Places on the margin - Rob Shields

Space and spatial practice has emerged as one of the key themes in the literature on modernity and post-modernity. Yet few attempts have been made to survey the theoretical terrain of space and modernity. Fewer still have endeavoured to apply this material in the form of concrete analysis.;"Places on the Margin" attempts to correct the balance in three ways. First, it demonstrates the mutual relevance of sociology and geography. Second, it outlines a social theory of spatiality which focuses on the role of the spatial in making up culture.;Third, it offers four case studies of the role of space in supporting social activities: Brighton and its place-image of the dirty weekend and the beach riots of Mods and Rockers in the 1960s, the cultural meaning of the Niagra Falls, the North-South divide in Britain and its role in national myths of British identity, and the Canadian spatialization of the Far North as the "Truth North Strong and Free" - a zone of purity and otherness where the distinctions upon which civilization is based break down.