Page 38 - Cultural Studies A Practical Introduction

22 Place, Space, and Geography

could stroll and take a break from shopping. Locals who now needed knit-
ting supplies or shoes repaired had to drive to the mall or the next town over.
A culture can clearly take many forms in the same place or location.
And even in one location, there can be multiple cultures. These cultures

influence each other and the world around them. To the East of Mystic is
a spit of land called Stonington Borough on which sit, all crowded together,
a hundred or so old homes, some quite beautiful, all the products of the
sea economy ’ s wealth. For years, this place was home to Portuguese fi sher-
men who were left over from the old seagoing economy. Their quite reli-
gious culture is still palpable in the small fishermen ’ s religious society

building and in the annual Blessing of the Fleet, a Roman Catholic cere-
mony. Go down to the wharves where the fishing boats come and go and

you ’ ll see men who look like they just came from Lisbon, Portugal. But
with time and the increase in car travel, the Borough has become home to
more and more weekenders from New York City. This cultural diffusion
is exhibited through the geography. Gone are the grocery stories and meat
shops that sustained local inhabitants early in the twentieth century, and
on the weekend during the winter, the place seems deserted except for the
permanent small population of wealthy homeowners who sustain the
several restaurants. The culture of the Borough has changed with time,
moving, like Mystic, from a local network of lived relations to a connected-
ness with very distant lives and places. People no longer know each other
on the basis of neighborhood or shared local school experience; instead,
they may use the same investment banker or frequent the same antique
shop or dine regularly at the same restaurant or go sailing at the same time
from the local yacht club. The old school building was in any event long
ago converted to condominiums, although you can still meet men on the
docks who recall attending the school and seeing their fathers from the

windows during class returning from fishing trips. If you go to a certain
restaurant/bar in the Borough of a weeknight, you will encounter a mildly
alcoholic culture. People stay seated all evening, imbibing drink after drink,
talking to each other. At the tables sit families of wealthy weekenders from
New York or wealthy locals enjoying a meal out together.
Nearby, the city of New London, where some of the patrons of the bar
own rental properties, is distinguished culturally from the Borough in
many ways. Because many Whites left, the city is largely inhabited by ethnic
minorities who do service labor at hotels or the local Native American
casinos. They live in apartments cut out from old buildings that used to be
summer homes for wealthy people from elsewhere back when New London