Cultural geography II: The force of representations

Abstract

Cultural geography is once again concerned with representations. In this report I focus on how, in the wake of various non-representational theories, recent work stays with what texts, images, words, and other representations do. I argue that this work is animated by a concern with the force of representations: their capacities to affect and effect, to make a difference. Accompanying this orientation to questions of force is a shift in the unit of analysis to ‘representations-in-relation’ and a multiplication of the modes of analysis through which cultural geography is performed, including the emergence of reparative and descriptive modes.