Ethics, Place and Environment, Vol. 7, No. 1–2, 45–57,
March/June 2004
The Ties that Bind? Self- and
Place-identity in Environmental Direct
Action
JON ANDERSON
Original manuscript received, 25 October 2003
Revised manuscript received, 26 April 2004
ABSTRACT This paper explores what happens to the identity of self when entering a
place of protest, and what happens to it on leaving. In short, it explores the relations
between identities of self and place. Acknowledging the presence of a multiplicity of
identities in relation to both notions, it examines the ways in which aspects of the self
influence place, and conversely, how aspects of place influence the self. By using
empirical examples from Environmental Direct Action, the paper follows Casey in
arguing for the co-constitution of self- and place-identities. It offers two notions: the
spatial division of self-identity, and the rhizomatic self, to further understanding of how
the where effects whom we are.
Introduction
Question: ‘Isn’t environmental activism just something people do on weekends?’
‘During my captivity I…was forced to confront the man I thought I was and to
discover that I was many people. I had to befriend these many people, discover their
origins, introduce them to each other and find a communality between
them…‘myself’ could never again be an easily defined and well-summed thing’
(Keenan, 1992, XIII, p. 1).
As Brian Keenan discovered during his enforced captivity in Beirut, location has the
potential to influence not only practice, but also conceptualisations of the identity of self.
In the language of social science Keenan (above) describes the reflexive process of
forming a postmodern conception of identity (see Reed-Danahay, 1997, p. 2). Through
being positioned in a place of forced enclosure, Keenan was compelled, to some degree
at least, into assuming the identity of a hostage. As his 1992 book testifies, Keenan
resists as far as possible the passive role of hostage. This dialogue between place and
role facilitated a reflexive process where Keenan began to identify not a singular,
Jon Anderson, Department of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King
Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff CF10 3WA, UK. E-mail: andersonj@cardiff.ac.uk
1366-879X Print/1469-6703 On-line/04/010045-13  2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/1366879042000264769
46
Jon Anderson
essential self, but a self constituted by a multiplicity of not necessarily coherent
identities. This paper examines the ways in which place can influence self-identity,
specifically the degree to which identities can be situated solely in particular locations.
The paper will briefly introduce key notions and literatures associated with identities of
self and place, and how these are co-joined often through practice. It will introduce the
context through which the diagnostics of place- and self-identity will be traced:
Environmental Direct Action, or EDA, and specifically, the site of Ashton Court, Bristol,
UK, where the author spent a (year-)long ‘weekend’ as an activist. The paper goes on
to explore the ways in which self-identities change when they enter spaces that have
come to be known as ‘EDA sites’—from the perspective of those policing these zones,
and from the standpoint of those being introduced to practical action in these spaces. The
paper then comments on the associations between place- and self-identity that develop
as a result. In doing so, it questions the degree to which identities of self that have come
to be distinguished as ‘activist’ are taken into other, ‘normal’, civil society spaces, often
discouraged by the ties, customs and cultural norms that codify and influence these
liberal economic spaces. The paper then raises the notion of a ‘spatial division of
identity’, where activist selves are expressed in activist spaces, and other aspects of self
articulated through different practice in other spaces. From this thesis the paper develops
the notion of the rhizomatic self.
Me, Myself and I
Drawing on the work of Jameson (1991), Featherstone (1995, p. 44) has noted that the
concept of identity has become decentred, with the sense of a coherent, essentialised
identity giving way to the notion of fragmented, malleable and often ‘multi-phrenic’
identities. This decentring of identity can be seen in relation to both identities of self and
identities of place. In relation to the former, echoing Keenan, Maxey (1999, p. 199)
argues that the postmodern condition results in there being ‘no fixed “me” of which I am
fully cognisant’. Featherstone (1995, p. 45) concurs, stating that the way we understand
identity has changed from ‘being something unified and consistent’, to something
‘conceived as a bundle of conflicting “quasi-selves”, a random and contingent assemblage of experiences’. Thus the postmodern conception self can be thought of as a notion
that accepts that me, myself and I are not a unified, singular entity, rather a strategic and
increasingly fractured one—or many, multiply constructed across intersecting, and often
antagonistic, discourses and practices (after Hall, 1996, p. 4).
Situated Places
‘If it is now recognised that people have multiple identities then the same point can
be made in relation to places’ (Massey, 1993, p. 153).
Similarly, as Massey (1993) suggests above, how we make sense of place is also
changing. Identities of place can no longer simply be thought of as singular, coherent
things, as entities enclosed, bordered and fixed, but rather as nodes within ongoing
processes of cultural relations. Places can have multiple meanings attached to them due
to the myriad of cultural interpretations giving meaning to people’s lives in place (after
Rose, 1995, p. 99). But also, in the words of Massey (1993, p. 154), places can be
thought of as ‘meeting places’, ‘imagined as articulated moments in networks of social
relations and understandings’. As a consequence, place-identities become unbounded and
‘redesigned as… field[s] of infinitely experimental configurations of space–time’
The Ties that Bind?
47
(Emberley, 1989, pp. 755–756). Place is no longer limited to an essentialised identity
but, like identities of self, comes to encompass a range of identities, often in conflict.
Thus, as Massey (1993, p. 162) confirms, places can no longer be characterised by
‘recourse to some essential, internalised moment’.
Postmodern understandings of identity therefore lead us to conceive of the self and
place not as singular articles but rather as situated and positional entities/processes
(following Harvey, 1996, p. 49). Indeed, the relation between these two entities/processes is an intriguing one. Living in a world where boundary crossing of all kinds is
increasingly prevalent (see Reed-Danahay, 1997, p. 3), identity (be it of self or place) is
becoming a ‘contact zone’, an arena in which ‘disparate [entities/processes] meet, clash,
and grapple with each other’ (after Pratt, in Warren, 1997, p. 4). In such scenarios
identities of self are inevitably influenced to differing degrees by identities of place. As
Casey (2001, p. 688) observes, we can be ‘subject to place’, we can ‘alter ourselves…as
a function of having been in a certain place’, and as de Botton (2002, p. 147) offers:
‘Our identities are to a greater or lesser extent malleable, we change according to
whom—and sometimes what—we are with…move B to another environment and
his [identity] will subtly shift in relation to a new interlocuter’.
Concomitantly, identities of place are affected by those of self. As Massey (1995,
p. 285) again points out, ‘we make our space/spatialities in the process of our various
identities’, with Moore (1997, p. 88) concurring, arguing that places are not ‘fixed
backdrops’, but ‘products of the…contestations’ between selves and place. We are
concerned here therefore with the exploration of the relation between place- and
self-identity, on focusing on how who you are is dependent on where you are. In
Massey’s words (in Moore, 1997, p. 88) we are concerned with ‘joining the cultural
politics of place to those of identity’.
Geographers have attempted to trace this diagnostics of postmodern identity. Drawing
on the autobiographical ‘I’, Routledge (1996) has, for example, been concerned with
tracing his own interweaving of places and selves when crossing the spaces of
‘academia’ and ‘activism’. This concern has also been explored in my own academic/activist work in EDA (see Anderson, 2002). This diagnostic tracing is not, however, a
straightforward one. As a number of feminist geographers have noted (see Bondi, 1997;
Butler, 1990; Gibson-Graham, 1994; Rose, 1997) a key consideration in these relations
is the role of performative practice. As Maxey (1999, p. 202) points out, it is through
performative action that self-identity is articulated and fashioned: the shifting nature of
self is ‘reproduced continuously through daily practice’. As a result, identity/ies for Hall
(1996, p. 6) thus become ‘point[s] of temporary attachment to the subject positions
which discursive practices construct for us’. In other words, our identities are continually
(re)created by our performative acts in particular places; we suture (following Heath,
1981) ourselves to these subject positions through our practical acts.
Identities in (Environmental Direct) Action
To explore the diagnostics of self- and place-identity empirically the paper now turns to
look at a key political practice that has risen in significance over recent years:
Environmental Direct Action. EDA is an imbroglio of practices and premises that offers
an ecocentric alternative to the liberal democratic system (see Anderson, 2004). Environmental Direct Activists take and make numerous physical, virtual and media spaces in
order to confront, prevent and offer ecological alternatives to political decisions concerning a range of issues, including transport, food, house building, energy, militarism,
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Jon Anderson
democracy and the capitalist system itself (see Seel et al., 2000; SchNEWS, 2002). EDA
not only offers ecological alternatives in terms of worldview but also in terms of creating
temporary spaces (in the form of demonstrations, street parties, protest camps and
gatherings) in which these alternatives can be experimented with and practised.
EDA has grown in popularity and significance over the last decade (see Monbiot,
1998; Wall, 1999; Seel et al., 2000). However commentators such as North (1995) have
suggested that this significance is due primarily to the transient support of mainstream
society. North (1995, p. 29) asserts that the power of EDA ‘flows from the very
temporary allegiance of “normal” people…who will return to normal life pretty quickly’.
According to this perspective, EDA’s significance has been underpinned by its capacity
to attract those who would not usually participate in direct action campaigns. Indeed,
evidence for this perspective is abundant in the media reportage of EDA, focusing on the
temporary support of ‘Middle England’ to its cause (see Leonard and Barwick, 1997;
Behan, 1998). North’s (1995) suggestion does, however, highlight a key point in relation
to the spaces of EDA that makes them important to the argument here. Inherent in this
analysis is the temporary habitation of particular places of EDA by individuals who then
often move back to spaces of ‘normal’ society. From experience and exploration of
spaces of EDA (see Anderson, 2002) this movement from ‘EDA’ to ‘civil society’
spaces is common for the majority of those involved, regardless of degree. Those
involved in EDA continually cross boundaries, be they of place- or self-identity, literally
and metaphorically ‘meeting, clashing, and grappling’ with alternative positionings of
politics, place and identity. The identities of EDA’s places and selves thus become
intriguing contact zones where the diagnostics of postmodern identity can be usefully
traced. Crucial to this tracing is an understanding of the contrasts between the different
place- and self-identities that EDA and ‘normal’ or civil society can constitute:
‘Socially constructed spaces are all around us and often take highly visible and
material forms. In that sense they are not invisible, but these spaces are the contexts
within which we lead our lives. Quite literally they are the water referred to in the
South Asian saying [“Fish don’t talk about the water”]. The very obviousness of
these spaces gives them the illusion of nature, of just being. Spatialised power in
the forms of norms, prohibitions and expectancies is thus especially powerful’
(Cresswell, 2000, p. 263).
Critics such as Bauman (2000, p. 7) argue that many of what Cresswell terms ‘norms,
prohibitions and expectancies’ are being ‘stripped of a good deal of [their] compelling,
coercively constraining powers’ in the increasingly ‘liquid modernity’ of our times.
Nevertheless, in ‘normal’ or civil society spaces, many of these structures remain
effective in socialising individuals into the rules of the political game. Indeed, I would
argue that ‘weak ties’ (to borrow Granovetter’s (1973) term) still connect people in and
to these spaces of civil society, binding citizens with certain expectancies of behaviour.
Regardless of their relative merits or visibility, these expectancies orbit around the forces
of liberal economics, capitalist production/consumption and representative democracy.
If/when citizens leave these civil society spaces and enter alternative zones, of EDA for
example, these norms become increasingly apparent to them, simply by them now being
surrounded by different structural mores. Indeed, places of EDA have been taken and
made to contest the norms and expectancies of liberal democratic society. Through their
political practice, Environmental Direct Activists suture their priorities of ecocentrism,
personal responsibility for political action and the preservation of valued locales onto
particular sites, contesting their meaning and nature directly. Thus through EDA practice,
the identity of place becomes a grounded focus for political discontent; place-identity
The Ties that Bind?
49
becomes both a metaphorical and material site of struggle. So, what happens to
self-identity when multiple selves step into this contact zone?
Ashton Court as Contact Zone
Winter is changing into spring. At Ashton Court, Bristol, 30 acres (121,406 square
metres) of wildflower meadow are being threatened by plans for a limestone quarry. A
decade-long campaign to save the meadow evolves into a protest bearing all the
characteristics of EDA. These events suture the tag ‘EDA’ to Ashton Court. As a result,
when entering this space, one’s self-identity morphs immediately into that of ‘protester’,
‘activist’ or, in terms of new UK legislation, ‘terrorist’, at least for those monitoring this
contact zone for the security forces:
‘We ate food on the meadow today…security filmed the incident throughout. At one
stage, Ben [individual’s names are pseudonyms] got up and shouted at them:
“We’re just members of the public having a picnic, why are you filming us?!” ’
(author’s field diary).
As the above example from Ashton Court depicts, from the security forces’ perspective simply being present within a contested site sutures to that individual and that
practice the tag of ‘activist’, even if that individual is simply having a picnic. This
tagging emanates from a very modern conception of identity, with individuals and
practices not considered in any other terms apart from those associated with that
politicised place. Dichotomously, if you are not there to uphold hegemonic norms and
expectancies, you must be there to contest them. This ‘deviant’ tagging became lived
experienced at Ashton Court, as my field diary recounts:
‘the incidents earlier reminded me that by just being involved here [in this space of
EDA] we are seen to be breaking the law, therefore it is in essence a political way
to live...reminds of that lady at the M11 who said, “all life is politics, if you step
out of line” ’ (author’s field diary).
Thus for those directly associated with policing places of EDA, those individuals who
‘cross the line’ into these sites, in whatever capacity, become essentialised ‘others’—
their identity reduced to that of ‘protester’. This tagging mixes with other processes that
affect the self-identities of those stepping into places of EDA:
‘Marie speaks of her apprehension when she first came up here; she felt as if she
wouldn’t belong etc;…She wouldn’t have come in if it wasn’t for the “free tea”
poster—a sort of non-committal stepping into this EDA-place. (I say I didn’t even
get that far first time). But then, after only half an hour or so, she said she could
sense the “community” feel of it [her words], she felt as if she was with like-minded
people’ (author’s field diary).
‘Marie came again today, she said she feels connected to the camp. Marie changing
from visitor to regular—it’s odd watching the change in someone else, how [this
space] becomes the central thing in your life, esp. after it’s happened to you’
(author’s field diary).
Location in a place of EDA involves living under different norms and expectancies to
those of civil society. These norms influence self-identity in a number of ways. On one
level, these norms involve identities being tagged to you by others, but on another these
norms affect self-identity through simple daily practice. This practice involves everyday
Jon Anderson
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activities such as food preparation, site maintenance and entertainment. These activities
involve altogether different skills than those associated with similar activities in
normal/civil society. Making a cup of tea in EDA spaces involves, for example,
collecting and chopping wood, starting a fire, collecting water, heating it, waiting,
waiting, brewing, waiting some more… all a far cry from the immediacy of an electric
kettle. At a basic level this difference in everyday activities transfers a novelty and
liberation to experience, and this is coupled to the novelty of living in close proximity
to the specific environment that is being contested. Living outside, often in temporary
dwellings (‘benders’) of canvas and wooden poles, individuals become sensitive to the
vagaries of weather, temperature and the availability of fruits of the earth. This proximity
of engagement with place often generates feelings of identification with the non-human
environment, as the following comments suggest:
‘Julia said today that she has a “feeling” for trees, for woods...she says “everything
is different in the woods” ’ (author’s field diary).
‘I quite enjoy it [at Ashton Court], it’s a bit like being at Dave’s house when we
were kids...I get a slowed down, rhythmic feeling in the woods and on the meadow,
relaxed’ (author’s field diary).
‘[Route walks] help everyone build up a relationship with the land they are
campaigning for and show exactly where the road is going, especially before work
starts. Bill them as fairly neutral so that fence-sitters can find out more and won’t
feel as if they are just political rallies. Once they see the land they will know what
side of the fence they are on’ (Road Alert!, 1997, p. 54).
Daily practice in spaces of EDA thus begins to create ties between self and place. It
is common to experience an increased sensitivity to the agency of the environment, not
only in its temperature fluctuations but also changes in mood and atmosphere. Such
heightened awareness of the local environment’s agency ties participants closer to their
cosmological value systems as they experience at first hand unmediated positioning with
a broader ecological system. These nascent ties between self and place become
intertwined with the connections that are generated between the self and other individuals who participate in that space. Through daily practice close friendships are generated
in short spaces of time, loyalties are formed and respect established (see Voices from
Earth First, 1998, p. 10). Ironically, or perhaps inevitably, the creation of these ties
occurs alongside the threat of their destruction (complementing Tuan, 1976, p. 30).
Spaces of EDA are often last-ditch attempts to prevent a change in use of a particular
place, and as a result have limited life expectancies. As this change in land use become
imminent, the desire to prevent it and maintain the ties that have been established
becomes stronger. Instead of railing against the security forces’ labelling of selves as
‘activist’, this tagging is welcomed with a pride that someone is defending a particular
cultural valuation of place and life. From this desire to protect the ties created through
practice between place- and self-identity, civil disobedience and direct action stem:
‘Before I started Ashton Court my “efficacious range” was me: personal is political,
I suppose a bit of a cop out//some quote from Pepper. I can’t change big things so
what the point in getting all angry etc.
Now at A/C I feel my eff. range is bigger, I’m doing something, I’m part of
something wider and I’m not angry—it’s good fun, and feeling like I’m doing
something. And we ARE doing something. We exist, we cost £, we change passers
by attitudes, we make people think. We make the next one harder. We are standing
The Ties that Bind?
51
up for what we believe in, we’re standing up for our common ground our park, our
land’ (author’s field diary).
‘Went to Clevedon—we passed wood and quarry on the way back. I felt really
angry and upset at the same time. Akin to being truly shaken by bad news. The
place “knows” bad things are going to happen. The atmosphere up there is quite
affecting. Have to make it better for it somehow’ (author’s field diary).
Thus far, in tracing the diagnostics of self- and place-identity in relation to EDA, we
have traced a ‘topoanalysis’, to use Tilley’s (1994, p. 15) phrase we have ‘explored the
creation of self-identity through place’. To summarise this tracing it is clear that as EDA
is performed at a site the cultural reputation of this practice gets sutured to the place—it
becomes known as a ‘place of action’. This has the effect of not only connecting that
place to other places within the EDA network, but also clarifies them for the state so they
can be reordered and policed. Through tagging places in this way it is possible for the
state to confine alternative practices to spaces in the open where they ‘can be made and
seen to fail’ (Pile, 1997, p. 3). This suturing of reputation to place involves not only an
essentialising label being fixed by others to place inhabitants’ self-identity, but also the
suturing of self to activist positions through daily practice. As the expectancies of civil
society become replaced with alternative norms and customs (in this case of ecocentrism), ties are not simply created between the participants, but also between their selves
and the place in question. The ties that bind self- to place-identity are strong. The
‘combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy, and the
reciprocal services which characterise the tie’ (Granovetter, 1973, p. 1361) lead to a
valorisation of the ‘activist’ component of self-identity, with this dominating other
aspects of the self. The following extract from Klein (2002, p. xxiv) summarises this
process (with my own commentary in brackets):
‘The first time I participated in one of these counter summits [i.e. entered a place
of EDA], I remember having the distinct feeling that some sort of political portal
was opening up, a gateway, a window…This opening had little to do with the
broken window at the local McDonald’s, the image so favoured by television
cameras; it was something else; a sense of possibility, a blast of fresh air, oxygen
rushing to the brain. These protests…are like stepping into a parallel universe.
Overnight, the site is transformed…[i.e. the space is politicised, becomes contested,
the ‘water’ changes in relation to the ‘fish’] where urgency replaces resignation,
corporate logos need armed guards [practices also change], people usurp cars, art
is everywhere, strangers talk to each other…[and finally identity changes]…the
prospect of a radical change in political course does not seem like an odd and
anachronistic idea but the most logical thought in the world [people become
activists in this place]’.
This experience of EDA places, the creation of ties at/to ‘portals’ of opportunity,
results in identification with and feelings of protection towards those sites. As the
following Voice from Earth First! (1998, p. 15) describes, ‘[the ties entail] your entire
life and identity becom[ing] bound up with a particular piece of land and what you can
do to defend it’. Through tagging EDA to a geographical site an opportunity is created
which allows individuals to experiment with and practise their own ecological aspects of
their identity. Through participation in this EDA site, norms are encountered that put few
barriers in the way of individuals wishing to articulate those identities, barriers that are
experienced in normal/civil society. Practising this ecological aspect of identity is
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encouraged and reinforced, to the degree that in many cases the tag of ‘environmental
direct activist’ becomes performed and welcomed.1
In tracing the diagnostics of place and self in this way we have identified a number
of ties that bind identity in EDA. These ties can perhaps be thought of as akin to a
spider’s web. Like a spider connecting itself to its immediate environment, through
participation in political practice the self becomes sutured to identities of place and
activism. In the same way that the inhabitants of Calvino’s fictional city of Ersilia stretch
strings between the corners of their houses to mark the relationships of blood, trade,
authority and agency which sustain the city’s life (Calvino, 1986, p. 76), EDA involves
people and places being bound together in a web of connections that in turn help to
sustain the geographical- and human-identities of activism itself. But although spaces of
EDA encourage this aspect of the self, North (1995) has told us that individuals do not
stay in EDA spaces, despite the ties that sustain them. So the question now arises, what
happens to the activist self when it returns to ‘normal’ society?
A Spatial Division of Identity?
Whether the activist self is taken into spaces of normal society depends on the
relationship between the individual and place concerned. In my own experience it is
difficult to sustain environmental activism outside EDA spaces. Without the ties binding,
encouraging and reinforcing practice, combined with norms that encourage alternative
aims including political passivity, mediated consumption and instant tea, it is hard to
exercise and sustain this activist self in civil society. In my experience, in normal/civil
society other aspects of the self re-emerge, themselves encouraged and strengthened by
the norms, prohibitions and customs of these spaces. The relationship between this
individual and place thus produces a scenario where my fractured identity is manifested
in fractured spaces. I articulate one aspect of my multiple identities in one space, and
another aspect in a different space. This scenario can be considered as the ‘spatial
division of (self-)identity’.
The spatial division of identity would suggest that selves and spaces are kept apart due
to different discursive practices. As practices become delineated in particular spaces by
specific codes and norms, one articulates one aspect of self-identity in one space, and
these identities, through lack of practice, are not necessarily brought back into other
spaces. Thus we become tagged as ‘employees’ in our work space, ‘spouses’ in home
space, ‘one of the gang’ down the pub or ‘activist’ in EDA space. Such a scenario infers
that each of these spaces is discrete and easy to move between—stepping into these
spaces involves temporarily connecting to the ties that bind behaviour within them, and
these ties can be easily disconnected on stepping out of the space. In this sense the
spatial division of identity outlines the role of many participants in EDA, as well as, to
some degree, illuminating the nature of identity more generally in a postmodern world.
Individuals enter spaces, become liable to the ties in those spaces and, dependent on the
power of the ties and their power over the individual, become bound by them. Since we
live in multiple spaces we are liable to many ties; we have many selves held together
by a variety of practices in discrete places. Due to the clear divisions between these
places and their times of occupation, it is possible for individuals to have a number of
not necessarily coherent self-identities. For example, we are sometimes environmental
activists, but sometimes we drive polluting vehicles, fuelled by multi-national companies
with morally questionable track records, or are temporary members of conferences that
are sponsored by them. Thus we can each harbour ‘conflicting identities’, and these are
‘joined together…through powerful delineations of time–space’ (Massey, 1995, p. 285).
The Ties that Bind?
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These are the ‘complications’, in the words of Kondo (1990, p. 220), of ‘decentred,
multiple selves, whose lives are shot through with contradictions and creative tensions’.
Despite the existence of these multiple selves, it is another question whether their
existence is a ‘good thing’. Practising multiple selves involves a moral ambiguity in
relation to the integrity of identity (as noted by Greenline (1997, p. 1) in terms of the
example cited above), and finding some sort of communal harmony between selves is an
issue to consider, as well as research further. Reflexivity is a crucial component in the
process of identity management (as Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (2002) have noted).
Through being aware of the influence of place ties on practice, an individual could
reflexively determine to continue the articulation of a particular self, not simply in a
place that encourages certain behaviour, but in others sites too. Such action and
awareness involve the self attempting to overcome the influence of place ties, and if
successful, subverting the meaning and naming of sites within the network. This is
the process that Keenan (1992) describes in his quotation cited in the introduction
above. Through seeking to find a communality between his complex collection of
selves, Keenan (1992) attempted to unite them within overarching ethical parameters and
realise the (perhaps elusive) goal of an integrated self. As Keenan (1992, XIV, p. 110)
states:
‘I wanted to…bond…[my] innermost selves or ‘people’ in a manner which all of
us perhaps deep down aspire to…I would not allow my integrity to be taken from
me by a surrender to what another believed or would make me be’.
The spatial division of identity thesis thus appears neat, but there is a major caveat that
undermines the notion: the ability for individuals to take certain selves into ‘wrong’
spaces and in doing so subvert the norms, meanings and identities of these arenas. This
is, in the words of Keenan (1992, p. 121), the process of ‘breaking the chains’ that bind
selves to place. Indeed, if it were not for this process, places of EDA would not be
created in the first instance. The spatial division of identity hypothesis thus takes into
account the influence of ties and norms of a place on self, but pays less attention to the
influence of self on place. Acknowledging the reciprocity of this relationship is
important. Although possible at any time in any place, it is where ambiguous, loose or
undefined ties exist that the movement of selves and their practices across platial borders
is facilitated. This movement subverts codes and customs of a place and creates new
potentialities (a ‘critical thirding’ in the words of Soja, 1996). Such a process is what
Routledge (1996) explored in relation to the spaces and identities of academics and
activists. Academic and activist spaces, it can be argued, are prime examples of the
possibilities that could be invoked by self on place due to the relatively loose and
broadly defined ties that hold each of these place-identities together. In these spaces there
is greater scope to interchange selves in places, or places in selves—unlike, for example,
spaces of the military, or even the office, where tighter codes bind practices within
accepted customs and preferences, thus making it more difficult for self to influence
place-identity. So, although the spatial division of identity does illustrate that the
postmodern self is no longer singular in nature, and that place-identity can have an effect
on self-identity, the diagnostics of place- and self-identity are not one-way. Rather they
are reciprocal, with the creation of a contested space (or ‘thirdspace’, see Soja, 1996)
always possible through the self effecting place-identity through unconventional practice.
Further insight can be offered into this reciprocal tracing through an allusion to Deleuze
and Guattari’s (1987) notion of the rhizome.
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The Rhizomatic Self
As Lim (1996) states, Deleuze and Guattari (1987) use the notion of ‘rhizome’ as a
figurative term to describe non-hierarchical networks of all kinds:
‘[In a rhizome] there is no hierarchy...the perception of connectivity is initiated by
you, and is, therefore, a decentralising principle. At any given moment the ‘centre’
is the individual’s position’ (from http://cs.art.rmit.edu.au/).
It is posited here that the multiple identities of places and selves can be considered in
rhizomatic terms. Following Lim (1996), this would involve the relationship between
selves and places being characterised by a non-hierarchical network. As stated above, the
site that is called into being at a given time is the temporary centre of the network. If,
for example, the individual is doing activism in an activism space, that self is central.
This perspective complements the logic of the spatial division of identity hypothesis as
if borders are crossed into other spaces different ties could exert pressure to change the
temporary centre of the identity network. However, in the rhizomatic construction of
identity, the borders that separate sites are not discrete and clear-cut as in the previous
hypothesis. Rather they are porous, allowing selves to move through them and practise
activity in ‘other’ spaces. Thus movement of selves into new geographical sites is made
easier, facilitated by the ‘tap-root’ structure of the rhizome (see Lim, 1996).
Considering the identity of sites in this way therefore empowers the self by making
clear that the relations between self and place are reciprocal. It is not only possible for
place to influence the self, but also for the self to influence place. Coupled to this, this
perspective also enhances the role of the human body in this relationship. The body is
not only the corporeal container for self-identities, but also the vehicle through which
place-identities are experienced and encountered. It is, both literally and figuratively, the
epidermis joining the self to place. It is then the sensitivity of this epidermis that gauges
the degree to which self is influenced by place, and vice versa. In some cases selves may
be completely insensitive to the place ties that seek to bind them, leading to one self
dominating in every place, a process that de Botton (2002, p. 20) describes:
‘My awareness of them [of place ties] was weakened by a number of other,
incongruous and unrelated elements. Among these, a sore throat that I had
developed during the flight, a worry at not having informed a colleague that I would
be away, a pressure across both my temples and a rising need to visit the bathroom.
A momentous but until then overlooked fact was making its first appearance: that
I had inadvertently brought myself with me to the island’.
On the other hand, heightened sensitivity to place ties may also lead to the one self
overriding the influence of place. Through the process of reflexion individuals may wish
to attempt to unify or harmonise their multiple selves through maintaining one self in all
spaces. This is a difficult—and ongoing—process. In the language of Deleuze and
Guattari’s (1987) rhizome it is a process of constant becoming. Identities, and the
relations between them, do not begin and end, but are ‘always in the middle, between
things, interbeing, intermezzo’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987, p. 5); they are simultaneously both entities and processes (Harvey, 1996, p. 49). Despite differential
sensibilities to the power of various sites, selves are continually influenced by places,
and vice versa. In the words of Massey (1995, p. 285), we ‘do not bring already
appropriately constituted identities into each specific political arena’, rather we continually adapt selves to places, and places to selves. In line with rhizomatic structures, site
identities may thus be multiple, but they are also one, they are the ‘changing same’
The Ties that Bind?
55
(Gilroy, 1993) simultaneously tagged to the corporeal body of the individual or
geographical area. This simultaneity confers a ‘stroke’ existence to these sites (literally
so in the case of ‘Stroke City’, the vernacular name for Derry/Londonderry in Northern
Ireland: see Routes of English, 2003),2 similar to that of Fine’s (1994) ‘hyphen’ identities
(e.g. academic-activist). Such simultaneity entangles and (con)fuses these sites’ naming
and meaning, requiring a constant diagnostics to unravel.
Conclusion
By tracing the diagnostics of self and place in EDA this paper has recognised that self
and place are caught in reciprocal relations. It supports Casey (2001, p. 684) when he
states ‘we can no longer distinguish neatly between physical and personal identity...place
is regarded as constitutive of one’s sense of self’. By exploring the role that places of
EDA play on senses of self as ‘activist’, the paper has considered the merits of the
relationship between self and place. Initially the consideration of the self/place relationship has been in terms of the spatial division of identity—of the fractured self being
articulated in fractured places—one self being expressed through practice in one space,
and another in another. Due to the reciprocal relations between self and place this
configuration can also be understood as rhizomatic in nature, with the possibility for
border crossing between selves in different places, and different places in selves. This
leads to ‘critical thirding’ (after Soja, 1996) of the identity of places and selves—the
existence of different, often contradictory tagging of identities on the same entities/processes. This consideration of the explicit ‘contact zones’ between EDA and ‘normal’
society has potential implications for the praxis of other spaces to which identities are
tied. Being mindful of the normalised codes and customs of all the places we inhabit (be
they of work, leisure, politics or consumption) we can, perhaps, become more aware of
the implicit ‘contact zones’ that we negotiate, subvert or acquiesce to in everyday life.
In conclusion, the paper highlights the importance of reflexivity and personal responsibility in the relationship between selves and place. Through reflecting on the multiple
places in which we live our lives, and the influence of place ties on our practice, it is
possible to seek a communality between our selves and attempt to influence the ties that
bind our behaviour. Following Braidotti (1994, p. 32), the paper offers a view of the self
as ‘capable of agency and accountability’. It is possible for individuals to take
responsibility for their practice and move their multiple selves in line with their own
ethical and political standpoints (see Routledge, 1996; Maxey, 1999). So, to answer the
question at the beginning of this paper: is environmental activism just something people
do on weekends? It might well be. But, crucially, it need not be. It is a practice
determined by the reciprocal relations between the ties that bind selves and places in the
postmodern world.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the anonymous referees for commenting constructively on the
arguments made here.
Notes
1. Despite an immediate identification with a site of EDA, individuals nevertheless retain the fractured nature
of their identity. The problems of negotiating or managing these multiple identities have been dealt with
(in relation to academic and activist identities) elsewhere (Anderson, 2002), as well as being the subject of
ongoing research by the author.
56
Jon Anderson
2. ‘Derry/Londonderry. Its very name speaks of deep-seated political, social, even linguistic divisions. Known
to one section of its inhabitants as Derry, to another as Londonderry, Northern Ireland’s second city has a
complex linguistic history shaped by waves of settlement and political allegiance. Recently the city’s
inhabitants have embraced the unofficial name Stroke City, circumventing the linguistic minefield of Derry
vs. Londonderry’ (from http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/routesofenglish/storysofar/programme3 2.shtml).
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