Cultural Geography

constructed not only through political ideologies

but more immediately through the detailed

scripting of some of the most ordinary and mun-

dane aspects of everyday life (Holub, 1992: 104).

The political significance of these cultural char-

acteristics challenges the binary of public/political,

private/apolitical.

Once we accept the importance of everyday

geographical imaginations for the construction of

political identity, and the operation of politics

more generally, the cultural context of elite dis-

courses must be understood. It is here that ‘meta-

cultural’ values are reproduced. These inherited

values stand as ‘common sense’ in relationship

to the rest of the world, and point to the impor-

tance of the cultural norms established through

which both political elites and their constituents

are socialized. In the introduction to his influen-

tial cultural analysis of the figure of ‘John

Wayne’, Gary Wills says he was often asked:

Why him? When I began this project 3 years ago, that

was the question most often asked when anyone learned

of it. I had received no such queries when I said I was

writing about Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan. They,

after all, held political office, formed political policy,

and depended upon a political electorate. People cast

votesfor them. They just bought tickets for John

Wayne’s movies. Yet it is a very narrow definition of

politics that would deny John Wayne political impor-

tance. The proof of that is Richard Nixon’s appeal to

Wayne’s movie Chisumwhen he wanted to explain his

own views on law and order. Nixon had policies,

but beneath those positions were the valuesWayne

exemplified. (1997: 29)

Nixon could claim to regaining law and order in

American society by reference to Wayne’s per-

formance in Chisumwithout having to explain

the importance of this cultural reference. Instead

he could assume the existence of a set of stories

about America which his audience had learned

through popular culture. Various media exem-

plify these foundational myths and stories. Wills’

study refers to the genre of Western films and

stories, most prominently the figure of Wayne.

The values that the films extol and which Wayne

personifies are so powerful and work so perni-

ciously because dominant forms of political

theorizing, in the academy but also in wider

American political culture, assume that these are

‘just’ movies and work only in the realm of

entertainment. As stories, they are seen as apolit-

ical entertainment. Yet, the values that Wayne

epitomized have celebrated, reinforced, strength-

ened and in many ways made possible the deci-

sions and actions of statesmen and women. So,

Nixon can refer to Chisumand the values of the

Western, and a majority of the populace will

know his reference (however subconsciously or

tenuously), and understand its origin in relation

to an imagined geography of America. The real

values underlying the most significant political

pronouncement then are found circulating not in

the realm of public discourse but in the sphere of

the private of leisure and recreation.

This turning toward the everyday has significant

implications for attempts to retheorize the nation

and international from a feminist perspective.

THE GEOPOLITICS OF THE

PUBLIC–PRIVATE DIVIDE

Taking seriously the mundane acts of national

identification suggests that they have great

importance for the politics of the everyday, of the

private, in addition to the more obvious politics

of the public space of state and international

politics. The public–private dichotomy produces

the sense of a political and non-political sphere

but also assigns gendered characteristics to each.

The historic separation of spheres of public and

private have had profound implications for the

creation of gender roles and identities.

As feminist theorists have pointed out, from

the traditions of Greek and Roman political

thought onwards in the west there has been a

conceptual and actual (spatial) division between

public and private realms. The public is the con-

ceptual and actual space of transcendence, of

action, of production, of wages, of politics, of

men; whereas on the contrary, the private is the

location of the family, of recreation, of unpaid

labour, of women. The construction of public

sphere, space and subjects in political thought is

dependent upon a private other. Therefore, rather

than being separate spheres, this suggests that the

identities of the public and private spheres might

be intertwined.

With this challenge to the public–private

binary in mind, we can return to the nation. The

rhetoric of national identity has suggested that all

members of a nation are equal. Thus the populist

appeal of this form of identity: no-one can be

more or less national. This rhetoric of a horizon-

tal national bond produces a sense of the nation

moving through time, encompassing the entire

citizenship. But, just as the national community

is imagined, so are the citizens who occupy it.

The politics of public–private ensure that there

are in fact differences in the access people have

to the nation. Anderson argues that ‘No more

arresting emblems of the modern culture of

nationalism exist than cenotaphs and tombs of

Unknown Soldiers’ (1991: 9). The power of this

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