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Lefebvre’nin Sosyo-Mekânsal Bağlamında Martin Amis’in “İngiltere’nin Durumu” Adlı Öyküsü

Year 2020, Volume: 37 Issue: 1, 1 - 10, 30.06.2020
https://doi.org/10.32600/huefd.506204

Abstract

Mekân ve mekânın fiziksel sınırlarını aşan insan arasındaki karmaşık ilişkiye ışık tutan Henri Lefebvre, mekânın fiziksel olarak algılanabilen boyutuna karşılık gelen “algılanan mekân”, baskın ideolojilerin kendini gösterdiği “tasarlanan mekân” ve geçmişlerine dayanarak herkesin kendine özgün “yaşanan mekânı” kapsayan “mekân üçlüsü” kavramıyla kent sorununa ilişkin eleştirel yaklaşımıyla çığır açmıştır. Lefebvre, mekânın; çok kültürlü ve kapitalist ülkelerde, halkı yaşanan mekânlarında yabancılaştıran kesintisiz bir üretim sürecinde olduğunu ileri sürmüştür. Ayrıca fetiş somut soyutlamaların ise halkın yabancılaşmalarını örtbas edip onları algılanan mekândaki sosyal ilişkilere dâhil etmek için onlara romantik hâkimiyet sağladığını iddia etmiştir. Martin Amis’in “İngiltere’nin Durumu” (1998) adlı öyküsündeki İngiltere ve başkarakter Big Mal bahsedilen bu duruma örnek oluşturmaktadır. Postmodernist yazar; Mal karakteriyle, yirminci yüzyıldaki alt sınıf bir İngiliz’in günlük yaşamını kurgulamaktadır. Öykü, bir okul bahçesinde spor organizasyonu yapılan bir günde geçer, fakat Mal’ın evi, bir barın otoparkı, hatta Burger King’de ‘yaşanan mekanlar’ını da resmetmektedir. Bu çalışmada, Amis’in öyküsündeki İngiltere’nin kentsel kimliğini kapitalizm bağlamında incelemek için Lefebvre’nin sosyo-mekânsal araştırması kullanılmaktadır. Bu bakımdan, çalışma; 1990’larda çeşitli değişimler geçiren İngiltere’nin bir hegemonya mekânı olduğunu göstermektedir. Bu kentsel mekânın her bir kısmında, Mal, algılanan ve tasarlanan mekânlar arasında bocalar ve yabancılaşmasına rağmen, fetiş somut soyutlamalarla yaşanan mekânın çarkına katılır. Son olarak, çalışma; İngiltere’nin mekân-zaman boyunca uzandığı ve özellikle alt sınıf ve gelecek neslin günlük hayatını etkileyen kapitalist ideolojiyle daima üretim sürecinde olduğu sonucuna varmaktadır.

References

  • Althusser, L. (2006). Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation). Aradhana Sharma and Akhil Gupta (Eds.), The Anthropology of the State: A Reader (pp. 86-112). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
  • Amis, M. (1998). State of England. Heavy water and other stories (pp. 38-72). New York: Vintage Books.
  • Black, J. 2004. Britain since the seventies: Politic and society in the consumer age. London: Reaktion Books.
  • Chiswick, B., and Hatton, T. J. (2003). International migration and the integration of labor markets. Michael D. Bordo, Alan M. Taylor and Jeffrey G. Williamson (Eds.), Globalization in Historical Perspective (pp. 65-119). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Clarke, L., and Henwood, M. (1997). Great Britain: The Lone Parent as The New Norm? F-X. Kaufmann, A. Kuijsten, H. J. Schulze, and K.P. Strohmeier (Eds.), Family life and family policies in Europe (pp. 419-490). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • Foucault, M. (1982). The subject and power. Critical Inquiry, 8, 4: 777-795.
  • Irwin, S. (2000). Patterns of change in family and household structure and resourcing: an overview. ESRC research group on care, values and the future of welfare. Leeds: University of Leeds. Retrieved from http://www.leeds.ac.uk.
  • Kipfer, S. (2008). How Lefebvre urbanized Gramsci. Goonewardena, Kanishka; Kipfer, Stefan; Milgrom, Richard; Schmid, Christian (Eds.), Space, difference, everyday life: reading Henri Lefebvre (pp. 193-211). New York: Routledge.
  • Lefebvre, H. (2008). Critique of everyday life, volume 2: foundations for a sociology of the everyday. (Trans. John Moore). London: Verso.
  • Lefebvre, H. (2009a). Dialectical materialism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
  • Lefebvre, H. (2009b). State, space, world: selected essays. N. Brenner and S. Elden (Eds.). Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
  • Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space. (Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith). Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Lefebvre, H. (1976). The survival of capitalism: reproduction of the relations of production. (Trans. Frank Bryant). London: Allison & Busby.
  • Lefebvre, H. (1996). Writings on cities: Henri Lefebvre. (Trans. and Intr. Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas). Oxford: Blackwell.
  • McRae, S. (1999). Changing Britain: families and households in the 1990s. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Merrifield, A. (2011). The right to the city and beyond: notes on a Lefebvrian reconceptualization. City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action, 15, 3-4: 473-481.
  • O’Kane, C. (2017). Fetishism concrete abstraction, social constitution and social domination in Henri Lefebvre’s writing on everyday life, cities and space. Class & Capital (pp. 1-19). DOI: 10.1177/0309816817738317
  • Olwig, K. R. (2005). Representation and alienation in the political land-scape. cultural geographies, SAGE Publications, 12, 1: 19-40.
  • Rich, N. (1999). A heavier Amis: heavy water and other stories. The Yale Review of Books. 2, 1. Retrieved from http://www.yale.edu/yrb/spring99/review02.html.
  • Rosen, A. (2003). The transformation of British life 1950-2000: a social history. Oxford: Manchester University Press.
  • Said, E. (2003). Orientalism. (5th ed.). London: Penguin.
  • Schmid, C. (2006). Theory. R. Diener, et al. (Eds.) Switzerland: An Urban Portrait (163-224). Basel: Birkhäuser.
  • Smyth, T. (2000). English/fiction. World literature today. 74, 1: 155.
  • Storry, M. and Childs, P., eds. (2002). British cultural studies. (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.
  • Woodward, K. (1997). Identity and difference. London: Sage Publications Ltd.

Martin Amis’s “State of England” within the Lefebvrean Socio-Spatial Context

Year 2020, Volume: 37 Issue: 1, 1 - 10, 30.06.2020
https://doi.org/10.32600/huefd.506204

Abstract










Shedding light on the complicated relationship between space and the human being who goes beyond the physical boundaries of space, Henri Lefebvre made a breakthrough with his critical approach to the urban question through his concept of the “triad of space”, including “perceived space”, referring to the physically perceptible dimension of space; “conceived space”, where the dominant ideologies are operated; and “lived space”, which is peculiar to every inhabitant on the basis of their background. He argued that space is in an incessant process of production, estranging inhabitants in their lived spaces in multicultural and capitalist countries. He posited that “fetishistic concrete abstractions” provide them with romantic domination to cover their alienation and involve them in social relationships in perceived space. England and the protagonist, Big Mal, in Martin Amis’s “State of England” (1998) stand as exemplars for the aforementioned issue. The postmodernist author fictionalizes a lower-class English man’s everyday life in the late twentieth-century England through Mal. It is set in a school garden on a sports day; however, it also portrays Mal’s lived spaces at home, the car park of a bar and even Burger King. In the present study, a Lefebvrean socio-spatial inquiry is employed for scrutinizing England’s urban identity in Amis’s story under question, within the context of capitalism. In this regard, the study indicates that England, undergoing various transformations in the 1990s, is a space of hegemony. In each part of this urban space, Mal oscillates between perceived and conceived spaces and becomes involved in the grindstone of lived space by means of some fetishistic concrete abstractions albeit his alienation. Ultimately, the study concludes that England as a whole is a politicized space which stretches throughout space-time and is always in the process of production by capitalist ideology, influencing everyday lives, especially of lower-class people and the next generation.

References

  • Althusser, L. (2006). Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation). Aradhana Sharma and Akhil Gupta (Eds.), The Anthropology of the State: A Reader (pp. 86-112). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
  • Amis, M. (1998). State of England. Heavy water and other stories (pp. 38-72). New York: Vintage Books.
  • Black, J. 2004. Britain since the seventies: Politic and society in the consumer age. London: Reaktion Books.
  • Chiswick, B., and Hatton, T. J. (2003). International migration and the integration of labor markets. Michael D. Bordo, Alan M. Taylor and Jeffrey G. Williamson (Eds.), Globalization in Historical Perspective (pp. 65-119). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Clarke, L., and Henwood, M. (1997). Great Britain: The Lone Parent as The New Norm? F-X. Kaufmann, A. Kuijsten, H. J. Schulze, and K.P. Strohmeier (Eds.), Family life and family policies in Europe (pp. 419-490). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • Foucault, M. (1982). The subject and power. Critical Inquiry, 8, 4: 777-795.
  • Irwin, S. (2000). Patterns of change in family and household structure and resourcing: an overview. ESRC research group on care, values and the future of welfare. Leeds: University of Leeds. Retrieved from http://www.leeds.ac.uk.
  • Kipfer, S. (2008). How Lefebvre urbanized Gramsci. Goonewardena, Kanishka; Kipfer, Stefan; Milgrom, Richard; Schmid, Christian (Eds.), Space, difference, everyday life: reading Henri Lefebvre (pp. 193-211). New York: Routledge.
  • Lefebvre, H. (2008). Critique of everyday life, volume 2: foundations for a sociology of the everyday. (Trans. John Moore). London: Verso.
  • Lefebvre, H. (2009a). Dialectical materialism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
  • Lefebvre, H. (2009b). State, space, world: selected essays. N. Brenner and S. Elden (Eds.). Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
  • Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space. (Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith). Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Lefebvre, H. (1976). The survival of capitalism: reproduction of the relations of production. (Trans. Frank Bryant). London: Allison & Busby.
  • Lefebvre, H. (1996). Writings on cities: Henri Lefebvre. (Trans. and Intr. Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas). Oxford: Blackwell.
  • McRae, S. (1999). Changing Britain: families and households in the 1990s. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Merrifield, A. (2011). The right to the city and beyond: notes on a Lefebvrian reconceptualization. City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action, 15, 3-4: 473-481.
  • O’Kane, C. (2017). Fetishism concrete abstraction, social constitution and social domination in Henri Lefebvre’s writing on everyday life, cities and space. Class & Capital (pp. 1-19). DOI: 10.1177/0309816817738317
  • Olwig, K. R. (2005). Representation and alienation in the political land-scape. cultural geographies, SAGE Publications, 12, 1: 19-40.
  • Rich, N. (1999). A heavier Amis: heavy water and other stories. The Yale Review of Books. 2, 1. Retrieved from http://www.yale.edu/yrb/spring99/review02.html.
  • Rosen, A. (2003). The transformation of British life 1950-2000: a social history. Oxford: Manchester University Press.
  • Said, E. (2003). Orientalism. (5th ed.). London: Penguin.
  • Schmid, C. (2006). Theory. R. Diener, et al. (Eds.) Switzerland: An Urban Portrait (163-224). Basel: Birkhäuser.
  • Smyth, T. (2000). English/fiction. World literature today. 74, 1: 155.
  • Storry, M. and Childs, P., eds. (2002). British cultural studies. (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.
  • Woodward, K. (1997). Identity and difference. London: Sage Publications Ltd.
There are 25 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Creative Arts and Writing
Journal Section Articles
Authors

Nilay Erdem Ayyıldız 0000-0002-1779-8464

Publication Date June 30, 2020
Submission Date January 1, 2019
Acceptance Date November 11, 2019
Published in Issue Year 2020 Volume: 37 Issue: 1

Cite

APA Erdem Ayyıldız, N. (2020). Martin Amis’s “State of England” within the Lefebvrean Socio-Spatial Context. Hacettepe Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, 37(1), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.32600/huefd.506204


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