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and projections, symbols and utopias.”'® Social space renders the connection
between space and social context an active one, and it follows from the idea of
space being socially constructed that this production has historical and politi¬
cal constituents, which is highly apparent in the context of Northern Ireland.
With space becoming an increasingly important element of cultural analy¬
sis, the concept of place also needs a reconsideration. According to Yi-Fu
Tuan, the difference between space and place on a conceptual level lies in the
meaning that is attributed to a location originating from experience,” not¬
ing that the way how space is observed and understood is strongly dependent
on culture since space is essentially an abstract term.*! Doreen Massey sees
space not as something external, independently existing, fixed and completed
but as “always under construction”, “always in the process of being made”,””
very much in accord with Lefebvre’s idea of space as product,” yet also adding
emphatically the notion of process to it: consequently, in her system of ter¬
minology places are understood as “integrations of space and time; as spatio¬
temporal events.”™ The inclusion of time as a constituent of place reinforces
her view of space as an open category, one that requires further delineation
and definition when related to the concept of place for a more precise under¬
standing, and this approach to place apparently embodies that more balanced
position that Soja anticipates in his earlier writing”. In addition, the link¬
ing of space and time in the concept of place allows for an affinity with the
mechanism of texts, facilitating an enhanced reading of literature. Mikhail
Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope, though principally used in the context
of narratives, is a formulation that includes indicators of both space and time
in the literary work,” suggesting the geographical implications of texts, and
the more recent increased emphasis of spatial concerns in interpretation in
turn calls attention to the textual (re)presentations of space in general and of
place in particular.
The position of Northern Ireland makes for an intriguing case for cultural
and literary analysis. In existence in its current form only since partition,
Northern Ireland poses a number of problems even on the level of its proper
definition as a unit: referred to in various terms from province or region
through county to statelet, the nomenclature is indicative of the specific
status of the place, and the names also carry strong historical, political and
cultural overtones. In addition to the official designation Northern Ireland,
‘Ulster’ or ‘the Province’ also often cover the territory in public discourse, with
19 Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 11-12
cf. Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place. The Perspective of Experience (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1977), 3-7
Tuan, Space and Place, 34
Doreen Massey, for space (London: Sage, 2005), 9
3 cf. Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 26-27
Massey, for space, 130
cf. Soja, Postmodern Geographies, 11-12
cf. Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emer¬
son and Michael Holquist. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 84