The Cultural Landscape of West Penwith

‘The Cultural Landscape of West

Penwith’Abi Stocker & Will Orchard

Our ProjectO Explore relationships between

landscape and identity by collecting oral testimonies

O Outcomes: O Touring exhibitionO Article for Cornish story magazine

O “We must understand the whole in terms of the detail and the detail in terms of the whole” (Gadamer, 2003)

Existing researchO Strong focus on photographs O Romantic and timeless landscapes

O “Cornwall can still show fragments of the natural landscape which must have confronted early man.” (Balchin, 1954)

O Ignores local relationshipsO Although some attempts to counter this: Trevor

Burston, The Floating World: 36 Views of St Michael’s Mount (1995)

Change in focusO Original focus:

O How have the feelings and attitudes towards the cultural landscape changed over time?

O Found this too restrictiveO Focus adjusted to concentrate on the link

between landscape and identityO Opened up more topics to discuss

O Photographs – trigger

Research methods1) Selection process:

“...everyone has a history and can be involved whether he or she is an affluent company director or the person who stokes the boiler.”

(Howarth, 1998)

Research methods2) Semi-quantitative

O Triangulation “can also capture a more complete, holistic, and contextual portrayal of the unit(s) under study.” (Jick, 1979)

O Widens the demographic

Sense of BelongingO A general feeling of ‘home’ and sense of

belonging found in the interviewsO Chysauster

O “typifying, in the visitor’s mind, the ‘true’ Cornwall” (Burston, 1995)O Still in the locals’ mind too

O ‘Elective belongers’ (Hawke, 2010)O Asking students in The Compass

Sense of timelessnessO Relating the landscape to ancestors

O “...the whole landscape is a memorial to all our ancestors, really.” (Loveday Jenkin, 18/02/2014)

O The history and collective memory of towns are “The physical expression of thousands who have contributed towards its townscape.” (Pool, 1974)

Insider/Outside O “People choose to identify with Cornwall, even

when they’re not Cornish, um, although they don’t always understand it, obviously...” (Loveday Jenkin, 18/02/2014)

O Simon Reed – Tom Bawcock’s Eve O Not necessarily a shared view:

O Helen Musser and Cornish dance

“They jumble names and dates…”

O Oral history criticised for its reliabilityO Collective memory less concerned with ‘factual

accuracy’O Semi-structured interview

O Yet ideas “do not proceed from an isolated individual but from a public point of view.” i.e. Collective memory (Fish, 2003)

Power relationsO Insider vs. outsider

O Living/growing up in Cornwall “the most immediately tangible claim for having been in history.” (Portelli, 1997)

O Yvonne McKenna (2003)O The interviewer does not always feel they are in

a position of powerO Age, gender

O “Age can also make a difference in what kinds of information the interviewer thinks is important.” (Yow, 1998)

The exhibitionO “...any copy editing... must be treated with

appropriate suspicion.” (Howarth, 1998)O Yet we need to pick out specific themes, e.g.

‘home’O Anna Green – selected ‘representative’ stories

and those deemed appealing to a contemporary audience

O Closing academic-public gapsO “Bridge the gap between representation and

reality” (Ritchie, 2003)

Conclusion O A ‘sense of place’ is about how people

interact and use the landscape O Photographs:

O “reconstructing what it was” (Simon Reed, 21/11/2014)

O Collective memory O different examples, similar themes

BibliographyO Balchin, W. G., The Making of the English Landscape Cornwall, (London,

1954)O Burston, T., The Floating World: 36 Views of St. Michael’s Mount (Truro,

1995)O Hannigan, D., Francis Frith’s Around Penzance (1999)O Holmes, J., Penwith in Old Photographs (1993)O Howarth, K., Oral History: A Handbook (Britain, 1998)O Hooper-Greenhill, E., Museums and the Interpretation of Visual Culture,

(Routledge, London, 2000)O Leffer, P. K., and Brent, J., Public and Academic History: A Philosophy

and Paradigm, (Florida, 1990)O McKenna, Y., ‘Sisterhood? Exploring Power Relations in the Collection of

Oral History’, The Journal of the Oral History Society, vol.31, no.1 (Spring, 2003), pp.65-73

O Perks, R. and Thomson, A. (eds.), The Oral History Reader Second Edition, (Oxon, 1998)

O Portelli, A., The Battle of Valle Giulia: Oral History and the Art of Dialogue, (University of Wisconsin Press, 1997)

O Ritchie, D. A., Oral History: A Practical Guide, (oxford University Press, 2003)

O Tregidga, G., and Milden, K., ‘Before My Time: Recreating Cornwall’s Past Through Ancestral Memory’ (2008)