Notes on:
Rossiter
P (2007) 'Rock Climbing: On
Humans, Nature, and Other
Nonhumans', in Space and
Culture, 10 (2): 292 - 305.
Dave Harris
Rock climbing is a cultural activity taking
place in a natural space.
It can be seen as transformative, where cliffs
become climbs. Climbing
itself has a history and a literature. It would
be wrong to see
climbing as simply transforming nature into
culture, though. In
practice, other dualisms also have to be
rethought including
'Nature - culture, human - non-human, and mind -
body' (293). These are
difficult to transcend, but they can be opened
out. Climbing literature
itself suggests, for example that nature is
somehow alive, while actor
network theory restores the role of climbing
equipment and other
factors such as 'rocks, cliffs,
vegetation, water and animals'
(293).
The relation between climbers and literature is
seen as either
immersion in a quest for meaning, or a desire
for mastery. In the first
narrative, selves are challenged and changed by
climbing. Relations
between nature can sometimes 'take the
imaginary form of an
intersubjective dialogue', but quite how nature
can be a subject is
left unexamined. Poetry often takes over. Among
others quoting the
reflections of climbers is Csikzentmihalyi, who
used rock-climbing as
one example of 'flow':
his climbers
sometimes also talked about a
'blurring between subject and object... the need
to merge one's
thinking with that of the rock, to participate
together with the rock
in the process of climbing, to engage in a
dialogue' (294). Other
climbers referred to the need to interact with
different sorts of rock
with different sorts of movement. Some believe
the mountains have
powers of their own, 'the humour, the
activity, the
intentionality of nature' (295). There are tales
of survival as nature
steps in at the last moment.
In the second narrative, of mastery, nature has
often seen as having
shape and meaning only after humans interact
with it -- rocks are a
blank canvas, for example. Even the poets want
to possess nature and
claim particular routes. For some
climbers, 'Life... [means]... a
muscular tussle with nature' (296). As well as a
property relation,
there is even a colonial relation, in the
Australian context at least,
involving 'small declarations of terra nullius...
[with no
thought for]... the issue of whose land it is on
which these
masterful relations are displayed' (296).
Climbers are also
eponomysed, encouraging 'a cultural
amnesia' about the aboriginal
inhabitants. Finally, 'adventure climbing
is tinged by an intense
ambivalence and narratives of heroism, of
conquering self and nature,
offset by the experiences [that climbing
might ultimately turn
out to be]... "stupid, banal, worthless"'
(296 - 7).
Despite these tales and the various poetic
reminiscences, it's
still hard to see how nature might have agency.
One possibility is that
our emotions are intimately connected with
non-human nature as in
Lingis
(2000) --'emotions are inter energetic moments
of selves and
worlds...embodied interpretations of the clamour
of the world' (297).
Abram (1996) suggests that the natural
world actively
participates in our perceptions, providing a
kind of pre-linguistic
experience. Both writers ask us to re-imagine
our relations with nature
and what it means to be embodied.
Rock climbing indicates one implication of
'intercorporeality'
(298). Bodies of rock and flesh exchange
material with each other, as
in 'the mutual defacings that characterize
climbing' (298).
Climbers always deface and leave marks. Defacing
cannot be avoided for
Rossiter. However, 'the cliff
simultaneously defaces them... the
climbers memorialized in the cliff. In a meeting
of bodies, the
removals, scratchings, rubbings, mutual roughing
up, the climbing body
becomes part of the memory of the earth' (298 -
9). Similarly, climbing
leaves a muscle memory, so that 'a
climbing body emerges. If the
climber stops climbing for a length of time, the
climbing body
disappears' (299). Defacement also involves
other networks, as when the
state intervenes to regulate it -- especially
the marks left by
Australian Aboriginal people.
Climbing involves the management of fear, often
on a personal basis.
However, fear could also be seen as 'an
internatural encounter'
(299), with transfers between rock and body at
their most
'perceptible and compelling... In frightened
climbing bodies,
volitional capacities and their imagined fixed
boundaries are thrown
into the sharpest relief' (299).
Is this anthropomorphism? The idea is simply to
provoke thought beyond
the usual dualisms to grasp the relations
between nature and culture.
Haraway also tried to do this, and ended with a
number of metaphors
such as the cyborg. Haraway was right to suggest
that it is not just
human forms of activity in agency that we need
to look at, and thus we
do not need to humanize nature. Latour sees an
actor as
'"anything that modifies a state of affairs by
making a difference"'--
using a tool makes a difference, although we do
not need to suggest
that the tool causes the action. Instead, there
are different sorts of
causality, authorization, permission, influence
and so on (300).
Agency therefore lies in networks,
interrelations or '"chains of
influences" involving humans and non humans'
(300). Michael
(2000) sees that environments can therefore
offer a range of
possibilities specifically for human
capabilities and action, as in the
concept of 'affordance' (300). In
this sense, 'the
environment is active, alive with
possibilities', with cliffs offering
possibilities, including 'the becoming of
innovative identities.
In this sense, climbing bodies... are neither
the pure originators of
climbing nor the discreet effects of climbing.
And the same too might
be said of cliffs' (301).
In addition, climbing gear also significantly
mediates the reaction
between climber and cliff. Climbing gear makes
climbing itself
possible. Crucially, it modifies feelings of
fear, as a result of
'a combination of a technology and a craft of
placement' (301).
Climbers can interact with their gear,
which 'affords
micromoments of self overcoming' (301) -- good
gear overcomes
poor-quality holds, and the opposite, but this
is only known actually
on the face.
The whole notion of a 'promiscuous
entanglement of chains of the
human and non-human technologies and non human
natures', another way of
putting the notion of interconnected
affordances, might be similar to
what Deleuze and
Guattari refer to as 'assemblages'
[and this is
discussed further on 302 -- Deleuze and Guattari
would go all the way
in seeing assemblages as the crucial units, a
flux that produces both
human and non-human moments]. The point is not
to seek human
intentionality as a privileged moment, and as
the origin of
assemblages.
The discussion shows the difficulty about
thinking nondualistically.
There do seem to be 'non dichotomous
moments in the exchanges
between human and... natural bodies',
illustrated in discussions of
rock climbing (302). These moments
challenge simple use of nature
as immersion or as raw material for conquest,
and make nature much
more 'lively'. This is not to say that
nature is a subject, but
that it does have possibilities. These, like
human possibilities are
realized only in networks. What interacting with
nature does is to
produce 'complex spaces that are at once
technocultural,
material, natural, disciplinary, resistant and
discrete yet constantly
changing' (303).
New sorts of inquiries seem to be required. This
new turn might
illuminate older discussions about space as
gendered, for example, In
climbing, women initially had to enter what
looked like a male domain,
but they now occupy 'a prominent place within
climbing cultures' (303),
much more so than in other outdoor activities.
Is this just a result of
female achievement, or is it because the
masculine nature of climbing
was misconceived in the first place. Seeing
climbing identities as
constructed from networks means that they are
not simply gendered:
dichotomies like 'feminine - masculine and
dependence -
independence have limited utility in both
patriarchal discourses and
feminist critiques... there is always
considerably more going on when
spaces are differentiated sexually or
otherwise... the unruly
assemblages recognized as climbing afford for
the human actors
unpredictable opportunities for embodied
resistance to the fixing of
both bodies and spaces' (304).
References cited
Abram D (1996) The Spell of
the Sensuous, New York: Vintage
Lingis, A (2000) Dangerous
Emotions, Berkely: University of
California Press
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