Such a triumph of ideological forms of representation over the lived experience of distinct places traces the path carved out by the history of colonialism and global capitalism. Ammiel Alcalay puts it this way, “much more than an individual psychological situation, this process of valuing representation over reality masks an almost total disregard for the particulars of the human condition in specific places while cordoning off areas in which power can fulfill its function within an ideology of supremacy. If the ‘natives’ amount to nothing more than romantic landscape refracting material that only reflects distorted or idealized images of the visitors back at themselves, then it stands to reason that the land of the natives is of no particular value unless that value is invested by someone else: namely, the colonizer, imperial power, corporate shareholder, or tourist.”(ii)

In such paths to ‘progress’, the security of ruling relations has always relied upon the power of representation to create a picture of the world that is consistent with the view of rulers. As Timothy Mitchell discusses, forming images of places has been an essential part of making them ‘knowable’, and through such abstract ‘knowledge’, conquering them.(iii)

Much like the doctrine of Terra Nullius marked colonized spaces as empty and awaiting the colonizer to give it value, hegemonic representations have worked to separate people from their actual lived experiences and to empty out place of the meanings held for it by the people who are there. People and places become one-dimensional image-commodities awaiting conquest: sights waiting to be ‘seen’. This is as true for our images of ‘home’ as it is about those we anticipate in our travels. Indeed, constructing a hierarchy of theres is an integral part of ruling projects. Some places, such as Stein’s ‘Oakland’, are worth leaving just as other places are worth arriving at.

Gaye Chan + Nandita Sharma