1
Let’s Do Away with Urban 1
Autoethnographic Adventures in Stockholms län
Olivia Charlotte Butler
1 The title is a riff on Keith Hoggart’s (1990) Lets Do Away with Rural.
Department of Human Geography, Stockholms University Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning, 120 HE credits Master’s Thesis (30 Credits)
Spring Term January- June 2020 Lukas Smas
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3 Abstract
The spatial categorisations of urban and rural are still used in academia, lay terminology and policy formation in spite of a postmodern obsession with the deconstruction of binaries. Hitherto, the urban rural dichotomy has been exposed to little scrutiny, and the critiques that have been made come from the epistemological standpoint of total urbanisation which assumes the rural will be effaced by a perennial urban sprawl. The rural urban dichotomy is a derivative of the larger ideological dualism of nature and society and it has long been postulated, particularly from the standpoint of political ecology, that in the Anthropocene, nature does not exist beyond human influence. This would, in theory, support the theory that rural space is becoming effaced.
Previous studies have, however, demonstrated that this subjugation of the rural to the urban works to stigmatise rural populations and engender disenfranchisement that has led to a resurgence in far-right nationalism across much of Europe.
This subjugation has been enforced through this very urban norm in which both technocrats and academics favour the urban as a field for policy formation and research.
When attempting to define the urban and the rural, it was found that the terms (a) are confused and confusing, evading any useful definition; (b) perpetuate a false neutrality that assumes a linear progression from rural to urban and (c) fail to recognise the complexities of space which resists binary distinctions. As such, I used Lefebvre’s spatial trifecta which suggests space is produced by three complimentary and contradictory processes: of perceived space (the material space of what we can actually see and touch, altered by seemingly banal everyday practices), conceived space (the
(re)representations of space that are circulated by planners and technocrats) and lived space (the affectual space of emotion, memory and meanings) in order to think through the problems of the binary.
As such, this thesis aimed to explore whether the urban and the rural still function as legitimate spatial categories and, in doing so, used an emplaced, embodied and mobile exploration of five case studies within Stockholms län in order to explore the phenomena. This was appropriate as it mirrored the affectual potential believed to be induced through rural and natural landscapes. Indeed, by developing a methodology that can better account for lived space, we can attempt to dislodge perceived and conceived spaces as the more easily accessible conceptual framework for thinking through space.
The findings showed that there were many different species of urban and rural spaces, many spaces that were both urban and rural and many that were neither. Indeed, an acquiescence of purportedly rural and urban features within purportedly urban spaces, and vice versa, was the most telling result in terms of disrupting the idea that the urban and rural are stable but antipodal spatial categories. I also found the rural to be a coterminous process that produces space with and against urban landscapes, and thus should not be subjugated.
Key Words: Urban, Rural, Spatiology, Political Ecology, Embodiment, Emplacement, Stockholm
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Instead, I argue, we should work toward a more open language for talking through space that reflects its dialectical nature as attention increasingly turns to rural landscapes under threat from climate change. Thus also gives us the potential to shape new radical ruralities with a better focus on social and environmental justice.
Table of Contents
Abstract ... 1
Table of Contents ... 4
List of images ... 5
List of Figures ... 6
List of Maps ... 6
List of Tables ... 7
Acknowledgements ... 7
Glossary ... 8
Chapter 1: Introduction and Front Matter ... 9
Research Context... 9
Problem Statement ... 9
Aims, Research Questions and Boundaries. ... 11
Structure ... 12
Contribution and Rationale ... 12
Chapter 2: Space Place and Landscape... 12
Space and Dialectical Materialism ... 12
Space, Place and Landscape ... 16
Rural Space ... 19
Summary ... 19
Chapter 3: The Nature and Society Dualism ... 20
Political Ecology in The Anthropocene ... 20
Lefebvre and The Production of Nature ... 21
Nature and Uneven Development ... 22
Summary ... 23
Chapter 4: The Rural Urban Divide ... 24
The Country and The City ... 24
Language ... 25
The Urban Norm ... 26
Between The Urban and The Rural and Stockholms Gröna Kilar... 27
Trial By Space ... 28
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Planetary Urbanisation ... 29
Post-Productive Countryside ... 31
The Rural Question ... 32
Summary ... 34
Chapter 5: Methodology, Approach, and Research Methods ... 35
Introduction ... 35
Methodology ... 35
Researcher Position ... 36
Epistemology and Ontology ... 37
Embodiment and Emplacement ... 38
Reading The Landscape... 39
Methods ... 41
Fieldnotes ... 41
Photography ... 42
Flânerie ... 45
Case-study ... 48
Limitations ... 50
Covid Statement ... 50
Chapter 6: Results and Discussion ... 54
The Case-study ... 54
Background ... 55
Gärdet ... 57
Stora Skuggan ... 72
Gamla Stan ... 78
Ekerö ... 83
Nacka ... 98
Conclusion ... 106
List of images
IMAGE 1 THE SAMI PEOPLE ARE A POPULATION INDIGENOUS TO SWEDEN, NORWAY, FINLAND AND RUSSIA. THEY HAVE A LONG HISTORY OF BEING EXPELLED FROM THEIR INDIGENOUS LANDSCAPES. THE SÁMI MOSTLY
ENGAGED WITH REINDEER HUSBANDRY AND WERE NOMADIC- ATTACHED TO THE LANDSCAPE. 43 IMAGE 2 A.& B. THESE TWO CARLETON WATSON PHOTOGRAPHS SHOW HOW THE ENCROACHING INDUSTRIALISATION
OF THE 19TH CENTURY WAS AS NORMALISED IN LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY. THE TRAINLINE(A.) SEEMINGLY RUNS THROUGH THE LANDSCAPE AS INCONSPICUOUSLY AS A WATERFALL (B). [SNYDER, 2002] 43 IMAGE 3. A PHOTO TAKEN OF A BENCH IN GÄRDET. I FELT THIS WAS AN EXAMPLE OF THE 'RUDERAL' OR THE
RECLAIMING OF (WO)MAN-MADE NATURE BY "WEEDS." THIS WAS NOT HOWEVER IN SOME DISTANT LANDSCAPE.
THIS WAS IN THE CITY CENTRE. 45
IMAGE 4 A,B,C,D. PHOTOS REPRESENTING MOBILITY IN DIFFERENT PLACES; NACKA (NATURRESERVAT), GAMLA STAN,
GÄRDET AND NACKA (NACKA FORUM) [FROM LEFT TO RIGHT, ALL AUTHORS OWN 2020] 47
IMAGE 5. THE VIEW FROM MY BEDROOM WINDOW [AUTHORS OWN, 2020]. 57
IMAGE 6 A. THE MUNDDUS NEIGHBOURHOOD AS SEEN FROM THE WOODS. (B) THE INDUSTRIAL RESIDUE STILL EVIDENT IN THE SPACE. (C) THE MUNDUS NEIGHBOURHOOD (D) HEMKOPP, SEEMINGLY THE CENTRE OF ALL THE
ACTIVITY.[AUTHORS OWN: 2020] 67
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IMAGE 7 (A.) LIVGARDET, A MILITARY BASE AT GARDET WITH THE FUNCTION OF PROTECTING THE ROYAL FAMILY [AUTHORS OWN.] (B.) WHAT WE CAN SEE OF LIVGARDET BY USING GOOGLE MAPS ALONE (GOOGLE MAPS, 2020)
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IMAGE 8 THE DANSBANA AT STORA SKUGGAN. [RIKSBYGGEN, N.D.] 72
IMAGE 9 A. & B. PHOTOS OF THE STUGOR AT STORRA SKUGGAN. [SOURCE: WWW.SODERBRUNN.SE, N.D.] 72
IMAGE 10. A RIDING PATH FOR HORSES. [AUTHORS OWN: 2020] 73
IMAGE 11 INFRASTRUCTURES FOR ENJOYING NATURE [AUTHORS OWN: 2020] 73
IMAGE 12 THE BEACH AT LAPPKÄRRSBERGET [AUTHORS OWN, 2020] 74
IMAGE 13 OPEN FIELD NEXT TO SPEGELDAMMEN [AUTHORS OWN] 74
IMAGE 14 A. & B. THE EPONYMOUS LAPPIS SWAMP. [AUTHORS OWN] 75
IMAGE 15 (A. & B.) EXAMPLES OF HANDICRAFTS SOLD IN GAMLA STAN[AUTHORS OWN] 80 IMAGE 16 (A. & B.) THE NATURAL EVOKED IN GAMLA STAN THROUGH LANDSCAPE POSTCARDS AND IMAGES OF WILD
ANIMALS ON SOUVENIRS [AUTHORS OWN, 2020] 81
IMAGE 17 COMMODIFICATION OF THE RURAL THROUGH NATIONALISM; EVOCATIONS OF THE SWEDISH FLAG (BLUE AND YELLOW) AND A DALAHÄST SHOP- THE DALAHÄST AS BECOME INTRINSIC TO SWEDISH NATIONALISM 82
IMAGE 18 KOMMUNHUSET, UNDER CONSTRUCTION [AUTHORS OWN] 87
IMAGE 19 HOUSING CONSTRUCTION AT TAPPSTRÖM. [AUTHORS OWN, 2020] 88
IMAGE 20 CENTRUM AT TAPPSTROM [AUTHORS OWN, 2020] 88
IMAGE 21 CENTRUM AT TAPPSTROM [AUTHORS OWN, 2020] 89
IMAGE 22 'HIP' POKE-BOWL-BURGER-RESTAURAN [AUTHORS OWN, 2020] 90
IMAGE 23 IDEA LAB AT TAPPSTRÖM [AUTHORS OWN, 2020] 90
IMAGE 24 BUS STOPS ON FÄRINGSÖ 93
IMAGE 25 CABBAGE CROPS 94
IMAGE 26 CENTRUM AT STENHAMRA {AUTHORS OWN, 2020] 94
IMAGE 28 WASTE ABANDONED IN THE MIDDLE OF OPEN FIELDS 95
IMAGE 27 FIELD WITH TELEPHONE POST, SMALL SIGNS OF HUMAN APPROPRIATION. 95
IMAGE 29 STREET SIGN TO STOCKHOLM 96
IMAGE 29 STREET SIGN TO STOCKHOLM 96
IMAGE 30 UPPLAND RUINSKRIFTER [AUTHORS OWN, 2020] 96
IMAGE 30 UPPLAND RUINSKRIFTER [AUTHORS OWN, 2020] 96
IMAGE 31 SVARTSJO SLOTTET AND SVARSTJO LAKE [AUTHORS OWN, 2020] 97
IMAGE 31 SVARTSJO SLOTTET AND SVARSTJO LAKE [AUTHORS OWN, 2020] ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
IMAGE 32 NACKA FORUM AND THE SURROUNDING CONSTRUCTION. [AUTHORS OWN, 2020] 101
IMAGE 32 NACKA FORUM AND THE SURROUNDING CONSTRUCTION. [AUTHORS OWN, 2020] 101
IMAGE 33 (A.B. & C) EXAMPLES OF CONSUMPTION AT HELLASGÅRDEN; THE CORDONING OFF OF THE WATER FOR
SWIMMING, A CYCLE CENTRE THAT ORGANISES TOURS AND A CAFE FOR RECREATION. 104
IMAGE 33 (A.B. & C) EXAMPLES OF CONSUMPTION AT HELLASGÅRDEN; THE CORDONING OFF OF THE WATER FOR SWIMMING, A CYCLE CENTRE THAT ORGANISES TOURS AND A CAFE FOR RECREATION. ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
IMAGE 34 (A. & B.) SUBTLE FORMS OF APPROPRIATION; STREETLIGHTS AND SPRAYPAINT. [AUTHORS OWN, 2020] 103 IMAGE 34 (A. & B.) SUBTLE FORMS OF APPROPRIATION; STREETLIGHTS AND SPRAYPAINT. [AUTHORS OWN, 2020]
ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
IMAGE 35 MORE OBVIOUS SIGNS OF DOMINATION THROUGH IMPOSING TELEPHONE POLES 105
IMAGE 35 MORE OBVIOUS SIGNS OF DOMINATION THROUGH IMPOSING TELEPHONE POLES ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
List of Figures
FIGURE 1 THE TRAJECTORY OF URBANISATION AS POSTULATED BY LEFEBVRE [SOURCE: (BRENNER 2013, P.43)] 32
FIGURE 2 DEFINITIONS OF THE RURAL FROM HALFACREE (1993, P.22) 33
FIGURE 3 EXAMPLE OF AUTHORS FIELDNOTES 41
FIGURE 4: A VISUALISATION OF LAND USE IN SWEDEN (SCB, 2019) 56
List of Maps
MAP 1 STOCKHOLM’S GRÖNA KILAR; WITH THE HASHED LAND REPRESENTING THE REDUCTION IN GREEN SPACE
BETWEEN 2010-2050. 27
MAP 2 THE ROUTE I TOOK IN GÄRDET- EXPLAINED IN THE DISCUSSION. 47
MAP 3: MAP OF STOCKHOLMS KOMMUNER, WITH THE CASE STUDIES DISPLAYED IN BLUE. [LANTMÄTERIET; MINA
KARTA 2020] 54
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MAP 4 MAP OF THE LIMITS OF NATIONALSTADSPARKEN (N.D.) 58
MAP 5 A. BASE MAP OF STOCKHOLM; B. MAP OF GÄRDET WITH AUTHORS ROUTE [LANTMÄTERIET: MINA KARTA, 2020]
59 MAP 6. AUTHORS ROUTE AROUND GÄRDET FOR FIELDWORK; REPEATED FROM MAP. 2. [LANTMÄTERIET MINA KARTA,
AUTHORS EDIT.] 60
MAP 7. STOCKHOLMS RINGLED [ GOOGLE MAPS, 2020] 61
MAP 8 BASE MAP OF THE STOCKHOLM (LANTMÄTERIET MINA KARTA, 2020) WITH AUTHORS ROUTE IN STORA
SKUGGAN.. 70
MAP 9 BASE MAP OF THE STOCKHOLM WITH GAMLA STAN HIGHLIGHTED (LANTMÄTERIET MINA KARTA, 2020). 77 MAP 10 BASE MAP OF THE STOCKHOLM (LANTMÄTERIET MINA KARTA, 2020) WITH AUTHORS ROUTE AROUND
EKERÖ. 84
MAP 11 BASE MAP OF THE STOCKHOLM WITH NACKA FORUM AND NACKARESERVAT HIGHLIGHTED (LANTMÄTERIET
MINA KARTA, 2020). 98
MAP 11 BASE MAP OF THE STOCKHOLM WITH NACKA FORUM AND NACKARESERVAT HIGHLIGHTED (LANTMÄTERIET
MINA KARTA, 2020). ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
MAP 12 MAPS OF NACKA RESERVAT AND NACKA FORUM WITH AUTHORS ROUTE ADDED (LANTMÄTERIET MINA
KARTA, 2020). 99
MAP 12 MAPS OF NACKA RESERVAT AND NACKA FORUM WITH AUTHORS ROUTE ADDED (LANTMÄTERIET MINA
KARTA, 2020). ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
MAP 13 MAP FROM NATURKARTEN (N.D) 102
List of Tables
TABLE 1 LEFEBVRE'S SPATIAL CLEFS. [AUTHORS OWN COMPILATION] 15
TABLE 2: COMPARING MITCHELL'S (2008) NEW AXIOMS WITH LEFEBVRE’S SPATIOLOGY [AUTHORS COMPILATION] 18
TABLE 3. RURAL SPATIOLOGY [AUTHORS COMPILATION]. 19
TABLE 4 ASPECTS MISSED FROM RESEARCH [AUTHORS OWN COMPILATION FROM URRY AND LAW (2003)] 36 TABLE 5 SOME POSSIBLE IDENTIFIERS OF THE URBAN AND RURAL IDENTIFIED THROUGH THE PREVIOUS
LITERATURE. ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
TABLE 6 THE NEBULOUS ATTEMPTS TO DEFINE RURAL [AUTHORS COMPILATON] 40
TABLE 7 ADAPTED FROM FLYVBERG'S () CRITIQUE OF THE MISUNDERSTANDING OF CASE STUDIES, I HAVE IDENTIFIED
HOW A CASE STUDY APPROACH IS RELEVANT FOR THIS RESEARCH 49
TABLE 8 MOTIVATION FOR STUDY AREA SELECTION 55
TABLE 9 PLACE NAMES IN STORA SKUGGEN [AUTHORS OWN]. 75
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank everyone on the Masters in Urban and Regional Planning programme for fostering a positive learning environment and helping me form great friendships since I have moved to Sweden, particularly Gustav, Nadja and Tindra for being excellent study companions and listening to my complaining throughout this process. As such, I would like to thank the staff at Café Nero for allowing us to spend endless hours in the café since the library has been closed- more than outstaying our welcome.
I would like to thank my family for always supporting me and affording me the opportunity to continue my studies in innumerable ways. They always go above and beyond in helping me achieve my goals.
I would like to thank all the staff at The Whippet Lab where I work for their constant support and for providing a solace from my studies. Their work as advocates of the queer community, the Jewish community and wider pursuits of social justice is admirable, and I have been honoured to be a part of the team there throughout my studies.
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Special thanks to Melina and August for not only being amazing friends, but also reading through my whole thesis and providing me with the Swedish cultural context that helped me complete my research.
Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank Lukas Smas, my supervisor, for his support throughout this process and his helpful feedback that has guided my research. I would also like to thank Danielle Drozdzewski for running the master’s course in spite of the obvious adversity that underlined her task, and for running engaging and challenging courses which introduced me to some of the theories that inspired my thesis.
Glossary
Allemansrätten- The right to public access (in the case of the UK, this best translates to the right to roam) Apoteket- Pharmacy
Centrum- A commercial centre akin to an outdoor mall Coop- Swedish Supermarket
Dalahäst- A small wooden Horse originally made in Dalarna as a Toy for children- has become a Symbol of Dalarna and Sweden as a whole.
Ekerö- Municipality in Stockholms län Ekerön- Island in Ekerö Municipality Färingsö- Island in Ekerö Municipality
Frescati- Wider area around the University Campus in the North of the City Gamla Stan- Old Town
Gärdet- Residential area in the North East of the city which literally translates to ”The yard”
Hemköp- Swedish Supermarket ICA- Swedish Supermarket Idélabbet- Idea Lab Kommuner- Municipality
Kommunhuset- The Administrative Headquarters of a Kommuner, or Municipality. Sometimes translated as the City Hall.
Kungsgård- The Royal Estates of The Swedish Monarchy (currently a king- Kung) Kvarteret Muddus- A new residential development in Norra Djurgårdsstaden
Lake Mälaren- The third largest lake in Sweden, which runs between all of the case studies in this thesis. Literally translated, it means the painter.
Landsbygds- Rural
Landskap- Landskap is a type of historic region in Sweden that has no administrative function but has retained certain cultural and social significance
Lantmäteriet- Swedish administrative authority in charge of cartography and land surveying including geographical information, historical maps and geodetic referencing
Län- County
Livgardet- or ‘Lifeguard’- a subsect of the military in charge of ‘protection of the princely person’
Mina Karta-Literally “My Maps” here a function on lantmäteriet that allows you to search maps.
Nacka Forum- A shopping centre in Nacka, but is here used to also encompass the surrounding area which is largely under construction and the kommunhuset
Nackareservatet- The Nature Reserve in Nacka Nacka- Municipality in Stockholms län
Natur- Nature
Nationalstadsparken- Sometimes called the royal national city park or ekoparken is a National City Park, which in Sweden and Finland means it is a protected area in an urban environment in which of national interest, cultural heritage of ecological importance.
Norra Djurgården- Northern Section of Nationalstadsparken
Norra Djurgårdsstaden- New Development that was historically part of Nationalstadsparken but was developed into a major industrial port and is now being turned into housing.
Norra Länken- The Northern Section of The Ring Road Parker- Parks
Pendeltåg- Commuter Train Ringled- The Ring road
RUFS 2050-- Regionala utvecklingsplan för Stockholmsregionen Regional Development Plan for the Stockholm Region Runes- Writing Characters that emerged A.D. of Germanic origin.
Runsten- Rune Stone, or a stone or monolith carved with Runes
Sámi - Indigenous peoples found in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Russia
9 Skärgård- Archipelago
Södermanland- A Swedish Landskap
Sodermalm- District to the south of central Stockholm Slussen- District to the south of central Stockholm Stad- City
Stenhamra- Residential area in Färingsö
Stora Skuggan- A Farm in Norra Djurgården that is eponymous to the surrounding area. (Directly translates to great shadow)
Stuga/ Stugor- Swedish Cottage(s)/ Cabin(s) Svartsjö- A lake in Färingsö, translates to Black Lake
Svartsjö Slottet- The Svartsjö Castle, after the eponymous lake.
Svegro- Farming business on Färingsö
Systembolaget- Swedish Alcohol Monopoly Shop Tappström- Residential area in Ekerö
T-bana- Stockholm tube system
Ugglevikens Vattenreservoar- Water Reservoir (Ugglevik) Uppland- is a Landskap in Eastern Sweden
Upplands Ruinskrifter- Runic Inscriptions on Rune Stones.
Västerbottenost- Swedish Hard Cheese.
Chapter 1: Introduction and Front Matter Research Context
Having lived in Stockholm for two years, I am constantly surprised by the extreme variation of landscapes one encounters within relatively short distances. It is easy to transition between vast parks and nature reserves with idyllic green spaces and then to the iconic pastel coloured facades of residential apartments; between commercial landscapes with industrial residues and the stunning vistas of tourist staples afforded by the steep cliffs of Södermalm, severed by the vast
construction works at Slussen, and all against the backdrop of the water which sunders through the city; actually made up of a series of islands. I started thinking about how Stockholm; the fastest growing metropolitan region in Europe, had so many of the trappings of what we call rural space, right within the city limits. Of course, coming from a large city in the UK, my idea of what constitutes the urban and the rural are coloured by the definitions I am accustomed to, formed against the very specific historical events that have made the small island incredibly dense and populous; ongoing processes of colonialization, the industrial revolution, the world wars etc. This did not, necessarily, make me think that Stockholm was rural per se, but it did get me thinking about how we define the rural and the urban, and in thinking about how we define space, we must think about what it is like to be in space. Resultantly, I decided to use an emplaced and embodied autoethnographical approach that employed thick field notes, photography and flânerie; the act of walking and
experiencing, in an attempt to extricate the seeming discrepancies between our uses of the terms ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ and the actual experience of being in space.
Problem Statement
How we understand urban and rural space is important. However, within rural studies, no significant attempts have been made to conceptualise what a contemporary definition of the rural may be2. At the same time, however, there have been no
2In 1985 when the journal of rural and urban studies was launched, Paul Cloke (eds.) called for papers on the demarcations and definitions of the rural. In spite of uncertain times for rural studies (urbanisation and counter urbanisation, global warming and
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end to the attempts in wider planning and geographical literature to formulate a workable definition, or definitions, of urban spaces, urbanity, urbanism and urbanisation. Rural studies, at least in the ‘global north’ then, have been seen as somewhat stagnant, and by extension so too have rural spaces. Nevertheless, the spatial categories of rural or urban survive and continue to evoke strong emotions. In this way, the designation of a landscape as rural has the underlying effect of either implying it is backward, simple and slow compared to the educated, progressive worldliness of the fast paced city, or; implying it is a pre-given landscape, a bucolic idyll or pastoral escape to the country. The rural, then, becomes reduced to a point of antithesis against which the normative conceptualisation of the urban can define itself.
These imaginaries are inherently violent because the former risks permitting, even encouraging, the domination of the rural by the unstoppable urban sprawl whilst simultaneously stigmatising people who inhabit rural landscapes and the latter works to fetishize (or conceal) the spatial relations that produce rural spaces through highly mobile
(re)representations of the landscape that fail to account for the multiple everyday practices of their inhabitants.
Particularly in public discourse, we see a reassertion of the rural and the urban as unproblematic labels for space, perpetuated by an obsession in planning and policy to reduce space and make it legible through processes of nomenclature and abstraction.
On the Contrary, summarised through Hoggart’s (1990) assertion: “Let’s do away with the rural”, there exists another perception that aims to abandon the rural as a spatial category altogether suggesting that the rural, and even the natural, cease to exist. This view can be found more in planning literature than in actual practices, which perpetuate the rural and urban, but is, nevertheless pervasive in how we conceptualise and justify urban sprawl. As early as 1970(p.29) then, in La Révolution Urbaine, Lefebvre claimed that “the city is everywhere and everything”, implying nothing exists anymore beyond the complex social networks of communication, transport and people that have come to create the all-encompassing urban fabric. However, this failure to recognise the rural as a process that has coexisted with and against processes of
urbanisation works to deny agency to rural inhabitants in the production of their own spaces, further fetishizes rural practices and implies rurality is a phase that is awaiting urbanisation, suspending rural space as both a cradle for the urban and a graveyard for a rural way of life.
Here we see an inescapable duality, then, in which both the reinstating and abandonment of the rural as a spatial category risks dangerous implications for spaces that are labelled as rural and its inhabitants. Indeed, this has been seen in the Swedish context, whereby the disregard of the rural has been coupled with a simultaneous rise in far-right nationalism coming from rural landscapes (a phenomena that is traceable throughout Europe) (Nilsson and Lundgren, 2016) which
territorial differentiation between the global north and the south, attempts were made to answer this; most notably Halfacree’s (1993) conceptualisation that rural localities and representations must be considered separately; Hoggart’s (1990) Let’s do away with the rural, which challenged the relevance of ‘rural’ as a spatial category, favouring a focus on structure-agency relation and Jones’ (1995) paper on lay discourses. Indeed, since Woods’ 2010 Rural no attempts have been made to redefine the contours of rural studies.
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has further justified their exclusion in policy formation as rural sentiment is dismissed as “sentimental, narrowly self- interested and irrational.” (Holdo, 2020)3.
These contradictions exist, the contradictions of an ideal rural, a backward rural or an effaced rural, in part due to the nebulous definitions of the rural and rurality and in part due to an inherent failure in how we describe space itself. The Lefebvrian idea that space is produced dialectically through a tripartite framework of perceived space (the material space that is actually there, that we can see and touch), conceived space (the (re)representations of space that are circulated by planners and technocrats) and lived space (the affectual space of emotion, memory and meanings) is well inaugurated in planning theory, and geography at large. However, in this thesis, I argue that the hitherto neglect of lived space in the taxonomy of space is partially responsible for its inadequacies in the language we use to describe space in general, in particular the dichotomous categories of rural and urban. Indeed, I argue that dichotomous definitions will always fail to properly account for the effervescent nature of space that is always becoming. Whilst I do not offer an alternative language or definite solution to this, I argue that we need to work toward a language that adequately captures the dialectical
openness of space itself (Soja, 1996).
Aims, Research Questions and Boundaries.
Neil Smith (1984, p.xv) stated that the “exploration and critique of concepts is a means to interrogate more sharply the world in which we live” and as such I wish to use 5 illustrative examples of spaces within Stockholms län in order to explore the problems that arise in applying abstract spatial categorisations to actual spaces. Whilst I do not offer
alternatives to the rural and urban as linguistic terminologies, I argue instead that we must work toward a new conceptual language that requires a different way of thinking through space. In doing so, I employ an emplaced and embodied flexible methodology that uses autoethnographic fieldnotes, photography and flânerie. This responds to a call within rural studies to for research that uses data formulated in situ, rather than relying on policy documents and representational discourses (Halfacree, 2007). In choosing spaces within Stockholms län to compile a case study, I attempt to decentre the UK and the US as fields for analysing rural studies in the global north. Though I cannot generalise from this case, I also do not aim to as (a) generalisations is, in part, what has led to the persistence of polarising binaries and (b) it would only take one case to challenge the assumed universalism of the urban and the rural as uncritically accepted categories for which to organise space. In a limited sense, I also aim to contribute to the salient debate surrounding the rural and the urban that is ongoing and vibrant in Sweden by arguing against the normative use of the urban in both policy formation and planning literature, but recognise this is hindered by an inability to properly access public and planning discourse due to language restrictions.
As such, my research questions are as follows:
3 For more information on the political ecology of the far right, see the conference papers from Lund universities Political Ecologies of the Far Right conference organised by The Zetkin Collective; a subsect of the Human Ecology Division.
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(i) Why should we try to move beyond the dichotomous spatial categorisations of urban and rural?
(ii) How can a better consideration of lived space in academic inquiry attend to the complexity and openness of space?
(iii) How can an emplaced, embodied, and mobile methodology help us account for lived space in research?
Structure
This thesis will be structured into 6 main chapters. The first will outline the background, aims and rationale for the thesis.
The second, third and fourth will discuss the relevant existing literature and establish Lefebvre’s spatiology and political ecology as key theoretical frameworks for thinking through the case. The fifth chapter will explain the methodology and explain why I used an emplaced, embodied and mobile methodology using photography, fieldwork and flanerie in order to answer my research questions. The sixth chapter will present the results of the empirical study which will be explored in tandem with the conceptual and theoretical frameworks established in the second, third and fourth chapters. Finally, there is a conclusion which finalises the thesis and offers suggestion for future research.
Contribution and Rationale
This thesis has aimed to decentre both the urban as the analytical focus of spatial studies as well as decentre the UK and the USA as fields for rural studies. It recognises the urban and rural divide as (a) confused and confusing, (b) perpetuating false neutrality by encouraging an urban norm and (c) fails to account for the complexities of space. Therefore, by
marrying a Marxist approach to space and political ecology with an emplaced, embodied and mobile methodology, I hope to contribute a methodological lens through which to better account for third space. By accounting for third space, it was easier to recognise that dualistic spatial categories can not be reconciled in actual space, which proves its self to be an assemblage of ntworks that is always becoming, Resultantly, the societal impact will hopefully be a recognition that policy that ascribes space to either rural or urban categories will always fail to recognise the contingencies of space and also instates an urban norm that has already been proved to lead to disenfranchisement in rural spaces. Thus, I hope this will engender change both in the way we think about spatial dichotomies but also work as a basis for which to begin to recognise the rural and urban as coterminous forces.
Chapter 2: Space Place and Landscape Space and Dialectical Materialism
Space is considered here because an attempt to elucidate a rural from an urban landscape is an attempt to distinguish between different spatialities. Halfacree (2007) outlines the partiality in understandings of rural space, stating most people understand little about the rural outside of a purely visual appreciation of “a cardboard cut-out countryside” (Bové and Dufour, 2001). Moving beyond this interpretation requires an analysis of space for which we here turn to Henri
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Lefebvre’s spatiology. Whilst Lefebvre was not the first theorist to postulate that space is socially constructed and produced, La production de l'espace (1974), especially following Anglophonic translations, was seminal in disrupting the notion that space was Sui Generalis; a passive and pre-existing vacuum filled with things and people. A recognition that space is inherently social is what has lead Harvey (2008, p.275) to state that in lieu of asking “what is space?” we need to ask “how is it that different human practices create and make use of different conceptualisations of space?” This also recognises that there are a plurality of turbulent definitions for space. Concern arises from this plurality over what space is intended to mean and makes it a difficult concept to grapple with. However, an understanding of spatio-temporalities is fundamental to geographical study, and for some the potential of space as a concept lies inherently in this richness of its applications (Harvey, 2008).
Whilst there is some lack of consensus on the definition(s) of space, here I settle on a tripartite framework that can better embrace dialecticism.4 A move toward a spatial trilogy was borne out of the 20th century scepticism over binaries and dyads that had allowed the conflation of positivist empiricism and denied the world of nuance (Lefebvre et al., 2003). A triadic view allows for the recognition of the interface between different spatial configurations where they become (re)productive and are themselves (re)produced. This is dialectical as it honours process, movement, flows, relations and contradictions, thus permitting a more dynamic and holistic way of thinking through the world (Merrifield, 1993).
Hitherto, because space does exist materially, it had only been considered through static, realist ontologies that neither allowed for chaotic tension nor adequate definition of an inherently turbulent ‘space’. A dialectical perspective is, then, favourable for understanding different types of space as well as how they acquiesce. Whilst the below (see. Table 1) is a summary of some of Lefebvre’s clefs for understanding space; these are far from exhaustive and certainly not considered independent categories; it is important to remember that they work best when the dialectical tension between them is maintained, rather than being considered separate entities. Lefebvre thought it useful to think of the three different types of space as clefs that indicate the pitch of a piece of music; there are three main clefs G,C and F, and whilst they are
fundamental to understanding music, they are useless without the notes on the staves to which they refer, requiring a dialectical view.
4 Other examples of spatial(temporal) trilogies may include (but are not limited to) David Harvey’s (2008) postulations of absolute space (that represents res extensa space amenable to Euclidian measurement); relative space (space that exists only through the way objects relate to one another. It is relative in that it depends on the frame of reference of the
observer, and also what is being observed- take a transport map vs a clandestine map) and relational space (holds that there is no such thing as space or time outside the processes that define their own spatial-temporal frame). Again, Harvey holds that these cannot be considered in isolation and are not hierarchical, even though relational space can embrace relative and absolute space, all are interesting depending on the phenomena. We can also consider Soja’s (1996)
Thirdspace which borrows heavily from Lefebvre but proposes Thirdspace as a ameliorated mutation of all of the spaces combined, opening up a “transcending composite of all spaces” (Soja, 1996), Soja compares Thirdspace to Aleph- the point from which you can see the entire universe (Borges, 1945).
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First Space/ Perceived Space/ Espace Perçu/ Material Space/ Spatial Practice/ Physical This first space, most commonly perceived space, is the materially produced space that exists
empirically (Rogers, 2002). It incorporates the built environment and the natural environment which we interact with; it is the tactile, sensual interaction with matter or what is actually there (Harvey, 2008). It is in first space when spatial fetishization happens, when we naturalise the existence of space, we conceal the social practices that bring it into being. It is also where value is grounded in spatial fixity forming one of the ultimate contradictions of capitalism; where capital aims for complete circulation but becomes grounded in the built environment and actually existing material space.
Further, first space can exert power through the way the materiality of space shapes individual practices and processes in banal everyday ways. Whose needs are represented in the functionality of the built environment have immense power over nature and behaviour.
First space also embraces spatial practices. That is, if we consider that first space is actually produced, we must consider the way it is produced by the quotidian practices of millions of people (Schmid, 2013). Thus, whilst first space is often seen as the most obvious form of space, it is actually in a constant state of rapid metamorphosis, continually altered by the often banal actions of everyday life.
Indeed, for Massey (1991), if time is the dimension of succession, then space is the dimension of simultaneity, and it is these continuous concurrent actions that produce the space we encounter. “We may not notice the material qualities of spatial orderings incorporated into daily lives because we adhere to unexamined routines” (Harvey, 2009), we only notice when something is radically out of place, and thus disruptive. The collective resemblance in one societies spatial practices secretes into space and defines what we might consider places, or culture (Halfacree, 2007). It is spatial practices that imbue the material landscape with meaning. Undoubtedly, then, these signs, signals, codes, knowledges and are neither neutral, arbitrary vectors, not accurate representations of the material world. Instead, they are impregnated with ideology and objectives, consciously or otherwise, of those who create and circulate them.
Second Space/ Conceived Space/ Espace Conçu/ Spaces of Representation/ Mental The second space is that of signs, codes and discourses (Rogers, 2002). This is considered the
propositional space of planners, politicians, technocrats, architects, and any other actors, including the media, who (re)present ideas and notions about what spaces are like. This can be done through text, maps, pictures, diagrams, and other portrayals that serve as effigies for actual space. For Schmid (2013) we cannot see a space without having conceived it mentally, which is where the dialectical interplay between first and second space exists, as our preconceptions of how a space should be, compared with how it is becomes a contentious aspect of spatiology. Thus, perceived and conceived space, whilst distinguishable, are not separable.
According to Merrifield (1993) conceived space is the dominant space in any society as it encompasses knowledge and power and is the primary space of capital. Conceived space also finds materiality in monuments, statues and towers as well as factories and spaces of commerce that translate signs, codes and discourses. It is fundamental to be party to the signs, codes and ideologies that are transmitted by conceived space in order to avoid exclusion from societal participation. Conceived space can be seen as homogenising and eradicating difference.
Third Space/ Lived Space/ Espace Vécu/ Representational Spaces/ Social
The dialectical friction between third space and second space occurs when text and codes are
misrepresented as a proxy for lived reality of space. Third space, or Lived space represents the spaces of our imaginations, emotions, memories, dreams, nightmares and meanings- it is the affectual
experience of being in space, of haunted landscapes (Harvey, 2008). Third space is both different from, but also wholly embraces first and second space but is not hierarchical to them; “we seek to represent the way this space is emotionally and affectively but also materially lived” (Harvey, 2008). That is to say, conceived and perceived space are both important components of lived experience. Lived space can lie in our own emotional connections but also reverberate through generations of collective memory (Rogers, 2002), it is the space of phenomenology that privileges the experiential, imaginary and sentimental; the embodied. As expressed by Walter Benjamin (1999); “we do not live as material atoms floating around in a materialist world; we also have imaginations, fantasies and dreams.”
Being the most abstract space to conceptualise also makes it the most important to understand, especially as it is often ignored in academic research. It is an expression of our everyday lives, the underpinnings of our decision making on how we traverse and experience space, consciously or unconsciously. It changes how we understand and interpret the world (Harvey, 2008). In this way, it can also be seen as passive, the space where conceived space works to rationalise, order and usurp- the clash between our experience and our conceptions (Merrifield, 1993).
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From table 1 (see above), we can begin to imagine how these seemingly separate Clef’s are all inextricably bound together in being both the product and productive forces that create space. Crystallizing them here in separate categories is not intended to objectivise them as independent, but to draw each modality out as “distinctive moments to the experience of space and time” (Harvey 2008, p.280). It is still the dialectical tension between them that is most fundamental. Further, by naming these spatial categories Clef’s, Lefebvre is able to both evoke the importance of everyday rhythms, movement and how- whilst each clef represents its own register- the whole is incumbered by a failure to account for them both
individually and together.
If dialecticism is, then, according to Merrifield (1993, p. )”both a statement about what the world is, and a method of organising it” then Lefebvre’s attempts to extract spatial clefs is an attempt to “expose space, decode space and read space”
[authors emphasis] (Merrifield 1993, p.523) because the convergent processes of spatiality are (re)productive. First space, second space and third space contribute in different ways to the production of space according to their qualities and attributes and according to the temporal dimension in which they are considered; space takes on meaning through historically defined social relations and vice versa. Therefore, whilst a triptych view of space is important, none of the parts can be considered in isolation but instead must be considered by how the relations between them constitute the whole. In other words, though for Lefebvre space is considered through three different configurations of space, inherent in each spatial gestalt is the way in which it relates to other forms of space, and thus is simultaneously different and the same. We can see this again through the evocation of the clef analogy; a piece of music needs clefs, but they do not make sense in isolation.
Lefebvre’s dialectical thinking between spatial clef’s represent the idea of totality which is, according to Lefebvre (1968, p.111): “the way the whole is present through internal relations of each of its parts: it is a dynamic emergent and open construction” and also how the whole itself is constituted by each of these parts. Lefebvre’s spatialised reading of materialist dialectic is referred to as spatiology and was intended to undermine the cartesian duality that existed in thinking about space and is key to exposing its underpinning, stymieing conceptual frameworks that objectivised space;
treating social reality(s) as discrete objects (Merrifield, 1993).
If totality is important for exposing space, then fetishism is fundamental for decoding space (Merrifield, 1993). Spatial fetishization borrows from commodity fetishism, whereby the labour that creates goods is obfuscated by considering the object as a thing in and of itself and ignoring the social processes that produced it, labour relations, and modes of
production. In the same way, if we think of space as purely material, we ignore the social processes which occur within in Table 1 Lefebvre's Spatial Clefs. [Authors Own Compilation]
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it, but also cause it to exist. Every space is encoded with meaning that cannot be deciphered without unveiling the underlying processes that both produce space and make it productive.
Space, Place and Landscape
In understanding how to expose, decode and read space, it is necessary to consider yet another triad; that of space, place, and landscape. In everyday lexicon, these three spatial definitions are often used interchangeably, however in geographical study, the three take on different roles.
The battle cry that ‘place matters’ has been a ubiquitous tool in dislocating grand theories of spatial processes that ignore how these are situated in distinct places (Hubbard, 2005). Space, on the other hand, has become synonymous with an aforementioned Marxist materialist evaluation of the ways in which space is produced, consumed, dominated, and resisted (Hubbard, 2005). That is to say, place is seemingly the expression of the way that spatial processes are articulated in local scales imbricated with emotion, affect and community and cultural resonance, whilst space seemingly deals with the global flows of capitalist neoliberalism (Hubbard, 2005). Conversely, in an era defined by these global spatial processes of networks and flows oft defined as globalisation notions of place and its corresponding territorial specificity are being rearticulated rather than subsumed; both in the ways people fight for representation at the local level (Urry, 1995), but also in an era where variegated scales of space and place compete for capital investment, tourism and accumulation (Harvey, 2015). Simultaneously, then, the nexus between space and place is becoming both homogenised and differentiated reciprocally. Place, then, often comes to be seen as the space where global flows of neoliberalism are articulated locally, but space is not neutral and place is not a tabula rasa where broader economic forced unfold (Merrifield, 1993). In this way, place is considered the spatial dimension of everyday practices embedded in particular locales, and thus becomes almost indistinguishable from third space (Merrifield, 1993). For Hubbard (2005) it is more useful to reject universal notions of differentiated ‘space’ and ‘place’ and instead recognise that they both represent real and imagined assemblages constituted by language- they are mutually constitutive and always becoming. Convoking with Harvey’s previous line of questioning, about how social practices create and use space (Hubbard 2005, p. 47) asks not what space and place are, but what they do. Indeed, Bacchi and Goodwin (2016) highlight how the spatial is often taken for granted at the level of governance, which assumes neutrality of spatial entities and objectivises them as the backdrop for other changes, challenges and constraints. This ignores what spaces and places do and how policy is altered in
differentiated spaces, but also alters differentialized spaces in different ways.
Landscape, much like space and place, has evaded a singular definition: “There is no singular perspective of theoretical framework in order to understand or know the landscape”(Atha et al 2019, p.xix). For Mitchell (2005) landscape can be considered as either; the specific morphological pattern of things on the land; as an expression of social relations and as a
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way of seeing. This requires a dialectical understanding echoing the triadic understanding of space. However, if we return to the debate which suggests that space represents global networks and place is local and affectual then landscape has been imbricated with describing the natural environment. Indeed, for Dubow (2009, n.p.) “Landscape traditionally describes the division and dialogue between nature and culture.” Etymologically, landscape comes from Landschaft, a series of German land enclosure policies, and Landskap, a 17th century genre founded by Dutch artists. In both of these imaginations of landscape, land is both morphological and appropriated, either through ownership or through aesthetics.
It is worth noting here that in Swedish Landskap is a type of historic region which has administrative function but has retained certain cultural and social significance. For instance, Stockholm is between Uppland and Södermanland and Swedes will say they are from these places, in spite of them having no function in the state. For instance, it is common to divide Swedish dialects according to the Landskap.
Nevertheless, research has moved away from ‘natural’ landscapes towards the study of how landscapes are, and have been, culturally produced and, in doing so, question whether any natural landscapes any longer exist. This led to landscape as an imaginary becoming a methodology, whereby academics delved into how the landscape could be read critically pioneered by Lewis (1979) in Axioms for Reading the Landscape (below( and revised by Mitchell (2008) in New Axioms (see. Table 2.).
1) Landscape is a clue to culture
2) Nearly every item in a landscape reflects culture in some way (esp. the seemingly banal).
3) Landscapes are difficult to study through conventional academia (although as this was written in 1979, this argument holds less weight given a significant body of literature that has appealed to landscape reading methodologically)
4) History matters; posing the landscape as a palimpsest that is a clue to both contemporary and past culture.
5) Location Matters: elements of the material landscape make little sense when dislocated from their surroundings.
6) Physical Environment also matters, the physical environment can enable/disable the potential activity that can occur within it (though this argument risks echoing environmental determinism).
7) All landscapes convey meaning, but not always readily- one need a trained eye to see the meanings conveyed by the physical landscape.
(Lewis, 1979)
Whilst all of these are true, for Mitchell (2008) they still fail to address the way in which the landscape is both productive and produced. They also fail to explore the dynamics of culture and cultural production, and how some cultures are excluded from the landscape, and thus their presence may not be easily read.
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For Mitchel (2008) some new axioms which update, but do not replace Lewis’ original are discussed in the table below. For me, analytically, these cannot be separated from Lefebvre’s spatial clef’s, and as such I have suggested a symbiosis
between the two in an attempt to show how the consolidation of spatial and landscape features is more fruitful than considering them independently (see. Table 2).
From Table.2. we can see a comfortable assertion of landscape into spatiology. Their separation, I believe is rooted in the way landscape, or reading the landscape, has been seen as a set of methodological tools whilst spatiology has often been considered lofty and theoretical. The second is that the conflation of space and culture and landscape and nature have put
New Axioms for Reading The Landscape (Mitchell, 2008) The Production of Space Landscape is produced, we must pay attention to the
broad and local relations of production that are shaped by history and technology.
The explicit goal of the production of space is to create a conceptual framework for thinking through how space is produced, exploring how space both enables and constrains production, but is itself produced through these processes of reproduction.
Any Landscape is (or was) functional; all landscapes exist for a reason and are a geographically ordered commodity.
All landscapes are speculative and are the grounding of capital. “we recognise the relationship between landscape as a built space and landscape as an ideologically represented space”
Here we see the coming together of conceived and perceived space, how the built environment of material space is both enabling of and altered by the way we represent space and spatial representations. For whom landscape is functional for is a key component of conceived and perceived space, and how we fight for representation in lived space and is fundamental for class relations.
History does matter
“at any one moment the landscape exists as a palimpsest of landscapes, fashioned according to the dictates of different modes of production in different stages of their
development” (Harvey 1982, p.233)
If we again consider space as simultaneity and history as succession, we must understand space as existing as a palimpsest of current and ascendant spatial
practices that work in tandem to create space but are also created by space.
No landscape is local- context matters
Whilst this is true, Mitchell expands upon Lewis’ original conception that “landscapes make little cultural sense if they are studied outside their geographic (i.e. locational context”
by saying that the opposite is also true, landscapes also make no sense if they are only studied in relation to their immediate surroundings.
This underpins dialectical thinking and presents the same problem as the objectivization of space and place, we must think of different geographical scales in totality, as being distinct parts of the whole- but still defining of and defined by the whole.
Landscape is power landscape is power in that it is an expression of who has the power to define its meanings and what will exist in and as landscape. This power over landscape is, however, contested and thus landscape is also social power. Landscape also, literally, determines what can and cannot be done and in turn produces culture. Finally, landscape is powerful as it is aesthetic; the distinction of a place is determined by its appeal, and thus it has the power to stigmatise.
How the materiality of space shapes individual and social behaviour, practices and processes is key to power over landscape, so too is how the space is represented, who is included in space and who creates space, all of thich are imbued with power.
Landscape is the spatial form that social justice takes Landscape literally marks out the spatial extent and limits of social justice as it is both the result of and evidence of our societies.
Here it would be parallel to consider Lefebvre’s Le droit à la ville, but a deserving explanation is beyond the scope of this thesis (see. Lefebvre, 1968). But, much like above, as space is both produced and productive, changes is space is representative of social justice.
Table 2: Comparing Mitchell's (2008) New Axioms with Lefebvre’s Spatiology [Authors Compilation]
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them at an epistemological and ontological odds (Mitchell, 2008) 5. This may also explain how the rural has escaped much consideration by spatiology in academia, preoccupied with the urban (Halfacree, 2007). However, it is important to note here that Mitchell (2008) is certainly considering his new axioms from a Marxist materialist perspective. This symbiosis will be important in the methodological chapter when the fusion of tools for landscape reading will be consolidated as spatial readings.
Rural Space
The neglect of spatiology in rural studies is striking given that Lefebvre began his career as a rural sociologist (Halfacree, 2007; Lefebvre et al., 2003). Perhaps it is the aforementioned conflation of place with specificity and space with capitalist urbanisation that has led to this discrepancy, as the rural is often considered antipodal to the urban. As such, (Halfacree, 2007) has formulated a theory of rural space to account for how supposedly ‘rural’ locations must also be considered (see.
Table 3). This formulation is not intended to produce anything new, but better demonstrate how the existing spatial framework can be extended to cover non-urban space. Indeed, whilst spatiology was formulated during a time when Lefebvre was attempting to chronicle the contested nature of urbanisation, he himself states that spatial ternion can be used to evaluate rural space, as long as rural space is not considered dualistic to urban space.
First Space -> Rural Localities
How rural space is perceived by those who inhabit it, and constructed through their everyday practices, especially as rural locales were often considered only through their potential for agricultural production, rather than practices of consumption. This was distinct to rural landscapes but is becoming more nuanced in a post-productivist era where agrarian society no longer wholly defines rurality
Second Space -> Rural Representations
The ways in which rural landscapes are still governed by policies that treat them as such, and how this shapes rural space, as well as how changing rural space represents a problem for policy formation.
Third Space -> Rural Lives
The everyday practices of rural inhabitants which vary due to a sense of security in some ruralities created through land rights and favourable policy for agricultural production, to the destruction of agriculture due to encroaching urbanism which threatens agrarian livelihoods. The altering of the everyday embodied experience of the rural, which is bound in conceptions of agriculture and nationhood. Again, however, in a post-productivist setting rural lives are becoming increasingly diverse
Table 3. Rural Spatiology [Authors Compilation].
Summary
In this chapter I have attempted an overview of spatiology, by no means exhaustively, but in the ways in which it can help address the questions posed by this thesis, arguing that space is produced and fluid and can be exposed, decoded and read.
I have also examined the hitherto entrenched divide between ‘space’ ‘place’ and ‘landscape’, suggesting that place and landscape are imbricated in dialectical considerations of space making the distinctions linguistic rather than practical. I
5 Some consider spatiology to be phallocentric, masculinist, and abstractive, whilst landscape has often been more about nature and meaning, and thus considered feminine (Little, 2007). Resultantly, landscape has (in some cases) become the remit of non-representational and post-structuralist geography, whereas spatiology is considered Marxist and
materialistic.
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also attempted an explanation of how to think dialectically through the idea of totality; that an object is the sum of its parts.
All of this will be important throughout the thesis as we consider the following:
(i) How the rural is often defined by remote and distinct communities and therefore is often thought of as a
‘place’ rather than a ‘space’ when in fact place harbours equivalence with spatial expressions (particularly lived space).
(ii) How reading the landscape will be explored as a methodological tool that aims to echo the open, sensory, multiple, emotional, and kinaesthetic realities of the everyday.
(iii) How a dialectical perspective of space as (re)produced and turbulent will enable us to explore the entrenched divisions of the ‘rural’ and the ‘urban’?
Chapter 3: The Nature and Society Dualism
According to Smith (1984, p.149) the dichotomy between the rural and the urban “is a derivative of a larger ideological dualism of nature versus society- the machine versus the garden.” Thus, in order to dissect the dichotomy between the urban and the rural it is important to consider the dichotomy between nature and society, with the former bound up in rural classifications and the latter being more associated with the urban. How we define nature has, however, remained ambiguous, with Kitchen et al (n.p.) highlighting how “nature can be verb, adverb, adjective and characterised as object or subject, passive or active”, meaning we can be talking about a broad range of things and relations when we talk about nature. For Smith (1984) nature can be the power or force governing all living things, or it can be something to be conquered, it can be wilderness or garden, accidental or designed, god given or (wo)man-made, it can be feminine or masculine. This dichotomy then, poses nature as both internal and external to humanity as within human nature, we are an implicit part of the natural world, and yet we consider the creations and activities of human beings as dialectically opposed to nature. A consideration of this relationship has become increasingly prevalent as humankind has distended its influence into all corners of the earth, with the untouched only existing either below the earth’s surface or lightyears beyond it (Mitchel, 2015).
Political Ecology in The Anthropocene
Political ecology is an attempt to examine the relationship between the ecological, the economic and the political,
particularly from a Marxist perspective to examine the way in which nature has been incorporated into the capitalist mode of production. The human impact on the ‘natural’ landscape led Bill McKibben (2003) to declare The End of Nature
resulting from the overpowering of natural forces by processes of humankind, particularly in relation to climate change.
Indeed, Castree (2005) questions whether ‘nature’ any longer poses autonomy as a category in an epoch geographers have labelled the Anthropocene; a proposed ecological phase in which human activity is the primary catalyst for
environmental change. Harvey (1997) outlines that human behaviours have become so profound that they have rivalled even the force of nature, explaining that labelling an epoch after ourselves is evidence enough that the dialectic between
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natural and society has become confounded. Further, in spite of seeing ourselves as outside of nature, as stewards of nature, we are firmly implicated within the natural world but have, hitherto, acted as a destructive force (Harvey, 1997).
From a Marxist political ecology, then, if human activity cannot be separated from the dominant mode of production (capitalism) then nature primarily effected by human behaviour cannot be separated either: Nature is socially produced (Smith, 1984). Considering the ways in which nature is produced, using Lefebvre’s spatiology as a point of departure, allows us to recognise nature as a productive force that works in tandem with other forces and processes, such as those of capitalism and society, to produce space-time together (Janzen, 2002). This perspective defies the view that nature somehow exists in opposition to or externally from the rest of society, as capitalism remakes even nature in its own image (Harvey, 1997).
Lefebvre and The Production of Nature
Lefebvre (1991, p.95) examined the role of nature in the production of space by distinguishing between first and second nature in an attempt to analyse how the “spatio-temporal rhythms of nature are transformed by social practice”. He elucidates that there exists first nature (materiality); the pre-existing, pristine wilderness, and second nature
(abstraction); cultivated ‘natural’ land exposed to or colonised by human practice. Lefebvre (1991) criticised Marx for not distinguishing between appropriation and domination, and for Lefebvre, whilst the modification of the landscape for human use, or appropriation, was benevolent, domination had led to the ‘defeat’ of nature, taking nature further from its creative origins into productivity mediated by technology (Dorsch, 2018). Hence Smith (1984) states that this domination of material first nature on a global scale through abstraction is, in fact, the inherent goal of capitalism.
Of course, human practice is contingent on the intersections of race, class, and gender etc. That is to say that the way in which the landowner views and uses the land will be invariably different from how the agrarian worker views and uses the land, but nevertheless we still understand since the age of exploration, the existence of ‘untouched’ ‘natural’ space has been immutably reduced, and, the way we think about the land irreparably changed. The multiple ways in which we perceive and conceive in and of space means that there is no space beyond the remit of anthropogenic conceptualisation.
This means, whilst there are naturally occurring phenomena that are not socially produced as such ( i.e., gravity ), the way in which these phenomena are mobilised and used is uneven and represents the power inherent in spatial production. For Smith (1984) nature can be split into the scientific and the poetic, with the poetic showing the formulation of an
ideological or normative project that is inextricably tied to scientific nature. Indeed, the concept of nature has always been an ideological social product; take for example the representation of nature in American frontier literature where nature was characterised as hostile to permit its degradation or, in the Romantic tradition, where nature was extolled as
magnificent and celestial to chastise urban immorality (Smith, 1984). This also worked to obfuscate the labour relations of utility and work that enabled the process of (re)creating and dominating nature (Smith, 1984). Lefebvre (1974, p.27) takes this fetishization one step further by explaining that whilst “theoretically, nature is shrinking, but the signs of nature and
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the natural are multiplying, replacing and supplanting real “nature.” These signs are mass produced and sold.” Therefore, representations of nature either justify its destruction, or are manipulated for consumption purposes. Both of these aims require a quite different conceptualisation of nature, but ultimately serve market orientated goals.
Much geographic study, itself implicated in the reproduction of binary terminology through the division of physical and human geography, focuses on the shrinking of space through time as communication, travel and transmission means “no god-given stone is left unturned” (Smith1984, p.7). This increasingly means that, in the constant drive for accumulation and growth, all forms of nature have been engulfed in capitalist processes (Smith, 1984). Whilst this may risk asserting natural and social spaces as absolute and mutually exclusive, it is important to note that neither nature nor society can be reduced to one another. The multiple and co-productive networks through which nature is constituted are better
examined through the lens of spatial production that can help us resist the dualist trap of reducing nature to either resource production or idyllic conception (Janzen, 2002). This is explicitly important in the consideration of supposedly natural or rural landscapes, whereby this global domination and appropriation of nature is uneven.
Nature and Uneven Development
It is no surprise given the patriarchal structures of capitalism that to call something natural; to call something feminine, presupposes it is wild and in need of taming, pristine in need of penetration or idolatrised and in need of worshipping (Smith, 1984). As such, on a global scale to designate a space as ‘natural’ is to inadvertently designate it as an area to be dominated (Smith, 1984). Hence, whilst the agrarian ruralisation of the landscape is a mechanism of abstraction in itself, to designate an area as rural or natural is to subordinate it to the urban and permit its exploitation. Indeed, Smith (1984) outlines how space is subject to a ‘locational seesaw’; the geographic expression of capital switching between highly mobile circulation and relative or temporary fixity (usually achieved through investment in the built environment) creating both an uneven and unstable mesh of capitalist development, legible on a global scale. Compounded by the contradiction between the need for infinite growth within capitalism and the fact that land is finite (Harvey, 2014), a process Joseph Schumpeter (1942) heralded the “perennial gale of creative destruction” to describe how land is constantly (re)(de)valorised to attract capital and enable accumulation. Thus, all space is enveloped by capitalist processes, but only land where a speculative increase in ground rent is anticipated will attract capital, meaning processes of accumulation are concentrated where capital is most mobile, which tends to be within urban landscapes. This means that rural and natural landscapes, with relatively consistent land values are subjected to both stagnation and disinvestment, unless they are marginal and earmarked for redevelopment. Further, it is in the least developed places in the world; both economically and materially, where the effects of anthropogenic climate change are the most severely felt (Nassauer, 2013). This creates widened socioeconomic differentiation at various scales, but particularly between the urban-rural (Smith, 1984). This debate rages on both in the sense that there is growing public concern for the lack of ‘nature’ within cities and also
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because uneven development, something Smith wrote about over thirty years ago still continues to advance inequality and poverty. Thus, equitable access to space becomes difficult to achieve and subsequently so too does equal access to nature.
Summary
In this chapter I have discussed how the urban rural divide is a derivative of the debate between nature and society. I have problematised both dichotomies using a framework of Marxist political ecology which helps to explain how the current period of the Anthropocene has muddied a clear distinction between natural and social forces in shaping space. I have borrowed heavily from Lefebvre in order to demonstrate that nature no longer stands in opposition to society but is itself socially produced in the same way as other types of space. I have also used Neil Smith’s (1984) Uneven Development as a jumping off point to explain the ways in which these bifactorial distinctions can exacerbate uneven development, by posing rural and natural land as antipodal to the more ‘progressive’ urban. All of this will be important throughout the thesis as we consider:
(i) The way in which the rural is seen as tantamount to the natural
(ii) The ways in which the rural and the natural have been subject to processes of subjugation through absorption into the capitalist mode of production
