The Dictionary of Human Geography (204 page)

Read The Dictionary of Human Geography Online

Authors: Michael Watts

BOOK: The Dictionary of Human Geography
4.48Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
time-geography
An approach to human geography treating time and space as re sources directly involved in the constitution of social life. It was developed by the Swedish geographer Torsten Hagerstrand and his asso ciates at the University of Lund during the 1960s and 1970s (Hagerstrand and Lenntorp, 1974). Time geography is not sup posed to be a theory, but rather an onto logical contribution focusing on how different phenomena are mutually modified because they coexist in time and space. As such, Hagerstrand attributed a certain natur aLism to the approach, characterizing it as a ?topoecology? designated to grasp a society nature technology constellation. He acknow ledged an affinity with phenomenoLogy but still argued for a physical approach to the so cial world (Hagerstrand, 1982). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Time geography was developed in relation to empirical work and an intensive involvement in Swedish planning. Its basic element is con nections between continuous trajectories of individual entities in time space. From these, descriptive concepts were developed, such as paths, stations, projects, prisms, time space bundles and time space domains. They constitute a world view on the human condition stating that everybody is subject to confinement in time space within the limits formed by the bounded capacity of individuals to engage in more than one task at a time, by the speeds at which it is possible to move and assemble indi viduals, tools and materials, and by regulations of access and modes of conduct within do mains of local order. Most well known is the translation of this view into a non linguistic notation system representing possible configur ations in time space (see figure). It proved a useful tool in planning and was heavily used also in early feminist geographies of time space constraints in women?s everyday life. (NEW PARAGRAPH) While time geography?s representational po tential is widely acknowledged, its metaphysical basis has been severely criticised. Two streams (NEW PARAGRAPH) of criticism have prevailed. One points to a problematic relationship to sociaL theory, and especially how the naturalism or ?physical ism? of the approach leads to a defective con ception of human thought and action and erodes the possibility of developing a social understanding of time space (Gregory, (NEW PARAGRAPH) . The other line of criticism charges time geography with mascunNism (Rose, 1993). It regards time geography as a visual strategy that renders space objective and trans parent (see vision and visuality). Further more, the moving bodies of time geography are seen as ?imaginary bodies?; ?universal? and deprived of social and cultural markings of ?race?, gender and sexuaLity. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Some geographers have sought to develop more socialized versions of time geography. In the 1980s, these attempts often relied upon a convergence with structuration the ory. Perhaps the most prominent of these attempts came from Allan Pred (e.g. 1986), who studied agrarian and urban change in nineteenth century Sweden as an interaction between social restructuring, everyday rou tines and the production of meaning. Since the 1980s interest in time geography has been renewed on two levels. First, its descriptive capacity has been developed through GIS based technologies and 3 D visualizations of human activity patterns. Second, Hager strand?s emphasis on encountering, events (NEW PARAGRAPH) and human/non human connectivity reson ates with new ontologies with a naturalist twist, such as actor network theory and non representational theory. ks (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Dyck (1990); Hagerstrand (1985). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
time-space compression
An increase in the speed of social life and a diminution in the constraining effects of distance on human ac tivities. Processes of this kind have a long and varied history, but when David Harvey (1989b) first proposed the term, his primary purpose was to designate the product of what Marx saw as the compulsion to ?annihilate space by time? under capitaLism. Marx fam ously described capitalist modernity as a world in which ?all that is solid melts into air?, but Harvey showed how this extraordin ary volatility the accelerating rhythm of so cial change is connected through the restless expansion of capital accumuLation to far reaching transformations in the structures of an increasingly global space economy. Harvey explained that he deliberately used the word ?compression? because ?a strong case can be made that the history of capitalism has been characterized by speed up in the pace of life, while so overcoming barriers that the world sometimes seems to collapse in upon us?. These are ?processes that so revolu tionize the objective qualities of space and time that we are forced to alter, sometimes in quite radical ways, how we represent the world to ourselves?. Harvey thus intended the con cept to have an experiential dimension that is missing from related concepts such as time space convergence and time space distan ciation. He paid particular attention to the ways in which time space compression dis locates the modern habitus that gives social life its precarious coherence: implicated in a crisis of representation (?how we represent the world to ourselves?), the consequences of time space compression are supposed to be disturbing, even threatening; time space com pression is a ?maelstrom? and a ?tiger? that induces ?foreboding?, ?shock?, a ?sense of col lapse? and even ?terror? that, at the limit, trans lates into a ?crisis of identity ? (Harvey, 1989b, 1990, 1996). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Harvey was radicalizing an argument pro posed by the conservative critic Daniel Bell in The cultural contradictions of capitalism (1978). In Bell?s view, ?physical distance? was ?com pressed? by new systems of transportation and communication at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and what he called ?aes thetic distance? was in its turn compressed by a corresponding stress on ?immediacy, impact, sensation and simultaneity? that was characteris tic of the cultural formations of modernism. Harvey took this account further by: (NEW PARAGRAPH) wiring cultural crises of representation to basal crises of capital accumuLation (see crisis); and (NEW PARAGRAPH) reading the cultural formations of post modernism as symptoms of the heightened intensity of a new round of time space compression produced by a regime of fLexibLe accumuLation at the close of the twentieth century (see Gregory, 1994, pp. 406 14). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Harvey?s theses have been subjected to both critique and development: (NEW PARAGRAPH) Some femiNist geographers have been sceptical of Harvey?s view of time space compression as threatening, and seen his ?cartographic anxiety? as symptomatic of a challenge to the confident MASCULiNIsm of mainstream theorizing (Deutsche, 1996a) (cf. cartographic reason). This has fed in to a recognition of the multiple registers through which time space compression is socially differentiated, and Massey (1993) proposed a comprehensive grid of agency and affect, position and power that she called the ?power geometry of time space compression? (cf. Bridge, 1997). (NEW PARAGRAPH) These objections intersected with alter (NEW PARAGRAPH) native theorizations of place. Some critics complained that the containing metaphor of time space compression represented place as a bounded site whose ?essential identity? is hollowed out by the powerful forces of capitalist gLobaLization. To Gibson Graham (2006a [1996]), this scenario enacts a ?rape script? that ?normalizes an act of non reciprocal penetration?: all non (NEW PARAGRAPH) capitalist forms are construed as ?sites of potential invasion, envelopment, accumu lation?, victims awaiting their violation. This evidently militates against the very politics that Harvey is concerned to advance (but cf. Harvey, 1996, pp. 291 326). Others argued that the original meta phor distracted attention from the pro duction of more open, so called ?global? conceptions of place in which the intim ate and the impersonal, the virtual and the corporeal, the near and the far are reassembled in new constellations. In a parallel series of essays that centred on the technical transformations in the cir culation of money that lie at the heart of Harvey?s theses, for example, Thrift (1997a) showed that ?new forms of elec tronic detachment have produced new forms of social involvement?: that con temporary processes of time space com pression still depend on the intimacy of interpersonal contact. (NEW PARAGRAPH) These contributions emphasize that time space compression is spatially differ entiated. Harvey?s original account of ?the shrinking world? focused on the global north and was insensitive to the mul tiple and compound geographies of time space compression, but since then he has provided more nuanced discus sions that pay closer attention to the global south and to the politico military carapace of contemporary accumulation by dispossession Harvey, 2003b, 2005; cf. Agnew, 2001; see primitive accumu lation). Harvey continues to emphasize the poLiticaL economy of time space compression, and while it is not neces sary to accept Massey?s (1993, p. 60) characterization of this as an ?econo mism?, time space compression does have other vital dimensions that are con nected but cannot be reduced to the logics of capital. Late modern war emphasizes the enhanced power of mili tary vioLence over time and space, for example, and the formation of trans national public spheres reveals the im portance of global fLows of images and information to the formation of net work societies. All of these dimensions have their own hierarchies, margins and exclusions hence the crucial im portance of positionaLity (Sheppard, 2002) and these variable topologies imply that time space compression op erates alongside processes of time space expansion. dg (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Agnew (2001); Harvey (1989b, chs 15 17). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
time-space convergence
A decrease in the friction of distance between places. As this definition suggests, the concept originated within spatiaL science, where it was first formulated by Douglas Janelle (1968). He defined the convergence rate between two locations as the average rate at which the time needed to travel between them decreases over time: the measure was supposed to be ?mathematically analogous to velocity as de fined by the physicist?. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Janelle (1969) attributed time space con vergence to technical change: ?as a result of transport innovation, places approach each other in time space?. Janelle showed that time space convergence is usually discontinu ous in time convergence curves are typically jagged, corresponding to pulses of technical innovation and uneven over space: ?Any transport improvement will tend to be of greatest advantage to the highest ordered centre that it connects? (Janelle, 1968). Forer (NEW PARAGRAPH) noted that the converse is also true that time space convergence is partly a function of the hierarchical structure of the settlement system so that Janelle?s model of ?spatial reorganization? entailed a double movement in which ?places define spaces? and spaces in turn progressively ?redefine? places. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Other geographers distinguished distance convergence from cost convergence and identified a pervasive tendency for the friction of dis tance to decrease under the sign of modern ity. Since the friction of distance is a fundamental postulate of classical centraL pLace theory, diffusion theory and Loca tion theory it is, after all, what makes the identification of spatial patterns possible time space convergence was supposed to ?scramble? and ?play havoc? with these stand ard geometric modeLs (Falk and Abler, 1980). Time space convergence was thus linked to a concept of plastic space: ?a space defined by separation in time or cost terms, a space which the progressions and regressions of technology make one of continuous flux? (Forer, 1978). (NEW PARAGRAPH) These were simple but suggestive ideas, yet Forer (1978) suggested that most contempor ary geographers had paid little attention to them because they addressed ?the larger can vas of economic history and the long term development of society?. Ironically, however, it was precisely those links that turned out to be most important. Pred (1973) had already provided an imaginative reconstruction of the changing time lags within the circulation of public information through major newspapers published on the eastern seaboard of the USA between 1790 and 1840. Although his studies mapped the geography of time space convergence and its hierarchical structure, and made explicit reference to Janelle?s contri butions, Pred was more interested in the politico economic and cultural implications of time space convergence than in the geometric structures that preoccupied the original archi tects of the concept. For much the same rea son, calibrations of time space convergence are now more likely to be situated within the conceptual field of time space compression that directly addresses such concerns. dg (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Brunn and Leinbach (1991); Janelle (1969). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
time-space distanciation
A term proposed by British sociologist Anthony Giddens to de scribe the ?stretching? of social systems across time and space. The concept played a central role in his critique of modern social theory and the development of his rival structura tion theory. Giddens argued that conven tional social theory was strongly influenced by forms of functionalism, which assumed that societies are coherent and bounded systems, and by models of social change that presumed that the basic structural dimensions of societies are internal to those systems. Time space distanciation was intended to con found both claims: ?The nexus of relations political, economic or military in which a society exists with others is usually integral to the very nature of that society? and, indeed, ?to what ??societies?? are conceived to be? (Giddens, 1981). Today this is a commonplace in most of human geography, though it has been developed in ways that have moved far from Giddens? own formulations, but there are nonetheless affinities between time space distanciation and concepts of time space compression and time space convergence. There are also two significant differences. (NEW PARAGRAPH) ?Time space distanciation? draws atten tion to the capacity for social life to extend over time as well as space in ways that are not limited to the contemplation of a modern world in which ?all that is solid melts into air?, and where a dizzying spiral of accelerating change sustains the ?ver tigo of the modern? as a cultural domin ant. For Giddens also emphasized the importance of archives, record keeping and surveiLLance to the conduct of social life, so that (in principle, at least) time space distanciation connects more dir ectly the roles of governmentaLity and memory in late moderNity than either of the other two concepts. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Giddens offered an outline sketch of the historical trajectory of time space distan ciation that was also intended to be an analytical map of different types of soci ety. In contrast, discussions of time space compression have largely been limited to its role within contemporary capitaLism, while time space convergence is a purely formal concept concerned with calibrat ing convergence rather than examining its constitution within different societies. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Giddens claimed that tribal societies are char acterized by low levels of time space distancia tion the capacity for social memory is limited and most interactions are localized and by little substantive distinction between ?political? and ?economic? power. With the emergence of class divided societies such as those of European feudaLism, the level of time space distancia tion increases, largely through the political powers extended to and through the state. The transition to the class societies of capitalism is achieved through the greater prominence of economic power, especially through Mdustri auzation, and is marked by much higher levels of time space distanciation. In his early texts, Giddens (1984, 1985) emphasized the mobil ization of systems of writing, recording and surveillance (modalities of ?political power?) and systems of monetization and commodifi cation (modalities of?economic power?), but in his later texts he became much more interested in the constitution of contemporary or ?high? modernity. There, Giddens (1990, 1991) dis tinguished between: (NEW PARAGRAPH) expert systems, which ?bracket time and space through deploying modes of tech nical knowledge which have validity inde pendent of the practitioners and clients who make use of them?; and (NEW PARAGRAPH) symbolic tokens, which are ?media of ex change which have standard value and thus are interchangeable across a plurality of contexts?. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Together, these constituted abstract systems which, so Giddens argued, penetrate all as pects of everyday Life and in so doing under mine local practices and local knowledges; they dissolve the ties that once held the con ditions of daily life in pLace and recombine them across much larger expanses of space (cf. globalization). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Giddens? argumentation sketch has been subject to several criticisms. The most common objection is that it lacks sufficient historical and geographical specificity (cf. Harris, 1991). In treating space as a gap to be over come, it represents space as a barrier to inter action as a void to be transcended, incorporated and subjugated and in doing so activates conventional conceptions of place and space (cf. contrapuntaL geographies) and repeats the characteristic movement of Western master narratives more generally to recover what eludes them as lacunae, margins, ?blank spaces? on the map. This intersects with sustained objections to the eurocentrism of Giddens? formulations. The trajectory of time space distanciation traces a move away from the immediate and the intimate, but this is an implausible view of non modern societies and, as Giddens subsequently conceded, it also fails to recognize the continued import ance of face to face interaction and intimacy in late modernity. Finally, time space distan ciation, like structuration theory more gener ally, privileges modalities of political and economic power and fails to explore the sig nificance of the cultural formations that have been centrally involved in processes of global ization and the constitution of modernity. dg (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Giddens (1984, chs 4 and 5); Harris (1991). (NEW PARAGRAPH)

Other books

Lady Vanishes by Carol Lea Benjamin
¿Estan en peligro las pensiones publicas? by Juan Torres Lopes Vicenç Navarro
First Semester by Cecil Cross
Life Its Ownself by Dan Jenkins
Ditch Rider by Judith Van GIeson
The Night Watcher by Lutz, John
Pitch Black by Leslie A. Kelly