The Dictionary of Human Geography (205 page)

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Authors: Michael Watts

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time-space expansion
A concept proposed as (1) the corollary and (2) the dual of time space compression. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Dodgshon (1998) proposed time space expansion as the corollary of time space compression. The modern world may be one of intensifying change and volatility, as Harvey?s (1989b) original account of time space compression suggests, but this entails more than an emphasis on the transient, the fleeting, the ?now?: for the modern science that powers many of those transformations has also produced a heightened awareness of the immensity of time and of human history. For the privileged, the modern world may be increasingly frictionless, even ?flat? as global travel and communication in creases, but in consequence ?what was once thought to be an experience of the geographical world in its totality has been re proportioned into what is simply local?. In sum, Dodgshon (1998, p. 117) insists, time space compression means that ?cul turally, we are now more aware of time and space as dimensions that have extension?. (NEW PARAGRAPH) In contrast, other writers treat time space expansion as the dual of time space com pression. They recognize that power geometry is highly variable, and in par ticular that the power to compress dis tance is also often the power to expand distance. The unidirectional logic of time space compression requires dis tance to contract under the spasmodic compulsions of global capitaLism to reduce circulation time, but images of ?the shrinking world? have become so powerful and pervasive that they can ob scure the ways in which, for millions of people, the imperatives of gLoBaLization can force their world to expand in ways that threaten to become unbearable. Katz (2001a) draws on her experience in ?Howa?, a village in Sudan, to argue that: (NEW PARAGRAPH) From the vantage point of capital, the world may be shrinking but, on the marooned grounds of Howa, it appeared to be getting bigger every day. After a gruelling decade and a half of structuraL adjustments and political upheaval in Sudan, people in Howa survived by maintaining a semblance of the patterns and practices ofproduction that had long sustained them . . . But this was only vi able now if carried out over an extended physical arena. The terrain of social produc tion and reproduction had expanded from perhaps five kilometres in 1980 to two hun dred kilometres by 1995, the distance men routinely travelled to participate in the char coal trade. Time space expansion also represented a transformation of the old con stellation of activities that involved men?s long absences from the village. People still farmed (but also worked as agricultural la borers up to a hundred kilometres away), kept animaLs (by sending them out with re latives to distant pastures) and cut wood (but now in areas of the South targeted for defor estation as part of the northern government?s war effort). (Katz, 2001, p. 1224) (NEW PARAGRAPH) For Katz, therefore, ?time space expan sion embraces, reworks and plays into the altered geographies of globalization?. Contemporary capitalism involves dialect ical torsions of time space compression and time space expansion (see dialectic) that produce spirals of advantage and marginalization: ?If in one way the known world expanded for people in Howa, in others their place in it receded as their village was increasingly marginalized? (p. 1225). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Time space expansion happens not only within a relative space punctuated by the differential geographies of time space com pression, however, but also through the prolif erating partitions of an intrinsically colonial modernity. ?If global capitalism is aggres sively de territorializing, moving ever outwards in a process of ceaseless expansion and furi ously tearing down barriers to capital accumu lation, then colonial modernity is intrinsically territorializing, forever installing partitions between ??us?? and ??them?? ? (Gregory, 2004a, p. 253). Those who live under military occu pation (see occupation, military) know this very well, as they are caught in curfews or lockdowns and wait in line at checkpoints: time seems to stop, punctuated by one emer gency after another, and the ordinary paths of everyday life are blocked or redirected. In occupied Palestine, for example, ?as the illegal settlements are wired ever more tightly into Israel, Palestinians are made to undergo an intensified spasm of time space expansion: families, friends and neighbours cut off from one another; farmers separated from their fields and their wells? (Gregory, 2004c, p. 604). Those who try to flee the politico economic deformations described by Katz and the politico military oppressions described by Gregory are peculiarly vulnerable to the despair of time space expansion. ?The globe shrinks for those who own it,? Bhabha (1992, p. 88) remarks, but ?for the displaced or the dispos sessed, the migrant or refugee, no distance is more awesome than the few feet across borders or frontiers? (cf. Hyndman, 1997: see also migration; refugee). dg (NEW PARAGRAPH)
topographic map
A large or intermediate scale map describing the most important phys ical and cultural features of a place or region. Largely a product of national or provincial gov ernments, topographic maps support national defence, economic development, environmen tal science and growth management as well as providing data for compiling less detailed, smaller scale maps. Typically compiled from aerial photography, they use contour lines (see isoline) to describe the land surface and (NEW PARAGRAPH) abstract symbols to represent roads, railways, political boundaries and hydrographic features such as rivers, streams and lakes (Collier, Forrest and Pearson, 2003). Toponyms (place names and feature names) reflect local usage as well as government efforts to standardize spelling and nomenclature (Monmonier, 2006). mm (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Forrest and Kinninment (2001). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
topography
The detailed study and de scription of a pLace as much as to the materi ality of its features or landforms more generally. In recent years, topography has been mobilized as a research method, ?to carry out a detailed examination of some part of the material world, defined at any scaLe from the body to the gLobe, in order to under stand its salient features and their mutual and broader relationships? (Katz, 2001, p. 1228). In this sense, it has been used in criticaL human geography to delineate the social pro duction of localities as much as the knowledge about them, understanding both to be the contested outcomes of particular interests and actors. The intent is to discern the sedi mented process of place formation from the LocaLity itself and in so doing, situate ?places in their broader context and in relation to other areas and geographic scales?, thereby offering a means of understanding structure and process simultaneously (Katz, 2001, p. 1228). Just as topographic maps connect sites of equal elevation through contour lines, so too can particular relationships across lo calities be revealed and examined using top ography. That is, the trace or effects of particular processes on various places can be demonstrated through this methodology to suggest their translocal bearing. This under standing led to the notion of ?counter topog raphies?, which are seen as a way to theorize the connectedness of disparate places by virtue of their relationship to a particular political economic or social process, such as demo cratic inclusion, privatization or gentrifica tion. Focusing on the de skilling of young people, for instance, Katz (2001a) produced a counter topography linking New York City and rural Sudan. The connections drawn are analytical rather than homogenizations. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Counter topographies are concrete abst ractions that offer a means of recognizing the historical and geographical specificities of particular places while also enabling the infer ence of their connections in relation to specific material social practices. The intent in linking different places analytically is to produce an alternative geographical and political imagin ation that might work translocally in the name of common interests (cf. Pratt, 2004; also con trapuntaL geographies). The geographicaL imagination associated with topography as a method and the political possibilities of coun ter topographies as concrete abstractions have been best realized by feminist geographers. Looking at political transformation in Mexico, Lise Nelson (2004) drew out a topographical analysis to examine the historical experiences of rural women engaging in regional and even national commerce, and the ways in which their engagements led to reconfigurations of their subjectivities along with the contours of their political practices. Her work demon strates how ?the shifting norms and practices of gender and citizenship? in a single place both propel and are propelled by changing local global dynamics. Telling far ?more than a ??local?? story?, the renegotiations of subject ivity reveal as they alter the social relations of power and difference across scale (Nelson, 2004, pp. 180 2). Pratt and Yeoh (2003) use topography as a means of examining transnationaLism with greater specificity and attentiveness to difference. Revealing the ?multistranded connections transnational sub jects make? as they move across space and scale, they develop the notion of ?comparative transnationalisms?, and theorize their diverse but interconnected manifestations on the ground (Pratt and Yeoh, 2003, p. 164). ck (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Katz (2001); Nagar and Swarr (2005). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
topology
A field of mathematics studying the spatial properties of an object or network that remain true when that object is stretched. These include connectivity and adjacency. Imagine stretching a rubber band between two fingers. Likening the band to a vector line segment, then the start node (the one end) remains connected to the other despite the stretching. Treating the band as a polygon, the one side remains to the left of the other throughout. Topological encoding is useful in GIS for error trapping and spatial queries. networks may be represented as graphs and analysed using graph theory. rh (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Wise (2002). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
topophilia
A term coined by geographer Yi Fu Tuan (1974, p. 4) to describe the (NEW PARAGRAPH) ?human love of place? (see pLace) or ?the affective bond between people and place? (cf. affect). Tuan argued that this bond varies in intensity among individuals and in its cultural expression, and suggested that such attachment can be based on aesthetic appreciation, memory, pride of ownership or dependence on a place for one?s livelihood or security. Topophilia is not only a response to place, Tuan insisted, but also actively produces places for people. Its converse, topocide, was proposed by Porteous (1998) to describe the annihilation of those bonds and the places to which they are attached (cf. urbicide). Topophilia is closely associ ated with the humanistic geography of the 1970s. jsd (NEW PARAGRAPH)
tourism
Tourism has been defined as ?the activities of persons traveling to and staying in places outside of their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes? (UN World Tourism Organization, 1994). This relational definition positions tourism as contrasted to other travel and leisure practices. Thus travel for pleasure without staying tends to be defined as Leisure, whilst organized activities for pleas ure at home tend to be called recreation. Travel without return is migration, whilst temporary travel leading to residence for work over a year is to be a sojourner. The utility of this definition is enabling the counting and mapping of tourist fLows arrivals, stays and departures. However, this a very limited ap proach to tourism. First, as a typology of travel it tidies away a wealth of practices that elide the differences ofthese categories. Second, there are distinctions among tourists. Third, it fails to capture the dynamic of the relationship of tour ists to the people and places that they visit. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The first problem is that the practices and organization of tourism exceed its categories. It may be the largest industry on the planet, but it is a very diffuse industry. Thus tourist attractions may also serve local populations facilities that serve tourist needs (such as res taurants or hotels) may serve local needs as well. Amidst what tourists do, there are a wealth of different interests and activities. Thus much tourist time may well be pursuing ?normal? activities (such as child care, cleaning or cooking). Equally, the edges of what is tour ism are very fuzzy, so that local people might approach their local environment for pleasure like a tourist. Meanwhile, tourism has been said to develop from, and as a secular form of, pilgrimage, leaving questions over whether we would count these spiritual practices as ?tour ism? or whether we would deny any spiritual dimensions to any forms of tourism. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The second problem is that the general def inition obscures differing types of tourism. One recurrent response has been to produce typologies of tourists usually defined by their motivation for travel. Popular distinctions among tourists often start by dividing them in terms of a hierarchy of serious mindedness, where the explorer charts the unknown (see expLoration) and the traveller seeks to en counter difference, whilst the tourist follows the beaten track. The distinctions between these cultures of travel are social ones that are about status and cultural values. (NEW PARAGRAPH) John Urry (2002) suggests contrasting romantic and collective cultures of tourism. The latter is that which celebrates together ness in visiting, which focuses on enjoyment and activities amongst and between visitors rather than between visitors and the environ ment. The former is that of the traveller, who seeks an individual encounter with the place visited with direct contact with the locale and perhaps locals. It defines itself in oppos ition to the collective gaze and in doing so sows the seeds of its own self destruction. For once a site is found and becomes popular, is laid out in guidebooks, and develops kiosks or stalls, then it loses its appeal. The result is an expanding structure, always looking over the next hill or to the next island for the ?untouched? valley, ?pristine? beach or ?authentic? locals. This lays out tourism as what MacCannell, in his influential 1976 book The tourist, saw as a quest to encounter the authentically different other. However, Urry?s division makes clear that this is only one set of desires or motivations for tourism. He himself favours a definition that frames tourism in terms of a time and place out of the ordinary. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The notion of an ?extraordinary? time and place has been used to unpack the third issue of the dynamic of tourists and the places that they visit. Tourism as a secular kind of pil grimage might be seen as a material semiotic process that ?sacralizes? places. In this process, various signifiers mark out sites as noteworthy to the ?tourist gaze? (Urry, 1990). These signi fiers can be guidebooks, postcards, travel books, brochures, adverts and the like. These help script notions of the destination and can be seen as ?linguistic agents of touristic social control? (Dann, 1999, p. 163). Guidebooks do not just describe places, but set normative agendas of what ought to be seen. They emphasize, construct and delimit a geography of significant sites. Visiting these places may be part of accumulating cuLturaL capitaL. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The scripting may also rework the histories and geographies of places. As Jane Desmond notes, ?tourism is not just an aggregate of merely commercial activities; it is also an ideo logical framing of history, nature and trad ition; a framing that has the power to reshape culture and nature to its own needs? (1999, p. xii). With deliberate hyperbole, the architects MVRDV speak of a Norway turned from a forest to a supervillage, the Alps be coming a park with hotel cities, France chan ging into a ? ??Guide du Routard?? landscape, in which the agricultural products became the instrument for a gastronomically oriented zone penetrated by hotels and restaurants according to special nostalgic rules? and Tus cany as an ?international villa park?, where ?gigantic private gardens are maintained by the former farmers? (MVRDV, 2000, p. 57). Meanwhile, other areas become associated with ?ludic? activities spaces where play is not only allowed but, in many cases, demanded. Tourism there forms a ?territorial ized hedonism? (Lofgren, 1999, p. 269). We might think of these as liminal zones with social rituals where normal rules of conduct are suspended, in times and spaces apart from the everyday (Shields, 1991). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Critical accounts point out that touristic meanings for places can clash with or replace local ones thus eroding an original sense of pLace and reducing it to simuLacrum or pLaceLessness. This ?erosion thesis? that sees change as diminishing original cultures and reducing global differences (Hannerz, (NEW PARAGRAPH) risks presupposing a ?coercive con ceptual schema? of tourism ?impacting? on local cultures seen as pitted against a global industry and cultural changes arising from tourism resulting from ?the intrusion of a superior sociocultural system in a supposedly weaker receiving milieu? (Picard, 1996, pp. 104, 110). It also echoes a tendency in academic work to denigrate tourists almost as another species which Lofgren parodies as ?turistas vulgaris? (1999, p. 264) who travel in ?herds?, ?stampede? on to beaches, ?flock? to see places and ?swarm? around ?honey pots?. mc (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Cartier and Lew (2005); Crang and Coleman (2002); Lew, Hall and Williams (2004); Lofgren (1999); Minca and Oakes (2006); Urry (2002). (NEW PARAGRAPH)

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