Acceso usuarios
City of Cape Town, Sudáfrica
In this article, we explore some of the practices and mechanisms behind the multiple constructions of place and its meanings, focusing specifically on the diverse ways in which signage is read and incorporated into personal narratives of place. We employ a methodology of narrated walking that allows insights into how our informants actively construct the significance of local place as they navigate and move through space, and that also illustrates how signage discourses are enacted, performed, disputed and elaborated in local performativities of place. The article concludes by drawing out some implications for research on semiotic landscapes generally, and offers some suggestions on what such an approach to semiotic landscapes might contribute to a politics of local civility by taking into consideration how signage mediates local interpersonal relationships, the situated social dynamics of multivocality and, ultimately, the contesting lives of multiple publics.
