The Dictionary of Human Geography (156 page)

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Authors: Michael Watts

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power-geometry
The more or less system atic and usually highly uneven ways in which different individuals and groups are positioned within Networks of flows and interactions. These variable positions derive from the intimate connections that exist between pro ductions of power and productions of space: spatial modalities of power are differentially engaged such that different actors in different places have different degrees of freedom. The concept was proposed by Doreen Massey (NEW PARAGRAPH) as both a critique of David Harvey?s concept of time space compression and an attempt to open up conventional, ?bounded? conceptions of pLace. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Massey (1993, pp. 60 1) argued that Harvey (1989b) had emphasized capitalism to such a degree that his account of time space compression collapsed into an econo mism, and paid so much attention to cLass that he failed to acknowledge the wider range of social positions that were involved, includ ing gENder. In short: time space compres sion ?needs differentiating socially?. In parallel, Gregory (1994, p. 414) argued that the process also needs to be differentiated spatially: there is a complex geography to time space compression. The concept of a power geometry speaks to these twin con cerns. It was developed independently of actor Network theory, with which it has some affinities, but it provides a multidimen sional conception of space that is intended to be unwaveringly political in its orientation. (NEW PARAGRAPH) positionality is crucial to power geometry (see also Sheppard, 2002). From the outset, (NEW PARAGRAPH) Massey (1993, p. 63) emphasized the politics of mobility that derive directly from different posi tionalities within a particular power geometry: ?We need to ask whether our relative mobility and power over mobility and commu nication entrenches the spatial imprisonment of othergroups?. ForHyndman (1997,p. 151), this remains a promissory note, and Massey does not delve far enough into the economies of power that regulate, facilitate and disrupt transnational movement. Although her argumentation sketches are often impressionistic and usually operate at a high level of abstraction, Massey?s later writings are nonetheless directed towards the elaboration of what she calls ?a global sense of place?. For her, places are open, porous and hybrid literally, ?meeting places? in which trajectories of all kinds (people, ideas, commodities) collide and to represent them as containers, building blocks or objects (cf. regionaL geography) is to foreclose the possi bilities of an intrinsically spatial politics. This openness is not a peculiarity of modern global ization and cannot be reduced to the choreog raphy of contemporary capitalism. Over the long term, she proposes, different places have been drawn into engagement with one another in ?a power geometry of intersecting trajectories? (Massey, 2005, p. 64), but there is no single, plenary narrative within which these can be con vened (p. 82); the outcomes of these intersec tions have always been open ended (though not, of course, unconstrained) because the spatial is ?the realm of the juxtaposition of dissonant nar ratives?, and it is out of this ?throwntogetherness? that new narratives are generated and negotiated (pp. 140 2). Seen thus, power geometries not only shape and constrain mobility: they are themselves in constant if irregular motion, so that their analysis is necessarily both historical and geographical (cf. coNTrapuNTaL geograph ies). Place can then be recognized as ?woven together out of ongoing stories, as a moment withinpower geometries, as a particular constel lation within the wider topographies of space? (Massey, 2005, p. 131). dg (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Massey (1993); Sheppard (2002). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
pragmatism
An American tradition of phn osophy that emerged in the late nineteenth century associated with John Dewey (1859 1952), William James (1842 1910), George Herbert Mead (1863 1931) and Charles Sanders Peirce (1839 1914) (see Barnes, 2008a). The movement is best known for the idea that what counts as knowledge is determined by its usefulness. As James (1987, p. 578) wrote, ?the true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief?. Pragmatism is thus a philosophy of practical achievement. Ideas are labelled true when they enable humans to get things done, to cope with the world. After enjoying wide spread popularity in the first half of the twen tieth century, pragmatism fell out of favour after the Second World War following the ascendancy of empirical social science and analytical philosophy, a narrowly conceived, often technically abstruse form of reasoning concerned with assessing the coherence, con sistency and precise meaning of an argument. The publication of Richard Rorty?s Philosophy and the mirror of nature (1979) revived pragma tism?s fortunes, however. As an ex analytical philosopher, Rorty diagnosed with forensic precision the pathology of modern philosophy, prescribing as cure a large dose of American pragmatism. Now found in a range of human ities and social sciences, the rehabilitation of pragmatism is also a consequence of the wider interest in post structuraLism and postmod ernism, movements with which it shares com mon interests. (NEW PARAGRAPH) James coined the name pragmatism in 1898 to describe the movement, but there were always strong differences among its propon ents. At one point, for example, Peirce minted his own neologism, ?pragmaticism?, to mark off what he was doing from his colleagues, and sufficiently ?ugly to be safe from kidnap pers? (Bernstein, 1992a, p. 813). Bernstein (1992b, appendix) usefully characterizes prag matism by five features: (NEW PARAGRAPH) Anti foundationaLism, the belief that there are no secure anchors either in the world or in the mind that holds and guar antees the permanency of true know ledge. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Fallibilism, the belief that no truth is ever final, and that knowledge should always be subject to further investigation, crit ical scrutiny, and questioning. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Communal enquiry, the notion that scholarship takes place within a wider community involving trust, conversation, and shared norms and responsibilities. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Radical contingency, the belief, stem ming partly from Darwin?s theory of evo lution, that change is propelled by chance and accident, that the only cer tainty is uncertainty (and for this reason humans must always be ready to expect the unexpected) (cf. darwinism). Peirce (1982, vol. 4, p. 544) wrote, ?Everything that can happen by chance, sometime or other will happen by chance. Chance will sometime bring about a change in every condition.? (NEW PARAGRAPH) ?Radical pluralism?, the belief that nei ther bits of the world nor of philosophy coherently fit together all of piece. Rad ical pluralism, as James (1977, p. 26) writes, is a ?turbid, muddled, Gothic sort of affair without a sweeping outline and little pictorial nobility?. But for James it is all we have. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The rise of analytical philosophy in America from the 1940s brought with it everything that pragmatism formerly shunned foundation aLism, certainty, individual rationality, neces sity and monism. Consequently, pragmatism was pushed, and sometimes shoved aside. After his death Dewey, for example, was regarded by one analytical philosopher as ?a nice old man who hadn?t the vaguest concep tion of real philosophical rigor or the nature of a real philosophical problem? (quoted in Gouinlock, 1972, p. xi). Analytical philoso phy?s hold on the profession was relatively short lived, however, and by the 1980s it was vigorously challenged by a new group of prag matists, including Richard Rorty (1931 2007) and Richard Bernstein (b.1932). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Rorty, drawing upon the writings of Dewey and James, seeks first to dismantle from the inside out the edifice of contemporary analyt ical philosophy, especially the variant known as reaLism; and, second, to substitute for it, a neo pragmatic alternative which he calls, pos sibly tongue in cheek, ?postmodernist liberal bourgeois ironism? (Rorty, 1989). Very briefly, Rorty argues that the problems of analytical philosophy stem from its appropriation of an inappropriate metaphor, vision or sight, or ?ocularism?. The metaphor mistakenly con vinced philosophers that it was possible for the mind to mirror the world (cf. vision and visuality). In contrast Rorty, following the pragmatists, argues for a different central meta phor, ?conversation?. Under this model there are no fixed end points, strict rules or necessary logics. This is evident by unpacking the terms of Rorty?s alternative: ?postmodernist? (NEW PARAGRAPH) because Rorty does not believe in the grand metanarratives of high modernism that sup posedly make all parts of the world commen surable; ?liberal? because for the conversation to continue there must be freedom of expres sion and democracy (thereby echoing Dewey?s concerns); ?bourgeois? because Rorty thinks that LiberaLism has so far only been possible under capitalism; and ?irony? because for the conversation to continue we need to affirm certain beliefs even though there are no firm philosophical foundations for them. Rorty approvingly quotes Joseph Schumpeter (1942, p. 243), who says that one needs ?to realise the relative validity of one?s convictions and yet stand for them unflinchingly?. (NEW PARAGRAPH) While sympathetic to many of Rorty?s ideas, Bernstein (1992b, ch. 8) is sharply critical of his economic conservatism, and his disengage ment from questions of unequal power and resources. Bernstein (1992b, p. 233), says that Rorty?s version of pragmatism is ?little more than an apologia for the status quo?. In con trast, Bernstein deals with those absences by joining to pragmatism various strands of con tinental European philosophy, producing what he calls ?the new constellation? (Bernstein, 1992b). An important component within Bernstein?s mix are writers identified with post structuraLism such as Foucault and Derrida, who are not economic conservatives, and who deal vitally with questions of unequal power and resources. In no small part, the renaissance of American pragmatism is a result of its resonance with the concerns of those writers. (NEW PARAGRAPH) In human geography, there have been sporadic, but neither consistent nor concerted, attempts to draw upon pragmatist writers. Jackson and Smith (1984) utilize Mead?s more applied prescriptions in their portrayal of sociaL geography; Westcoat (1992) describes the relation between White?s environmental outlook, and particularly Dewey?s ideas; both Barnes (1996, chs. 2 and 5) and Gibson Graham (2006b [1996]) make use of Rorty?s work in countering essentialism in economic geography; and Sunley (1996) takes the ideas of another ex analytical philosopher turned pragmatist, Hilary Putnam, and puts them to work in a discussion of the relationship between the new institutionaL economics and economic geography. A special issue of Geoforum (2008) is devoted to assessing the usefulness of pragmatism for human geog raphy and connecting it to contemporary intel lectual formations: thus Allen (2008) (NEW PARAGRAPH) conducts a series of radical experiments that insert pragmatism into the play of power, Bridge (2008) reactivates pragmatism in theorizations of performativity and spatiaL ity, while Jones (2008) identifies a series of connections between pragmatism, post structuraLism and non representationaL theory. tb (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Barnes (2008a); Bernstein (1992a); Menand (2001). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
prediction
The construction of an estimated or expected value for an observation being studied, where the observation might be for a place, region, individual or time period. The estimate or prediction may be generated by a statistical model (e.g. regression), a math ematical model (e.g. an entropy maximizing modEL) or a more informal simuLAtioN pro cess. The term ?predicted value? is usually employed for the ?fitted? or estimated values for observations within the data set being cali brated or modelled, and the out of sample extrapolation is termed the forecast. lwh (NEW PARAGRAPH)
pre-industrial city
All cities prior to the iNdustriAL revolution, plus those in non industrialized regions today. The term reflects the theory, initially advocated by Gideon Sjoberg (1960; see sjoberg modEL), that all pre industrial cities, regardless of their time, place or cultural backdrop, share similar reasons for existence, social hierarchies and internal spatial structures. The term is now rarely used, as few researchers believe that the variety of urban forms created by pre industrial and non industrialized societies have enough in common to be considered as variations of a single category. dh (NEW PARAGRAPH)
preservation
The protection, maintenance and care of relict features of the built environ ment, including historic buildings, archaeo logical sites and individual human artefacts (e.g. the Colosseum in Rome). Preservationists complement the work of conservationists, who aim to protect specific ?natural? landscapes or features of the biophysical environment (e.g. the Grand Canyon) (cf. conservation). Agencies such as the National Trust in the UK are awarded statutory powers to preserve houses and gardens of particular historical significance (see heritage). This may involve the extensive restoration of buildings to bring them back to their original condition or their revival through the reproduction of past features (e.g. gardens). Human geographers have been concerned both with the practices involved in preservation pro jects and with the types of landscape imagery, icoNogRAphY and interpretation provided in preserved landscapes (e.g. Ashworth and Tunbridge, 2004). As the example of the Colosseum suggests, however, ?preservation? has a complex and often contentiously imagina tive relationship with restoration (see Hopkins (NEW PARAGRAPH) and Beard, 2005, chs. 1 and 6; and, more gener ally, Lowenthal, 1985). Relict features typically have multiple, sedimented histories inscribed in and on them: they are not the product ofa single historical moment. It was for this reason that the French architect Viollet le Duc (1814 79) argued that restoration should restore a build ing to an idealized state of completion, per fection ?that may never have actually existed at any given time?: which is why, in turn, his ?restorations? (e.g. of the French city of Carcassonne) proved so controversial in the past and in the present. nj /dg (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Ashworth and Tunbridge (2004); Lowenthal (1985, ch. 7). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
pricing policies
The arrangements whereby the prices at which commodities are offered to consumers are determined. In spatial eco nomic analysis, the important distinguishing feature of pricing policies is the extent to which price varies with distance from the ori gin or source of the commodity. There are two major alternative policies. The first is known as the f.o.b. (free on board) price system, under which there is a basic price at origin and the consumer pays the transport cost involved in getting the commodity to the point of pur chase. The second is the c.i.f. (cost, insurance, freight) price system, under which the produ cer adds insurance and shipping cost to the production cost and offers the commodity at a uniform delivered price irrespective of dis tance from origin. The distinction between these two policies is important, for commod ities sold c.i.f. should have no bearing on loca tional comparative AdVANtage for productive activities requiring them as inputs; similarly, distance from origin should not affect level of demand for goods offered on a c.i.f. basis (other things being equal). There is an increas ing tendency for commodities to be sold at a uniform delivered price. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Various alternative pricing policies may be implemented. An f.o.b. system does not necessarily have minor incremental increases in price for small increases in distance; more often, the prevailing freight rates on which delivered price is based will be constant over broad zones. There may be forms of spatial price discrimination, under which customers in some areas are charged a high price (per haps because the supplier has a local monop oly) so as to subsidize the price charged in a more competitive market elsewhere. A well known variant is the basing point price policy, (NEW PARAGRAPH) whereby customers are charged as if the com modity originated at a certain (base) point; this can be used to protect producers in the basing point location, for commodities actu ally produced elsewhere will cost more. The operation of some pricing policies may involve collusion on the part of producers to maintain an artificially high price in the industry as a whole an increasing tendency in the advanced capitaList world. dms (NEW PARAGRAPH)

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