Amnesia, Nostalgia, and the Politics of Place Memory

• Date: 01 December 2011
• Published date: 01 December 2011
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912910373553
• Author: Margaret E. Farrar

Political Research Quarterly
64(4) 723 –735
Amnesia, Nostalgia, and
© 2011 University of Utah
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
the Politics of Place Memory
DOI: 10.1177/1065912910373553
http://prq.sagepub.com
Margaret E. Farrar1
Abstract
This article examines two seemingly opposed modes of place-making, urban sprawl and historic preservation, and
their relationship to memory. The author contends that urban sprawl creates a landscape of either willful or accidental
amnesia, where the powers of place are neutralized by ignoring them or removing them from history. Historic
preservation, however, can have equally depoliticizing effects by conjuring up peculiar, selective, or even wholly
imaginary pasts. Despite their apparent opposition, both practices often work against a meaningful understanding
of the relationship between identity, memory, and place. Rather than accept the false choice between amnesia and
nostalgia, the author advocates for an ethos of what Walter Benjamin calls “porosity” in creating, maintaining, and
evaluating the vitality of our urban spaces.
Keywords
memory, place, urban planning, nostalgia, amnesia, porosity
Without the enduring permanence of human artifact,
fostering sustainability and vitality in American cities,
there “cannot be any remembrance of things that are to
sprawl is an anathema: a twenty-first-century topogra-
come with those that shall come after.”
phy of distinctly unmemorable landscapes characterized
by endless, homogeneous stretches of drive-by scenery,
—Hannah Arendt, quoting Ecclesiastes,
drive-through eateries, and stunningly forgettable architec-
The Human Condition
ture. Yet many of the popular, academic, and practitioner
responses to sprawl come uncomfortably close to what one
This article is written at the intersection of place, memory,
might call landscapes of nostalgia; the rarefied remem-
and politics. My broad claim is that urban planning prac-
brances celebrated by historic preservationists are one
tices should be of interest to political theorists, and not
such example. As sprawl has proliferated over the past
only for the role they play in creating and sustaining eco-
five decades, the reclamation of past spaces for preserva-
nomic and racial injustice (Bickford 2000; Farrar 2008;
tion and beautification has proceeded apace. In direct con-
Hayward 2003), or for their ability to influence practices
trast to placeless places, designated historic sites attempt to
of citizenship (Kohn 2004; Kogl 2007; McBride 2005).
shore up memory, putting it at the front and center of pub-
Urban planning practices are certainly important to politi-
lic consciousness.
cal theorists for these reasons, but they have an additional
This article, then, is motivated by the question, What
political dimension: specifically, they help to cultivate or
effects do these recent, and seemingly opposed, trends in
diminish our understanding of the past and our place in it.
place-making have on our relationship to the past, and on
How we choose to build history into or eradicate history
our capacity for politics? My answer is grounded in recent
from our cities and towns shapes our understandings of
accounts of memory that emphasize its visceral and embod-
identity, community, and responsibility. In short, how we
ied qualities, as opposed to locating it solely within the
attend to the past through the medium of the built environ-
realm of consciousness. At the same time, however, I take
ment has political implications for our future.
Recognizing the political power inherent in the con-
1Augustana College, Rock Island, IL, USA
struction of landscapes makes it easy to be critical of the
state of contemporary American urban planning. By any
Corresponding Author:
Margaret E. Farrar, Augustana College, 639 38th Street,
measure, the most pervasive form of planning is what its
Rock Island, IL 61201, USA; phone: 309-794-7313
detractors call “urban sprawl.” For anyone interested in
Email: margaretfarrar@augustana.edu

---

724
Political Research Quarterly 64(4)
issue with this line of thought when it ignores or under-
Connolly’s work can be read as an example of this ten-
values the role of place in the formation of political
dency, as he self-consciously privileges movement and
identity. Instead, I suggest here that individual and col-
speed over place.1 For Connolly, a notion of “place” is
lective memory can be inherited, buttressed, or deval-
often linked to a too-easy equivalence between geogra-
ued through the medium of the built environment and
phy and identity, a “territorial unitarianism” that requires
that neither urban sprawl nor historic preservation pro-
us to “slow time to a snail’s pace” (2005, 28-29). It is
vides the tools necessary to make space for democratic
therefore not surprising that Connolly links “territory”
politics.
with “terror” and contends that places are most often per-
ceived “through the optics of political nostalgia” (Kogl
Memory and Place in Political Theory
2007, 65-66). To pay attention to place, Connolly occa-
sionally implies, is to advocate for an exclusionary and
I begin from the Nietzschean assertion that memory is
potentially reactionary politics (Farrar 2009).
embodied and that its physicality is political. While
I detail Connolly’s concerns here because they are
Nietzsche’s description of mnemotechnics links memory
representative of a long-standing bias against place in
to pain (1887/1967, 61), his insight into the physiological
philosophical writing—a bias that is not entirely without
aspects of memory can just as easily be extended to expe-
justification.2 Especially when coupled with an interest in
riences of intense anger, pleasure, clarity, or sorrow—not
memory, attention to place might easily lend itself to par-
to mention the more extreme case of psychic trauma (see,
ticularly essentialist or fundamentalist forms of political
for example, Edkins 2003; Hodgkin and Radstone 2003).
identity. One can certainly read this tendency in philoso-
In all of these instances, we possess a “body memory”
pher Edward Casey’s work; if Connolly is unreasonably
of these events—a memory that exists alongside and also
suspicious towards place-based politics, then Casey—
deeper than—our conscious narrative about the past. That
who is probably the best-known philosopher of place—is
what is memorable is written on and in the body resonates
excessively sanguine. As Casey argues, “It is the stabiliz-
not only with Nietzsche’s work but also with Bergson,
ing persistence of place . . . that contributes so powerfully
Proust, and contemporary studies in neuroscience illumi-
to its intrinsic memorability. . . . We might even say that
nating the specifically physical impacts of memory on
memory is naturally place-oriented, or at least place-
the brain (Lehrer 2007). The important point to be taken
supported. . . . [Memory] thrives . . . on the persistent
from these diverse sources is that the body is not simply
particularities of what is properly in place: held fast there
a container for perception or a vessel to fill with our
and made one’s own” (2000, 186-87).
recollections but is, instead, the intermediary between
Casey’s language here of “stabilization,” “persistence,”
thought and world, shaping and shaped by both whenever
and “holding fast” is exactly the kind of sensibility that
we remember.
makes some theorists—rightfully—quite nervous, because
Body memory, then, is not prepolitical, something
it binds memory too tightly to place and, thus, to a poten-
that happens before the “real” stuff of politics—debate,
tially restrictive conception of political identity. Indeed,
discussion, decision making—takes place. Instead, as
this equation of territory and self is at the heart of the most
William Connolly convincingly argues, an understanding
virulent forms of nationalism, which function by strictly
of memory as embodied means that politics is deep-seated
limiting access to the polity, excluding outsiders, and pos-
and unconscious, part of our lingering prejudices, immedi-
iting citizenship solely as a means of expressing allegiance
ate reactions, and snap decisions (2005, 102, 36). And so
to and protecting the homeland (Booth 1999, 251). In other
a “memory” is never as simple as a story we tell about our
words, closely linking a certain type of memory with a spe-
past; instead, it lives on in us in ways that we do not fully
cific understanding of place too often can have the effect
control. When political theorists ignore this visceral reg-
of producing of a xenophobic and bellicose “blood and
ister of being, Connolly warns, they jeopardize their abil-
soil” ideology, which renders those judged outside its terri-
ity to understand how politics operates in preconscious
torial borders incapable of possessing the common under-
or subconscious domains and risk overlooking the most
standing required for participation in political life.
intransigent (and often, most interesting) aspects of our
But does linking memory and place necessarily produce
political lives.
this outcome? I posit that if we accept that as a foregone
If recognizing the embodied quality of memory is
conclusion, we are left with a fairly anemic (and, I would
becoming more prevalent in political theory, though,
argue, unrealistic) understanding of political identity: a
describing its emplaced quality is...