The Dictionary of Human Geography (87 page)

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Authors: Michael Watts

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Grand Theory
A term devised by American sociologist C. Wright Mills (1959) to attack what he took to be the obsessive concern of post Second World War social science with empty conceptual elaboration (?the associating and dissociating of concepts?) at high levels of abstraction. In his view, Grand Theory was more or less severed from the concrete con cerns of everyday LlfE and largely indifferent to its immense variety in time and space. His main target was Talcott Parsons, another American sociologist and the architect of structural fUNCTiONALiSM, against whom he insisted ?there is no ??grand theory??, no one universal scheme in terms of which we can understand the unity of social structure, no one answer to the tired old problem of social order?. (NEW PARAGRAPH) In geography, the postwar development of spatial science made similar promises to Parsons?, but about spatial rather than social order: indeed, Chorley and Haggett (1967) anticipated the construction of a ?general theory of locational relativity? and a unified spatial systems theory (see system). The cri tiques of structural functionalism (in the social sciences) and spatial science (in geog raphy) did not lead to the demise of Grand Theory, however, so much as its reformulation. By the 1980s, so many other candidates had emerged that Skinner (1985) could write of ?the return of Grand Theory?. These included critical theory, structuralism, structural marxism and structuration theory, all of which left their marks on human geography. Indeed, Barnes and Gregory (1997a, p. 64) claimed that much of the late twentieth century history of Anglo American human geography had involved ?the search for a sin gle or tightly bounded set of methodological [and theoretical] principles that, once found, would provide unity and intelligibility to the disparate material studied. When located, such principles would function as a kind of philosopher?s stone, transmuting the scattered base facts of the world into the pure gold of coherent explanation. No matter the kind of phenomenon investigated, it could always be slotted into a wider theoretical scheme. Nothing would be left out; everything would be explained.? (NEW PARAGRAPH) There have been two critical responses to this search, fastening on (i) its theoretical ambitions and (ii) its totalizing ambitions: (NEW PARAGRAPH) There has been a continuing debate about the scope of theory in human geography. Few would advocate a return to the supposedly theory less world of empiricism, but Ley (1989), in the spirit of Mills? original objections, nonetheless complained of a fixation upon theory (or rather Theory): of the privilege accorded to the ?theorization of theories?, second order abstractions ?doubly removed from the empirical world?, whose proliferation threatened to produce a disturbing frag mentation of geographical enquiry. Yet in the same year Harvey and Scott (1989) were exercised by what they saw as a with drawal from ?the theoretical imperative? and, in consequence, the dissolution of intellectual enquiry into a host of empir ical particulars. The fragmentation that dismayed both these responses (in differ ent ways) was often the product of the oretical work conducted outside the confines of (and in large measure work ing against) Grand Theory: see, for ex ample, historicism, postmodernism and post structuralism. Hence Dear?s (1988) exuberant insistence that ?there can be no grand theory for human geog raphy!? was coupled with an equally ex uberant demand for human geography to engage with social theory. His inten tion was to fashion a human geography that was at once theoretically engaged and sensitive to empirical particularity to ?difference?. Similarly but differently Thrift (1996, p. 30; see also 2006) argued that a yet more ?modest? form of theorizing was needed to avoid a ?theory centred? style of research ?which continu ally avoids the taint of particularity?, though to his chagrin several critics plainly regard his own project of non representational theory as yet another exorbitation of Theory with a capital T. Whether Thrift has successfully clipped the wings of Grand Theory remains an open question, but in any event Katz (1996) urged human geographers to find other ways of letting theory take flight. She recommended an openness to minor theory: subverting the claims to mastery registered by Grand Theory by working in the heterogeneous ?spaces in between? different traditions, by activating the disjunctures and displace ments between different voices and voca bularies, and so ensuring that theoretical work is ?relentlessly transformative? and elaborates ?lines of escape?. (NEW PARAGRAPH) There has been a parallel debate about the capacity of any single theoretical sys tem to account for the world (cf. essen tialism; fouNdationalism). Many, (NEW PARAGRAPH) perhaps most, human geographers seem to accept: (a) that no single theoretical system can possibly ask all the interesting questions or provide all the satisfying answers; and (b) that most scholars ne cessarily work in the spaces between over lapping, often contending theoretical systems, which redoubles the importance of theoretical critique to clarify disson ances, reveal erasures and evaluate con sequences (Gregory, 1994, pp. 100 6). But these nostrums have neither soothed geographers? anxieties nor dispelled their ambitions. Much of the controversy at tached to Harvey?s historico geographical materialism, for example, centres on his attempt to develop a totalizing critique through what his critics see as the annex ation, incorporation and marginalization of other politico intellectual traditions (Castree and Gregory, 2006). And while few geographers have pursued the Ariadne?s thread linking Humboldt?s grand eighteenth century vision of the Cosmos to Chorley and Haggett?s twentieth century vision of a unified field theory for Geography, there has been considerable interest in theoretical systems that trouble the divide between the human sciences and the natural sci ences: for example, chaos theory and compLexity theory. If Manson and Sullivan (2006, p. 678) are right to de scribe complexity as ?the grand theory to end all grand theories?, perhaps Grand Theory always rings twice. dg (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Curry (2006). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
graph theory
A branch of mathematics that studies topological phenomena that can be represented by network diagrams comprising nodes and the links between them: the classic pioneering work was that of Leonhard Euler (1707 83) on the Konigsberg bridge problem (see http://www.contracosta.cc.ca.us/math/ konig.htm). topology refers to spatial connec tions and relationships that are unchanged (NEW PARAGRAPH) after distortion: for example, Canada has a border with the USA regardless of which datum and map projection system is used to map the Earth. Graph theory was first deployed by geographers in the study of a range of net work types such as river systems and road networks (Haggett and Chorley, 1969) but is widely deployed through the social sciences to study the structure and functioning of a range of social networks and how information flows through them (a field known as socio metrics). (See also optimization.) rj (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Biggs, Lloyd and Wilson (1986). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
gravity model
A mathematical and statis tical modeL used to represent many types of spatiaL interaction and flow patterns in human geography and regionaL science (such as migration and commodity flows), and subsequently extended for use as a plan ning tool. The original formulation, as devised by members of the social physics school, was based on an analogy with Newton?s equation of gravitational force: (NEW PARAGRAPH) Gj = gMiMj/dj. (NEW PARAGRAPH) This can be interpreted as follows: the gravita tional force (Gjj) between two masses (Mi and Mj) is proportional to a gravitational constant (g) and to the product of their masses (MMj) and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them (dij2). The analogy for migration was therefore given as (NEW PARAGRAPH) F = gPiPj/4 (NEW PARAGRAPH) where the migrant flow (F) from i to j was modelled as being proportional to the product of their populations and inversely proportional to the distance between them. In such an ap plication, the constant g was empirically deter mined from the data set by simple arithmetic methods. At a later stage the model was fitted by regression methods in logarithmic form, and both g and the exponent for distance were empirically determined by calibration. This basic form of the model is unconstrained, and empirical studies demonstrated that the model fitted much better if origin and destin ation constraints (e.g. the total numbers of people starting or ending in each region) were incorporated. This was most effectively developed by Alan Wilson in his entropy maximizing formulation of the model, based on an analogy with statistical physics rather (NEW PARAGRAPH) than Newtonian equations, and in this form it is widely used today. It may be used for the assessment of likely policy impacts by project ing changes to origin and destination totals, introducing different travel mode and pricing, and making the model dynamic. The gravity model approach has come under heavy criti cism because of its mimicking of equations and models from physics, rather than being rooted in social science, but much recent work has shown how the various assumptions of the models (such as distance decay) may be derived from concepts of accessibility, utiuty theory and intervening opportuN ity. The physical analogy is just that, an analogy and no more. Lwh (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Fotheringham and O?Kelly (1989); Sen and Smith (1995); Senior (1979). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
green belt
A designated area of land sur rounding a built up area, into which urban expansion is strictly limited by planning pol icies. Initially proposed as part of the garden city movement, delimitation of green belts around all major urban areas was part of the innovatory procedures made mandatory under the UK's 1947 Town and Country Planning Act, both to contain urban sprawL and to protect high quality agricultural land plus that used for recreational and other amenity purposes. The proportion of the land surface designated as green belts has been substantially increased since, despite opposition from interest groups such as development companies that want to build there in response to growing pressure for new housing, which governments instead wish to focus on ?brownfield' (i.e. redevelopment) sites within existing urban areas. The policy?s success has stimulated urban development beyond the green belts, leading to increased commuting costs for many workers and casting doubt on the overall economic and environmental justification for the continued constraints (cf. counter urbanization). Comparable policies have been instituted in many other countries. rj (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Elson (1986). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
Green Line
The most common use of the term denotes the Armistice line separating Israel and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The term is occasionally used elsewhere, as in the de (NEW PARAGRAPH) facto partition lines in Beirut (Lebanon) and Nicosia (Cyprus). The Israeli line was demar cated in 1949 following the 1948 9 war between Israel and several Arab states over the 1947 UN partition plan for Mandatory Palestine. The Green Line separated Israel from Palestinian territories captured by Jordan and Egypt. In 1967, Israel conquered the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. There have been repeated attempts to ?erase' the Green Line, although it has remained to date the de facto border demarcating the limit of inter nationally recognized Israeli sovereignty. The miutary occupation of the Palestinian territories continues, however, and Israel has also built a so called ?separation barrier' or wall beyond the Green Line and extending deep into the Occupied Territories. oy (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Biger (2004); Newman (1995). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
Green Revolution
A term coined in the late 1960s to refer to the so called miracle seeds the high yielding varieties (HYVs), and espe cially wheat and rice that held out the prospect for spectacular increases in cereal production in the third world. Associated with 1970 Nobel Prize winner and crop gen eticist Norman Borlaug, the term ?Green Revolution' continues to have wide currency 30 years after it was minted. Nonetheless, it remains somewhat controversial and indeed there is often little consensus on what the Green Revolution actually denotes. The adjec tive ?Green' implies, at least in our epoch, a sensitivity to sustainabiuty (but ironically the ecological costs of the HYVs have been a pur ported major failing) and implicitly is opposed to ?Red' in a way which technical achieve ments a technical fix could banish not simply hunger but political unrest. In order to understand the origins and genesis of the ?heroic age? (Jirstrom, 1996, p. 15) of the Green Revolution between 1963 and 1970, the miracle seeds must be located on the earl ier landscape of the coLd war, which em braces American imperialism in Vietnam, a Malthusian view of food shortages in the post 1945 period, and the recognition that the Green Revolution was wrapped up with US foreign policy and the perceived threat posed by poor peasants inclined towards sociausm (cf. malthusian model). (NEW PARAGRAPH) The meaning of ?Green Revolution? remains a contested issue. The heart of the revolution ary thrust was quite simple: seeds plus nitro gen plus water would produce increased yields per unit area. As a consequence, there is a narrow and broad interpretation of the tech nologies themselves. In the narrow sense, it consists primarily of the adoption of the new high yielding varieties of wheat and rice and associated technologies. In the broad sense it includes not only this, but all other economic changes, as well as the social and cultural changes that either contributed to the techno logical and ecological changes or were derived from them (Leaf, 1984, p. 23). (NEW PARAGRAPH) The Green Revolution as a set of new pro duction practices for the tropical or subtrop ical peasant or smallholder rested on the development of Mendellian genetics, applied plant breeding (led by the UK and the USA), fertilizer (the petrochemical industry) and the water development/irrigation technologies. The coordination between the biochemical, technological and social components em braced US philanthropic organizations, the US State Department and Third World governments. What began in the 1940s in Mexico under the auspices of the US govern ment and the Rockefeller Foundation, focused on improving wheat, has grown in half a cen tury to a massive multi billion dollar NETWORk of international agricultural research centres (the Consultative Group of International Agri cultural Research, CGIAR), administered by the World Bank and dealing with virtually all the major fOOD complexes. HYVs are now grown worldwide for example, 100 per cent of rice in China and Korea, and 70 per cent in India and the Philippines is miracle rice and there is no question that the ability of food output to exceed population growth in the Third World since 1950 has been a function of the productivity gains of the Green Revo lution (Lipton, 1989). But the Green Revolu tion, insofar as it is an example of applied plant breeding, has of course a long history human history is synonymous with successive Green Revolutions, associated with the domestication of plants, with the European agricultural revolutions in the eighteenth century, the Chinese improved rice varieties of ad 1000 and so on and is a process (still ongoing) rather than an event (Rigg, 1989). (NEW PARAGRAPH) If the Green Revolution was facilitated by new practices associated with plant breeding, soil fertility science and hydrological dev elopment, the genesis was stimulated by the activities of the Rockefeller Foundation in conjunction with the Office of Special Oper ations of the US Government in Mexico dur ing the Second World War (Perkins, 1997). Whatever the intentions of the early plant breeders in Mexico, the combination of Mal thusians thinking about food crises and the Cold War atmosphere favouring national se curity and the threat of peasant insurgency contributed mightily to the Green Revolution project, and to its subsequent backing and support by the Ford Foundation, USAID and the major Western donors. In the first phase of the Green Revolution, rice and wheat were the primary crops and Mexico and India its crucibles. The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) was founded near Manila in 1960 and the Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT) in Mexico in 1963. Today, there are 16 inter national agriculture research centres, focusing on potatoes, germ plasm collection, agro forestry and tropical agriculture. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The research programme for HYVs brought together in university type settings trans national congeries of scientists, which consti tuted sophisticated breeding programs. The IRRI, for example, built upon rice breeding expertise and dwarf varieties from Taiwan and Japan to produce, through hybridization, new dwarf HYVs that were resistant to lodg ing, were sensitive to nitrogen fertilizers and that could be double or triple cropped through a reduction in the growing period. Its first success IR 8 was released in 1966 and spread rapidly through South and South East Asia. The DlffUSlON of the seeds and mechan ical packages (pump sets, small tractors) involved strong state intervention, typically involving new subsidies, credit, extension services, irrigation development and national breeding programmes. By the mid 1980s, more than half of the total rice in the area of the Third World was planted in HYVs (Lipton, 1989). (NEW PARAGRAPH) There has been considerable disagreement over the productivity increases attributable to HYVs. In one of the best known and earliest reviews by UNRISD/UNDP, Griffin (1974) painted a bleak picture of the effects of HYVs between 1970 and 1974, arguing that there had been no Green Revolution in rice. A sub sequent assessment by Michael Lipton (1989) in the mid 1980s showed that the output increases in wheat and maize were indeed dramatic (at least 4 per cent per year) and that those in rice were slower but no less sub stantial overall. Lipton pointed, however, to regional dilemmas AfRlCA was neglected on balance and to the problems of equity within countries, which reflected disparities in irrigation development and water control investment. In the first phase of the Green (NEW PARAGRAPH) Revolution, a number of important problems emerged: first, increasing pest and weed prob lems; second, problems of storage and pro cessing; and, third, ecological deterioration (especially loss of germ plasm, water depletion and toxicity). All of these direct and indirect consequences initiated a still ongoing debate over the consequences of HYVs (see Shiva, (NEW PARAGRAPH) 1996). (NEW PARAGRAPH) At the heart of the impact question are equity, poverty and sociaL justice. In the early years, the adoption of HYV packages (and the recognition that the packages were not scaLe neutral) prompted much specula tion about new forms of social differentiation among peasantries, of cLass conflict between adopters and non adopters, of deteriorating labour conditions, as HYVs were labour displacing rather than labour saving of the ?green revolution turning red?. As the Indian case shows, there was in fact no simple polar ization of landholding, though there has been the consolidation of a cLass of increasingly commercialized and organized rich peasants who have benefited from the Green Revolu tion (these are the heart of the New Farmers Movement in India, which has changed the face of local and national politics: see sociaL movements). The impact on Labour markets (new forms of migration, changing forms of labour permanency and tenancy), on land holding (cf. Land tenure) and on social inequality is enormously complex, in part because of the linkages and off farm employ ment (Hazell, 1987). On balance, the mech anization that has followed the HYV adoption has been labour displacing and has favoured those with concentrated capital displacement. New forms of inequality have emerged, but this is often attributed by the proponents of the HYVs to population growth and state rent seeking rather than technology per se. The debate continues. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The Green Revolution has unquestionably increased food output per capita, but this has not necessarily increased food availability for the poor (Dreze and Sen, 1989), and nor has it improved the lot of the poor (Lipton, 1989). The first issue turns less on output than on availability and entitlements in short, the social component of the Green Revolution (including land reform). The second speaks to the problems of both the uneven adoption of HYVs and the biases built into the breeding programmes themselves. The miracle seeds are often not pro poor and do not speak to the circumstances of the land poor and landless. (NEW PARAGRAPH) There is a debate over whether the Green Revolution has ?ended? in the sense that there are no new seed breakthroughs likely in the world stapLe crops. The pessimists foresee a Malthusian nightmare of famine and pesti lence, compounded by the growth of Chinese staple food imports. Nonetheless, the Green Revolution has entered a second phase associ ated with the breakthroughs of molecular science and recombinant DNA. Here, the issue is increasingly the power of large trans national seed and pharmaceutical companies, who develop new crops with built in require ments for particular inputs, and the intellec tual property rights that attend to the concentration of power in agribusiness com panies (Shiva, 1996). Genetically modified HYVs (whether soy or corn) have become part of an embattled agricultural landscape in which environmental questions have been tied to corporate power and the pressures exerted through the worLd trade organization by First World states to liberalize protected agricultural sectors in the global south. Many of the most vociferous of the anti gLobaLization movements have often ex pressed concerns over the ways in which the second phase of the Green Revolution is now refiguring the international food order, now dominated by corporate power and a new round of privatized agricultural and seed tech nologies (Rosset, 2006). The current debates over farmer breeding rights, genetically modi fied crops and iNTeLLectuaL property rights suggests that the next Green Revolution will be as fraught as the first. mw (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Bayliss Smith and Wanmali (1984); Grigg (1989). (NEW PARAGRAPH)

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