I love being in the garden: enchanting encounters in everyday life

Gurmukh Bhatti, Andrew Church, Amanda Claremont, Paul Stenner

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This paper examines how the domestic garden is experienced as an intimate place in everyday life. with reference to Bachelard we seek to analyse prosaic pleasures and enchanting encounters that are revealed through multi-sensorial engagements and emotional attachments within the social/natural world. in particular we focus on three modalities of the everyday: work or tasks involved in gardening; that is, sensuous and embodied experiences explored through the notion of haptic perceptionl 'cultivation' in the sense of taking care of the garden, as well as caring for the self and others; and emotional attachments invoking body/place memories, especially of childhood gardnes. To illustrate tehse themes we use garden narratives drawn from the Mass Observation Archive (MOA).
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)61-76
Number of pages16
JournalSocial and Cultural Geography
Volume10
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Feb 2009

Keywords

  • enchantment
  • gardens
  • narrative
  • Mass Observation
  • everyday life
  • haptic perception
  • cultivation
  • memory

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'I love being in the garden: enchanting encounters in everyday life'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this