Alan Latham

Research, performance, and doing human geography: some reflections on the diary-photograph, diary-interview method

The past decade has seen a remarkable turn towards the cultural in human geography. This shift has been marked by a strange gap between theory and empirical practice. Radical though the turn to the cultural has been in reconstituting the ways that human geography thinks of itself as a discipline, its impact on ways that geographers actually do empirical research has been in certain respects relatively limited. Indeed, while the cultural turn has become strongly associated with a valorisation of qualitative methodologies, the actual range of methods used has been relatively narrow. Drawing on the work of Nigel Thrift and a range of other human geographers who are exploring the metaphor of performance to understand this realm of practical action, I argue that not only can social action be viewed as performance, so too is it productive to reframe the research process itself as a kind of performance. This reframing allows for a more experimental and more flexible attitude towards both the production and interpretation of research evidence. It also makes it easier to think of new ways of engaging with how individuals and groups inhabit their worlds through practical action. Drawing on my own experimentation with written and photographic research diaries, I explore a number of ways through which the performative ethos can inform and invigorate the human geographic imagination. I conclude by arguing that human geography needs to be more imaginative, pluralistic, and pragmatic in its attitude towards both (a) methodology and (b) the kinds of final research accounts it produces.

Moving cities: rethinking the materialities of urban geographies

In this paper we offer a discussion of the ‘materiality’ of the urban. This discussion is offered in the context of recent calls in various areas of the discipline for the necessity of ‘rematerializing’ human geography. While we agree with the spirit of these calls, if human geography (and, within that, urban geography) is going to return to the material, let alone articulate some kind of rapprochement between the ‘material’ and ‘immaterial’, it needs to be clear about the terms it is employing. Therefore, and drawing on a range of work from contemporary cultural theory, sociology, urban studies, urban history, architectural theory and urban geography, we sketch out more precisely what a ‘rematerialized’ urban geography might involve. Crucially, we argue that, rather than ‘grounding’ urban geography in more ‘concrete’ realities, paying increased attention to the material actually requires a more expansive engagement with the immaterial. In developing this argument we outline some important conceptual vehicles with which to work up an understanding of the material as processually emergent, before offering two pathways along which the materialities of the urban might be usefully apprehended, pathways that avoid simple oppositions between the ‘material’ and ‘nonmaterial’ while also restating the importance of understanding the complex spatialities of the urban.

Transnational urbanism: attending to everyday practices and mobilities

In this special issue on transnational urbanism, we are interested in accounts of transnational mobility that are attentive to everyday practices and geographical emplacement. Eschewing narratives of trouble-free movement by disembedded actors, consideration is thus given to the mundane and situated efforts by which people make their lives across international borders. We also wish to amplify the social scientific register of transnational migrants by considering groups whose mobility has thus far been little examined. In this introductory paper we elaborate these arguments, while also summarising the content of the substantive papers which follow.

Friendship, networks and transnationality in a world city: Antipodean transmigrants in London

As a contribution to the growing literature on contemporary forms of global mobility, we consider young New Zealanders who move to the UK for a period of work and travel, typically basing themselves in London. Beyond consideration of career opportunities, we find formulations of the self as creative project to be remarkably central to the mobility of these New Zealanders. Their time in London is often understood as a period of exploration, travel and new experiences. We note also the distinctive role that friendship networks play in sustaining and shaping this movement, in both practical and less tangible ways. Significantly, we find that these friendship networks are themselves mobile, in some cases undergoing almost complete temporary relocation from New Zealand to the UK. This raises questions about how we think about contemporary international mobility, and the significance of friendship as opposed to kin or neighbourhood relations within it. We conclude with a series of schematic statements regarding what is needed to more fully come to terms with the distinctive forms of mobility that these New Zealanders—and the Australians, South Africans and Canadians with whom they have much in common—embody as a way of life.

Urbanity, Lifestyle and Making Sense of the New Urban Cultural Economy: Notes from Auckland, New Zealand

Contemporary urban theory is marked by a division. Urban policy practitioners, planners, architects and town hall administrators have over the past two decades rediscovered an enthusiasm and belief in urban life—as indeed have significant numbers of ordinary citizens. It might have been expected that urban critics from the left would be enthusiastic about this rediscovered urbanity. In fact, the much-vaunted urban renaissance has been robustly criticised by academic urbanists, particularly by those working from within a political economy framework, as little more than elite propaganda. Rather than being defined by a renaissance, the contemporary urban landscape is almost uniquely riven by social divisions. In many ways, the critique offered by academic urbanists is powerful and convincing. But this paper argues that the academic—or urban political economy—critique of the contemporary urban condition comes at too high a price. Recognising the pervasiveness of many of the more destructive trends highlighted by the urban political economists, there is also a need to engage more positively with the broader contemporary enthusiasm for the city. Through a case study of a site in Auckland, New Zealand, the paper seeks to demonstrate how thinking carefully about both the context and the emergence of particular kinds of spaces and types of social practices associated with specific instances of urban change, can help us engage more productively with the current resurgence of interest in urban culture and cities.

Escalator London? A Case Study of New Zealand Tertiary Educated Migrants in a Global City

In this paper we consider whether London functions as an ‘escalator region’ for international migrants in the same way that has been suggested for domestic migrants. Our case study focuses on New Zealand tertiary educated migrants who move to London for a period of work and travel. We propose a four-fold typology of these movers, seeking to tease out the different motivations and aspirations behind their global mobility, and the different ways in which they make use of Londons opportunities. Our findings have broader ramifications for studies of skilled migrants between global cities.

On the Hard Work of Domesticating a Public Space

This paper explores the concept of domestication as a way of attending to urban public spaces and the ways in which they come to be inhabited. It argues against the tendency in urban scholarship to use the term pejoratively and interchangeably with words like pacification or taming to express concerns relating to the corrosion of public life. Rather, the aim here is to develop domestication as a concept attentive to the processes by which people go about making a home in the city. Given the tremendous investment, enthusiasm and amount of policy directed towards urban development and regeneration over the past decade, it is argued that it is vital that urban scholarship continues to develop tools and concepts for offering fine-grained attention to the spaces that get produced by these interventions and to the social dynamics within them. These arguments are developed through a case study of the Prince of Wales Junction in London.

The history of a habit: jogging as a palliative to sedentariness in 1960s America

This article provides an account of the emergence of jogging as mass physical fitness practice in America in the 1960s. It explores how jogging was configured as a physical fitness activity suitable for sedentary middle-aged men and women. Jogging developed as a counter to the ill-effects of habits entrained by the increasingly sedentary lifestyles of modern industrialized urban and suburban dwellers. The paper traces the development of jogging as a defined exercise routine at the University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon. Focusing on the moment when jogging is ‘invented’ as a recognizable fitness practice tells a great deal about the origin of contemporary regimes of physical fitness for the middle-aged population and how they have evolved. It also points to the significance of understanding how the shaping of corporeal habits play into the making of (1) individual bodies, (2) common practices of corporeal care and activity, and (3) environments of physical activity.

Inhabiting Infrastructure: Exploring the Interactional Spaces of Urban Cycling

Contemporary cities are thick with infrastructure. In recognition of this fact a great deal of recent work within urban studies and urban geography has focused on transformations in the governance and ownership of infrastructural elements within cities. Less attention has been paid to the practices through which urban infrastructures are inhabited by urban dwellers. Yet in all sorts of ways infrastructures are realised through their use and inhabitation. This paper argues for the importance of attending to the ways that infrastructures are reinterpreted through use. Focusing on a case study of commuter cyclists in London, it explores the ways in which cyclists accommodate themselves to (and are in turn accommodated by) the infrastructural orderings of Londons streets. Confronted by the obduracy of a road infrastructure designed primarily for motorised traffic, cyclists show a diverse range of approaches to negotiating movement through the city on bikes. The paper describes how this negotiation can be understood in terms of the more or less skilful processes of navigation, rule following, rule making, and rule bending. This involves a polymorphous mix of practices, some common to driving, others to walking, and yet others unique to cycling. In conclusion, the paper suggests that transformations of infrastructures found within cities need to be understood as much through emergent changes between their elements, and that close attention to how infrastructures come to be inhabited offers productive avenues for thinking about ways to improve them.

Topologies and the multiplicities of space-time

Over the past couple of decades, human geography has seen a proliferation in its empirical reach. This proliferation has been associated with a series of ongoing attempts to reconsider the kinds of time-spaces through which the world is made. Responding to Allen (2011), this article argues that thinking topologically about time-space does not simply add one more spatial register to existing framings of time-space. Rather, in all sorts of ways it challenges these understandings.