Non-representational Theory Research Articles

Understanding the future of carbon neutrality in the culinary arts through non-representational theory, practice theory, and design

Understanding the future of carbon neutrality in the culinary arts through non-representational theory, practice theory, and design

Dueling cartographies: science, positivism, art, and critical praxis

ABSTRACT Since the first uses of the term in the 19th century, cartography has grown into a sprawling, contested discipline and practice. Today, cartography has been described both as dying and as one of the best jobs to pursue in the 21st century. In this article, we deconstruct this dichotomy by describing three common axes along which cartography has been bifurcated -art and science, critical and post-positivist approaches, and research and practice. These dualisms serve as a frame to better understand what cartography has become and how it is no longer necessarily what self-described cartographers do. In response, we argue that, with the rise of prominent humanistic and affective approaches to geovisualization and the burgeoning field of data science and analytics emerging predominantly outside of traditional cartographic praxis and scholarship, what it means to take cartography seriously across these divides provides an inclusive, unique path forward for both the discipline and practitioners. Using examples from recent work, we lay out potential work that prioritizes ideas from nonrepresentational theory as a framework through which cartographers might productively resituate the field.

Rethinking the Concept of Nation: a Geographical Proposal Based on Non-Representational Theories

Este artigo propõe-se à criação de um conceito de nação à luz das Teorias Não-Representacionais (TNR). As TNR permitem romper com as limitações das formas tradicionais de representação ao focar sua reflexão sobre as relações, processos, práticas e corporificações que se estabelecem entre actantes no espaço geográfico. O artigo adota uma perspectiva bibliográfico-analítica e utiliza os conceitos de afeto, affordances e assemblages para transitar na interface entre nação e não-representação de modo a explorar suas potencialidades e limitações. Ao final, propõe a noção de que as nações são resultantes de arranjos relacionais heterogêneos entre pessoas, coisas e outros seres vivos, cuja dimensão é efêmera e incompatível com os limites territoriais dos Estados-nação.

Ten Traps for Non-Representational Theory in Human Geography

Ten Traps for Non-Representational Theory in Human Geography

Presenting Archaeoacoustics Results Using Multimedia and VR Technologies

Abstract Music and sound cannot be experienced through writing and numbers. Writing freezes time onto paper; as a time-based medium, sound cannot be heard without temporal motion, and acoustic metrics are silent data. For a complete experience of sound, it needs to engage our bodies. Digital multimedia technologies offer powerful approaches to understanding the acoustics of the past, and this work will explore a number of those affordances. In particular, this work explores the use of apps that illustrate archaeoacoustic effects, set digitally within visual and acoustic archaeological cultures. The ways of immersing audiences through projection, acoustic simulation, field and studio recordings, and musical performance will be discussed. The use of virtual reality (VR) headsets is explored to create a sense of deep-flow and presence amongst audiences, total immersion in an experiential phenomenological understanding of interacting audio and visual fields, as well as setting such results within an appropriate context. This study will examine how acoustics results at caves in Northern Spain, in various phases of Stonehenge, and at Paphos Theatre (all World Heritage Sites) can be explored using VR and multimedia technologies, evaluating the comparative advantages of the use of different technologies. It proposes that such integration of visual and sonic modelling using interactive digital technologies is effective as a non-representational theory approach to compliment empirical studies, allowing understanding that goes beyond numerical analysis and binary dialectics to engage directly with the material of archaeological sites in an embodied manner, and address the real-world complexities of acoustic ecologies and their contexts.

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas”: exploring the sensescapes of food experiences in Tivoli

ABSTRACTSet within the unexplored context of Tivoli in Copenhagen, we adapt a mixed-method approach relying on multimodal data and impressionistic storytelling, to qualitatively explore the material staging of Christmas as well as the overall impact of sensescapes on the visitor’s food experience. Drawing on affect theories and nonrepresentational theory, the paper advances multisensory food research. In this process, we demonstrate how affective atmospheres influence and shape food experiences “in situ” and develop the notion of smokescape as a poignant new concept for future food studies.

Rural space and the local food landscape: consumers’ construction of food localness through the politics of belonging

PurposeThis study aims to investigate consumers’ construction of food localness through the politics of belonging in a regional context.Design/methodology/approachFollowing a socio-spatial lens and considering the “realm of meaning” of place, this research focusses on local consumers’ lived meanings of “local” food choice, and hence adopts a phenomenological approach to the data collection and analysis of 20 in-depth interviews with residents of the Italian region of Marche.FindingsDrawing on Trudeau’s (2006) politics of belonging, this study reveals three interconnected themes which show how local consumers articulate a local food “orthodoxy” and how their discourses and practices draw and maintain a boundary between local and non-local food, whereby local food is considered “autochthonous” of rural space. Thus, this study’s participants construct a local food landscape, conveying rural (vs urban) meanings through which food acquires “localness” (vs non-“localness”) status.Research limitations/implicationsThere exists further theoretical opportunity to consider local consumers’ construction of food localness through the politics of belonging in terms of non-representational theory (Thrift, 2008), to help reveal added nuances to the construction of food localness as well as to the complex process of formulating place meaning.Practical implicationsThe findings provide considerable scope for food producers, manufacturers and/or marketers to differentiate local food products by enhancing consumers’ direct experience of it in relation to rural space. Thus, enabling local food producers to convey rural (vs urban) meanings to consumers, who would develop an orthodoxy guiding future choice.Social implicationsThe findings enable regional promoters and food policymakers to leverage the symbolic distinctiveness of food autochthony to promote place and encourage consumers to participate in their local food system.Originality/valueBy using the politics of belonging as an analytical framework, this study shows that the urban–rural dichotomy – rather than being an obsolete epistemological category – fuels politics of belonging dynamics, and that local food consumers socially construct food localness not merely as a romanticisation of rurality but as a territorial expression of the contemporary local/non-local cultural conflict implied in the politics of belonging. Thus, this study advances our theoretical understanding by demonstrating that food “becomes” local and therefore, builds on extant food localness conceptualisations.

포스트휴먼 인문학의 이론적 배경 및 성격과 연구의 방향

This study aims to propose theoretical backgrounds, characteristics, and research directions for posthuman humanities research. To achieve this goal, the study poses three research questions: 1) What is the conceptual background of posthuman humanities? 2) On what philosophical bases can the posthuman humanities be discussed and explored? 3) With what perspectives can the posthuman humanities address the major themes of the humanities? The study argues that four theories of posthumanism (new materialism, object-oriented ontology, post-phenomenology, and non-representational theory) can comprehensively suggest ethical perspectives for posthuman humanities. Additionally, the study examines three philosophical considerations: ontology, epistemology, and axiology, to explore the posthuman being, knowledge, and world views of posthuman society, and the criteria of values for the posthuman society. The study also discusses the conceptualization of language in the context of multiculturalism through the lens of posthuman perspectives. The findings of this study may offer new insights into posthumanism in the field of humanities.

Affective atmospheres of gentrification: Wellbeing amid neighbourhood change

The article aims to contribute to the gentrification debate by proposing a conceptual apparatus attuned to the study of how the everyday lived experience of neighbourhood change can have consequences for wellbeing. Accordingly, the concept of affective atmosphere, grounded within the non-representational theory, is proposed to capture nuances’ affective impact within shifting socio-material assemblages of local environments. A literature review was conducted to examine the ways in which the concept of affective atmosphere enhances the understanding of how changes in the socio-material configurations of space affect the wellbeing of local communities. The proposed framework captures the affective strain of gentrification as emerging within the specificities of socio-material constellations of local environments. Moreover, the advantage of the proposed framework was identified in its capacity to link particular manifestations of gentrification-related violence to overarching regularities of affective capitalism. The article urges for increased sensitivity to nuances of neighbourhood change, posing a potential threat to wellbeing even at the early stages of gentrification. Due to the decision to prioritise thoroughness of analysis over scale, the limitation of this article is its restrictive scope of research.

The emotional presence of nature: Exploring affect in human-wilderness relations

ABSTRACT Affect is a construct that has received substantial scholarly attention in non-representational theory and other fields. This study focuses on human-wilderness relations through a non-representational theoretical lens to reveal insights into the concept of affect. Research indicates that societal and cultural forces play an influential role in wilderness relationships. A focus is lacking on how wilderness may affectively influence, build, or sustain human – wilderness relations through emotional registers. Fifteen people participated in a study of how wilderness affect occurs in everyday life. For one week following a visit to a wilderness area, participants kept a diary and camera to take notes and photographs when certain feelings formed. The researcher augmented the diary-photograph, diary-interview method with exemplary and evocative anecdotes. The results show three ways the emergence of affect becomes perceptible. It offers an example of how affect-oriented inquiry is carried out and informs further affect-oriented outdoor recreation research. Conceptually, wilderness affect appreciates and responds to differences that emerge through relations with wild nature. The study furthers inquiry into emotional meaning making via human – wilderness relations.

How COVID-19 "Pseudo-Events" Alter News Decisions by Filipino Journalists: A Comparative Case Study

ABSTRACTAmerican historian Daniel Boorstin, D. J. (1961) [The image: A guide to pseudo-events in America. Vintage Books.] introduced the concept of “pseudo-events" as non-spontaneous happenings that are planned and organized to generate news content that are not in touch with actual reality. Pseudo-events figured prominently in the Philippines during the COVID-19 pandemic with alternative newsgathering methods normalized due to the public health situation. This study explored how COVID-19 pseudo-events have altered news decisions by journalists prompting them to fall into a routine of COVID-19 pseudo-events coverages that provide positive perceptions of newsmakers and overshadowed actual realities in communities. Using media scholar Perry Parks’ intervention into pseudo-events using the non-representational theory or NRT (2017), the researchers interviewed 11 city reporters in Metro Manila from the country’s three most circulated newspapers. Comparative case studies were conducted and shed light on the changes in journalists’ dispositions and news decisions toward pseudo-events. The study aimed to draw out the factors that help journalists alter their news decision-making processes and choose which “pseudo-events” need to be covered. The research aimed to deepen the understanding of pseudo-events and contribute to the improvement of news coverage.

Queer sensation and non-representational queer reading: a case study of Wu Hao’s All in My Family

ABSTRACT This article develops a non-representational queer approach to the analysis of first-person queer documentary. I suggest that a change of the view from investigating queer representations to exploring queer sensation may release the desire and repression that are both hidden and maintained with images of queerness. Queer sensation in this article refers to the existence of a complex relationship between queer and familial kinship, which affectively infiltrates the queer documentary. To chart queer sensation, I propose the notion of non-representational queer reading that foregrounds the approach of charting queer sensation rather than defining it. Non-representational queer reading comprises affect-based non-representational theory and the idea of queer reading. Non-representational queer reading queers the way of analysing queer documentary that follows the idea of mobility and flexibility as the essence of queerness. Utilising Wu Hao’s All in My Family (2019) as an example, I argue that Wu’s documentary sheds light on a complex queer sensation which not only overflows from the film but also pervades within the heterosexual-dominated Chinese society outside the screen.

Sacred squares? A non-representational study of James Smetham's (1821–1889) everyday artistic experiences of religion, faith, and spirituality

This paper develops new ways of approaching representations to understand individuals' everyday experiences of religion, faith, and spirituality in the past. Drawing on non-representational theories' emphasis on practice and affect, it focuses on processes of making representations within religious, faithful, and spiritual practices. Contribuing to ongoing dialogues between art history and geography, it explores the material spaces such representations were made in and the spiritual spaces they created, arguing that this approach overcomes the difficulties faced by historical geographers trying to explore embodied and out of body experiences of religion, faith, and spirituality in the past. To demonstrate the potential of this approach, this paper focuses on miniature squares made by the Methodist and Pre-Raphaelite associate James Smetham between 1848 and the late 1870s. Approaching them as spaces that Smetham made and inhabited, it explores where and when he made them and how making and inhabiting them affected his body, mind, and spirit. By taking this approach, this paper simultaneously gains specific insights into Smetham's embodied experiences of religion, faith, and spirituality and out of body experiences of the spiritual realm. It also reveals his complicated relationship with the Wesleyan Church, particularly its impact on his mental health.

‘An aid to loveliness’: lavender, femininity and the affective economy of English beauty

By considering the cultural production, placement, promotion and personalization of a fragrant aromatic, this article attempts to compile a historical geography of lavender and loveliness. The purpose of this experimental exercise is threefold. First, to examine the emergence of modern affective economies based around fashioning the self, directed at women's physical appearance and delineating desirable new standards of femininity. Second, to interrogate how the mid twentieth century beauty industry formulated the new concept of facial skincare in which ideas of a healthy complexion was complexly encoded with an aesthetic of whiteness. Third, to understand how the exercise of researching and writing such a sensory history is a means to address the challenges which non-representational theory has raised for scholarship in historical geography. Empirically, the article focuses on the operations of the House of Yardley, one of London's oldest perfumeries and beauty companies, and its foremost perfumier-cosmetician of the modern era, W.A. Poucher. To explore how the scent of lavender was deployed in markets globally, promoting a selectively English version of loveliness, it travels to various points along the supply line between the fragrant flower and female face.

Fallibility without Facts

If, as expressivists maintain, the function of normative thought and talk is not to represent or describe the world, then how can normative judgements be correct or incorrect? In particular, how can I make sense of my own normative fallibility, the possibility that my own normative judgements might be mistaken? In this paper, I construct and defend a substantive but non-representational theory of normative (in)correctness for expressivists. Inspired by Blackburn’s (1998: 318) proposal that I make sense of my fallibility in terms of the possibility that my judgements might be unstable through improvement, my account is designed in the first instance to vindicate the expressivist’s conception of the nature of normative inquiry. I then defend the proposal from the charge that it leaves insufficient room for my own fallibility, and in particular from Egan’s (2007) argument that it implies a “smug” asymmetry between myself and others. Critical to the response is the appeal to indeterminacy in cases of fundamental normative disagreement between reasonable normative outlooks.

Exploring North Nordic Landscapes in a ‘Hyper-constructive’ Fashion

This exposition details an experimental art/research endeavour pivoting on an improvised exploration of the broader North Nordic region. It accounts for a hybrid, maximalist, and materialist performance practice that draws on an unconditionally eclectic exploration of a particular geographic region and of certain (non)human related activities and mobilities encountered therein. The endeavour is contextualised with respect to trains of thought and empirical research methods in experimental arts, object oriented ontology, non-representational theory, techno-scientific culture, post-humanism, and improvised ethnography. It is shown to concern, inter alia, on-location audio/video recording, DIY making, (found) physical artefacts, interviews, data displays, prose, cooking, knitting, and landscape cinematography/photography. The particular methods at play are detailed and theoretical ramifications are outlined. It is accordingly claimed that a structural, procedural, and sensory hybridity of sorts may bring forth original and genuinely exploratory artistic manifestations that contribute (non quantifiable, nor discursive) ways of knowing the North Nordic region under scrutiny; ones that lie at the crux wherein poetic, enactive, epistemic and speculative tactics meet, mingle, and intertwine. This exposition also features an extensive pool of audiovisual material to aid detail the method and to support this claim.

Alice in… buying: The consumption of experiences in the worldly experience and aspects of socialization

Supported by non-representational theories (NRTs), we focus on the atmosphere of consumption and use a creative method to carry out this research. We consider the details of everyday life not represented, highlighting the roles of the elements in this fluid network. In order to understand how the atmosphere emerges, intensifies, and affects the behavior and modes of consumption, we ask ourselves: How does narrative/participant observation help us to develop interpretations about the way in which the affective bodies of consumers navigate and move around this experience? We seek, in the resource of biographical tradition, to collect a life story linked to the experiences of consumption enjoyed and meant in a commercial point over the years. Our corpus was based on narrative interviews, observation, and documents. From the nine critical incidents retrieved in the temporal experience of the narrative, the analysis revealed eight syntagms that, when encoded, pointed to six constituent meanings of this mode of experience-based consumption, which is driven by everyday situational factors but operate as signifying elements of the sales environment. The consumption experience was found to be a social and affective form of experience emerging in the respondent’s everyday life, whereas the actual consumption was solely a means for the social reaffirmation of the actor in question and the strengthening of her relationships.

RE-THINKING THE URBAN: THE THEORY OF AFFECT AND URBAN INTERIORITY AS A WAY OF THINKING NEW POSSIBILITIES

Body interacts with the space through undefinable, unpredictable actions and behaviors. Predictability disappears when the performativity of the body is taken into account. By dissolving and decoding the boundaries of space, the body challenges spatial dichotomy and prepares the new possibilities of thinking and understanding. Space becomes productive with new lines of escape and possibilities. Design as a temporary moment of intensity in the rhythm of daily life, on the other hand, recalls the affect that has been postponed in the academic field in architecture. At this point, affect theory together with the concept of interiority create a new discussion on space by questioning the existing theories. Affect plays a role in the spatial production of urban interiority; at the same time, urban interiority nourishes the affect. Exploring the neglected dimensions of our daily lives and the relational aspects of experience that produce and shape it, thinking about body, subjectivity and desire with non-representational theory in the focus of space: this is where the study turns towards the theory of affect. It produces a new understanding of relationality and space built with interactions between human/non-human, body and city, reflecting on different subjectivities and a different perspective to understand the city. It lays the groundwork for the appropriation of cities through their affective capacities and layers. In any case, it is not enough to think on urban space and architectural practice within disciplinary boundaries; they are in a constant state of formation and construction under the influence of different parameters. This study aims to rethink the concept of urban interiority through affect theory and aims to multiply questions about different becoming and possibilities rather than seeking answers.

Institutional bricolage in community-based water management: some insights from non-representational theory

ABSTRACT Drawing on non-representational theory, using as an example the work of Gilles Deleuze, we offer a complementary perspective on critical institutionalism. We examine four case studies of community-based water management in the Upper West Region of Ghana, which has empowered communities and encouraged democratically accountable approaches, while also underpinning discriminatory practices. We find this can be attributed to institutional bricolage, but we argue that non-representational theory also provides an alternative orientation to our data. It allows the agency of disempowered individuals to be recast as acts of hope.

Doing marketing differently: an artnography of cathartic consumption in trauma

ABSTRACT This work illustrates what kinds of consumption emerge during a traumatic life event, theorising the interweaving of trauma and catharsis through the medium of art and craft consumption. The methodological context sits within a non-representational theory where the data are narrated through the purchases and findings, physical, emotional and cognitive engagement with art and craft materials, through to the eventual place, value and story of the made artefact itself. The work presents three main contributions: an empirical understanding of therapeutic art consumption within trauma; a methodological experiment in how using non-representational theory centred on creative processes can develop worthy modes of data collection, organisation, and analysis; and the theoretical development of a consumption framework towards a theory of cathartic consumption during trauma.