Introduction: Analysis of the following articles have revealed problems in defining the field of chorography as well as methods, theories and insights which warrant further examination. These summaries identify, illuminate and reflect on these issues and their implications in theory and practice.

Paper 2: Shanks, M. and Witmore, C. (2010) “Echoes across the Past: Chorography and topography in antiquarian engagements with place”. Performance Research 15 (4), 97-106.

The aim of this paper is to elucidate chorographic and topographic methods in various strands of Antiquarian practice. Shanks and Witmore identify common components of Antiquarianism including local and national history, geography, the regional, examination of archaeological remains and the act of collecting. Although chorography is pre-disciplinary they claim a genetic link forms the basis of contemporary disciplinary approaches across heritage management, tourism, archaeology, historical geography and contemporary arts practice. They argue for a genealogical understanding of inter or trans-disciplinary practices concerned with relations of land, place, and locational identity to provide an enhanced understanding of present disciplinary, practical and academic positions. They substantiate these claims by drawing parallels between 16th-19thC Antiquarian practice concerned with “the history and geography of regional landscapes and the management and collection of archaeological artefacts […] seeking tangible historical roots and emerging nation states of modernity” and “contemporary global engagements with land and senses of place” of which they argue Antiquarianism is the main foundation. pp.97

Shanks and Witmore explore three primary components of Antiquarian practice including ‘chorography, itinerary and topography’ in part by way of the Scottish Borders. Their succinct, though unexpanded, definition is etymologically uncomplicated and more closely reflects my own understanding of chorography as ‘the documentation of region’. This practice includes the act of journeying and movement (itinerary) and the intersection of past and present in relation to the landscape (topography). They utilise the concept of performance and the performative to lever open unresolved issues at the heart of antiquarian practice including ‘tensions of property, belonging and ownership, anxieties about scientific and literary authenticity and social responsibility’ which warrants further analysis, pp.97

Through a close reading of Antiquarian texts, the authors perform a comparative analysis of works by William Gell, Martin Leake and the ‘literary antiquarian’ Walter Scott. They contrast their methods, attitudes in practice and also what unites them; a quest for the authentic, the fragment, the quotidian, elevating the historical detail to the status of epic. Although there are crucial distinctions to how this process is performed and manifested the authors draw attention to the implications of representation beyond the idea of medium as a means to an end i.e. the ethics and politics of representation and speaking authentically for others. These concerns are redolent of a distinct strand of Critical Ethnography under consideration for this research.

Their analysis shows Gell and Leake take a scholarly, rational and distanced stance which is measurable, cartographic, precise, descriptive and forensic in attitude. The implications of placing Scott in the chorographic canon is an emphasis on oratory, the art of memory, folk-lore and the vernacular Ballad. Scott is not simply a collector for the sake of historic facts in and of themselves nor is he concerned with a distanced antiquarian, empirical exactitude of observation and precise recording. Scott’s literary, discursive and interpretative mode becomes an act of re-collection, re-writing, re-telling and re-presenting. Scott performs a curatorial act, a selective re-framing which recuperates, conserves, transforms and embellishes. In the case of The Lay of the Last Minstrel 1805, set in the middle of the 16th century, occupying Three Nights and Three Days, the poem articulates the manners and customs of the English/Scottish borders through the ‘narrator’, an ancient Minstrel. Throughout this process Scott’s voice is ventriloquized and dispersed into the collective voice of the ballad, the polyvocal, polyphonic and polyvalent, a performative co-mingling that results in a complex intertextual topography. Shanks and Witmore argue the topical qualities of Scott’s work place him in the tradition. These topics include “landscape and manners, terrain, tradition, scenario and narrative fragment, names and lists, genealogies and toponymies.” pp. 100 Shanks states these features are central to the antiquarian genre of chorography. Scott’s narrative poems and novels setting tales in the distant and not so distant past did much to foster people’s interest in history. Scott was involved in historical study and gained a reputation as an antiquary and practised amateur archaeology. There is no evidence to suggest however that he equated his work with chorography although he may have been familiar with the term. [1]

These contrasting approaches warrant further investigation regarding their significance to this research. According to the authors Scott’s work exceeds the concept of mimesis as representation due to it’s complex construction and fabrication. Prior research has identified this is an important factor to how alternative mimetic theoretical models might inform the study. My MA Thesis, Ariadne’s Dance Floor, Choragraphy and the Ecstatic Subject, (Distinction) Royal College of Art 2013 sought to restore a connection to the philosophical roots of mimesis and to the feminine and dance. The title was not a playful affectation but a statement of political intent via the deliberate spelling of chorography as choragraphy following the work of geographer Inger Birkeland and Julia Kristeva. According to Perez-Gomez [2008] mimesis was not originally connected to imitation “but the expression of feelings and experience through movement, musical harmonies and rhythms of speech.” [2] This underscores one of my own concerns and the need to make a distinction between the performative, embodied act and its subsequent re-presentation, this perceived gap would clarify chorography as both process and product. My concern is an overt emphasis on chorography as representation; as visual medium as opposed to embodied method. Shanks and Whitmore conclude with the idea that insights into the ‘antiquarian genre of chorography’ could provide sound methodological principles for addressing critical epistemological issues, institutional or otherwise, of conducting research.

[1] Making History: Antiquaries in Britain, 1707-2007. (2007). United Kingdom: Harry N. Abrams. pp.170 Image reproduced from https://www.bsa.ac.uk/2020/11/04/the-william-gell-notebooks-at-the-bsa/ (accessed 03/11/22)

[2] Alberto Pérez-Gómez, Built upon Love, Architectural longing after ethics and aesthetics, (Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2006), p.48.  

Images reproduced from https://www.bsa.ac.uk/2020/11/04/the-william-gell-notebooks-at-the-bsa/ (accessed 03/11/22) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lay_of_the_Last_Minstrel (accessed 28/08/23)