CIVIC GEOGRAPHIES: SECURING GEOGRAPHIES IN 'CIVIC' LIFE
 
Plenary exhibition/session at Annual Conference of the Royal Geogaphical
Society-Institute of British Geographers, early-July, 2012
 
We are planning an exhibition and (possibly) associated Panel Session
for the upcoming RGS-IBG Annual Conference, and are looking for
collaborations between geographers and 'civic' bodies (where 'civic'
could mean many different things) which could be generating materials
(posters, videos, installations, etc.) for an exhibition to be displayed
  in rooms at the University of Edinburgh (central to the Conference
itself). The idea is also to have a panel session, with longer and
shorter interventions from people involved in the exhibition, and
interested others.  A more detailed rationale for the event is provided
below.
 
If you think that you might like to participate in what we do hope will
be a stimulating, alternatively-configured Conference event, with many
hooks into themes close to the concerns of the CGF, then please get in
touch with us a.s.a.p. The timetable for finalising it can be looser
than that for most of the other formal sessions being organised, but
obviously we are anxious to get moving in sorting things out for this
event.  We really look forward to hearing from you, by early-March.
 
Kye Askins ([log in to unmask])
Ian Cook ([log in to unmask])
Chris Philo ([log in to unmask]) [Conference Chair]
 
____________
 
RATIONALE
 
The notion of 'civic' has varied meanings:  as 'civics', it can mean the
comparative study of government, but more typically perhaps it starts to
refer to something like "connection one feels with a larger community"
or "relating to the person as a member of society or to civil affairs";
or even, acquiring some spatial specificity with reference to urban
locations, "relating to, or derived, from a city or citizen".  The
references to 'civil affairs' and 'citizenship' wheel in further terms
with varied and uncertain meanings, replete with theoretical and ethical
charge, but a linking thread of sorts arguably suggests that to consider
'the civic' is to explore what makes - enables, empowers - people to
feel connected to something 'larger' than themselves, an assembly of
others who might be regarded as a 'community' or a 'society', maybe with
some sense of placed-ness involved.  To engage with the civic, to be
civic-minded, is hence to engage with places,  possibly particular city
places (neighbourhoods, squares, centres, etc.), but always in the
process of expressing - or striving to foster - some quality of
connection, of belonging or at least identification, prompted by both
the place and its dwellers and users.
 
The places perhaps do not need to be urban, however, and there seems
warrant for contemplating not just 'urban civics' but also 'rural
civics' or, indeed, civics as played out at and across different spatial
scales (the local, the regional, national or even possibly global
scales).  As such, the history of civics can become an account of
diverse moments when given peoples and places, at different scales, have
more-or-less consciously endeavoured to foster 'civic pride', as an
attachment, an assertion but sometimes too a defensive posture, which
simultaneously melds itself around both a people and a place.  It is in
this guise that we might routinely envisage such a history,
concentrating on the making of 'civic architecture' (often imagined in
terms of grand public buildings) or on the making of 'civic
institutions' (often imagined as the likes of museums, libraries,
galleries, etc., provided by local municipal authorities and/or paternal
philanthropists, and often themselves pictured set in grand city
premises).  There could be here a first cut through civic geographies,
one that takes seriously both the landscapes that appear to embody
'civics', especially but not exclusively urban civics, but which might
also consider the geographical knowledges/practices integral to the
raising/running/mission of the buildings and institutions involved.
 
Without wishing to enter into simple polarities, there is nonetheless
warrant for contemplating other, supplementary and perhaps more
oppositional civics.  Arguably, there is something a touch
'establishment' about our usual impressions of the civic and civics: a
sense of them being associated with 'powerful' elites looking to foster
civics as a dimension of engineering social compliance; or a sense of
them being rather 'conservative', as when informing the defence of
'nice' places against the forces of change;  or even a sense of them as
somehow endemically polite, shaped by a liberal-communitarian tradition
where the emphasis is aesthetic-edifying rather than more deeply
transformative.  As Cannone (2009) has implied, there is a risk of
over-stressing 'virtuous civic spaces' that "exclude all the seemingly
'un-civic' attitudes and relations of protest, conflict or resistance in
all its heterogenous forms" (Naughton, 2011, unpublished).   That said,
a cautious counter-critique can arguably be mounted in defence of
civics, spying in them challenging potentials for questioning
establishments, conservatism and politeness.  It is revealing to learn
what Civic Voice (http://www.civicvoice.org.uk) says about the history
of what is here termed the 'civic movement':
 
"Civic societies can be provocative, stubborn, forceful, inspiring and
outspoken on behalf of the places they care about. They are fiercely
independent and grassroots organisations, often providing the grit in
the oyster which stimulates people to think, reconsider and widen their
horizons. They will celebrate and encourage positive action and be
forthright in resisting damaging change. They are also a store of
knowledge and expertise about local places which is an essential
starting point in recognising and strengthening their identity."
 
There is perhaps a hint here of being, if not squarely in-your-face
oppositional, but rather 'grittily' subversive, maybe appealing to a
British tradition of radical-local dissent, but also demanding
recalibrations of wider 'horizons'.  Seen in this vein, moreover, it
might even be appropriate to claim the likes of the contemporary
occupations - occupying public spaces, berating the established orders
of social life - comprise a version of civics, always meaningfully
placed but also more widely networked, insistently challenging
placeless-/careless-ness however it is manifested.  There could be here
a second cut through civic geographies, then, one that takes seriously
the places integral to these gritty civics, but which also explores the
geographical knowledges/practices mobilised in the fashioning of such
counter-civics.
 
PROPOSAL
 
Such is the ground of this proposed engagement with civic geographies,
with the ambition of reflecting on the various angles of civic
geographies.  There will clearly be linkages across to the domains of
both participatory and public geographies, and perhaps too activist
geographies, as well as across to other (very different) terrains of
inquiry into the historical-cultural geographies of/in civic life (eg.
Finnegan, 2009; Morin, 2011).   The proposal is that there should be a
session at Conference which debates the possibilities, prospects and
problems for engaging with civic geographies, for 'securing' them as a
subject-matter worthy of study and indeed as a practice beyond the academy.
 
Exhibition
 
With the conviction that it will not be enough just to debate these
geographies in the abstract, the further proposal is that 'space' should
be created at Conference for exhibiting what these geographies might
actually embrace/entail in practice.  Specifically, then, space has been
set aside at Conference for an exhibition of civic geographies in
practice, where the idea is invite a range of organisations or
less-organised entities to take the lead in exhibiting something of
'what they are all about'.  The material form to be taken can vary: a
poster, a video-loop, an artwork, an installation, a repeating
performance, whatever might feasibly be mounted within the space
available (the ground floor of a building at the heart of the
Conference).  The brief for what is exhibited is deliberately being left
quite open - in effect, the rationale above - but what will be crucial
is that the exhibit captures something of how the organisation/entity in
question rolls geography (spaces, places, sites, locations,
environments, landscapes) into the heart of its endeavours, whether as
the focus of their attention or as elements (knowledges and practices)
within the 'work' being undertaken.
 
The hope is that rather different forms of civic engagement, and hence
civic geography, will be represented in the exhibition: from, say, a big
civic institution in Edinburgh (such as the National Library) through to
smaller, more fluid entities (such as the occupation in Exeter).  In
practice, we are probably not looking for that many examples: somewhere
between 5 and 8, maybe, which can offer a clue as to the range of
possibilities here.  A likely model is nonetheless that these
organisations/entities will have a more-or-less formalised connection
with the subject of Geography, perhaps through the studies of their own
members or perhaps through a research-based or activist relationship
with an academic geographer - and, to be realistic, it will be
presumably through such connections that these organisations/entities
will be drawn into the orbit of Conference in the first place.  The
intention is that members of these organisations/entities will attend
conference to set up and spend time with their exhibits, being offered
free entry to the exhibition space throughout Conference and to any
Conference sessions that they might wish to attend on the day of the
panel session (see below).
 
Panel session
 
The further plan is to run a panel session - probably on the Thursday of
the Conference (5th July) in association with the exhibition, including
one or two more formal papers reflecting on civic geographies, perhaps
amplifying, recasting, critiquing, etc., the outline thoughts provided
above about what civic geographies may comprise.  More importantly,
though, the intention is create a discursive space for people involved
with the exhibits - both the academic geographers and the
representatives of the organisations/entities in question (and these two
categories may not be mutually exclusive).  The suggestion might be that
c.10 minutes is put aside for someone to speak to each exhibit, and then
further time for comment and discussion.  The exact format here, as with
the exhibition itself, will be in part dependent on who/what is offered
- there is some excitement, but also trepidation, in this big unknown!
 
REFERENCES
 
Cannone, M., 2009, 'Searching for social capital', in Häkli, J. & Minca.
C. (eds) Social Capital and Urban Networks (Ashgate, Farnham), pp.37-65
 
Finnegan, D. A., Natural History Societies and Civic Culture in
Victorian Scotland (Pickering and Chatto, London, 2009)
 
Naughton, L., 2011, 'Towards a grounded approach to social capital
research - a geographical perspective', unpublished ms.
 
Morin, K.M, 2011, Civic Discipline: Geography in America, 1860-1890
(Ashgate, Farnham).
 
Big, big thanks,
 
Chris.

via 
Ian Cook
Associate Professor of Geography
University of Exeter
Exeter EX4 4RJ

http://geography.exeter.ac.uk/
https://twitter.com/#!/exetergeography

http://geography.exeter.ac.uk/staff/index.php?web_id=Ian_Cook
http://twitter.com/#!/followthethings