Beyond geography's visible worlds: a cultural politics of music

Within human geography, the meeting between art matters and cultural politics has been a predominantly visual affair. However, this article argues that sound is as important as sight for the project of geography, and that music has as secure a place as the visual arts in the study of social life. For example, while cultural studies of Renaissance Italy have focused on the way that landscape painting encapsulates the political economy of the period, I consider why the ‘truths’ of the time were nurtured as much by filling space with sound as by depicting place on canvas. Similarly, although painters are able vividly to depict the impact of industrialization on the English landscape, by exploring the spaces of music – a more neglected route into the historical geography of modern Britain – I suggest there is more to the link between art and industrialism than first meets the eye. Finally, building on maps of race and racism drawn up from ethnography, narrative and visual representation, I tease out the contested terrain of music, and identify it as a medium through which those whose condition society tries its best not to see can begin to make themselves heard.