A Place to Belong: Community Order and Everyday Space in Calvert, Newfoundland

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

Compared to most academic research reports, this is light reading.
Nonetheless, readers for whom Sociology 101 is but a distant memory will
find the first chapters artificial and pedantic. It is here that Pocius
sets out his research methodology and explains his subject: cultural
space or human geography.

In oversimplified terms, Pocius is examining how the uses of
spaces—whether fields, fishing spots, or a room in the house—shapes
life in the Newfoundland fishing village of Calvert.

After this initiation into sociological jargon, the work becomes quite
interesting for the nonacademic reader who is curious about how other
Canadians live. For example, Pocius writes about gender-specific spaces,
stating that women shape microspaces whereas men relate to macrospaces.
What he means is that men learn to know the forests (hunting, wood
cutting) and sea (fishing) while women put up fresh wallpaper in the
kitchen and tend the flower gardens around the house.

The work looks at, among other subjects, how Calvert’s residents
relate to their past (through memories or legends associated with
specific spaces/places rather than through objects); the use of spaces
as shared resources; the origins of place names; and the method of
acquiring ownership of spaces. Pocius introduces the fascinating term
“landscape literacy” to describe Calvert, which is seen as having
“not so much a material as a spatial culture . . . a community in
which every spatial detail is known and shared.”

Along with the sociology lessons, the book gives fairly detailed
descriptions of some features of Newfoundland village life that will be
new to most “mainland” readers—Shortlar fences and bakeapples, for
example.

Lots of photos of the people and their spaces (homes and landscape) add
interest to the work.