Focus on ‘the Body’

Thrift, N (2004) ‘Performance & Performativity’ in Duncan J Companion to Cult Geog. Blackwell

Non representational theory – shift from geographies of representation – encourages new approaches
•	Directly ‘follows’ human & non-human actors/actants
•	Focus on how human geographies are acted out through embodied experiences
o	E.g. how contrasting encounters with ice/snow or desert are played out
o	People who live in the snow areas have more words and different perceptions of snow, whereas other people may just describe it as cold and white

Introduction - The Body, Embodiment & Performance

Tourism
•	Performance
o	Learning the language
o	Tours/tour guides
o	Culture
Restaurants
•	Performance
o	Front stage
•	Waiters
o	Back stage
•	Kitchen/chefs
•	Management

Everything is a performance
Performer and the audience

The Body as a ‘Place’

Is this really geography?

•	Takes up space
•	Self of self identity
•	‘Mutable’ (Changeable) in relation to place/time (depending on where you are)

“The body is a surface to be mapped” (McDowell)

Growth of embodied Geographies
•	21st century ‘obsession’ with body
•	Potential for bodily transformation
•	Changing ‘controls’

How bodies occupy space
•	Bodies in spaces, Bodies as places
•	Proxemics (Boundaries in crowds) & Hexis (Bourdieu)
o	Personal space – If you go onto an empty train/bus etc. you move away from other people, however you sit together with your friends
o	Hexis is the study of gestures – body language

Mind-Body Split-Binary/Dualism
•	Cartesian – seen as distinct & separate

Associations (De Beauvoir)
•	Mind as culture/male
•	Body as nature/female
o	‘Mother Nature’
o	Women as ‘Witches’ caused problems
o	Adam & Eve
o	American hurricanes given female names
o	‘Virgin’ nature

Shapes gender identify/roles & ways of acting
•	Seen as pre-given/natural
•	The way males and females act is pre-given

Challenged by Foucault
•	Regulation of body/sexuality by society
•	Body inscribed & shaped by social practices

Mind-Body split – Challenges
•	Bodies as surfaces for social enscription of status/identity (especially gender)
o	Tattoos, piercings etc.
•	Pre-historic times used to denote stature, achievements, crime etc.
•	Bought into British culture largely by the Navy/Sailors
•	Associated with occupations – Sailors, Soldiers, Prisoners, Miners
•	Geographical location – Japan - Yakuza
•	Embodied geographies of performance

Performance and Performativity

Performance
•	Variable performance at different sites (occasionalism)
•	Extends to every day/ordinary interaction

Performativity
•	Repetition of stylised acts

‘Performative Gender’
•	Butler (1990) – Post-Feminist & Feminist
o	Gender identity not located in natural biological division
•	(Compare with W European and Amerindian ‘ideas’ of sex/gender
o	Rather, is a cultural performance created through repeated Performative acts
•	(Gestures, clothes, action)
o	So, gender/compulsory heterosexuality is a fiction & can be disrupted by transgressive acts.

Case Studies

A – In & Out of Place: Girls in School

•	Judith Oakley (1996) Own & Other Culture
o	Gender performance- regulation & control
o	‘Place’ of adolescent males/females
o	Through gender-differentiated sport
•	Rugby, football and boxing for boys
•	Hockey, netball and lacrosse for girls
	“Females must never kick balls, lest they kick the other kind. Females who raise and kick the leg are seen … to be metaphorically exposing their genitals”
o	‘Comportment’ of girls in public
•	Posture
	“Sit, stand or walk erect, chin up, back straight and shoulders well back”
•	Thus, being In & Out of ‘place’ raises two issues:
o	Stylised repetition aims to enforce gender difference & ‘heterosexual coherence’
o	‘Natural’? Constraints of gender identity/heterosexuality can be challenged (sub/inverted)

B – Embodied Performance of Sexuality: All hyped up & no place to go

•	‘Out of the closet’ (private space)
•	‘Out’ in public space is ‘out of place’ ?
•	Staging performance
o	‘Gay’ & ‘Straight’ spaces

•	Draws on Butler to think about performance of gay & lesbian sexual identities in public space

•	Hypersexuality (90s)
o	‘Gay Skinheads’
o	‘Lipstick Lesbians’
•	Parody of heterosexuality
•	But does this really disrupt space?
o	(Bordo) argues
•	Facilitates ‘doubling’ of space
	‘Straight’ Space
	‘Queer’ Space
•	However, temporary only

C –Tourist Performance: On the Beach

•	What are the different ways in which ‘Tourism is performance’?
o	Is the beach ‘a stage’?
•	Go to the beach to be seen at the beach
•	Set costumes
•	‘Beach body’
•	Places ‘on the margin’
o	More exciting
o	Out of the ordinary
•	Blackpool pier/tower
•	Staging the beach
o	Atmosphere
•	Climate
•	Food stands
•	Donkey rides
•	Punch & Judy
o	‘Props’
•	Windbreaker
•	Blankets/Towels
•	Bucket & Spade
•	Microgeographies
o	Beach staged as a series of stratified performances
•	Morning
	Families by the sea
•	Afternoon
	Retirees sitting on the promenade
•	Evening
	18-30ish having a BBQ on the beach
o	Ritualised place-making
•	Simple act of sand-castle building
	A microcosm of making ‘tourist places’
•	Photographic performance
o	Choreography & staging of tourist photography: does three things
•	‘Takes’ landscape
•	Creates new ‘stage’ for future audiences
•	‘Freezes’ as:
	Romantic gaze
•	Backdrops & other scenery shifting
	Family gaze
•	Ourselves as Actors, in a given scene for future audiences

Concluding Discussion

•	Embodied geographies of performance provide new approaches
o	Focus on new subjects/actors, subject matter & scale (Microgeographies)
o	Challenge ideas of pre-given/natural identity
o	Emphasise processes of ‘becoming’
o	Draw on parallels with drama (Stage/scenery/props/actors/action) i.e. Dramaturgical Metaphor.