As a sociologist of culture or a cultural sociologist I
am interested in the various ways in which we make and represent meaning to
ourselves and to others. How we create and share and reflect on the present
connected to the past and predicting, hoping and aspiring to some vision of the
future. We do this within social contexts in which our material and physical
environments also impact and influence our understanding of the social
processes, forms and structures that affect our experiences of being in the
world.
An intrinsic part of this is how we interact with others:
when and where, in what ways and why we do so. In many instances this relates
to social environments and circumstances in which we act and interact in
appropriate and acceptable ways conducive to the life worlds we inhabit and/or
the stage of the life course we are in (family, work, leisure, etc.). As such,
the places and spaces as well as the types and forms of social interaction available
to us are not only to some extent prescribed but also assume and reflect
aspects of power, status, access, availability, as well as other human traits –
greed, ambition, lust, love, want, leisure, pleasure.
I have been thinking recently about the paradox of modern
existence that means we experience life in predominantly human made
environments (all those buildings, transportation networks and vehicles, all
that concrete, glass, steel and tarmac) immersed within a battery communication
technologies that allow us global connections and information but which at the
same time increasingly insulate us from nature and from natural rhythms such as
climate and the seasons.
As modern individuals living predominantly urban
existences in (post?) modern, (post?) industrialised societies our relationship
with nature and with weather and climate has changed the way in which we
perceive and experience our sensual and embodied selves within and through our
subjective experience of everyday life. We take advantage of the possibilities
of warmer weather to make use of outside spaces and for a range of activities
that are only made possible and more enjoyable by seasonal variations in
climate.
I for one have made as much use of the spring and summer
and with the exceptional and long, dry and warm September that has extended it,
to engage in a range of outside activities and alfresco experiences (horse
riding, mountain climbing, sea kayaking, coastal and forest walks, paddling and
swimming in rivers and seas, boats trips, long lazy days out in the park,
picnics, garden parties, late into the night parties around a blazing fire).
Autumn (the season of rain and wind, cold mornings and
nights, mist and mushrooms, the beginning of Daylight Saving Time as the clocks
go back) has come as a bit of a shock to the system. Whilst autumn reflects the
end of some things it is also a season of new beginnings (not least the start
of the new academic year). Whilst I can reflect ruefully on the need for warmer
clothes (gone are the shorts and sandals, back are the socks and boots) there
is also a recognition of the diurnal change/shift in chosen and available social
activities oriented around and within inside as opposed to outside spaces and
places. This change in dress, behaviour,
activity and place is also a reflection on how our individual and social
behaviours are still affected but our climate and by the natural rhythms and
cycles of seasons.
This sense of connection to the seasons is something
which our ancestors and others around the globe were and still are intimately
connected with and many rituals, festivities and cultural activities revolve
around or are associated with specific seasons and times of the year. For
example, from my part of the world, the Celtic festival of Samhain (the Celtic
New Year) celebrated around the 31st October,
was associated with fires, rites and rituals, fetes and festivities marking the
betwixt and between the living world and the world of ancestors and the dead
(now our Halloween). Imbolc came at
lambing time, around 31 January and was celebrated as the beginning of the end
of winter (now our New Years Eve). Beltain
was another fire festival celebrated around 1st May, and whilst Samhain was
associated with the onset of winter and retiring indoors from harsh weather Beltain
was the celebration of abundant fertility as spring burst forth, a time for
feasts and fairs, fun and frolics. Lughnasadh was a
summer festival lasting for as long as two weeks either side of the day itself,
which fell around 31 July and celebrated the plenty of summer amid preparation for
Harvest.
Most of these festivals were not only intimately
connected to the season and cycles of nature they were also social and communal
celebrations of solidarity and culture. We used to live more closely with and
be aware of our connection to and relationship with the turning of the planet
and the impacts of the change of seasons. This was all the more true when we
were more closely aware of our dependence on the earth and its productive
capacity. Now we are at the end of summer this is also a time of celebration
and of bounty and the various Harvest Festivals, the Harvest Moon, the autumn
equinox are all symbols and recognition of a change of season as well as a
reaping of the benefits of summer growth and productivity. It has been a
particularly good year for wild fruits, berries and nuts and if you had noticed
the squirrels on campus have and are especially active at the moment.
We are perhaps less connected and aware as we become
dependent and expectant on the constancy of choice of products provided by
supermarkets and other retailers. Most are us as products of modernity live increasingly
isolated and individuated lives where we are relatively oblivious, desensitised
or view nature as an inconvenience, as when storms, rain, wind, impose and impact
on our daily lives and routines. The impact of industrialisation, urbanisation
and the enclosure movement forced many people from a rural connection to the
land as demographic changes have now resulted in the majority of UK, European
and US populations living in towns and cities: a process that is now being
repeated in the global south. This has inevitably changed our relationship to
and awareness of the natural world and seasonal change.
However, many still do have an awareness and
understanding of how our behaviours, social interactions and cultural
consciousness is reflected in and shaped by climactic and seasonal events and
for us there is a need and desire to keep in touch with the turning of the
earth through, literally, a turning of the earth. I speak as a long standing, enthusiastic and active, if
not especially skilful, gardener who enjoys getting hands deep in soil and
compost, digging over and enriching the soil, planting seeds and watching them
grow, nurturing the process until blooms, fruit and vegetables are hopefully
the happy outcome (as in these images).
I am aware and appreciative that I am lucky to have a
small garden to grow things in and that for many this may be seen as a luxury
or a only a far off dream only available for a middle class home-owning waged
class. However, there is a long history of working class
engagement with gardening and growing things, whether for the table of for
pleasure. This did not end with the demise of traditional rural occupations or
because of the threat and demise of much social housing which included in their
plans a front and back garden.
The recent publication of a number of books (Willes, 2014; Foley, 2014; Burchardt,
2011) traces
and explores the long term commitment to and enjoyment of gardening as a
working class leisure practice that provides some alleviation from modern urban existence. This need
to connect with the land and with nature is reflected not only in the need for
private gardens, urban public parks, country parks and rural recreations but
also with spaces and places for cultivating and interacting with older and
slower rhythms and tempos different from the 24/7 365 fast pace of our modern
life. Despite the threat to allotment provision from land developers and cash
strapped councils that
results in more or less of a postcode lottery of provision gardening for pleasure and for necessity in cyclical periods of austerity
remains popular. As Crouch and Ward (1997) have argued allotment
gardening represents a form and expression of social interaction and engagement
that creates and embeds social solidarity through a shared experience which can
have potentially radical effects (McKay, 2011) beyond the garden fence (Reynolds, 2009).
But how does this relate to a sociology of culture or a
cultural sociologist? Culture, as Raymond Williams famously said (1976,
Keywords) is one of the most complex words in the English language. In its
earliest usage it meant the tending of crops or animals and is in part the
usage I have emphasised above. Culture also means the growing or nurturing of
minds and the development of intellectual endeavours. This is akin perhaps to
the cultivation of a garden or allotment and perhaps if an intellectual seed is
planted it will grow and flourish into a critical and enquiring mind. Culture
is also a way of being or of life and gardening can certainly be understood as
both a commitment to and orientation to the world as well as a (sub)cultural
activity involving practices shared amongst a group exhibiting solidarity and
self-help. The final definition of culture described by Williams is as products,
things of intellectuals, artists, writers. As cultural producers there is
certainly a plethora of products and artefacts associated with gardening and
cultivation as well as gardening being a creative activity in itself which
produces positive physical, mental and social benefits from the ground up, so
to speak.
My example of gardening whether at home, in windowsill
pots, raised beds or on allotments is one which highlights and emphasises how
social activities and interactions can be and still are associated with particular
seasons and with climate and weather.
A sociology of the seasons or a seasonal sociology would
be one which recognises the continuing interlinking of individuals, groups,
industries and business, as well as particular behaviours and activities with
longer, natural and slower rhythms and cycles and how one can influence the
other in a reciprocal way. It would potentially provide an analysis that could
consider how and why different a certain nostalgia around outside children and
adults recreation and play is married to concerns about supposedly modern, unhealthy,
sedentary inside pastimes as well as the decline of community. Such a seasonal
sociology could perhaps explore this continuing fascination with inside and
outside, home and away, nature/culture dichotomies etc. in our everyday lives.
References
Foley, C.
(2014) Of
Cabbages and Kings: The History of Allotments Frances Lincoln, London
Crouch,
D.
and Ward,
C. (1997) The Allotment: Its
Landscape and Culture Five Leaves
Publications, Nottingham
McKay, G.
(2011) Radical
Gardening: Politics, Idealism and Rebellion in the Garden, Frances Lincoln, London
Reynolds, R. (2009) On Guerrilla
Gardening: A Handbook for Gardening without Boundaries Bloomsbury Publishing, London
Willes, M.
(2014) The
Gardens of the British Working Class Yale University Press
Williams, R. (1976) Keywords
Fontana, Glasgow
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