identification based on a pro- ated activities haunt architecture like a ghost.
find, then,
cess of mirroring
therefore be perceived as a mirroring between the is but a variation on the active
identification
subject and the environment over time. Here wewith place embodied in ritualistic
might understand the subject, in Metz's terms,
patterns of behavior. Through the repetitive per-
formativities
can be both screen and projector, for in momentsof these various modes of percep-
tion, a mirroring
of identification we see ourselves in objects with can be enacted and a sense of
which we have become familiar. At the identification
same time, with place can be developed and

we have introjected them into ourselves. That reg-

reinforced through habit.
istering of impulses leads to one type of reflection
- the recognition of the other in the self. Mean-

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 MINING AUTONOMY / 133

NOTES

1 The implication that critical regionalism may contribute in some way to cultural identity
22 Ibid., p.42.
is made, at least, in one of the chapter titles, "Critical Regionalism: Modern Architecture
23 Ibid., p.9.
and Cultural Identity," used by Kenneth Frampton in his seminal study, Modern Architec-
24 Marc
ture: A Critical Study (London: Thames and Hudson, 1992). But it appears that Aug6, A War of Dreams, trans. Liz Heron (London: Pluto, 1999).
Frampton
himself has explored this connection just once, briefly: "Among the preconditions for the
25 For Butler's engagement with psychoanalysis, see especially Butler, The Psychic Life of
emergence of a critical regional expression is not only sufficient prosperity but also a
Power: Theories of Subjection (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997).
strong desire for realising an identity. One of the mainsprings of regionalist culture is an
anticentrist sentiment - an aspiration for some kind of cultural, economic26andChristian Metz, Psychoanalysis and the Cinema, trans. Celia Britton, Annwyl Williams, Ben
political
Brewster
independence." Frampton, "Prospects for a Critical Regionalism," Perspecta 20, 1983. and Alfred Guzzetti (London: Macmillan, 1982), p.48

27 Ibid.,
2 Homi Bhabha, "Introduction" in Bhabha ed., Nation and Narration (London: p.51.
Routledge,
1990), p.3. 28 Ibid., p.52.

3 Homi Bhabha, "DissemiNation," ibid., p.298-299. 29 Ibid., p.54.

4 Derek Robbins, Bourdieu and Culture (London: Sage, 2000), p.30. 30 Walter Benjamin, One-Way Street (London: Verso, 1979), p.342-3.

5 Ibid., p.35. 31 Robert Vischer, Empathy, Form and Space, p.104.

6 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Stephen Rendell (Berkeley: Univer- 32 If we are to look for a model of the way in which content might be understood as a kind
sity of California Press, 1984). of 'projection' we could consider the work of the Polish-Canadian public artist, Krzysztof

7 Ibid., p.117. Wodiczko, who literally projects politically loaded images onto buildings as a commentary
on the politics of use of that building. In 1985, Wodiczko projected the image of a swastika
8 Jameson analyzes the homogenizing placelessness of late capitalism through the confus-
onto the pediment of South Africa House in Trafalgar Square, London. This act was
ing spatial layout of the vast atrium of the Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles. He goes on
intended as a political protest against the trade negotiations then underway between the
to study the process of what he terms cognitive mapping as a means of inscribing oneself
apartheid government of South Africa and the British government under prime minister,
in the environment, and overcoming this placelessness. In his view, capitalist society
Margaret Thatcher. The projection of the swastika onto the building highlights the condi-
co-opts everything into signs, images and commodities, so that the world threatens to
tion of buildings which have been blemished with the stain of evil. His projection of
become depthless. But aesthetics also promises a way out of this condition. While it
content-laden images on monuments and buildings echoes the process by which human
contributes to the aestheticization of the world, it promises to counter that tendency by
beings project their own readings onto them. On the work of Krzysztof Wodiczko, see
offering a mechanism of identification. Jameson's arguments suggest that we need today
'Public Projections' and 'A Conversation with Krzysztof Wodiczko', October, 38, p.3-52.
a viable aesthetic practice that reinserts the individual within society. Aesthetics may
serve as a form of cognitive mapping. We therefore might recognize the primary social 33 "1 have come to think that no work of art or culture can set out to be political once and

role that architecture may play. for all, no matter how ostentatiously it labels itself as such, for there can never be any
guarantee that it will be used the way it demands. A great political art (Brecht) can
9 De Certeau, op cit., p.130.
be taken as a pure and apolitical art; art that seems to want to be merely aesthetic
10 Ibid., p.97-8. and decorative can be rewritten as political with energetic interpretation. The political
rewriting or appropriation, then, the political use, must be allegorical; you have to know
11 Ibid., p.103. "Proper" here appears to be referring not to "propriety" but to a sense
that this is what it is supposed to be or mean - in itself it is inert." Jameson in Neil Leach
of "appropriation"
ed., Rethinking Architecture, p.258-59.
12 lan Buchanon, Michel de Certeau (London: Sage, 2000), p.108-120.
34 Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn (New York:
13 De Certeau, op cit., p.109-110. "Captation" might equally be translated "appropriation." Schocken Books, 1969), p.233

14 See, for example, his book on otherness: Michel de Certeau, Heterologies: Discourse on the 35 The notion of oneiric space is also central to de Certeau's concept of space. As he
Other, trans. Brian Massumi, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986). observes: "From this point of view, after having compared pedestrian processes to linguis-

15 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (London: Routledge, 1990), p.140, as quoted in Vikki Bell ed., tic formations, we can bring them back down in the direction of oneiric figuration, or at

Performativity and Belonging (London: Sage, 1999), p.3. least discover on that other side what, in spatial practice, is inseparable from the dreamed
place." de Certeau, p.103.
16 Bell discusses the possibility of understanding Jewishness in this light in Vikki Bell ed.,
Performativity and Belonging. See also Sneja Gunew, "Performing Australian Ethnicity: 36 Gaston Bachelard The Poetics of Space, trans. Maria Jolas (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994),

'Helen Demidenko,"' in W. Ommundsen and H. Rowley eds., From a Distance: Australian p.13; Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford:

Writers and Cultural Displacement (Geelong: Deakin University Press, 1996), p.159-171. Blackwell Publishers, Ltd., 1991), p.225.

17 Judith Butler, Bodies that Matter (London: Routledge, 1993), p.12. 37 Judith Butler (interviewed by Vikki Bell), "On Speech, Race and Melancholia," in Bell ed.,
Performativity and Belonging (London: Sage, 1999), p.169.
18 Vikki Bell ed., Performativity and Belonging.
38 Mariam Fraser, "Classing Queer," ibid., p.111.
19 Ibid., p.3.
39 Thus regionalism, for example, should be more properly understood in narrative terms as
20 Anne-Marie Fortier, "Re-membering Places and the Performance of Belonging(s)," in Vikki
a discourse of regionalism.
Bell ed., Performativity and Belonging (London: Sage, 1999), p.42.

21 Ibid., p.3.

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