Hi there,
I am just writing the first part of this essay. The first para is for Background knowledge, the second goes then into the topic. Note, as I am not a native English speaker, my grammar may be heart breaking ;) Thanks a lot!!
Discuss (with examples) the notion of space and place in relation to everyday life
Intro
___
Background
It is important to look at power relations when analysing space and place. Foucault, in this perspective, argues that power is linked to everyday practices on all levels of social life. He further argues that (state) power is exercised and circulated through institutions such as the family, schools and universities but also through political institutions like the NHS. A state, according to Foucault, is only as powerful as its people and their willingness to participate in it. Foucault's argument stands in stark contrast to theorists such as Marx or Weber, who argue that (state) power comes directly from the centre (state), such as seen in dictator regimes. (find reference!!)
Individuals in a given society have embodied the social rules and norms over time, which are transmitted through the above mentioned institutions. For instance, the rules of a given society are transmitted in the family, where a child, for instance, learns how to behave appropriate in public; in this regard power can be productive. The power of the police comes to the fore when one is stopped with the car. Through the embodied practice (Mauss?), we know that we have to stop and to obey the rule of the law, otherwise we would be punished with a fine or even a prison sentence. Hence, (state) power is circulated through the police man but also through other people, namely doctors, priests, judges, psychiatrists or even teachers. In a sense, they are acting as authority through which power is transmitted (Foucault 2007).
Power, therefore, constructs everyday life, as it can be found everywhere and nowhere. Places, in this regard have "the capacity to dominate and control people or things, [which] comes through the geographic location, built-form, and symbolic meanings a place [has]" (Gieryn 2000:475). Different office layouts, for instance, indicate the hierarchy of a given company, where the owner has the biggest office, normally located on the top floor. Line manager work in smaller offices, with a good view to overlook an open planned office, in order to have 'control' over their employees. Offices, therefore, have become open, facilitating surveillance and bureaucratic control, and they can be compared to a prison that allows guards to see continuously inside each cell from a central observing tower. Foucault uses the concept of the Panopticon to illustrate the systematic knowledge of individuals through surveillance. Furthermore, through this concept he draws a link between the state and its use of 'discipline', when he describes modern society as 'the disciplinary society' and 'society of surveillance' (Foucault 1991, find page!!). However, with power comes resistance, as Gieryn noted:
"On the one hand, the formal qualities of a built environment exert a powerful effect on individuals by shaping the possibilities of their behaviours. On the other hand, individual produce their space by investing their surroundings with qualitative attributes and specified meanings" (Venkatesh cited in Gieryn 2000:481).
Resistance, in connection to place, is therefore happening when people engage with out of place practices in order to protest against the power of the state (de Certeau 1984). A good example is the recent 'occupy movement' in front of St. Pauls Cathedral in inner London, in order to demonstrate against capitalism, austerity, growing inequality, unemployment and tax injustice. The Location of the occupy camp - the Finsbury Square outside St Paul Cathedral - was a powerful one, as it was strategically chosen due to its proximity to the Stock Exchange building, which represents market economy and capitalism (guardian).
The power relations between spaces/places and the individual and also the state affect every aspects of an individual's everyday life in a given society. How people experience space and place in everyday life, however, differs greatly.
Experience space/place in everyday life
Urban places are attributed to diversity, tolerance, cosmopolitanism and freedom, but also to connotations such as anonymity, detachment, loneliness, individualism and isolation. Therefore, such places can have engagement or estrangement as consequence (Gieryin 2000).
In this context it has been argued that space and the experience of spaciousness can be related to the sense of being free (Tuan 1977). Freedom, in this sense, connotes space and movement. To ride a bicycle, to drive a car, to travel with a train or aircraft, all those activities are enlarging space for human beings. On the contrary, disabled and prisoners are deprived of spaciousness and ultimately of freedom. Spaciousness may mean for one freedom to travel to diverse places, for others it is a burden to come from A to B. Good examples are commuters, using the London public transport. For them it is often a dreadful journey to and from work, whereas for tourists, using the tube stands for pure excitement.
Crowdedness can also have different meanings for diverse people, where two people in a room might be to much for one, for another not even the masses of a music festival will satisfy his/her need for company (Tuan 1977). The !Kung Bushmen, for instance, live under crowded conditions by choice, and space arrangements ensure maximum contact.
"Typically huts are so close that people sitting at different hearhs can hand items back and forth without getting up. Often people sitting around various fires will carry on long discussions without raising their voices above normal conversational levels" (Draper cited in Tuan 1977:62).
The crowdedness of London's rush hour is accepted by many as inconvenience, which they only bear out of necessity. Not only the experience of a place/space in everyday life can differ from each individual to another; the interaction with one another differs greatly from one society to the next. Appropriate spatial variations in social relations are learned as a feature of culture. For instance the rules of greeting differ in Europe. In Spain, for instance, people give cheek kisses as greetings, whereas in Austria this practice is less common, cheek kisses are not exchanged even when with friends.
Humans are believed to have an innate distancing mechanism, which is altered by culture and which helps to regulate contact in social every day situations (Low 4). Architectures, village and city planners are drawing their inspiration from the human experience and the human body.
Architectural space - a house, a village, or a city - can be perceived as a microcosm of a given society, with spatial separation representing a society's rules and regulations (Low).
