The Dictionary of Human Geography

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between people that is mediated by images’

(thesis 29). urbanism takes on particular

importance within the spectacle as a technique

for reshapingspaceand ensuring the separ-

ation between people, although it is also a

terrain within which struggles against the spec-

tacle and for different relationships between

people are forged.

As developed by Debord and thesituation-

ists, the concept of the spectacle was part of a

revolutionary project and was meant to be a

weapon with which to harm spectacular soci-

ety. This has not prevented it from being

widely adopted within cultural, media and

urban studies seeking to characterize a new

cultural and mediatized era, and becoming ‘a

stock phrase in a wide range of critical and

not-so-critical discourses’ (Crary, 1989,

p. 97). Yet emphasizing its original analytical

force, the groupRETORT(2005) insists that

Debord’s account speaks powerfully to a cur-

rent ‘new age ofwar’, in which struggles over

images and the capitaliststate’s concern with

the rule of appearances are of vital political

significance. dp

Suggested reading

Debord (1994 [1967]).

spontaneous settlement Aresidentialarea

developed outside the formal economy by its

inhabitants, often after illegally occupying

the land, and usually found in developing coun-

tries. Both the housing andinfrastructure

of public facilities are constructed outside the

usual market and public service mechanisms.

Although the term ‘spontaneous’ suggests

no forethought or planning, many such clandes-

tine settlements are the result of ‘planned inva-

sions’ by the initial occupants, who subdivide

the land on a pre-arranged cadastre and provide

a basic infrastructure (cf.squatting). rj

Suggested reading

Lloyd (1979).

sport(s) human geography has paid

increased attention to sports partly as a result

of the increased economic and cultural

importance given to issues ofleisureandrec-

reation, but most especially because insights

from cultural theory have been brought to

bear on the performance of sports. Studies

commonly take one of five approaches:

(1) The plotting of the economic connec-

tions and organizations of sports. This

follows the fortunes of ‘mega-events’

such as the Olympics or soccer World

Cup, and their linkage to patterns of

urban development, or the competition

over sport club franchises and stadia

location.

(2) Thediffusionand location of different

sports across the globe. This tracks the

relative popularity and adoption of dif-

ferent games, often as a cultural form in

berkeley school approaches to cul-

tural geography.

(3) The development and often hybridiza-

tion of these sports in a colonial and post-

colonial world (seecolonialism;hybrid-

ity;post-colonialism). They become

examples of contestation of meaning and

adoption of cultural practices. Thus the

imposition of cricket ovals across South

Asia, its enthusiastic adoption and the

transport of the game to the West Indies

are used by C.L.R. James in hisBeyond a

boundaryto suggest that it offers both in-

sights into colonizing cultures and a styl-

ization of resistance to that process. The

postwar adoption of baseball in Japan also

offers moments of cultural contact, under-

standing and transformation.

(4) Ahistorical geographyof the emer-

gence and role of sports in varying social

milieu. The rise of organized mass spec-

tator sports alongside industrializa-

tion, complementing or even replacing

other modes of regulation, is important

here, as is the construction of progres-

sively more homogenized fields, arenas

and venues as forms of abstract space.

The rapid mediatization of team sport

and the culture of viewing has been re-

lated to the society of thespectacle,

where a televisual temporality and

dramatization is now driving sport.

(5) Theemergenceonandoffthepitchoftech-

niques of thebodythat form exemplars of

disciplinary powerand the mobilization

andchannellingofcollectiveaffecttocre-

ate anemotional geographyof support,

loyalty, joy and suffering. The surging

crowd at a game, or indeed around a large

screen, enact changingperformancesof

emotionality,raceandgender. Alterna-

tively, the body cultures inrecreations

and outdoor sports offer new ways to

thinkaboutpeople’smodesofengagement

with landscape. mc

Suggested reading

Bale (2002); Cronin and Bale (2002); James

(2005); Roche (2000); Smart (2007).

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