Maping unmapped territory

Scrutiny over trans people's bodies in urban contexts is continuous. This thesis develops the idea that the outdoors offers a less-gendered space for trans people, enabling and empowering them to escape self-surveillance processes and to feel freer in their gender expression/identity. I believe that spaces of resistance can be build in the wilderness, and that specific experiences are happening in it for trans people. Moreover, outdoor experiences help trans people build resilience to overcome the gender-related issues that may happen in the cities. In addition, doing outdoor activities empowers us, trans people, in our bodies. However, these experiences have not been given much attention in scholarly literature. Taking into account the fluidity and dynamism of out life experiences, I combined the use of autoethnography with semi-structured-in-depth interviews conducted with five trans people, then put these experiences in conversation with the theories. Nature was described as a less judgmental space, and a place where it is possible to be ourselves. It was also portrayed as a place to escape the urban contexts’ gender normativities, which, I argue, are damaging us. The outdoors is also a safe space for trans people and unmapping these counter-geographies is aiming to claim our space in it.

Keywords: Trans, Outdoor, Body Experience, Counter-geographies, Queering Methodology


RESUMEN
La vigilancia sobre los cuerpos de las personas trans en contextos urbanos es continua. La presente tesis desarrolla la idea de que la naturaleza ofrece un espacio menos generizado para las personas trans, pudiendo escapar de procesos de auto-vigilancia y sentirnos más libres en nuestra expresión/identidad de género. Considero que se pueden construir espacios de resistencia en el medio natural, y que experiencias específicas se están produciendo en él para las personas trans. Además, las experiencias al aire libre ayudan a crear resiliencia para superar los problemas relacionados con el ser trans que puedan ocurrir en las ciudades. Asimismo, realizar actividades al aire libre nos empodera a las personas trans en nuestro cuerpo. Sin embargo, estas experiencias no han merecido mucha atención en la literatura académica. Teniendo en cuenta la fluidez y el dinamismo de nuestras experiencias de vida, combiné el uso de la autoetnografía con entrevistas en profundidad semi-estructuradas realizadas con cinco personas trans, poniendo estas experiencias en conversación con las teorías. La naturaleza fue descrita como un espacio donde se juzga menos, y un lugar donde
es posible ser nosotres mismes. También se presentó como un lugar para escapar de las normatividades de género del contexto urbano que, como argumento, nos está dañando. El aire libre también es un espacio seguro para las personas trans, y desmapear (unmapping) estas contrageografías apunta a reclamar nuestro espacio en él.

Palabras clave: Trans, Outdoor, Experiencia del cuerpo, Contrageografías, Metodologías Queer

La recherche “changements et continuités dans le réseau de la voirie du “Contestado” : une approche de la formation territoriale dans le sud du Brésil” présente une analyse de la région du “Contestado”, basée sur la tríade: réseau, territoire et pouvoir, portant un regard sur la construction du “Contestado” compris dans un processus de production du contexte régional. Il s‟agit d‟une approche qui va de “l‟extérieur vers l‟intérieur”, par conséquent, d‟une perspective différenciée par rapport aux points de vues qui, généralement, se réfère à cette construction par le biais d‟une approche qui va “de l‟intérieur vers l‟extérieur”. Il est possible de vérifier ce fait dans les travaux sur les réseaux urbains complexes concernant la relation centre-périphérie . Cette étude est le résultat d‟une série de questions soulevées lors des activités interdisciplinaires du cours de Doctorat, où l‟on a suppose l‟établissement d‟un réseau d‟interconnextions entre la région du “Contestado” et les ex-Etats avec lesquels elle était en litige, à partir de l‟analyse des réseaux constitués par les chemins empruntés par les gardiens de troupeaux de bovins, les voies ferroviaires et routières, à l‟échelle locale, régionale et nationale.

L’expérience pédagogique initiée en 2010 par Jean-Michel Savignat, Laurent Hodebert et Alexandre Field, dans le Département Architecture Ville et Territoire de l’ENSA-Marseille dans la réalisation de l’Atlas Métropolitain  (www.atlas-metropolitain.fr) se propose d’appréhender et d’explorer l’ensemble métropolitain que constitue le territoire de Aix-Marseille Provence. Notre postulat est que l’expérience cartographique est l’acte premier de la fabrique d’une connaissance partagée du territoire observé, avant de pouvoir
s’y confronter pour le traverser, le parcourir, ou bien projeter sa transformation. Le projet urbain et territorial est outil de connaissance et de prise de position à l’échelle métropolitaine.
Il est exploratoire d’une pensée multiscalaire et durable du territoire organisée autour des questions de densité, de mobilité et le paysage.

Le séminaire "atlas [métropolitain]" a été dirigé par Laurent Hodebert de 2010 à 2015, avec l'assistance d'Alexandre Field et la participation d'Emmanuel Pinard, Jordi Ballesta, Camille Fallet, et Jean-Marc Giraldi, et ponctuellement Emmanuel Guillemart.

OKLAHOMA-NARARACHI, PEYOTE ROAD LANDSCAPES PART ONE (OKLAHOMA-NARARACHI: PAISAJES DEL CAMINO DEL PEYOTE, PARTE UNO). Firts of three parts of PhD thesis creation-research process, presents the creative part of an art-based research made by Lance Henson (cheyenne poet) and Francisco Cabanzo (images), Arts and thought PhD Program, Fine Arts Program, Universidad de Barcelona - UEB, 2010.

Mapping the Gap
Visual Multidisciplinary Paper
by Multidisciplinary Feminist Artist and activist Shira Richter
for
Mamsie M(o)ther Trouble: An International Conference on Feminism, Psychoanalysis and the Maternal  2009

The Mother Daughter and Holy Spirit
Art Project: Photography, and Phototext

The sentence describing Mamsie's vision "Mapping Maternal Subjectivities, Identities and Ethics" Describes my 2005 project in which I created topographical-photographic "maps" from the uncharted left -over skin territory on my mid-body after giving vaginal birth to twins.

At the beginning I named the project In Limbo – because I felt as if I was existing in an unexisting  unacknowledged -unnamed space –or planet, between identities. A gap opened between what I felt and what everyone else around me was telling me I should feel. “This collision between expectation and reality creates a kind of statelessness for many women of my generation…” writes Naomi Wolf in her own account “Misconceptions”. So I went about searching to “fill the gap”, to “solidify” my experience into form and words. To visibilize the invisible. “The Mother Daughter and Holy Spirit” is the name of one of the photographs.
Living in Israel, a state based on a religion, speaking in Hebrew, made me painfully aware of the famous biblical prophecy:  “In sorrow ye shall bear sons”. I was consciously angry the only “formal” reference to such a huge complex transforming event in my life was a punishment, a  negative curse, of a male god. Not a blessing, miracle or achievement. There is no ceremony honoring the humongous physical mental and emotional effort of the woman, or the shift of the couple into parenthood. The name “Mother Daughter and Holy Spirit” invokes a female divinity. And also the name “The Father, Son and Holy Spirit” which creates,  by way of gestalt, in one’s thought, a duality, or a double trinity, of male and female. The act of creation is never solitary the  way our “hero” monogod culture pretends. Another reason for the name has to do with the complex relationships between mothers and daughters, between one woman to another. When you are not told the truth by those closest to you, those who traveled before -you feel betrayed. The women closest to me- personally and professionally, almost all lied. I wanted to create a large scale subjective monument in honor of this transition and transformation.

Esplorare con le Basi Aperte Terre lontane, avventure sognate sulla scia di Indiana Jones, natura incontaminata come quella che si può trovare, forse, nelle foreste tropicali, ritmi, colori e sapori di altre culture… Chi non sogna tutte queste cose almeno una volta l'anno quando si comincia a pensare alle vacanze, a quella giusta interruzione dei ritmi lavorativi o di studio che viene alimentata con spot pubblicitari ed immagini fascinose diversi mesi prima, in tempo per prenotare il volo a basso costo che porterà i nostri sogni a cercare di realizzarsi? Queste cose uno scout le sogna ogni fine settimana, quando inizia a prepararsi per l'Uscita, che lo porterà in posti irraggiungibili per le persone abituate ad andare in macchina fino alla palestra dove sgranchire le membra irrigidite dalla scrivania o dal banco. Si guarda fuori dalla finestra, se ci sono nuvole ci si attrezza adeguatamente (Baden Powell diceva che non c'è tempo buono o cattivo, ma cattiva o buona attrezzatura…) e si parte. L'attrezzatura migliore, si impara fin da lupetti, sono i cinque sensi, lo zaino è pieno di entusiasmo e di fratellanza per i compagni con cui condividere le scoperte e le avventure, quando quello del fratello si fa troppo pesante si fa a gara a toglierglielo, stando attenti però a non fargli pesare il dono… L'odore dell'erba ed il ronzio degli insetti ci accolgono nel regno della natura, dove non esiste la parola " schifo " : il fango non è sporco, l'insetto non è pericoloso, ci si abitua a camminare per i sentieri sconnessi e si abituano piedi e ginocchia ad adattarsi ai loro dislivelli ed all'imprevisto. Tutto questo è patrimonio dello scoutismo, è la sua forza incomparabile rispetto all' " All inclusive " che toglie anche l'imprevisto ed il rischio calcolato… Alla comodità nella ridondanza delle offerte lo scoutismo contrappone l'essenzialità e la cura dei particolari, per ritrovare la comodità nelle cose semplici e nei piccoli segreti che ci si tramanda di scout in scout, in una catena che deriva dal fondatore e dal suo genial e " Scoutismo per ragazzi ". Tutto questo patrimonio un bel giorno il Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione ha chiesto alla nostra associazione di condividerlo con i ragazzi della scuola… " Non fate gli egoisti " ci ha detto un sottosegretario che (guarda un po'…) era stato scout, " aprite i vostri segreti e le vostre basi nazionali, quelle dove si vive la suggestione dei vostri campi e delle vostre avventure, anche alla scuola! Condividete i vostri programmi e le vostre attrezzature con gli insegnanti, progettate e realizzate insieme a loro dei percorsi di innamoramento per la natura, di stimolo alla collaborazione per realizzare imprese ed avventure avvincenti…. " E così è nato il primo Protocollo d'Intesa (nel 1997) a cui sono seguiti diversi aggiornamenti con una partecipazione sempre più condivisa tra Ministero ed Agesci. Finché il progetto Basi Aperte non è entrato a far parte del Progetto Nazionale dell'Associazione. L'Agesci comprende 12 basi nazionali, dieci di esse hanno aperto le loro porte alle scuole del loro territorio. Le proposte rientrano nella specificità ambientale della base e nella competenza degli educatori, coordinati a livello nazionale dal Settore Specializzazioni, che cura la raccolta delle loro esperienze ed i resoconti delle scuole partecipanti.

Disintegration Culture is a metaphor meant to describe the changes occurring in a specific sample of the North Coast of Viana do Castelo. The abandonment of the agricultural structures and areas are translated into Disintegration, as a tool for a specific look over a specific territory.

Recognizing that the current territory, and its sample, are the result of several inscriptions and transcripts over time, we develop an exercise of representation and interpretation, based on successive in-situ surveys
and in the construction of Maps and Photographs of Disintegration. These contents are forms of expression of an alternative language that seeks for updated critical envolvement, through a physical and temporal rooting.

Maps and Photographies are presented in three processes, Processess of Disintegration allud to three different forms of human intervention in the cycles of Disintegration and consequently in the territory: Grafting, Composting and Sowing. These Processes emphasize different levels that relate the territory and culture with society and the individual expression that changes it.

On Grafting, we give visibility to the changes occurred mainly on the slope of the sample and derived from the expansion of Viana do Castelo. We identify the components of Grafting, the Horse and the Branch,
and two different techniques, the Fork Graft’ and Plate Graft. These situations challenge the adaptation and integration of new models of building, successors of urban expansion, with the pre-existence rural pattern. In most of these cases, this relation is established through severe strategies of removing and cracking the pre-existent pattern, which results in heterogeneous structures making tabula-rasa of the reality that
they will integrate.

In the second process, Composting, reffers to the Disintegration of the waterfront and of coastal activities as instigators of the Disintegration itself. In this sense, we establish a path that leads to the analyzes of three
different composting applications: the Foliar Composting, as a form of surface fertilization; the Fractionated Composting, which involves periodic intervention regimes, and the Fund Composting, which is respective
to the pre-emergence of the culture and the tilled soil. Within this, we state practices of appropriation that nowadays mark the waterfornt, between waste deposti and the construction of a sports field. Once again
we reconstruct the pre-existing pattern to illustrate a balanced situation between population and territory.

We end with Sowing. In this content, we point to the Disintegration of the plain and the three levels enunciated are: the Sow, the Sower and the Seed. With this process we look for the disintegration of the agricultural
structure. The research around the parcel structure demonstrates how the issue of ownership conditioned the modernization of small farm units. From the deep rurality that characterized that sample during Estado
Novo, emerged the necessity of urgent integration in the global markets and in Community politics (PAC). The current situation draws an abyss between the political programs advertized and funds invested with the
generalization of the abandoned parcels. In the center of this question is the property regime, which still sustains monetary profits over the simple ownership of cultivable land.

Finally, we conclude with Gleaning while formulate and present the respective syntheses to Disintegration of the North Coast of Viana do Castelo. This last chapter refers to our intervention in the Culture, which
through the process of gleaning concrete data and physical experiences, builted a critical instance and, possibly, operative for the recognition of this territory.

No início do século XX, o rio Purus era um dos menos conhecidos da bacia amazônica, embora fosse regularmente percorrido por coletores de drogas do sertão, caucheiros peruanos e seringueiros brasileiros. Estes, embarcados em Manaus, passaram a ocupar, no final do século XIX, uma extensa região disputada pelo Brasil, Peru e Bolívia, e habitada por inúmeras etnias indígenas. Somente em março de 1903 uma expedição científica adentrou o rio, enviada pelo Museu Goeldi, no mesmo período em que o governo peruano instalava postos militares e aduaneiros no mesmo rio e também no Juruá, ampliando os conflitos entre seringueiros e caucheiros. Em março de 1904, uma segunda expedição do Museu Goeldi chegava ao Purus, pouco antes de graves conflitos armados que levaram os governos do Brasil e do Peru a assinar um acordo para a demarcação da fronteira. Foram, então, instaladas duas comissões técnicas binacionais, uma destinada a fazer o reconhecimento do Juruá e a outra do Purus, até as suas cabeceiras. A exploração do Purus foi chefiada por Euclides da Cunha e executada entre abril e dezembro de 1905. Ela resultou em um relatório ilustrado com fotografias e mapas, publicado em 1906, mesmo ano em que Jacques Huber lançou o mais importante entre os sete trabalhos científicos publicados pelos pesquisadores do Museu Goeldi sobre o rio Purus. Apresento aqui uma análise comparada do relatório de Euclides da Cunha, e de outros escritos de sua autoria sobre o Purus e a Amazônia, e os trabalhos de Jacques Huber, particularmente os que analisavam a geomorfologia e a fitogeografia do vale do Purus e do baixo Amazonas. Creio ser possível estabelecer relações e aproximações entre esses autores, uma vez que o próprio Euclides reconheceu a influência de Huber na construção de um olhar ou de uma percepção do mundo amazônico, mediada pela ciência, após encontrar pessoalmente com o botânico em Belém, em 1905. Cabe analisar como essas intertextualidades contribuíram para a construção de relatos edênicos sobre a região, tal como o fez Euclides, e como estimularam a intervenção política na região com fins de exploração ou conservação de recursos naturais.

Prologue:

The concept of Territory from the perspective of Social Innovation (by
Dr. Igor Calzada)

The place matters . We were born there, have been living and working there, entered there and exited from there. Places are an object of observation from the outside while we experience them from the inside. Calvino may have envisioned the city  as a place that is entered and should be exited (Subirats, 2011), but before anything else, we are talking about places, where the relationships among the actors configure the decisions that are made regarding the specific place. A place is the most ethnographic level of observation of relational territorialisation. However, do we really know how territories behave? Can we really observe in practise the notion of the Network Territory? (Haesbaert) How does the dynamic concept of a territory fit and juxtapose with that of a network? And, how can this notion of the Network Territory change the assumptions we make about the City, Nation, and State?

The EU is supporting many programmes aimed at funding projects under the common denominator of Social Innovation. Innumerable networks of partners and agencies are developing speech that has little to do with the deep causes of the global crisis affecting us. However, what can also be observed is that some territories are putting all their efforts, thanks to the common work of public, private, and civil agents, into restructuring the post-crisis economic and social system (Calzada, 2012). Nevertheless, can we observe and see what is occurring in these places and territories? How are we supposed to observe those big black boxes with input and output but with an unknown and hardly explainable process? How can we apply hermeneutics to the socially innovating processes in the networked territories at any scale? What tools should we use for this observation? What tools do we want and can we use to intervene? What effect do we ultimately want to have?

All these elements may require a systemic vision. This adjective has often been used following management trends, losing its meaning in the hands of those who do not understand it. Systemic must be understood here in a cybernetic sense. It is what Gregory Bateson  could deliver to us through the systemic, multi-disciplinary, and cybernetic path that Social Innovation requires. As “the map is not the territory and the name is not the object that is named” , it is a systemic and multi-disciplinary approach  that links the two currents of Social Innovation in a coherent way: we are referring to, on the one hand, the more academic approach, with a social justice dimension, aligned towards the Territory and Social Economy  (Moulaert, 2013) and, on the other hand, the more practitioner and policy-making approach, championed by the third-way labour school of thought of the Young Foundation, Nesta and DEMOS (Mulgan, 2007). These two trends are currently defining a “serious” line with respect to the great “boom” of a plethora of consultancies, projects, and counsellors that have emerged with the support of EU project funding. The objective of this publication is thus to suggest taking a step back to achieve some impulse and present a Territory Systemic Framework from Social Innovation. Conducting this investigation with the same great style as Williams  in his amazing #Keywords is a fundamental task. Looking for the semantic meaning and avoiding getting lost in the clichés appear to be some basic requirements, as social transformation and democracy are already words that are currently associated with indignation  more than with hope. Thus, the methodological approach that is implemented here is careful with the #Keywords it uses. We mixed elements from (a) Action Research as a suggestion for the investigation methodology, the way to observe (b) the Territory from the viewpoint or paradigm of (c) Social Innovation. That is to say, in a Derridan sense, that we de-constructed  the Territory into three scales to be able to observe, understand, and implement social transformations.

It is necessary to progress gradually and to expose the meaning of the object to be designed in a global way between @icalzada, @adolfochauton and @urbanohumano. The publication consists of three main structural parts: The first part presents the Exploratory Methodology, the second addresses the Strategic Content, and the third concerns the Operational Application. The publication starts with this introduction and ends with the conclusions. This publication was presented in an ad-hoc manner by the three aforementioned authors, as an open-source publication and with an ISBN, to be presented, debated, and revisited under the auspices of the #OPENMADRID  Summer School in Madrid, MediaLab Prado and Juan Carlos University, June 24-26, 2013.

The authors believe that the moment is ideal, given the present economic situation affecting the Spanish State with an accelerated recession, to suggest a non-unifying but rather diverse viewpoint, which allows for sensing, in a participative and dialectic way, the future of the various territories. The study considers their precious idiosyncrasy to settle in it and overcome and channel the serious situation and thus to reformulate from their origin the social, economic, cultural, and political structures. This statement means that this proposition is not sterile and does not represent a type of institutional or political marketing disguise. Thanks to exploratory intuition, this study suggests the cultivation of a collective intelligence (which exists, as has been demonstrated by events such as #15M and #indignados, which have been analysed at length by intellectuals we follow, such as Bauman  and Castells ). This collective intelligence must understand how to take advantage of its uniqueness as a Territory, which is where Social Innovation and the Spanish State may not fit in at all but  is the scheme of coexistence that is inherent to a unity but also foreign to the notion of a Territory-Network . In that regard, this publication does not aim to examine the territorial model of the Spanish State. Instead, the normality with which, in places such as the United Kingdom, the potential modifications of the institutional, territorial, and political models that would affect its internal configuration  are treated is surprising. All these considerations lead us to the following comment: Social Innovation must also be concerned with suggesting control over the changes in the material and social space conditions of the Territory. The type of Social Innovation that we present does not contradict any possibility of Social Transformation but also does not act as a unifying and dogmatic ideology, as explained in the following quote :

“What good does it do Territories (States, Nations, Regions, Cities, Districts and Villages) to be proud of their past if they do not strive to be proud of their future?”

Which is completed by this quote :
“A Country (or Territory) is not going to look like what it remembers, but like what it is doing”.

In other words, we are considering the Territory as a unit that is susceptible to being objectified and that can provoke within itself a Social Transformation that will lead it towards its future. What we know now is that the future of Territories is currently determined by two variables: their network-notion and their value of commons. The Territories that are able to mingle with the collective intelligence that is strategically aligned with the understanding of the Territory-Network and Common Welfare will be in a better position to undertake some real processes of Social Innovation within themselves. In that regard, not all territories start from the same evolutionary principle. We could thus mention the division between the Global North and the Global South  to incorporate a working hypothesis that will accompany the publication for the start: There is a great paradox suggesting that developing countries (Global South?) may be objectively more inclined to really implement processes of Social Innovation in societies, with a potential for human and social development that would be more significant than in developed countries that already start from growing urbanisation and apparent climatic unsustainability levels. The hypothesis would be, would not Maslow still have something to say about the evolution and the stages/contexts of complete Social Innovation? The question that would remain would be, consequently, which policies, projects, and agents/people should be promoted within the Territories? And what role do creative atmospheres or ecosystems play ?

Let us then answer three questions: What? Why? How? That is to say, Territory, Innovation, and Action Research.

Disintegration Culture is a metaphor meant to describe the changes occurring in a specific sample of the North Coast of Viana do Castelo. The abandonment of the agricultural structures and areas are translated into Disintegration, as a tool for a specific look over a specific territory.

Recognizing that the current territory, and its sample, are the result of several inscriptions and transcripts over time, we develop an exercise of representation and interpretation, based on successive in-situ surveys
and in the construction of Maps and Photographs of Disintegration. These contents are forms of expression of an alternative language that seeks for updated critical envolvement, through a physical and temporal rooting.

Maps and Photographies are presented in three processes, Processess of Disintegration allud to three different forms of human intervention in the cycles of Disintegration and consequently in the territory: Grafting, Composting and Sowing. These Processes emphasize different levels that relate the territory and culture with society and the individual expression that changes it.

On Grafting, we give visibility to the changes occurred mainly on the slope of the sample and derived from the expansion of Viana do Castelo. We identify the components of Grafting, the Horse and the Branch,
and two different techniques, the Fork Graft’ and Plate Graft. These situations challenge the adaptation and integration of new models of building, successors of urban expansion, with the pre-existence rural pattern. In most of these cases, this relation is established through severe strategies of removing and cracking the pre-existent pattern, which results in heterogeneous structures making tabula-rasa of the reality that
they will integrate.

In the second process, Composting, reffers to the Disintegration of the waterfront and of coastal activities as instigators of the Disintegration itself. In this sense, we establish a path that leads to the analyzes of three
different composting applications: the Foliar Composting, as a form of surface fertilization; the Fractionated Composting, which involves periodic intervention regimes, and the Fund Composting, which is respective
to the pre-emergence of the culture and the tilled soil. Within this, we state practices of appropriation that nowadays mark the waterfornt, between waste deposti and the construction of a sports field. Once again
we reconstruct the pre-existing pattern to illustrate a balanced situation between population and territory.

We end with Sowing. In this content, we point to the Disintegration of the plain and the three levels enunciated are: the Sow, the Sower and the Seed. With this process we look for the disintegration of the agricultural
structure. The research around the parcel structure demonstrates how the issue of ownership conditioned the modernization of small farm units. From the deep rurality that characterized that sample during Estado
Novo, emerged the necessity of urgent integration in the global markets and in Community politics (PAC). The current situation draws an abyss between the political programs advertized and funds invested with the
generalization of the abandoned parcels. In the center of this question is the property regime, which still sustains monetary profits over the simple ownership of cultivable land.

Finally, we conclude with Gleaning while formulate and present the respective syntheses to Disintegration of the North Coast of Viana do Castelo. This last chapter refers to our intervention in the Culture, which
through the process of gleaning concrete data and physical experiences, builted a critical instance and, possibly, operative for the recognition of this territory.