Traveling in Lifeworlds: New Perspectives on (Post) Humanism, Situated Subjectivities, and Agency from a Travel Diary

Abstract

This paper argues for building bridges between humanistic geographical traditions and current post-humanistic approaches destabilising the centrality and the very epistemological status of the human subject. Extending and putting in relation recent literature highlighting the possible continuities over the ruptures between these traditions and feminist scholarship arguing for the political relevancy of intimate writings and emotional geographies,

Place dialogue

“…What differs is whether one adopts a modernist ontological framework in which speech represents, animates and evaluates place, or an alternative framework in which the causal and ontological assumptions of modernism are rejected. The non-modernist approach consists in 'keeping room for human freedom and agency without underplaying the role of external (human and nonhuman) agencies and contingencies' (Ferretti, 2020(Ferretti, , p. 1655.…”

The absent presence of Paul Robeson in Wales: Appropriation and philosophical disconnects in the memorial landscape

“…Biography intersects with geography in the landscape through various hauntings by engaging with those ghosts either in their own memory work (i.e., the autobiographical, Ferretti, 2020; Gibson‐Graham, 2020; Hui, 2020) or in their biographically based, yet nevertheless haunted memorial landscapes. In Wylie’s work on the absent presence of memorial benches, he states that “it is the very materiality of memory – its presence, tangibility and there‐ness – that remains a touchstone, even if the matter in question is tarnished, disordered, forgotten, hidden or irreversibly decaying” (2009, p. 279).…”

History and philosophy of geography II: Rediscovering individuals, fostering interdisciplinarity and renegotiating the ‘margins’

“…The relevance of biography for the history of geography has been noted several times, including in this journal (Keighren, 2017). Yet, a new wave of interest for biographical and autobiographical accounts, based on both oral history and archives, is refreshing the pioneering endeavours of scholars like Anne Buttimer, such as the International Dialogue Project (IDP) and the series Geographers Biobibliographical Studies (GBS) (Baigent and Novaes, 2019;Ferretti, 2020d). Here, I would argue that rediscovering individuals' roles allows for a deeper understanding of Geography's plurality and complexity, making room for considering creativity, originality and dissidence beyond the limitations of readings which are based on 'normal' trends and statistics for broad geographical 'schools', taking the risk of generalisation.…”

“…Biographical work continues addressing relatively traditional written records including travel diaries (Ferretti, 2020d) and personal archives such as Edward A. Ackerman's papers. These were recently studied by Elvin Wyly, who argues for rediscovering the role that Ackerman played in the early stages of the so-called quantitative revolution in Geography (Wyly, 2019).…”

“…This reveals an important feature of biographies: they can talk of lives and places of their authors as well as of those of the people who are their 'objects'. It is worth adding that the GBS's editors are committed to counter traditional Euro-centric and patriarchal approaches to the discipline, for instance dedicating the 2019 issue entirely to women(Baigent and Novaes 2019) and the forthcoming 2021 one to geographers from the Global South.Biographical work continues addressing relatively traditional written records including travel diaries(Ferretti 2020c) and personal archives such as Edward A. Ackerman's papers. These were recently studied by Elvin Wyly, who argues for rediscovering the role that Ackerman played in the early stages of the so-called quantitative revolution in Geography(Wyly 2019).Matters on quantitative and 'applied' geography are likewise explored by Van Meeteren in his work on Dutch geography in the 1930s-1960s, paying special attention to careers, networks F. Ferretti, 2021, "History and Philosophy of Geography II: rediscovering individuals, fostering interdisciplinary and negotiating the margins", Progress in Human Geography, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0309132520973750 [pre-print author's version] and social (including family) relations among individual scholars in shaping the notion of polycentric urban region (Van Meeteren 2020).…”