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Mobility, Spatiality, and Resistance in Literary and Political Discourse 1st Edition Christian Beck (Editor) full chapter instant download
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GEOCRITICISM AND SPATIAL LITERARY STUDIES
Series Editor
Robert T. Tally Jr.
Texas State University
San Marcos, TX, USA
Geocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies is a new book series focusing on
the dynamic relations among space, place, and literature. The spatial turn
in the humanities and social sciences has occasioned an explosion of
innovative, multidisciplinary scholarship in recent years, and geocriticism,
broadly conceived, has been among the more promising developments in
spatially oriented literary studies. Whether focused on literary geography,
cartography, geopoetics, or the spatial humanities more generally,
geocritical approaches enable readers to reflect upon the representation of
space and place, both in imaginary universes and in those zones where
fiction meets reality. Titles in the series include both monographs and col-
lections of essays devoted to literary criticism, theory, and history, often in
association with other arts and sciences. Drawing on diverse critical and
theoretical traditions, books in the Geocriticism and Spatial Literary
Studies series disclose, analyze, and explore the significance of space, place,
and mapping in literature and in the world.
Mobility, Spatiality,
and Resistance in
Literary and Political
Discourse
Editor
Christian Beck
University of Central Florida
Orlando, FL, USA
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Series Editor’s Preface
The spatial turn in the humanities and social sciences has occasioned an
explosion of innovative, multidisciplinary scholarship. Spatially oriented
literary studies, whether operating under the banner of literary geography,
literary cartography, geophilosophy, geopoetics, geocriticism, or the spa-
tial humanities more generally, have helped to reframe or to transform
contemporary criticism by focusing attention, in various ways, on the
dynamic relations among space, place, and literature. Reflecting upon the
representation of space and place, whether in the real world, in imaginary
universes, or in those hybrid zones where fiction meets reality, scholars
and critics working in spatial literary studies are helping to reorient literary
criticism, history, and theory. Geocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies is a
book series presenting new research in this burgeoning field of inquiry.
In exploring such matters as the representation of place in literary
works, the relations between literature and geography, the historical trans-
formation of literary and cartographic practices, and the role of space in
critical theory, among many others, geocriticism and spatial literary studies
have also developed interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary methods and
practices, frequently making productive connections to architecture, art
history, geography, history, philosophy, politics, social theory, and urban
studies, to name but a few. Spatial criticism is not limited to the spaces of
the so-called real world, and it sometimes calls into question any too facile
distinction between real and imaginary places, as it frequently investigates
what Edward Soja has referred to as the “real-and-imagined” places we
experience in literature as in life. Indeed, although a great deal of impor-
tant research has been devoted to the literary representation of certain
v
vi Series Editor’s Preface
When we first began this endeavor in the fall of 2019, there were the typi-
cal political dramas unfolding across the world: climate change was mak-
ing itself more visible, the voices of young people were beginning to be
heard, and everyone was living their daily lives as best they could. Enter
COVID-19. Most of the world goes on lockdown. Confined to our
homes, our worlds seemingly became detached; connected only through
our screens, spaces shrunk, movement ceased, and political engagement
became solitary and digital. There were new personal and professional
pressures that affected everyone. Then armed protests against lockdown
restrictions sprung up around the USA. Then came the murder of George
Floyd Jr. Black Lives Matter protests and marches were organized around
the world amid a pandemic, which is testament to the urgency of the mes-
sage. Then there were more deaths. More protests. A general election in
the USA whose results were disputed by the sitting president. More pro-
tests. January 6 insurrection of the US Capital. Deaths. Arrests. Protests.
Typically, in an Acknowledgments section you would thank everyone
who helped making the project come together. But given the rather
extreme nature of the last year and a half, the people that need to be
thanked are unnamed precisely because I don’t know their names. They
are the partners, spouses, children, parents, friends, and colleagues of all
the contributors of this volume. Everyone that participated in this collec-
tion read, wrote, and edited (on top of their other work responsibilities)
with their families in (very) close proximity. The support afforded by those
around us is what allows a project like this to be completed in a time such
as now. Therefore, it is with a very sincere “Thank You” that I would like
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Part I Mobility 21
ix
x Contents
Part II Spatiality 135
Part IV Conclusion 299
Index313
Notes on Contributors
xiii
xiv NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Fig. 2.1 Austin Reed advertisement from The Sphere [London] (May 4,
1935): 200 44
Fig. 2.2 The Atlas Service from Travel [New York] (January 1910): 195 51
Fig. 12.1 Tomás Saraceno, “Cloud Cities/Air-Port-City” Tonya
Bonakder Gallery, 2012 https://www.artforum.com/print/
reviews/201208/tomas-saraceno-38835 259
Fig. 14.1 Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, To Blossom (2016). Located at PS 92 in
Harlem, NY. (Used with permission of the artist.) 303
xvii
CHAPTER 1
Christian Beck
C. Beck (*)
University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA
e-mail: christian.beck@ucf.edu
always entertained the “what if” questions to a society’s issues, but this
volume looks beyond the fictional and attempts to identify the effects of
space on mobility and resistance in our lived experience. Bill Richardson
writes, “In literature, as in life, we regularly experience a capacity to simul-
taneously live within a place and to be aware that the place we are in forms
part of a more extensive—potentially infinite—spatial context.”1 From
these possibly infinite spatial contexts, literature possesses the possibility of
affecting social change through spatial awareness and analysis. As such,
Michel Foucault’s claim that our time will be “above all the epoch of
space” marks an epistemological transition that ushers in new forms of
literary and cultural analyses of the spatial scaffolding that engenders
hegemonic institutions.2 This project draws from various disciplines—
such as geography, sociology, political science, gender studies, and post-
structuralist thought—to posit the productive capabilities of literature in
examining the politics of movement and spatial transformations and at the
same time shows how literary art offers alternatives to oppressive institu-
tions, practices, and systems of thought. In this way, this book is more
than a collection of essays interpreting pieces of literature, it gestures out-
ward to our space and encourages the creation of new spaces that meet the
needs and desires of people, not institutions determined to control our
movement, actions, ideologies, and thought.
In The Production of Space, the first extended study on socially con-
structed space, Henri Lefebvre identifies three distinct types of space: con-
ceived, lived, and perceived. Conceived space represents space that is
developed by those with the power and ability to produce space for a par-
ticular reason and use (i.e., urban planning). Lived space refers to the ways
in which ordinary people think of space for daily living. Perceived space is
socially constructed space.3 There is significant overlap among these cate-
gories of space, but what is embedded in these definitions is the importance
of social relations. Lefebvre contends that instead of treating space as a
“passive receptacle” we should focus on “uncovering the social relationship
(including class relationships) that are latent in spaces” and “concentrat[e]
1
Bill Richardson, “Mapping the Literary Text: Spatio-Cultural Theory and Practice,”
Philosophy and Literature 42, no. 1 (2018), 77.
2
Michel Foucault, “Of Other Spaces,” trans. Jay Miskowiec, Diacritics 16 (1986): 22.
3
The spaces in this conceptual triad are actually referred to as “Spatial Practice,”
“Representations of Space,” and “Representational Spaces.” I chose to use less confusing
monikers, but the language is taken from Lefebvre’s description. See Henri Lefebvre, The
Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1991), 38–39.
1 INTRODUCTION: MOVEMENT, SPACE, AND POWER IN THE CREATIVE ACT 3
our attention on the production of space and the social relationships inher-
ent to it.”4 As Foucault’s entire catalogue of work suggests, space and
power are intimately linked.5 Thinking Lefebvre vis-à- vis Foucault, we
should attend to the power relations that are manifest in spaces and how
social relationships are constructed through power’s effect on spaces.
Power not only informs space and spatial construction, but mobility as well.
As an area of study, mobility is concerned with large-scale movements
of people, animals, objects, information, and capital, as well as more local-
ized forms of movement, such as public transportation, infrastructure for
bike and pedestrian lanes, and overall accessibility for all people. Mobility
concerns individuals and nation-states, social institutions, and neoliberal
globalization. “Mobility,” Tim Cresswell writes, “is a fact of life. To be
human, indeed, to be animal, is to have some kind of capacity for mobility.
We experience the world as we move through it. Mobility is a capacity of
all but the most severely disabled bodies. Unlike the division between
public and private space, mobility has been with us since day one.”6
However, precisely because mobility is a fact of life, it is a site of control,
power, protection, liberation, opportunity, subversion, and resistance.7
While often seen by privileged persons as effortless, quick, and clean,
mobility is actually, as Mimi Sheller states, “full of friction, viscosity, stop-
pages, and power relations.”8 Mobility, like space, is “a thoroughly social
facet of life imbued with meaning and power.”9 Power, then, not only
connects how we understand spatiality and mobility, but also unites
the various analyses in this volume. Every chapter, directly or indirectly,
engages with the effects of power—particularly biopower—and given the
topics, themes, and social awareness of these essays there is an undercur-
rent of resistance that saturates the volume. And as we know from
Foucault’s famous statement, “Where there is power, there is resistance.”10
4
Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 90.
5
For a discussion of Foucault and spatial analysis, see Robert T. Tally Jr., Spatiality (New
York: Routledge, 2013), 119–128.
6
Tim Cresswell, On the Move: Mobility in the Modern Western World (London: Routledge,
2006), 22.
7
See Cresswell, On the Move, 1–2.
8
Mimi Sheller, Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes (New York:
Verso Books, 2018), 10.
9
Cresswell, On the Move, 4.
10
Michel Foucault, The Will to Knowledge. The History of Sexuality, Volume 1, trans. Robery
Hurely (London: Penguin Books, 1998), 95.
4 C. BECK
Power for Foucault is ubiquitous and diffuse, always moving and chang-
ing as society and social institutions change. Power is very much the shift-
ing sands under our feet that invisibly shape our environments, identities,
and society writ large. Power’s pervasiveness and invisibility not only mark
a problematic for resistance, but also makes resistance itself diffuse and
changing. Nevertheless, power and resistance are linked together, as
Foucault’s comment makes clear. Brent Pickett expands on this
relationship:
Resistance escapes the grasp of power and uses this “freedom” to limit the
domination of power. Power creates the very thing it seeks to control, but
through its systemic institutions, power also creates the very thing that
comes to resist it. Indeed, power and resistance are inextricably linked, so
much so that it leads some critics to see power and resistance as not only
the same thing, but ontologically similar. As Kevin Heller writes, “At the
heart of [Peter] Dews’s interpretation is the unjustified assumption that
power is, for Foucault, ontologically different from resistance. Power and
resistance are no more than two different names Foucault gives to the
same capacity—the capacity to create social change. […] Power and resis-
tance are, for Foucault, ontologically correlative terms.”12 Ostensibly, this
fits directly into Foucault’s articulation of power and resistance: they are
two sides of the same coin and only from a particular perspective can one
side be labeled “power” and the other “resistance.”
In a 1982 interview, however, Foucault makes a rather provocative
claim about the relationship between resistance and power:
Brent L. Pickett, “Foucault and the Politics of Resistance,” Polity 28, no. 4 (1996): 458.
11
Kevin Jon Heller, “Power, Subjectification and Resistance in Foucault,” SubStance 25,
12
Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.