It is not uncommon to hear people speak of their worlds coming undone during traumatic events of existential crisis or catastrophe. Yet, human geographers have largely neglected to attend to the phenomenal nature of this unbounded sense of 'unworlding' disintegration, as well as the wild material forces, agencies and passions at loose in the world that carry the unlimited potential to wreck the integrity of our worlds. This dissertation dedicates itself to critically thinking through the human experience of suffering to live through, confront and respond to unworlding disasters of sense that are materially capable of disrupting the functional and relational composition of our worlds. More concretely, in this dissertation I explore unworlding disasters of sense through the specific experiences of agoraphobic sufferers. While social scientists, including human geographers, have long been interested in what is sociologically, spatially and clinically exceptional about agoraphobia as a static predicament of being spatially bounded due to fear of public space, little to no consideration has been given to how agoraphobia primitively and phenomenally manifests itself as an eventful disordering of sense that unsettles not just one's situated place in the world, but the entire relational order of the world itself. By critically attending to agoraphobia as an eventful disordering of sense that improperly deforms the structure of a human world, I seek to develop new ways to account for affective disasters of unworlding that carry the potential to overturn a proper sense of the world. Furthermore, I also speculate on the finite human ability to affirmatively respond to, make sense of, and impose limits on unworlding disasters that exceed one's subjective ability to grasp, yet improperly and materially affect the entire scope of one's lifeworld. In terms of its greater contribution to the discipline of geography, in this dissertation I strive to develop new understandings about the human condition of being in an eventful, material world that infinitely exceeds our ability to subjectively control or understand. By doing so, this dissertation aims to reaffirm the humanistic perspective as a theoretically valid and ethically critical way of practicing geography after the non-representational turn. / text

abstract: Geography, and the social sciences more broadly, have long operated within what is arguably a paradigm of the visual. Expanding the reach of geographical consideration into the realm of the aural, though in no way leaving behind the visual, opens the discipline to new areas of human and cultural geography invisible in ocular-centric approaches. At its broadest level, my argument in this dissertation is that music can no longer be simply an object of geographical research. Re-conceptualized and re-theorized in a geographical context to take into account its very real, active, and more-than-representational presence in social life, music provides actual routes to geographic knowledge of the world. I start by constructing a theoretical framework and methodological approach for studying music beyond representation. Based on these theoretical and methodological arguments, I present four narratives that unfold at the intersections of race and music in the northeast Brazilian city of Salvador. From the favelas of Rio de Janeiro to the troubled neighborhood of the Pelourinho, from the manic tempos of samba to the laid back grooves of samba-reggae, and in the year-round competition between the oppressive forces of ordinary time and the fleeting possibility of carnival, music emerges as a creative societal force with affects and effects far beyond the realm of representation. Together, these narratives exemplify the importance of expanding geographical considerations beyond a strictly visual framework. These narratives contribute to the musicalization of the discipline of geography. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Geography 2011

This thesis investigates the injunction to experiment in the social sciences and, more specifically, geography. This is both a geography of certain ways of thinking experiment, and an exploration of how particular strands of geographical thinking are being re-imagined and reworked as experimental under the influence of ideas and practices from within and beyond the discipline. Against the backdrop of recent debates about the status of experiment, it poses a number of key questions about what it means to be experimental, how experimental practices emerge and travel, and how these processes are inflected by the organization and atmospheres of particular sites of experimentation. These questions are addressed through a form of attentive participation at four key sites: The SenseLab and the Topological Media Lab in Montreal, the Institut für Raumexperimente in Berlin, and FoAM in Brussels. Based upon these encounters, and drawing upon the work of a range of exemplary experimentalists, the thesis develops the argument that there are new spaces of experiment which are worthy of such examination as part of a renewal of experimentation within geographical thinking. As such, the thesis outlines the logics of these forms of experiment and proposes the notion of ecologies of experiment. It also speculates on the possibilities for re-imagining what constitutes a geographical experiment, foregrounding the necessity of reactivating experiment as an ongoing ethos that needs careful cultivation and tending.

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Within this thesis I explore what can be achieved when culture is critically assessed through a series of theories that mobilise a spatial imaginary. I place the concepts of atmosphere, connection, site and encounter, and theories of emergence via terms such as movement, practice and embodiment, into tension with a single case study: Goth. Goth is a music based grouping, emerging from Punk, New Romantic, Indie and Glam Rock style and music cultures in the late 1970s, with a significant near-global presence in the popular culture industries and links to several salient media controversies; including the Columbine High School massacre, the murder of Sophie Lancaster, and fears over self-harm and suicide. I specifically draw on the vocabularies from within non-representational geographies of performance, relational materiality, affect and social anxiety to re-work understandings of this collectivity. I question what is involved in the material practices of Goth, explore how the practice and experience of Goth is articulated through specific sites, examine how Goth participates in the production and circulation of cultures of anxiety or (un)popularity; and reconsider the concept of ‘subculture’. To do so, I employ a range of methodologies, from guided walks to photo-diaries, within multi-site field research throughout the UK, Tokyo and New York City. I conclude that Goth and culture more generally can be theorised in a number of ways: it emerges as a performed series of embodied acts; it is co-produced in complex relations with non-humans; it can be thought of as a series of modulating affective atmospheres; it coalesces as a collectivity and circulates through events; and it is co-produced through sites and media events. None of these dominates over or diminishes the other; rather they are co-constitutive and interdependent.

Social scientific measurement is much desired and much criticized. In this dissertation I evaluate one of the main approaches to social scientific measurement that has nevertheless been virtually ignored by philosophers - the psychometric approach. Psychometric measures are typically used to measure unobservable attributes such as intelligence and personality. They typically take the form of questionnaires or tests and are validated by statistical tests of properties such as reliability and model-fit. My thesis is two-fold. In the first, more critical part, I argue that psychometric instruments normally fail to fulfil plausible criteria for adequate measurement. To make this argument, I define and defend a conception of quantitative representation necessary for measurement. My definition is grounded in the Representational Theory of Measurement but avoids the main critiques this theory has faced. I then show that the typical psychometric process of measure validation fails to produce evidence of such quantitative representation. The upshot is that although a quantitative interpretation of psychometric data is common, it is largely unwarranted. In the second part, I argue that psychometric instruments are nonetheless apt for various other purposes. This argument hinges on a new outlook on how concepts should be formed for psychometric purposes. Philosophers have traditionally thought that concepts should cohere with intuitions and/or pick out so-called natural kinds, while many psychometricians argue that concepts should pick out real as opposed to constructed attributes. I argue that, when it comes to social scientific measurement, it is much more important to focus on the usefulness of the concept, where usefulness can take on different meanings in different contexts. Building on the defended outlook on concept formation, I show what useful functions psychometric instruments can serve even when they fail at quantitative representation.

Goodbye Brigadoon examines the shifting role media production plays in the economic and cultural strategies of global cities in small market nations, specifically Glasgow, Scotland. In particular, this project focuses on the formation of a digital media village along the banks of the River Clyde to argue the site constitutes a logical component to Glasgow’s ongoing transformation into a cosmopolitan center. Yet, as the regional government’s economic strategies and policy directives work to transform the abandoned waterfront into a center of cultural activity, this project also underscores the contradictory cultural dynamics to emerge from media production’s new role in the post-industrial city. At its core, the media hub reveals a regional government more interested in the technology used to deliver “national” stories than the manner of the stories themselves or the cultural practices responsible for creating them. Indeed, Goodbye Brigadoon is most interested in how media professionals based at the emergent cluster negotiate a sense of cultural identity and creative license against the institutional constraints, policy matters, and commercial logic they also must navigate in their workaday rituals. Ultimately, the conclusions offered in this project argue for a more complicated conception of the global-local location where these professionals work. Glasgow’s digital media village, in other words, is much more than an innocuous site of competitive advantage, urban regeneration, and job growth. It is best understood as a site of intense social struggle and unequal power relations where local mediamakers often find the site’s impetus for multiplatform media production an institutionally enforced false promise at odds with the realities of creative labor in the city. / text

Recent literature in cultural geography has turned its attention to the enactment of landscape through performance. Drawing upon the insights of new cultural geography and non-representational theory, this thesis examines the performative enactments of “place” through the production of landscape representations on the Islands of the Salish Sea. In particular, I adopt a narrative approach to consider how the embodied and discursive performances of becoming-artist and the enactment of landscape are co-constituted. Through a comparative case study of four Islands in the Salish Sea – San Juan, Lopez, Salt Spring, and Pender Islands – the current study provides an embodied account of the practices of landscape representation based upon fieldwork, participant observation, and 13 semi-structured interviews with landscape artists on the Islands. This is followed by a thematic analysis of recurring imagery in landscape paintings with a focus on representations of the rural scene, property relations, nationalism, and “unpeopled” landscapes. I conclude that landscape representations are both discursive and experiential in their performative enactments of place. / Graduate / 0366 / jolenejackson12@gmail.com

The complex interactions between individuals, institutions and information and communications technologies (ICTs) have generated a growing body of research that seeks greater knowledge of the processes at work and their consequences. Situated firmly within this area, this thesis challenges the dominance of the generalised and largely technologically deterministic narratives within the field by seeking to constitute such knowledge in a different way. Geography provides a useful standpoint from which to challenge these narratives owing to its enduring engagement with time and space, concepts implicit in any discussion of ICTs effects. Emerging work on code space, transurbanism and timespace are specifically used to negate the persistent dualistic treatment of time and space which is argued to be hampering geographic research in this field. Methodologically drawing from a non representational style this thesis uses these emerging understandings to access the in between, a mental space of performance; which involves the process of drawing from tacit knowledge, cognitive perceptions of the spatial and temporal environment and emotions, in order to explore the conditions of possibility that individuals are becoming aware of through their interactions with ICTs. Four empirical interventions are used to ground these emerging understandings into the reality of everyday encounters with ICTs in Auckland, New Zealand. The first focuses on the role of local government in the development of Auckland’s ICT infrastructure, a complex and contingent process. The second concentrates on the provision of a Real Time Passenger Information System at Auckland bus stops, exposing individuals to new timespaces while waiting for the bus. The third considers students opinions of the e-learning mechanisms used in two first year geography courses. The final intervention examines the role ICTs play in South Africans and South Koreans imagining, negotiation and mediation of the migration process to Auckland. In conclusion, this thesis contributes to how geography constitutes knowledge about ICTs at three different levels. Empirically, the four interventions contribute grounded findings to the debates in the geographic literature over interactions with ICTs. Methodologically, the conditions of possibility institutional and individual actors are beginning to perceive through their encounters with ICTs are revealed as are the timespaces that may eventuate from these. Theoretically, to understand how the interactions between individuals and ICTs are performed this thesis demonstrates the need to interrogate the in between as a process, not just a gap or blank.

The complex interactions between individuals, institutions and information and communications technologies (ICTs) have generated a growing body of research that seeks greater knowledge of the processes at work and their consequences. Situated firmly within this area, this thesis challenges the dominance of the generalised and largely technologically deterministic narratives within the field by seeking to constitute such knowledge in a different way. Geography provides a useful standpoint from which to challenge these narratives owing to its enduring engagement with time and space, concepts implicit in any discussion of ICTs effects. Emerging work on code space, transurbanism and timespace are specifically used to negate the persistent dualistic treatment of time and space which is argued to be hampering geographic research in this field. Methodologically drawing from a non representational style this thesis uses these emerging understandings to access the in between, a mental space of performance; which involves the process of drawing from tacit knowledge, cognitive perceptions of the spatial and temporal environment and emotions, in order to explore the conditions of possibility that individuals are becoming aware of through their interactions with ICTs. Four empirical interventions are used to ground these emerging understandings into the reality of everyday encounters with ICTs in Auckland, New Zealand. The first focuses on the role of local government in the development of Auckland’s ICT infrastructure, a complex and contingent process. The second concentrates on the provision of a Real Time Passenger Information System at Auckland bus stops, exposing individuals to new timespaces while waiting for the bus. The third considers students opinions of the e-learning mechanisms used in two first year geography courses. The final intervention examines the role ICTs play in South Africans and South Koreans imagining, negotiation and mediation of the migration process to Auckland. In conclusion, this thesis contributes to how geography constitutes knowledge about ICTs at three different levels. Empirically, the four interventions contribute grounded findings to the debates in the geographic literature over interactions with ICTs. Methodologically, the conditions of possibility institutional and individual actors are beginning to perceive through their encounters with ICTs are revealed as are the timespaces that may eventuate from these. Theoretically, to understand how the interactions between individuals and ICTs are performed this thesis demonstrates the need to interrogate the in between as a process, not just a gap or blank.