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Geoforum 34 (2003) 395–408
www.elsevier.com/locate/geoforum
�Digging-up� Utopia? Space, practice and land use heritage
David Crouch a, Gavin Parker b,*
a University of Derby, Kedleston Road, Derby DE22 1GB, UKb Centre of Planning Studies, Department of Land Management, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AW, UK
Received 23 April 2001; received in revised form 4 September 2002
Abstract
In this paper we explore history and heritage mobilised to do service for marginalized interests. We discuss how resources, such
as, place, texts, artefacts and practice are drawn upon to forward particular political interests. Touching on recent work in non-
representational theory we suggest that more attention be paid to the micro-politics of doing and link more formal action to that of
�everyday� practice. The examples used show how particular actors draw on history and heritage to advance their positions and howtheir performances reinforce claims based on alternative practices. The examples used illustrate how this involves the notion of
�reclaiming� historical action, historical texts and historical place. In particular how this relates to land and specifically in this paperthe metaphor, representation and practice of �digging�.� 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Politics; Space; Time; History; Heritage; Representation; Practice; Land; Claims; Citizenship; Doing; Alternative living
1. Introduction: digging and doing digging
Society, then, is unrepresentable: any representa-
tion and thus any space is an attempt to constitute
society, not to state what it is (Laclau, 1990, p. 82)
Some pasts are the liveliest instigators of the pre-
sent and the best springboards of the future When
the cathedrals were white (Le Corbusier, 1937)
In this paper we wish to highlight the way that history
and heritage is being used explicitly to rupture norma-
tive and dominant conceptions of action, space and land
use in the UK, also, how practice is sometimes appro-
priated for that purpose. Thus practice, it is contended,
provides the fabric of the political dimension as well as
the social. In terms of our focus––heritage places––we
argue that this often involves the selective use of historyto substantiate heritage credentials (cf. Samuel, 1994;
Lowenthal, 1985, 1994) and the framing of history
through an array of practical and representative action
and artefacts.
*Corresponding author.
E-mail address: g.parker@reading.ac.uk (G. Parker).
0016-7185/03/$ - see front matter � 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0016-7185(02)00080-5
In this area of research we pursue a slightly less well-
trodden path in looking at how the past may be used as�ideological messenger� by marginalized groups and in-terests (Hollinshead, 1997, p. 177). In congruence with
this approach Walter Benjamin argued for a �blastingopen of the continuum of history� and �brushing historyagainst the grain� (cited in Game, 1991, p. 26). We takethis as an invitation for activists, as well as academics, in
seeking to highlight marginalized histories and reveal
how such histories are used to make representationsabout the future. In the same breath we do, however,
accept that attempts to challenge dominant distributions
of power and of rights tend to be attritional at best in
their effects.
In this paper we also examine the interjacency of
overt or cognisant politics and �practical� or non-cogni-sant activities. In this way we highlight that doing, or
more broadly �mundane activity� is potentially of the(micro)political. Thus the paper, while highlighting po-
litical action through �digging� points to materiality andthe appropriation of otherwise practical actions and
artefacts in rendering the banal as representational,
powerful and agentive.
We begin by looking at the way that contemporary
politics and citizenship are increasingly fluid, fragmen-
tary and mediated. This allows for multiple spaces of
396 D. Crouch, G. Parker / Geoforum 34 (2003) 395–408
resistance and challenge and we argue that practice
refigures the identity of both the land and the agent.
Through such refiguration attempts to influence wider
social conditions are also enacted. We highlight throughcase study narratives how a radical group has recently
looked to use alternative, neglected or marginalized
versions of history. How, by associating to more main-
stream aspects of history, they portray place and prac-
tices as �heritage� in order to further their interests
or claims. Enacting practice, through performance,
through doing achieves this (see Joseph, 1999; Thrift
and Dewesbury, 2000; Nash, 2000; Becker, 2000).In this process alternative trajectories can be seen as
being wrapped into notions of heritage that serve to
legitimise such messages. In this context we seek to
emphasise and link the process of �doing� alternativesand the micro-political status of practice and its repre-
sentation. In this way we address a rather neglected part
of the geographical literature in highlighting how per-
formativity and heritage has been explicitly deployed forpolitical ends in the UK. This is in contrast, or in sup-
plement, to other implicit opaque or subconscious en-
rolments of suitable pasts (see, for example; Friedman,
1994; Samuel, 1994; Lowenthal, 1985, 1994; Chesters,
2000a).
Thus we engage with the expression of self through
the landscape we construct and constitute in the process
of doing. Ingold identifies a process of dwelling wherebyencounters with objects, individuals, space and the self
progress life (Ingold, 2000). He distinguishes between
ideas for things, space and so on, as prefigured and
determinate, and the motor of �dwelling� that sustainsthe present and future, from which contemplation and
new possibilities of reconfiguring the world, in flows, can
occur.
Making embodied practice enables individuals towork their awareness of �being somewhere�; their senseof existing significance of actions, things and cultural
contexts; and having something to do through an en-
counter with inhabited volumes of the spaces and their
content. These everyday routes through the world are
worked in a practical geographical knowledge, a mate-
rial or embodied semiotics (Game, 1991; Crouch, 2001).
Thus selves can construct their own significance ofthings. The emerging process does not happen in de-
tachment from surrounding cultural contexts and their
representations, for example landscape. Our attempt at
synthesis indicates that such doings are significant, they
may be appropriated to signify and they may also be
practical actions that do signify.
Memory too can be refigured. Crang has argued the
processual, constituted character of space in practicetemporally contingent in open-ended multiple flows
(Crang, 2001). As things are done, other �events� areremembered and replaced into and through the present.
Memory is also temporalised and can reinvigorate what
one is doing now, but also it is reinvigorated, it can be
engaged afresh and can be rerouted in the �now� (Crang,2001). Memories colour the practice of the now, but not
in a rerun of the past. Performing time/spacing appearsto be more than a linear �moving on� from ideas or frommemory, and memory is operated in the active character
of what is done. As Bachelard argues, we have �onlyretained the memory of events that have created us at
the decisive instants of our pasts� (2000, p. 57). These aredrawn into a focus in moments of significance. Some-
times such significant times are realised as later events
make them important. When individuals speak of whatand how they �do� they compile events reduced to aninstant. Although we �may retain no trace of the tem-poral dynamic of the flow of time� (2000, p. 57). In thedoing, moments of memory are recalled, reactivated in
what is done, and thus, may be drawn upon in new
combinations of signification. It is less that memory is
practiced in repetition than it is in doing. It is in em-
bodied practical encounters that it is made sense of.Thus it is argued that memory and the immediate are
performed as complexities of time. Memory is worked
again and again, differently, and embodied thereby,
grasped and wound up in body-performance and inter-
action with place.
2. Present, pasts and futures in political action
Both Beck (1998) and Bauman (1998) contend that
society is obsessed with the future, and while we do not
wish to critically engage with the basic contention about
if this is true, we do explore how groups have influence
on the future. In particular in this paper, in terms of
radical or alternative groups who are interested in af-
fecting trajectories of land use and its regulation. Wedemonstrate that, in seeking to represent alternative
futures, groups explicitly draw on history as heritage in
order to undermine current structures and practices and
promote alternatives. In conceptualising the contrasting
examples used below we deploy ideas of performance or
embodied practice (see Crouch, 2001; Thrift, 1996, 1999;
Nash, 2000) to emphasise how everyday micro-politics
can affect [shared] heritages and through which attemptscan be made to reorganise time and space as memory is
mined, refigured and re-presented.
The prompt for this paper then lies in the way in
which heritages, viewed in a deconstructed fashion, in
terms of multiple aspects, fragments or selected readings
of the past, are being used and deployed as part of
alternative political projects. Lowenthal (1994, p. 302)
argues that;
The past is everywhere a battleground of rival at-
tachments. In discovering, correcting, elaborating,
inventing, and celebrating their histories, compet-
D. Crouch, G. Parker / Geoforum 34 (2003) 395–408 397
ing groups struggle to validate present goals by ap-
pealing to continuity with, or inheritance from, an-
cestral and other precursors.
Foucault (1977), in discussing the way that political
agents attempt to influence others, proposes that indi-
viduals are engaged in preparing �counter-memories�; �ause of history that severs its connection to memory, itsmetaphysical and anthropological model, and con-
structs a counter-memory––a transformation of history
into a totally different form of time� (Foucault, 1977,p. 160). In reflecting on this Hollinshead argues that the
past is generally acquired by the ruling and possessing
classes of privilege––that they �steal control of the past�(1997, p. 178). He does acknowledge that attempts to
wrest such control back do occur, but they tend to beless well documented.
This is perhaps to be expected, as authorship has also
tended to rest with those same classes of privilege. For
example Jeffries (2000) reminds us that George Orwell,
in his book 1984, foresaw that the control of history was
an important part of controlling the present (and
therefore future trajectories). 1;2 In that novel the pos-
sibility of counter-memory is not eradicated. This isdespite the best attempts of The Party to erase incon-
gruent facts, as potential future vehicles for challenge,
by editing records as soon as they became inconsistent
with prevailing Party statements.
In this paper we suggest a reflexive, knowing and
partial use of history as heritage to highlight radical
histories––a process of �past-modernisation�. For uscounter-memory can involve the selective recollectionor imagination of past events. This helps assemble the
resources for representations that challenge classes of
privilege and the structures that exist to protect power
and exclusivity (see Hartsock, 1987).
Given that politics is being increasingly mediated
numerous articles relating to what has been termed
�post-modern� and aestheticised politics have been writ-ten that highlight this self-aware, ironic form (see; forexample, Routledge, 1997; Chesters, 2000a,b; Anderson,
1997). Direct action protest during the 1990s was in-
creasingly dominated by its mediation, often such action
was significantly mobilised around an everyday micro-
politics of practice (Domosh, 1998). We assert that the
1 In line with our thesis Jeffries actively deploys Orwell�s text as anhistorical and legitimating resource. In this sense many references in
texts are attempts to bring distant deposits of authority to bear on the
present (see, also Samuel, 1994; Latour, 1999).2 In 1984 there are numerous examples where artefacts, practices,
even sounds of the everyday (and/of the past) resonate in the text (for
example; the bells of St. Clements, the glass paper-weight) and are
regarded by Winston Smith and by The Party as subversive, and read
here as micro-political representations/embodiments.
representation of protest by the media, and vice versa,
such use of the media by protesters, is a feature of late-
modern politics. This is a politics of reflexivity and
ironicism, which draws on diverse sources and referents,as well as material artefacts. This approach revels in the
mixing of disparate ingredients to produce a multifari-
ous representation of the world and particular issues.
In that process however, such actions or projects run
the risk of being �captured�, depoliticised or �used forsedative purposes� (Hollinshead, 1997, p. 179). We ac-knowledge the point that previously radical or subver-
sive discursive resources may lose their transformativepotential as a result of normative framing as heritage.
It is contended that heritage, like space, is contingent
and subject to constant renegotiation and reinterpreta-
tion.
3. The idea of lay heritage in time–space reorganisation
and relational materialism
Urry (2000, p. 115) when reflecting on the work of
George Herbert Mead, points out that reality only exists
in the present and �what we take to be the past is nec-essarily reconstructed in the present, each moment of thepast is reconstructed in the present�. It is contended thattimes and histories are multiple; they are capable of
being reflexively looped and folded, referenced and se-
lectively deployed (Crang, 2001). Increasingly, referen-
tial and observable spaces for difference and alternative
claims-making have developed as civil rights agendas
have developed and as groups become better educated
and networked (see, for example; Urry, 2000; McKay,1998; Hannigan, 1995; Etzioni, 1995). Such spaces and
technologies have enabled a range of interests to pro-
mote their positions creatively, sometimes ironically, by
revisiting, challenging and reinterpreting �facts� and il-luminating shibboleths.
Key authors such as Foucault, Baudrillard and
Lyotard have detailed the constructedness of modernity
and how cultural values influence our perceptions ofplace, self, and of history. Their post-structural critiques
have generated healthy uncertainty; adding to a wider
comprehension of the constructedness and complexity
of modernity. In related fashion Gramsci too highlights,
indeed encourages, consideration of how folklore may
be used to contest �official� conceptions of the world(1971, p. 323). �Other� histories can be more readilybrought into the present to illustrate marginal ideas.Imprints are being �dusted down� and enacted or givennew amplification. We argue in this paper that con-
temporary radical and marginalized politics in the late
1990s has begun to look increasingly and more explicitly
to history and heritage as a political resource in order to
perform institutions and other publics in attempts to
reorient the future.
398 D. Crouch, G. Parker / Geoforum 34 (2003) 395–408
3.1. Time, memory and heritage
We confront how time and past practice qua heritage,
and its portrayal as �heritage�, is being used explicitly todo service for political projects and practices; how the
construction and reconstruction of the past in the pre-
sent hold implicit political connotations. In terms of
time 3 we follow recent debates on the complexities,
flows and circulations of time enunciated by Bachelard
(Crang, 2001), where memory is open to persistent re-
figuring. In that sense where memory is counter-memory
both contra to the dominant and contra to alternativesand hence an interplaying of power-laden semiotics.
While there has been recognition in the literature that
heritage brings the past into the future and may �trans-port� the agent into the past (sic) there has been lessattention paid to the political possibilities of deploying
heritage oppositionally (Gramsci, 1971; Hollinshead,
1997; Parker and Wragg, 1999; Ravenscroft, 1999). This
type of retrieval and mobilisation presents opportunitiesto revisit, reconfigure and indicate alternative trajecto-
ries for the future. Specifically here, we focus on exam-
ples that relate to challenges about appropriate land use
and governance in the UK.
Our conceptualisation of politics is wide, incorpo-
rating personal actions taken and practiced as part of
lifestyle or belief systems. Using examples drawn from
recent political actions we show how groups and indi-viduals seek to mobilise parcels of �significant� time andrelated artefacts in order to progress and consolidate
their projects. In this vein it is noticeable how groups
such as Reclaim the Streets and The Land Is Ours
(TLIO) in the UK, draw on what has gone before: they
are �reclaiming� or reexamining the past, holding upversions and actions, texts and spaces as important
legitimation resources in arguing for political change(again, specifically for change in the governance of land
use). Of particular interest here is the process of re-
claiming or refiguring particular versions of heritage
into lay heritage through performance.
Heritage may be conceptualised as the crystallisation
of recurrent, dominant and �new� representations of pasttime, practice and place. Thus heritage can amount to
the temporal outcome of human projects (see Giddens,1984), alongside their relation with non-human pro-
jects, Philo and Wilbert (2000). Actors can call upon
temporally distant resources to mobilise and enact pre-
sent and future action and therefore to determine
futures, and thus put forward alternative claims to le-
gitimacy (Lowenthal, 1994). This may amount to a re-
3 There is a wider time dimension to be flagged here, but while not
underestimating its importance, this paper avoids an extensive
assessment of the wider debate about time (see, for example; Urry,
2000; Adam, 1995; Nowotny, 1994).
flexive post-historicist �past-modern� project where
fragments of history and particular spaces are intro-
duced and represented in the hope they have influence.
Place and materially land has become differentially andsubjectively reified, such valuations are intrinsic to the
range of activities that may be legitimately pursued on
particular sites. Attempts to challenge land use may be
read as challenges to �what society is� as much as at-tempts to reconstitute society into the future. At a basic
level then land is an anchor for both practice and poli-
tics. It can act as the stage for representations. Bender
(1993, p. 275) noted this in relation to differing con-ceptions of Stonehenge and how different conceptions of
the �preferred future� jostle for position and are deployed�out of time� and place:
. . .a cacophony of voices and landscapes throughtime, mobilising different histories, differentially
empowered, fragmented perhaps, but explicablewithin the historical particularity of British social
relations and a larger global economy.
Space, particularly land, can be a key object of this
process in the sense of the way that space may be
claimed and performed. Its making and representationsare refigured in a process of ownership. Ownership may
be considered in terms of space engaged in action and
ideology in a process of empowerment rather than in
terms of financial or legal position (Wiltshire et al., 2000;
Bromley, 1998). Thus the ownership of particular
readings, of spaces, may be contested. �Ownership� maybe conceptualised outside legal and financial territories,
as something (through which) individuals and identitiesare forged, or felt and where ownership may be under-
stood in terms of time and energy and be self- and inter-
subjectively-invested in processes of exploring differing
ideas of ownership. This implies the nascency or �be-comingness� of cultural ownership, territorialisation andthe development of alternative rights-claims. When
versions of ownership such as this are cornered in dis-
putes over matters of legal ownership, particularly in-tense identities may be forged. And as below competing
or oppositional claims are generated.
Cultural practice is central here. Archaeological
precedents were used to formalise �customs and traditioninto instruments of government and a defined code of
laws� (Bender, 1993, p. 260). Such formalisations are,however, predicated on dominant readings. People may
not feel able to participate in �regular� politics due totheir own feeling of (dis)empowerment and for reasons
of time, complexity and access. They may simply not be
inclined to do so by the available forms of politics they
know. Instead they may work through, and into, their
lives an everyday politics in ordinary activities and
practices of tactics in the negotiation and (re)discovery
of identities and intersubjectivities that include other
D. Crouch, G. Parker / Geoforum 34 (2003) 395–408 399
people and spaces. 4 In this sense, spatial practices may
overflow the boundaries of rationality and abstraction
and engage an embodied imagination through which
they may subvert ordinary relations, meanings andstructures. Therefore implicit in this discussion is also the
way that micro-politics influence policy and other prac-
tice (see Domosh, 1998; Latour, 1999; Parker, 1999a).
Our concerns over ownership become mobilised through
what Domosh (1998) has referred to as a micro-politics
of everyday life, whereby individuals, and groups, work
their identities, values, human and social relations
through a series of tactics, of representations. In this deCerteauian sense they may tactically appropriate arte-
facts, their meaning and their heritage. This propensity
emerges in the recent work on non-representational
geographies to which we now turn.
5 �Active�may be interrogated further, by this we infer the possibility
3.2. Non-representational theory and ‘everyday resis-
tance’
In the following paragraphs we discuss components
of a more practical and also substantively shared
working of the significance of heritage and its material
objects. Whilst everyday practice may be reflexive inways that remix, and contest, norms of identity and
reference, they may be also manoeuvred in a more
bodily way. Crossley (1995) has identified the signifi-
cance in everyday life of encountering the material world
through looking, listening and touching, whilst still at-
tached (at least semi-attached) to acquired, cultural and
habit-based forms of conduct. Making sense of the
world can happen, then, through a more sensuousdoing. The individual collects, lifts, experiences, bor-
rows, experiments, feels and imagines with numerous
resources. They are facets gathered in a practice and
expression of the self and in relation to others.
Artefacts and �heritage� are important in this process.As Radley (1990) has observed, the artefacts of our
surroundings, past and present, are used to inform our
memory that is always in process, in a process ofreworking our own and inter-subjective history. In-
dividuals encounter these artefacts in a bodily way,
we express ourselves �in the landscape� through ourphysical conduct. Individuals know, value and practice
the landscape through desires and emotions. History,
through its everyday presence metaphorically and ma-
terially is reworked and can be subverted. The embodied
encounter reworks our knowledge in the way thatShotter (1993) talks of ontological or practical know-
ledge, negotiating in a process that is simultaneously
discursive and pre-discursive, where mental reflexivity is
4 We may speculate that ethical or politicised consumption practice
is a reflection of this (see Parker, 1999b).
perpetually disturbed by embodied encounters (Crouch,
2001; Giddens, 1984).
Thus it is possible to refigure knowledge, memory and
pre-figured meaning through our own active (that ismental/bodily) involvement. Encounters like this provide
openings that can disrupt received wisdom [sic] more
actively than textual or �political� response alone. Whilstthere is a tendency in some literature on performance to
underplay and override the political potential of per-
formance (Dewesbury, 2000) there is an evident potential
in performance towards a negotiation of �holding on� and�going further�, the latter imbued with the possibility ofwhat Grosz (1999) calls �the unexpected�, the challenge,the political. Heritage is often pursued in the sense of
holding on (see Samuel, 1994; Lowenthal, 1985). In this
discussion however, it is particularly in terms of �goingfurther� and in engaging in micro-politics through per-formance that concerns us.
Thus it becomes possible to argue that landscape, its
sites and its representations of history, is practiced; notonly observed, read or understood. Practice includes
active bodily engagement, wandering round, knowing
�with both feet�. 5 We express ourselves through thelandscape we construct in the process of doing.
Individuals inhabit and constitute spaces in terms of
power relations. Crossley argued that through embodied
ways of living the individual provides �necessary groundthrough which to rethink� those relations (1995, pp. 59–60). Through practice they engage, discover, open, ha-
bitually practice and enact, reassure, become, create.
Furthermore there is the possibility of individuals
potentialising the unexpected, complexity and potenti-
alities (Dewesbury, 2000). These several strands of
happening are negotiated and �made sense� in complextime as body-thinking beings. This process of negotiat-
ing leaves room for the individual to �take it� where s/helikes. In the apparently routine there can be the trans-
formative, as Domosh suggests routine practices can
generate their own micro-politics (1998).
This may provide significant grounds for contestation
through landscape and the meaning constituted of
landscape through practice and bodily encounter. This
may be considered part of a diffuse citizenship where the
agent feels place and their own action in relation toplace, or territory. Spatial practice, political events and
artefacts from the past may be conjoined, synchronised
or otherwise assembled in order to do service for par-
ticular group interests. This may mean developing and
configuring ideology, not prefigured but adapted and
of a range of intents and realisations of doing. In this context we
include engagement physically with particular elements of the envi-
ronment. Sometimes such practice does �make� or structure place––thecustomary use of a footpath becoming a legally recognised Right of
Way is a good example of this.
400 D. Crouch, G. Parker / Geoforum 34 (2003) 395–408
�subverted�. The significance of refiguring and subvertingour own history is discussed by Game (1991) in terms of
places visited, landscapes encountered and the burden of
their mediated representations. Bodily engagement withplaces in her work involves a desire �to know what
cannot be seen� in a process of bodily, as well as mental/imaginative, discovery. Each of the landscapes she en-
counters has its official history mediated as �heritage�.For her, the complex and nuanced means of encounter
render those contexts, accessible in tourism brochures
and heritage trails, merely one resource of many, and a
resource that can be folded and torn, disrupted and castaside. However, in taking this argument further we do
not argue an opposition between the handling of rep-
resentations and the lay knowledge of performance.
Instead, representations are considered as negotiated
and negotiable; in performance, representation is refig-
ured and also (re)constituted (see Nash, 2000). In each
of the examples considered below earlier representations
are worked and engaged in taking them further, or indifferent directions, in a process of becoming and of
making (Grosz, 1999; Pred, 1984).
4. Narrative examples: digging in, up and back
We present two linked examples of the use of historyand heritage deployed to mediate political projects. Ele-
ments of both of the examples were engineered by
TLIO, a primarily UK-based land reform group and a
constituent part of the radical environmental movement
(see TLIO, 1998, 2000; Monbiot, 1998; Halfacree, 1999;
Chesters, 2000a; Parker, 2002). The examples illustrate
how the metaphor and practice of � digging� 6 is used topresent alternative possibilities for land and its gover-nance. This also presents us with the possibility of dig-
ging and other apparently mundane activities as latently
micro-political. We consider the overt use of heritage,
and deployment of time as heritage, through �persuasivestorytelling� (cf. Mandelbaum, 1991; Throgmorton,1992; Grant, 1994) and both past and future �claims-making� (Hannigan, 1995; Samuel, 1994; Parker, 2002).
6 Here �digging� is referred to in three ways; first as a practice derivedfrom the 17th Century radical group The Diggers or the True Levellers
led by Gerrard Winstanley (see Sabine, 1973). The name relates to their
challenge to established laws and custom by cultivating common land
in Surrey, and subsequently elsewhere i.e. through the act of digging
the earth. The second use of the term relates to the contemporary use
of the term in reflection of this historical politicisation of �digging�through recent attempts by radical groups to repoliticise the act;
linking digging to a red/green or red/black agenda for land use and
environmental consciousness. The third way (sic) is to think of history
as a resource that can be drawn upon differentially by multiple interests
to forward their claims or stabilise/destabilise networks, in this sense to
�dig-in to history� (see, for example; Hollinshead, 1997; Parker andWragg, 1999).
The examples indicate, in series rather than in parallel,
how heritage can be made to fit political/environmental
ends and how heritage and �doing� are of themselvesperformances of environmental and political agendas.Historical resources can thus act as reservoirs of la-
tent, preserved power. This may be particularly true
where texts and other artefacts, landscape, space, places
(qua heritage) can be represented consciously, subcon-
sciously (or unconsciously). In the first example it is the
existence and explicit use of historical texts that are
significant components in the process of garnering sup-
port and legitimising action––in providing the script andthe theatre. Where this is done consciously the reflexive
use of history can represent alternative practice and
place. The examples discussed relate to actually disput-
ing ownership, rights, and management and illustrate
�action spaces� (Goffman, 1967; Bey, 1991) as �historic�spaces.
History is frequently situated, idealised and practiced
in terms of space. Friedman (1994) sees the constructionof the past as �an act of self-identification� and from theperspective of interest groups and marginalized political
groups what better than to (re)appropriate space and
artefacts that have been implicated in accounts of
(radical) actions and then to reconstruct these compet-
ing histories, these imagined counter-memories? They
can then be performed as �living history� and as anexplicit challenge to the dominant anticipation of thefuture.
The mediation of history over-reaches the limits of
popular mediated culture and the role of formal
knowledge/information �filters� and becomes one of
mediated practice. Through practice that is at once
mental and embodied, individuals reflexively refigure
their worlds, interacting contexts that include their own
action (Crouch and Matless, 1996; Barnett, 1999). Game(1991) refers to this process as one of materialist semi-
otics, through which process, everyday or embodied
semiotics (see Crouch, 2000) is figured and refigured.
Historical artefacts, memories and learnt histories are
part of this reconfiguration. It is also possible that once
such possibilities are uncovered a desire for others to
know and learn, or to attack rival alternatives is raised.
Past actions become resources to be drawn upon forpolitical engagement. Two examples of such practices
are outlined in this section.
The narratives presented relate to alternative visions
and practices being enacted, or reenacted, to contest
dominant land practices through a mobilisation of both
radical history and a discourse of heritage. Both of the
examples relate to TLIO actions that have been effected
during the mid to late 1990s as part of a campaign toraise the profile of land rights issues in the UK (see
TLIO, 1995, 2000; Monbiot, 1998; also, Halfacree, 1999;
Jeffries, 2000). The first examines the way that historical
referents are employed in the contemporary in order to
D. Crouch, G. Parker / Geoforum 34 (2003) 395–408 401
further a particular interest. The focus is a �heritage� siteand texts that underpinned the authenticity of the site
and the mobilisation of a particular heritage. The sec-
ond relates to the iconography and use of a poster de-rived from the Dig On for Victory image produced
during WWII in the UK and to the practice of digging
by allotment holders.
9 The Stone was sculpted by the artist Andrew Whittle.10 One of the orators was the actor who played Winstanley in the
4.1. Diggers’350: ‘Doing Space’ at George Hill/St.
George’s Hill
On April 3rd 1999 a combined march, commemora-
tion event and occupation of St. George�s Hill in Surrey,England was orchestrated by a group known as Dig-
gers350, closely associated to the land reform group
TLIO (Bebbington, 1999). 7 They intended to practice
�Digging� by planting root crops and enacting and imi-tating the recorded practices of the Diggers or �TrueLevellers� of 1649–1651 (Petegorsky, 1995; Bradstock,2000).
In the mid-seventeenth century �George Hill� nearWeybridge, Surrey was open common land. By 1999 the
site, by then St. George�s Hill, had been developed into ahighly exclusive private estate and golf course, thus
making for an ironic, but powerful, juxtaposition to
historical events and practices that had taken place therein 1649. The primary motive for selecting the Hill was
that in 1649 it was recorded as being occupied by the
Diggers who controversially practiced � Digging�. 8 Theycultivated common land on the Hill as part of an at-
tempt to set up an early utopian commune. In particular
the 17thC Diggers aimed to settle and make productive
use of the common or �waste� land. Although short-lived(see Taylor, 2000; Petegorsky, 1995) their actions rep-resented a direct challenge to the emerging Cromwellian
regime over its position on land rights and the �stake� (ornascent social contract) that was to be afforded to the
common people of England, this perhaps an early ex-
ample of a group attempting to realise the dividend of
revolution. More radical than the Levellers, they aimed
to bring all (English) land into a form of �commonownership� (see Sabine, 1973; Bradstock, 1997, 2000;Boulton, 1999). Hence historians have viewed the Dig-
gers (and in particular one of its leaders Gerrard Win-
stanley) as early communists that are said to have
influenced Marx�s thinking (Bradstock, 1997, 2000).Gerrard Winstanley has been used as a focus for
TLIO action for reasons of his philosophy and practices.
7 Diggers350 were, in effect, a subgroup of TLIO with the organisers
of the April 1999 Diggers350 march also being involved with TLIO
(see TLIO, 1999, 1998). A precursive occupation of land nearby had
been actioned by TLIO in 1995 as one of their first land occupations
(see TLIO, 2000). The 350 relates to the 350th anniversary of the
Diggers beginning their commune at St. George�s Hill in 1649.8 Here Digging as the practice of the eponymous 17thC group.
This is underpinned by the numerous writings that he
produced and which have survived in textual form to be
amplified by historians (see Hill, 1996; Petegorsky, 1995;
Sabine, 1973). His pamphlets are drawn upon by TLIOand the Diggers350 group, among others, as a political
resource. For example TLIO use the quote �for action isthe life of all, and if thou dost not act, thou doest
nothing� (taken from Winstanley�s Watchword to the
City of London published in 1649, see TLIO, 1999, 2000;
Sabine, 1973) as a rallying or mobilising piece of
rhetoric. T-shirts produced for public sale by TLIO also
carry another of his quotes and the TLIO website isladen with references to both the Diggers and the Lev-
ellers. Winstanley�s texts were politically controversialwhen they were written and in 1999 they were again used
as political resources that the Diggers350 drew upon to
inform and legitimate their own actions. Additionally
their heritage credentials lent a further veneer of ac-
ceptability to their deployment and the associated ac-
tions during April 1999. The action is described below.
4.2. St. George’s Hill as George Hill
St. George�s Hill was occupied on April 3rd byaround 350 marchers bearing a carved stone memorial
(Fig. 1), 9 various banners and other carnival-style
paraphernalia (Lodge, 1999; Bebbington, 1999; TLIO,
1999). The group had assembled at nearby Walton and
had walked in procession to the Hill. In the months
prior to the action the procession and existence of the
Stone had been publicised widely by TLIO (1998, 1999).
On reaching the summit of the Hill (now a golfcoursefairway) the crowd gathered around the memorial stone
and for a short period readings of Winstanley�s workswere performed by various individuals. 10 Then some of
the crowd moved to a pre-planned 11 location to install
the memorial stone and begin an occupation of that part
of the Hill. The occupation site, 12 owned by the local
water company, was occupied for 12 days by a band of
people forming Diggers350 (see TLIO, 1999; SurreyHerald, 1999; Walton and Weybridge Informer, 1999).
This small group of �Diggers� stayed on site until theywere evicted. This generated favourable media coverage
in the local and national press. The water company, as
eponymous 1975 film directed by Kevin Brownlow. Songs dating from
the period were sung along with more recent Diggers related songs. It
may be observed that such enrolment/role-play added yet another layer
of mediation and performance to the event.11 The inner circle of Diggers350 had planned this part of the action
well in advance.12 The area used was a small wooded site amongst large houses on
the St. George�s Estate owned by the North West Surrey WaterCompany.
Fig. 1. The Winstanley Stone installed on St. George�s Hill, Surrey,December 2000. The inscription reads ‘Worke Together, Eate Bread
Together. Gerrard Winstanley––A True Leveller 1649’. The engraved
vegetables represent the peas, carrots and parsnips that Winstanley
mentions in his accounts of the commune.
13 This is particularly pertinent as Diggers350 were convinced that a
public footpath across the Hill had been obscured from the records
(i.e. the Definitive Map of public paths).14 A further chapter in the story of the Stone and the memoriali-
sation of the Diggers has since unfolded although it is beyond the
scope of this paper to describe it fully. In short the Stone has since been
found a permanent site on the edge of the Hill. Importantly for the
arguments in this paper the process was enabled partly through a
Local Heritage Initiative grant applied for by the local group (see
Parker, 2002; Surrey Comet, 2000b; Countryside Agency, 2000; Local
Heritage Initiative, 2001).15 A TLIO banner bearing the Winstanley quote referenced above
was among the slogans draped between the lamp posts lining
Parliament Square during Mayday 2000.
402 D. Crouch, G. Parker / Geoforum 34 (2003) 395–408
landowner, acted to get the Diggers group evicted from
the site; the subsequent High Court Order was served on
the 16th April and the occupiers moved off the site
peaceably. The main objectives of commemoration and
press coverage were fulfilled and the goodwill of at leastsome local people remained intact (TLIO, 1999; Surrey
Comet, 1999a,b; Surrey Herald, 1999).
The longer-term objective of Diggers350 to install the
Stone permanently on the Hill had not been achieved.
At the time of the eviction the Stone was taken from the
Hill by the Diggers350 and placed in storage at the local
museum. The occupation of the Hill had generated
much interest and courted controversy in the locality(Surrey Comet, 1999a, 2000a; Guardian, 1999a,b).
There was both opposition and support for the senti-
ment of enacting the practice of Digging and the events
were described by some as �living heritage�. The ownersof the golf course site had made it clear that they would
not want the Stone to be left on the Hill permanently. A
view echoed by the very local St. George�s Hill Resi-
dents� Association (Walton and Weybridge Informer,1999). They claimed that people would �trespass� 13 inorder to view the Stone. Other local people expressed
support for the memorialisation seeing the significanceand heritage �value� of Winstanley and the Diggers (seeSurrey Comet, 2000b). Over the following days and
weeks the objective of permanently memorialising the
Diggers on the Hill was supported by a significant
portion of the local population. A claim legitimised by
the establishment, not long afterwards, of a local group
with the primary purpose of finding a permanent home
for the Stone. 14
This example involves explicit mobilisation of his-
torical actions and spaces and their recreation, as well as
performing past practice through theatrical display leg-
itimated through the portrayal of local (and national/
global) �heritage�. This potentially radicalises heritage(while perhaps heritagising radicals) and, in this exam-
ple, challenges dominant views of land use and claims on
ownership. The Stone and other artefacts became rep-resentations and powerful in their own right. The per-
formance of stone-placing and Digging constructed a
tableau of theatrical representation in performance;
moreover this was embodied political practice and
statement of a counter-heritage.
The Diggers350 action can also be seen as an attempt
to refigure the identity of the space for the twelve days
and perhaps since then the imagination and under-standing of St. George�s Hill/George Hill has altered forthose at the action and for those reading about it.
Further radical usage of the Diggers as ideological
messenger (Hollinshead, 1997) illustrates how the St.
George�s Hill action has not neutralised the Diggers.The Diggers350 events instead played a part in protest
actions the following year, similar practices of �Digging�became central to the symbolism employed by anti-capitalist demonstrators at the Mayday 2000 rally in
central London and elsewhere around the UK (see
Chesters, 2000b). 15 In fact a few of the Diggers350
group had been informally involved in the planning
stages of parts of the Mayday demonstrations. In that
instance symbolically digging up the turf of Parliament
Fig. 2. (a) The WWII �Dig On� image by Peter Fraser. (b) The 1990s�Dig In� image produced by Trystan Mitchell.
D. Crouch, G. Parker / Geoforum 34 (2003) 395–408 403
Square, London, relaying it on the road and planting
seeds and plants signified resistance to unchecked �cap-italist development� (Guardian, 2000; see also Fig. 2babove). This was Digging on the very doorstep of power.
In this sense to �Dig� became a practice whose semioticswas one of a powerful act of resistance made distinctivein time–space and through a particular ownership. This
motif is invoked in a political refiguring of a very
different history, performed in everyday practice and
represented in political mobilisation. Thus the micro-
politics of the example can be seen as one that has sig-
nificance on numerous levels. It involved a perfor-
mance and a �doing of space� by the participants of theDiggers350 events. It provided the material for an am-plification of the Diggers to a wider audience of �par-ticipants� through the print media and it strengthened aconnection with local people who have become more
interested in �the Diggers� and their message.
4.3. ‘Dig in for history’: a politics of doing
This example relates to the wider heritage, politics
and practice of allotments (see; for example, Crouch and
Ward, 1997; Crouch, 1999). The narrative relates to
digging as a mundane part of what allotment holding
means. In a recent poster used to campaign for allot-
ments in Britain by TLIO the icon depicts an allotmentholder digging up tarmac to create crops in a perfor-
mance of power. The image in question very noticeably
focuses on the act of digging and the spade held by the
digger. Significantly the image is accompanied by the
banner words �Dig in for Victory�. The original poster(Fig. 2a) was created by Peter Fraser and adorned public
spaces around the UK during the Second World War.
The later image (Fig. 2b) was designed by TrystanMitchell and has been extensively by TLIO (1998, 2000).
Allotment politics have a long history that includes the
post-English Civil War Diggers, as discussed above, and
subsequent land movements to secure places to grow
food after the alienation of common ground during the
Enclosures (see Hill, 1996; Hall and Ward, 1998;
Douglas, 1976). Through the nineteenth century the
plight of rural labour combined with struggles to secureland to grow food amidst the onset of extensive urban
industrialisation (Crouch and Ward, 1997). Allotments
were the subject of more top-down politicisation during
the 1960s when a Government Inquiry (the Thorpe
(1969) Report) presumed consensus and sought to ra-
tionalise, organise, tidy and bring order to allotment
land and its use, recommendations typified by (failed)
appeals to impose uniform design on allotment sites (seeCrouch, 2002).
Politics on allotments take three forms. One is the
often-staged politics of contesting proposals to build on
them. This politics can involve the plotters in political
organisation, working out schemes of action in order to
debate, to protest, to publicise their case. A more ev-
eryday politics is the more diffuse practice of negotia-
tion; negotiating with other plotholders on issues ofwhat to do with communal areas of sites, over contested
issues of growing plants and using the ground. These
concerns can reveal deep tensions between, for example,
ways of growing things that may be felt to have an in-
fluence beyond the individual plot e.g. the blowing of
pesticide sprays or, organically tended �weeds� blowingseeds onto neighbouring plots.
16 This is resonant of �plotlands� landscapes of the early 20th century(see Hall and Ward, 1998) and contemporary low impact settlements
proposed by authors such as Fairlie (1996). In both forms, where
individuals build their own homes on their own small parcel of land.
404 D. Crouch, G. Parker / Geoforum 34 (2003) 395–408
Allotments began to attract the curiosity of the eco-
logically politically active in the 1970s. Traditional
plotholders, who identified more with the work allot-
ments required than with a broader politics that is im-plicit in an environmental campaign, were joined on the
plots by more ideologically committed plotholders.
These shifts intensified during the last decade and set the
scene for current contestation. Throughout these de-
cades local allotment movements often became fiercely
active and articulate in defending and promoting their
perspective and their rights, still in law, to be able to
cultivate a piece of land. In order to promote this, theyhave rediscovered a piece of official, institutional history
and remade it in their ideology. This brings together the
two dimensions of history that are the concern of this
paper. History can be refigured as a very different poli-
tics. That history is identified also through an appar-
ently simple, everyday micro-politics of working land in
the exploration of the self, expressively engaging the
material world. This may be informed by the encounterthat results from that practice; reworking that encounter
into a development of ideology that has brought in-
creasing mutual recognition between those habitually
politicised and those who �merely� wanted to cultivatethe ground.
Furthermore there is a more intimate politics of ne-
gotiation with oneself, developing ideas and attitudes to
using land and developing values about non-commodityvalues, forms of human relationships, love and care
(Gorz, 1984) and actions and ways of doing things.
Since many plotholders have little desire towards poli-
tics they frequently explore their own agency through
these apparently softer, but possibly no less significant
practices. Everyday practice requires physical, bodily
encounter that can rupture a learnt way of �makingsense� because it uses non-linguistic encounter, feelings,emotions, and provides conduits through which our
desires can be expressed, through our encounter with
space and other subjects. Here it is possible for indi-
viduals alone and inter-subjectively to refigure identity
and how the world makes sense, to take direct action in
terms of the environment and to negotiate aspects of the
world through their own action. Many allotment hold-
ers do not start with a distinctive politics nor work a plotto pursue an ideology, yet many discover values about
land through what they do (Crouch and Ward, 2002).
As Oakes (1997) argues �. . .it is the deeper realisation ofone�s contradictory subjectivity that informs action
more than a priori political consciousness�. Carol(quoted in Crouch and Ward, 2002) expresses this per-
formatively:
Working outdoors feels much better for you some-
how. . . more vigorous than day-to-day housework,much more variety and stimulus. The air is always
different and alerts the skin. . . Unexpected scents
are brought by breezes. Only when on your hands
and knees do you notice insects and other small
wonders. My allotment is a central part of my life.
I feel strongly that everyone should have some ac-cess to land, to establish a close relationship with
the earth, something increasingly missing in our so-
ciety, but essential as our surroundings become
more artificial.
In �doing� her allotment her ideas develop and valuesare grasped through performance or embodied prac-
tice, thus constituting her ontological knowledge. Her
knowledge are opened up through what she does and the
�feeling of doing� it engenders in her. Each time she doesthis it is the performing that reasserts her beliefs and
enlivens them, moves her on, in a process of becoming.
4.4. Representing digging
During the Second World War the British Govern-
ment encouraged people to dig. In the First World War
era allotments signified the fight for food amidst exter-
nal difficulties and containment (see Douglas, 1976). As
mentioned, in the early 1940s the Government used a
close-up photograph of a boot being pushed against a
spade into the earth, exertive and proud (see Fig. 2a).
This icon and its meaning are significantly reworked inthe new image in �Dig in for Victory� (Fig. 2b). Thedepicted digger (sic) is young, androgynous, resonant of
a new generation of more overtly politically active
plotholders. Practice is represented in the image to be
digging up tarmac, an icon of capitalist and non-
ecological development of the land. The foreground is
planted with crops that lead off to a background of
windmills and a teepee. 16 One representation is refig-ured into another, but threads of the prior representa-
tion remain: the significance of land, the empowerment
of its practice.
The new �fight� is for land that this image represents,although here exaggerated by �new age� symbolism, for�ordinary� people to use. The image asserts the signifi-cance of political ideology and attitude. The political
importance and depth of feeling associated with land asheritage and the right to grow food remains. Whilst the
representation of gardener, spade and earth character-
ised consensual national identity in the original poster,
in this reworking this combination represents internal
conflict. Although the new poster is used by a more
overtly �political� campaign organisation, it mirrors theexpressed feeling of a much wider population involved
D. Crouch, G. Parker / Geoforum 34 (2003) 395–408 405
with allotments today. Many of these people are not
habitually or ideologically inclined to a formal politics.
However, through their discovery of the significance of
working with land, of being empowered through aphysical practice, discovering non-commodity values
and relations, have constituted their own politics and
ideology and identified with the more overtly political
side of the movement. It is this politics that underlies
the TLIO/Diggers350 action on St. George�s Hill. TheDiggers350 used heritage and created artefacts (e.g. the
memorial stone) to amplify and legitimise a land occu-
pation that was designed to �show-off� Digging and raiseconsciousness about broader land-related/environmen-
tal issues to a wider public.
5. Refiguring heritage in new political mobilisations
The appropriation of historical action, texts, arte-
facts, the media and place may be read as discursive
practices aimed towards or embodying preferred fu-
tures. Here they are cast as the performance of counter-
memory (Hartsock, 1987). Mandelbaum (1991) sees
such an approach as one (while involving the presenta-
tion of alternative histories) that is part of a morecommon strategy whereby discourses and alternative
�voices� are competitively mobilised as part of �persuasivestorytelling about the future� (see also Throgmorton,1992). In the second example there is an emphasis on the
performance of heritage and of the appropriation of
heritage through performance, as well as the refiguring
of representations. Moreover the second cameo expli-
cates embodied practice or performance that may bemade in an apparently mundane doing, and as a route to
ideas of ownership––lay constitutions of citizenship and
ideology in a performance of practical ontology. In both
examples we argue that heritage was drawn into and
associated to the actions and the artefacts as a legiti-
mising discourse. It is used to soften and appeal to au-
diences that view heritage as benign or somnambulant
and who might be open to learning something aboutthemselves by examining the past. In this sense it is a
method of preparing another�s counter-memory so thatit is imbued with a form of cultural capital. Thus the
TLIO approach invites politicisation through both ac-
tually doing, and also through the mediation of that
doing to a wider audience. In each example practice and
representations are mutually engaged and produced.
Popular imaginings are more and more weigheddown and yet supplied by the past and by the burden of
recorded and refigured history. We think that history is
used as a method of attempting to delineate the pre-
ferred future and that, after Benjamin; by brushing
against the grain alternative, perhaps radical, futures are
groomed (as well as dominant histories and identities
being otherwise protected). Such a process of imagi-
neering the future using the past to contest politics of the
present involves the representation of place and prac-
tices as multiple time–spaces; the St. George�s Hill, asgated community becomes (again) George Hill, the com-mune. The presentation of pasts which destabilise the
present therefore aim to influence and disturb power
relations through the representation of history. Another
typical example might involve a local group drawing on
recovered �heritage� to resist the plans for a development(cf. Throgmorton, 1992; Parker and Wragg, 1999). Re-
sultant negotiations may lead to compromise, conflict or
both and may provide further knowledge upon which tobase further contestations.
Engaging theory on performance presents everyday
history-as-knowledge as a basis for politics and micro-
politics, freeing analysis from the limits of official and
received histories and overt or institutional politics. No
longer can we adequately grasp versions of heritage
adequately in texts alone, but also in performance. This
has been discerned by at least some groups who performtheir politics. Even radical �revolutionary� heritage canmake for digestible and persuasive political storytelling.
The struggle to control history is in the present through
everyday mediated practice. Actions engaged in may
enable a relearning of skills that dominant power rela-
tions (and readings of history) have otherwise margi-
nalized or (exclusively) commodified. This enriches the
possibility of inter-subjective history learnt and workedthrough local projects and incidental events. Here they
are happenings focused and mobilised through the re-
figuring of old representations (Crang, 1996, 1998; Local
Heritage Initiative, 2001). Thus heritage and �doing�maybe both political statement and learning process. At
other times and in other contexts perhaps neither out-
come (qua position taking or policy change) will obvi-
ously result.It appears however, that knowledges and skills
transmitted through practice may be important forms of
learning and can challenge other modes of being and
doing and their outcomes. Thus a politics of mediation
is a politics about the learning and relearning of practice
and wider behaviours. Heritage becomes a contempo-
rary process of ownership and practice where authen-
ticity is refigured (see Crouch, 1999). The discourse ofheritage can provide a legitimating and a normalising
discourse for alternative ways of being and doing: en-
gaging with nature and society and challenging domi-
nant modes of practice. Within this proposition the
examples above have implicated a range of artefacts in
the performances discussed; landscape, tools, crops and
plants are crucial objects in the mediation of the
counter-memory.�Digging-up� history can therefore be read as a refig-
uring of identities. This refiguring is a reflexive process,
engaging mental reflexivity (Crouch and Matless, 1996)
and relates to more recent work on practice, embodied
406 D. Crouch, G. Parker / Geoforum 34 (2003) 395–408
semiotics and on active citizenship (Crouch, 2003; Par-
ker, 2002; Matless, 1998). It also implies that represen-
tation and representing overlap and that embodied
semiotics are processual. There are at least two mainlessons here. First that people use and appropriate,
contest and challenge authority using a complex range
of resources and use increasingly complex and subtle
networks. The second is that ebbs and flows of politics
and practice are the very stuff of culture and therefore of
a diffuse politics. Redoing or consciously reenacting can
be but a step away from doing. Both can provide in-
spiration and an embodiment of cultural, social andpolitical values and a �making sense�. They also indicatethat visual iconography can be transformed into aids for
a different micro-political agency. This interpretation
presents new grounds through which to consider the
everyday use of one political iconography in favour of
another, of one representation of citizenship to a con-
temporary, dynamic present. Representations can be
embodied and signified in performance and this per-formance can constitute new resources and versions of
representation.
The notion of embodied and performed space, lay
geographies and �making sense�, alongside representa-tions, can inform broader conceptualisations of citizen-
ship (Thrift, 1996; McKian, 1995; De Certeau, 1992;
Shotter, 1993). We contend that on some level all action
is in some sense �political� in, for example, that agencycan both challenge and legitimate institutional struc-
tures and outcomes. Further, mediated politics can en-
courage certain practices to be appropriated for more
overt political use (and in other contexts for commercial
purposes e.g. the tourism and advertising industries). In
this paper one aspect of such political action has been
focused and situated, indeed choreographed, in cultural
and geographical theory.The insights discussed prompt a wider avenue for
research to understand how exhortations and examples
of practice are performed for political amplification or
how practice influences or activates the political con-
sciousness of the agent. In consequence, attention in
politics and in heritage studies to the way things are
done and claims are made, is necessary in order to fol-
low through on issues and projects that challengedominant positions; to see how they are received, in-
corporated, refigured, resisted and mobilised vis-�aa-visdominant positions. In addition this requires attention
to �work done� in micro-political practice and discourseas well as dominant politics in repositioning and refig-
uring processes. This �going further� appears as a �goingback�. To many perhaps a seductive, comforting play onthe appeal of heritagised counter-memory.The process of association and formulation of coali-
tions using history as a resource can, perhaps, destabilise
the popular grasp of what heritage may be, and involve
a range of tactics, ploys and arguments. Actors have
pulled in resources (e.g. artefacts, places and texts) in
constructing and legitimating a �heritage discourse� thatlegitimises, but may possibly obscure, a more radical
intent, or a more radical implication. The Diggers bringa narrative to bear that speaks to the present, but which
presents the counter-memory as a persuasive storytelling
or performance about the future. The predictability of
the re-presentation of selective heritage that people also
�live� themselves in their own practices is deserving ofinvestigation. This attention to everyday practices and
their potential for refiguring space includes the popular
use of textual resources and their repositories such aslibraries or the Internet (as Crang, 1996 has explored
with regard to local history workshops), as well as the
media and elite representations of heritage and their
contestation. We feel that the process of unravelling
history and assumed truths, and also the notion of �be-coming citizen� may be better understood through thisapproach.
In the light of this we highlight the need to deepenunderstandings of both memory and counter-memory.
The partiality and selectivity of memory and counter-
memory as used here may be better expressed for our
work in terms of �encountered memory�. Furthermorethis suggests considerable space for further evaluation of
�doing� through a close investigation of contents andprocesses across a plurality of practices/claims/authen-
ticities; investigating the claims and processes of power,ownership, and elites; and how empowerment, claims
and identities are being constructed and contested.
There is, for example, strong evidence that allotment
holders are becoming more radical in their land claims
(Crouch, 1999; Wiltshire et al., 2000). They are more
informed and intuitive in negotiating claims with sur-
rounding regulators. Local people living near to St.
George�s Hill or others visiting the memorial stone(virtually or otherwise) that features in this paper may
carry away or further explore the ideas of the Diggers,
or perhaps question dominant assumptions about spaces
and practices. In a more dissipated way the action of
digging for those, may trigger memory or significance
beyond the mundane. As argued here the degree to
which �staged� and otherwise embodied performancesand their amplification penetrate everyday discourse,lives, practices and reflexivities amongst a wider popu-
lation, and the processes of flow, trajectory and multiple
impacts and intimations of history deserve to be further
investigated.
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