Space/Place
Rhetorical theory has long revolved around the rhetorics of speech and writing. But as the study of symbols and their meanings, rhetorical scholarship engages with all forms that convey meaning. Just as language shapes meaning, so too does geography–location has the potential to act as a symbol. The ancient rhetorical scholars of Athens and Rome used location as a technique for remembering long lists. Instead of simply trying to memorize the words within the list, these scholars would picture each word within a specific location of an imagined place (Cicero, Rhetorica Ad Herennium). By creating these imaginary places, rhetors were better able to remember their speeches. Thus, the ideas of space and place became embedded in rhetorical scholarship as a means to preserve memory.
In more modern scholarship, however, scholars look at geography through a rhetorical lens. Twentieth-century philosopher Michel de Certeau used two terms, space and place, to elaborate upon the importance of geography in creating rhetorical meaning. Place, according to de Certeau, refers to physical locations as they exist geographically, with either physical or perceived boundaries. For example, cities and farms are places because they have clear geographic boundaries. Space, meanwhile, refers to the imagined reality of a given location, or the meaning(s) that are created when humans interact with that location. Rhetorical scholar Elizabethada A. Wright explains that “like the mirror, place is the physicality; like the image [seen in the mirror], space is not. Anyone who has tried to undo a knot or attach a necklace in the mirror knows that the mirror constantly confuses us as to what is and what is just an illusion” (Wright, 2005). The concepts of place and space are tightly woven together--as de Certeau succinctly summarizes, space is “practiced place” (Certeau, 1984).
The study of the rhetoric of geography intertwines nicely with more traditional rhetorical scholarship when analyzing how locations can influence the meaning of a rhetorical address. In speech rhetoric, the concept of kairos refers to the ability for a speaker to choose the right moment to deliver a speech. For example, President George W. Bush’s gave his famous bullhorn speech at Ground Zero just three days after the 9/11 attacks, while the United States was still in deep mourning over the largest foreign terrorist attack on American soil. There is little doubt that the timeliness of Bush’s speech impacted the meaning that Americans derived from it. It is important to note, however, that the location of President Bush’s speech was equally as important as the timeliness of it. Jerry Blitefield, professor of Rhetorical Theory and Criticism at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, coined the phrase “kairos of place” to describe a rhetor’s ability to choose the appropriate place to deliver a speech, in addition to the appropriate moment. In order to utilize kairos of place, speakers ensure that their rhetorical act fits within the “boundaries of that place” (Blitefield, 2000). For President Bush’s bullhorn speech, the backdrop of the recently demolished World Trade Center added to the sense of urgency with which Bush spoke, and reinforced the idea that America would be resilient in the face of this recent tragedy.
A similar example of a rhetor’s use of kairos of place is Barack Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech in March of 2008, in which the soon-to-be president spoke out about racial tensions and racial inequality in the United States. Given that this speech was delivered during the course of the contest for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, Obama adopted kairos, seizing the moment to call out racial inequities and propel his ascent to the White House. In addition to traditional kairos, however, he also used kairos of place. Obama delivered his speech at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, an interactive museum dedicated to the United States Constitution and a hall designed to host talks about the Constitution. By talking about how America can achieve “a more perfect union”--a phrase within the Preamble of the Constitution--while at the National Constitution Center, Obama was able to use his physical location to reinforce the message of his speech and to link the ideals of the Constitution to the policies of his presidential campaign.
It is important for rhetorical scholars to recognize, though, that not all spaces bring people together. In fact, because spaces have the ability to include certain groups, they also have the power to marginalize other groups. Hence, spaces can function as both inclusionary and exclusionary, keeping groups of people confined to locations based on unwritten rules of society. For example, English professor Nan Johnson argues in her work Gender and Rhetorical Space in American Life, 1866-1910 that many places in America act as gendered spaces. She explains that, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there were two distinct domains: masculine and feminine. Masculine space encompassed nearly everything--the workplace, the university, agriculture, the public arena, and even the general outdoors. Feminine space, meanwhile, was largely domestic--women were expected to contain themselves to the home. In a majority of cases, their role was to take care of the children, clean the house, do laundry, and cook in the kitchen. And when they did leave the home, they were largely engaging in tasks directly correlated to the well-being of their home, including buying groceries to stock the kitchen and buying clothes. Thus, although women left their homes, they never truly left the domestic space (Johnson, 2002).
Take feminist rhetors of the nineteenth century, for instance. During that first wave of American feminism, leaders of the movement spoke in front of large crowds to advocate for feminist issues, including the right to vote. Although these women were advocating for equal rights, most of them didn't argue for these rights based on principles of gender equality. Instead, these women argued that their differences from men--particularly their dedication to the preservation of the home--would add a positive impact to American elections. Although these female speakers spoke in public, they still communicated within the feminine rhetorical space, engaging in “domestic acts of moral intervention” (Johnson, 2002) as opposed to the public space.
Just as space can exclude certain groups, it can also serve to exclude people events from historical memory. The interaction of place and space comes to an interesting intersection when looking at how locations are used to memorialize certain events. According to French historian Pierre Nora, memory places are where memory “crystalizes and secretes itself,” creating the concrete, physical representation of an abstract memory (Nora, 1989). For example, a monument dedicated to a person or event from the past is a physical structure, but harkens back to the time in which the person lived, or the event occurred. The creation of such physical structures serve to create a rhetorical landscape, a space in which certain histories are emphasized and remembered, while other non-memorialized histories seem unimportant in comparison and get forgotten.
A prime example of how space and memory serve to emphasize and create power dynamics is in the city of Richmond, VA, the former capital of the Confederacy. For much of post-Civil War history, the city has largely embraced its Confederate roots. Sites like Monument Avenue and the United Daughters of the Confederacy headquarters create rhetorical landscapes dominated by the city’s white, Confederate narrative. There is, however, more than one side to Richmond’s history. Alongside the Confederacy’s “noble” fight to create its own nation separate from the United States comes a history of chattel slavery. Despite slavery’s importance in Richmond’s history and general Confederate history, it is forgotten within those histories. While there are many monuments to white confederate generals, there are very few sites of memory dedicated to remembering slavery. Thus, Richmond’s public memory has emphasized the city’s white narrative and dismissed the black narrative.
It is not only monuments and memories that help to shape spaces–maps can also play a major role. Maps are often thought of as neutral, impartial depictions of our world’s geography. In reality, though, maps actually create our sense of space, dividing us into different neighborhoods, towns, cities, countries, and continents. Our sense of identity tends to be informed by locations on maps that are meaningful to us, including where our hometown is located, where we live currently, and where our ancestors came from. It is important to remember, however, that identities based on geographic location can be forced upon residents of that location by maps, as they have the ability to “trap people within their cool gleaming grid lines” (Crampton, 2010). In particular, many geographers argue that maps can serve to reinforce capitalist expansion and exploitation. For example, a 19th century American map depicting the lands west of the Mississippi River as empty solidified the belief that the frontier was empty, and ready for settlement. In reality, this land was inhabited by indigenous nations who had been living there for thousands of years. Maps, as representations of space, are rhetorical, and have the potential to reinforce the power dynamics of the populations within that represented location.
The rhetoric of geography is a powerful one. Common places become spaces when people attach meaning to them. Physical structures, including memorials, monuments, and maps, all serve to create and reinforce meaning within spaces. There is no doubt that, through the lens of places and spaces, geography, and rhetoric can inform one another.
Works Cited
Blitefield, J. (2000). From the ground up: place, kairos, and delivery in the rhetoric of the underpowered (Dissertation). Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Certeau, M. de. (1984). The practice of everyday life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Crampton, J. W. (2010). Mapping: a critical introduction to cartography and GIS. Malden, Mass: Wiley-Blackwell.
Johnson, N. (2002). Gender and rhetorical space in American life, 1866-1910. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Nora, P. (1989). Between memory and history: les lieux de memoire. Representations, 26(1), 7–24. https://doi.org/10.1525/rep.1989.26.1.99p0274v
Wright, E. A. (2005). Rhetorical spaces in memorial places: The cemetery as a rhetorical memory place/space. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 35(4), 51–81. https://doi.org/10.1080/02773940509391322
