Thinking through lines: locating perception and experience in place

Abstract

How one conceptualizes place in research matters. I offer a ‘line analysis’ informed by Ingold’s idea that places are ‘tissues of lines’ and argue that this enables reflexivity with regards to what counts as ‘place’, adds legitimacy to the claim that places really do matter in research, and assists in representing places as a socio-natural phenomenon that cannot be compartmentalized or reduced to a humanist understanding of the social. I trial this analysis by drawing upon interviews and focus groups with people living in the vicinity of the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona). I use references made about lines of various kinds to create a narrative that locates Mona within the everyday lives of local residents. I conclude that this museum’s impact of is more mundane than the social transformation envisaged in the Bilbao Effect as this ‘effect’ relies upon a problematic and unexamined conceptualisation of place.