Violence and Place: A Consideration of the San Bernardino Shooting

On December 2nd, 2015, San Bernardino, California, became a nationally known place of violence. During the weeks following the incident, a large collection of banners, photographs, greenery, American flags, and candles accumulated at an intersection near the site, becoming an impromptu memorial space. Diverse and conflicting emotions, reactions, and concerns are evident within these dedications. This paper discusses the role of experiences, materials, and place in the ongoing negotiation of cultural meaning in this place. I draw from Simon Springer’s concept of places of violence as “relational assemblages”. Springer has written that “…although violence is experienced through the ontological priority of place, these experiences are inseparable from the relational characteristic of space as a unitary and indivisible whole”. I argue that the memorial objects I discuss evidence this kind of conceptualization of places of violence—as inseparable from broader understandings of religious, racial, and political social worlds.