This paper reviews existing academic interpretations of ‘urban exploration’ and argues that focus to date on identifying and celebrating the transgressive and/or emancipatory dimension of this practice has failed to account for the taxonomic and survey-related orientation evident in the author's study of accounts of exploration of Cold War bunkers posted on urban exploration Internet forums. The author's study suggests that the survey and veneration of place evident in these accounts may be a more significant motivation for urban exploration as practised than psychogeographical revere and/or transgressive incursion into space and place.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AugéM, 1995Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity translated by HoweJ, (Verso, London).
2.
BachelardG, 1969The Poetics of Space (Beacon, Boston, MA).
3.
BakhtinM, 1984Rabelais and His World translated by IswolskyH, (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN).
4.
BellM M, 1997, “The ghosts of place”Theory and Society26813–836.
5.
BenjaminW, 1983Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism (Verso, London).
6.
BeyH, 1991T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism (Autonomedia, New York), http://hermetic.com/bey/taz_cont.html.
7.
BlainJWallisR J, 2009, “Beyond sacred: Recent pagan engagements with archaeological monuments—current findings of the sacred sites project”The Pomegranate11(1) 97–123.
8.
BordenI, 2001Skateboarding, Space and the City: Architecture and the Body (Berg, Oxford).
9.
BourdieuP, 1977Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge).
10.
BourdieuP, 2010Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Routledge, London).
11.
CarmanJ, 2002, “Paradox in places: Twentieth-century battlefield sites in long-term perspective”, in Material Culture: The Archaeology of Twentieth Century Conflict Eds SchofieldJJohnsonW GBeckC M, (Routledge, London) pp 9–21.
CroceB, (Dir.), 2008aSecrets of Underground Britain. Volume 2: Wartime Secrets (Readers' Digest Association Inc., London).
14.
CroceB, (Dir.), 2008bSecrets of Underground Britain. Volume 3: Modern Mysteries (Readers' Digest Association Inc., London).
15.
de CerteauM, 1988The Practice of Everyday Life (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA).
16.
de CerteauMGiardLMayolP, 1998The Practice of Everyday Life. Volume 2: Living and Cooking translated by TomasikT J, (University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis, MN).
DuncanA, 2009Secret London: Exploring the Hidden City, with Original Walks and Unusual Places to Visit (New Holland, London).
19.
EdensorT, 2005Industrial Ruins—Space, Aesthetics and Materiality (Berg, Oxford).
20.
FantinattoR, (Dir.), 2005Echoes of Forgotten Places: Urban Exploration, Industrial Archaeology, and the Aesthetics of Decay (Micromedia, Canada).
21.
FishS, 1980Is There a Text in this Class?—The Authority of Interpretive Communities (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA).
22.
FoucaultM, 1986, “Of other spaces”Diacritics1622–27.
23.
GaneM, 1999, “Paul Virilio's bunker theorising”Theory, Culture and Society1685–102.
24.
GillochG, 1997Myths and Metropolis—Walter Benjamin and the City (Polity Press, Cambridge).
25.
GillilanL, 2009, “End of the runway”, in The Guardian and Observer Guides to Secret Britain—Hundreds of Hidden Things to See and Do … Ed. BowesE, (Guardian Media Group, London) Part 2, page 51.
26.
HaakonsenM, 2009, “Experiencing German bunkers in Denmark: Space and performance in commemoration”, in War Fronts: Interdisciplinary Perspectives On War, Virtual War and Human Security Ed. GertzN, (The Interdisciplinary Press, Oxford), http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/id-press/ebooks/war-fronts/.
27.
HayesB, 2005Infrastructure—A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape (W W Norton, New York).
LanyadoB, 2009, “Down the back of the city”, in The Guardian and Observer Guides to Secret Britain—Hundreds of Hidden Things to See and Do … Ed. BowesE, (Guardian Media Group, London) Part 1, page 3.
30.
LefebvreH, 1996Writings on Cities (Blackwell, Oxford).
LongD, 2007Tunnels, Towers and Temples: London's 100 Strangest Places (The History Press, London).
33.
LuckhurstR, 2002, “Contemporary London gothic and the limits of the ‘spectral turn’”Textual Practice16527–546.
34.
LyngS, 1990, “Edgework: A social psychological analysis of voluntary risk taking”The American Journal of Sociology95851–886.
35.
MerrillL L, 1989The Romance of Victorian Natural History (Oxford University Press, Oxford).
36.
MouldO, 2009, “Parkour, the city, the event”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space27738–750.
37.
NaughtieJ, 2009, “Interview with Professor Richard Holmes in the Cabinet War Rooms”The Today Programme BBC Radio 4, 3 June.
38.
PoeE A, 2003, “The man of the crowd”, in The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings (Penguin, London) pp 131–140.
39.
PinderD, 2005, “Arts of urban exploration”Cultural Geographies12383–411.
40.
PresdeeM, 2000Cultural Criminology and the Carnival of Crime (Routledge, London).
41.
SchacterR, 2008, “An ethnography of iconoclash”Journal of Material Culture13(1) 35–61.
42.
SheffD, 1999Game Over: Nintendo's Battle to Dominate Videogames (Hodder and Stoughton, London).
43.
SimmelG, 2009[1903], “The metropolis and mental life”, in Sociological Theory in the Classical Era: Text and Readings Eds EdlesL DAppelrouthS, (Sage, London) pp 316–323.
44.
SinclairI, 1997Lights Out for the Territory (Granta, London).
45.
SinclairI, 2009, “A world you never knew existed”, in The Guardian and Observer Guides to Secret Britain—Hundreds of Hidden Things to See and Do … Ed. BowesE, (Guardian Media Group, London) Part 1, pp 4–6.
