Browsing by Author "Ward, Shelby Elise"
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- Bodies in Vertigo: the language of liminalitiesWard, Shelby Elise (Virginia Tech, 2014-12-19)Starting with my own travel experiences, and with the help of poets, Elizabeth Bishop, Jorie Graham, and Emily Dickinson, I create a theory of displacement, called Vertigo. Vertigo is not only a sense of falling, but a sense of detachment from reality that I felt traversing through different cultures, languages, and worlds for the first time. Vertigo is a liminal, transformative space that allows an individual to experience the created nature of their own worldview and culture. This is also a physical experience, as Bishop, Graham, and Dickinson give evidence to in their poetry, as the individual experiences a heightened sense of their physical bodies. This work acknowledges the privileged position of the traveler, and reveals that often the observations we make in this privileged position can be moves of colonization. Poetry is one way to both acknowledge these moves, and to also show what we can learn from these moments when we continue to question and explore. Additionally, poetry, as a medium of mindful reflection, allows for a language that is capable of handling the physical knowledge of the body; the mental mapping of the cultural and personal realities of the individual; and also the geographic and political landscapes that surround an individual or population, simultaneously. With this understanding, the theoretical framework for displacement, bodies, and place, which Bishop, Graham, and Dickinson give us, is the foundation for exploring how poetry can provide knowledge for more 'scientific' writing, such as, cultural geography or cognitive science.
- Strange(r) Maps: The cosmopolitan geopolitics of Sri Lankan tourismWard, Shelby Elise (Virginia Tech, 2019-04-15)Concerned with the ongoing coloniality within the form and interactions of international relations, this project examines the legacy of colonial mapping practices on contemporary geopolitics. Specifically, I investigate Sri Lankan tourist maps as subversive examples of the politics of vision implicated within the historical formation of island-space under colonial mapping practices (i.e. Portuguese, Dutch, and British), and the contemporary political implications of the island geography as the state, including exclusionary identity politics during the the civil war (1983-2009). Using a mix-analysis approach, including interviews, participatory mapping, and autoethnography, as well as feminist, postcolonial, and critical theoretical lenses, I argue that Sri Lankan tourist maps serve as examples of the historically developed and continued right to space, mobility, representation, and resources between the Global North and South in what I term "cosmopolitan geopolitics." As geopolitics can be identified as the relationship between territories and resources, cosmopolitan geopolitics is concerned with the power relations when such elements as culture, authenticity, history, and religion are marked in places, people, and experiences as valued resources within the international tourist economy, particularly in this project which connects the colonial histories of mapping, travel, and international relations. In order to address the imperial, masculine politics of vision this project is separated into two parts: the first is concerned with the ontology and colonial legacy the map (Chapters 1-3), the second with the politics of the map, including exclusionary politics of the nation state (Chapters 4-6). Chapter 1 investigates the politics of island space as represented on the tourist map, where the state serves as both a "treasure box" and "caged problem." Chapter 2 argues that the cartoon images and icons serve as a resource map for contemporary geopolitics, and Chapter 3 indicates that this map simultaneously acts an invitation to the cosmopolitan, with assumed access and hospitality. Examining the various ways that the exclusionary politics of the Sinhala-Buddhist state are implicated in the representations on the tourist map, Chapters 4-6 look at cultural tourist sites, natural or wildlife sites, and former war zones, respectively. Overall, this is an interdisciplinary examination between postcolonial studies, critical tourism studies, critical geography, and Sri Lankan studies that examines the continued politics of vision and access to space with both international and domestic political-economic implications.