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Browsing Geography by Subject "Affect"
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Item Open Access Not just Clowning Around: Clown Characters and the Transgressive Transformation of Urban Space(2015-08-28) Mclean, Dylann Marguerita; Bain, Alison L.The dissertation considers the transformative potential of clowns within urban space and examines the becomings of space, human-bodies and clown-bodies through movement (folding) and gesture. I focus specifically on theatrical clowns who have undergone clown through mask training in the Pochinko style and who maintain connections to the clown community of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Throughout it is argued that the clown is an inherently affective being that is ideally placed to transformatively transgress space(s) through processes of folding and turning. The theoretical contributions of this dissertation are twofold. First, this dissertation considers the position of affects within the discipline of human geography and contributes to a growing body of interdisciplinary research on theories of affect. Second, it contributes to discussions of how knowledge is produced through the fold (or origami) and to how multiplicity is experienced for individual-clown subjects. I consider the affective potential of the clown by looking at how the clown folds itself, the audience and space together and then turns space, thereby disrupting power dynamics and affects and (re)configuring spaces as it does so. I also consider the latent affects of individuals and clown performance by focusing on the legacy of the late Richard Pochinko (1946-1989) and the continued influence of the Pochinko clown through mask technique for clown training. By drawing on Deleuzian affect theory (Deleuze and Guattari 1998) and, to a lesser extent, Jungian psychology this dissertation considers the clown and its relationships to individuals, subjectivities, and individual and collective networked agency with particular attention to transformation (alchemy), transgression, power and the red nosed mask. Empirically, the research project is structured around three research questions: (1) How can spaces be conceptualized as dynamic processes rather than grounded objects? (2) What can human and clown bodies do in and to physical and material space? (3) How can the placement of affects be theorized? Invoking one of the functions of the modern clown—to mirror cult ure back to itself—I mirror my research questions with the insertion of clown: (1) ¿sǝɔɐds ɯɹoɟsuɐɹʇ suʍoןɔ op ʍoɥ (2) ¿ǝɔɐds ןɐɔıɥdɐɹƃoǝƃ oʇ puɐ uı op sǝıpoq uʍoןɔ uɐɔ ʇɐɥʍ (3) ¿pǝzıɹoǝɥʇ puɐ pǝɔɐןd ǝq sʇɔǝɟɟɐ uʍoןɔ uɐɔ ʍoɥ. To address my research questions I take inspiration from the Deleuzian rhizome and use nodes of methodological engagement (e.g., interviews, observations, stop-motion photography) to adequately capture the affects of both humans and clowns. The research methods speak not only to the specifics of this project—research on clowns—but also to the challenges associated with conducting affect based inquiry using standard social science research methods. The dissertation concludes by offering insights into the rhizome of interconnections that affects (and makes affective) the clown-subjects as they (un)fold and are (un)folded into space.Item Open Access Ruptures in Living in and Knowing Land Grabbing in Cambodia(2021-11-15) Schoenberger, Laura Therese; Vandergeest, PeterWhen the land grab emerged as an object of study in the late 2000s, Cambodia was a 'hotspot' due to the scale, rapaciousness, and violence of the land grab. The overall objective of this dissertation is to examine how fear, uncertainty and hope animate and infuse the processes by which relations to land are shaped and reshaped in the context of the land grab. I draw from 20-months of multi-method fieldwork – inclusive of multi-site ethnography, interviews, a large survey across six provinces (n=480), and collaborative research projects with civil society – to make four core contributions. First, I argue that land grabs are not just events but are ontologically more complex because affect and fear contours the process by which people come to know and experience the land grab. Reframing the land grab to see it as a networked object that is tied into, and made up of, wider webs of power unmoored from the moment of displacement has epistemological and methodological implications. The second contribution of the dissertation is to explore these implications. I examine how the workings of fear and uncertainty surrounding the land grab posed challenges to the researcher and the research process. Facing these challenges led me to argue for alternative methodologies that are attentive to affective encounters. Third, I examine how a titling campaign ruptured the land grab and how citizens' organizing work contributed to destabilizing the dominance of land grabs. I detail two cases in which communities left out of the campaign grabbed onto the openings it provided to make newly legitimate claims to land. Fourth, this dissertation contributes to an emerging literature surrounding land relations in Cambodia. I examine the continuities and ruptures that shaped land relations in the Cambodia-Vietnam borderlands starting with the French colonial period and continuing to contemporary processes of enclosure. These four insights contribute to the study of state formation in post-conflict settings by integrating the roles that fear, uncertainty and hope play in shaping territorial relations in ways that run counter to common narratives about capitalism and authoritarian-style rule.Item Open Access Uncertain Future, Unsettled Present? Everyday Geographies of Precarious Immigration Status in Toronto, Canada(2020-05-11) Dennler, Kathryn Elizabeth; Preston, ValerieIncreasing processing times for immigration applications and increasing numbers of people admitted on temporary visas mean that more newcomers spend longer periods of time living in Canada with restricted rights and uncertain if they will be able to remain. This has contributed to an increase in precarious immigration status, which refers to a sense of insecurity caused by ones formal immigration status. The purpose of the dissertation is to examine how people are affected by living for prolonged periods of time with uncertainty about future residence and how these effects vary across space and time. The study, based on qualitative research with migrants in Toronto and people who work on migration issues, investigates how immigration status is performed in everyday life and how immigration status intersects with other social relations to produce distinctive affective textures of life in Toronto. The research shows that formal immigration status affects people differently depending on their migration motivations, capacities, and community support networks. Lack of reliable information about the time required to become eligible for permanent residence and application processing times make it more difficult for people to make decisions about how to orient themselves towards the future, the present, and the passage of time in ways that meet their needs. It identifies two salient temporal orientationssuspending or embracing engagement with everyday lifeeach of which comes with benefits and risks. Finally, the research suggests that contemporary practices of immigration control can lead to an internalization of discourses that construct people with precarious immigration status as unworthy of membership in Canadian society. Participants sought to undermine these discourses through narrative redefinition of themselves as people who have something to contribute but are stopped from doing so. I find that this resistance is necessary to peoples ability to persist, yet it has a limited effect on the harm done. The research findings contribute to scholarly understandings of formal immigration status and the slow violence of living with precarious immigration status.