TY - JOUR

T1 - Trackless Mourning

T2 - The Mobilities of Love and Loss

AU - Pearce, Lynne

N1 - The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, cultural geographies, 26 (2), 2018, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2018 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the cultural geographies page: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/CGJ on SAGE Journals Online: http://journals.sagepub.com/

PY - 2019/4/1

Y1 - 2019/4/1

N2 - In response to recent work in cultural geography on the spatial practices of mourning and remembrance, I draw upon my own research on the discourse of romantic love (in the field of literary and cultural theory) in order to theorise a connection between the memorial processes associated with the 'life' of a relationship and those pursued in retrospect.Through a focus on embodied mobility, I propose that there are implicit links between the way in which we create and store memories (a propos Bergson), the way in which we protect and project them (the processes commonly associated with nostalgia) and the way we activate them in later years (memorialisation). A second - but related - line of argument concerns the distinction between public (and 'spectacular') and private and 'invisible') memorial practices and the function of mobilities of various kinds within each. With reference to a small selection of autobiographical and literary texts, I reflect upon the way in which burials (in the Christian tradition) have, for centuries, been inscribed by spectacular hypermobility (for the deceased as well as the bereaved) and how, by contrast, our more private memorial practices are invisible precisely because they only as micro-mobilities of some kind. For while mourning may involve visits to memorials in the landscape (as explored in the work of Avril Maddrell and others), it may equally take the form of walks (or drives) devoid of both destination and visible trace (what I refer to here as 'trackless mourning') or express itself in the smallest of gestures that, unbeknown to the world, unite the deceased and the bereaved.

AB - In response to recent work in cultural geography on the spatial practices of mourning and remembrance, I draw upon my own research on the discourse of romantic love (in the field of literary and cultural theory) in order to theorise a connection between the memorial processes associated with the 'life' of a relationship and those pursued in retrospect.Through a focus on embodied mobility, I propose that there are implicit links between the way in which we create and store memories (a propos Bergson), the way in which we protect and project them (the processes commonly associated with nostalgia) and the way we activate them in later years (memorialisation). A second - but related - line of argument concerns the distinction between public (and 'spectacular') and private and 'invisible') memorial practices and the function of mobilities of various kinds within each. With reference to a small selection of autobiographical and literary texts, I reflect upon the way in which burials (in the Christian tradition) have, for centuries, been inscribed by spectacular hypermobility (for the deceased as well as the bereaved) and how, by contrast, our more private memorial practices are invisible precisely because they only as micro-mobilities of some kind. For while mourning may involve visits to memorials in the landscape (as explored in the work of Avril Maddrell and others), it may equally take the form of walks (or drives) devoid of both destination and visible trace (what I refer to here as 'trackless mourning') or express itself in the smallest of gestures that, unbeknown to the world, unite the deceased and the bereaved.

KW - mobilities

KW - micro-mobilities

KW - memory

KW - love

KW - nostalgia

KW - memorialisation

KW - funerals

KW - literature

U2 - 10.1177/1474474018792665

DO - 10.1177/1474474018792665

M3 - Journal article

VL - 26

SP - 163

EP - 176

JO - cultural geographies

JF - cultural geographies

SN - 1474-4740

IS - 2

ER -