The Dictionary of Human Geography (174 page)

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Authors: Michael Watts

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rent gap
The gap between the current rent on a piece of land (the ?capitalized ground rent?) and its potential rent under another use (the ?potential ground rent?). Developed by Smith (1979c) and emphasizing capital flows in the production of residential space, rent gap theory is a crucial element of the analysis of gentrification. It suggests that disinvestment in inner city neighbourhoods reduces capitalized ground rent. When this rent is sufficiently lower than potential ground rent, opportunities for profit making through reinvestment occur, leading to residential change. The theory has been criticized, how ever, for downplaying the role of individual gentrifiers? choices in shaping inner city neighbourhoods (Hamnett, 1991). em (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Clark (1995); Smith (1996). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
representation
A complex concept not only because of the intricate disputes in art and Literature to which its traditional usage refers, but also because of the variety of its applications in modern and postmodern cri tiques of Western epistemology (see modern ism; postmodernism). At its minimum, representation is conventionally defined as a symbol or image, or as the process of rendering something (an object, event, idea or perception) intelligible and identifiable. Bring ing together the achievements of Renaissance art (the ?discovery? of perspective) and enLightenment language (scientific objec tivity, classificatory order), this ?naturaList? or ?realist? theory of representation is charac terized by the relationship between two assumed metaphysical constants: the artist/ viewer (or universal, visual experience) on the one hand, and nature (or the objects of exter nal reality) on the other. From this perspective, the history of representation is the study of constant mutations reflecting the increasing sophistication of artistic execution in relation to the changing appearances of the world. However, morphology and advancing technical expertise are not by themselves history: indeed, ?history is the dimension [this understanding of representation] exactly negates? (Bryson, 1983). Recognizing this, representation is analogous to what Edmund Husserl (1859 1938) calls the ?natural attitude?, a perspective whose increasingly fidelity to a reality ?out there? is as much a scientific and aesthetic practice as it is an epistemological premise. ?It is the aim of the sciences issuing from the natural attitude to attain a knowledge of the world more comprehensive, more reliable, and in every respect more perfect than that offered by the information received by experi ence? (Husserl, in Heath, 1972). It is Husserl?s student, Martin Heidegger (1889 1976), how ever, who most decisively equates representa tion with science/knowledge and posits it as the foundation and fateful flaw of Western phiLosophy. Manifest in what Heidegger called the modern ?age of the world picture?, the representational model depends on the construal of truth as ?correspondence? or ?accordance? (Heidegger, 1962 [1927]). Re presentation or ?En framing? (Ge stell) thus not only assumes that the world is purely ?present at hand? (vorhanden), an object to be submitted to our pitiless and possessive gaze, but turns it into a ?standing reserve? for our technical domination and habitual instrumen talization. What such an attitude forgets, however, is that the ?world is never [that] which stands before us and can be seen? (Heidegger, 1962 [1927]). Rather, true experience for Hei degger is a matter of ?uncovering? the hidden, of revealing what might be concealed rather than accurately and anonymously representing what appears to be. (NEW PARAGRAPH) But if Heidegger?s indictment of representa tion suggests a phenomenological critique (see phenomenology), other analyses insist on the historical specificity of representation and its implication in the production of knowledge. For Michel Foucault (1926 84), representa tion not only has a history but a precise moment of epistemic formation coincident with the onset of what he calls the Classical Age (1600 1800). Before the end of the sixteenth century, an age characterized by a theory of ?resemblances' or ?similitudes', Foucault argues, images and words were understood as decipherable hieroglyphs, as so many figural or iconic ?signatures' that bore intrinsic affinities to the things of a divinely ordained world. The result was an essential seamlessness, a ?non distinction between what is seen and what is read . . . the constitution of a single, unbroken surface in which observa tion and language intersect to infinity' (Foucault, 1977). For reasons that Foucault unfortunately fails to explicate, the Classical Age emerges when this unity is shattered by a growing awareness of the binary nature of representation; that is, of the discriminatory judgement of identity and difference, of the placing of things in differential relation to each other as the means to describe and systematize the manifold objects of the external world. Knowledge now begins to occupy a new space. It is the space within representation itself, inside the tools of its language, classificatory systems, and modes of naming and viewing. Natural history and concomitant taxonomic or tabular orderings of the world owe their triumph precisely to representation so under stood. Importantly, the only thing that is not, and cannot, be included within this represen tational frame is the act of representation itself. Indeed, it is only in the absence of the viewing, naming and describing subject, that representation can claim its authority as infal lible knowledge. (NEW PARAGRAPH) With this analysis, and Foucault?s subse quent charting of the shift from a Classical to a Modern episteme, in which language becomes opaque as Man is arranged at the centre of knowledge, the stage is set for under standing representation as a discursive prac tice, as a kind of work (see discourse). Alternatively known as the social constructiv ist approach (see sociaL construction), this perspective recognizes that while concepts and signs may have some material dimension (we do, after all, emit sounds when we speak, paint marks on a canvas, transmit electronic impulses when taking a digital photograph), the meaning of such things depends not on any pragmatic quality but on their symbolic and social function. It is for this reason that Ferdinand de Saussure (1966) preferred the word ?signify' rather than ?represent' for what words and concepts do: they do not describe a pre existent reality, but constitute what counts and is valued as reality. Influenced by Saussarian linguistics and rehearsed within various registers of post structuraLism, the constructedness of representation is now a chief interpretive principle cutting across a wide sampling of contemporary theories, including those of human geography. Indeed, one can say that ?geo graphy?, in its etymo logical connection to ?earth writing?, holds the idea of ?representation as text? at its prac tical and theoretical root (Cosgrove and Daniels, 1988; Barnes and Duncan, 1992; Duncan and Ley, 1993; Gregory, 1994). (NEW PARAGRAPH) However, acknowledging the constructed nature of representation is one thing; investi gating the inherent partiality and limitations in anything constructed is another. Alongside questions of who and what it is that ?repre sents' (i.e. what enunciative, rhetorical or institutional position is involved in the act of representing) attention also has to be paid to the restrictions of the representational model: to not only what it excludes, but also what it inhibits in accessing the perceptual practices of our sensory and somatic lives. In recent human geography, the disappearance of the textual dimension in so called ?non represen tationaL theory' offers one such address. Concerned to close the distance between sub ject and object the very distance implied by representation as mediation, illustration or derivative sign language non representa tional theory attends to how certain spaces, experiences and states act directly on the body, addressing the manifold affects, sensa tions and, indeed, visibilities of the world in the subject's felt engagement with it. Here the re of representation, or the substitutive value that this re indicates, makes way for a certain intensification of presentation, for an immediacy of presence of which any second ary reproduction of the world can give no account (Dewsbury, Wylie, Harrison and Rose, 2002). jd (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Elkins (2002); Evans and Hall (1998); Jay (1993); Mirzoeff (1999). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
resistance
In human geography, resistance has two distinctive meanings: political resist ance, the more common usage, refers to resist ance to domination or oppression; psychic resistance refers to unconscious attempts to maintain repressions of traumatic or danger ous memories (see psychoanaLytic theory). Pile and Keith (1997) discuss how the two concepts work in relation to each other. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Debates about political resistance crystallize key trends in criticaL huMAN geography. Marxist geography has a long tradition of studying collective organizing and everyday resistance to cLass exploitation; and struggle against Patriarchy is well articulated in fEMiNist geographies. The geographical embeddedness of political and cultural action has been explored in work on social move MENts, highlighting: how particularities of place influence the emergence, character and strategy of movements (Routledge, 1993); what geographical dilemmas labour unions face in the age of global capital (Herod, 1998: and see LAbour geography); and the importance of social movements in shaping political and social geographies (Miller, (NEW PARAGRAPH) 2000). (NEW PARAGRAPH) An interest in cuLturaL POLitics and the persuit of the cuLturaL turn led to two devel opments in the geographical study of resis tance. First, the interpretative frame was enlarged to include myriad everyday symbolic and material practices, which contested not only class exploitation but also gender, racial, sexual (and other) forms of domination and oppression. James Scott?s Weapons of the weak (1985) was a key text, in which he identified foot dragging, desertion, false compliance, pil fering, feigned ignorance, arson, sabotage and more as ?everyday resistance?. These practices required little or no coordination or planning, made use of implicit understandings and informal networks, and typically avoided any direct or symbolic confrontation with author ity (1985, p. xvi). However, when almost every action is conceptualized as resistance, critical distinctions between effective and ineffective political resistance, and commitments to col lective organizing and the coordination across different forms of domination, may be lost (Pile and Keith, 1997). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Second, resistant subjects were understood as authoring their political identities in rela tion to multiple axes of power, and dominant structures, discourses and actors within soci ety (Castells, 1997). Identity formation is thus complex in terms of both the multiplici ties of identities negotiated by each indivi dual and the hybridity of resultant resistance practices (see third space; Pile and Keith, 1997). Concerns with the latter have been influenced by Foucault?s (1990 [1976]) version of post structuRALisM, which views power as insinuated throughout all social activity, inher ent in practically all social and political relation ships. The operations of power, domination and resistance are seen as integrally rolled up (NEW PARAGRAPH) in articulations of society and space, resulting in the entanglement of resisting and dominat ing practices; for example, through the creation of internal hierarchies, the silencing of dissent, or how various forces of hegEMONY are intern alized and reproduced within resistance prac tices (Sharp et al., 2000). (NEW PARAGRAPH) With the intensity of the processes of neo LibERAL gLObALizatiON, concerns over the ways in which the production of scaLe is itself an outcome of political struggle (Smith, 1993) are now turning to networked forms of politics and resistance (Grewal and Kaplan, 1994; Featherstone, 2003, 2005b; Routledge 2003; Massey, 2004). This challenges the way in which resistance has been previously theorized through bounded versions of space and place, and is crucial for engaging with the dynamic transnational networks of opposition to glob alization (see anti gLObALization; trans NAtiONALisM). PR (NEW PARAGRAPH)
resort life-cycle model
Originally devel oped by Butler (1980) (see figure), the tourist resort life cycle model depicts an almost inev itable pattern of development in five phases. First, there is a phase of exploration character ized by small numbers of relatively wealthy tourists ?finding? the destination. Second, local capital and populations become involved in developing the resort. Third, there is devel opment as aggLOMeration effects lead to increasing returns. Thus as visitor and busi ness numbers increase, the knowledge and skill base expands. More visitors mean more capital, which means more investment in facilities and accessibility, which makes the destination more attractive, and so on. This develops into a fourth phase of consolidation, where competition among increasing numbers of providers to gain large volumes of tourists (NEW PARAGRAPH) entails cheap products, which in turn have low margins and thus reduce further investment. The effects of expansion may also destroy the very qualities that once made the place appealing. The resort may exceed its eco logical or social ?carrying capacity?, leading to a fifth phase of stagnation. mc (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Butler (1980); Smith (1992c). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
resource
A deceptively peaceable term that conceals the profoundly political relations through which humans attribute value to the non human world. ?Resource? is one of the core categories of modernity: like ?nature? and ?culture?, its origins lie in the revolution of socio natural relations associated with the emergence of capitaLism. The distinctions and differentiations enabled by the category of ?resources? between productive, valued assets and unproductive ?wastes,? for exam ple are closely bound to notions of deveLop ment and state formation, and play a key role in the organization of contemporary society. The ?productivist? associations that adhere to the term give it wide application beyond environmental phenomena: technology, skills and employees, for example, are frequently described as resources. These applications illustrate how the term captures a funda mentally social relationship: the attribution of (economic) value by a dominant group to attri butes and capacities that provide functional utility for that group. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Traditionally, a ?resource? describes a prod uct of biological, ecological or geological pro cesses (game, soils, mineral ores, timber, water) that satisfies human wants (see naturaL resources). The utility of these environmental goods and their contribution to human welfare may be experienced directly for example, as material inputs such as food and shelter that enable subsistence or indirectly via its role in exchange. In addition to these classic product ive inputs, the category of resources also includes a range of ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration, flood attenuation and the maintenance of biodiversity, that are now recognized as critical to the functioning of the Earth?s life support systems (Costanza et al., 1997). Many of these provide important ?sink? functions by assimilating wastes pro duced during the use of environmental goods. There is also a range of non extractive and non utilitarian ways in which physical environments can be considered to provide ?resources?: recreational amenity, aesthetic appreciation, moral worth and spiritual inspir ation imply the attribution to the natural world of a complex range of value systems (see resource management). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Work on resources engages with questions of value, knowledge, scarcity and sustain abiLity that are at the heart of modern envir onmental geography. Three distinctively geographical understandings of the nature and function of resources have emerged. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Resources: neither natural nor cultural. At the core of geographical work on resources is the recognition that re sources are ?cultural appraisals? of the non human world. This idea, which can be traced in the writings of nineteenth century political economists such as Ricardo and Mill, is articulated most clearly by Zimmerman?s (1933) aphor ism that ?resources are not; they become?. In his World resources and industries, Zimmerman argues against the vernacular view of resources as ?material fixities of physical nature? and proposes that ?neutral stuff? acquires the status of a resource once it is recognized as having some functional value. Work by geographers has explicitly broadened the category of resources away from a restricted focus on physical stocks and flows, situating resources as an interface or boundary zone between societies and the vast range of different materials that biological, geological and atmospheric systems produce. Burton, Kates and White (1993) systematized this view of resources as an interface between human and physical systems, noting the sym metry between positive and negative social appraisals of the environment (?resources? versus ?hazards?). Recent work on life sciences and biotechnoL ogy questions altogether the categories ?human? and ?physical?, and highlights the need for non dualistic modes of thought within geography. To varying degrees, then, geographers have insisted that resources are hybrid forms, ?socio natures? that are neither purely natural nor purely social (Swyngedouw, 1999). By defying categorization as either nature or culture, resources highlight the insufficiency (and instability) of many of the analytical categories on which modern geography is founded (see hybridity). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Resources as relational. Recent work by geographers starts from the premise that resources can be more productively analysed as a set of social relations be tween (often distant) groups rather than as discrete ?things'. This so called ?rela tional approach' works against the reifi cation of resources by turning the analytical lens back on to society: What is it about the needs and wants of a soci ety, and the way a society is organized, that transforms a component of the non human world into a resource in a particular time and place? (See also commodity.) (NEW PARAGRAPH) At its most general, a relational approach de naturalizes resources: it (NEW PARAGRAPH) draws attention to how what counts as a resource is at least as much a matter of social, political and economic conditions as it is any intrinsic or inherent proper ties. More specifically, relational thinking about resources can provide a potent critique of popular assumptions that scarcity is an external physical condition setting the bounds of human possibility (Harvey, 1974a). In the face of neo Malthusian claims about food, energy and other material shortages (see mal thusian model), thinking about the social relations that define a resource highlights how access and availability are mediated by wealth and power: sim ply put, the rich and powerful do not starve. This insistence on the limits to resource availability being largely (although not exclusively) internal to the economy can be politically empow ering, as it suggests how apparent short ages might be resolved not by increasing supply, but by changing the way in which resources are allocated within society, the uses to which they are put, and cultural expectations about the costs of use. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Resources: fighting words. Resources have long been recognized as objects of geo political struggle and intrigue: control of water and oil, for example, are fre quently tipped to be the battlegrounds of the twenty first century (Klare, 2002: see coNFLict commodities; resource wars). However, many of the most intractable contemporary political tensions surround ing resources are not struggles over a stable category, and it is the very definition of (NEW PARAGRAPH) lands as resources that is at stake. Thus recent work considers the cultural, eco nomic and political processes by which parts of the non human world are ?coaxed and coerced' from settings where they already may be valued in quite different ways (Tsing, 2004). While chimpanzees (Laboratory experimentation), exposed uplands (wind power sites) and tropical agro diversity (genetic diversity) are strik ingly heterogeneous, what they share in common is that their status as resources (noted in parentheses) is achieved only in the face of opposition and resistance. The apparent objectivity and universality of the ?resource imaginary? disguises its particularity and the silencing of alterna tive conceptualizations of the non human world. For example, to describe bauxite as a resource overlooks the pre existing land uses and land ownership that must be undone to establish mines and realize the exchange value of the ore (Howitt, 2001b). It is for this reason that a number of authors refer to the ?vio lence? of the resource imaginary, thereby placing resources at the centre of human geography's encounter with post coLoniaLism (Braun, 1997; Peluso and Watts, 2001). gb (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Bakker and Bridge (2006); Emel, Bridge and Krueger (2002); Rees (1991); Shiva (1992). (NEW PARAGRAPH)

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