research, performance, and doing human geography: some ......reflections on the diary-photograph,...

1 IntroductionIn a recent commentary on the achievements and challenges of the so-called `newcultural geography' Nigel Thrift (2000a; see also 1999a; 2000b) argued that its biggestweakness is its methodological timidity. ``Cultural geographers have'', Thrift (page 3)writes,

` allied themselves with a number of qualitative methods, ... most notably in-depthinterviews and ethnographic `procedures'. ... [W]hat is surprising is how narrowthis range of skills still is, how wedded [cultural geographers] still are to thenotion of bringing back the `data', and then re-presenting it (nicely packaged upas a few supposedly illustrative quotations), and the narrow range of sensate lifethey register.''

Thrift's claim needs qualification. There are human geographers doing methodolog-ically innovative research which is pushing at the boundaries of established conventions.Linda McDowell (1995; 1997; McDowell and Court, 1994), Gerry Pratt (1998; 1999;2000), and Allan Pred (1986; 1990a; 1990b; 1995; 2000), for example, have shown anotable willingness to experiment with established, indeed quite traditional, methods tocreate innovative, insightful methodological hybrids. Nevertheless, even if Thrift's state-ment lacks nuance, it does point to a very real need to reconsider and rework the ways inwhich human geographers (and cultural geographers, in particular) undertake research.Over the last couple of decades we have seen something of a revolution in ways weframe what it is that geography is concerned with.We have seen that it is as much aboutdiscourses as about `actual' events; that things that seem small and everyday can be asinteresting and complex as phenomenon that appear much larger and more general;that our own ways of writing the world are bound up with that world's constitution

Research, performance, and doing human geography: somereflections on the diary-photograph, diary-interview method

Alan LathamDepartment of Geography, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, SO17 1BJ,England; e-mail: [email protected] 20 March 2002; in revised form 24 December 2002

Environment and Planning A 2003, volume 35, pages 1993 ^ 2017

Abstract. The past decade has seen a remarkable turn towards the cultural in human geography. Thisshift has been marked by a strange gap between theory and empirical practice. Radical though theturn to the cultural has been in reconstituting the ways that human geography thinks of itself as adiscipline, its impact on ways that geographers actually do empirical research has been in certainrespects relatively limited. Indeed, while the cultural turn has become strongly associated with avalorisation of qualitative methodologies, the actual range of methods used has been relatively narrow.Drawing on the work of Nigel Thrift and a range of other human geographers who are exploring themetaphor of performance to understand this realm of practical action, I argue that not only can socialaction be viewed as performance, so too is it productive to reframe the research process itself as akind of performance. This reframing allows for a more experimental and more flexible attitudetowards both the production and interpretation of research evidence. It also makes it easier to thinkof new ways of engaging with how individuals and groups inhabit their worlds through practicalaction. Drawing on my own experimentation with written and photographic research diaries, Iexplore a number of ways through which the performative ethos can inform and invigorate the humangeographic imagination. I conclude by arguing that human geography needs to be more imaginative,pluralistic, and pragmatic in its attitude towards both (a) methodology and (b) the kinds of finalresearch accounts it produces.

DOI:10.1068/a3587

mailto:[email protected]

(see Gregory, 1996; Peet, 1998). But we do not seem to have made much progress inrethinking what this should mean to us as researchers. As Pratt (2000, page 639)writes, as human geographers ``we have yet ... to put much of our theoretical talk intoresearch practices. Our talk may be that of poststructuralists, postcolonialists, orsocial constructivists, but our practice continues to be that of colonising humanists.''

Pratt believes that human geography's methodological conservativism is in largepart a result of disciplinary unease at reflecting too intimately on individual researchpractices. Perhaps. But equally it can be argued that human geographers have takenpostmodern and poststructuralist critiques of traditional social scientific methods toomuch to heart (see Clifford, 1988; Clifford and Marcus, 1986; Denzin, 1997). The resulthas been that, rather than simply freeing us from the burdens of an earlier physical-science-based paradigm of social scientific investigation and opening up new researchpossibilities, the cultural critiques of the 1990s have in certain respects enfeebledhuman geography as an empirical discipline. What the work of the writers mentionedaboveöalong with Thrift's call for a wider methodological horizonöis beginning tomap out is a series of routes through which our `theoretical talk' can be used not onlyto interrogate established methodologies, but also to enliven more positively our visionof what human-geography methodologies might be (see also Crang, 1994; McCormack,2001; Malborn, 1999). It also marks a renewedöand welcomedöwillingness after aperiod of disciplinary introspection to wholeheartedly engage with the complex, messyworld of empirically focused work.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to this opening of methodological horizonswithin human geography. Specifically, I want to contribute to the emerging discussionon the uses and limits of the metaphor of performance as a way to frame the researchprocess (see Gregson and Rose, 2000; Nash, 2000; Pratt, 2000; Rose, 1999; Smith,2000; Thrift and Dewsbury, 2000). What I want to show is how reframing research ascreative, performative practice allows the researcher to address some novel questionsabout the cultures of everyday urban experience that more conventional, representa-tionally oriented, methods fail to address adequately. I want also to demonstrate howsuch a reframing involves a reappraisal of our relationship to our research subjects andthe narratives they offer. Thus, I am interested in the ideas of performance and practiceon two discrete levels. First, I seek to articulate an understanding of everyday urbanpublic culture as embodied practiceöa practice that is creative, pregnant with possibili-ties, but nonetheless located within particular networks of power/knowledge (compareBourdieu, 1984; 1998; Foucault, 1980). Second, drawing on this conceptualisation ofeveryday life (or `ordinary culture'), I attempt to outline how the processes of `fieldwork'and interpretation can embody, enact, and thus respect the creativity of social practicewhilst still offering useful (and critical) accounts of that practice.

2 Joseph's Ponsonby Road` Started work, Star Graphics, 8.00 am. 208 Ponsonby Rd, opposite Franklin Rd.10.30 am, Morning Tea. Left work to get coffee at `Duo', walkedöjust acrossRd, opposite `Tuatara'. Talked with Scottie, (who works there and has becomesome-what of a friend), asked how Weekend was e.t.c. Ordered Single Flat White,which Scott added his artistic touch to by drawing a pattern in the froth witha spoon, (He always does this!). Sat outside and flicked through `Herald', whiledrinking and having a smoke. Scottie came out and joined Me, as there was noone else in the cafe. Talked some more. Joined a few minutes later by Gail (fellowpatron, and friend of Scott). A nice unplanned encounter. Went back to work, atapprox 10.45 am. Coffee was great as usual.''

Research diary entry Joseph, 27, actor, copy-shop assistant, coffee drinker

1994 A Latham

Every weekday morning, almost without fail, Joseph Ryman(1) wanders across the roadfrom his work in a local copy shop and drinks a mid-morning coffee at Duo Cafe. Duois part of Ponsonby Roadöa sprawling, charming, mess of a street skirting the westernmargins of downtown Auckland. Originally a retail and service centre for the Victorianand Edwardian villas on the slopes either side of it, Ponsonby Road has evolved overthe past couple of decades into a prosperous hospitality strip, home to over sixtyrestaurants, cafes, and bars. The road is a curiosity. Its architecture is almost uniformlyshabby, notable only for the hard-nosed veracity with which it narrates the uninspired,sometimes bizarre, tastes of Auckland's property owners over the past century. Singlestorey 19th-century weatherboard buildingsölittle more than shedsöshare the roadwith freshly constructed neotraditionalist terraces, bland 1970s and 1980s concrete andglass boxes, and a huge white Mississippi riverboat of a building that thrusts out ofthe ground in a chaos of balustrades, bargeboards, and corrugated roofing. Only thefew relatively intact turn-of-the-20th-century buildings offer any sense of coherenceor quality. Yet it is one of the most fashionable parts of Auckland. Its ambience isworldly, confident, cosmopolitan. As one walks along it, past the studied yet casualstylishness of establishments such as Atlas Power Cafe, Tuatara, Masala, One RedDog, Atomic Cafe, Dizengoff, it is hard not to be impressed by a similarity to placessuch as Melbourne's Brunswick Street, Oxford Street in Sydney, even London's StokeNewington Church Street or parts of Amsterdam's Spuistraat.

Joseph, with his beautifully coifed short black hair, confident casual dressöredNew Balance Classic trainers, designer jeans, loose-fitting short-sleeved shirtöandeasy style, leaning back sipping his flat white at one of the aluminium footpath tablesoutside Duo, underlines this impression of cosmopolitan knowingness. This picture ofJosephöaged 27, actor, copy-shop assistant, coffee drinker, dandyöencapsulatesmuch of what is interesting about Ponsonby Road. Traditionally, New Zealand hasbeen defined by a limited, intensely masculine, Calvinistic, public culture (Fairburn,1989; Latham, 2000; Phillips, 1987; Sinclair, 1980). This culture was and remainsintensely antiurban, seeing the city as corrupt and emasculating. Over the past25 years, and most strikingly in the 1990s, however, the country's larger cities haveseen the development of a strong, self-consciously urban, public culture. The evolutionof this new urban public cultureöfor want of a more felicitious phraseömarks a shiftin the way a significant proportion of New Zealanders make sense of their world. Thisshift is evident in a whole number of areas: in accepted notions of masculinity andfemininity, in an openness (indeed, obsession) with difference, whether it be sexual,ethnic, or simply lifestyle based; in an increased confidence that New Zealand (or NewZealand's larger cities at least) is part of a wider cosmopolitan community. This is thecultural milieu in which Joseph makes sense, from which he gains his confidence. Andit is a culture that has been built in significant ways through places such as the cafes,restaurants, and bars along Ponsonby Road.

The question confronting me when I began to study Ponsonby Road (and twoother similar places) was how to interpret and understand this new urban culture.How to make sense of Joseph? Intellectually, Ponsonby Road is engaging preciselybecause it seems to embody a multitude of processes transforming Western cities.Given the similarity of Ponsonby Road to other, globally oriented, Pacific Rim citiesit is hard to resist, for example, reading Joseph and his Ponsonby Road coffee drinkingas a cipher for some kind of overarching processöglobalization, time ^ space compres-sion, McDonaldization. The shift in the way men and women relate to each other on aday-to-day basis within public space, and the unfamiliar and often ambiguous gender

(1) The names of all research participants have been changed to protect their anonymity.

Research, performance, and doing human geography 1995

performances which are a part of this, also resonate with trends analysed elsewhere(see Hebdige, 1988; Mort, 1996; Segal, 1990). And the more general questions that haveshaped political arguments about the roadöarguments about deviancy, difference, andmainstream norms of social behaviouröflow directly into ongoing debates about what(and for whom) the public and quasi-public spaces of the city should be for (compareSennett, 1990; 1995; 1998; see also Latham, 2002a; 2002b; 2002c; 2003a; Young, 1990).

And yet, if we return to Joseph, to what he is doing in Duo, a limit on thesegeneralisations is apparent. If we can see elements of the above trends in Joseph'sactions, what is also apparent is how he is engaged in an (often subtle) dialogue withthe people and objects in the cafes, bars, and other places he uses. One can begin to seea little of what I mean by this in Joseph's diary entry at the start of this section. Thetiming of Joseph's near-daily 10.30 am coffee visit to Duo is structured by the demandsof his work obligations. However, the actual feel and content of the visit is generatedthrough how Joseph works the possibilities of being in Duo. His conversation withScottie the barista is a careful improvisation involving a subtle mix of interest andnonchalance. The ` some-what of a friend[ness]'' relationship Joseph has with Scottie issomething that has been nurtured and sustained with dexterity. Similarly the casualencounter with Gail (` fellow patron, and friend of Scott'', and later we discover afriend of Joseph, too) is part of the fragile texture of friendship and community whichis essential to the webs of sociality which make up Ponsonby Road. My point is notthat the interpretative work of Joseph negates the aim of attempting to delineategeneral trends, or tendencies (compare de Certeau, 1984; Maffesoli, 1996). Rather, itnudges at a need to recognise the centrality of everyday social practice in the articula-tion of these tendencies. And it demands methodological and interpretative strategiesthat build this recognition into their very core.

Which brings us back to Thrift (2000a) and his critique of the cultural turnin human geography, because if there is one thing the cultural turn should havedone it is to have provided a route to understand and interpret the world of everydaysocial practice. And yet, in Thrift's view, one of the roots of cultural geography'smethodological conservatism is its failure to take practice seriously enough.

3 Theorising everyday life` It cannot be sufficiently stressed that the common-sense world is not a reified andunflexive praxis. It is full of art and humour, it is explored in literature, art, song, filmand comic strips. Common-sense knowledge is far from being a poor version ofscience. It is self-critical and, above all, capable of dealing with the contradiction andparadoxes of social life that otherwise drive sociologists off into utopias, anachron-isms, and nostalgias that make ordinary people suspicious of the intellectual's graspof reality.''

John O'Neill, in Michael Gardiner (2000, pages 6 ^ 7)

Everyday life and everyday culture are two of the great frontiers of contemporaryhuman geography. As commentators such as David Matless (1995; 1996), Louise Crewe(2000), and Don Mitchell (1999) have noted, the pages of geography journals now teemwith an expanding array of articles on topics as diverse as men's lifestyle magazines(Jackson et al, 1999); gentrification and the art of dining in ethnic restaurants (May,1996); the sexual politics of lipstick lesbians and gay skinheads (Bell et al, 1994); popularphotography and the touristic gaze (Crang, 1997); women hobos and urban graffitiartists (Cresswell, 1996; 1999); car-boot sales (Gregson and Crewe, 1997a; 1997b); shop-ping malls and the politics of hanging out (Goss, 1993; 1999; Vanderbeck and Johnson,2000); popular music (Kong, 1996; Wall, 2000); and the skills of supermarket shopping(Lowe and Wrigley, 2000; Miller et al, 1997). Even that arduous weekly trip to the gym

1996 A Latham

has been opened up to the inquiring cultural geographer (Johnston, 1996). Thesearticlesödiverse though they undoubtedly areöare united by a conviction that every-day life is a key realm where social power is exercised and maintained, and the everydaysimultaneously opens-up new realms of resistance to mainstream networks of power/knowledge (Barnett, 1998a). As Steve Pile (1997, page 27) writes: ` ... power seems to beeverywhere, but wherever we look, power is open to gaps, tears, inconsistencies,ambivalences, possibilities for inversion, mimicry, [and] parody. ... At the heart ofquestions of resistance lie the questions of spatialityöthe politics of lived space.''

Thrift is himself a theorist who is very much interested in the everyday. He describeshis work as centrally concerned with the ` mundane everyday practices, that shape theconduct of human beings towards others and themselves in particular sites'' (1997a,pages 126 ^ 127). Thrift's understanding of practice is ordered through four basictheoretical propositions: (1) that time ^ space is a fundamental element of social life;(2) that time ^ space comes into being through social practice; (3) that these practicesgenerate subjectivities through which the world is lived and experienced; and (4) thatsubjectivities are the products of complex mixtures of human and nonhuman agencies(1996, pages 1 ^ 3; 1997a, pages 126 ^ 130; 1997b, page 138; 1999a; 1999b).(2) These fourtheoretical propositions suggest at least three crucial elements that any accounts of

(2) As these propositions are by no means self-evident, below is a more detailed (but still all toobrief) outline for those who are new to Thrift's project:(a) Time ^ space : From his very earliest work on time geography (see 1977a; 1977b; Pred andThrift,1981), Thrift has been concerned with theorising how the social world is constituted not simplythrough time, but through time ^ space. As he put it in an early formulation, ``[t]he essential unit ofgeography is not spatial, it lies in regions of time ^ space and in the relations of such units to ...larger spatio-temporal configurations'' (1977b quoted in 1996, page 1).(b) The sensuousness of practice : To think of time ^ space in the manner that Thrift does is to seetime ^ space becoming through practiceöthrough the complex interaction of the social action of arange of interlinked subjects (collective and individual, nonhuman as well as human). This is todestabilise radically the dominant social scientific ontologyöfrom positivism through to structuralMarxismöwhich views the social world as consisting at root of some kind of coherent, rational,fully graspable, reality (whether that be `social laws', `underlying logics', `deep structure', or whatever).For Thrift this view not only projects a certain kind of scientific wish fulfilment onto the worldötheworld is at core rational just as the social scientist isöit profoundly undervalues the multiplicity ofways the social world has for simply `getting on'. That is to say, it undervalues the ordinary, situated,sensuous, practices through which the social world comes into being. Drawing on a disparate butvigorous practice-oriented intellectual counterculture, Thrift argues that we need to disenchantourselves of the idea that there is some foundational structure upon which social scientific knowl-edge can be based and accept that the world is made up of nothing other than complex webs ofdiffering practices. If this can be managed, not only can we begin to revalue ` the skills andknowledges [people] get from being embodied beings'' (1997a, page 126), but the world we live inbecomes fecund with possibility. And the task of the social scientist becomes working towardsunderstanding ` what the possible can do with the possible'' (2000a, page 215, italics in original).(c) The subject (or subjectification): Thrift is concerned with the subject. He is interested in howsubjectivities are produced within complex (power-inflected) networks of association. This view ofthe subject (or, as Thrift phrases it in his more recent work, subjectification) frames subjectivity asdecentred, but embodied, as something that is not simply the property of an individual actor. AsThrift writes of his own intellectual journey: ` My idea of the subject started out by being synon-ymous with human individuals ... . But it rapidly became clear that I was interpreting these accountsin ways that came perilously close to a Cartesian view of the subject. As a result, I underestimatedthe importance of the between-ness of joint action, and in general drew the bounds of the subject tootightly so that I was excluding many crucial relations between subjects and objects'' (1996, page 2).(d) Agency: Lastly, to be concerned with the productiveness of practice and with the work ofsubjectification is also to place the question of agency at the centre of social theoretical work.Here Thrift is interested in ``both the production of action and of what counts as action'' (1996,page 2). Linking together all these four concerns is a desire to develop a style of social theory thatviews the world as performed.


everyday life must contain if they are to be plausible and interesting. First, they must berespectful of the social practices through which the everyday unfolds. They mustrecognise that much social practice is different (but certainly not inferior) to morecontemplative academic modes of being in the worldöembedded as they are in thenoncognitive, preintentional and commonsensical. Second, they must contain a sensethat practices (and thus the subjectivities and agencies of which they are a part) areshot through with creativity and possibility (even though these are constrained' andlimited by existing networks of association). Third, the everyday should not be viewedas a world apart from more rationally grounded realms of social action such as `thestate', `the economic', `the political', or whatever. Rather, what needs to be recognised ishow all elements of social life, all institutions, all forms of practice are in fact tiedtogether with the work of getting on from day-to-day (compare French, 2000; Thrift,1996, page 40).

Seen through the filter of these criteria we can begin to make more sense of thesubstance source of Thrift's unease with human geographic work about the everyday.1. Cultural geography's revival was largely built upon a commitment to a particularpolitics of representation, and it remains obsessively focused on representation. Thisobsession not only implicitly downgrades the importance of practice, stressing as itdoes the symbolic over the expressive, ` responsive and rhetorical'' (Thrift, 2000b,page 223) dimensions of language. It also has an alarming tendency to a slip intosimplistic (and often exaggerated) narratives ` based on highly romantic stereotypesof both politics and persons'' (2000a, page 5). Thus, to take an example close to theconcerns of this paper, white professionals living in an ethnically diverse area of NorthLondon, and eating out at its ethnic restaurants, are not reaching out towards somekind of engagement with the existing community (ambiguous, limited, and inadequatethough that may be). No! They are `eating the Other', and are implicated, despite theirprotestations, in a process of cultural imperialism intricately bound within a complexhistorical geography of racisms! (May, 1996; see Jackson, 1999).2. This example leads neatly to the second limitation. In too much culturally inflectedwork the everyday is reified as a pure, pristine realm, heroically unbowed by thegrubby domination of the powerful. Not only does this unnecessarily romanticisethe everyday as a mystical counterweight to dominationöa romanticism embodiedin the much-quoted claim of Michel Foucault (1980, page 142) that ` there are norelations of power without resistance'' (a romanticising of resistance that is all tooevident in Pile's assertion that if ` power seems to be everywhere [... it is also] open togaps, tears, inconsistencies, ambivalences, possibilities for inversion, mimicry, [and]parody''). It also drifts towards a view of everyday practices as escaping completelythe grasp of the social researcher, whilst simultaneously disavowing the constitutiverole of these practices to networks of domination (Crang, 2000; compare Rose, 1996).3. Lastly, in large part because of its obsession with issues of representation, thecultural turn has not equipped human geography to study anything but a relativelynarrow range of social theoretical questions.We simply do not have the methodologicalresources and skills to undertake research that takes the sensuous, embodied, creative-ness of social practice seriously. Indeed, counterintuitive though it may sound, ` culturalgeography is not empirical enough'' (Thrift, 2000a, page 5). This is a problem that runsdeep. In part the difficulty derives from an unwillingness to experiment with techniquesthat go beyond the now canonical cultural methods: in-depth interviews, focus groups,participant observation of some form or other. This is a conservatism that is reflectedin the methodological content and focus of a number of recent (and generally verygood) geography textbooks aimed at introducing undergraduates to qualitativeresearch (see Hay, 2001; Hoggart et al, 2002; Limb and Dwyer, 2001). But even where

1998 A Latham

attempts are made to reach beyond the limitations of these methodsöas is thankfullybecoming a little more commonöthe accounts produced are uncomfortably similar tothose that preceded them. Thus, to take just one example, Gill Valentine (1999), in anengaging paper exploring the corporeal geographies of consumption, writes of her aimto think through ` how our bodies are linked to wider consumption spaces and the waysthat they are inflected by these sociospatial relations'' (page 329). Valentine arguesforcefully that accounts of embodiment must encompass ` all the senses'' (touch, smell,taste, hearing, as well as the visual) and the ``social knowledge'' these enfold (page 331).Nonetheless, despite incorporating methods such as food and photographic and videodiaries in addition to in-depth interviews and focus groups, Valentine does not actuallydemonstrate much interest in the concrete embodiments through which sociospatialrelations and bodily practices become. What really matters is talk. Her argumentdevelops through a series of verbatim quotes from focus groups or interviews. Notonly do these quotes lack context. Who are these Mikes, Colins, Kates, Carols, andJackies who appear in the midst of Valentine's theoretical deliberations? Equallytroubling is how this talk is made to stand in for all the complexities and subtletiesof embodied practice. The cultural geographer canöit would appearöspeak the worldto truth through asking her or his research subjects the right questions, and thenquoting them back with fidelity in their research reports. (Or, put another way, if wecan get our theory representing the world in the right way, we can get our researchrespondents to as well!) There may be bodies in Valentine's paper but the reader gainslittle insight into the active, creative, inquisitive practices of embodiment that are sucha central part of people's relationship to consumption.(3)

But how then can we approach studying the ordinary, the everyday, in ways thatactively engage embodiments of social practice as Thrift urges us to? What kindsof methodologies should we employ if we are to be more sensitive to the creativity ofpractice? Thrift's own solution is to look towards innovations from a range of special-isms in the social sciences and humanities that are organised through a sense ofperformance. He writes of the possibilities of drawing on methods from the performingarts, from ` street theatre, community theatre, legislative theatre'' (2000a, page 3); ofmethods that work with bodies, ``forms of dance and music therapy, contact improvi-sation''; the work of social psychologists ``aimed at boosting relational responsibilityby focusing on group interaction''. Thrift is thinking also of performative writingapproaches ` which have sprung up from disciplines as diverse as anthropology, femi-nism and performance studies'', as well as ``interactive web sites which reform andperform on the internet'' (see also 2000b, pages 244 ^ 245; Thrift and Dewsbury, 2000).

On the question of quite what the geography that will emerge from using (perform-ing) these methodologies will look like, Thrift has so far been reticient. If his recentwork on knowledge communities and organisational learning gives some sense of theopenness of style in which this work might be written (see Thrift, 1998; 1999b; 2000c;

(3) To my mind, the heart of the problem is that Valentine does not acknowledge the multitude ofdifferent ways in which our embodiments are performed. While much of her text gestures at thebody (and the embodied) she is uninterested in the ways in which the visual, for example, isactually profoundly shaped by our sense of touch, or how emotional bonds between people arebuilt through physical intimacy. To think through these knowledges foregrounds a series of issuesabout the extent to which academic writing can in any instance actually come to any understandingof the noncognitive realms of the body. A great deal of recent writing on the body and embodimenthas argued that much of what being embodied is about simply escapes the view of the socialscientist (Latham, 1996; Scarry, 1985; Shilling, 1993). This is certainly the case to some degree.What writers like Isabel Allende (1998) and Rebecca Solnit (2001) show is that the question hereis not one of representability per se, it is a question of finding the appropriate register andperspective and accepting that something will (and should) escape the process of description.


2000d; 2002), his more social theoretic work is suggestive of nothing less than a drivetowards a new methodological avant garde that will radically refigure what it is to doresearch (see 1999a; 2000a; 2000b). I want to suggest a slightly different methodologicalreframing than Thrift.Where Thrift seems determined to push for some kind of rupturein our ways of doing research (a stance that is somewhat ironic given his general distastefor stories of rupture, break, and discontinuity), I want to suggest that, rather thanditching the methodological skills that human geography has so painfully accumulated,we should work through how we can imbue traditional research methodologies with asense of the creative, the practical, and being with practice-ness that Thrift is seeking(see Crang, 1997; Pratt, 2000; Pred, 1986; 1990a; 1990b). Pushed in the appropriatedirection there is no reason why these methods cannot be made to dance a little.

4 Performing research: part oneöfeeling towards a method` ... I am convinced that the actual evolution of research ideas does not take place inaccord with formal statements we read on research methods. The ideas grow upin part out of our immersion in the data and out of the whole process of living ...''

William Foote White in Mitchell Duneier (1999, page 333)

Let us return to Joseph, and the questions posed about researching him and PonsonbyRoad at the end of section 2. Joseph isöas we already knowöa subtle and sociallysophisticated inhabitant of Ponsonby Road. He knows the casual but intricate etiquetteof cafe usage, how to carry through a drifting conversation with Scottie as he attendsto his barista work, how to work in Gail when she arrives, and he possesses a keensense of the significance of self-presentation. He is also thoughtful and articulate. Yet,when asked about why he likes Duo, how he would describe his relations to Scottie orindeed Gail, how he learnt to be so adept at doing coffee, he feels put on the spot.

Questions such as these were important for me as I groped to understand somethingof the `structure of feeling' (Harrison, 2000; Williams, 1977), the tissue of relationshipsand events, within which the communities of sociability woven through Ponsonby Roadwere enacted. And, as I will try to demonstrate, making sense of and respecting thereasons why Joseph had difficulty in answering questions about his time spent onPonsonby Road is centrally important in conceiving methodologies that take the flowof practice and its complex embodied intersubjectivities seriously.

So why did Joseph have difficulty answering? There were, I think, three reasons.The first reason was simply that a good number of these questions simply are not thosethat Joseph would have much reason to think about in any depth in the usual course ofevents. The relationships that form the context through which his life is lived are notalways under scrutiny or the object of constant deliberation. Indeed, this kind of self-reflection seems somehow out of tune with the ethos of Joseph's (and, as I was to cometo appreciate, with many other of my respondents') friendships and social relations onthe road (and indeed elsewhere).

The second reason, one closely related to the first, was how I framed my questions.My questions were those of the social scientist, and as such they demanded a style andlogic that was not necessarily aligned with the way Joseph thought about his day-to-daylife. He does not, for example, need a reason why he likes Duo and it is almost(but not entirely) unreasonable to demand that he has one. Acknowledging this differ-ence not only requires recognition of the need to gain a sense of the frame of referencethrough which an individual encounters and negotiates his or her world (Emerson et al,1996; Hammersley and Atkinson, 1995). It also means acknowledging and accept-ing that accounts offered by people may appear by their very nature `indistinct',self-contradictory', or `incomplete'. As John Shotter (in Harrison, 2000, page 502) writes:

2000 A Latham

`Why shouldn't an expression of a thought or intentionöthe saying of a sentenceor the doing of a deed, for exampleöoriginate in a person's vague and unorderedfeelings or sense of the context they are in?''This brings us to the third reason for Joseph's inarticulateness. When Shotter

invokes a feeling for context as key to why social action unfolds in particular ways,he is gesturing to the importance of social competencies that come through theaccretion of embodied experience. For Joseph, a great deal of what he knows anddoes on Ponsonby Road has accumulated through straightforward usage. Josephknows what to do, and has an intuitive knowledge of what Ponsonby Road is about,that, if not exactly subconscious, is in certain respects nonconscious, noncognitivelyoriented, or, as Anthony Giddens (1984, page 7) puts it, is profoundly ` practical'' (seeLatham, 1996; 1999a; 1999b; 1999c; Shotter, 1993; Taussig, 1993). This knowledge isby no means itself inarticulateöthe expressiveness of Joseph's (and others') use ofPonsonby Road is witness to that. But its logic and sense is not ordered through thediscursive and, if we are to find ways of properly accounting for these, we too mustthink beyond the discursive.

In approaching Ponsonby Road and thinking about methodology, it was initiallythe problem of how to `get at' (Latham, 1999d, page 182) these practical, routine,knowledges that most concerned me. This was for two reasons. I am interested inthe ways in which urban places, particularly urban public places, become through thesensuous interweaving of the lives and daily projects of the thousands of individualswho daily dwell within them. And, as I have suggested with the example of Joseph, agreat deal of this `making place' becomes through the work of embodied routine,routines of occupation, and use. Second, it also seemed that one of the most problem-atic dimensions for the researcher studying the sociality of public spaces (that is, placeswhere people are routinely subject to interaction with strangers) are precisely theseroutine, noncognitive, embodied aspects and the solidarities that they form: if they arenoncognitive, and in large part nonverbal, how can they be included within research?Assuming that they are not entirely of a knowledge that Michel de Certeau (1984,page 93) evocatively characterised as being ``as blind as two lovers in each othersarms'', one answer is to try to construct a sensitively structured technique throughwhich research subjects can find a space for reflecting upon these practices.

The technique I used to provide such a structure was participant diaries. I first useddiaries in a study into everyday experience of public space in an inner-city area ofBerlin, which acted as a pilot for my research into Ponsonby Road (see Latham, 1999c).In that project I asked eleven people living within a few blocks of each other to write atime ^ space-budget diary of their time spent in public spaces. (For the purposes of thestudy I used a commonsensical' de facto definition of public space. This loose defini-tion was negotiated through talking to the diarists about what they held to be inessence `public'.) The hope was that they would produce a detailed time ^ space budgetof their activities. Additionally, however, I also asked my diarists to include a com-mentary about events in the diaryödetails about how they felt, what they thoughtabout a place, the people they had encountered, and so forth. The diary was then usedas the basis for a lengthy interview with the diarist.

In using diaries and diary-interviews I was taking inspiration from two US anthro-pologists, Don Zimmerman and Lawrence Wieder (1977). Zimmerman and Wiederhad in the early 1970s developed what they called the `diary, diary-interview method'(DDIM) to undertake ethnographic fieldwork in circumstances where the social actionof interest is spatially diffuse and `strong observer effects' were likely (1977). Theessence of DDIM for Zimmer and Wieder was that the diarist acts as a `proxyobserver' who the researcher then interviews in-depth by using the diary to elaborate


and (crucially) corroborate what he or she has written. My ambition in employing theDDIM was from the start slightly different from that of Zimmerman and Wieder. Myprimary aim was to create a framework in which my research subjects could indeedmeditate onöor at least be more actively aware oföthe routine and ordinary events oftheir day, whilst also providing a detailed time ^ space account of their time in public.This, however, was to prove problematic. Certainly, most people could complete thetime ^ space budgets and write some kind of accompanying commentary. But the stressI was placing on the need for accuracy and completeness in the time ^ space budgetswas alien to a significant number of diarists. The hard logic of the time ^ space budget,and the effort it required, forced people into accounting for their usage of time andplaces in ways that were sometimes antithetical to how they ordered (or did not order)their day. Not unlike Joseph with his puzzlement at my direct questions, too muchof the structure of the time-budget diary involved the assumption that my frame ofreference was indeedöor should beönatural to the diarists. Though the diary-interview the DDIM did produce interesting accounts of people's ordinary inhabitationof public spaces, this was produced against the grain of (and in some cases almostin spite of ) the subjects' diary time ^ space budgets.

A further problem arose when it came to interpreting the completed diaries andinterviews. In Zimmerman and Wieder's work the privileged position of the ethnogra-pher as an objective scientific observer is not placed in question. Zimmerman andWieder employed their diarists to act as proxies in situations where it would havebeen organisationally problematic for the researchers themselves to have been phys-ically present taking notes on events. They were not interested in the diaries as sourcesin and of themselves, and they were also deeply sceptical of the accounts providedby the diary writers. Indeed, one of the central purposes of the diary-interview was totest the plausibility and robustness of the account provided within individual diaries.The completed diaries and diary-interviews were, once assembled, treated to standardsociological interrogations. Although my diarists had written many interesting thingsand kept to the basic structure explained before they started writing, none had any-thing like the detail or resolution one would expect from professionally trained fieldresearchers. And in any case if I was interested in my diarists' personal experience ofpublic spaces, why should I be demanding that they write like an ethnographer?(4)

Slowly it dawned on me that, if the world could productively be viewed in terms ofsets of practical performances and enactments, the research process itself could, too, beframed as a kind of performance (compare Carlson, 1996; Goffman, 1959; Ingold,2000; Taussig, 1993). Viewed in this way it becomes possible to interpret (and carryout) the diary and diary-interview process in a different key to Zimmerman andWieder. The diary becomes a kind of performance or reportage of the week and theinterview a reaccounting, or reperformance. Thus, rather than seeing the idiosyncrasiesof individual diarists as a problem, the methodological focus shifts to plugging into(and enabling) respondents' existing narrative resources. And if this suggests a differentapproach to the idea of the written diary and the following interview, it also suggeststhe possibility of using techniques such as participant photography alongside the writtendiary and interview (see Harper, 1998). Adopting such a stance does not mean ditching,wholesale, questions of rigour or objectivity for methodological anarchy. But, as Pratt(2000) suggests, it does change our relationship to these issues in a number of subtle andnot so subtle ways.

(4) It is exactly against this suspicion of the native's account and privileging of the ethnographer'sview that the critiques of modernist ethnographic practice articulated by anthropological commen-tators such as James Clifford and George Marcus (1986) and others (see Denzin, 1997) as well asby feminist scholars (see Smith, 1990; 1999; Trinh, 1989; 1991) was directed.

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5 Performing research: part twoöthe diary-photograph, diary-interview methodDiary continued ...

` 6.30 pmNow Wendy's is a whole new experience. A fast food, fast package and containermeal. You notice everything is wrapped, cartoned, sacheted or shrink-wrapped,plastic, cardboard and free ... on the serviettes. And trayed. The trays alwaysremind me of BOARDING SCHOOL. I guess it's similar to an airline meal thatnever gets off the ground. You don't get a `FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS' sign orself-control air conditioning above your head. And everyone is facing differentdirections. However, Isaac enjoyed it. He looks very trendy in peak cap with Redjersey and wearing SOUTHPARK t-shirt underneath `THE MANY DEATHS OFKENNY.' He's lining up pure cane sugar on the table, cutting it up and using thecoffee straws to SUCK it up his nose. `I've seen them do it on the movies and weare talking about DRUGS at school. They are BAD for you and it wrecks yourMIND and you forget everything. CANNABIS, MArijuna, CRACK, POT,COCAINE, CAFFEINE, CABBAGE WEED'. ISAAC. B.Well that came out of no-where. This diary is working wonders already. My nameis Paul, Paul Rennie Brown and Wendy's is my middle name.''

Research diary entry Paul, 42, estate agent, father, paraglider

The metaphor of performanceösurprisingly, given its current popularityöhas a well-established lineage of usage within the social sciences and humanities.Within sociology,ethnomethodologists and symbolic interactionists such as Erving Goffman (1959; 1963;1974) and Howard Garfinkel (1967) drew heavily on dramatological metaphors in theirresearch into everyday interactions. More recently, Judith Butler (1990; 1993) has usedthe term `performativity' to theorise how gender is reproduced through everyday socialpractices.(5) Equally, the more radical appropriation of performance advocated byThrift draws on work from theatre studies and performance art rooted in a heterodoxtradition which arguably reaches back to Dada, and includes the agitprop theatre ofthe 1960s and 1970s, Situationist International with their derives and detournements,community theatre, and body art (Carlson, 1996; Tulloch, 1999).

As Nicky Gregson and Gillian Rose (2000) have argued, it is the work of Goffmanand Garfinkel that has most influenced work in human geography (see Crang, 1994;Nash, 2000). However, one of the primary inspirations of my turn to the performedwas more prosaic. The idea of day-to-day life as involving an element of performanceis pervasive in contemporary popular culture (this is as true in New Zealand as it isthroughout much of the Western world). This can be seen in the heightened attention toself-presentation and self-fashioning evident in the evolution of many postwar urbansubcultures. It is also evident in the popularity and success of `reality'-based and diary-based programmes on television and radio (compare Chambers, 1986; Giddens, 1991;Mort, 1996; Stephens, 1998). In reflecting on this popular culture, it also occurred tome that rather than just using writing (the diary) and talk (the diary-interview) it alsomade sense to try and draw more directly on people's visual imaginations. Hence,I provided each of my diarists with a disposable camera with which they were askedto take photographs of interesting and/or significant places and events of their week(on the use of photography and social research, see Harper, 1998).

For some diarists such as Josephöan aspiring actor, rememberöor Miranda whoworks in fashion publishing ``where presentation is very important'' (interview tran-script, 1999) my suggestion that the production of the diary (written and photographic)

(5) For a more detailed background of the history of the metaphor of performance in the socialsciences see Marvin Carlson (1996), Nigel Thrift and John-David Dewsbury (2000).


be viewed as a kind of performance-cum-reportage of their week fitted closely to theirestablished frames of self-reference. For other diarists the self as a carefully studiedperformance was slightly further from their personal views of themselves. Nonetheless,the suggestion that the diary should be viewed as a performance, an intimate reportageof their week out and about in Auckland, was not an alien idea. What is more, inaddition to the intuitive intelligibility of the idea of the diary (written and photo-graphic) as a performance or reportage to diarists, the suggestion also functionedas a vehicle for individuals to create a gap between their everyday self and theirdiary-writing self. This was important in making it easier for diarists to write aboutthemselves. In essence they were putting less of themselves on the line: less than wouldbe demanded if the emphasis was on producing a absolutely `truthful' account of theirweek, and less than in Zimmerman and Wieder's original framing of the diarist asproxy ethnographer seeking a total recall of events.

Now clearly the framing of the research relationship and research activity asperformance employed in my use of the diary-photograph, diary-interview method(DPDIM), is less radical than that suggested by Thrift and employed by Pratt in herwork with the Vancouver Philippine Women's Centre. My diarists were still given abasic framework which it was stressed was important to follow. Equally, the concludingin-depth interview followed a structured format that in its essentials did not varygreatly from diarist to diarist. Imposing this degree of structure on the diarist mightseem to run contrary to the ethos of the turn towards performance which I am arguingfor in this paper. However, the objective in providing this structure was to provide abasic narrative outline or pattern for the diarists of what a diary might look like.Diarists were then encouraged to improvise around and extend the basic diary formatI had outlined to them. So, whereas Joseph produced a diary that was pithy andconcise in both its written and photographic elements (see the introductory quote tosection 2), in the diary quoted at the start of this section, Paul Rennie Brown, a well-dressed real-estate agent in his early forties, produced a surreal series of diary entriesand photographs. Borrowing from James Bond films (the refrain ``my name is Paul ...Paul Rennie Brown'' is the connecting element through the diary), film noir anddetective-novel noir (the diary begins with lines ` Of all the booze-barns and gin jointsin this town ...'' ), new journalism (` He's lining up pure cane sugar on the table, cuttingit up and using the coffee straws to SUCK it up his nose''), comic books (the diary isillustrated with sketches, and elements of the narrative have a cartoon-like feel, as domany of his photographs that are posed and exaggerated) amongst other narrativesources, Paul self-consciously turns himself into a character in his diary.

Similarly, the diary-photograph-interview offered a structured context within whichthe diary writer and I could discuss and revisit the events described in the diary.Elaborating, for example, on his description of Wendy's, Paul explains, prompted bymy question as to whether he likes Wendy's and whether he would go there if it was notfor his son Isaac,

`Yeah, I do go to Wendy's actuallyöI like their chilli con carne! Wendy's is blandbut it's good. Out of the fast food chains, it's one of the better ones. The food's alittle bit more realögood chilli con carne, good potatoes. And with Isaac it's a biteasier. You do get a little bit influenced about doing takeaway food [when you'rewith kids].''

After I interrupt, asking if Wendy's is different from going to a cafe on Ponsonby Road,Paul continues,

` It's totally removed from Ponsonby Road. Wendy's is food. Packaged, totallypackaged. I described it in the diary as being like an aeroplane. The food andpresentation is like on an aeroplane. And the space itself is like being in the

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reception lounge. Like being in the Koru lounge. Or, like waiting for the plane tocome.Waiting to have embarkment. It's all very antiseptic, very clinical. It's all verybright. You don't want to stay too long, you don't want to sit there all afternoonand relax. [laughs] It's all going too fast.''

Through this recounting of the diary, Paul not only helps to clarify and define what hewrote in the diary, he offers a parallel account to that provided in the diary: where thediary offers a hectic, hyperbolic, surrealistic, narrative, the interview offers a morecautious, banal perspective. Now, the work of conversationally recounting and reenact-ing the week is similar in many ways to established qualitative interviewing techniques.Most accounts of interviews and related qualitative methodologies stress the need tobuild up a rapport with research subjects, the need to be alert to misunderstandings,and the importance of clarifying points of mutual misunderstanding (Fielding, 1993;Hammersley and Atkinson, 1995; Kvale, 1996; Mason, 1996; Miller and Glassner,1997). Where the framing of the research process as the kind of performative practice(or enacting) being argued for here breaks from some of the more-established norms ofinterview-based qualitative research is in its insistence on the incompleteness andevent-ness with which the whole research process is shot through. The parallel narra-tives of the diary and diary-interview offered by Paul do not sum together to produce asingle unified narrative as they were seen to do by Zimmerman and Wieder. Instead,they present the researcher with an interrelated mosaic of interpretative snapshots andvignettes of a particular social space and set of social practices in the making.

What does this mean in practical terms? I want to highlight two areas that definemy own engagement with the performative, practice-oriented nature of social life:

5.1 The partialness of accountsI have in the preceding argument repeatedly stressed the importance of recognising thedegree to which the world is made through the work of practical, sensual, social action.If we leave aside for the moment the not-insubstantial question of the solidity andenduring nature of the institutions reproduced through this practical, sensual, socialaction (see Bourdieu, 1984; Taussig, 1993), such an ontology demands that we preservea sense of openness and possibility within our accounts of the world even when theseaccounts are about the ways in which certain institutions, certain facts, certain ways ofthinking and acting appear utterly natural and immutable (compare Callon andLatour, 1981; Hetherington, 1997; 1998; Latour, 1988; Thrift, 1996; 1999a). If this onto-logical stance is fundamentally optimistic in tone, it nonetheless has some importantimplications for how we understand the reach and certainty of the knowledge we associal scientists produce. First, it suggests we need, in interpreting interviews and relatedempirical material, to be more sensitive than we have been in the past to the partial-nessand moment-ness of the accounts offered. An interview, even a series of interviews ordiaries and diary-interviews, does not provide a definitive account of an event, place,or individual. Of course, this is to restate a commonplace (and fairly obvious) con-clusion of poststructuralist and postmodern critiques of social scientific knowledge(Denzin, 1997; Rose, 1993; 1997). But what I am arguing goes beyond the too-familiarqualification that our knowledge is `partial' and `situated'. Take, for example, the follow-ing verbatim quote from Joseph's diary-interview describing his use of Duo. The quotefollows directly from the diary extract at the start of the section 2:

1: Alan: `Ahmmm, So you drove to work? Ahmmm. This is just a basic how doyou get to work que[stion.''2: Joseph: ` Yeah''].3. A: ` Not terribly exciting. (.2) How did you discover Duo? ( .) Cause this isobvious one of yo:ur? ( .2)''


4. J : ` Yeah. I was ahhh ( .4) They opened up maybe ( .2) 18 months ( .1) 18 monthsor something like that ( .2) a year and a half ago and ahmmm. ( .6) I was going toanother cafe a::nd ( .2) walking back. And Scottie and ( .2) and Tony the boss ( .)were standing out on the side walk ahmmm and said ( .) `Come and try our' ( .)you know coffee. The best coffee on Ponsonby Road.' [said in American accent].Oh Tony's an American. `Best coffee on Ponsonby Road' [said with even thickeraccent] kinda t[hing.''5: A: ` T]ony is the guy who owns it is he?''6: J: ` Yeh ( .) yeah ( .) Tony and his his ( .) partner.''7: A: ` So he actually works there ( .) as well as?''8: J: Àhmm ( .) he ( .) he usually I haven't seen him for months ( .) but ahmm ( .2)he seems to be keeping a low profile or something. I haven't seen him there for ages( .) and ahm but he used to be there most day. But now it's ( .) I think he's got somepretty trust worthy staff and ( .) you know Scottie and that. ( .) And so he sortadoesn't need to ( .) pop in very ( .) often. Ahmm ( .) but you know I was justwalking along and ( .) a lady said ` oh come and try the coffee'' [said in his normalvoice] do I did. A:nd ... .''9: A: ` You didn't think ( .) oh ( .) you know `Piss off' kinda [ . ]''10: J: ` Yeah no no [well.''11: A: ` Str]eet hawkers?''12: J: ` I went in there thought `New place. Try it out' ''13: A: ` [Yeah''14: J: Ànd] first day I was in there ahmm ( .2) the guy ( .2) ahh I'd probably drunka couple of sips of coffee and he comes out `Hey! I'm not happy with that coffee.Give it back here. Finish it and I'll give you another one.' [Said in a weird Americanaccent which disappears on last part of phrase] So he gave me another one. Andwas like the first time I tipped at a cafe for ( .) yonks. You know? I thought`Hell that's bloody good. Bloody good service.' You know? Good music goodatmosphere. ( .) Ahm so I went back ( .) and got to kno:w ( .) the crew there ( .)''15: A: ` Yeah''16: J: Ànd ah ( .2) you know? ( .) it's like a: ( .) a bit like Cheers really you know?You go in there everyone knows your name and ... .''17: A: ` Yeah.''18: J: ` You joke around ( .2) relaxed and happy and good ( .)''19: A: ` Yeah, yeah.''

Like Paul's diary-interview quote above, Joseph's recounting of his week presents uswith some interesting perspectives on how he uses hospitality spaces. It also begins tocontextualise his relations with Scottie and others at Duo. Indeed, this excerpt seemsto offer us a rather neat narrative leading to the conclusion that Duo is very much likethe bar in the television situation comedy Cheers.

Careful attention to the rhetorical construction of the interchange between Josephand myself, however, offers a slightly different interpretation. Answering my initialquestion (1 and 3) which leads us to the first diary reference to Duo, Joseph tries torecount when he first encountered Duo (4), a narrative thread that I interrupt withmy question about the owner, who has not before been mentioned (5). Replying to myinterruption (6), Joseph starts to continue his story, when he is again interrupted bya further rather stupid question from me about Tony (7). This interruption leads to ashort uncertain detour as Joseph seeks to explain Tony's recent absence from Duo,followed by a return to his initial narrative of how he discovered Duo. Again I inter-rupt his flow (9), this time with a question trying to clarify what he thought aboutbeing accosted on the street. Joseph answers very briefly while attempting to stick to

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his narrative about Duo (10, 12). He explains how the staff at Duo looked after him,offering the very concrete example of how Tony replaced his original coffee because hewas ``not happy with that coffee''. Giving narrative structure to what he has said so far,Joseph pauses and then offers me the definition, ``it's a bit like Cheers, you know?''This ` it's a bit like Cheers, you know?'' is a practical rhetorical device aimed to help mycomprehension of Joseph's story, which neatly evokes and summarises through use of acommonplace cultural reference the ethos of Duo suggested in the preceding descrip-tion of Tony replacing his coffee. Joseph then further clarifies what he means with thefinal set of vague but again very evocative couplets (16 ^ 18): ` You go in there and every-one knows you name and [A: ` Yeah''] you joke around relaxed and happy and good''(see Atkinson and Heritage, 1984; Bilig, 1987; Heritage, 1997; Potter, 1997; Shotter,1993; Silverman, 1998).

What is clear from the structure of the extended extract is that Joseph has arelation to Duo that outruns the neat idea of Cheers, even as the Cheers analogy helpsme (and Joseph) to make sense of Joseph's relationship to it. Indeed, it is clear that theCheers statement is not one that is meant to be taken literally. Reading the extract (andindeed the entire interview) with attention to the way it is rhetorically structuredhighlights that what Joseph is presenting is an account in the making. Just as Josephnegotiates Ponsonby Road anew each time he uses it, the interview, too, is a negotia-tion of a relationship to the events outlined in his diary. The more he and I talk aboutit, the more detail and perspectives I get on Joseph's relationship to Ponsonby Road.But this is not leading to a single unified truth about either Joseph or PonsonbyRoad. At the same time, attention to the rhetorical content helps to make apparentthrough the gaps and ambiguities of this account interesting aspects of his relationshipsto others and the world. This is worth reiterating. The notion of the interview as a kindof performance helps us to avoid thinking of the self as fundamentally an issue ofdepth. As David Silverman (1997) has argued, the very idea of the interview is boundup with a hermeneutics of the soul that is similarly closely related to the technologiesof the confessional, and those of the mass media. All too often this works towards a` reconstruction of a common and unitary construction of the self'' (Silverman andAtkinson in Silverman, 1997, page 248). The notion of performance helps to deflectus away from looking for depth (in the sense of a single unified truth) and directs ustowards detail (in the sense of a fuller and more variegated picture of the interviewee).

This brings us to another issue generated by acknowledging the partial-ness andmoment-ness of the research process: how can our final published accounts fairlysuggest their partial-ness and moment-ness whilst still saying something interestingand useful about the world they describe? Again this is to go beyond the usualqualifiers about partial-ness and situated-ness that prefix much qualitative research ingeography. Nor is the issue simply one of greater reflexivity within the writing process.Rather, the need is to work towards creating more supple and pluralistic accounts ofthe social events we are describing. And to do this requires an approach to writing thatis more experimental and pragmatic than is currently evident within mainstream socialand cultural geography.

5.2 The need for new approaches to writingOne of the curiosities of the cultural turn within human geography is how repeatedcalls for new ways of writing (Pile and Rose, 1992; Pile and Thrift, 2000; Pred, 1986)have failed to have any but the most marginal impact on the ways geographers write.Of course, it is possible to point to a number of examples of attempts to write differently(see McCormack, 2002; Pred, 1986; 1990a; 1990b; 1995; 2000), and much of the move-ment towards performance outlined in previous sections is associated with self-conscious


attempts to write in new ways (Dewsbury, 2000; Hinchliff, 2000; Pratt, 2000; Thrift,2000b). Nonetheless, there are a number of difficulties with the ways that calls for newapproaches to writing have been framedötwo of which I would like to highlight here.

First, although there are obvious parallels between the notion of social life as aperformative practice and writing being similarly performative, it does not follow thatthe writing produced through this knowledge must constantly be self-conscious aboutits performed-ness. Perhaps because of its interest in the artistic and philosophicalavant gardes, a great deal of writing on performance has adopted a remarkably dense,elliptical, highly stylised approach.(6) If such writing has its uses, there is no reason whyotherömore reader-friendlyöapproaches should not also be employed. Working tocreate written accounts that contain a sense of partial-ness and plurality and that areattuned with the performance ethos described in this paper requires two things:(a) greater attention to ways of writing that so far have been more closely associatedwith the humanities or indeed journalism (compare Thrift, 2000a); and (b), more thoughtabout how these ways of writing can be used along with our established literaryconventions.(7) So, second, it follows from this that, along with thinking about newways of writing human geography (and the ways we can acquire these writing skills),there is a need to explore how older ways of doing human geography (and, indeed,social science) can inform this newness.

Now obviously, as has been stressed at a number of places in this paper, much ofthe cultural turn in human geography has been written as a critique of the establishednorms of doing human geography (compare section 3). For example, by drawing onfeminist commentators like Donna Haraway (1997), diagrammatic representations ofsocial relationships have been characterised as a fetishisation of actual lived relations.In a similar manner, attempts to reach purely objectively reasoned conclusions havebeen critiqued as involving a masculinist will to power (see Barnes, 2001; Rose, 1993).The difficulty with these critiques is that they have generally been undertaken and readwith a lack of subtlety and modesty.(8) It is possible to alter the stance with which weinterpret and employ established bodies of geographical knowledge that for many havecome to seem of dubious use without succumbing to Haraway's much mentioned `Godtrick' (Barnes, 2001, page 529).(9)

Take time-geography as a brief example. Time-geography is currently deeplyunfashionableöits diagrams and maps seem profoundly out of sync with the con-temporary cultural zeitgeist. Nonetheless, rereading some of the more importanttime-geography texts suggests a range of strikingly productive ways of thinking aboutthe rhythm of people's inhabitation of time ^ space (see Ha« gerstrand, 1975; 1976;1982; Pred, 1977). Readers will remember that Torsten Ha« gerstrand and other key

(6) This is a charge I freely own up to in some of my earlier writing about everyday practices (1996;1999a). My point is not that such writing is in and of itself wrongöused judiciously it can help usunderstand and think about theoretical problems in new and interesting ways. The difficulty iswhen this becomes a kind of de facto norm concerning how one should write about such issues.(7) I am thinking here of both the kind of critiques of conventional qualitative research contained inthe likes of Paul Atkinson (1990), Norman Denzin (1997), and James Clifford and George Marcus(1986) as well as the inspiration and guidance that can be obtained from such diverse literary forms asthe so-called new journalism (see Capote, 1966; Didion, 1968; 1994; Wolfe, 1975) and journalistichybrids such as Franc° ois Maspero (1994), Jonathan Raban (1974; 1990), Andrew Ross (1999), andPatrick Wright (1991).(8) My thanks to one of the anonymous referees for suggesting these terms.(9) Indeed, it seems many researchers focused on doing qualitative work have a somewhat distortedview of the ways many quantitative researchers view their work. The popular notion that quanti-tative research equals positivism is in general neither fair nor accurate (see Batty and Longley, 1994;Dorling and Fairburn, 1997).

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time-geographers believed that through a detailed mapping of the structuring ofindividual and institutional projects in time ^ space one could build up a carefullycontextualised understanding of the processes through which societies maintain andreproduce themselves. To this aim, Ha« gerstrand and his colleagues devoted them-selves to developing a notational language through which just such a mapping ofthis `choreography' of movement and interaction could be undertaken (Pred, 1977,page 207).

Perhaps the most well-known elements of this notational language were time-geography's time ^ space graphs. These graphs plotted out the movement of individualsthrough time ^ space over the course of the day. Offering only a ghosting of the movementof the body through the environmentöHa« gerstrand (1982, pages 323 ^ 324) himselfrecognised that the plotting of a life path seemed ` to represent nothing more than apoint on the move''öthese mappings have been thoroughly critiqued by feminist andcultural geographers. In perhaps the most strenuousöcertainly the most influentialöofthese critiques, Rose (1993, pages 29 ^ 31) argued that time-geography presents a mechani-cal, lifeless, profoundly masculinist, picture of society. Such critiques have a good deal ofvalidity. But reinterpreted through these critiques, and if the final research text is itselfconsidered as a kind of performance, it is possible to imagine ways of working withnarrative devices like time ^ space graphs that recognise both their productiveness andtheir partiality.

At its most basic this could involve simply using conventional time ^ space graphsto plot, say, a typical day in Paul Rennie Brown's life, whilst explicitly stressing thelimitations of such a representation. Such a graph is a useful heuristic device to outlinesomething of the spatial ^ temporal rhythm of Brown's day (see Latham, 1999d; 2003b;compare Dyck, 1990, page 470). However, thinking about the notion of performancealso encourages us to consider ways of playing with and actively reworking establishedtechniques such as the time ^ space graph. Figures 1 and 2 (over), for example, takethe basic framework of the time ^ space graph. They retain the underlying spatial ^temporal grid (that is, distance on the x-axis and clock time on the y-axis), but theyattempt to convey a sense of the fluidity and feel of Paul (figure 1) and Miranda's(figure 2) movement through Auckland. Constructed through a bricolage of quotesfrom their diaries and diary-interviews (the typed texts in quotation marks in thefigures), along with the use of the diarists' photographs and commentary from me(the non-quotation-mark typed text that provides a basic commentary and the hand-written text which offers background information) these figures aim to lead thereader into the diarists' world (compare Ingold, 2000).Whilst designed with a seriousintent, these diagrams are also meant to be playful and engaging. They are alsodesigned to be suggestive of their own partiality; hence the use of handwritten text,freehand sketching, and so forth, along with computer-processed text and graphics.Importantly, these diagramsöor time ^ space collagesöare not intended to replaceor stand in for more recognisable ethnographic accounts. They are meant to providean additional set of narrative resources through which the reader can gain a sense ofthe texture of the relationships the researcher is seeking to describe (Latham, 2002c;2003b). Through such experimentation with different forms of presenting and narra-ting research results, we can not only enliven our sense of what human geographyshould look like, but also begin to appreciate more fully how different styles ofapproaching the research process itself itself can and should be reshaping the existingall-too-narrow conventions about what a final, polished, piece of human geographicresearch should look like.


Driving

Walking

Activity

Figure 1. Paul: a Wednesday in June 1999.

2010 A Latham

Driving

Walking

Activity

Figure 2. Miranda: a Monday in July 1999.


6 ConclusionTo start with performance and end with time-geography may seem an odd trajectory.But the argument of this paper is rooted in a conviction that the metaphor ofperformance offers more than yet another new way of doing human geography.Although the arguments of writers such as Thrift (1996; 1999a; 2000a; 2000b) andothers exploring ideas of performance (see Dewsbury, 2000; 2002; Harrison, 2000;Hinchliff, 2000) can be read as an effort to establish something like a new paradigmwithin human geography (Nash, 2000), they do not have to be. Rather, the tone of theirwriting can be seen more in terms of an attempt to alter the style in which humangeography is done (compare McCormack, 2002; Spinosa et al, 1997; Thrift, 2000c).Approached from the appropriate angle, the movement towards a framing of the socialworld based around terms such as enactment, performance, and practice offers apossibility for a range of creative dialogues between already-established forms of humangeographic writing and, more obviously, novel approaches to doing human geography.The sense of playfulness, as-if-ness, plurality, combined with a genuine curiosity aboutthe ways that social life is ordered and carried through, does not only encourage us toexplore new realms of social action. That is to say, it not only encourages us to thinkabout a wide range of social phenomena such as the body, emotions, nonhuman objects,the everyday, in ways that take us beyond an obsession with a politics of representation.It also presents an opportunity to reinterpret and reappropriate established method-ologies and ways of writing human geography that transcend the anxious culture ofcritique which has marked so much of the turn towards the cultural (compare Barnett,1998a; 1998b). Indeed, in place of this anxious culture it is possible to see the emergenceof an energetic methodological pluralism that is both reinvigorating and transformingthe ways in which we think about human geography.

Clearly, to realise the opportunities of this contemporary interest in performancerequires more than simply trying to reframe our theoretical talk in terms of practiceand performance. It requires a broadminded openness to methodological experimenta-tion and pluralism within human geography, and the allowance of a certain amountof methodological naivete. As I have tried to suggest with the example of my own use ofDPDIM, this experimentation can be relatively modest. After all, the purpose behindthe diaries, photographs, and interviews produced with Joseph, Miranda, Paul, andothers was to try and build up an account of Auckland's public life: (a) that wasrespectful to the people and communities involved in its making; and (b) that had acertain truthfulness [a truthfulness consisting both of an intellectual rigour as well asa certain emotional resonance (see Kindon and Latham, 2002; Latham, 2002b; 2002c)].Such an approach, in dialogue with the more radical methodological accounts beingdeveloped by people such as Pratt (2000) and Thrift (2000a), can help make for a moredynamic and more empirically engaging style of human geography.

Acknowledgements. I would like to thank all the individuals who offered their time and insightsinto the shape of Auckland's `new urban public culture'. Thanks also for the comments of the threereferees of the paper. This paper was originally presented at the Making Place Symposium,University of Southampton, September 2000. I would like to thank all the participants for theirhelpful and encouraging comments. I would also like to thank David Conradson, Bon Holloway,Derek McCormack, Frances Morton, and Donald McNeill, all of whom commented on variousparts of the paper. The research on which this paper is based was funded by the New ZealandFoundation for Research Science and Technology. The usual disclaimers apply.

2012 A Latham

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