In my previous essay, I covered the introduction of recently published \u2018Reterritorializing Linguistic Landscapes: Questioning Boundaries and Opening Spaces\u2019 edited by David Malinowski and Stefania Tufi. In summary, I both agreed and disagreed with their statements. I was happy to see the work Gilles Deleuze and F\u00e9lix Guattari being discussed in the introduction, but I didn\u2019t end up endorsing their take (not that they need my endorsement, of course). My main gripe was, in the end, that \u2018landscape\u2019 wasn\u2019t discussed in their introduction, despite being discussed by Deleuze and Guattari in \u2018A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia\u2019 in plateau seven, \u2018Year Zero: Faciality\u2019, and being conceptually highly important to their take on how reality is constructed or assembled according to the abstract machine of faciality\/landscapity that sets its parameters so that people come to see the world in a certain way and desire to identify through this way of seeing. In short, faciality (face) and landscapity (landscape) deal with how people\u2019s identities come to be constructed. That said, I noted in the first paragraph of that essay that, perhaps, the editors, Malinowski and Tufi, left some of this to other contributors, so as to not to steal their thunder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, this time I\u2019ll look at a couple of the book chapters, those indicated by the editors as building on the work of Deleuze and Guattari (albeit not exclusively so, of course). These include chapter nine, \u2018F\/Anfield: Banners, Tweets, and \u201cOwning\u201d Football\u2019s Linguistic Landscape\u2019 by Frank Monaghan and \u2018The Semiotics of Spatial Turbulence: Re\/Deterritorializing Israel-Palestine at a South African University\u2019 by Natalija Cerimaj, Tommasso Milani and Dimitris Kitis. I won\u2019t go into detail in this essay as I\u2019m sure you can do yourself a favor and read the book chapters yourself, as you should, instead of simply taking my word for it. That\u2019s what I\u2019d do (as I\u2019m exactly that type of a person who looks up some reference, only to end up reading that text instead, followed by looking up something referenced in that text, and so on, and so on, and, perhaps even writing about some seemingly random stuff).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyway, to summarize Monaghan\u2019s book chapter, he deals with who gets to define the everyday encounters with football, wherever that may take place, for example at a stadium, at a fan shop or online. He (177) uses the Deleuzo-Guattarian concepts of de<\/em>– and reterritorialization<\/em> to explain this. The gist of this is that due to capitalism (that mixed regime of signs<\/em> discussed in the previous essay) much of what used to be considered as \u2018owned\u2019 by the people who support football clubs, in the sense that they consider them their<\/em> clubs, has now been commodified, turned into something that anyone can buy into, assuming that they have the capital to do so, you know kinda like the \u2018oh-how-rebellious-of-you\u2019 Che Guevara t-shirts that I alluded to in my previous essay. It turns the clubs that people consider(ed) theirs<\/em> into something like global brand of soda. People are used to identifying themselves through these clubs by supporting them, but the trend is that supporting a club is treated like buying a globalized product. As he (182-183, 191-192) goes on to point out, the supporters are not keen on being treated as mere customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His book chapter is not about explaining how all that works, in general, that\u2019s just the gist of it. He (178-179) turns his attention to how people seek to counter or subvert this trend that seeks to commodify their beloved clubs, in this case the Liverpool Football Club (LFC or just Liverpool). It\u2019s rather obvious that this has to do with identify formation, should the supporters get to have a say what a club stands for or should the club owners and investors get to do that for the supporters. This is very much a question of \u2018who\u2019 gets to have a say, to exercise power<\/em>, which leads us to ask the question of \u2018why\u2019 that might be the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When accounting for his own position in all this, he (179) refers to an assemblage as \u201c\u2018A semiotic system<\/em>, a regime of signs and content [that] becomes a pragmatic system, actions and passions\u2019\u201d. This is parsed from the conclusion of \u2018A Thousand Plateaus\u2019 and I say parsed because it\u2019s a mere fragment of the original sentence, in which Deleuze and Guattari (504) state that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe reason that the assemblage is not confined to the strata is that expression in it becomes a semiotic system<\/em>, a regime of signs, and content becomes a pragmatic system<\/em>, actions and passions.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The problem with Monaghan\u2019s (179) use of this statement is that it conflates the two sides of assemblages<\/em>. The original is very clear about distinguishing a semiotic system<\/em>, a regime of signs<\/em> (aka collective assemblages of enunciation<\/em> or semiotization<\/em>), and a pragmatic system<\/em>, of actions <\/em>and passions <\/em>(aka regime of bodies<\/em> and machinic assemblages of bodies or desire<\/em>). The former has to do with forms of expression<\/em> and the latter with forms of content<\/em> to use the terms they use in the context of stratification<\/em>. In Foucauldian terms, the former has to do with discursive formations<\/em> (statements<\/em>) and the latter with non-discursive formations<\/em> (visibilities<\/em>). This is becomes very clear when take into account the two previous sentences by Deleuze and Guattari (504):<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cInasmuch as they are territorial, assemblages still belong to the strata. At least they pertain to them in one of their aspects, and it is under this aspect that we distinguish in every assemblage content from expression. It is necessary to ascertain the content and the expression of each assemblage, to evaluate their real distinction, their reciprocal presupposition, their piecemeal insertions.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Indeed, one should not reduce assemblages <\/em>to only one side of the assemblages. They (504) add this in the following sentence:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is the double articulation face-hand, gesture-word, and the reciprocal presupposition between the two. This is the first division of every assemblage: it is simultaneously and inseparably a machinic assemblage and an assemblage of enunciation. In each case, it is necessary to ascertain both what is said and what is done.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n So, if you follow them, how they (504) define assemblages<\/em>, you can\u2019t just address one or the other. You have to do both. They (504) continue:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere is a new relation between content and expression that was not yet present in the strata: the statements or expressions express incorporeal transformations that are \u2018attributed\u2019 as such (properties) to bodies or contents.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In other words, on one side you have intermingling of bodies <\/em>and on the other side surface effects<\/em>, which, while distinct, cannot be neatly separated from one another, as I mentioned in the previous essay. You need this in-between the two (think of the M\u00f6bius strip). They (504) go on:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn the strata, expressions do not form signs, nor contents pragmata<\/em>, so this autonomous zone of incorporeal transformations expressed by the former and attributed to the latter does not appear.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n They (504) specify this by stating that \u201cregimes of signs develop only in the alloplastic or anthropomorphic strata\u201d. For them (504), this includes territorialized <\/em>animals as markers of territory, such as territorial-pissings, because for that to make sense (yes, sense<\/em>, like I discussed in the previous essay), there needs to be some system <\/em>or a regime<\/em>, otherwise it\u2019s just random urination. Conversely, regimes of signs<\/em> \u201cdo not permeate all of the strata, and overspill each of them\u201d, as that\u2019s an illusion, as they (63, 504) go on to point out. Elsewhere in the book, they (65) explain this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShould we say that there are signs on all the strata, under the pretext that every stratum includes territorialities and movements of deterritorialization and reterritorialization? This kind of expansive method is very dangerous, because it lays the groundwork for or reinforces the imperialism of language, if only by relying on its function as universal translator or interpreter. It is obvious that there is no system of signs common to all strata, not even in the form of a semiotic \u2018chora theoretically prior to symbolization.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n At this stage, it\u2019s worth making note of what they (65) call \u201cthe imperialism of language\u201d. Anyway, they (65) further clarify this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt would appear that we may accurately speak of signs only when there is a distinction between forms of expression and forms of content that is not only real but also categorical. Under these conditions, there is a semiotic system on the corresponding stratum because the abstract machine has precisely that fully erect posture that permits it to \u2018write,\u2019 in other words, to treat language and extract a regime of signs from it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Make note of how they emphasize that signs <\/em>only appear when there\u2019s not only a real distinction between forms of expression<\/em> (discursive formations<\/em>) and forms of content<\/em> (non-discursive formations<\/em>) but also a categorical one. To use an example that they (41) use, when we are dealing with a geological stratum<\/em>, the process of sedimentation, followed by the process of folding (or cementation, hardening and welding of sediment into rock), signs are not involved. Anyway, the latter sentence here (65) deals with the imperialism of language, how it appears to be the case that signs are on all strata<\/em>, even though that\u2019s not the case. They (65) further specify this problem by arguing that it\u2019s not only that we have to confront the imperialism of language but, more importantly, the imperialism of the signifier <\/em>which operates within language and thus threatens all (alternative) regimes of signs<\/em> (hence their aim to go beyond signification, as exemplified by their use of different terminology, content, expression, substance and form). The (65) rephrase the whole issue:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe question here is not whether there are signs on every stratum but whether all signs are signifiers, whether all signs are endowed with signifiance, whether the semiotic of signs is necessarily linked to a semiology of the signifier.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n They (65) add that if you go with semiology <\/em>(mainstream linguistics), this may happen:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThose who take this route may even be led to forgo the notion of the sign, for the primacy of the signifier over language guarantees the primacy of language over all of the strata even more effectively than the simple expansion of the sign in all directions.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n This results in all illusion that everything takes place within language, that all there is is language, to use the mangled version of the claim made by Jacques Derrida (to be clear, he never actually said such). This is what Deleuze and Guattari combat in \u2018A Thousand Plateaus\u2019 as they insist on addressing bodies <\/em>(corporeality<\/em>) in all analyses. Their (66) take on signifier <\/em>can be summarized by this statement:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere is only one thing that can be said about the signifier: it is Redundancy, it is the Redundant. Hence its incredible despotism, and its success.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Here they (65) refer to what is known as the (infinite) chain of signification<\/em> or deferral of meaning. This is also pertains to how the signifying regime of signs<\/em> is said to have a central figure, a despot<\/em>, as they (115) point out elsewhere in the book. They (65) also warn no to simply consider words as signifiers <\/em>and things as signifieds<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right, back to the conclusion where it is added by the two (504) that in addition to this first (horizontal) axis that pertains forms of expression<\/em> (collective assemblages of enunciation or semiotization<\/em>, regimes of signs<\/em>) and forms of content<\/em> (machinic assemblages of bodies<\/em>, regimes of bodies<\/em>), there is another axis (vertical) that pertains to their territoriality<\/em>, de- and reterritorialization<\/em>. As expressed elsewhere in the book by the two (41), one axis deals with forms<\/em>, which \u201cimply a code, modes of coding and decoding\u201d, and the other axis deals with substances <\/em>that \u201crefer to territorialities and degrees of territorialization and deterritorialization.\u201d Then there\u2019s also the abstract machine<\/em> (or diagram<\/em>, if we use the Foucauldian term for it), double-articulation<\/em> and plane of consistency<\/em>, but I won\u2019t explain these here. I just wanted to clarify things with regard to assemblages<\/em>, how they are tetravalent, as expressed by the two (89). To make sense of tetravalence, imagine a horizontal line cut by a vertical line, which results in these four squares: substance of expression<\/em>, form of expression, substance of content<\/em> and form content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right, back to Monaghan (179) who relies on another definition of assemblages<\/em>, as \u201c\u2018complex constellation of objects, bodies, expressions, qualities, and territories that come together for varying periods of time to ideally create new ways of function\u2019\u201d, as defined by Graham Livesey (18) in the \u2018Deleuze Dictionary\u2019. I mean this is not a bad definition, in the sense that it does include both sides of assemblages and how it\u2019s not static, but rather dynamic (or metastable). That said, I\u2019m not really convinced. It\u2019s hard to say whether Monaghan grasps the tetravalence of assemblages and how it is related to abstract machines<\/em>, planes of consistency<\/em> (or immanence<\/em>) and double-articulation<\/em>. Maybe. Maybe not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To explain what he means by linguistic landscape<\/em>, he (179-180) refers to an existing definition provided by Adam Jaworski and Crispin Thurlow in \u2018Introducing Semiotic Landscapes\u2019 as included as the introductory chapter to their edited book \u2018Semiotic Landscapes: Language, Image, Space\u2019. They (2) state that they \u201ctake semiotic landscape <\/em>to mean, in the most general sense, any (public) space with visible inscription made through deliberate human intervention and meaning making.\u201d Monaghan (179) opts to retain the moniker linguistic landscape but adopts this wider definition that is not exclusively concerned with language. What I find problematic with this definition is that it still echoes the frequently cited definition by Rodrigue Landry and Richard Bourhis, as included in their article \u2018Linguistic Landscape and Ethnolinguistic Vitality: An Empirical Study\u2019. Jaworski and Thurlow (2) just replace the area in question, \u201cterritory, region or urban agglomeration\u201d as defined by Landry and Bourhis (25), with \u201c(public) space\u201d and visible linguistic elements with visible semiotic elements. While I think the definition is improved, it still ignores how landscape <\/em>is not a bounded entity, as I discussed in the previous essay. Okay, space <\/em>is not, in itself, a bounded entity, but I get the sense that in this use it is, considering that it\u2019s not just space but public space, that is to say not private space, thus delineating it as this and\/or that space that is open to the members of public, regardless of whether it is privately or publicly owned (that is to say, excluding areas not accessible to everyone, thus delineating it). In short, similarly to many other linguistic landscape studies, this is the weak point of Monaghan’s book chapter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What I liked about this book chapter is how it makes use of de-<\/em> and reterritorialization<\/em>, to point out that people can deterritorialize the system, in this case a football club, in order to reterritorialize it, as Monaghan (192-193) goes on to point out. In other words, they can counter the deterritorialization of their club and its subsequent reterritorialization by deterritorializing it again in order to reterritorialize it into their club, instead of buying into a corporate vision of the club. He (189) also provides examples of how one subverts corporate presence by blocking it (covering it) and\/or mocking it (mimicking the corporate look but with certain alterations). Maybe I would have wanted more examples of the corporate side and how that tends to get its way, perhaps a wide angle shot comparison of the stadium with and without a crowd of supporters. Then again, it\u2019s his book chapter, he can do as he likes. I don\u2019t expect writers to cater to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I also appreciate how he (193-194) is, nonetheless, suspicious of whether such acts of resistance will have an impact beyond what\u2019s immediate, considering how capitalism tends to displace its limits, to accommodate for something which it only seeks to incorporate into itself. I think faciality<\/em>\/landscapity <\/em>could have been used to explain how the various landscape elements (faces<\/em>), such as advertisements and supporter banners, function to inform the stadium landscape<\/em>, how they inform the preferred identity<\/em>, what the people are expected to identify with and, conversely, what they are not expected to identify with though this biunivocal<\/em> inclusion\/exclusion mechanism, discussed by Deleuze and Guattari (176-177) in \u2018A Thousand Plateaus\u2019. This is, of course, implied by Monaghan (181-182). I\u2019ll give him that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I also liked how he (185) is explicit about his position, how he considers himself a long time fan, which puts him in the supporter camp and thus at odds with the ownership, inasmuch the ownership does not share the views of its supporters. I also like that he (185) points out that there is no such thing as impartiality, as everything is political and personal, one way or another. I reckon he is actually a bit unnecessary polite about this when he (185) adds that his readers are welcome to think otherwise. I mean he could have just stated that if this works for you then great, if it doesn\u2019t then, well, too bad, read something else instead. I don\u2019t agree with everything that\u2019s stated in this book chapter, as I\u2019ve discussed in this essay, but that doesn\u2019t mean that I think that it\u2019s all shit then. I don\u2019t think one needs to buy into the views of someone else wholesale. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Moving on! So, what about the book chapter by Cerimaj, Milani and Kitis? Right, let me see. Firstly, they (117) introduce the concept of turbulence<\/em> and suggest that it is particularly apt for addressing order <\/em>and disorder<\/em>. They (117) refer to an article \u2018On Turbulence: Entanglements of Disorder and Order on a Devon Beach\u2019 by Tim Cresswell and Craig Martin. Me being me, I could not help myself and so I had to take a look at this article myself. I\u2019ll do that first and then return to Cerimaj, Milani and Kitis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cresswell and Martin (517) advocate for turbulence<\/em>. They (517) acknowledge the value of what they call \u201cassemblage theory\u201d (I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a theory though) but prefer to go with turbulence instead, for two key reasons. Firstly (517):<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt foregrounds a set of decidedly mobile metaphors, with particular stimulus coming from fluid dynamics[.]\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Secondly (517):<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[T]he language of turbulence in the popular lexicon continues to foster an image of negativity: instead we want to dispel such representations and address the complex entanglements of creative, discordant events and eruptions of re-orderings which are fostered by theorisations of turbulence.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n They (517) go on to justify their choice:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is not simply the case that order (or disorder) prevails, rather turbulence produces new forms of complexity and thus, like assemblages, demands that we attend to the shifting interactions between the variegated forces of contemporary mobility.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Okay, but what is turbulence<\/em>? Based on this, I\u2019d say that it\u2019s, perhaps, virtually the same as metastability<\/em>. Anyway, I dig the boldness of this. I mean they acknowledge Deleuze and Guattari, as well as number of others, in reference to assemblages<\/em>, yet think that the concept of turbulence works better. Sure, okay. The thing is that based on this, I\u2019m not buying it, no matter how much they speak of mobility <\/em>and the mobile. I\u2019m not really convinced by the introductory story either, where they (516) state that, for example, a ship wreck and what follows from it, such as clean-up, looting, investigations, insurance premiums going up for the shipping company, \u201care all testimony to the shifting registers of order <\/em>and disorder<\/em>, neither of which is permanently stable, always locked in disjunctive interplay\u201d, in other words, turbulence. Okay, so turbulence is not order or disorder, nor is order or disorder stable. So, everything is \u2026 metastable? Haha! I told you it was about metastability! I mean, that\u2019s what it is, if we go with what I wrote in the previous essay. So, we might consider order as stability <\/em>(equilibrium<\/em>) and disorder as instability <\/em>(disequilibrium<\/em>). Then again something is only as stable (or unstable) until it isn\u2019t. In other words, it\u2019s better conceive everything as metastable instead of stable or unstable. This is something that Deleuze and Guattari (19) address in \u2018Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia\u2019 when they state that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn a word, the opposition of the forces of attraction and repulsion produces an open series of intensive elements, all of them positive, that are never an expression of the final equilibrium of a system, but consist, rather, of an unlimited number of stationary, metastable states through which a subject passes.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Boom! I told you! Now, of course, you need to understand how this relates to intensities<\/em>, as well as extensities<\/em>, but let\u2019s not get tangled up in that here. Let\u2019s see what else Cresswell and Martin have to say, before I return to Cerimaj, Milani and Kitis. Right, Cresswell and Martin (518) make a good point how turbulence <\/em>is an apt word for what we are dealing with here, and, perhaps, sexier than metastability<\/em>, considering that turbulence is often depicted as negative thing, in the sense that it\u2019s out of control, you know, like turmoil. In short, it gets associated with disorder<\/em>, which troubles most people, even if some may consider it an opportunity, as they (518) go on to point out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To be serious, for a moment, they (518) refer to the work of Manuel DeLanda and Michel Serres, as well as Epicurus and Lucretius (I had a feeling \u2018the swerve guy\u2019, that\u2019s how I know him, is going to make an appearance!). Anyway, as they (518-519) point out, the \u2018proper\u2019 name for this swerve is clinamen<\/em>, \u201ca small, almost unmeasurable deviation in movement that becomes the source of all turbulence and thus of all substance ad life\u201d, which, for Lucretius \u201cis the interaction of atoms as they fall through the void that is the wellspring of life\u201d and \u201cthe deviation, or swerve, from the fall\u201d. I shit you not, I\u2019m writing this as I\u2019m reading this text (and I love writing this way because it\u2019s an encounter<\/em>!), so the point about calling him \u2018the swerve guy\u2019 came right before Cresswell and Martin called the deviation, the clinamen<\/em>, a swerve. Haha! Thank you cosmos! Anyway, as they (519) point out, if there was no swerve, there\u2019d be no collision, even if there\u2019s movement, because there\u2019d be just fall, that is to say one direction. This is one of those things which makes you wonder if a line is ever straight or if it is actually curved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They (519) move on to point out that while it may seem like this would mean that there is only disorder <\/em>(cough, cough, chaos<\/em>), that\u2019s not exactly the case. What we get instead is, again, I shit you not, \u201ca form of metastability, a temporary balance between them\u201d, as they (519) point out. This is familiar to me because this is very issue is discussed by Deleuze and Guattari (361) in \u2018A Thousand Plateaus\u2019, in reference to Serres. This is also familiar to me through the work of Gilbert Simondon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cresswell and Martin make an important point (which, I\u2019d say you can find in \u2018A Thousand Plateaus\u2019 as well), when they (519-520) state that this defies \u201cthe calculative logic of predictability\u201d with its \u201cinstances of systemic self-organisation\u201d (which makes me think of autopoiesis<\/em>, as defined by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela in \u2018Autopoiesis and Cognition: the Realization of the Living\u2019 and as subsequently redefined by Guattari in \u2018Chaosmosis: An Ethico-Aesthetic Paradigm\u2019, but that\u2019s another story), with its \u201cdynamic possibility of things becoming different and distinguishable\u201d, negating \u201cthe efficacy of all-encompassing and unilinear theory.\u201d More importantly, as they (520) go on to clarify,\u201c[t]he political power of this line of thought\u201d, what I\u2019d call a way of thinking or an image of thought<\/em>, \u201cis not to be underestimated\u201d because the \u201cemergence of singularities\u201d (remember how I discussed haecceities<\/em>, i.e. singularities<\/em>, in the previous essay) \u201cmakes any single frame of reference redundant.\u201d They (520) summarize this by stating that \u201cturbulence produces singularities \u2013 localised objects and events that are not intelligible within generalising or universalising frameworks\u201d, which means that \u201corder is secondary to turbulence.\u201d To explain this is Deleuzian terms, turbulence <\/em>is difference <\/em>and order <\/em>is identity <\/em>and thus difference is primary and identity is secondary. Moreover, whatever is considered order or identity is, in fact, always in the making and thus, at best, metastable<\/em>. This is also the Heraclitian stance on this. And, it\u2019s only fitting that it is, considering he\u2019s the \u2018flow guy\u2019 or the \u2018flux guy\u2019 who steps into the river (or at least talks about it, I mean, at least supposedly talked about it).<\/p>\n\n\n\n I also have to admit that I must have forgotten how Deleuze and Guattari also talk of turbulence <\/em>in \u2018A Thousand Plateaus\u2019 when they (353) discuss nomadism<\/em> and it works contra state-ism<\/em>, as Cresswell and Martin (520) go on to point out. I\u2019d still use metastability <\/em>though. I\u2019ll have to give them credit for making this explicit thought (not that they need my endorsement though). They (520) summarize it well how we are in the habit of thinking mobility<\/em>, what I\u2019d call movement <\/em>(because it also works well in the political sense), as secondary to being stationary. That makes people on the move, aka nomads, the deviation from the norm, being sedentary<\/em>, while, frankly, there\u2019s no reason to give primacy to being sedentary. They (520) warn us not to consider movement as something that happens between points, from one point of being sedentary to another point of being sedentary, because that\u2019s exactly what treating movement as secondary to being sedentary looks like as an image of thought<\/em>. They (520) argue in favor of mobility, what I\u2019d call movement, or, more broadly speaking nomadism or transversality<\/em>. This is also related to my gripe about calling linguistic landscape<\/em> a field (or a discipline) in the previous essay, because setting up boundaries relies on that dominant image of thought that builds on on that illusion of sedentism<\/em>, as Cresswell and Martin (520) characterize it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right, back to Cerimaj, Milani and Kitis. They (117) state that they work with the notion of turbulence <\/em>(or metastability<\/em>) to analyze \u201cthe complex dynamics of order<\/em> and disorder<\/em>, and how these two registers play out through forms of spatial semiotics.\u201d To summarize this book chapter, as you can surely read it yourself in detail, they (117) deal with two groups of protesters at a South African university, one that is pro-Palestine and another that is pro-Israel. They (117-118) point out that what differentiates their work from prior work is that their take is on how the Israel-Palestine issue is \u201cperceived, represented, and reimagined through language and other meaning-making resources\u201d, whatever they may be, but, importantly, not in Israel or Palestine, but in a foreign context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They (118) comment that, for them, on its own, turbulence <\/em>is not enough to explain something like political protests that involve people taking over certain areas, typically built environments, and utilize various semiotic resources, including but not limited to \u201ccardboards, slogans, t-shirts, and their own bodies\u201d. Therefore they (118) opt to draw from the work of Deleuze and Guattari, namely \u2018A Thousand Plateaus\u2019, and Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) because it offers \u201ca readily available framework for scrutinizing linguistic and visual data\u201d. Here they (118) refer to the work of Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen, namely the \u2018Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design\u2019, and David Machin and Andrea Mayr, namely \u2018How to Do Critical Discourse Analysis: A Multimodal Introduction\u2019, of which I\u2019m more familiar with the former than the latter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From \u2018A Thousand Plateaus\u2019 they (118) pick up the conceptual pair of striated space <\/em>and smooth space<\/em>, or striation<\/em> and smoothness<\/em>. They (188) aptly summarize these, noting that striated space is easy to comprehend by thinking it in terms of sedentism<\/em>, how people plough fields, turning soil over, cutting furrows, narrow grooves on the ground that, well, look like striations if you look at them from a distance. Of course, it doesn\u2019t mean that striation is just about ploughed fields. It applies to any feature of sedentism, staying put, both material and semiotic, both sides of the assemblage<\/em>, really. It\u2019s about being static<\/em> or state-ic<\/em>, in the sense that one stays put, you know, like a state, always within its borders (even when it conquers territory, it\u2019s within its borders, it just expands or, conversely, contracts, in relation to another state, which operates the same way). Another apt moniker for this is grid<\/em>, hence the importance of geometry (which takes us back to the Greeks and, subsequently, to Renaissance Italy, which is highly relevant to landscape<\/em>, but let\u2019s not tangled up in that here).<\/p>\n\n\n\n In contrast, smooth space<\/em> is directional<\/em>, \u201clike the wind-swept, grass vastness roamed by the nomad\u201d, as they (118) summarize it. Whereas striation <\/em>is about geometry and dimensions<\/em> (closed space, closing space, fixing it), smoothness is about arithmetic<\/em>, based on numbers (useful for organizing the war machine<\/em>, aka the horde, as the sedentaries would call it, into functional units, which form the basis of modern military organization). Nomads roam in smooth space, traversing it, occupying it, staying on it, until they don\u2019t. The nomads are marked by movement<\/em>, so that, perhaps counter-intuitively, they are the ones who travel the least, because they never leave home, they never travel, they never go anywhere, as explained by Deleuze (\u2018V\u2019) in \u2018Gilles Deleuze from A to Z\u2019. For Deleuze (\u2018V\u2019) this is an important point because, conversely, from a sedentary point of view the nomads appear to be in constant movement, always on the move, always mobile <\/em>(to use the term preferred by others), somewhere out there, haunting the fringes of civilization (what sedentaries think to be civilization, that is), yet, one could argue that, in fact, they are as immobile as anything can be as from the nomad perspective they are not going anywhere nor do they want to go anywhere. He (\u2018V\u2019) also points out that we like to think of migrants (emigrants\/immigrants, voluntary travel) and refugees\/exiles (forced travel) as doing what the nomads do, but, as also noted by Cresswell and Martin (520), their movement is from one point to another, from home to a destination, directly or through other intermediary points, and a mere symptom of sedentism, being displaced by other sedentaries. That\u2019s not mobility or movement, turbulence <\/em>or metastability<\/em>, as defined in this essay, because it\u2019s subordinated to the illusory notions of stability <\/em>(equilibrium<\/em>, order<\/em>) and instability <\/em>(disequilibrium<\/em>, disorder<\/em>, chaos<\/em>). In short, unlike the nomads, the migrants and the refugees\/exiles engage in what Deleuze and Guattari (363) call constrained, restrained, disciplined or local movement, going from one specific point to another. They deterritorialize<\/em>, voluntarily or involuntarily, but only to reterritorialize<\/em>, whereas the nomads remain deterritorialized. They (381) clarify this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is in this sense that nomads have no points, paths, or land, even though they do by all appearances. If the nomad can be called the Deterritorialized par excellence, it is precisely because there is no reterritorialization afterward<\/em> as with the migrant, or upon something<\/em> else<\/em> as with the sedentary (the sedentary’s relation with the earth is mediatized by something else, a property regime, a State apparatus).\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Only to further specify the deterritorialization <\/em>of nomads (381):<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWith the nomad, on the contrary, it is deterritorialization that constitutes the relation to the earth, to such a degree that the nomad reterritorializes on deterritorialization itself.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n So, yes, one could argue that also the nomads reterritorialize<\/em>, but not in the way that sedentaries do. In contrast to the sedentaries, they do not, as they (381) continue:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is the earth that deterritorializes itself, in a way that provides the nomad with a territory. The land ceases to be land, tending to become simply ground (sol)<\/em> or support.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Moreover, they (382) add that this can be thought as functioning both ways, the nomad deterritorializing <\/em>the land and its forms, and vice versa:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe nomads are there, on the land, wherever there forms a smooth space that gnaws, and tends to grow, in all directions. The nomads inhabit these places; they remain in them, and they themselves make them grow, for it has been established that the nomads make the desert no less than they are made by it. They are vectors of deterritorialization. They add desert to desert, steppe to steppe, by a series of local operations whose orientation and direction endlessly vary.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Before I move on, to connect this to landscape<\/em>, they (382) state that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[T]here is no intermediate distance, no perspective or contour; visibility is limited; and yet there is an extraordinarily fine topology that relies not on points or objects but rather on haecceities, on sets of relations (winds, undulations of snow or sand, the song of the sand or the creaking of ice, the tactile qualities of both).\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n They (382) rephrase this as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is a tactile space, or rather \u2018haptic,\u2019 a sonorous much more than a visual space.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n This does not, however, mean that smooth space<\/em> is not conceived visually, but rather that it is not as important or central as it is in striated space<\/em>. The problem with landscape <\/em>is that, historically, it builds on geometry (dimensions<\/em>, closed space<\/em>) and utilizes vision to legitimate sedentism <\/em>(plus much more within it).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right, back to Cerimaj, Milani and Kitis (118) who note that, following Deleuze and Guattari (474-475), this distinction is, however, only conceptual (or virtual), and, in actuality, smooth <\/em>and striated spaces <\/em>exist only in mixture, one always shifting or morphing to the other, smooth space being captured and striated and striated space being dissolved into smooth space. Cerimaj, Milani and Kitis (118) add that striated space and (re)territorialization<\/em> \u201cproduces spatial arrangements according to categorical markers such as nationhood, class, ethnicity, race, gender, sexuality, and so on\u201d, whereas smooth space and deterritorialization <\/em>\u201cdelink[s] space from identity categories.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I would add here that, as already discussed in this essay, sedentaries can and do operate by deterritorializing<\/em>, as exemplified by Monaghan in his book chapter, but this is always followed by a reterritorialization<\/em>. So, in terms identity <\/em>or identities, sedentaries may well change what counts as what, but they stay within the confines of the semiotic system<\/em>, hence the point I made about how capitalism displaces its limits. Revolutions may take place but they fail because the mixed regime of signs<\/em> always captures them and incorporates them into the system. In contrast, the nomads do not have this issue because, for them, revolution is not overturning this <\/em>for that<\/em>, a change understood in terms of identity, but a matter of becoming-revolutionary<\/em>, being indifferent to such terms that have been \u201cconceptualized in terms of past and future\u201d, as explained by Deleuze and Guattari (292). The nomads are always in the middle of things. They do not conceive themselves by looking to the past, nor to the future. So, when I go against conceiving linguistic landscape studies as its own field, as discussed in the previous essay, it has to do with this, engaging in nomad thought<\/em>, not sedentary thought<\/em> that seeks to establish