The Dictionary of Human Geography (157 page)

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Authors: Michael Watts

BOOK: The Dictionary of Human Geography
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primary data analysis
In contrast to sec ondary data anaLysis, this involves data col lected and analysed by the same researchers. This allows a great deal of control over what is collected and how it is collected, so that there can be high coherence between theoretical and operational concepts. Such an approach can be costly in time and resources, however, and there can be a lack of compatibility with other work in the field; use of resources such as the Question Bank (http://qb.soc.surrey.ac.uk/) and of harmonized questions in survey ana Lyses can ameliorate the latter problem, while effective sampLing can address the former. kj (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Government Statistical Service (2003). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
primate city, the law of
An empirical regu larity identified by Mark Jefferson (1863 1949: see Jefferson, 1939). The populations of the three largest urban areas in some countries approximated the ratio sequence 100:30:20, which he attributed to the largest city?s pre eminence in economic, social and political affairs. Although the sequence is now largely ignored, the concept of primacy, implying a city?s predominance within an area, is frequently deployed (cf. hegemony; rank size rule). rj (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Vance (1970). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
primitive accumulation
In Capital I, having explained the laws of development of capitaL ism, and the distinctive features of the capital ist mode of production, Marx turns to the process by which capitalism historically estab lished itself (Marx, 1967 [1867]). To pose this historical question how did capitaLism arise? (NEW PARAGRAPH) Marx focuses not simply upon the way in which one set of relations of production is transformed into another the transition from feudaLism to capitalism but on how one class of workers, defined by their lack of prop erty, came to confront another, capitalists, who monopolized the means of production. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The ?so called secret?, as Marx terms it, of primitive accumulation resides not in the sim ple expansion of the provision of the means of production in a quantitative sense but, rather, in a revolutionary reorganization of the rela tions of production. Primitive accumulation for Marx was, in other words, the process by which a pre capitalist system of largely agrar ian relations and small scale property holding a peasantry having some form of direct control over the means of production, namely land was dispossessed. The origins of capitalism are to be found in the process by which the peas ants are freed there is much irony in Marx?s use of this word to become wage labourers in agriculture (on large commercial estates) and in industry. Marx turns to the case of the encLosure movement in Britain in effect, the violent expropriation of forms of common property and the political and extra economic means by which this long process of the creation and disciplining of a proletariat was achieved. Marx made it clear that this process always required the powers of the state and was necessarily violent written in blood and fire, as he put it (see vioLence). (NEW PARAGRAPH) In seeing the enclosure movement as para digmatic of primitive accumulation, Marx opens up a complex debate over the transition from feudaLism to capitaLism and how other parts of europe, and subsequently the colonial and post colonial world, stood in a different relation to the ?original sin? of primitive accu mulation. The debate between Dobb and Sweezy (see Hilton, 1976) turns precisely on the interpretation of other European experi ences and the weight attributed to the role of exchange and market transactions as the force in the disintegration of pre capitalist relations, or whether the pre capitalist solidity was broken by the dynamics of class structure and struggle over property (see brenner thesis). These debates were, of course, central not only to the origins of capitalism in Europe but to the dynamics of capitalism at the ?per iphery?; that is to say, how forms of capital took hold of agrarian societies in the context of European empire (the first age of empire) and the genesis of a mercantile world system. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The primitive accumulation question has always been central to the agrarian question; that is to say, the ways in which peasant sys tems of production are differentiated as capital takes hold of production. Much of this work dates back to the classic studies of land, labour and markets instigated by Karl Kautsky (1988 [1899]) and Vladimir Lenin (1964) in their studies of German and Russian agriculture. (NEW PARAGRAPH) In the 1960s, the boom in peasant studies increasingly focused on the land and landed inequality question; for example, how the green revolutionary technologies were (or were not) producing an agrarian proletariat (Harriss, 1982: see green revoLution). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Primitive accumulation has also been central to theories of imperiaLism, building upon Marx?s observation of the ways in which colo niaLism dispossessed Third World property holders and laid (or attempted to lay) the foundations for systematic accumulation. In so many cases, colonial capitalism proved to be dominated by merchant and other forms of capitalism, in which the speed and depth of proletarianization was often constrained (Watts, 1983a). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Against the backdrop of the counter revolution in deveLopment theory and the rise of neo LiberaLism globally in the past three decades, primitive accumulation has returned as a category of analysis. Much of this has been spurred by the new ways in which various sorts of commons common property resources, the airwaves, human and plant genetic materials have been subject to the violent forces of pri vatization and what Marx called ?disposses sion?. Massimo De Angelis and the electronic journal The Commoner have been especially important in rethinking primitive accumula tion in the context of gLobaLization and neo liberal hegemony (see also RETORT, 2005). Harvey (2005) has also returned to primitive accumulation in his account of neo liberalism. Here he draws upon the important observation made by Arendt (1958) that primitive accumu lation the ?original sin of simple robbery? was repeated historically as capitalism expanded into non commodified areas, sec tors, countries and frontiers. Harvey deploys this insight to show that neo liberalism has typ ically operated in global terms, especially under the auspices of american empire, as a form of dispossession what he calls accumulation by dispossession rather than intensive accumula tion. The forms of dispossession are enor mously varied privatizing public housing, raiding pension funds, displacing indigenous people through dam projects, privatizing germ plasm and throw up quite varied forms of resistance, typically articulated around the defence of the commons, which have been a fundamental force in the so called anti gLobaLization movements. (NEW PARAGRAPH) In the socialist arena, a notion of primitive socialist accumulation was developed by Preobrazhensky in the 1920s, in post revolutionary Russia (see Preobrazhensky, (NEW PARAGRAPH) 1965). He emphasized that maintaining the equilibrium between the market share ofindus trial and agricultural output at pre war levels meant upsetting the balance between rural effective demand and the commodity output of the town. A large increase in heavy invest ment was required that could not be funded internally; hence agriculture had to bear the burden. State trading monopolies would divert excess demand from the peasantry to invest ment from consumption. This was to be achieved by a sort of unequal exchange in which agrarian goods were underpriced and manufactures overpriced. This monopoly pri cing by the state in effect, a massive tax on peasants to kick start heavy industry was the socialist model of primitive (originary) accu mulation. The presumption was that the terms of trade would strike the kulaks hardest. A bril liant theorist of socialist accumulation, he broke with both Trotsky and Stalin and was arrested and shot in the late 1930s. mw (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) De Angelis (2006). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
primitivism
A Euro American discourse that represents the indigenous cultures of sub Saharan africa, South america and the Pacific islands as outside the perimeter of civiLization. It was inspired by European traveL writing, and in particular by the discoveries made by European explorers in the South Pacific in the closing decades of the eighteenth century. Its imaginative geographies received formal expression in post enLightenment philosophy (Rousseau?s ?noble savage?), in modern art (Gauguin?s Tahiti), and in early anthropology (Malinowski?s Argonauts of the Western Pacific). In all three cases, the possessive is significant: while primitivism was often connected to a cri tique of modernity (a ?oneness? with nature, for example, an intrinsic simplicity, and a celebration of the sensual and the spiritual through the fantastic), it was also closely tied to coLoniaLism. In many ways, it acted as the cul tural dual to the concept of tropicaLitY, and is a powerful reminder that colonial discourse was about more than orientaLism. Historically, ?primitivism has its place in the genealogy of relationships between the West and the Other: it allows one to grasp the geography by which the West has constructed itself in reference and opposition to ??Elsewheres??. Conversely, primi tivism accounts for the geography of these ??Elsewheres??, in that they were transformed, and even produced by the West? (Staszak, 2004, p. 362). But primitivism continues to (NEW PARAGRAPH) haunt contemporary culture (Torgovnick, 1991), and its tropes continue to be mobilized in modern tourism and the quest for the ?exotic?. Indeed, Li (2006) contends that it continues to be a powerful if hidden presence in critical theo rizations that ostensibly seek to expose the EthNoceNtrism of the West. ?In order for the west to reflect,? he concludes, ?the savage must dance? (Li, 2006, p. 223). dg (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Staszak (2004). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
principal components analysis (pca)
A stat istical procedure for transforming a data mat rix so that variables in the new matrix are uncorrelated. Unlike factor aNaLysis (with which it is often confused/treated synonym ously), there are as many variables (termed ?components?) in the transformed as in the original matrix. Component loadings and scores are interpreted as are those derived from factor analyses, and component matrices can also be rotated. The pca procedure has been widely used in human geography: (a) to identify groups of interrelated variables inductively; (b) to simplify a data set by removing redundant information; (c) to reorganize a data set in order to eliminate coLLiNearity; and (d) to test hypotheses. (See also factoriAL ecoLogy.) rj (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Johnston (1978). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
prisoner's dilemma
An application of game theory that illustrates the benefits of co operative behaviour in certain situations and has been deployed to suggest a rationale for the state. (NEW PARAGRAPH) In the game?s classic version (see Rapoport and Chammah, 1965), two men are arrested on charges of both car theft and armed rob bery. The first offence can be readily proven, but the other cannot; convictions for the latter will only be obtained if one of the men con fesses and implicates the other. The suspects know that if they both stay silent they will be found guilty of theft and serve a short prison sentence (one year); they also know that if both are found guilty of the armed robbery they will serve eight years. They are interro gated separately and not allowed to consult, let alone collude. Each is offered the deal that if he confesses to the robbery, resulting in the accomplice being found guilty, he will be freed and the accomplice will get ten years. The four options are set out in the following matrix: The first figure in each cell indicates Suspect A?s punishment if that option is chosen by them both, and the second indicates Suspect?s B punishment. Thus if neither con fesses to the robbery, each serves one year in prison; if A confesses and B does not, however, then A will be freed and B will serve ten years. For each, the best option is to confess, because if either remains silent and the other confesses, he will get ten years? imprisonment. Neither dare stay silent for fear that the other will not. If the two could collude, or could guarantee that the accomplice would stay silent, then the optimal solution is for both to remain silent a one year sentence. But because neither can guarantee the other?s choice, each selects a sub optimal outcome and gets an eight year sentence. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The dilemma has been used as a metaphor not only to illustrate that selfish behaviour may not be in an individual?s best interests, but also that it is not in a person?s interests to act unselfishly if everybody else takes the self ish option, particularly in issues regarding resource use and resource maNagemeNt (cf. tragedy of the commoNs). In most situ ations involving more than a small number of actors, it is argued, unselfish behaviour can only be guaranteed if enforced by an external authority, such as the state, which exists to promote both the collective and the individual good although there are many situations (some illustrated by more complex versions of the prisoner?s dilemma game such as the iterated prisoner?s dilemma, in which the ?game? is played many times: see Axelrod, 1984) in which co operation is sensible and can promote the collective good without state involvement. rj (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Barrett (2003); Laver (1997); Poundstone (1992). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
prisons
Segregative institutions designed to punish, typically for criminal offences. Prisons are usually strictly regulated and tightly sur veyed environments, to which offenders are confined for varying lengths of time, and sometimes for life. Often referred to as ?peni tentiaries? or ?correctional institutions?, prisons may also seek to reform inmates to reduce the possibility of re offending. Although confinement is central to all prisons, incarcerative institutions vary in the types of offenders they house and the degree of security that they ensure. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The geographical literature on prisons is scant, despite the manifold geographical con ditions and consequences of practices of incar ceration. Imprisonment is essentially a territorialized form of punishment, a banish ment from social life. In this way, it is an extreme manifestation of the territorial power of the state. Prisons can also be considered in terms of their own internal geographies, the ways in which they are constructed to maxi mize surveiLLance and control, a process col ourfully and famously outlined by Foucault (1995 [1975]). These geographies, in turn, structure a particular social order, a ?society of captives? (Sykes, 1958), who adapt to prison life and its various dangers. Prisons typically contain different levels of confine ment, such that those who are viewed as espe cially problematic inmates can be isolated in solitary conditions. Increasingly, whole insti tutions so called ?super maximum security? (or ?supermax?) prisons are dedicated to housing those violent criminals presumed to be habitual offenders in conditions of extreme isolation (Rhodes, 2004). (NEW PARAGRAPH) More macro oriented analyses see prisons as reflective of wider social patterns, such as eco nomic dynamics. Since 1980, the number of people imprisoned in the USA has increased by more than 450 per cent, and Gilmore (1998, 2007) attributes this extraordinary expansion to the production of disposable or ?surplus? populations under the signs of an aggressive miLitarism and neo LiberaLism. She traces the formation ofan American prison industrial complex to state sponsored prison construc tion in declining rural areas and the out sourcing and privatization of incarceration. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Prison populations can also be analysed in terms of their demographic characteristics. That prisons are commonly occupied by poor people of colour is suggestive of wider patterns of social differentiation and spatial exclusion: incarceration can thus be understood as yet another manifestation of racialized discrimin ation (see racism). The experience of incar ceration works to increase these social divisions further still, because those convicted of crimes often face significant odds in return ing to the economic mainstream. These nega tive consequences of incarceration can affect entire neighbourhoods where ex convicts cluster, and further reinforce wider social and economic divisions between different spaces within a metropolitan area (Fagan, 2004). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Prisons are also a key component of wider carceraL geographies. These geographies promise to enlarge as concerns about terror ism intensify. Sites such as Guantanamo Bay are part of a carceral archipelago, a ?global war prison?, used to further the ?war on terror? (Gregory, 2007). Indeed, the logic of impris onment is arguably extended to other terrains (NEW PARAGRAPH) such as Gaza, often described as an extended ?open air prison? to monitor and control those deemed hostile to the particular interests of a state. skh (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Gilmore (2007); Rhodes (2004). (NEW PARAGRAPH)

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