Nikki Kane
This essay will examine notions of place and their relation to imagination, in connection with the idea of ’inalienable objects’ in material culture—that is objects that are imbued with value and identity from their owners or uses which goes beyond material or commodity value. By analysing place through the lenses of imagination and object, I will consider how place operates in connection with myth and aura, and examine whether places can be considered as objects when they become sites for the projection of imagined identity. This analysis will draw on the work of Tuan (1979) as a starting point to define place and articulate its location in imagination, and will then go on to examine this in connection with wider considerations of place within the imagination in relation to Weiner (1992) and the idea of the ‘inalienable object’. Tuan (1979: 6) outlines many aspects of these concepts, beginning with a distinction between the two terms that will be followed in this essay. Space can be considered abstract and open, something of potential and allowing movement, where place has some sort of value. The two are noted as being connected in that space can become place through experience and familiarity, and that to create these definitions we need both—understanding the stability and value of place through the openness of space and vice versa.
This connection that place has with value and experience could explain the relationship it shares with the imagination, but this relationship is one that depends on both concepts of space and place: the connection with imagination relies on place value yet also requires some vagueness or potential. In Imagined Communities, Anderson notes this balance of familiarity and unknown when he describes how imagined places came to operate between the year 1500 and 1800.This included the developments in cartography, shipbuilding, printing and navigation and making this imagining a possibility, and that by creating this knowledge of other lands or communities but without too much detail, imaginings of these places were able to develop (Anderson, 2006: 188). Similarly, this balance of familiarity and unfamiliarity as creating potential for imagination is commented on in descriptions of California and the dream of the American West, seeing this only being possible from a distance, and with a “haze” being required to blur the perspective and in turn the reality of the making of this landscape and dream (Mitchell, 2003: 13-14). In a similar way, Gibellini has described place as “an event”: rather than something static that exists outwith our presence, it can be considered something in movement that is in progress and something that we come across and are involved in (Gibellini, 2011).
From these accounts then, we can begin to develop an understanding of the connection place has with imagination and note the role that space plays in this. If we examine this alongside Tuan’s definitions of the two concepts, we could then continue to locate imagination, describing it as operating somewhere between space and place, at a point between familiarity and potential. Following from this ‘locating’ of imagination, we can now begin to examine this relationship with place more closely, and consider how this connection operates. We can consider the role of myth in this relationship and begin to look at places as myths, and myth within place. The success of myths involves a limited knowledge, and while we have a high level of geographic information available to us, this is held collectively, and the knowledge that we hold as individuals is limited by our experiences, allowing myth of place to develop within our own realms (Tuan, 1979: 85). This construction of mythical place operates on psychological and intellectual levels, and is a fundamental aspect of human imagination. It allows us to add “personality” to locations and aid our navigation and understanding of place, and allow parts or aspects to symbolise a whole set of ideas or values (Tuan, 1979: 99-100).
In his analysis of the “Blue Guide”, Barthes also ties his study of myth to the idea of place. Here we begin to see the role of myth as a reducing one, one that takes this function of symbolising values to a limiting effect. This account describes how a series of travel guides has used the tools of myth to reduce complex and layered landscapes to simple, picturesque qualities and features. This suggests a fine line between the use of myth as a tool or repository for us to explore and articulate our values, and as a function to simply limit or dilute these values or experiences to a number of icons or signs. Here, he touches on the idea of place in constant movement, as something not-fixed that we have seen with Gibellini, but describes this in connection with this limiting mythology as creating disappearance rather than something in flux (Barthes, 1993: 74-77).
As we have seen in Mitchell’s notes on California, the American landscape provides a suitable setting for considering this role of imagination. In The American Geographies, we can see this explored in a way that connects with Barthes’s description of myth of place and consider the idea of the American geography as “homogenized” (Lopez, 1989: 52). The presences of this landscape in the media, seen on television and in photographs, has developed this understanding of it as scenery, where it’s intrinsic depth, variety and “wildness” have reduced to images that symbolise nature or adventure, much like the “Blue Guides” of Barthes (Lopez, 1989: 52). Of course though, with a landscape so layered, as with any place really, we cannot know if fully and myth and imagination are ways of making sense of these complex environments. While we inhabit these places or travel to and in them, we do in many ways also live in the idea of them (Lopez, 1989: 61).
Many of these ideas connect with much study of the imaginary. This can be examined through the work of many thinkers and writers, many of whom have discussed the imaginary in relation to ideas of the ‘real’ and of our perception of the world. Whilst this draws on much thinking and philosophy on periphery areas, summary research on the ideas of the imaginary and place has developed this notion that as we experience and navigate the world through our perceptions, in many ways we inhabit and interact with a world that is ‘imaginary’, distinct from a static or neutral world that exists that we in turn attach our significance to (Lennon, 2003: 5-6). Gibellini also begins to describe the process that we take in our attachment to place and its connection to our imaginations and selves, noting the “internally conceived world” and our attempts to “appropriate” place to relate it to our own experiences and ideas (Gibellini, 2011), and we can also begin to think of how place operates as part of a personal cosmology (Tuan, 1979: 88).
To develop this analysis, we can consider the idea of these personal cosmologies or worldviews in connection with objects, as these too are ways in which we use parts to signify values and make use of myth. These ideas can be discussed in relation to material culture and material anthropology, and in particular by examining the concept of “inalienable objects”. These inalienable objects are objects that have a value beyond their commodity value, which is acquired when they become ‘authenticated’ through their cosmological association. This authentication involves instilling these objects with the identity of their owner, often through personal experiences or associations with held ideals or interests. These objects act as repositories for these personal values, and the experiential attachment to them also allows them to be used to mythologise these ideas (Weiner, 1992: 6, 11; Miller, 2011: 90).
These ideas can be connected to our previous understandings of myth, and also to Benjamin’s notion of “aura” in connection the changing values that can be attached to an object over times and settings, as in his description of the changing, loaded values attached to classical sculpture throughout history (Benjamin, 1994: 300). Aura is also related to the ideas of distance we have considered, and is also discussed in relation to natural phenomena. Here, we can connect this to the noted descriptions of the California landscape, in Benjamin’s definition of the aura as a distance, regardless of actual proximity (Benjamin, 1994: 300). This links with our idea of place in the imagination and the necessary and constant vagueness of place that fosters this.
This notion of aura then can be tied to our ideas of inalienable objects and in turn place. This changing attachment of value can be seen in inalienable objects can be seen in their very definition as objects whose significance is based outwith their use or commodity value, and the distance associated with aura is present here in the separation from use. If we develop this to connect with the ideas of place and imagination that we have begun to explore, we can see that these too involve this sense of detachment, and that they make important use of this changing value to operate within our personal cosmologies and at times to become mythologised images that signify simplifies values.
This then leaves us to consider the connection between place and the imaginary, and this concept of inalienable objects. We have seen then how objects can both hold values of personal experience and ideals, and help articulate and express these values. We have also noted how the idea of distance operates within this, where the attached significance is developed through personal authentication and is separate to the original value of the object as a commodity. In many ways this is very similar to the role that place plays within the imagination. We have seen that place too is closely connected to personal cosmologies and our development and articulation of these, and that this is in many ways connected to wider thinking about perception and reality. The notion of distance is also of particular note here, in that it is intrinsically connected to how place operates within imagination: it can involve both a separation from the complexity of landscape, and involves the limited knowledge that is required for this imagining to flourish. While there are many clear connections between these ideas and those of the inalienable objects, we could say that the analysis of these objects operates as an illustration rather than a comparison that fully explores these ideas within place.
It can be seen that in many ways places do operate as a form of inalienable objects within our imaginations, in their connections with value that we have examined. However, we could suggest that the role of place within imagination and of mythical place is more layered and complex than the illustration of inalienable objects allows. As well as holding personal values, place, and particularly in connection with myth, connects to collective value too. It operates on this personal level, yet also has the potential hold and project collective myth. As we have noted in our consideration of definitions of space and place alongside imagination, the balance between familiarity and vagueness or potential is key, and we could say that it is precisely this combination that allows place to occupy such a layered position within our experiences of the world.
By examining the concepts of space and place through definitions and in connection with the imagination, we have seen then that this relationship is a particularly full one. We have noted that, based on our definitions of ‘space’ and ‘place’ the imagination appears to occupy a location somewhere between then two, making use of the familiarity and knowledge of place and the potential and openness of space. In this relationship with imagination, we have also seen that the ideas of myth and aura are helpful in understanding how place and imagination operate both within our personal and collective associations. Perhaps most helpfully, we have also seen how place and the imaginary are key to developing and expressing our personal cosmologies and experiences of the world, and have illustrated this through the ideas of inalienable objects. Through these examinations and illustrations then we can suggest that to a certain extent place acts as an inalienable object within the imagination in connection with personal worldview, but that the location of the imagination between space and place leads to a much more complex and layered relationship of the imaginary place.
Bibliography
Anderson, Benedict (2006) Imagined Communities Verso, London.
Barthes, Roland (1993) Mythologies Vintage, London.
Benjamin, Walter (1994) “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” in Art in modern culture: an anthology of critical texts (eds. Frascina, Francis and Harris, Jonathan) Phaidon, London.
Gibellini, Laura F. (2011) A Place, Constructed, http://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/12162/12163
Lennon, Kathleen (2003) Imaginary Bodies and Worlds, University of Hull, Hull.
Lopez, Barry (1989) “The American Geographies” in Orion magazine, Autumn 1989, pp. 52-61.
Miller, Daniel (2011) “Designing Ourselves” in Design Anthropology (ed. Clark, A.J.), Springer-Verlag, Wien.
Mitchell, Don (2003) The Lie of the Land: Migrant workers and the California Landscape University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
Tuan, Yi-Fu (1979) Space and Place: the perspective of experience University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
Weiner, Annette B. (1992) Inalienable Possessions: the paradox of keeping-while-giving, University of California Press, Berkeley.
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