The Dictionary of Human Geography (34 page)

Read The Dictionary of Human Geography Online

Authors: Michael Watts

BOOK: The Dictionary of Human Geography
2.05Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
counterfactuals
Literally contrary to the facts: determining what might have been had the facts been different. What if the Rhine River never existed? What if in Florida in November 2000, fewer chads were left hang ing? And, perish the thought, what if The dic tionary of human geography had never been written? Posed as subjunctive conditional, counterfactuals focus attention on comparing the known case, the historical geographical record, with what might have been the case in a different possible world. Discussions of counterfactuals are found in philosophy, social psychology, political science, some branches of economics and perhaps most prominently in history (and through it, his toricaL geography). Also termed virtual his tory, historians use counterfactuals to facilitate clearer explanation of past events. For example, to understand the rise of German Nazism, Ferguson (1998) imagines twenti eth century Europe without the First World War. On that basis, he cannot conceive of the emergence of the Third Reich, and so con cludes that the First World War must be its cause. For a number of historians, however, this is not history, but a form of fiction. The economic historian M.M. Postan declared that ?the might have beens of history are not a profitable subject for discussion? (quoted in Gould, 1969, p. 195). With postmodern and post structural scepticism about the separ ation of fact and fiction, this kind of objection is less convincing, and virtual histories bur geon both in academia and in literature (Ferguson, 1999). tjb (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Ferguson (1999). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
counter-urbanization
Population decon centration away from large urban areas and their suburbs, first identified in the USA in the 1970s, where many metropolitan areas were losing population through net migration to non metropolitan areas. The growing areas were generally relatively small settlements, which were either increasingly accessible for commuting or offered attractive environ ments for retirees and home based workers. This changing population distribution was paralleled by employment deconcentration (NEW PARAGRAPH) to smaller towns that offered cheaper, more extensive tracts of land, more pliant (usually non unionized) labour forces, plus pleasanter and less congested environments and were more accessible as transport costs were reduced both absolutely and relatively (cf. footLoose industry). Similar patterns of counter urbanization were identified in many other countries in the late twentieth century, though there has been some ?back to the city? recently, which has made the patterns of change less clear cut. (See also edge city; sprawL.) rj (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Champion (1991); Champion and Hugo (2004). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
creative destruction
The general notion that only through the demise of existing entities can new ones be brought into the world. While associated with thinkers such as Nietzsche and Hegel, creative destruction as a distinct phrase is best known to geographical audiences through the work of the economist Joseph Schumpeter. In his hands, it is both a descrip tion of capitalism?s disequilibrium dynamics and a historical argument regarding the passage to social democratic weLfare states. Against the marginalist concerns of twentieth century neo cLassicaL economics, Schumpeter (1942) took up macro economic questions in the classical tradition (see political econ omy). He argued that capitalist competition induces entrepreneurs to innovate (and to maintain a stable of scientists for the purpose), resulting in qualitative changes to production technologies that are fundamentally disruptive to the existing economic landscape. As opposed to the smooth unfolding of technological innovation, the equilibrium provided by the market?s ?hidden hand?, and theories of disrup tion caused by exogenous forces (e.g. weather, war), Schumpeter saw capitalism as inherently unstable, a condition that its citizens would ultimately find intolerable. Schumpeter?s ideas are often likened to those of Marx, important differences being that the latter desired capital ism?s demise and located its chronic instability less in competition than in accumuLation as such (class based extraction and investment of surplus value: see Storper and Walker, 1989). It is, of course, in the spirit of the latter that Harvey so often invokes ?creative destruc tion? in his construction of an explicitly historico geographical materialism and his critical analyses of landscapes of capital accu mulation (see, e.g., Harvey, 1989b: see also marxist geography). ghe
crime
The geographical study of crime seeks to: explain the spatial clustering of criminal behaviour; consider how the construction and monitoring of spaces might reduce the incidence of criminality; and explain how wider social and political dynamics shape the fear of crime and societal responses to it. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Like many other social phenomena, crim inal behaviour is unevenly distributed. Much work in GEOGRAPhY attempts to account for this variation, typically by elaborating the demographic characteristics and common social patterns in places where crime is con centrated. Often taking inspiration from the ?social disorganization? theory developed by ChlCAGO schOOL sociologists, these accounts take aim at several factors arguably common to places characterized by concentrated disad vantage: the comparative lack of economic opportunity, the likelihood of high residential mobility, the high percentage of single parent households, and the general cultural accept ance of crime (Smith, S.J., 1986a; Sampson, Raudenbush and Earl, 1997). Some geo graphical work focuses more on the common practices of criminal offenders, and how their time space patterns make opportunities for crime more or less available to them (Rengert, 1997). A related, and highly popu lar, criminology of place concentrates on the alleged effects of so called ?broken windows? as incubators of crime. Places where broken windows are not fixed signify a lack of infor mal social control that invites the criminally minded into their midst (Wilson and Kelling, 1982; for a critique, see Harcourt, 2001). In recent years, the geographical clustering of crime has been mapped by police departments using GEOGRAPhIC INfORMATION SYSTEMS (GIS) technologies: these help isolate ?hot spots? of criminality for targeted enforcement. (NEW PARAGRAPH) For some, this clustering of ?hot spots? is connected to the built environment. Various related approaches ?situational crime pre vention?, ?defensible space?, ?environmental criminology? suggest that crime?s geograph ies are significantly a consequence of whether spaces deter crime through effective defen sibility and surveillance. Places can thus be constructed to repel crime if they make entry difficult or monitoring easy. Such monitoring takes conspicuous form in the UK, and increasingly in other places, through closed circuit television (CCTV) units that monitor much of public space (Fyfe and Bannister, (NEW PARAGRAPH) . These surveillance practices ostensibly reduce criminality by increasing the threat of capture. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Other work in the geography of crime focuses on how crime is commonly con structed, socially and politically. There is now, for instance, an extensive literature on the fear of crime, and its variation across social groups and across space (see Koskela and Pain, 2000). Such fear is more prevalent amongst the elderly and amongst females, especially when they are in unfamiliar public places. Fear of crime is also a political construct, used as a means to legitimate ?get tough? policies for reducing crime. These political processes are sometimes tied to the wider practices of neo liberalism, through which welfarist approaches to social problems are delegitimized, in favour of policies that emphasize social control. Skh (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading Smith, S.J. (1986a). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
crisis
A potentially complete failure in the reproduction of systemic relations. The term appears in multiple discourses, being used to describe threatened failures in the reproduc tion of socio economic structures, political institutions, representational conventions, eco logical systems and more. Its connotations are largely negative: describing the failure to repro duce relations as a crisis carries some implica tion that continuity in those relations is desirable or necessary. Crises of social relations are often viewed as having positive aspects as well, though, inasmuch as they present win dows of opportunity for progressive change. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Relevant work in hUMAN GEOGRAPhY has focused mainly on crises of capitalism. Human geographers influenced by hlSTORlCAL materialism have viewed capitalism as a socio economic system whose internal contra dictions make it inherently unstable and prone to periodic crises that lead to the reconfigur ation and greater socialization of relations of production and reproduction. Such a trajec tory ultimately calls into question the repro duction of capitalism itself, making this perspective fundamentally different from more mainstream accounts of the ?business cycle?. Briefly, capitalism is prone to crisis because its endogenous dynamics frequently and char acteristically produce situations in which: (NEW PARAGRAPH) workers, collectively, cannot afford to buy the commodities they produce (a crisis of underconsumption); (ii) more commodities are produced than can be absorbed by all available purchasing power (a crisis of over production); (iii) capitalists accumulate more capital than they can invest in profitable enterprises (a crisis of over accumuLation); or (iv) a large portion of the total labour force cannot be profitably employed in the production of commodities (a crisis of unemployment or underemployment). These various manifestations of crisis are closely related, with one often leading to or accom panying another. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Human geographers, most prominently David Harvey, have built upon and refined Marx?s original work to develop a more coher ent and geographical theory of the dynamics of capitalist crises. In work central to marxist geography, Harvey (1999 [1982]) has pro posed a threefold theory of capitalist crises. His ?first cut? explains how the crisis tenden cies above are inherent to capitalism. His ?sec ond cut? focuses on their temporal displacement via fiscal and monetary arrange ments that stave off crises by laying the seeds of larger problems in the future (e.g. increased household reliance on credit cards, or balloon ing national deficits). His ?third cut? explores the ways in which geography can be used to combat crisis tendencies (see also Harvey, 2001); for example, by massive investments in new locations or the opening of new mar Kets, and suggests that crises of capital accu mulation are culturally mirrored in crises of representation that materially affect the ways in which time and space are constructed and construed (Harvey, 1989b) (see figure: see also time space compression). The state plays critical roles in the above processes. Collectively, these theoretical refinements help to explain how capitalism has survived and expanded despite regular crises, contrary to the predictions of classical Marxism. Similar questions have been taken up in reguLation theory, which explores the role of minimally necessary fits between narrowly ?economic? activities (regimes of accumulation) and broader social and political conventions and institutions (modes of regulation) in producing and overcom ing periodic crises (Walker, 1995). Meanwhile, ecological Marxism has sought to bring nature into crisis theory, pointing out that severe envir onmental degradation and other failures of environmental regulation may both precipitate a crisis, and be important objects of political struggle during one (O?Connor, 1998). jm (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Harvey (1999 [1982], 2001). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
critical geopolitics
The emergence of crit ical geopolitics within poLiticaL geography situates power not in the hands of a sovereign state or individual, but in more relational ways that traverse a spectrum of scales of social life. Influenced by post structuraLism and responding to the realist approaches of inter national relations in conventional geopolitical discourse, critical geopolitics has not simply contested the claims of internationaL reLa tions (IR) theory and international political economy (IPE), but taken them apart by exposing the assumptions of each and challen ging the taken for granted categories of analy sis within IR in particular. Drawing inspiration from the work of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Gayatri Spivak, critical geopolit ics is a less a theory of how space and politics intersect than a taking apart a deconstruc tion of the normalized categories and narra tives of conventional geopoLitics. Such an approach challenges seemingly commonsense understandings and practices of ?peace?, ?vio Lence? and ?war? within the state system (Dalby, 1991). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Critical geopolitics is defined by its decon structive impulse (see Deconstruction), (NEW PARAGRAPH) questioning assumptions in a taken for granted world and examining the institutional modes of producing such a world vis a vis writ ing about the world, its geography and politics. Such an approach does not subscribe to any one mode of apprehending the geopolitical world; it eschews the idea that any geography can be fully finalized or authoritative (Sparke, (NEW PARAGRAPH) . Rather, it seeks to reveal and examine the assumptions, constructions and power relations that are foundational to such appre hension (Shapiro, 1997). (NEW PARAGRAPH) A central project for critical geopolitics is analysis of the discursive practices by which scholars spatialize international politics: it asks why and how a particular geopolitical narra tive is normalized and accepted (O Tuathail, 1996b) (see Discourse; cf. Muller, 2008). Critical geopolitics thus seeks to politicize knowledge production through Discourse anaLysis of dominant geopolitical practices, such as foreign policy and techniques of repre senting war (Shapiro, 1997; Gregory, 2004b). Within geography, ?[c]ritical geopolitics is one of many cultures of resistance to Geography as imperial truth, state capitalized knowledge, and military weapon. It is a small part of a much larger rainbow struggle to decolonize our inherited geographicaL imagination so that other geo graphings and other worlds might be possible? (O Tuathail, 1996b, p. 256). Sparke (2005, p. xiv) adds that ?any assumption about geography either as a result of or as a basis or container for other social relations always risks fetishizing a particular spatial arrangement and ignoring ongoing pro cesses of spatial production, negotiation, and contestation?. (NEW PARAGRAPH) O Tuathail?s (1996b) agenda setting call for critical geopolitics was a central text in the unravelling of dominant geopolitical dis course. It provided compelling critiques of geopolitics, but through its distance from alternative epistemological ways of knowing how to ?geo graph? the world (see epistemoL ogy) or from ontological commitments to it (see ontoLogy), critical geopolitics risked becoming disembodied critical practice and suffered from ?a dearth of commentary on the prospects for resistance? (Sparke, 2000b, p. 378; cf. Routledge, 1996a). Even as he argued against positions that are unmarked, unmediated and transcendent, then, O Tuathail unwittingly became part of this cat egory. How dominant geopolitical scripts can be destabilized and recast to take account of people and places represented as the oriental ized Other (see orientaLism), for example, or excluded from understandings of security and poLiticaL economy altogether, represents a major challenge for critical geopolitics. To expose the subjects effaced by realist geopolitics and international relations is a laudable goal, but how might political change be effected once power relations have been exposed? (NEW PARAGRAPH) Sparke (2005) seeks to bridge this gap in his analysis of the ways in which a Canadian organization the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC) displaced the masculinist and state sponsored ?big picture? politics through the formation of a counter public. Sparke?s analysis of the material, polit ical and gendered dimensions of geopolitics employs a feminist politics of location that goes beyond a purely discursive exegesis. Dalby (1994) noted the lack of attention to genDer at the intersection of IR theory and critical geopolitics, reiterating important issues that had long been raised by feminists. He examined the ways in which geopolitical categories of security are gendered and the gender blind analysis of much IR theory. His overview of gender and Feminism in IR underscored the broader absence of feminist voices in geopolitics during the 1990s, with notable exceptions (Kofman and Peake, 1990; Kofman, 1996). Since then, conversa tions between feminist geography and geopol itics have considerably increased, and much of the work that fills these silences is directed towards an explicitly feminist geopolitics (Staeheli, Kofman and Peake, 2004; Hyndman, (NEW PARAGRAPH) 2007). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Critical geopolitics is not limited to the orthodox trinity of gender, race and cLass. Sharp (2000a) took critical geopolitics in new directions in exploring the underdeveloped connections between politics, popular culture and sexuaLity, and studies like hers have also extended the engagement of critical geopolit ics with the visual rather than narrowly textual (cf. Hughes, 2007; Striiver, 2007). The agenda of critical geopolitics has been further enlarged through explorations of discourses of danger and security (Megoran, 2005), gener osity and nationalist identity (Carter, 2006) and aFFect, fear and emotion (Pain and Smith, 2008). None of these studies is limited to the analysis of discursive effects. These extensions, and others like them, have opened up the field of critical geopolitics and forged a series of connections that involve far more than political geography; critical geopolitical perspectives now reach deep into human geography at large and, as befits their inter disciplinary orientations, across a still wider interdisciplinary space. It is now difficult to imagine critical analysis of, say, american empire, coLoniaLism, imperiaLism or terror ism that does not touch on critical geopolitics at some point. These are vital developments, at once political and intellectual, because they disclose a series ofintersections between biopo litics (see biopower), geopolitics and geo economics that lie at the heart of the contem porary political moment and that urgently require critical analysis (cf. Sparke, 2007). jh (NEW PARAGRAPH)

Other books

Deadlock by Mark Walden
No Stone Unturned by James W. Ziskin
Golden Boy by Martin Booth
White House Autumn by Ellen Emerson White
Tess Awakening by Andres Mann
Seven Nights by Jess Michaels
Calm by Viola Grace
The Otto Bin Empire by Judy Nunn