The Dictionary of Human Geography (151 page)

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Authors: Michael Watts

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population potential
A measure of the nearness of a spatially distributed population to a point (developed as part of the macro geography project). The potential exerted on a point (V) is as follows: kVi = (pjidvj i (NEW PARAGRAPH) where Pj is the population at point j, dij is the distance between i and j and summation is over all k points (djj may be raised to some power, to reflect the friction of distance: cf. distance decay). The higher the potential at a point Vi (NEW PARAGRAPH) the more accessible it is to the population concerned. Isoplethmaps of population poten tial indicate the relative accessibility of a set of (NEW PARAGRAPH) points, weighted by their populations and the distances between them (as in the gravity modeL). Population may be replaced by another variable, such as purchasing power, to give a measure of market accessiBiLity for each point i. rj (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Stewart and Warntz (1959); Warntz (1965). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
population projection
A scenario about the size and composition of a population in the future (or past) that is based on a set of demo graphic assumptions. As ?what if? scenarios, projections should be distinguished from esti mates (which aim to provide the most accurate picture of current populations) and forecasts (which aim to statistically predict the most probable scenario based on a broad range of information). The key (direct) mathematical methods for making projections include the extrapolation of demographic trends, the use of the balancing equation (see demography) and, notably, the cohort component method, which makes specific assumptions about the fertiLity, mortaLity and migration (NEW PARAGRAPH) experiences of every five year cohort in a population as it ages. The increased applica tion of population projections in business and planning has helped fuel a virtuous circle of methodological innovation, which includes developments in sub national projections, small area projections, multi region models and ethnic minority projections (Wilson and Rees, 2005). ajB (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Rowland (2003, ch. 12). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
population pyramid
A graphical depiction of the age sex structure of a population. This provides a visual record of the current population structure and differentiates between expanding populations (pyramid shape with concave sides), stationary popula tions (straight sided) and constricting popu lations (beehive shape with convex sides: see the US Census Bureau for contemporary pyr amids that can be animated). Pyramids also provide visual clues as to prior demographic events, including the arrival/departure of sex selective migration streams, the impact of¸ Shortage in births due to the 1914-18 war (?empty classes') @ Passage of ?empty classes' to age of fertility (NEW PARAGRAPH) Shortfall in births due to 1939-45 war (NEW PARAGRAPH) Baby boom (NEW PARAGRAPH) Non-replacement of generations (NEW PARAGRAPH) population pyramid France, 1897 1997 (Levy, 1998, p. 4) wars upon the male population, infanticide and the movement of boom bust cohorts (Momsen, 1991). The figure for France is typical of populations of the global North. It shows the general influence of ageing, which, because of lower male Life expectancy, produces a strong excess of women in the over 70 age groups. The recent decline in birth rates is also evident in the shortfall in those aged under 25 years. The demographic conse quences of war are also apparent in the pyra mid; for example, the sharp decline in births during the First World War is reflected in the shortfall in the numbers of people in their late seventies and early eighties. In countries of the global South, population pyramids are more steep sided, reflecting higher fertiLity (which adds more people to the base of the pyramid) and higher mortaLity through the life course, that steadily removes them. ajb (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Shryock and Siegel (1973). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
populism
An enormously complex term that refers to both political ideoLogies and eco nomic deveLopment strategies that are bound up with notions ofthe ordinary, the people, anti industrialism and small scale enterprise (?small is beautiful'). Populism as practice can be seen as a counter current, a minority discourse, to the rise of industrial capitaLism. While certain lines of populist thinking can be traced to pre industrial Leveller and Digger movements of seventeenth century England, the intellectual origins are typically traced to Sismondi and the Ricardian socialists (Kitching, 1982). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Kitching notes that there are two senses in which populism is employed. One turns on its opposition to large scale urban manufacture and its promotion of small scale, moral, efficient enter prises, and the other on a particular sort ofpolitics in which an effort is made to manufacture a national collective will (see also hegemony; nationalism). Populist political strategies and rhetorics res ide in what Laclau (1977) calls a double articu lation: first, the creation of a stable bloc consisting of the people and powerful classes; and, second, the discourses by which ?the people's' interests are configured with those of other classes (see cLass and state). Populist movements can, for example, encompass farmer radicalism, agrarian sociaLism, populist dicta torship (Peronism), populist democracy and urban social movements (Canovan, 1981; see also squatting). Populist, or neo populist, development strategies can include peasant co operatives, the informal sector, land reform (NEW PARAGRAPH) and third worLd flexible specialization (Kitching, 1982). A powerful line of populist thinking in development geography and agrarian studies includes the work of Chayanov (see peasant). mw (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Canovan (1981); Laclau (2006); Watts (1995). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
pork barrel
An American term for the unequal distribution of pubLic goods in order to promote a political party's or candidate's re election prospects. Pork barrelling is usually associated with legislators obtaining benefits for the spatially defined constituencies that they represent, but the term is also used more generally to refer to any apparent government favouritism of particular areas. rj (NEW PARAGRAPH)
positionality
The fact that a researcher?s social, cultural and subject positions (and other psychological processes) affect: the questions they ask; how they frame them; the theories that they are drawn to; how they read (NEW PARAGRAPH) Bondi (1999) draws a distinction between intertextual and experiential reading; their relations with those they research in the fieLd or through interviews; interpretations they place on empirical evidence; access to data, institutions and outlets for research dissemin ation; and the likelihood that they will be listened to and heard. Debates about position ality have been ongoing since the 1980s, espe cially within feminism and feminist geographies and among those using quaLita tive methods. They emerge with the under standing that all knowledge is partial and from particular perspectives, embedded within power relations. In a highly influential state ment, Haraway (1989) distinguished between situated knowLedge and reLativism, arguing that attending to positionality, as it is mediated by particular technologies for seeing (such as quantification, mapping and survey method ologies), is the route to objectivity (rather than a sign of subjectivism), and a way of making responsible knowledge claims that simultaneously chart their limits and create opportunities for developing connections across different types of knowledges. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Approaches to positionality have changed over the years, reflecting changing theories of subjectivity. In early discussions, positional ity often took the form of self critical intro spection, through which researchers attem pted to position themselves within power relations (often as middle class, white and Western) in order to understand how this entered into their research process (see refLexiVity; see also Moss, 2005). Rose (1997b) criticized these efforts to make posi tionality transparent. Not only is it impossible to do so, given the complexity ofpsychological processes, but these efforts approximate the ?god trick' of complete vision criticized by Haraway. In a position that is now widely accepted, she argued that there is an irresolv able ?unknowability' of our own positions and those of others. From quite another direction, some have taken the position that only mem bers of a cultural community have the right to speak for their community (England, 1994). This reflects concerns especially among mar ginalized communities that middle class, often white, researchers reproduce existing patterns of domination through the research process and products. They often have access to information unavailable to marginalized groups, they treat the experiences ofthose they research as ?raw data' that they then interpret, they have the capacity (unavailable to margin alized groups) to present their interpretations within scholarly and sometimes policy con texts, and their research often seems to more clearly benefit them (through career advance ment) than those that they study. Both the practical difficulties of identity politics and the influence of post structural theories of the subject (see post structuraLism) have tended to soften this position. The under standing that subject positions are multiple and that social differences are constructed within relations of power has shifted focus away from binary thinking (i.e. the researcher is the same as or different from those studied) to understanding points of partial connection between researcher and researched, and how difference is constructed, including within the research process: ?[T]he question of ??Who speaks for whom??? cannot be answered upon the slippery slope of what personal attributes what color, what gender, what sexuaLity legitimate our existence, but on the basis of our history of involvement, and on the basis of understanding how difference is constructed and used as a political tool' (Kobayashi, 1994, p. 78). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Rather than stable positionalities and rela tions of sameness or difference, the language has shifted to that of alliances, solidarities, col laborations, common ground and in between ness. Katz (1994) recommends are focusing of objectives, away from studying ?those poor people? to researching processes or sets ofrela tions. Researchers can also re deploy theirpriv ilege to access spaces of data collection and (NEW PARAGRAPH) dissemination unavailable to the groups they collaborate with, support marginalized groups in their self representation and multiply their communication resources (Butz and Besio, (NEW PARAGRAPH) . Rather than assuming that their research will benefit a needy group, a stance that Katz (1994) identifies as suspect because it elides the subjectivity of those researched, they can create situations in which all of the partici pants (academic, community partners and those researched) can appropriate the research products and use them in different ways to achieve their shared goals for social justice. Besio (Besio and Butz, 2004) cautions, how ever, that the capacity to position oneself in this way itself depends on positionality; in some cultural circumstances, for instance, it not a simple matter for women to enter into these kinds of research collaborations. Concerns are also raised about the hazards of over identifi cation with particular groups and there are good arguments for the practical and analytical benefits of scholarly distance (Brown, 1995). Finally, solidarity with activist groups can raise ethical issues, posed most forcibly by Routledge (2002), when he performed a false identity in a duplicitous way to access informa tion for activist allies. What are the ethical limits of this flexible positionality (see ethics)? This goes to the heart of what we understand as the purpose of scholarly knowledge produc tion. gp (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Katz (1994); Kobayashi (1994); Rose (1997). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
positive discrimination
An approach that favours peoples who have traditionally suffered one or more forms of disadvantage. Positive discrimination or affirmative action pro grammes aim to rectify imbalances and injust ices through direct intervention. In some cases, this might mean targeting policies spatially; for example, giving children from certain deprived neighBourhoods preferential access to univer sity places. In other cases, it might involve sec tor targeting; for example, in the appointment of women in senior positions in industries, in which men have traditionally dominated (Berman, 1984). The aim of both is to create a more egalitarian society, reducing if not elimin ating inequalities (Leach, 1974). Kwa (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Berman (1984). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
positivism
A historically variegated move ment in phiLosophy, affirming that only scientific knowledge is authentic knowledge, and denying validity to metaphysical (non scientific) speculation (see also science). The antecedents are Enlightenment thinkers such as David Hume (1711 76) and Pierre Simon Laplace (1749 1827). But the term was first invented, and the philosophy formally codi fied, by the French philosopher and sociologist August Comte (1798 1851), and published in hefty instalments in his Course in positivist phil osophy between 1830 and 1842 (six volumes). Subsequently, each future generation con structed positivism in accordance to its own ends, frequently minting a new title, perhaps the best known being logical positivism, born at discussions of the Vienna Circle during the 1920s (see also logical empiricism). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Six features characterize the different strains of positivism (Hacking, 1983): (NEW PARAGRAPH) An emphasis on the importance of obser vation as the foundation for all (non mathematical) knowledge. Scientific statements were to be grounded in im mediate and accessible experience of the world, through the five senses (cf. em piricism). Such immediacy guaranteed that facts were pure, untainted by theory or value judgements; they represented the world as it really was incorrigible and inviolate. In particular, for Comte recognition of observation as the source of knowledge was the culmination of an historical process in which the errors of previous eras, characterized by the (mis taken) dominance of first religious and later metaphysical thought, were finally overcome. (NEW PARAGRAPH) A belief in either verification (using ob servations to prove a thesis), or its vari ant, falsification (using observations to disprove a thesis). Verification or falsifi cation is undertaken formally, using common methods and employing rigor ous techniques such as statistical infer ence to scrupulously determine the truth or falsity of a statement. (NEW PARAGRAPH) A conviction that causality seen in na ture and society is nothing more than the repetitive concurrence of one event followed by another. Positivism rejects the usual interpretation of cause reckon ing it obscure metaphysical baggage (who has ever observed ?a cause??). The alternative is a formulation tethered only to experience, the constant conjunction of observable events (?If event A, then event B?: see law (scientific). (NEW PARAGRAPH) A suspicion of theoretical entities that by definition are non observable. Comte said that theoretical generalizations must always be regarded at best as mere hypotheses, and logical positivists tried to reduce all theoretical statements to (legitimate) propositions of logic (an en deavour that ended disastrously). Even the less extreme solution of ?operational ism?, that tied the meaning of a theoret ical term to the empirical operations required to measure it, unravelled given the implication that each new measuring instrument defined a new theoretical term. (NEW PARAGRAPH) A faith in the unity of the method allow ing positivism to be as efficaciously ap plied to the humanities and social sciences as to the physical and life sci ences. This is known as naturalism: one method fits all, revealing Truth wherever it is found. Comte envisioned the unity as a hierarchy in which disciplines study ing more complex phenomena relied on the laws discovered in disciplines con cerned with less complex phenomena (Hacking, 1983), whereas logical positiv ists (or at least Otto Neurath) cham pioned the Unity of Science Movement, which cast knowledge of any discipline into the single mould of physics (the monumentally conceived International encyclopaedia of unified science was to show how this was to be done, but only two volumes were ever written: Reisch, (NEW PARAGRAPH) 2005). (NEW PARAGRAPH) The ardent denial of metaphysics (i.e. propositions bearing on the non physical). Comte had no interest in meta physical meaning, believing that their time literally had passed: now was the era of positivism. Logical positivists were just as extreme. A.J. Ayer (1936) titled the first chapter in his logical positivist mani festo for an English language audience ?The elimination of metaphysics?. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Several of these six features have been found in geography since its institutionalization in the nineteenth century, although sporadically, often only tacitly and never all at once. Before the Second World War, Anglo American geog raphy was not much of a fit. While the discip line defined itself in terms of the meticulous recording of empirical observations, often from the field, and so met positivism?s first criterion, very few of the other criteria held, or at least for the reasons given by positivists. (NEW PARAGRAPH) For example, while geographers during this period were sceptical of theory, it was not because they were persuaded by philosophical arguments about the non translation of an observation vocabulary into a theoretical one, but because theory implied a level of general ization that was deemed inappropriate to geo graphical subject matter (cf. exceptionaLism). (NEW PARAGRAPH) The advent of the quantitative revoLu tion in the late 1950s made positivism much more relevant to geography. Empirical obser vations continued to be central, although they were now often observations made by others and recorded in thick census volumes or on drums of magnetic tape (thereby shifting much geographical empirical enquiry from the field to the desk). Verification became a definitive pursuit undertaken using a set of ever more sophisticated formal statistical tech niques (see quantitative methods). Constant conjunctions were pursued, and Tobler (1970) announced the First Law of Geography: ?Everything is related to every thing else, but near things are more related than distant things.? Positivism?s fourth fea ture, suspicion towards theoretical terms, did not apply. Geography's quantitative revolu tionaries were besotted by theory. In fact, the revolution had been primarily a theoretical one, especially in economic geography and urban geography, which were transformed by importation of second hand theory from physics, economics and sociology. The pro spect of a unified method, however, was one of the quantitative revolution's strongest sell ing points. physicaL geography and human geography would share a common language, and geographical science would be at one rather than a house divided. Finally, quantita tive revolutionaries prosecuted less the open warfare on metaphysics that positivist philo sophers urged than a continual undertone of carping about the need for greater precision, less vagueness and the importance of the exclusion of value judgements (see normative theory). (NEW PARAGRAPH) All of this said, there were few explicit dis cussions of positivism as such until it was on the way out. Morrill (1993, p. 443), one of the pioneers of the quantitative revolution, said he ?never met a positivist?. And even Harvey?s (1969) methodological compendium for sci entific geography, Explanation in geography, barely used the word (it does not appear in the index), preferring instead ?scientific method?. The quantitative revolution was much more about getting on with the tasks of theoretical development and application, or crunching large data sets, than philosophizing about what was being done in the name of positivism. As a result, when some human geographers later vigorously attacked positiv ism, it did not necessarily undermine the prac tices of quantitative revolutionaries and spatial analysts, because the latter often neither knew nor deployed the full array of positivist tenets to begin with. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The critique of positivism was long and sus tained, and in many ways still continues. Each one of the six features was criticized: (1) facts do not speak for themselves, but are always embedded in values, judgements and schemes of interpretation (see paradigms); (2) truth is chimerical, and imbricated in larger social relations of power and knowledge (see crit icaL theory; discourse); (3) constant con junctions lead only to mindless statistical exercises, and not to explanation (see reaL ism); (4) theory should be central to our enquiries, albeit not conceived as a mirror of the world, but as reflexive, critical, productive and provisional; (5) physical sciences offer no privileged method, but are fallible, contradict ory, and limited by their historical and geographical situation (see science); and (NEW PARAGRAPH) metaphysics goes all the way down, the lifeblood of our social existence and produc tion of knowledge (see ethics; reLevance; vaLues). (NEW PARAGRAPH) These counter claims amount to a reasser tion of the social foundations and responsibil ities of intellectual enquiry, and a refusal to separate science from other discourses. Few geographers would now count themselves as positivist. Post positivist geographies have: dimmed the enthusiasm for unbridled use of quantitative techniques; given a new slant to areas that formerly were characterized as posi tivist, such as economic geography and, more recently, geographicaL information sys tems; and opened up new fields such as femi nism and post coLoniaLism. In general, the fall of positivism in geography undermined the certainty and even optimism that the Quantitative Revolution and spatial science had promised, replacing it with what Gregory (1994) calls a ?cartographic anxiety' (see cartographic reason). Geography had grown up. tb (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Gregory (1978); Kolakowski (1972). (NEW PARAGRAPH)

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