Migrant space,migrant community: Williams,Bakhtin, and cultural analysis

This essay begins to excavate the theoretical basis of Raymond Williams’ largely unacknowledged spatial perspective on culture and communication, locating an important source in the work of the Bakhtin Circle. It then applies these insights to a Californian migrant labor camp and its newspaper, which was produced during the late 1930s and early 1940s. The essay seeks to demonstrate how attention to cultural forms of community as embodied and active in newspapers help produce new kinds of spatial experience and identities. It concludes by considering Williams, Bakhtin, and their contributions to understanding the role of these spatial practices in modern, capitalist societies.