1st Edition
Psychogeography and Psychology In and Beyond the Discipline
Psychogeography usually refers to radical and artistic ways of walking or to a conflation of psychology with geography. In this unique work, the author makes arguments for considering psychogeography as a way to critique the contemporary world and to consider new ways of studying the interface of human beings in environments.
The book begins by introducing and explaining the term psychogeography from a range of academic, activist, and artistic perspectives. Each chapter presents different approaches to doing psychogeography and there are arguments presented for why there is a need for a postpsychology. The author takes a creative and innovative approach to psychogeography by extending walking methods of research to include other forms of practice and research including playwriting and wargaming.
The only book written on psychogeography from a psychological perspective, this book will appeal to researchers and students of psychology, geography, architecture, and cultural studies as well as artists, activists, and the public.
Chapter 1: Introduction to psychogeography
Chapter 2: Conceptualising the field
Chapter 3: Doing psychogeography: Dérives, academic papers, playwriting and wargaming
Chapter 4: Conclusions
Biography
Alex Bridger is Senior Lecturer in Critical Social Psychology at the University of Huddersfield. He is also one of the co-founders of the 4th World Congress of Psychogeography and is an active member of the trans-institutional Discourse Unit.
'Situationist ideas have been trickling their way into the social sciences for some time now. This book by Alex Bridger attempts to demonstrate the relevance of these concepts to psychology. Debord, Trocchi, Ivan Chtcheglov and a whole host of other thinkers are utilised to make fresh connections. It is written with pathos and backed up by a wealth of academic and hard to come by radical texts. I find it a fascinating corrective to depoliticised takes on the Situationist Internationalists and I hope it inspires new research into the relationship between people and their environments.’ – Babak Fozooni, Associate Lecturer, The Open University, UK
‘Alex Bridger’s book brings together psychogeography and psychology in a challenge to conventional ways of undertaking academic work. The concepts from both academic fields are well-explained and, in a language accessible to anyone interested in either subject area, scholars or otherwise. Notably, this is a practice-based text, demonstrating the importance of actually carrying out the psychogeographical work in the field, with its socio-political significance well-situated in contemporary times. Bridger instils himself in the text via his practice, demonstrating the importance of the subjective aspect of psychogeography, one that, he explains, is problematic in his own academic field, psychology. It is this, he says, that is its "political purpose", and this too, is what makes the book so significant today. But it is also a personal project for Bridger, and this is what makes it readily available to any potentially interested reader. Bridger’s book is both a new addition to the growing psychogeographical corpus, but also stands in its own right as an excellent current introduction to the subject.’ – Tina Richardson, author/editor of Walking Inside Out: Contemporary British Psychogeography
