Negotiating historical meaning through a Living Memorial
Part of the Living Memorial on Liberty Square (Van Iterson, April 2016)
From incompleteness to integration in the public space of
Liberty Square, Budapest
Master Thesis: Political Science, Msc.Conflict Resolution and Governance
Name: Swaan van Iterson Student number: 5776023
First Supervisor: Dhr. dr. David Laws Second Supervisor: Prof. dr. Maarten Hajer Date: 14th of July 2016
“[A]ction is the only remedy to indifference: the most insidious danger of all.1”
“We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time2”
1 Wiesel,1986, p. 2.
Abstract
This thesis focuses on the case of Liberty Square in Budapest, Hungary. It explores the qualitative relationship between the negotiation of meaning and the public space in which this negotiation is situated. My fascination for the protests on this square brought me conduct fieldwork with a focus on the following question: ‘How are the Living Memorial activists trying to negotiate the meaning of the ‘Monument to the Victims of the German Invasion’ in the public space of Liberty Square?’ After presenting public space as a performative, political space in which symbolic meaning gets negotiated (Arendt, 1958; Dewey, 1927; Hajer, 2009), this thesis provides a step-by-step exploration of the negotiation of meaning taking place on Liberty Square and the qualities of publicness that result from this negotiation. As time passes, a
transformation from openness to closedness becomes visible on Liberty Square. This transformation elucidates useful insights about the qualitative features that are needed to sustain an open, public domain(Hajer and Reijndorp, 2001).
Preface
The first time I encountered the Living Memorial was during a summer visit to Budapest in June 2014. I was struck by surprise when I saw the pictures, stones, books, and flowers that made up the Living Memorial. What were all these objects doing in front of a construction site? This curiosity motivated me to write my master thesis on the case of Liberty Square. However, this thesis wouldn’t exist without the support of many different people. First of all, I would like to thank my first supervisor dr. David Laws. Not only did David challenge me intellectually, he also helped me to find the confidence I needed to conduct my fieldwork in Hungary. For me, Budapest is home to a complex family history, and for a long time I hesitated whether to focus my master thesis on the case of Liberty Square. I am very glad I decided to do so, because it helped me grow both academically and personally. I couldn’t have asked for a better supervisor to guide me through this process. I would also like to thank Prof. dr. Maarten Hajer for being my second supervisor. I am honored that he made the time to take up this role and I am very much looking forward to receiving his feedback.
This thesis wouldn’t exist without the endless support of my family, friends and boyfriend. All of you gave me the strength to push through. Lyske, you provided me with a home away from home in Budapest. Thank you for being such a good friend and eating my terrible risotto. I will never cook that again, I promise! Kathy, we never met in real life, but our mutual interests brought us together online. Thank you very much for your feedback on the thesis. I am looking forward to having a coffee with you and hearing about your research at the Central European University. Last but definitely not least, I want to thank all my interviewees and the people on the square who trusted me, allowed me to join their meetings, and shared their personal stories with me. You took the time to offer me your valuable insights and I am very grateful for that. I hope that this thesis can be of value to you as well. I am looking forward to seeing you in Budapest’s streets again.
Table of Contents
1. Introducing the case of Liberty Square ... 7
1.1 Encountering a scene ... 7
1.2 From a fascination to a research question ... 9
2. Building up a theoretical framework ... 12
2.1 Introduction ... 12
2.2 Performative, political and qualitative dimensions of public space ... 12
2.3 Conclusion ... 15
3. Sensitizing observations and analyses ... 17
3.1 Introduction ... 17
3.2 Components of the research question ... 17
3.3 Conceptual tools ... 18
3.4 Academic and social relevance ... 28
3.5 Conclusion ... 30
4. Research design ... 32
4.1 Introduction ... 32
4.3 Research methods and guidelines ... 34
4.4 Conclusion ... 39
5. Exploring the negotiation of meaning on Liberty Square ... 41
5.1 Discovering Liberty Square ... 41
5.2 A quest for exchange on Liberty Square ... 52
5.3 The interactive realm called ‘Liberty Square’ ... 65
5.4 Liberty Square as time passes ... 80
6. Conclusion and discussion ... 90
6.1 Introduction ... 90
6.2 A summary of what I found on the square ... 90
6.3 Reflection and integration ... 94
6.4 Discussion and recommendations for further studies ... 96
7. Bibliography ... 98
Appendix I: Bibliography interviews ... 103
Appendix II: Original Hungarian quotes ... 104
1. Introducing the case of Liberty Square
1.1 Encountering a scene
‘For a daily passer-by on his or her way to work, Liberty Square might not be more than a place to cross in order to get to the nearest metro station. The tourist passes the square on his walk through central Budapest, while kids run around on the playground and two lovers look for the shadow of a tree on a hot summer day. Liberty Square is a quiet place in the center of Budapest that can offer people the opportunity to escape the rush of city life, if only for a brief moment’.
If two years ago someone would have asked me to describe what is happening on the Szabadság tér or Liberty Square in Budapest, I might have given the above description. Being half-Hungarian I regularly visited Budapest, but I never paid much attention to the square; it seemed to be a tranquil place where not much was going on. In June 2014, this perception was disrupted during a summer visit to Hungary. As I entered Liberty Square, I bumped into a construction site in which several pillars were surrounded by a cordon.
Picture of the cordon (Van Iterson, 2014).
I walked around the cordon and was struck by surprise by what I encountered: The pavement in front of the construction site was covered with small stones, candles, flowers, pictures, shoes, a ribbon with the Hungarian flag, an EU flag..
Objects in front of the cordon (Van Iterson, June 2014)
When I came back to the square a few days later, I first noticed a lawn on the left side of the construction site. People were sitting on chairs and talking to each other. “What is going on here”3, I wondered?
People sitting on chairs on Liberty Square (Van Iterson, June 2014)
3 (Goffman, 1986, p.181).
1.2 From a fascination to a research question
Astonished by the scene I had encountered, I started searching for more information on Liberty Square. During the winter of 2013, the Hungarian government had ordered the construction of a new monument on the square- a ‘Memorial to the Victims of the German Invasion’ during the Second World War (Lalonde, 2014, p. 1). Historians had criticized the plans, arguing that the monument would deny the Hungarian state’s responsibility for the atrocities committed during the Second World War (Van Iterson, 2016). Ignoring the criticism, the construction of the monument started in April 2014. From that moment onwards, a group of people had gathered on the square to create what they called “their own Living Memorial” (Zöldi, 2014, p. 1). In an interview with the Budapest Beacon4, one of the organizers explained how this Living Memorial developed:
“People brought stones, candles, photos and personal belongings that express their feelings, and placed them in front of the cordon. […] In the meantime, we took two white chairs, placed them face to face, and invited passers-by to sit down and talk, have a conversation about anything that they are interested in or even a debate, which the government is not brave enough to do” (Zöldi, 2014, p. 1-2).
The stones, pictures and candles still cover the pavement in front of the new monument on Liberty Square. Since 2014, I have visited Budapest twice. Each time I passed Liberty Square, a small group of predominantly middle-aged men and women was present on the square, talking to each other or speaking to passers-by who took interest in the objects on the pavement. Two years after I first encountered the scene on the square, it continued to fascinate me. Who are these people? How have they remained on the square for almost two years, literally putting their personal histories and memories on the streets? Does the Hungarian government tolerate their presence? What does this presence do to the public space in which it is situated? I couldn’t stop thinking about the scene on the square, and decided to use my fascination as a basis for my master thesis. I focus my research on the following question: ‘How are the Living Memorial activists trying to negotiate the meaning of the ‘Monument to the Victims of the German Invasion’ in the public space of Liberty Square in Budapest?’ The next chapter will build up the theoretical framework that I will draw on to analyze public space as a performative, political space in which symbolic meanings
4 The Budapest Beacon is an English-language blog aiming to provide fact-based journalism about
get negotiated. As I was diving into the research, I realized that my ‘how’ question did not only explore the process of negotiating meaning, but it also shed light on the
quality of publicness that resulted from this negotiation. Chapter Two will therefore
introduce the qualitative distinction between ‘public space’ and ‘public sphere’ (Arendt, 1958) or ‘public domain’ (Hajer and Reijndorp, 2001).
Chapter Three will present several concepts that sensitize the observation of the negotiation of meaning: Yanow’s work on symbolic meanings and the analysis of objects (1996; 2004), Bamberg’s writings on narratives and stories (2004), and Hajer’s dramaturgical concepts of ‘scripting, staging and setting’ (2009). Chapter Three will also connect Arendt (1958), Hajer and Reijndorp’s (2001) qualitative distinction of public space to Sennett’s (2007) work openness and closedness. Hereby a multi-dimensional approach will develop to analyze the qualitative features that shape a public space. The relevance of this case study will be described in both academic and societal terms. Not only can a focus on an understudied region contribute to academic debates, it can also point out a worrying development that has hereto tone gone unnoticed. After elaborating on the research design in Chapter Four, Chapter Five will present the empirical analysis of my fieldwork. By moving from initial observations to intensive research, I seek to provide a “thick description” (Geertz, 1973) of the negotiation of meaning taking place on Liberty Square. In the process, I will also explore the dimensions of quality that result from this negotiation in public space. I will focus my research by observing the use of language, objects and acts at the performative level of the square. Within this level, I will move back and forth between personal experiences, stories told by groups and broader, collective and historical narratives.
As I observed the negotiations on Liberty Square unfold, I started to see the multiplicity of stories and forms that were home to the “interactive realm” of Liberty Square (Bamberg, 2004, p. 353). When it came to the quality of publicness, something puzzling was taking place. On the one hand, the performances of the activists were expressing a sense of openness: the activists created a space for public exchange to take place and for people to express their personal perceptions on history and memory. The more time I spent on the square however, the more I started to see this quality transforming: as the activists were ‘ritualizing’ their actions and seemed to be integrated into daily life on the square, closure started to sneak in. The concluding Chapter will summarize these findings and reflect on them through the
following question: How did openness transform into closedness, and what does this process tell us about the character of an open, public domain? After connecting the findings to the broader theoretical scholarship, the thesis will end by critically reflecting on the research conducted and providing recommendations for further studies.
2. Building up a theoretical framework
2.1 Introduction
Several characteristics of the scene on Liberty Square directed the development of the theoretical framework. First of all I needed a very situated theory to explore how the negotiation of meaning took place. After all, the Living Memorial activists5 were acting in a very local setting. At the same time, the framework had to allow for a move beyond the micro-level. From what I’d already learned about Liberty Square, it seemed that both the narrative behind the German Invasion6 monument as well its contestation crossed both space and time. As Meyrowitz stated, “[...] While all physical experience is local, we do not [...] make sense of local experience from a purely local perspective [...]” (Meyrowitz, 2004, p. 22 in Vente, 2015, p. 9). Finally, the theoretical frame had to permit the exploration of the interactive and performative qualities of the case: it was in the how that I sought to find generative features of the case that could “highlight […] more general characteristics of the societ[y] in question” (Flyvbjerg, 2006, p. 427). I soon realized, that it was in the public space itself that I could find the guide to explore the scene that started fascinating me on the 8th of June 2014.
2.2 Performative, political and qualitative dimensions of public space Conceptual (dis)agreements
Many social scientists have worked on trying to understand public space. While authors like Mitchell (2003) and Watson (2006) stick to the concept of ‘public space’, Lofland (1998) turned to ‘public realm’ to stress the relevance of interaction. According to Habermas, it is mostly discursive interaction that links people and creates them to a public (1974, p. 49 in Janssens, 2016, p. 21). Habermas uses the concept of ‘public sphere’ to highlight this performative character (ibid, p. 49). Although scholars thus disagree on which concepts to use, many share the idea that public space is lived and constructed as it is lived (Lefebvre, 1991, in Janssens, 2016, p. 18). The emphasis on the performative and interactive components of public space resonates with the analytical distinction between seeing ‘space’ as a purely functional,
5 I will elaborate on the use of the words Living Memorial activists’ in chapter 3.2 on the components
of the research question.
6 From now on, I will regularly use the abbreviation ‘German Invasion monument’ to refer to the
a-cultural unit and seeing space as consisting of ‘places’ that carry histories and memories, shaped by as well as shaping the events that take place within them (Hajer & Reijndorp, 2001, p. 36).7
Public space as a political playground
The link between public space and political performance is developed by Hajer (2009) in “Authorative Governance: Policy Making in the Age of Mediatization”. Hajer refers to Geertz’s (1981) account of “Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali” (Hajer, 2009, p. 8). In This study Geertz challenged the scholarly focus on “statecraft”, and demonstrated the character and significance of more symbolic dimensions like “‘estate’ (in the sense of ranking, status) and ‘stateliness’ (as dignity, presence)” that were regularly overlooked (Geertz, 1981 in ibid, p. 48).
“ [A] trained eye sees how our politics is full of symbolism […], with subtle mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, micro-enactments of power and symbolic markers of decision-making and legitimacy. Being all-too familiar, it easily escapes the eye” (Hajer, 2009, p. 49).
Although scholars like Goffman (1959), Burke (1969) and Yanow (1996) worked on the symbolic dimensions of governance, Hajer (2009) states that its overall significance has been underrated in political science. Hajer argues for its significance by developing a framaturgical approach to studying “the symbolic and performative in politics” (Hajer, 2009, p. 50). Quoting Murray Eldelman, he argues that “[a]lthough every act takes place in a setting, we ordinarily take scenes for granted, focusing our attention on actions” (1964, p. 95, in 2009, p. 65). “Once politics is conceived of in dramaturgical terms” however, “the mise-en-scene is no longer regarded as pre-given, it becomes a topic for political analysis […]” (Hajer and Gomart, 2003, p. 41). While Burke’s scene-act ratio portrays a rather static relationship between the scene and the act (Burke, 1969, in Hajer, 2009, p. 55), Hajer seeks to provide a more dynamic approach: “To ‘enact’ is to give meaning to a situation. […] To employ terms like ‘enactment’ or ‘performing’ means to constantly try to relate categories to situations and situations to categories” (2009, p. 54).
Hajer argues that the more complex society becomes, the more important rituals and symbols become in performing governance (McLeod, 1999, p. 363, in
7 In this thesis, I will use the concept of ‘public space’. I will and will further elaborate on this
Hajer, 2009, p. 54). He states that we should look beyond classical institutions of governance to understand their workings: These expressions take place- and can best be observed- in a multiplicity of settings, including public space (ibid, p. 53). Here Hajer’s argument relates to the work of John Dewey. Already in 1927 this pragmatist argued that in order to understand the workings and legitimacy of governance, we should not only look at institutions that tend to have a static character but also to street-level practices of citizens (Dewey 1927, in Verloo, 2015, p. 28). As Hajer and Gomart argue in “Is that Politics? For an Inquiry Into Forms in Contemporary Politics” (2003),
“People do not necessarily seek representation via political parties or elections, but want to be heard on particular issues they pick for themselves. […] [P]ractices include politics in settings that are often not recognized as political but do lead to collective deliberation on public problems and, as such, seem politically important” (Hajer & Gomart, 2003, p. 43).
Examining the quality of publicness
The preceding paragraph explored the link between public space and political performance. In “Authorative Governance: Policy Making in the Age of Mediatization”, Hajer (2009) argued that the symbolic dimensions of governance remain understudied in political science. The more complex society becomes however, the more important rituals and symbols become in performing governance (McLeod, 1999, p. 363, in Hajer, 2009, p. 54). The expression and contestation of these symbols by different actors can be observed in a multiplicity of settings, including public space.
We can now start to see public space as a performative space in which the symbolic dimensions of governance get expressed and contested by a multiplicity of actors. Through the work of Hajer and Reijndorp (2001), a qualitative dimension can be added to this framework. In the book “In Search of New Public Domain. Analysis and Strategy” (2001), they argue that few studies have focused on the qualitative dimensions of public space. They introduce the term ‘public domain’ to highlight the interactive character of “[…] places where an exchange between different social groups is possible and also actually occurs” (ibid, p. 12). Space that is open and accessible, and thus public by other standards, does not necessarily contain the characteristics that make it into a “meaningful public space” (ibid, p. 40-41). In Hajer and Reijndorp’s analysis (ibid),
“The dynamism in the meaning of places, and the battle fought over it, is very important for determining what can be considered public domain at the level of the urban field. […] The social geographer Goheen also describes the relation of the public to public space as ‘space to which it attributes symbolic significance and asserts claims…Citizens create meaningful public space by expressing their attitudes, asserting their claims and using it for their own purposes… The process is a dynamic one, for meanings and uses are always liable to change. Renegotiation of understandings is ongoing; contention accompanies the process (Goheen, 1998)’” (Hajer and Reijndorp, 2001, p. 40-41).
In developing this qualitative distinction, Hajer and Reijndorp (2001) build on the work that Hannah Arendt started in 1958. In “The Human Condition”, Arendt (1958) argues that the mere presence of voices and stories is not enough to define a space as being public. Appearances only become meaningful when people see others, hear others, and are being seen and heard (Arendt, 1958, p. 176 in Janssens, 2016, p. 22). Democracy is the most vulnerable when appearances are being deprived of their meaning (Jannsens, 2016, p. 22), political actions of citizens are being ignored, or groups are prohibited from acting publicly (Arendt, 1958, p. 9, in Verloo, 2015, p. 27). Arendt makes a qualitative distinction between a ‘public space’ and a “public sphere”, in which “a well functioning public sphere would allow for underlying tensions to be brought to the surface and be discussed in a meaningful manner” (Arendt, 1958 in Verloo, 2015, p. 52).
2.3 Conclusion
This chapter started with a brief introduction of the different conceptualizations of public space. While scholars disagree on which concepts to use, most of them agree that a public space can be seen as a performative space: a space that is “[…] always, in some sense, in a state of emergence, never complete and always contested […]” (Watson, 2006, p. 7 in Janssens, 2016, p. 21). Hajer (2009) links public space and the political realm by pointing towards the public, street-level (Dewey, 1927), at which the performative and symbolic dimensions of governance can be observed. Arendt (1958) draws a distinction between ‘public space’ and ‘public sphere’, arguing that it is in the latter that appearances acquire a meaningful character. Similarly, Hajer and Reijndorp distinguish the ‘public domain’ as those places in which the exchange between different social groups is possible and actually occurs (2001, p. 12).
Linking back to the topic of research, we can now see how these theories on public space can help to explore how the Living Memorial activists are trying to
negotiate the meaning of the ‘Monument to the Victims of the German Invasion’ in the public space of Liberty Square. The theoretical frame suggests a qualitative approach is needed to analyze a public space as a political space. This approach would need to be attentive to this as a performative space in which the symbolic dimensions of governance get expressed and contested by a multiplicity of actors. Recognition of the performative and relational character of public space gives value to a local perspective: for it is in local settings like the square that the performance of contestation takes place. At the same time, the socio-political content of these contestations moves the analyses beyond the micro-level. By introducing the concepts of ‘public sphere’ and ‘public domain’, Arendt (1958), Hajer and Reijndorp (2001) open up the opportunity to evaluate a quality of publicness in light of the performances taking place on Liberty Square.
3. Sensitizing observations and analyses
3.1 Introduction
The preceding chapter presented scholarship that will be drawn on in the exploration of the public space of Liberty Square. This square will be seen as a political space in which the contestation over meaning can be examined in a qualitative light. The theoretical framework recognizes the value of a rich understanding of the micro-setting. At the same time, it creates the opportunity to relate this setting to the broader society in which it is situated.
This chapter will start by elaborating on the formulation on the research question. It will continue by presenting conceptual tools that were used to sensitize field observations and subsequent analyses. The chapter will end by discussing how the case study can contribute to both theoretical as well as social insights.
3.2 Components of the research question
My central research question asks: ‘How are the Living Memorial activists trying to negotiate the meaning of the ‘Monument to the Victims of the German Invasion’ in the public space of Liberty Square?’ During my fieldwork, I discovered that what initially looked like one group was actually different groups that were active on Liberty Square. All of their actions however, seemed to originate from and take place through the Living Memorial objects that were put in front of the German Invasion monument. I therefore use the name ‘Living Memorial’ in my research question as a broad reference to these different groups and people who are active on the square8. I
will use this broad reference in my empirical chapter. At other times, I will use specific names of subgroups. I use the term ‘activists’ because almost all of the people engaged in the negotiation of meaning on the square referred to themselves as activists.
How questions direct research to an interpretive, processual description of
ways of doing and seeing. By using the term public space I situate the research in the very local setting of the square in which the performances take place. I intentionally use the rather ‘neutral’ term of public space to refrain initially from conceptual distinctions and to create the space to base myself in empirical information in
analyzing the qualitative dimensions of publicness. Finally, I apply Dvora Yanow’s (1996) work to get to an understanding of the concept of meaning. In “How Does a Policy Mean?” Yanow states that “[a]n interpretive approach to the human, or the social, world shifts the focus from discovering a set of universal laws about objective, sense-based facts to the human capacity for making and communicating meaning” (1996, p. 5). The author extends this interpretive argument to an action-oriented interpretation of meaning:
“Unlike apples and other elements of the physical and natural world, humans make meanings; interpret the meanings created by others; communicate their meanings to, and share them with, others. We act; we have intentions about our actions; we interpret others’ actions. We make sense of the world: we are meaning-making creatures” (Yanow, 1996, p. 5).
I will combine this action-oriented interpretation of meaning with Hajer’s (2001; 2009) performative approach towards studying public space. Hereby, meaning transforms from an abstract, floating entity to the result of actions and interactions that can be observed in the public space of Liberty Square. I will further elaborate on this approach in the following section.
3.3 Conceptual tools
The previous section elaborated on the formulation of my research question. I explained why I used a ‘how’ question and decided to use the term ‘public space’. I also introduced the action-oriented interpretation of meaning that is at the basis of my study of Liberty Square. After further elaborating on this interpretation of meaning, I will introduce a set of conceptual tools that can help to explore its expression and contestation in public space. I will also introduce a language that can help to examine the qualitative dimensions of public space.
Understanding the expression of meaning
In order to explore how the Living Memorial activists are trying to negotiate the meaning of the German Invasion monument, we have to start by building an understanding of the expression and negotiation of meaning. In the preceding paragraph, I briefly introduced Yanow’s (1996) interpretation of people as “meaning-making creatures” who interpret while they act (p. 5). Yanow distinguishes three “human artifacts” or “carriers of meaning” (ibid, p. 9 and 10) that can be seen as “[…] the more visible embodiments and expressions of tacitly known meanings” (ibid, p.
10): language, objects and acts. While Yanow’s action-oriented approach towards meaning is very useful in the context of the case of Liberty Square, I deviate from her argument when it comes to seeing language, objects and acts as embodiments or carriers of tacit meanings (ibid, p. 10). By making this argument, Yanow seems to imply that meaning is somehow distinct from the interactions that create them. As Hajer (2009) argued however, “To ‘enact’ is to give meaning to a situation” (p. 54). I will therefore base myself in Hajer’s performative approach to stress the action-oriented dimensions of Yanow’s understanding of meaning. In this context, language, objects and acts can still be used to focus the observation of the negotiation of meaning. Rather than studying them as separate entities however, they become interrelated facets that express and negotiate meaning while being enacted.
Based on the preceding information, we can start to build up a figure that gives an overview of how to observe the expression and negotiation of meaning. The
use of language, objects and acts gives us an insight into this process: how the Living
Memorial activists developed the objects in front of the German Invasion monument, can tell us something about the meaning they express or contest; the language they use in their meetings, can do so as well. Naturally, language, objects cannot be separated in real life: speaking for example, is an act in itself. While I tried to emphasize this interrelated character by using open circles, it is therefore important to stress that the figure is a conceptual tool, not a depiction of reality.
Figure 1- expression and contestation of meaning Expression / negotiation of meaning Language Narratives and stories Objects Vocabularies, gestures, proxemics, decor Acts Scripting, staging, setting
Now that we focused the observation of the negotiation of meaning on the use of language, objects and acts, it is important to identify a language that can help to analyze and describe this usage. While Bamberg’s work on narratives and stories (2004) helps to analyze language use, Yanow’s identification of ‘Vocabulary, gestures, proxemics and décor’ serve to analyze objects. Finally, Hajer’s (2009) dramaturgical concepts of on ‘scripting, staging and setting’ give a useful insight into the negotiation of meaning through acts. The following paragraphs will further elaborate on the conceptual language of these authors.
Analyzing language
To understand the workings of language, I focus on of narratives and stories:
“[…] a narrative is a story with a beginning, middle, and an end that gets emplotted through the sequence, values and meaning the narrator applies to events.[…][T]he narrative interview seeks to elicit a story in which events, rhetoric, discourses, and symbols are part of the storyline of case actors and allow for interpretations directly embedded in the experiences of the narrator” (Verloo, 2015, p. 102).
In looking at the interplay between narratives and “counter narratives”, Bamberg (2004) elaborates on the tangible qualities of narratives at “the level of mundane, conventional everyday interactions” (p. 354):
“[...] [N]arratives order characters in space and time and, therefore, as a format, narrative lends itself not only to connecting past events to present states (as well as imagined, desired states and events) but also to revealing character transformations in the unfolding sequence from past to future” (Bamberg, 2004, p. 354).
Bamberg’s interpretation of narratives fits well in the performative approach towards studying the negotiation of meaning on Liberty Square. Not only does Bamberg (2004) stress the tangible qualities of ‘narrative’ as a concept, he also implies that they can be observed on the level of daily actions and interactions. While Bamberg thus allows for a focus on the micro-level, he stresses the connections that narratives make between the past, present and future that move beyond the immediate space observed. By referring to this space as an “interactive realm”, he stresses the interaction between different narratives. According to Bamberg, an interactive realm is “[…] the territory where counter as well as master narratives emerge in co-presence and as a discursive process” (2004, p. 353). This discursive process involves “being positioned” which emphasizes the force of master narratives, and “positioning
itself” stressing the space for agency that allows a counter narrative to develop9. The more dialectic concept of “narratives-in-interaction” implies that both processes happen simultaneously (Bamberg, 2004, p. 366).
Analyzing objects
The preceding paragraph introduced ‘narratives and stories’ (Bamberg, 2004) as concepts to focus the analysis of the workings of language. This chapter elaborates on analyzing the use of objects in expressing meaning. In “Studying physical artifacts: an interpretive approach” (2004)10, Yanow introduces four concepts that can sensitize this analysis: vocabularies, gestures, proxemics and décor. A vocabulary refers to “design elements and construction materials” (Yanow, 2004, p. 20) such as the shape of an object, its mass, height, color or texture. Historical designs or architectural styles that evoke certain beliefs or values are also part of an objects vocabulary. This vocabulary can stimulate certain acts or feelings, such as through the color of a waiting room in a hospital (ibid, p. 23). Gestures “constitute affect and status displays (corresponding to the nonverbal category of facial movements and hand gestures that do the same)” (ibid, p. 20). Gesture indicates how an object relates to its surroundings: a building or monument that is very high in comparison to its surroundings expresses a certain authority; the biggest office space in a building is often associated with the highest rank (ibid, p. 26). While gesture focuses on aspects internal to the design of an object, proxemics relates to “siting and spacing” (ibid, p. 29):
“the shaping of space through voids (“negative space”, or absences) and “intrusions” (or presences). These would include such design elements as set-backs (from the street or pathway, from the sides, at the back), spatial surrounds (open, inviting spaces; narrow, dark alleys, walls or other barriers) and the approaches and activities encouraged or prohibited by these […]” (Yanow, 2004, p. 29).
Finally, decor refers to an object’s furnishing: the furniture in a room, the graffiti that is painted on a wall, or the dress code that is used in a company (Yanow, 2004, p. 30). As I will start to explore the setting of the Liberty Square in which the negotiation of meaning takes place, the utility of these concepts becomes apparent:
9 Also see “Positioning: The discursive production of selves” by Davies and Harré (1990) for more
information on positioning processes.
10 I based my analysis of Yanow’s work on a draft version of “Studying physical artifacts: an
interpretive approach” (2004) that was openly accessible on the internet. This draft was submitted for publication in “Artifacts and Organisations: Beyond Mere Symbolism” (Rafaeli & Pratt). This book was published in 2006, including Yanow’s chapter on physical artifacts.
the informal, unorganized vocabulary of the Living Memorial will turn out to express a sense of continuous change in relationship to the static vocabulary of the German Invasion monument. While the gesture of this German Invasion monument seemed irrelevant to me at first sight, I later found out that it was of utmost importance for the meaning it was supposed to express (Yanow, 2004, p. 20). Just like Bamberg’s provides a tangible, interactive interpretation of narratives and stories, Yanows identification of vocabularies, gestures, proxemics and décor emphasizes the importance of the interactive, concrete usage of objects in expressing and negotiating meaning.
Analyzing acts
Aside from language and objects, Yanow (1996) categorized acts as expressing meaning. As mentioned previously however, Yanow identifies these three categories as “carriers of meaning” or “[…] the more visible embodiments and expressions of tacitly known meanings” (ibid, p. 10). I deviate from this argument as it implies a distinction between meaning and the (inter) actions that create this meaning. By grounding myself in a performative approach, I seek to stress that “[t]o ‘enact’ is to give meaning to a situation” (Hajer, 2009, p. 54).
The strongest influence of this approach can be found in the concepts I use to understand the workings of acts in expressing and negotiating meaning: ‘scripting, staging and setting’ by Hajer (2009). The concept of performance has a central role within Hajer’s work. The author defines it as “the way in which the contextualized interaction itself produces social realities like understanding of the problem in hand, knowledge, decisions, and new power relationships” (Hajer, 2009, p. 66). In “Rebuilding Ground Zero. The Politics of Performance”, Hajer (2005) states the following:
“[…][P]erformance conveys the understanding that certain meanings constantly have to be reproduced, that signification must be enacted, and that this takes place in a particular setting. Partly this might be a matter of quasi-ritualistic acts, repetition that helps maintain institutions. But while some performances are about replication, others are about improvisation (Waterton 2003), about the way in which an unstable situation can be steadied out” (Hajer, 2005, p. 448).
Hajer (2009) introduces three concepts that can be used to create an understanding of acts as performances. The author identifies the setting as “the physical and organizational situation in which the interaction takes place, including the artifacts
that are brought to or found in the situation” (2009, p. 67). Scripting is identified as “the efforts to create a particular political effect by determining the characters in the performance (‘Dramatis Personae’, the protagonists and antagonists) and to provide cues for appropriate behavior” (ibid.), while counter-scripting is seen as the “efforts of antagonists to undo the effect of scripts of protagonists” (ibid.). Finally, staging is understood by Hajer as “the organization of an interaction, drawing on existing symbols and the invention of new ones, as well as to the distinction between active players and (presumably passive) audiences” (ibid.). While Hajer (2009) mostly confines himself to the analysis of policy-making, I use a loose application of these concepts to analyze the way in which contextualized interactions express and negotiate meaning. As I will get to know the Living Memorial activists, I will discover how different ways of staging meetings on Liberty Square express different meanings. The more time I will spend on the square, the more I will see how the setting of the square starts to influence the quality of publicness that the scripting and staging of the Living Memorial seeks to express.
A language to examine dimensions of quality
The preceding paragraph outlined a set of conceptual tools to sensitize the study of the expression and contestation of meaning. However, we also need tools to examine the quality of public space. Although Arendt (1958), Hajer and Reijndorp (2001) introduce the concepts of ‘public sphere’ and ‘public domain’, they provide little basis to move beyond these two-dimensional distinctions. The following paragraph introduces a set of illustrative tools that can help to explore what actually characterizes the quality of public space: through Richard Sennett’s work on open and closed cities (2007), a language will emerge to describe dimensions of quality on Liberty Square.
In his essay on “The Open City”, Sennett (2007) describes three dimensions of closed and three characteristics of open cities. According to the author, the closed city is home to over-determination. To illustrate this point, he refers to Corbusier’s “Plan Voisin” for the city of Paris. Sennett argues that this plan was home to “a regime of power which wants order and control” (2007, p. 2):
“The architect [Corbusier] conceived of replacing a large swath of the historic center of Paris with uniform, X shaped buildings; public life on the ground plane of the street would be eliminated; the use of all buildings would be coordinated by a single master plan. […] He has tried in the 'Plan Voisin' to destroy just that element which, as we will see, creates open-ness in a city. He got rid of life on the ground plane; instead, people live and work in isolation, higher up” (2007, p. 2).
Sennett (2007) seems to argue that over-determination takes away the breathing space of a city as it is characterized by the “overspecification of form and function” (Sennett, 2007, p. 3). The closed city is also characterized by a focus on equilibrium (ibid.):
“The closed system ruled by equilibrium derives from a pre-Keynesian idea of how markets work. It supposes something like a bottom line in which income and expenses are equaled out. In state planning, information feed-back loops and internal markets are meant to insure that programs do not “over-commit” […] The limits on doing any one thing really well are set by the fear of neglecting other tasks. In a closed system, a little bit of everything happens all at once. Which is a recipe for low-quality (Sennett, 2007, p. 4).
Finally, Sennett argues that closed cities are dominated by a focus on integration. While city planners often see integration as a virtue, it significantly limits the possibility for deviating forms or voices to be expressed and heard (Sennett, 2007, p. 5):
“[A] closed system is meant to be integrated. Ideally, every part of the system has a place in an overall design; the consequence of that ideal is to reject, to vomit out, experiences which stick out because they are contestatory or disorienting; things that “don't fit” are diminished in value. The emphasis on integration puts an obvious bar on experiment” (Sennett, 2007, 5).
Sennett (2007) contrasts the closed city with the open city. He states that
“[t]he idea of an urban open system is that physical forms should be given a consequent voice; put less poetically, there is interaction between physical creation and social behavior. What we call “agency” in a city is a colloid of these two different activities” (Sennett, 2007, p. 6).
Sennett argues that an open city is characterized by ambiguous edges, incomplete
forms and unresolved narratives (Sennett, 2007). He explains the concept of ambiguous edges by referring to the distinction between boundaries and borders,
where “the boundary is an edge where things end; the border is an edge where difference groups interact” (Sennett, 2007, p. 8). While a boundary is often a dead entity, a border is the space where different groups can meet, interact and exchange (ibid). He further illustrates the difference between boundaries and borders through a reference to the cellular level:
“The cell wall retains as much as possible internally; it is analogous to a boundary. The cell membrane is more open, more like a border […] A cell membrane is both porous and resistant at the same time, holding in some valuable elements of the city, letting other valuable elements flow through the membrane […]. The boundary/wall dominates the modern city. The result is that exchange between different racial, ethnic, or class communities diminishes” (Sennett, 2007, p. 8 and 9).
According to Sennett, it is only through ambiguous edges that exchanges between different inhabitants of the city can occur and an open city system can develop (2007). An open city is also characterized by the presence of incomplete forms. In order for cities to become home to “living, evolving structures” (p. 11), there needs to be space for incompletion. He states that
“Understanding all this is important even if you aren’t an urban designer, because incomplete form is a basic principle in the good conduct of social life in general. In sociology, incomplete form goes by the name of “dialogics”. [...] Dialogics is the study of that complexity which transcends clarity. [A]mbiguity and indirectness can play a liberating role in social relations; they can both provoke us and make us reflect. These virtues are, I believe, as productive in constructing the physical world as in making good social relationships” (Sennett, 2007, p. 11 and 12).
Finally, Sennett propagates the existence of unresolved narratives. He contrasts the linear narrative that focuses on a conclusion to dialogics that value process on itself (2007, p. 12). While planners often prefer to work in an organized, linear manner, the open city needs this dialogical character. Again, Sennett uses an analogy to illustrate his argument:
“If a novelist were to announce at the beginning of a story, here's what will happen, what the characters will become, and what the story means, we would not bother to read the book. Open-city planning attends to conflicts and possibilities in sequence; there’s problem-solving, but also problem-finding, discovery rather than merely clarity. All good narrative has the property of exploring the unforeseen, of discovery; the novelist's art is to shape the process of that exploration. The urban designer's art is akin” (Sennett, 2007, p. 13 and 14).
Sennett (2007) mainly uses the above characteristics to describe the differences between ‘open’ and ‘closed’ city planning. However, the general distinction between ‘open’ and ‘closed’ seems to be very similar to the distinction made between ‘public space’ and ‘public sphere or domain’ by Arendt (1958), Hajer and Reijndorp (2001): all of these authors point towards the qualities of interaction and exchange that are needed for a public or open space to exist. Arendt (1958), Hajer and Reijndorp (2001) only make a binary distinction between two kinds of public spaces. A loose application of Sennett’s (2007) language however, can serve as an illustrative tool to
describe dimensions of quality in public space. I therefore link Sennett’s conceptualization of ‘open’ and ‘closedness’ to the work of Arendt (1958), Hajer and Reijndorp (2001) in order to develop a language to study the dimensions of quality in public space. The figure that follows from this link can be found below.
Figure 2- qualitative dimensions of public space based on Sennett (2007)
As we read in the above, Sennett argues that an open city system is home to “interaction between physical creation and social behavior” (2007). Is that the case on the Liberty Square? Do the Living Memorial activists actually influence the setting in which they are situated? Do the performances of the activists result into the open quality of unresolved narratives, or is closure exhibited as integration takes place? Throughout my analysis, I will combine Sennett’s (2007), Arendt (1958), and Hajer and Reijndorp’s (2001) work to try and trace out the qualitative features that shape the openness and publicness of space on the Liberty Square.
Qualitative dimensions of public space
Open Ambiguous edges Incomplete forms Unresolved narratives Closed Over-‐determination Integration Equilibrium
A note on staying away from rigidity
By now, a set of conceptual tools has been identified that can be used to sensitize the observation and analysis of the contestation of meaning in public space. Bamberg’s work on narrative and stories (2004) helps to understand language as expressing meaning, while Yanow’s (2004) categorization of vocabularies, gestures, proxemics and décor can facilitate the observations on the square. Hajer’s (2009) work on scripting, staging and setting can serve to interpret observations of the performances and to tease out how they express, adjust or contest meaning. Finally, Sennett’s (2007) writings on open and closed cities provide a basis to look at the presence (or absence) of ambiguity and incompleteness in creating the openeness that distinguishes a public domain from a public space.
Before moving on to the next section however, a general note should be made about being flexible in using these tools. The concepts discussed above are hard to separate analytically, let alone in observing real life on the street. Narratives, for example, do not only play a role in language, but can be part of scripting and staging processes as well. And how do we categorize written texts? A written text consists of language, and its narrative can be analyzed, but the written text can also be examined for its vocabulary or décor, for example when being used in the staging of a meeting.
There is another reason to stay way from rigidity when it comes to the concepts described above: meaning should always be studied in a grounded context. First of all, a specific object can have a sensitive meaning in a certain context, while in another it is not even noticed. More generally however, the researcher seeks to explore another’s interpretation of meaning and is inevitably working with his or her body as a research instrument (Yanow, 2004, p. 23). Therefore,
“When “reaching” for another’s meaning, whether as participating situational actors or as non-participant researchers, we observe and engage people initially at the most grounded level of lived experience – through what they do and say, including the artifacts used in these – rather than inquiring at the level of abstraction. […] A discussion of the meaning(s) of those experiences and artifacts could well move to a higher level of abstraction, but it would always be grounded the details of lived experience […]” (Yanow, 2004, p. 11).
A performative approach allows to be grounded in concrete experiences when studying the negotiation of meaning. To further strengthen this groundedness, I will seek to adopt a loose interpretation of the concepts described above, employing them when my data indicated their usefulness. Chapter 4 will explain how this conceptual application is embedded in my case study approach.
3.4 Academic and social relevance
So far, a move has been made from a theoretical frame that situates the research question to the conceptual tools that can sensitize observations in the field. While the previous sections thus illustrated how theory can serve this case study, it is now time to explore the reverse: how can this case study contribute to the academic scholarship? After elaborating on this academic relevance, the next section will highlight the social and political relevance of the case.
Theoretical contributions
There are several contributions that the case of the Living Memorial can make to the scholarship on public space. First of all, the case provides a rich example of a public space in which the symbolic dimension of governance become very visible; a topic that Hajer argues to be understudied. Moreover, it is the performances of citizens that open up this symbolism. A dynamic narrative emerges that not only highlights the meaning a government wants to assert in a public space in the capital city, but also elucidates how this meaning gets renegotiated in daily interactions. Referring back to Lefebvre (1991), it can thus provide a rich understanding of how public space is lived and constructed in the everyday and the local.
Another value of the case study lies in its regional focus. In developing their approach towards the public domain, Hajer and Reijndorp (2001) mostly refer to public spaces in Western European countries; Hajer (2009) elaborates on a dramaturgical approach towards politics by exploring cases in United States, Great Britain and the Netherlands, while Gomart and Hajer (2003) illustrate the role of form in politics through the case of the Hoeksche Waard (an island in the Netherlands). The case of Liberty Square can start to generate knowledge about an understudied region and its public spaces in which meaning gets negotiated.
A last theoretical contribution of this research lies in its efforts to evaluate the
dimensions of quality in public space. As became clear in the above, Hajer (2009) and
Arendt (1958) both add a qualitative element to their work on public space that is linked to interactive and communicative characteristics. Aside from elaborating on the qualitative distinctions of ‘public domain’ and ‘public space’ however, both authors refrain from providing conceptual tools that can identify different dimensions of publicness. By applying the work of Richard Sennett (2007) to the case of Liberty
Square, this study seeks to move from a binary conception to a multi-dimensional perspective on the quality of public space.
Social relevance
Next to the academic relevance outlined above, the case of the Living Memorial serves a societal purpose: the case sheds light on worrying developments taking place in Central Europe. During the fifth democratic elections in Hungary, the right-wing nationalist Fidesz party won a two-thirds majority in the Hungarian Parliament (Bátory n.d, in Nenadović & Van Iterson, 2013). Since these 2010 elections, Prime-Minister Viktor Orbán has been focusing on building his so-called “[...] illiberal new state based on national foundations” (Simon, 2014, p.1). In the process, he introduced numerous controversial policies. Not only did Orbán severely restrict the freedom of the media in Hungary, he also used his power to jeopardize the independence of both the central bank and the judiciary. Most recently, international criticism has focused on Orbán’s unconventional policies regarding refugees: at the end of 2015, the Hungarian government finished its fences across the borders with Serbia and Croatia. Crossing this border without authorization is now a crime (Grenshek tussen Hongarije, 2015).
Despite international attention for the socio-political developments in Hungary, the redefinition of history in the country has gone relatively unnoticed. The developments however, are troubling: In 2012, the Fidesz party introduced a new Hungarian constitution. The preamble to this constitution explicitly withdraws the responsibility of the Hungarian state for the atrocities committed during the Second World War (Laczó, n.d.). In the early years of the war however, Hungary was an ally of Nazi Germany. Under the Fidesz government, numerous statues of Miklos Horthy have been erected in Hungary. Horthy was Hungary’s interwar regent who entered into alliance with Hitler and Mussolini (Nenadović & Van Iterson, 2013). The German Invasion monument further symbolizes the narrative of innocence that the Hungarian government seeks to portray in its public spaces.
These developments are not idiosyncratic to Hungary: in recent years, the independence of the media and the judiciary were also seriously jeopardized in Poland. Furthermore, the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party seems to propagate a similar historical narrative of victimhood as the Hungarian government. At a recent conference on the revision of Poland’s history, Polish President Andrzej Duda stated
that “Historical politics should be conducted by the Polish state as an element of the construction of our international position” (Harper, 2016, p. 1). According to Politico, a well-known international forum for political news, “Duda’s efforts are part of a broader campaign by Law and Justice to use the wrongs of the past to fend off criticism of the present” (ibid, p.1).
The case of the Living Memorial can contribute to knowledge about these worrying developments. It can do so by exploring what this redefinition means to a group of people who are trying to contest its expression in public space. As Hajer (2009) argued, we should train ourselves to look beyond classical political settings and institutions to understand how governance works. Then we can see “[…] how our politics is full of symbolism […], with subtle [and less subtle] mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, micro-enactments of power and symbolic markers of decision-making and legitimacy” (Hajer, 2009, p. 49).
3.5 Conclusion
Chapter Two introduced a theoretical framework to explore the public space as a perfomative space in which the negotiation of meaning takes place. This chapter builds on the theoretical framework by developing a set of concepts to analyze this negotiation of meaning. After elaborating on the components of the research question, I combined Yanow’s (2004) work on meaning and Hajer’s dramaturgical approach to studying public space to form an action-oriented understanding of meaning: it is through actions and interactions that meaning gets expressed, adjusted and negotiated. I focused my analysis of the negotiation of meaning on Liberty Square by zooming into the use of language, objects and acts. While Bamberg’s work on narratives and stories (2004) helps to understand the interactive expression of meaning through language, Yanow’s (1996) concepts of vocabularies, gestures, proxemics and décor can provide an insight into the use of objects in voicing meaning. Hajer’s (2009) work on scripting, staging and setting strengthens the performative element of the conceptual framework by introducing a way to explore how “[…] contextualized interaction itself produces social realities like understanding of the problem in hand, knowledge, decisions, and new power relationships” (Hajer, 2009, p. 66). By combining Hajer and Reijndorp’s (2001) distinction between ‘public space’ and ‘public domain’ with Sennett’s work on ‘openness’ and ‘closedness’ (2007), I developed a multi-dimensional language to examine the quality of publicness. I ended
this chapter by mentioning the social and academic relevance of the case: not only does the case shed light on worrying developments in Europe, it does so by focusing on the every day realm in which these developments are experienced and contested. The case provides a rich insight into an understudied region within the understudied field of symbolic dimensions of governance. In the process, it develops a performative framework to examine the dimensions of quality that result from the enactment of the negotiation of meaning in public space.
4. Research design
4.1 Introduction
In the first chapter of this thesis, the case of Liberty Square and the central research question were introduced. In Chapter Two the theoretical framework in which the study is situated was elaborated; Chapter Three developed this further, introducing concepts useful for research. Bamberg’s work on narratives and stories (2004), Yanow’s work analyzing objects (2004) and Hajer’s dramaturgical concepts of scripting, staging and setting (2009) combined into a set of concepts to analyze the negotiation of meaning in the performative, public space of Liberty Square. Sennett’s (2007) work on open and closed cities provided a conceptual language to evaluate the qualities of publicness resulting from these negotiations. These concepts have been presented as guiding tools rather than mutually exclusive or all-encompassing categories. After discussing the case study approach on which the pragmatic application of concepts builds, this chapter introduces the methodological components that together make up the research design for analyzing Liberty Square as public space. By using document analysis, (participant) observation and interviews, I was able to analyze the interplay between the use of language, objects and acts on the performative level of the square. Within this performative level, I could combine insights derived from different narrative layers- from the individual to the societal. I end this chapter by reviewing the guidelines I followed throughout my research and presenting the setup of the empirical chapters that follow.
4.2 Case study approach
In the previous chapters I regularly mentioned that I conducted a case study to explore how the Living Memorial activists are trying to contest the meaning of the ‘Monument to the Victims of the German Invasion’ in the public space of Liberty Square. Yet there are many different ways of conducting a case study (Bryman, 2012). Before presenting the methodological components of my research design, this section outlines the ethnographic approach that is at the basis of this design.
Based on the work of Geertz (1973), ethnographic research can be described as “[…] an iterative approach that moves back and forth between the researcher and the researched in the practice of interpreting social phenomena” (Geertz, 1973, p. 105). According to Geertz, ethnographic research can produce ‘thick descriptions’
that move between the relative distinctions of:
“[I]nscription” (“thick description”) and “specification” (“diagnoses”)- between setting down the meaning particular social actions have for the actors whose actions are, and stating, as explicitly as we can manage, what the knowledge thus attained demonstrated about the society in which it is found and, beyond that, about social life as such” (Geertz, 1973, p. 107).
Burawoy (1998) provides an interpretation of how to approach ethnographic research within case studies. In his account of “The Extended Case Method” (Burawoy, 1998), he proposes a reflexive science that embraces dialogue with the object of study instead of detachment. By taking the ‘context’ as a source rather than a limitation and by making “reflective understanding” (p. 6) conscious and explicit, reflexivity is integrated into research.
“The extended case method applies reflexive science to ethnography in order to extract the general from the unique, to move from the “micro” to the “macro”, and to connect the present to the past in anticipation of the future, all by building on preexisting theory” (Burawoy, 1998, p.5).
The latter, theoretical argument is crucial to Burawoy: through a dialogue with theory itself, aiming not to confirm but to reconstruct theory, a reflexive social scientist can stay rooted and a measure of objectivity can be established (1998, p. 5 and p. 16). To a certain extent, Burawoy’s (1998) approach inspired me in conducting my case study: through document analysis, (participant) observation and interviews, I sought to explore both the richness of the content as well as the importance of the context of the case study11. Throughout the research as well as the writing process, I tried to be aware and reflexive of my role as the researcher. Furthermore, one of the aims of this study is to contribute to the theoretical knowledge on public space12. However, when it comes to the latter I used Burawoy’s work as an inspiration rather than an absolute guideline: while I recognize the importance of building on a theoretical scholarship, I believe that Flyvbjerg (2006) is right in pointing out the danger of losing the meaning of ‘thick’ narratives when trying too hard to fit dense results into neat concepts (Peattie, 2001, 260, in ibid, p. 430). By combining this insight with Burawoy’s “reflective understanding” (1998, p. 6) of social life, I sought to access a careful and grounded move between ““[I]nscription” (“thick description”) and “specification” (“diagnoses”)” (Geertz, 1973, p. 107). In order to really get to an understanding of
11 The next section will further elaborate on the research methods I used. 12 See the previous chapters.
