This thesis puts forward the category of ‘strayed home.’ Might it be possible to locate public spaces which are temporarily transformed by the homely things that take place in them? Places which permit or invite intimate ways of behaving? Through an interrogation of a series of spaces in which people do things in public that might be thought of as private the thesis asks questions about habitual experience of space, about attachments to practices and places. Each chapter presents a close reading of a strayed home that takes into account its cultural representations (in film, literature and advertisements) alongside a reading of the space as the author finds it today. The collision of these imaginary and immediate spaces is explored as inseparable from the way space is experienced. As such the thesis follows the logic and the poetry of everyday speech and imagery and the way realities of expression shape reality. Taking the Jewish tradition of eruv as its starting point the thesis moves from the launderette, to the sleeper-train, the fire escape, the greasy spoon and then to the postcard. Each space (or object) is explored separately but themes that emerge highlight the simultaneous pleasure and trauma involved in the experience of a strayed home. These spaces are at once too small and pleasurably confined, sites of exposure but also encounter, of contagion but also mixing, of solitude and of society. These are spaces which trouble our natural sensitivity to time and space but which permit a certain and rare figuring of the one through the other. The handling of time in these spaces or the way in which they disrupt the handling of time is suggestive for conceptions of home, domesticity and privacy. This investigation suggests that wasted time, as well as the other bodily wastes of dirt, sound and smell, might be integral to what it is that makes a space (temporarily) a home.

Against a backdrop of growing interest in performance geographies and performative notions of embodiment and social identity, this thesis critically examines the geographies of 'community theatre' (or 'theatre in the community'). Drawing on in-depth qualitative research, the study is concerned to analyse the forms of 'community' presumed in and produced through the performances of community theatre companies in London. It focuses in particular on detailed case studies of three companies - London Bubble, Outside Edge and Tamasha - which were chosen to examine how different engagements with the notion of 'community' are made through performance and practice. This thesis demonstrates how practices of community theatre have been positioned marginally to that of mainstream and established theatre. Through the empirical analysis, it examines both the opportunities and contradictions that an engagement with the discourse and practice of 'community' brings for community theatre companies. It also illustrates how 'theatre in the community' companies mobilise themselves in ways which may be both subversive, democratic and powerful. Engaging with forms of performative art that work with ideas of community and notions of communality articulated through performance, the thesis helps to rectify the absence of geographic research on the social spatial constitution of the arts. In so doing, it seeks to contribute to emergent understandings of the social and cultural geographies of performance.

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Through an intersectional, embodied (psycho-spatial and synaesthetic), and processual theoretical matrix, my thesis unpacks the complex mechanisms underpinning the visual identification of subjects and artworks as "Desi" - the Hindi word meaning "from my country" - within the geographical and conceptual space that roughly includes the US, UK, and the South Asian subcontinent. To add further traction to my investigation, I yoke "queer" to Desi. The latter as two overlapping, and at other times competing, sets of visual identifications, serve to bring to the fore, rather than subsume, the complexities of the broader spectrum of intersecting visual identifications connected to both.

This thesis engages, through visual practice and written analysis, with the British tradition of ‘thin’ places that act as thresholds between everyday circumstantial reality and the otherworldly. It does so by focusing on the complex of prehistoric monuments that make up the Avebury ritual landscape because these have become a crucible of contemporary cultural significance and a site of mystical tourism concerned with allegedly paranormal phenomena. I argue that these circumstances produce a range of responses, often broadly religious or aesthetic, which involve ritualistic, artistic, and, above all, performed activity, where legends are re/enacted into being and presented as fact. My contention is that this activity not only revitalises and extends the legend as a form of cultural mediation but also stimulates a shared ‘sense of place’ that helps to enrich an existing narrative world. In this self-reinforcing cycle, memory, imagination, and artfulness together contribute to the shaping of ‘legend landscapes’ as sites of pilgrimage where otherworldly events are said to have occurred and spiritual presences (and absences) still dwell. The study is undertaken from the ‘insider’ perspective of a practitioner fully immersed in these processes. Following a statement of aims and objectives, and the theories and methodologies that underpin my approach to art practice (Chapter 1), I will describe the historical background to my subject (Chapter 2) before discussing how Avebury’s landscape is perceived today in the context of legend (Chapter 3), and the subtle collusion involved in reciprocal processes of ritual engagement through legend telling by action (Chapter 4). Overall, the argument proposes that concealment or anonymity is an essential tool of this creative practice, acting as a methodological principle that aligns the practitioner with the mythical figure of the Trickster. Thus the artist is presented here as an ‘operator of meaning,’ rather than as a sole ‘creator,’ encouraging a plurality of interpretations – a view that is consistent with my representation of the collusive nature of artistic activity. The thesis discloses a number of hitherto unknown, obscured, or otherwise unrecognized aspects of the legend landscape and of artistic activity within it. The original contributions to knowledge presented in this study are likely to be relevant to the theory and practice of art and cultural history, and the wider contemporary arts community.

Places, whether political, social, or domestic, often carry symbolic or metonymic meaning. However, the occupants of a place possess the capability to transform, alter, or redefine its significance through the experiential and narrative strategies they employ therein; the garden can become a theatre, or the prison a church. In Early Modern England, both men and women habitually negotiated and redefined the places in which they lived through the life-writing they produced in and about those places. Through the application of modern spatial theories, this thesis demonstrates that place was a fluid category, eluding any singular categorisation, and thus assists a reading of place as a site from which a plurality of subjectivities could emerge. In short, this thesis will construct a creative dialogue between place and the self, as presented in life-writing so as to place both in a mutually informing and transforming relation.

This study examines human-wildlife interactions in Amacayacu National Park in the Colombian Amazon (3°02’-3°47’ S, 69°54’-70°25’ W). It explores local concepts of nature to contribute towards culturally relevant conservation that provides long-term solutions to environmental issues. Research was carried out with indigenous people from the Tikuna communities of Mocagua (population = 511) and San Martín (population = 480). Male and female participants between 3-78 years took part (n = 228). A multi-methods approach was adopted to assess the social, cultural, nutritional and economic significance of wildlife, and findings favour the implementation of holistic biocultural conservation methods. I carried out all-occurrence sampling, participant observation, semi-structured interviews and workshops, as well as acquiring information through one-to-one conversations and group discussions, and by documenting community events and practices using Participatory Film-Making. Dramatisations, games and music sessions were also carried out with children. Quantitative and qualitative data, obtained during categorisation tasks, suggest gender plays a significant role in establishing people’s knowledge and perceptions about wildlife (comparisons between men and women for food X²=6, df=1, n=105, p < 0.05 and pets X²=32, df=1, n=75, p < 0.05). The communities’ locations also influence how people use and value wildlife as opportunities through tourism, research and conservation fluctuate. This creates economic and environmental differences which are most prominently reflected in the local diet and people’s livelihood options. Dietary assessments reveal that domestic meat, which must be bought or traded for in nearby towns or villages, is consumed in Mocagua (X²=37.44, n=59, df=1, p < 0.05) while people go without meat more frequently in San Martín (X²=20.77, n=274, df=1, p < 0.05). Conversations with the elderly and the young show that socio-economic factors and dietary taboos vary temporally as well as geographically (comparisons between adults and children in Mocagua X²=45.88, n=183, df=5, p < 0.05 and San Martín X²=11.89, n=183, df=5, p < 0.05), while the films people made using the video camera further indicate a difference of opinion about what should be the focus of conservation and development in their communities.

This PhD looks at the way Devall and Sessions discuss nature in two of their books, Deep Ecology: living as ifnature mattered and Simple in Means Rich in Ends. This task is important for two reasons. First, nature is a core concept in environmental literature. Second, failure to clearly understand how writers use key concepts means their arguments are often misunderstood and misrepresented. Devall and Sessions were chosen because they are well known, if sometimes controversial, environmental writers; because they exemplify an important strand of environmental philosophy known as deep ecology; and because their work highlights the role nature plays in environmental thought generally. I will argue in this thesis that Devall and Sessions draw on certain ideas within romanticism and science to develop their claims about nature. Consequently, their deep ecology cannot be taken as a radical break with Western philosophy or attitudes towards nature. This thesis is distinctive because it dissects Devall and Sessions' work in a new way. This is because I evaluate their arguments by drawing upon romantic and scientific literature; and by locating their arguments within a specific cultural, national and historical framework. As a result one can clearly see how they have developed and legitimated their deep ecological prescriptions by drawing on values and perceptions already articulated in Western philosophy.

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No description available.