The Abandoned Lighthouse

The Liminal Experience of Ruins

  • Isla Whateley University of Edinburgh
Keywords: ruins, liminality, cities, affect, modernity

Abstract


Summary: Ruins can play a particularly poignant role in modern capitalist society, and exist in a liminal, marginal state between the past and the future. Western Harbour Lighthouse in Leith, Edinburgh is an example of this kind of ruin, separated from the rest of the city by a physical and metaphorical boundary. Ruins also have affective presence, inciting a particular feeling in those who enter. This essay explores how the liminal status of the Lighthouse disrupts the usual ‘order’ of the modern city.

Published
20-Jun-2018
How to Cite
Whateley, I. (2018). The Abandoned Lighthouse. Re:Think - a Journal of Creative Ethnography, 1(1), 11-15. Retrieved from http://journals.ed.ac.uk/rethink/article/view/2650
Issue
Vol 1 No 1 (2018): Summer 2018
Section
Academic Essays

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