Skip to main content

Geopolitics and Memories: Walking through Plymouth, England

  • Chapter
Geography and Memory

Part of the book series: Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies ((PMMS))

  • 714 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter is about an evening’s walk along the section of Britain’s South West Coast Path that runs through the city of Plymouth. Reflections on that walk embody how geopolitics affects us and how the repercussions and memories of war and death are folded into the textures of an everyday urban fabric. Through a variety of tracks and inspirations from geographical and other writings, I argue that this has implications for how other landscapes, places and paths might be understood.

So it’s all there in the breath of the stones. There is a geology of time! We can take the bricks in our hands: as we grasp them, we enter it. The dead moment only exists as we live it now.

(Sinclair, 1988, p. 112)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • J. Amato (2004) On Foot: A History of Walking (New York: New York University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • J. Anderson, S. Duncan and R. Hudson (1983) (eds) Redundant Spaces in Cities and Regions? (London: Academic Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • R. Barthes (1972 [1957]) Mythologies (New York: Hill and Wang).

    Google Scholar 

  • M. Blacksell (1968) The Effects of Bombing on the Urban Geography of the Eastern Ruhr (Oxford University: DPhil thesis).

    Google Scholar 

  • M. Blacksell (2005) ‘A walk on the SouthWest Coast Path: a view from the other side’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series, 30, 518–520.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • A. Bonnett (1989) ‘Situationism, geography, and poststructuralism’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 7, 131–146.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • D. Campbell (1982) War Plan UK: The Truth about Civil Defence in Britain (London: Burnett Books).

    Google Scholar 

  • P. Carter (2005) The South West Coast Path: An Illustrated History (Ivybridge, Devon: The South West Coast Path Association).

    Google Scholar 

  • B. Cherry, N. Pevsner (2004 [1952]) The Buildings of England: Devon (London: Yale University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • M. Coverley (2006) Psychogeography (Harpenden, Herts: Pocket Essentials).

    Google Scholar 

  • J. Crowden (2005) ‘Landscape: inscape or escape’, in K. Dunbar (ed.) Landscape into Literature: A Writer’s Anthology (Totnes, Devon: Green Books), pp. 64–71.

    Google Scholar 

  • H.W. Dick (2003) Surabya, City of Work: A Socioeconomic History (Singapore, Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, Singapore University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • J. Fenton (2005) ‘Space, chance, time: walking backwards through the hours on the left and right banks of Paris’, Cultural Geographies, 20, 412–414.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • P. Gibbard (2007) ‘Europe cut adrift’, Nature, 448, 259–260.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • J.R. Gold, G. Revill (2000) ‘Landscape, defence and the study of conflict’, in J.R. Gold, G. Revill (eds) Landscapes of Defence (Harlow, Essex: Prentice-Hall), pp. 1–120.

    Google Scholar 

  • S. Graham (2000) ‘Underground’, in S. Pile, N. Thrift (eds) City A-Z (London: Routledge), pp. 271–272.

    Google Scholar 

  • D. Harvey (1996) Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference (Oxford: Blackwell).

    Google Scholar 

  • R.A. Higham (2006) Landscapes of defence, security and status’, in R. Kain (ed.) England’s Landscape: The South West (London: Collins/English Heritage), pp. 89–108.

    Google Scholar 

  • W.G. Hoskins (1954) Devon (London: Collins).

    Google Scholar 

  • W.G. Hoskins (1955) The Making of the English Landscape (Leicester: Leicester University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • T. Ingold, J.L. Vergunst (eds) (2008) Ways of Walking: Ethnography and Practice on Foot (Farnham: Ashgate).

    Google Scholar 

  • G. Jackman (2004) ‘“Gebranntes Kind?” W.G. Sebald’s “Metaphysik der Geschichte” ’, German Life and Letters, 57, 456–471.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • M. Kaika, E. Swyngedouw (2000) ‘Fetishizing the modern city: the phantasmagoria of urban technological networks’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 24, 120–138.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • D. Kennedy (2007) Elegy (London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • H. Klemmer (1946) ‘A city that refused to die’, The National Geographic Magazine, February, 211–236.

    Google Scholar 

  • B. Le Messurier (2006) SouthWest Coast Path: Falmouth to Exmouth (London: Aurum Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • F. MacDonald (2007) ‘Anti-Astropolitiköouter space and the orbit of geography’, Progress in Human Geography, 31, 592–615.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • H.J. Mackinder (1902) Britain and the British Seas (New York: Appelton and Co).

    Google Scholar 

  • J. Middleton (2009) ‘“Stepping in time”: walking, time, and space in the city’, Environment and Planning A, 41, 1943–1961.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • M. Müller (2008) ‘Reconsidering the concept of discourse for the field of critical geopolitics: towards discourse as language and practice’, Political Geography, 27, 322–338.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • A. Murray (2007) Recalling London: Literature and History in the Work of Peter Ackroyd and Iain Sinclair (London: Continuum).

    Google Scholar 

  • R. Pain, S.J. Smith (eds) (2008) Fear: Critical Geopolitics and Everyday Life (Farnham: Ashgate).

    Google Scholar 

  • S. Pile, N. Thrift (2000) ‘Technical note’, in S. Pile, N. Thrift (eds) City A-Z (London: Routledge), pp. 303–310.

    Google Scholar 

  • D. Pinder (1996) ‘Subverting cartography: the situationists and maps of the city’, Environment and Planning A, 28, 405–427.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • D. Pinder (2001) ‘Ghostly footsteps: voices, memories and walks in the city’, Ecumene, 8, 1–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • J. Routh (2007) ‘Footwork’, in D. Kennedy (ed.) Necessary Steps: Poetry, Elegy, Walking, Spirit (Devon, Exeter: Shearsman Books), pp. 140–145.

    Google Scholar 

  • S. Schama (1996) Landscape and Memory (New York: Vintage).

    Google Scholar 

  • W.G. Sebald (2003) On the Natural History of Destruction (New York: Random House).

    Google Scholar 

  • R. Shehadeh (2007) Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape (London: Profile Books).

    Google Scholar 

  • I. Sinclair (1988) White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings (London: Paladin).

    Google Scholar 

  • I. Sinclair (2005) Edge of the Orison: In the Traces of John Clare’s ‘Journey out of Essex’ (London: Hamish Hamilton).

    Google Scholar 

  • N. Smith (1984) Uneven Development: Nature, Capital and the Production of Space (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell).

    Google Scholar 

  • R. Solnit (2001) Wanderlust: A History of Walking (London: Penguin).

    Google Scholar 

  • A.J. Southward (1980) ‘The western English Channel: an inconsistent ecosystem?’, Nature, 285, 361–366.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • A.J. Southward, E.K. Roberts (1987) ‘One hundred years of marine research at Plymouth’, Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the UK, 67, 465–506.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • M. Wallington (1986) 500 Mile Walkies (London: Hutchinson).

    Google Scholar 

  • R. Woodward (2004) Military Geographies (Oxford: Blackwell).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • F.M. Wunderlich (2008) ‘Walking and rhythmicity: sensing urban spaces’, Journal of Urban Design, 13, 125–139.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • J. Wylie (2005a) ‘A single day’s walking: narrating self and landscape on the South West Coast Path’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series, 30, 234–247.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • J. Wylie (2005b) ‘The subject of landscape: a brief reply to Mark Blacksell’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series, 30, 521–522.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • J. Wylie (2007) ‘The spectral geographies of W.G. Sebald’, Cultural Geographies, 14, 171–188.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Copyright information

© 2012 James D Sidaway

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Sidaway, J.D. (2012). Geopolitics and Memories: Walking through Plymouth, England. In: Jones, O., Garde-Hansen, J. (eds) Geography and Memory. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137284075_10

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics