Making New Places

Monday, June 15th, 2009

Michel de Certeau is a French Philosopher whose work has been very influential in theories about space and place. I studied two chapters of his book, The Practice of Everyday Life (Walking the City, and Spatial Stories) at University and I keep returning to his ideas today.

De Certeau makes a strong argument for a democratic view of space, and makes a link between city and text which I am particularly interested in. He writes: “… space is a practiced place. Thus the street geometrically defined by urban planning is transformed into a space by walkers. In the same way, an act of reading is the space produced by the practice of a particular place: a written text.”

I love this distinction between designed place and practiced space. It suits my politics to think about places as being made into spaces by the people who operate within them. And I like the connection with reader reception theories (something else I studied at University and a theory made very ‘real’ in Reader Development work) – this idea that the reader plays a creative role in the creation of a text.

There’s a wonderful bit in ‘Walking the City’, where de Certeau talks about how architects/planners etc. name new places, and how those names only have currency if they are used by the inhabitants. He talks about these names being “disposed in constellations” across the city “these words slowly lose, like worn out coins, the value engraved on them, but their ability to signify outlives its first definition […] these names make themselves available to the diverse meanings given them by passers-by.”

The writer bit of me sometimes feels a bit queasy at the thought of relinquishing so much control over the interpretation of my writing, but then I like this idea of a text being a place to be explored and created anew.

Which reminds me of a quote I read a couple of years ago by Alice Munro, which annoyingly I can’t lay my hands on right now. She talked about how she sees short stories as houses for a reader to explore. This was in the context of her rarely starting short stories at the beginning, but diving in half way through.

I suppose I’m saying, are we creating new places in our fiction? And what does that mean? And do we allow our readers the flexibility to explore them in whatever way they might choose?

tagged under: Alice Munro.Michel de Certeau.reader reception theory

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ABOUT THIS AUTHOR

Sarah Butler

Sarah Butler is a writer, and director of UrbanWords, a literature consultancy which actively explores and develops literature projects that engage with regeneration and urban renewal. Sarah has worked in literature development since 2000. She is currently based in London. www.urbanwords.org.uk ~ www.sarahbutler.org.uk

5 Comments

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Charlie Jordan
June 16th, 2009

Interesting ideas and I love the idea of the place names being ‘disposed like constellations’ across the city.’ Also once you get to know a city the names the locals give to places irrespective of the official names. In b’ham we have a sculpture of a naked woman in a pool of water with a fountain – she’s been called the ‘Floozey in the jacuzzi’ by us all!
Also intrigued by your notion that we create new spaces with our writing, and I think at the same time we’re sharing our ‘inner world’ or spaces with the page and our readers.
x

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Sarah Butler Reply:
June 17th, 2009 at 9:26 am
Hi Charlie
I love that idea about sharing inner spaces with the page and the reader. And I agree about the ‘insider’ knowledge of cities. When I lived in Leicester you knew if people were local by the way they pronounced ‘Belvoir’ Street (if you’re local, you say ‘Beaver St’!)
I love the idea that names for places only have currency if they are used – that if a council calls a street Sarah Street but everyone who lives there calls it Charlie Street, then it’s called Charlie St S

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Andy Darby
June 16th, 2009

Hi Sarah
Your quote from De Certeau is most interesting.

At first glance the spoken word is another presentation of written text, but actually it is a moment in time, to be present in and inhabit; you can’t revisit it in the same way.

So what act does the spoken word produce? Is the spoken word a practice of the text? Or a place in itself, and the practice listening?

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Sarah Butler Reply:
June 17th, 2009 at 9:18 am
Hi Andy,
I wonder if every place is a moment in time, to be present in and inhabit. I wonder if we can ever really revisit places, because we’ve changed, there are different people there, the sky’s different etc. (and again, with a book, we are different people by the time we reread them?). This is making me think, though, about the ‘trend’ (?!) for putting filmed performances online – what does that do to/say about revisiting?
I agree though, that the spoken and written word are different. I don’t think I see spoken word – particularly work that’s been created to be read – as ‘just’ a practice of the text.
I’m afraid I can’t think of anything very coherent to say this morning(see that – not write! What are blogs doing to our idea of text and speech?), but I’m thinking – in a half-formed way – about how spoken word takes place in a specific and chosen place, whilst a book is sent out into the world and the reader chooses where to read it. Perhaps the environment/ place has less influence over the experience of reading a book than it does over the experience of listening to spoken word? (I’m having horrible flashbacks of poetry readings in cold, atmosphereless libraries…..)
S

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Sarah Butler
June 17th, 2009

Hi Charlie
I love that idea about sharing inner spaces with the page and the reader. And I agree about the ‘insider’ knowledge of cities. When I lived in Leicester you knew if people were local by the way they pronounced ‘Belvoir’ Street (if you’re local, you say ‘Beaver St’!)
I love the idea that names for places only have currency if they are used – that if a council calls a street Sarah Street but everyone who lives there calls it Charlie Street, then it’s called Charlie St
S

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