Affective geographies of models and modelling PhD Aberystwyth University 2016 Department of Geography & Earth Sciences Robert James MacKinnon 1 Summary With reference to three contexts of models and modelling practice (hydraulic models of environmental systems, model railways and miniature wargaming), this thesis asserts the importance of geography in understanding what models can be, what and how they can do, and how and why models may be made and engaged with. The thesis traces spatialities of models and modelling via conceptions of affect, emotion and feeling, alongside abstraction, the miniature and mimesis, in order to highlight how space is central to lived and embodied engagements with models and modelling. This thesis makes several contributions. Firstly, this thesis gives shape to five key interrelated ‘geographies of models and modelling’, these are; one: models and modelling can generate space-times, and in so doing, produce affective engagements with those space-times. Two: models, modelling and material and embodied affects can shape how spaces (including models) may be constituted, affected, encountered and engaged with. Three: practice can inform modelling as a representational practice and be important to models as representations. Four: modelling as a mimetic practice which, as well as model and modelling engagements, can involve embodied relations whether with places, landscapes, environments, events, people, materials, objects (including models), and temporalities of pasts, presents and futures. Finally, five: model and modelling engagements can be involved with the miniature and an ‘affirmative critique’ of abstraction. Through these geographies and the theoretical underpinnings of this thesis, the second core contribution: six broad lessons about models and modelling. These are; one: models and modelling and the absence and presence of possession. Two: modelling as a negotiated practice. Three: modelling as ‘drawing out elements of the world’. Four: models and modelling as connecting us with the world. Five: models and modelling and human and non-human relations. Finally, six: models and modelling and the more-than-representational. 2 Acknowledgements Thanks go to; Aberystwyth University for funding this project through an Aberystwyth Postgraduate Research Studentship. All the research participants who gave up their time to talk to me. My supervisors Professor Peter Merriman and Dr Gareth Hoskins for their advice and support. Dr George Revill (Open University) for externally examining this thesis and to Dr Mitch Rose (Aberystwyth University) for acting as internal examiner. PhD friends and colleagues for shared journeys and good times; Dan Beech; Dr Jon Brettell; Dr Chi Mao Wang; Mette Handreck; Dr Han-Hsiu Chen; Dr Keith Haylock; Justa Hopma; Stephen Jennings; Amy Jones; Dr Ker- Hsuan Chien; Márton Lendvay; Oliver Morris; Sam Saville and Katherine Stewart. Furthermore, Dr Rhys Dafydd Jones, Dr Lucy Jackson; Dr James Robinson and Dr Jen Turner for helping me settle into the department in my first year and, along with Dr Jesse Heley and Dr Stephen Saville, helping me academically as well. Dedication This thesis is dedicated to my father Stuart MacKinnon who died from cancer at Christmas 2014. Dad, born in 1953, was an enthusiastic ‘amateur’ intellectual of the ancient world, particularly warfare and governance of the early Roman Empire. Supremely witty, charismatic, sharp in mind, principled and loving, dad experienced higher education in his mid-20s, gaining a BA in Egyptology from the University of Birmingham. Dad extolled the vital forces of learning, including the love of learning for its own sake. ‘Down the pub’ he would often assert ‘knowledge is never wasted’ and was always interested in academic debates, including hearing about geography ones. Dad had read parts of this thesis as conference presentations and even when gravely ill would make an effort to make several comments. He also drove me to interviewees on several occasions before I had a Sat Nav and bought me several miniature wargaming and model railway magazines. He had just turned to a new chapter in his life after remarrying the wonderful Wendy Clements in 2012. My thoughts are also with my beloved ‘nanny across the field’, Dora Emma Cureton, a caring, thoroughly ‘modern’ and astute countrywoman. She also died from cancer before her time, aged 81 in 2009. On the day of writing this, my great-aunt Vera Pugh passed away from cancer, aged 90. She was a paragon of kindness, love, hope and compassion. 3 Contents Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1: Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1 1.2: Models and modelling: Associations, histories and geographies .................................... 1 1.3: Case study contexts and justifications................................................................................. 5 1.4: Thesis structure .................................................................................................................... 19 Chapter 2: Theoretical and empirical positioning ............................................................. 21 2.1: Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 21 2.2: Doing geography with models ........................................................................................... 21 2.3: Models and modelling in cultural and historical geography and history of science ... 24 2.4: Affect, emotion and feeling ................................................................................................ 27 2.4.1: Affect ........................................................................................................................... 28 2.4.2: Emotion ....................................................................................................................... 30 2.4.3: Feeling .......................................................................................................................... 32 2.5: The miniature and abstraction ........................................................................................... 33 2.5.1: Embodied affordances of models: The miniature and abstraction ..................................... 34 2.5.2: The miniature ............................................................................................................... 37 2.5.3: Abstraction ................................................................................................................... 39 2.6: Modelling, models and mimesis: Contestation, negotiation and the more-than- representational............................................................................................................................ 41 2.7: Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 47 Chapter 3: Methods ........................................................................................................... 49 3.1: Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 49 3.2: Choice of case studies ......................................................................................................... 50 3.3: Internet research .................................................................................................................. 55 3.4: Textual research ................................................................................................................... 58 3.5: Interview research ................................................................................................................ 61 3.6: Archival research .................................................................................................................. 67 3.7: Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 69 Chapter 4: Model railways ................................................................................................. 70 4.1: Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 70 4.2: Introducing model railways ................................................................................................ 71 4 4.3: The early years of model railways and introducing a mimetic politics to model, modelling and modeller .............................................................................................................. 72 4.4: Nostalgia and love................................................................................................................ 78 4.5: Making a perfect world? ...................................................................................................... 81 4.6: Research for a layout ........................................................................................................... 88 4.7: Material affordance, material agency and mimesis .......................................................... 95 4.8: Affective atmosphere ........................................................................................................ 103 4.9: Playing trains ......................................................................................................................