Crossing the verge
roadside memorial—perth, Western India
pp. 161-171
in: Gary Backhaus, John Murungi (eds), Symbolic landscapes, Berlin, Springer, 2009Abstract
The notion of the ritual space of the roadside memorial, articulated by the author of this chapter as lived geography, exemplifies our sense of the geography of enactment. Lived geography, as the author argues, involves both perceptual and conceptual spaces, and we maintain that these intertwine in the embodied act of imagineering, in the construction of an actual symbolic landscape and the ritualized experiences of it. The author uses the term, "performance," emphasizing the role of embodiment in enacting the geographicity of meaning. This spatial production reintroduces a sense of community precisely because ritual involves enactment, embodied gestures that generate the symbolization—its physiognomy—in a geography where intimate meanings can be shared in comm(on) unity.