Becoming a local in The Locomotive Hotel: appreciating the ‘mess’ of place

Negotiating senses of place beyond a 'time-space' envelope: a study

into the hotel drinking establishments of Salt River

Evan Blake

MSocSc candidate Department of Environmental and

Geographical Science University of Cape Town

• Research introduction

• Research mess in Salt River

• Research in SR’s hotel est.

• Interrogated identity

• Drinking as shaping hybrid place

• Concluding thoughts

Lower Main Road by Gavin Collins

The Faces of Woodstock, Salt River & Observatory by Mark Hilltout

CONENCT THIS TO SOME OF THE ARGUMENTS IN LAST SLIDE

• Thesis – not focused on violence – actually not examining the nature of drinking places either • Rather – use of a drinking place as a nexus of social relations in SR – thesis is not saying that the

drinking place is unique as a nexus but rather as one nexus point amongst countless others in SR • Using Massey’s conceptualisation of place – specificity in the combination of social relations • Purpose of this presentation – focus on the particpant observation component and how my own

fieldwork experience informing the theoretical framework used

• What Im going to do with this presentation – first demosntrate what I like to think of as the messiness of Salt River – and some difficulties we had there in establishing focus groups and why I think we had these difficulties and then how this was useful for my own work

• Then provide two key parts of my fieldwork experience in the site to demonstrate how personal experience in research was invaluable to understanding the social relations present that develop a sense of place in the hotel that were not immediately apparent on the surface

Salt River messiness

• Before beginning fieldwork – initial project plan – set out to look at possible relationships between drinking, spaces of drinking and sense of place in SR

• Why SR? – personal interest in the suburb – lived there – knew of the suburb as having an interesting composition- so what is this comp?:

• Quite old CT suburb • Residential, commercial, ind mix • Constant shifts – different groups in and out across time • Present shifts: not only gentrification but the emergence of intraAfrican

groups as repurposing resi and commercial blocks • Trying to estb focus groups for alcohol project– reinforce this messiness • Inititally thought of this incoherent, mess of communities and identities in

SR as a problem well trying to organise f.groups, but when beginning my own fieldwork in earnest – embrace this nature of Salt River

Some background to the site: The hotel est of SR

• Particular drinking establishment in SR chosen – last remaining old hotel pub establishment – The Locomotive

• Chosen because: interesting social history in these establishments – told by people encountered – regarded as a SR institution – almost a received wisdom around the hotel places – something that most old residents or visitors in SR have had some experience with, acknowledging it as quite central to SR community ‘back in the day’ but at present most people don’t have an opinion about anymore

• Reason for this – the prominence of these hotels – closed – result of changing social-economic environments in SR – most establishments lost regular patrons, struggled to remain open – some establishments such as the Junction Hotel – closed, building condemened and remains boarded up. Others – like the Bromwell – redeveloped, gentrified as a boutique mall – history of these hotels – quite convuleted and tangled

• Remains a single such establ left open at present in SR – The Locomotive – still operates under its original name and as a hotel pub – set out to investigate my original research plan

• First few visits to The Locomotive – what it looks like from the surface – diverse patrons cutting across race, gender and class backgrounds – across generation as well - as narratives later demonstrated – some patrons frequented the old hotels when they were open in the past, while others had not

Becoming a local in the hotel

• From first visit to the last – continuously interrogated about my identity and place in SR, and relation to the hotel – not in an intimidating way – more of people sharing their diverse backgrounds – sharing of background info often leads to finding common experience to bond over

• My first experience of this: two elderly ladies – live nearby and come occasionaly for a drink – ask where I’m from – explain Durban, my background – asked if I know certain areas of Durban – these ladies used to visit there on holiday – confirm I do – talk about our different backgrounds and why we went there

• Replicated multiple times – small, mundane moments and conversations in the bar – finding commonality in difference and diverse backgrounds of patrons

• Although set out to talk to patrons about their experiences in the bar – through participant observation my own experience in becoming part of the bar, for instance these interogations of my identity by patrons – started to become central in understanding how people negotiated social relations – being a new patron, experiencing these dynamics – turned out to be a beneficial position to the research – through going through the social norms and practices of the hotel – being aware of these processes through rigourous reflexivity exercises and position reflection in fieldwork notes – process of becoming a ‘local’ at the hotel – making it my ‘local’ spot

– how creating a sense of place, having the locomtoive become a regular ‘local’ spot, isn’t as simple as me drinking at the place but the result of people’s interactions with me - creating this familairty and comfort not just for myself, but for other patrons as well – creating a ‘hybrid’ form community through the difference and diverstiy of the establishments patrons backgrounds and identities

• Reinforced further through the act of drinking - drinking, like the identity background interrogation – establish some sort of common ground amongst diverse social identities and backgrounds

• My black label quart experience – EXPLAIN – not drinking just for the act of alcohol consumption and intoxication – element of everyone buying the most economic drink – in particular brown bottle beers (castle and black label) – shared

• My thesis explores with greater depth – is that through narratives and life histories from former workers and patrons in the hotel – there was a lunch time culture in the hotels in SR that had a similar role – incredibly affordable lunch that used to bring in vastly different people, different social-economic backgrounds and unified them as a community despite times of hardship – powerful image and narrative of the role of the hotels

• At present – with the hotels mostly closed, lunch time culture thing of the past – a different form of consumption has been taken up to contain the set of values in the locomotive at present – drinking of brown bottle quarts

• My experience of drinking with the patrons – is that the sharing of a quart is this social practice – it isn’t just to get drunk – that through sharing a drink conversations are had, differences are negotiated and connections are made – What I came to understand is that through embracing this brown bottle quart culture of the locomotive – I was seen by the regualr patrons as being open to accepting the place of the locomotive – open to sharing a social norm that is central to social relations in the establishment

• THEREFORE – drinking not just a linear remnant from the past lunch time culture – its carrying something through that is important to not just the hotel bars but to all places in general

The lunches in the past as bringing together different, diverse groups and providing cohesion Drinking in the hotel at present – a way to find a common ground between diverse, different patrons at present Through my experience drinking is a social practice that enables people to negotiate differences in identity (which is so prominent in SR) and create a common community, a shared hybrid identity amongst the difference

LAST SLIDE

This realisation through my fieldwork around the role of drinking as a social practice is key to my thesis – explore various aspects of it with greater depth – but ultimately I argue through this realisation brought about with participant observation, that the locomtoive hotel can be conceptualised as a nexus of dynamic and multiple sets of social relations • TO HAVE UP ON THE SLIDE: ACTIVELY INVOVLED IN FIELDWORK – LEARNED THAT THE LOCOMOTIVE AS A DRINKING SPACE EXISTS BEYOND NOTIONS OF NEGATIVE ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION – RATHER THROUGH PARTICPANT OBSERVATION (AND OTHER METHODS) – DEMONSTRATES THE DRINKING SPACE AS A NEXUS POINT FOR SOCIAL RELATIONS – ENHANCED BY DRINKINING AS A CONSUMPTIVE SOCIAL PRACTICE THAT DEEPENS SOCIAL INTERACTIONS BETWEEN DIVERSE AND VARIED PATRONS – ESTABLISHING IT AS A UNIQUE PLACE IN SR So ultimately – I really enjoyed doing this research – I met lots of new people, created relationships with regular patrons, had amazing life-changing conversations with passing patrons, came to understand the internal workings of how people develop a sense of place not only in a bar but just generally, but most importantly – fieldwork and the research taught me to appreciate this ‘messiness’ of the field –as a geographer this messiness came from trying to understand SR in terms of its connection between community and place – madness lies in trying to delineate that complexity – fortunately through my experience living there, trying to set up focus groups initially, and just throwing myself into this bar I learned that perhaps appreciating this ‘mess’ of multiple, intersecting identities and communities is the best way to conceptualise place. I was also especially lucky that some of the fundamental geographic place/space literature has for the past 3 decades been encouraging this approach – to understand place and the interactions in place (such as drinking in a pub) as a set of ever-changing social relationships. Fortunately using participant observation alongside other methods including interviews and life histories paid off – I don’t know if I would’ve been able to build this textured reading of the social relationships of the hotel if I didn’t throw myself into the fray and decide to try become a local patron and get to know some of the people who are there – it just somehow all worked out for the best despite initial difficulty – but with that intiial diffculty being invaluable to the research also– as im sure is the case with all fieldwork – but with this experience I think, as I’ve tried to demonstrate with this presentation, that ethnographic approaches are an invaluable way to researching the ‘place’ of not only drinking establishments but also our cities, suburbs and other spaces too.