Books by Dr Steve Millington
"In order to attract investment and tourism, cities are increasingly competing to re-brand themse... more "In order to attract investment and tourism, cities are increasingly competing to re-brand themselves as cosmopolitan, and in recent years, cosmopolitanism has become the focus of considerable critical attention in academia. Here, renowned editors and contributors have come together to produce one of the first books to tackle cosmopolitanism from a geographical perspective. Central to the cosmopolitan process is how traditionally marginalized groups have become re-valued and reconstructed as a resource in the eyes of planners and politicians. This fascinating book examines the politics of these transformations by understanding the everyday practices of cosmopolitanism. Which forms of cultural difference are valued and which are excluded from this re-visioning of the contemporary city? Organized in three distinct parts, the book covers:
- production and consumption, and cosmopolitanism
- the spatialities of cosmopolitanism
- the deployment, mobilization and articulation of cosmopolitan discourses in policy-making and urban design.
The volume is groundbreaking in examining the complex politics of cosmopolitanism in empirical case studies from Montreal to Singapore, London to Texas, Auckland to Amsterdam. With a strong editorial steer, including general and section introductions and a conclusion to guide the student reader, Cosmopolitan Urbanism employs a range of theoretical and empirical approaches to provide a grounded treatment essential for students of human geography, urban studies and sociology."
Creativity has become part of the language of regeneration experts, urban planners and government... more Creativity has become part of the language of regeneration experts, urban planners and government policy makers attempting to revive the economic and cultural life of cities in the 21st century. Concepts such as the creative class, the creative industries and bohemian cultural clusters have come to dominate thinking about how creativity can contribute to urban renewal. Spaces of Vernacular Creativity offers a critical perspective on the instrumental use of arts and creative practices for the purposes of urban regeneration or civic boosterism.
Several important contributions are brought into one volume to examine the geography of locally embedded forms of arts and creative practice. There has been an explosion of interest in both academic and policy circles in the notion of creativity, and its role in economic development and urban regeneration. This book argues for a rethinking of what constitutes creativity, foregrounding non-economic values and practices, and the often marginal and everyday spaces in which creativity takes shape. Drawing on a range of geographic contexts including the U.S., Europe, Canada and Australia, the book explores a diverse array of creative practices ranging from art, music, and design to community gardening and anticapitalist resistance. The book examines working class, ethnic and non-elite forms of creativity, and a variety of creative spaces, including rural areas, suburbs and abandoned areas of the city. The authors argue for a broader and more inclusive conception of what constitutes creative practice, advocating for an approach that foregrounds economies of generosity, conviviality and activism. The book also explores the complexities and nuances that connect the local and the global and finally, the book provides a space for valuing alternative, marginal and displaced knowledges.
Spaces of Vernacular Creativity provides an important contribution to the debates on the creative class and on the role of value of creative knowledge and skills. The book aims to contribute to contemporary academic debates regarding the development of post-industrial economies and the cognitive cultural economy. It will appeal to a wide range of disciplines including, geography, applied art, planning, cultural studies, sociology and urban studies, plus specialised programmes on creativity and cultural industries at Undergraduate and Postgraduate levels.
Papers by Dr Steve Millington
F1000Research, 2015
This study, via a consideration of the literature, and a limited survey of active science communi... more This study, via a consideration of the literature, and a limited survey of active science communicators, presents concise and workable definitions for science outreach, public engagement, widening participation, and knowledge exchange, in a UK context. Sixty-six per cent of participants agreed that their definitions of outreach, public engagement, and widening participation aligned with those of their colleagues, whilst 64% felt that their personal definitions matched those of their institute. However, closer inspection of the open-ended questions found the respondents often differed in the use of the nomenclature. In particular, the respondents found it difficult to define knowledge exchange in this context. It is hoped that this initial study will form the foundation of future work in this area, and that it will help to further develop the debate regarding the need for a consistent nomenclature across science communication.
Cities of Light: Two Centuries of Urban Illumination, 2015
In: Nicholson, D.T. & Wheater, C.P. (Eds). Public Engagement in the GEES Disciplines: A Good Practice Guide., 2014
Environment and Planning A, 2007
This paper investigates how particular class-oriented, mediatised discourses about Blackpool Illu... more This paper investigates how particular class-oriented, mediatised discourses about Blackpool Illuminations negatively stereotype the resort as ‘devoid of good taste’. Moreover, conventions of design-led regeneration reflect the dispositions of those members of the creative class who articulate abstract understandings about ‘good design’ and marginalise practices that do not conform to these aesthetics. With recent proposals to upgrade the Illuminations as part of broader regeneration strategies, the authors contend that these negative depictions ignore the situated expertise that undergirds the long-standing, overwhelmingly local production of the Illuminations and take no account of the cultural values regular visitors espouse in their positive evaluations. This paper argues that planners, designers and policy-makers need to take account of local, vernacular creativities and specific cultural practices in devising cultural policies in order to avoid homogeneous cultural provision and design.
In a paper which challenges social cliches and stereotypes, Tim Edensor and Steve Millington exam... more In a paper which challenges social cliches and stereotypes, Tim Edensor and Steve Millington examine the often-denigrated phenomenon of residential Christmas lights - and argue for their positive role in the creation of local identities and community cohesion.
Edensor, T. & Millington, S. (2010). Going to the Match: the transformation of the match-day rout... more Edensor, T. & Millington, S. (2010). Going to the Match: the transformation of the match-day routine in English Premier League Football. In Frank, S. & Streets, S. (eds). Stadium Worlds – Football, Space and the Built Environment. Routledge. London.
Edensor, T., Leslie, D., Millington, S., & Rantisi, N. (2010). Introduction: Vernacular Geographi... more Edensor, T., Leslie, D., Millington, S., & Rantisi, N. (2010). Introduction: Vernacular Geographies of Creativity. In Edensor, T., Leslie, D., Millington, S., & Rantisi, N. (eds) RSpaces of Vernacular Creativity: Rethinking the cultural economy. Routledge. London.
Edensor, T., & Millington, S. (2010). Christmas lights displays and the creative production of sp... more Edensor, T., & Millington, S. (2010). Christmas lights displays and the creative production of spaces of generosity In Edensor, T., Leslie, D., Millington, S., & Rantisi, N. (eds) Spaces of Vernacular Creativity: Rethinking the cultural economy. Routledge. London.
Edensor, T & Millington, S. (2009). Illuminations, class identities and the contested landscapes ... more Edensor, T & Millington, S. (2009). Illuminations, class identities and the contested landscapes of Christmas. Sociology. 43(1). 103-121.
In the last two decades, illuminating the outside of a house with multi-coloured lights has become a popular British Christmas practice, typically adopted within working-class neighbourhoods and thus producing a particular geography of illumination.This article explores how such displays have become a site for class conflict mobilized around contesting ideas about space, time, community, aesthetics and festivity, highlighting how the symbolic economy of class conflict moves across popular culture. We focus upon two contrasting class-making practices evoking conflicting cultural values. First, we examine the themes prevalent in negative media representations of Christmas lights, notably the expression of disgust which foregrounds the working-class stereotype, the `chav'. Second, we analyse the motivations of displayers, exploring how the illuminations are imbued with idealistic notions about conviviality and generosity.
Key Words: chav • Christmas • class • conviviality • disgust • distinction • generosity • idealism • illumination • taste
Sociology, Vol. 43, No. 1, 103-121 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0038038508099100
Binnie J, Holloway J, Millington S and Young C (2009) Cosmopolitanism in Kitchin R and Thrift N (... more Binnie J, Holloway J, Millington S and Young C (2009) Cosmopolitanism in Kitchin R and Thrift N (eds.) International Encyclopedia of Human Geography pp. 307‑313 (Elsevier:
Oxford).
Edensor, T. & Millington, S. (2008). This is Our City: Branding, football and the myths of locali... more Edensor, T. & Millington, S. (2008). This is Our City: Branding, football and the myths of locality. Global Networks. Vol. 8, No. 2. 172-193.
In 2005, with a view to cultivating the loyalties of local supporters rather than attracting new support, Manchester City Football Club launched its Our City branding campaign. The campaign suggests that 'real' Mancunians support City and not local rivals like Manchester United, which it implicitly conceives of as a global, non-local, corporate entity. By building on established fan culture and the myths surrounding the local and the global, City is portrayed as 'authentic', 'cool' and rooted in a traditional 'working-class community'. Contending that football is a revealing field in which to explore contemporary formations of identity, in this article we critically explore the relationship between branding, place and identity. We describe the campaign, explore the myths with which the Our City campaign is aligned and discuss the embedded contexts that constrain the global branding of football.
Binnie, J., Edensor, T., Holloway, J., Millington, S. and Young. C. (2007) Editorial: Mundane mob... more Binnie, J., Edensor, T., Holloway, J., Millington, S. and Young. C. (2007) Editorial: Mundane mobilities, banal travels’. Social and Cultural Geography. 8(2). 165-174..
Binnie J, Holloway J, Millington S and Young C. (2007). Editorial: Mundane Geographies: Alienati... more Binnie J, Holloway J, Millington S and Young C. (2007). Editorial: Mundane Geographies: Alienation, Potentialities and Practice. Environment and Planning A 39(3).515-520.
Hooper, P.D., Millington, S. & Shearlock, C. (2000). Environmental Improvement in Small and Mediu... more Hooper, P.D., Millington, S. & Shearlock, C. (2000). Environmental Improvement in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises: A Role for the Business Support Network. Greener Management International. 30. 50-60.
The importance of encouraging small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to improve their environmental performance is now well recognised. This paper evaluates the contribution of the business-support network to the delivery of a range of services designed to encourage SMEs to adopt more environmentally sound practices by examining the work of an environmental non-governmental organisation working in the North West of England: Sustainability Northwest (SNW). SNW has attempted to catalogue, promote and co-ordinate the services provided by the business-support network in its area. The focus of this development has been the establishment of the Environmental Initiatives Database (ENID). This has provided further evidence that the bespoke, solution-driven services required by SMEs are not readily available. Furthermore, the increase in mutual awareness among members of the business-support network, facilitated by ENID, appears to have done little to foster an atmosphere of greater co-operation and integration of services. In conclusion, the paper discusses possible reasons for this apparent impasse by outlining the rationale for a new initiative to enhance co-ordination among members of the business-support network: the Green Competitive Edge for the North West.
Millington, S. (1997). Local Governance and Local Economic Development in Manchester. In Liszewsk... more Millington, S. (1997). Local Governance and Local Economic Development in Manchester. In Liszewski, S. & Young, C. A Comparative Study of Lodz and Manchester. Lodz University Press. 297-307.
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Books by Dr Steve Millington
- production and consumption, and cosmopolitanism
- the spatialities of cosmopolitanism
- the deployment, mobilization and articulation of cosmopolitan discourses in policy-making and urban design.
The volume is groundbreaking in examining the complex politics of cosmopolitanism in empirical case studies from Montreal to Singapore, London to Texas, Auckland to Amsterdam. With a strong editorial steer, including general and section introductions and a conclusion to guide the student reader, Cosmopolitan Urbanism employs a range of theoretical and empirical approaches to provide a grounded treatment essential for students of human geography, urban studies and sociology."
Several important contributions are brought into one volume to examine the geography of locally embedded forms of arts and creative practice. There has been an explosion of interest in both academic and policy circles in the notion of creativity, and its role in economic development and urban regeneration. This book argues for a rethinking of what constitutes creativity, foregrounding non-economic values and practices, and the often marginal and everyday spaces in which creativity takes shape. Drawing on a range of geographic contexts including the U.S., Europe, Canada and Australia, the book explores a diverse array of creative practices ranging from art, music, and design to community gardening and anticapitalist resistance. The book examines working class, ethnic and non-elite forms of creativity, and a variety of creative spaces, including rural areas, suburbs and abandoned areas of the city. The authors argue for a broader and more inclusive conception of what constitutes creative practice, advocating for an approach that foregrounds economies of generosity, conviviality and activism. The book also explores the complexities and nuances that connect the local and the global and finally, the book provides a space for valuing alternative, marginal and displaced knowledges.
Spaces of Vernacular Creativity provides an important contribution to the debates on the creative class and on the role of value of creative knowledge and skills. The book aims to contribute to contemporary academic debates regarding the development of post-industrial economies and the cognitive cultural economy. It will appeal to a wide range of disciplines including, geography, applied art, planning, cultural studies, sociology and urban studies, plus specialised programmes on creativity and cultural industries at Undergraduate and Postgraduate levels.
Papers by Dr Steve Millington
In the last two decades, illuminating the outside of a house with multi-coloured lights has become a popular British Christmas practice, typically adopted within working-class neighbourhoods and thus producing a particular geography of illumination.This article explores how such displays have become a site for class conflict mobilized around contesting ideas about space, time, community, aesthetics and festivity, highlighting how the symbolic economy of class conflict moves across popular culture. We focus upon two contrasting class-making practices evoking conflicting cultural values. First, we examine the themes prevalent in negative media representations of Christmas lights, notably the expression of disgust which foregrounds the working-class stereotype, the `chav'. Second, we analyse the motivations of displayers, exploring how the illuminations are imbued with idealistic notions about conviviality and generosity.
Key Words: chav • Christmas • class • conviviality • disgust • distinction • generosity • idealism • illumination • taste
Sociology, Vol. 43, No. 1, 103-121 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0038038508099100
Oxford).
In 2005, with a view to cultivating the loyalties of local supporters rather than attracting new support, Manchester City Football Club launched its Our City branding campaign. The campaign suggests that 'real' Mancunians support City and not local rivals like Manchester United, which it implicitly conceives of as a global, non-local, corporate entity. By building on established fan culture and the myths surrounding the local and the global, City is portrayed as 'authentic', 'cool' and rooted in a traditional 'working-class community'. Contending that football is a revealing field in which to explore contemporary formations of identity, in this article we critically explore the relationship between branding, place and identity. We describe the campaign, explore the myths with which the Our City campaign is aligned and discuss the embedded contexts that constrain the global branding of football.
The importance of encouraging small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to improve their environmental performance is now well recognised. This paper evaluates the contribution of the business-support network to the delivery of a range of services designed to encourage SMEs to adopt more environmentally sound practices by examining the work of an environmental non-governmental organisation working in the North West of England: Sustainability Northwest (SNW). SNW has attempted to catalogue, promote and co-ordinate the services provided by the business-support network in its area. The focus of this development has been the establishment of the Environmental Initiatives Database (ENID). This has provided further evidence that the bespoke, solution-driven services required by SMEs are not readily available. Furthermore, the increase in mutual awareness among members of the business-support network, facilitated by ENID, appears to have done little to foster an atmosphere of greater co-operation and integration of services. In conclusion, the paper discusses possible reasons for this apparent impasse by outlining the rationale for a new initiative to enhance co-ordination among members of the business-support network: the Green Competitive Edge for the North West.
- production and consumption, and cosmopolitanism
- the spatialities of cosmopolitanism
- the deployment, mobilization and articulation of cosmopolitan discourses in policy-making and urban design.
The volume is groundbreaking in examining the complex politics of cosmopolitanism in empirical case studies from Montreal to Singapore, London to Texas, Auckland to Amsterdam. With a strong editorial steer, including general and section introductions and a conclusion to guide the student reader, Cosmopolitan Urbanism employs a range of theoretical and empirical approaches to provide a grounded treatment essential for students of human geography, urban studies and sociology."
Several important contributions are brought into one volume to examine the geography of locally embedded forms of arts and creative practice. There has been an explosion of interest in both academic and policy circles in the notion of creativity, and its role in economic development and urban regeneration. This book argues for a rethinking of what constitutes creativity, foregrounding non-economic values and practices, and the often marginal and everyday spaces in which creativity takes shape. Drawing on a range of geographic contexts including the U.S., Europe, Canada and Australia, the book explores a diverse array of creative practices ranging from art, music, and design to community gardening and anticapitalist resistance. The book examines working class, ethnic and non-elite forms of creativity, and a variety of creative spaces, including rural areas, suburbs and abandoned areas of the city. The authors argue for a broader and more inclusive conception of what constitutes creative practice, advocating for an approach that foregrounds economies of generosity, conviviality and activism. The book also explores the complexities and nuances that connect the local and the global and finally, the book provides a space for valuing alternative, marginal and displaced knowledges.
Spaces of Vernacular Creativity provides an important contribution to the debates on the creative class and on the role of value of creative knowledge and skills. The book aims to contribute to contemporary academic debates regarding the development of post-industrial economies and the cognitive cultural economy. It will appeal to a wide range of disciplines including, geography, applied art, planning, cultural studies, sociology and urban studies, plus specialised programmes on creativity and cultural industries at Undergraduate and Postgraduate levels.
In the last two decades, illuminating the outside of a house with multi-coloured lights has become a popular British Christmas practice, typically adopted within working-class neighbourhoods and thus producing a particular geography of illumination.This article explores how such displays have become a site for class conflict mobilized around contesting ideas about space, time, community, aesthetics and festivity, highlighting how the symbolic economy of class conflict moves across popular culture. We focus upon two contrasting class-making practices evoking conflicting cultural values. First, we examine the themes prevalent in negative media representations of Christmas lights, notably the expression of disgust which foregrounds the working-class stereotype, the `chav'. Second, we analyse the motivations of displayers, exploring how the illuminations are imbued with idealistic notions about conviviality and generosity.
Key Words: chav • Christmas • class • conviviality • disgust • distinction • generosity • idealism • illumination • taste
Sociology, Vol. 43, No. 1, 103-121 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0038038508099100
Oxford).
In 2005, with a view to cultivating the loyalties of local supporters rather than attracting new support, Manchester City Football Club launched its Our City branding campaign. The campaign suggests that 'real' Mancunians support City and not local rivals like Manchester United, which it implicitly conceives of as a global, non-local, corporate entity. By building on established fan culture and the myths surrounding the local and the global, City is portrayed as 'authentic', 'cool' and rooted in a traditional 'working-class community'. Contending that football is a revealing field in which to explore contemporary formations of identity, in this article we critically explore the relationship between branding, place and identity. We describe the campaign, explore the myths with which the Our City campaign is aligned and discuss the embedded contexts that constrain the global branding of football.
The importance of encouraging small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to improve their environmental performance is now well recognised. This paper evaluates the contribution of the business-support network to the delivery of a range of services designed to encourage SMEs to adopt more environmentally sound practices by examining the work of an environmental non-governmental organisation working in the North West of England: Sustainability Northwest (SNW). SNW has attempted to catalogue, promote and co-ordinate the services provided by the business-support network in its area. The focus of this development has been the establishment of the Environmental Initiatives Database (ENID). This has provided further evidence that the bespoke, solution-driven services required by SMEs are not readily available. Furthermore, the increase in mutual awareness among members of the business-support network, facilitated by ENID, appears to have done little to foster an atmosphere of greater co-operation and integration of services. In conclusion, the paper discusses possible reasons for this apparent impasse by outlining the rationale for a new initiative to enhance co-ordination among members of the business-support network: the Green Competitive Edge for the North West.
This paper argues that it is both essential and timely to critically reflect upon the role and social impact of night-time illumination in place making and management. The capacity of artificial light to produce particular socio-cultural affects remains a neglected area of study in Social Sciences, even though the spectacle of illumination is long recognised within psychology, architecture and urban design as producing particular benefits, from extending the possibilities of economic development around notions of the 24-hour economy, to encouraging perceptions of safety about use and access of space after-dark. Drawing on empirical case-studies, this paper, therefore, explores the social and cultural affordances of night-time illumination, which reveals how artificial lighting can play a positive role in fostering sociality, conviviality, generosity, and social cohesion around the notion of an illuminated place identity. Our empirical research on the informal household Christmas Light Displays and the grander formalised Blackpool Illuminations, also shows how practices of artificial illumination are highly contested, intersecting with several contemporary social, political and cultural debates regarding the nature and identity of place and environment. The paper concludes, therefore, by exploring the emergence of a political economy of illumination, which links agents of local change, place-makers, and professional lighting practitioners to broader processes of globalisation, environmentalism and urbanisation.
In contemporary Manchester, however, the Mancunian Way, occupies a very different discursive space. Rather than a symbol of optimism, it has a signifier of urban problems. Within 15 years of opening, Manchester Docks closed and the industrial hinterland it served was largely derelict, undermining the primary functionality of the highway. Rather than a fluid space for car drivers to effortlessly traverse the city, the Mancunian Way is acongested obstacle. But as our empirical observations, drawn from a series of tours that counter-intuitively attempted to walk the route of a motorway, show that this environment also produces affordances in terms of creativity and unconventional use. Utilizing Ritzer’s (2002) assertion that rationalised systems also produce irrationality, this paper therefore, maintains that scientific planning based on principles of calculability and predictably, will also produce apparently irrational decisions and unintended, sometimes random, consequences.
See: http://conference.rgs.org/AC2012/277
• The first is SCALE – the ratio of distance on the map to the corresponding distance on the ground.
• Second, is PROJECTION –algorithms which enable a three-dimensional shape – a globe – to be projected onto a two-dimensional plane – a process, which inevitably creates areal distortions – whereby territories shrink and stretch according to their longitude and latitude.
• The third is SYMBOLIZATION – a series of graphical codes, colours, geo-metric shapes, and shadings – which represent features of the landscape or characteristics of a particular district, according to its demographic or social make-up for instance.
Through the deployment of SCALE, PROJECTION and SYMBOLIZATION– maps present us with a uniform, rational and ordered view of the world. They possess an alluring level of clarity and objectivity - a persuasive and authoritative version of the landscape and a convincing a window on a hidden, but fundamental empirical truth. Maps are always abstractions – depicting clear and uncluttered landscapes. By reducing complex and chaotic environments into something more manageable – maps not only become useful for navigation, but also powerful tools of spatial analysis, informing policy decisions and resource allocations.
Regardless of the information they convey – maps are enticing artefacts – imagine the ornate 15h century ocean landscapes replete with mythical sea-creatures, the Modernist simplicity of Harry Beck’s Tube Map – through to electronic maps produced by UCL’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis - depicting pulsating rhythms of movement, the hypnotic illuminated trails left by Boris’ Bikes and Oyster Cards. Maps undoubtedly can be beautiful – but can cartography become art?
Rarely do we question the motives of map-makers. We tend not to reflect on how spatial models contain implicit and particular assumptions about the relationship between people and place. We tend to take maps at their face value, accepting their authority without reflecting upon their limitations. We must not forget maps are simplified and distorted representations of the world. Consequently maps are always partial. If maps were full and accurate representations of the world, then you would be able to locate yourself on the map, holding the map.
Maps, therefore, alert us to the politics of representation. In the 19th century, for example, map-making was tied to the expansion European colonial power. Maps became tools of conquest and expressions of imperialist strength, whereby suppressed races and their homelands were redefined and sometimes erased from the atlas. Maps played a central role in defining and fixing the power of sovereign States– essentialising national differences by delineating the boundaries between us and them.
It is important, however, that we move away from geo-politics to the realm of everyday. For the vast majority, maps are everyday objects – from AA Road Atlases to the iconic A-Z, tourist guides, hiking and cycling trails, bus routes – maps are interwoven into everyday life. Significantly, powerful Geographical Information Systems are now freely accessible – Google Earth, Layar, Foursquare – available to download onto GPS enabled mobile devices. The A-Z is forgotten, replaced by Sat Nav. Such technologies are reshaping our relationship with maps. No longer passive objectives, they have become interactive and pliable –we can customise them to our own needs without reaching for the cartography set. They are now objects that can be redrawn by simply sliding, zooming and searching. The meanings invested in maps, therefore, are now highly transient, flexible and ephemeral.
These technological affordances are breaking open maps and their myths – democratising cartography – enabling individuals to know of the world, to reveal absences and silences – to shatter suppressed landscapes – Amensty’s revelation of the location of North Korean labour camps for example, to the discovery of an un-contacted Amazonian people – both achieved using Google Earth. Participatory GIS is empowering communities in battles against property developers and corporations.
Even so, we must not forget the limitations of maps. Despite sophisticated technology available at our fingertips, maps still flatten everyday landscapes. They can only ever convey partial or abstract depictions of lived experience. The complex system of normative spatial ciphers, keys, icons or codes used to represent the material landscape we find on maps, can be duplicitous misrepresentations of reality – failing to account for difference and diversity. Maps can lead us down cul-de-sacs, or into places we would rather not be, because the routes depicted may not suit all – ignoring what Harvey Molotch describes as “route subjectivities” – forcing us to reflect on how the city is experienced and perceived by differently positioned social groups. Kevin Lynch’s and Peter Gould’s seminal work on cognitive perception – whereby individuals produced individualised maps of the city from memory – resulted in maps with shifting boundaries and scales – fluctuating landscapes – according to social position, mood, and the diurnal patterns of everyday movement. The map on an i-Phone, therefore, is only as pure as the data it feeds on. There will always be blank spots, empty spaces and missing topographies.
Fundamentally maps don’t tap into how we feel when we are in a place – the sensory landscapes of affordances, materialities, rhythms – emotions, affectual atmospheres – our feelings of comfort, our fears and insecurities – that sense of feeling ‘out of place’ – the psychological and biological connections we have with places, the city, and the landscape.
In a world shaped by time-space compression and global networks – old geographical certainties and boundaries – are being shot through –borders rendered permeable – flows of people, information, objects – sifting through a vast network of global fissures and cracks. Can we be certain as to where to draw the boundary of the city anymore? Are national borders meaningful in a global age? In an urbanising world – how do we map our connection to the natural landscape? Perhaps we should turn to nature, to concepts such as the capillary, or the rhizomatic – for ways in which to interrogate complex spatial systems and processes which possess no beginning or end.
This brings me back to the origins of modern cartography and beginning of urban social geography - to the work of the physician John Snow who in 1854 – mapped clusters of cholera outbreaks in London revealing a connection to infected water pumps, which - by dispelling medieval myths about the spread of disease –saved countless lives– not only in London, but across the world. Is this the power of maps – a conduit for reconnecting the body, nature and the city?
In a place like Manchester, cholera is no longer the main threat to people’s health, but nevertheless the city possesses a low life expectancy rate. According to the ONS (2008), living in Manchester can take 10 years of your life compared to the rest of the country. This startling statistic alerts us to how nature and the environment continue to produces bodily effects and transformation particularly within the city.
See: http://www.vitae.ac.uk/CMS/files/upload/PARC%20NW%20Final%20Prog.pdf
The event, which will take place at the Salutation pub in Manchester, will examine ideas of creativity, place and social class, through a focus on Titley and Millington’s individual research. In particular, the speakers will discuss the value of vernacular forms of creativity, such as festivals, local crafts, or domestic Christmas light displays, which often exist outside of mainstream definitions of art and culture, but play important roles within the everyday life and traditions of a place. The event will also explore how professional artists can help to uncover and communicate the value of such practices, by inhabiting the spaces between different places and communities, and acting as conduits for discourse and exchange.
This presentation explains the rationale behind this walking tour, loosely inspired by Iain Sinclair’s London Orbital, to highlight the qualities of walking as a means of urban exploration. Finally, the presentation explores alternate ways of discovering Manchester which utilise multiple sources of geographical data to create new traces and routes across the city"
http://socialmediamanchester.net/