Anywhere: A Mythogeography of South Devon and How to Walk It
- Submitting institution
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University of Plymouth
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 257
- Type
- A - Authored book
- DOI
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- Publisher
- Triarchy Press Limited
- ISBN
- 9781911193128
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- -
- Year of publication
- 2017
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- ‘Anywhere’ is the culmination of an extended practice-as-research project, which takes the form of a novel. Based on thirty, day-long, performative walks in South Devon, it is rooted in the testing and revision of the praxis introduced by Smith in his book, ‘Mythogeography’ (2010). Supported by other forms of research that focus on local history, literature, archaeology and geology, the novel intends to demonstrate the viability of, and to exemplify, the creation of a sustained ‘mythogeographical’ account of a distinct locale. Smith coined the term 'mythogeography' to refer to an ever-evolving set of critical creative practices that attempt to transform space by performing it, and to develop dialogic ways of perceiving and understanding the multiple meanings of places through mobility. The narrative of ‘Anywhere’ is thus forefronted as a produced knowing through subjective immersion in place. Written under a pseudonym, Cecile Oak, the novel explores the practice of walking ‘to the side’ of oneself by re-imagining the route through the lens of a fictional ‘other’; in this, it departs from similar projects, such as Iain Sinclair’s ‘Hackney, That Red-Rose Empire’ (2009) and Nick Papadimitriou’s ‘Scarp’ (2012). In addition to sharing Smith’s research findings about a specific location, ‘Anywhere’ also aims to distil and disseminate those related to mythogeographical walking more generally in the form of accessible techniques; the route of its 'fictional' case study is intentionally re-walkable, with very detailed directions for following it. Smith’s chapter in ‘Walking, Landscape and Environment’ (eds. Borthwick, et al, 2019) serves to both locate his practice-research within contemporary psychogeographical literary/walking practices and to build on the ecological findings described in ‘Anywhere’ (for example, the emergence of micro-rewilding sites due to neglect and hedgerow depredation) by arguing for the environmental potentials of a growing radical walking movement that is oriented to non-human agency.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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