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14 | Péter Dolmanyos 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 political constituents, which is highly apparent in the context of Northern Ireland. With space becoming an increasingly important element of cultural analysis, 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,” noting 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 terminology places are understood as “integrations of space and time; as spatiotemporal 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 understanding, and this approach to place apparently embodies that more balanced position that Soja anticipates in his earlier writing”. In addition, the linking 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 Emerson and Michael Holquist. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 84
