city different buildings no longer exercise a moral function ± the most
significant new spaces are those based around consumption and tourism. Such
spaces are specifically designed to wall off the differences between diverse social groups and to separate the inner life of people from their public activities.
14
John Urry
Objects are thus very significant in this construction of place. Various kinds of objects, activities, or media images may constitute the basis of such an `ìmagined presence.'' They carry that imagined presence across the members of a local
community, although much of the time members of such a place may not be
conscious of this imagined community. Various objects can function in this way
± and not just the immense monuments of place and community. Oldenburg has
described the significance of informal casual meeting places: bars, cafeÂs, com-
munity centers, spaces under pear trees, and so on. He calls thesè`third places,''
places beyond work and households where communities come into being and
neighborhood life can be sustained (Oldenburg, 1989; Diken, 1998).
Finally, even those places which are based upon geographical propinquity
depend upon diverse mobilities. There are countless ways of reaffirming a
sense of dwelling through movement within a community's boundaries, such
as walking along well worn paths. But any such community is also intercon-
nected to many other places through diverse kinds of travel. Raymond Williams
in Border Country (1988) is ``fascinated by the networks men and women set up,
the trails and territorial structures they make as they move across a region, and the ways these interact or interfere with each other'' (Pinkney, 1991, p. 49;
Cresswell, 1997, p. 373). Massey similarly argues that the identity of a place is derived in large part from its interchanges with other places that may be
stimulating and progressive. Sometimes, though, such notions depend upon
gender-unequal relationships to the possibilities of travel. Massey discusses
how ``mum'' can function as the symbolic center to whom ``prodigal sons'' return when the going elsewhere gets tough (1994, p. 180).
Finally, I shall consider two examples where research has shown how places
are constituted through networks of movement. First, among British road pro-
testors and travelers, dwellings are often impermanent and characterized,
according to one participant, by ``their shared air of impermanence, of being
ready to move on . . . re-locate to other universities, mountain-tops, ghettos,
factories, safe houses, abandoned farms'' (Mckay, 1996, p. 8). There is a sense
of movement, of continuous acts of transgression, as happens in the case of a
peace convoy. Their dwelling spaces are constituted through various routeways
and specific sacred nodes. Dwelling is intense, impermanent, and mobile. These
cultures of resistance are constituted as `à network . . . of independent collectives and communities' (Albion Free State Manifesto, 1974; see Mckay, 1996, p. 11).
Such groupings form à`loose network of loose networks,'' such as those
involved in free festivals, rural fairs, alternative music, hunt sabotage, road
protests, new age traveling, rave culture, poll tax protest, peace convoys, animal rights, and so on (Mckay, 1996, p. 11). These networks are reinforced by various patterns of travel, in which there is a kind of resistant mapping of key events, places, routeways, and so on (see Urry, 2000, on corporeal mobility).
Second, the literature on diasporas shows how cultures have been made and
remade as a consequence of the flows of peoples, objects, and images backwards
and forwards across borders (Bhabha, 1990). Gilroy specifically argues that: `Ìn opposition to . . . ethnically absolute approaches, I want to develop the suggestion that cultural historians could take the Atlantic as one single, complex unit of The Sociology of Space and Place
15
analysis . . . and use it to produce an
significant new spaces are those based around consumption and tourism. Such
spaces are specifically designed to wall off the differences between diverse social groups and to separate the inner life of people from their public activities.
14
John Urry
Objects are thus very significant in this construction of place. Various kinds of objects, activities, or media images may constitute the basis of such an `ìmagined presence.'' They carry that imagined presence across the members of a local
community, although much of the time members of such a place may not be
conscious of this imagined community. Various objects can function in this way
± and not just the immense monuments of place and community. Oldenburg has
described the significance of informal casual meeting places: bars, cafeÂs, com-
munity centers, spaces under pear trees, and so on. He calls thesè`third places,''
places beyond work and households where communities come into being and
neighborhood life can be sustained (Oldenburg, 1989; Diken, 1998).
Finally, even those places which are based upon geographical propinquity
depend upon diverse mobilities. There are countless ways of reaffirming a
sense of dwelling through movement within a community's boundaries, such
as walking along well worn paths. But any such community is also intercon-
nected to many other places through diverse kinds of travel. Raymond Williams
in Border Country (1988) is ``fascinated by the networks men and women set up,
the trails and territorial structures they make as they move across a region, and the ways these interact or interfere with each other'' (Pinkney, 1991, p. 49;
Cresswell, 1997, p. 373). Massey similarly argues that the identity of a place is derived in large part from its interchanges with other places that may be
stimulating and progressive. Sometimes, though, such notions depend upon
gender-unequal relationships to the possibilities of travel. Massey discusses
how ``mum'' can function as the symbolic center to whom ``prodigal sons'' return when the going elsewhere gets tough (1994, p. 180).
Finally, I shall consider two examples where research has shown how places
are constituted through networks of movement. First, among British road pro-
testors and travelers, dwellings are often impermanent and characterized,
according to one participant, by ``their shared air of impermanence, of being
ready to move on . . . re-locate to other universities, mountain-tops, ghettos,
factories, safe houses, abandoned farms'' (Mckay, 1996, p. 8). There is a sense
of movement, of continuous acts of transgression, as happens in the case of a
peace convoy. Their dwelling spaces are constituted through various routeways
and specific sacred nodes. Dwelling is intense, impermanent, and mobile. These
cultures of resistance are constituted as `à network . . . of independent collectives and communities' (Albion Free State Manifesto, 1974; see Mckay, 1996, p. 11).
Such groupings form à`loose network of loose networks,'' such as those
involved in free festivals, rural fairs, alternative music, hunt sabotage, road
protests, new age traveling, rave culture, poll tax protest, peace convoys, animal rights, and so on (Mckay, 1996, p. 11). These networks are reinforced by various patterns of travel, in which there is a kind of resistant mapping of key events, places, routeways, and so on (see Urry, 2000, on corporeal mobility).
Second, the literature on diasporas shows how cultures have been made and
remade as a consequence of the flows of peoples, objects, and images backwards
and forwards across borders (Bhabha, 1990). Gilroy specifically argues that: `Ìn opposition to . . . ethnically absolute approaches, I want to develop the suggestion that cultural historians could take the Atlantic as one single, complex unit of The Sociology of Space and Place
15
analysis . . . and use it to produce an
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