Thinking Geographically:
Space, Theory and Contemporary Human Geography
Brendan Bartley1
, Duncan Fuller2
, Phil Hubbard3
, Rob Kitchin4
1. Department of Geography, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, County
Kildare, Ireland.
2. Division of Geography and Environmental Management, Lipman Building,
University of Northumbria at Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne.
3. Department of Geography, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, LE11
3TU.
4. Department of Geography, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, County
Kildare, Ireland.
1.1 Summary
This text will be a genuine introductory text aimed at first- and second-year
undergraduate geography students studying Concepts, Methods and Theories modules.
By offering an accessible introduction to the theories, terms and ideas that underpin
the nature and practice of contemporary human geography, this book will encourage
students to engage with different ways of thinking about the world. The book is thus
divided into two key sections designed to show students that different ideas and
theories about spatial relations result in the production of very different geographical
knowledges. The first of these sections will provide a succinct introduction to the
different theoretical traditions that have shaped Anglo-American human geography,
with a focus on the ideas that currently appear most influential in shaping
geographical scholarship. The second section aims to illustrate how these ideas have
shaped geographical understanding of four key concepts - money, the body,
governance and globalization - to show that an understanding of key theories and
ideas is essential if one wants to 'think geographically'. Covering social, cultural,
political and economic geography, these chapters will demonstrate how ideas
developed both within and outside the discipline combine in the study of different
geographical worlds.
1.2 Rationale
We are aware through our own teaching that encouraging students to ‘think
geographically’ can be a difficult and often thankless task, made all the more difficult
by the lack of an accessible text that spells out clearly to students the value of theory
and why they should engage with it. This book will thus address a significant gap in
the market by acting as an essential aid for undergraduate students struggling to make
sense of higher-level 'introductions' to the theory and philosophy of human geography,
offering succinct and clearly-written (though not 'dumbed-down') definitions of key
ideas and concepts. By providing readers with carefully-considered contextual
material on the changing lineaments of human geography, the text will show that the
way geographers think has always been open to change and contestation, but that
certain ways of thinking have become associated with particular types of geography
(and particular geographers). Through the use of pedagogical features (such as
definition boxes for key thinkers), the text will introduce students to many current
thinkers whose ideas are by no means straightforward, but whose influence looms
large over contemporary human geography.
The text will therefore present an overview of the histories of human geography as a
way of showing that geographical thought has changed markedly over time. Its prime
objective is not, however, to act as a 'history of geography' volume. Nor is it designed
to act as a expansive overview of philosophical traditions in human geography.
Rather, its objective is to introduce some key ideas and key thinkers as a way of
introducing students to the multiple worlds of human geography and enthusing them
about the importance of 'thinking geographically'.
1.3 Level
‘Thinking Geographically’ will be written as a genuinely introductory text, pitched in
language and style at first- and second-year undergraduate students. We are aware
that many students struggle with theory and philosophical ideas, and this is not aided
by many texts that claim to be accessible to undergraduate students actually being
fairly difficult and advanced reads. All four of us have a commitment to
undergraduate teaching and learning and to providing teaching texts that communicate
to students of varied backgrounds and abilities. Phil and Rob have both previously
written undergraduate textbooks (see Section 1.8)
1.4 Writing
We imagine that some proposal reviewers might anticipate that the multiple
authorship of this book might lead to an unwieldy and uneven text. We believe that
the strength of the text will be our combined knowledge of different theoretical
debates in social, economic and political geography. The four of us will thus
contribute to and proof-read all chapters, and careful editing will ensure that the text
will have the same tone and consistency throughout. We have all worked with each
other before in various guises - as writing partners, conference/session convenors,
shared teaching - and thus know that we can work as a team.
1.5 Timetable
Delivery of manuscript by February 2001 for September 2001 publication.
1.6 Market
We believe that there is a large potential market for a text which explores the utility of
theory rather than simply presenting a history of geographic thought. Thinking
Geographically will thus be an essential purchase for students taking Concepts,
Methods and Theories modules (which are often mandatory at first or second-year
level). The book will also act as a companion text of use to students throughout their
academic study, particularly for students of social, political and economic geography.
Because we will use examples from around the world, and discuss thinkers who have
had a global impact, it is anticipated that the book will appeal to courses in all
Anglophone countries. This text will occupy a particular, unoccupied niche, but
competing texts for Concepts, Methods and Theories modules include: Approaching
Human Geography (Cloke, Philo and Sadler, 1991); Modern Geographic Thought
(Peet, 1997); Human Geography Today (Massey, Allen and Sarre, 1999) - all of
which are widely regarded as advanced-level undergraduate texts.
1.7 Chapter Structure
1. Introducing Geographic Thought
This chapter will introduce the aims of the book and the substantive content. It will
start by examining why academics are interested in studying and theorising the world
around them. This will be followed by an exploration of the production of
knowledge, focusing on the ways in which knowledge construction is itself theorised.
The way theory has informed the production of knowledge will be illustrated by
examining how human geography as a field of study draws on a number of (often
competing) theoretical frameworks for making sense of the world. This illustration
will also help to define what is meant by theory (as distinct from practice). Working
with these definitions of theory and practice we will then begin to explore the
distinction between geographic theory and other theories of how the world works,
drawing out the importance of space as a fundamental component of geographical
theory. In the final two sections, we will detail strategies for understanding, critically
evaluating, and operationalising theoretical concepts, demonstrating the practical and
meaningful ways in which geographers have used theory.
Content: Understanding and explaining the world; Production of knowledge; Defining
human geography; Why think geographically?; Critically evaluating theory;
Operationalising theory (c. 6,000 words).
SECTION ONE: Thinking Human Geographies
These chapters aim to introduce readers to the idea that geography is both synthetic
and derivative in its borrowing of ideas from other sciences, social sciences and
humanities. Here, the emphasis will be on the way that geographers have looked
towards other disciplines and thinkers to help them think through the geographies that
they explore. Taking a broadly historic perspective, chapter two will accordingly seek
to explore how different theories of space have been developed at different times, and
to show these theories have been informed by wider academic ideas and fashions. In
chapter three, the focus will be on the contested terrain of contemporary human
geography. Throughout, we introduce students to key theorists. We acknowledge that
our choice of thinkers is selective, and there are many other individuals that have
influenced geographic thought and practice. For the purposes of space and
illustration, however, we will restrict our choice to those whose ideas are addressed in
the text and whose influence on (or within) geography is acknowledged to have been
significant in expanding its theoretical horizons.
2. A Brief History of Geographic Thought
This chapter serves to provide students with an introduction to the contested
production of geographic knowledge in the twentieth century. Identifying and
clarifying key traditions in the discipline - regional, 'empirical-analytical', 'historicalhermeneutic',
'critical' science and so on - this chapter aims to show that different
geographers have imagined space in different ways, and, as a result of this, adopted
different approaches to understanding the relationship between space and economic,
social and political processes. The ideas of some of those geographers who have been
most important in shaping the trajectory of the discipline will be explained here, with
separate sections describing the unfolding relationships between geographers and
those working in other disciplinary traditions. Here, succinct explanations of the basis
of regional, behavioural, humanistic, Marxist, feminist and realist human geographies
will serve to illustrate the competing nature and status of different theories of space,
simultaneously explaining how geographers have been influnced by wider academic
debates.
Content: The making of a discipline; Thinking and mapping space; Geography as a
spatial science; Critical perspectives on space; The poetics of space; Hidden traditions
in geography (c. 10,000 words).
Key thinkers: Halford Mackinder's political geographies, the regional geographies of
Vidal de la Blache, Ellen Semple and environmental determinism, The poetic
geographies of Yi-Fu Tuan, Reg Golledge's analytical behaviouralism, Torsten
Hagerstrand's time geographies, Peter Haggett and the search for synthesis, David
Harvey and Marxist geographies, Andrew Sayer and realist thought, Linda McDowell
and feminist geography
3. Human Geography Today
This chapter introduces students to some of the most recent and emerging concepts
that will inform the geographies of the twenty-first century. The chapter does this by
identifying three characteristics of contemporary geography: firstly, a focus on
representation, secondly, a focus on the 'other' and, thirdly, an emphasis on
complexity. Here, the importance of the 'cultural turn' and the importation of
European philosophical frameworks are explained, with a focus of the key thinkers
and ideas who are impacting on the discipline as it unfolds today. The focus on
thinkers working in other disciplines is considered (and explained) in relation to
debates on post-disciplinary studies.
Content: The cultural turn; A post-disciplinary landscape?; Geographies of
representation; Discourse and deconstruction; Post-modern geographies; Feminism
and queer theory; Subaltern geographies; Complexity and chaos; Post-structural
geographies; Actor networks and worlds of things (c. 20,000 words)
Key thinkers: Stuart Hall and Cultural Studies, Jacques Derrida's deconstruction, Fred
Jameson and the Postmodern, Jean Baudrillard and Simulation, Schizoanalysis and
Gilles Deleuze, ANT and Bruno Latour, Knowledge/power and Michel Foucault, bell
hooks and new wave feminism.
SECTION TWO: Doing Human Geographies
These chapters (c. 8,000 words each, including 'Key thinker' boxes), aim to show how
different theoretical materials have been bought to bear on the study of four concepts
at the heart of economic, social and political geography. Each is intended to show how
the material introduced in the first half of the book has been used by geographers to
help them think about particular geographies. While the focus is primarily on
geographical scholarship, the chapters endeavour to show how concepts derived from
other disciplines have been invoked and developed by geographers, using appropriate
case studies and examples to clarify the distinctive contribution of particular ideas.
4. Geographies of Money
This chapter aims to explore thinking around the geographies of money and finance. It
begins by analysing traditional geographical interpretations of money, but suggests
that such accounts have proved somewhat limited in their ability to make sense of
worlds of money and financial exchange. In order to exemplify this idea, the chapter
contrasts these accounts with other interpretative frameworks. In doing so, it draws on
the reader's own perceptions and understandings of money to exemplify how different
ideas of exchange, value and commodity might generate new insights on money and
its commodity forms. Here, the reader's perceptions will be generated through use of a
range of reflective questions about the his/her perceptions, use, abuse, and
management of their own financial experiences and experiences of money in
contemporary society. These questions are designed to draw out the social, economic,
political and cultural bases of 'economic' geographies, showing that money has
multiple forms and multiple geographies depending on how one conceptualises it.
The chapter then turns to consider these geographies in more detail by considering
geographer's work on banking, financial exclusion, credit unions, and LETS.
Content: A brief history of money – geography matters – from pre-modern to virtual;
‘Traditional’ conceptualisations of money – ‘economic’ money; (Re-)interpreting
money - bringing in the social and political; International finance, Financial Exclusion
and new economic geographies; credit unions and LETS
Key Thinkers: Marx, Weber and Simmel and the dominant model of money, Douglas,
Polanyi, and Zelizer and the social meaning of money, Dodd and the monetary
network, Thrift and the network of internationalised credit money, Leyshon and Thrift
and financial infrastructure withdrawal/exclusion
5. Geographies of the Body
This chapter examines geographer's long-standing interest in the body, noting that it
has been imagined and conceptualised in different ways by those working within
different geographical traditions. Questioning the definition and importance of the
body, the chapter explores how the body has been theorised by geographers as a social
and cultural site of inscription, an object of desire, a means of mobility, a biological
object and so on. The chapter begins by thinking about how behavioural and
phenomenological accounts of the body superseded positivist accounts which
provided a disembodied human geography. The relevance of such ideas are shown in
studies of disability, which emphasise that everyday geographies are embodied
through a geography of encounter and bodily experience. This presages other, more
'social' accounts of the body, which are introduced via geographical investigations of
incarceration, institutionalisation and the disciplining of bodily management. Notions
that the body can also act as a space of cultural projection (being commodified via the
fashion and beauty industries) are explored through consideration of the 'cultural'
geographies of clothing, health, fitness and sexuality. Finally, ideas that the body can
be a site of resistance will be examined by looking at the work of those geographers
who have studied performance and identity (e.g. through research on disabled politics
or queer identities). Throughout this chapter, the contribution of theoretical
frameworks derived from biology, psychology, sociology and cultural studies will be
considered, showing that geographers both borrow from (and contribute to) interdisciplinary
debates.
Content: What is the body?; Movement, rest and encounter; Managing and
disciplining the body; Cultural capital and body projection; Sexed and sexy bodies;
Coping strategies and cultural politics of the body
Key Thinkers: Martin Heidegger's phenomenology, Norbert Elias and the history of
manners, Performativity and Judith Butler, Pierre Bourdieu and cultural capital,
Erving Goffman and body drama, Gill Valentine's corporeal geographies,
Psychoanalysis and David Sibley, Rosemary Garland Thomson and imperfect bodies.
6. Governance
In the first half of this chapter will examine the move in recent decades away from
traditional analyses of hierarchical (central-regional-local) government influence on
the control of space and activities to a focus on more flexible and facilitative forms of
regulation which require government representatives to work directly with business
markets and other non-government agents. It will also explore the link between these
changes and the associated shift in orientation of state policies from welfare protection
to the promotion of economic development and competitiveness. As such, we will
track changes from government diktat to collaboration and partnership and the
thinking that has influenced these changes. We will then examine the association
between these trends and the emergence of new theories which extend the analysis of
power in politics beyond issues of party politics and class control to approaches that
stress the multivalent qualities and many sources of power. A discussion about
alternative hegemonic and pluralist views of the state will frame a more detailed
examination of competing theories about the role of elites, power brokers, institutions,
promotional coalitions and partnership regimes as well as resistance movements and
practices. The issue of whether there is a convergence or divergence in approaches to
state regulation at an international level will provide a further backdrop to the
discussion.
Content: Theories of the state; new modes of governance; regime theory; regulation
theory; Identity politics and power; New Social Movements and resistance;
Key Thinkers: Gramsci on early views of the state and power; Ray Pahl on subsequent
views; Robin Hambleton on the new governance; Bob Stoker on coalitions and regime
studies; Francis Fukuyama on regulation theory; Manuel Castells on mass
movements; Michel de Certeau on resistance.
7. Globalization
This chapter examines globalisation as a contemporary ‘buzz word’. The chapter
begins by examining definitions of globalisation and how it has become used as a
catch-all term, short hand for a menu of social, economic, political and cultural
changes. It will be illustrated how the term is used by some commentators in a
positive ‘new Renaissance’ manner to suggest the promise of a glorious future of
increased material and cultural riches, and is used by its critics in an negative way to
suggest a new ‘dark ages’ based on intensified exploitation of people and places
across the globe. For the latter, globalisation involves the creation of a global
economy – a worldwide version of a national economy like that of the United States –
which threatens to homogenise all other aspects of life. It will be explained that for
both camps there is an agreed assumption that an old order is passing and being
replaced by a new order based on a quickening and deepening of connections between
places and people across the world. In this view, the ‘annihilation of space and time’
by innovations in communications and information technology is producing a
fundamental transformation in society akin to that of the industrial revolution of a
previous era. Care will be taken to examine the language employed to account for the
discontinuities involved in the transition from the previous to the pending or new
order and how they relate to key concepts: industrial/post-industrial (economy);
fordism/postfordism (labour markets); keynesian/postkeynesian (welfare
organisation); colonialism/postcolonialism (political); modernism/postmodernism
(culture), etc. The chapter will also look at those thinkers who question the validity
and use of the term globalisation itself. In particular it will explore the assumption that
the contemporary changes constitute a revolutionary transformation along the lines of
the industrial revolution. Theories developed by both conservative and radical
commentators will be examined. Using this discussion we will explore key debates
concerning the changing nature of space-time, the role of nation-states, and the
relationship between the local and global.
Content: Defining globalisation; postmodern turn; stretching space and time; new
world order; supplanting the nation state and re-emphasising the local; mediation of
local-global relations; complexity theory.
Key Thinkers: Marshall McLuhen on cultural homogeneity, Saskia Sassen on global
cities; John Friedman on origins of globalisation; Noam Chomsky on structuralist
perspectives; Peter Taylor on political dimensions of globalisation; Paul Knox on
links between economic and cultural turn; Kevin Robins and global media.
8. Conclusion
In this final chapter we will reiterate our central thesis concerning the importance of
‘thinking geographically’ revisiting the ideas presented in earlier chapters. The
chapter will encourage students to engage with theory and to adopt a critical stance in
relation to the material they are taught, in the reading they undertake, and in
conducting any individual or group projects. Given that the text is concerned with
engagement with theory, rather than providing a detailed history of geographic
thought, we will not be using the conclusion to attempt to predict the future of the
discipline, other than to say that theory will continue to play the central role in its
shaping.
Total length: 80,000 - including approximately 50 text-based boxes summarising
particular ideas associated with key thinkers (c. 250-300 words each).
To include line diagrams, tables and charts as appropriate, but no plates.
1.8 About the Authors
Brendan Bartley is a Lecturer in Urban Geography at the National University of
Ireland, Maynooth, with academic and professional qualifications in urban/regional
planning and urban transportation. He is director of the Land Use and Transportation
Unit (LUTU) and which specialises in the preparation of socio-economic, planning and
transportation studies. He is actively involved in a number of collaborative European
research networks in the connected areas of urban lifewords, urban governance, urban
regeneration and social exclusion. He is engaged in a range of projects in local
research projects covering such diverse areas as local policing, life histories of drug
users, and horse protest movements in Ireland. The largest of these projects is an
ethnography of everyday life in two socially excluded communities. At an international
level he is currently involved in two E.U. targeted social and economic research
projects on urban planning and social exclusion: (1) Urban Redevelopment and Social
Polarisation in the City; (2) Social Exclusion in European Neighbourhoods:
Processes, Experiences and Responses. Other current research interests include
governance and the neighbourhood in regeneration; urban regeneration and public
participation; the role of urban regimes in city promotion and re-imaging; and the
‘settlement’ policies for displaced travelling communities in Ireland. His recent
publications include chapters in a number of edited books, a number of government
reports, and articles in refereed journals. He is editor of Insite, the Journal of the
Royal Town Planning Institute (Ireland).
Duncan Fuller is Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Northumbria at
Newcastle. He is a young socio-economic geographer whose research interests have
focused around the emerging new economic geographies of social and financial
exclusion and inclusion. In particular, his work has examined the potential for credit
unions, as one form of alternative source of credit and finance, to play a key role in
future geographies of financial inclusion. This has led to ongoing work considering
the current policy and developmental trajectories of the British credit union
movement. Other current research interests include an analysis of the role of
organisations such as the Black Environmental Network in developing a more multicultured
focus on the environment and environmental participation and politics. He is
currently co-authoring an undergraduate text with colleagues at Northumbria (Social
Geography: An Introduction to Society and Space, Arnold), and has published a
commissioned report for Friends of the Earth (Credit Unions and Sustainable
Development). He has published a number of articles in refereed academic journals
(including special editions of Area and Geoforum) and has various articles in press or
awaiting referees reports (Antipode, Environment and Planning A, Space and Polity).
He has presented various papers and organised sessions at international conferences.
Dr Phil Hubbard is Lecturer in Human Geography at Loughborough University. He
is an urban social geographer whose research has focused on urban change in the late
modern era. Within this broad theme, his research has examined emerging forms of
governance and new modes of social regulation, particularly the changing relations of
state and civil society. This has been manifest in his ongoing work on geographies of
place marketing and entrepreneurialism as well as in work on geographies of
heterosexuality and prostitution. His recent publications include The Entrepreneurial
City (edited with Tim Hall, Wiley, 1998) and Sex and the city (Ashgate, 1999). His
forthcoming publications include an introductory text People and Place: the
extraordinary geographies of everyday life (with Lewis Holloway, Prenctice Hall,
2000). He has also published widely in refereed academic journals including Urban
Studies, Progress in Human Geography, Geography, Geoforum, Gender, Place and
Culture, Cities and Area (also editing the special issue on Research, Action and
'Critical' Geographies, with Rob Kitchin). He organised the recent conference, New
Critical Geographies, again with Rob Kitchin, and has organised several sessions at
international conferences.
Dr Rob Kitchin is a Lecturer in Human Geography at the National University of
Ireland, Maynooth. He has a diverse set of research interests which centre on culture,
space and power; disability; violence; human spatial behaviour; and cyberspace and
society. He is the general editor of a new journal for Routledge (Social and Cultural
Geography). He has recently published three books, Cyberspace: The World in the
Wires (Wiley, 1998), and Conducting Research in Human Geography (with Nick
Tate; Longman, 1999), Cognitive Mapping: Past, Present and Future (edited with
Scott Freundschuh, Routledge, 2000) and has three more in press: Disability and
Geography (Geographical Association); The Cognitive Understanding of Space (with
Mark Blades, Johns Hopkins University Press); Mapping Cyberspace (with Martin
Dodge, Routledge). He is currently writing an undergraduate text with Rob Wilton
(Critical Human Geographies, Longman) and editing a collection with James Kneale
(Lost in Space: Geographies of Science Fiction, Athlone Press). He has recently
edited three special issues: Journal of Environmental Psychology (Applying Cognitive
Mapping, with Paul Jackson); Area (Research, Action and 'Critical' Geographies, with
Phil Hubbard), Professional Geographer (Cognitive Mapping, with Scott
Freundschuh). Another special issue is in press: Ethics, Place and Environment
(Disability, Geography and Ethics, with Rob Wilton). He has published several
articles in geography, psychology and sociology journals and has two active research
grants: Geographies of violence (with James Anderson and Ian Shuttleworth, funded
by ESRC) and geographies of blindness (with Mark Blades, Reg Golledge and Dan
Jacobson funded by National Science Foundation. He organised the recent
conference, New Critical Geographies, with Phil Hubbard, and has organised several
sessions at international conferences.