The Dictionary of Human Geography (176 page)

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Authors: Michael Watts

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retailing
The marketing and distribution of commodities to the public. Retail geography is conventionally defined as the study of the interrelations existing between the spatial pat terns of retail location and organization on the one hand, and the geography of retail con sumer behaviour on the other. Retail geog raphy is often situated at the overlap of related sub fields, including economic geo graphy, the geography of services and urban geography (NEW PARAGRAPH) Work within retail geography appears to fol low one of two broad trajectories. The histor ically dominant perspective is somewhat more applied, and neo classical (see neo cLassicaL economics; cf. special issue of GeoJournal, 45 (4) (1998)). Since the late 1980s, a self defined ?new? retail geography has emerged, in clear opposition to the former. Initially influenced by poLiticaL economy perspec tives, this has subsequently become responsive to developing debates within cuLturaL geog raphy (for an overview, see Wrigley and Lowe, 2002). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Mainstream retail geography has certain general characteristics. Broadly speaking, neo classical economic principles predominate, with considerable emphasis placed upon the struc turing role of individual consumer decisions. This can be seen in the continuing influence of centraL pLace theory (cf. Parr, 1995), the refinement of which played an important role in the quantitative revoLution of the 1960s. With strong links to marketing (Jones and Simmons, 1993), retail geography is also applied in its emphases. Retail geography has conventionally adopted a specific spatial focus, with enquiry usually directed at the intra urban and, occasionally, at the regional scaLe. The geographies of consumer behaviour and retail organization are also frequently theorized as some function of distance (distance decay), actual or perceived. (NEW PARAGRAPH) This perspective has come under challenge, as political economic and cultural perspectives have been brought to bear on retail geography. Initial insights were drawn from the allied field of industriaL geography, which saw the import of Marxist perspectives into spatial economic analysis in the 1980s. One analysis, by Ducatel and Blomley (1990), drawing from Marxist insights into economic structure, sought to re theorize retail capitaL both as a vital component of a larger capitalist system, and as characterized by its own internal logic (see marxist geography). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Although this re theorization has been criti cized (Fine and Leopold, 1993), the call for a political economic perspective on retail capital generated a response, particularly in the uK. The ?new economic geographies of retailing?, as Wrigley and Lowe (1996) styled them, paid particular attention to the phenomenon of retail restructuring. More recently, geog raphers have explored commodity chains and power relations between retailers and suppliers (Hughes, 2005). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Over the past decade or so, the ?new retail geography? has become more attentive to the cultural geographies of retailing. In line with a more generalized recognition that economic processes are culturally coded (see cuLturaL economy), retail geographers have again become interested in questions of consump tion. However, consumption is not seen simply as the unproblematic expression ofcon sumer demands, but is understood as a critical site for the expression, reproduction and con testation of various identities (see identity). One question, in this regard, is the way in which gender roles are formed in retail spaces. Certain retail sites notably the department store and the mall have received particular attention (Blomley, 1996). However, it is inter esting to see other retail spaces coming under scrutiny, including the car boot sale (Crewe and Gregson, 1998). Excellent reviews of and commentaries on this literature are provided by Crewe (2000, 2001, 2003). nkb (NEW PARAGRAPH)
retroduction
A mode of inference (particu larly associated with reaLism) in which events are explained by postulating (and then iden tifying) the mechanisms by which they are (NEW PARAGRAPH) produced. Those mechanisms realize causal powers, the potential causes of events that have to be activated (as with the striking of a match and the creation of fire): those powers may not be observable (as with gravity) and their existence has to be retroduced from appreciation of observed events. rj (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Sayer (1992 [1984]). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
retrogressive approach
A method of work ing towards an understanding of the past by an examination of the present (cf. retro spective approach). The term achieved wide circulation through the work of Mac Bloch (see annaLes schooL), who insisted that the analysis of past landscapes required the prior analysis of the present Landscape, ?for it alone furnished those comprehensive vistas without which it was impossible to begin?. Likening history to a film, Bloch argued that ?only the last picture remains quite clear?, so that ?in order to reconstruct the faded features of others? it is first necessary ?to unwind the spool in the opposite direction from that in which the pictures were taken? (see Friedman, 1996). dg (NEW PARAGRAPH)
retrospective approach
A method, prin cipally employed in historicaL geography, the focus of which is understanding the present, and which considers the past only insofar as it furthers an understanding of the present (cf. retrogressive approach). The retrospective approach, much advocated by Roger Dion (1949) in his study of French agrarian land scapes and similar to the historic evolutionary approach in classical German cuLturaL geog raphy, considers that an understanding of the present Landscape poses problems of explan ation that can only be solved by a retrospective search for their origins. cw (NEW PARAGRAPH) The study of the past for the light it throws on the present (cf. retrogressive approach). The approach would make historicaL geog raphy a prerequisite for contemporary analy sis. Its most explicit advocate was Roger Dion (see annaLes schooL), who believed that a consideration of the present Landscape poses problems that can only be solved by a search for their origins; but the approach can evidently be extended beyond the analysis of the landscape and has much in common with ?genetic? or ?historical? expLanations more generally. dg (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Baker (1968). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
revealed preference analysis
Statistical methods, many based on multi dimensional scaLing, for deriving an aggregate set of deci sion rules from a series of individual decisions, as in the choice of shopping centres by consumers. The individual choices are termed examples of behaviour in space and are particu lar to a given configuration (the distribution of shopping centres in one town, for example). The general rules, unconstrained by any particular arrangement, are the revealed rules of spatial behaviour (Rushton, 1969). Studies of other behaviours such as voting use similar approaches. (See also bEhaviouraL geography.) rjj (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Poole (2005). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
rhetoric
The term is classically defined as the art of persuasion and eloquence. The history of Western thought could be understood as a long quarrel between serious reason and rhetoric. From one perspective, ENLighTENMENT, rationality and science overcome religion, superstition and magic. A counter narrative sees in this process only the subordination of visceral, creative pluralism to soulless reason. The quarrel turns on a shared set of opposed pairs: reason versus passion, fact versus opin ion, neutral versus partisan reason versus rhet oric. This opposition underplays the extent to which rhetoric, as a classical discipline, was concerned with the ways in which audiences could be swayed through a combination of both reason and emotion. The epistemological significance of a consideration of rhetoric does not, therefore, lie in completely debunking the idea of truth. Rather, it requires a rethinking of the idea that the task of knowledge is for an observer to represent an independent exter nal reality in a transparent medium: rhetoric?s concern with the joint, shared aspects of gain ing assent and persuading others suggests a contextual account of the justification of know ledge and belief (see also EPistEMOLOgy). (NEW PARAGRAPH) In geography, rhetoric has become a focus of attention in the wake of a more general revival of interest in this topic in PhiLosoPhY, anthropology, linguistics, literary studies and history (White, 1978; Clifford and Marcus, 1986; Nelson, Megill and McCloskey, 1987). This engagement has led to a greater degree of refLexivity towards the rhetorical strategies prevalent in the discipline, and how these inscribe particular orientations to audiences and publics. But geography?s treatment of rhetoric has tended to fall into the familiar oppositional pattern noted above. The charac teristic reduction of rhetoric to metaphor reinstalls the world/word binary. Interest in rhetoric has therefore been mainly restricted to debunking of the truth claims of various re search fields, as a kind of renewed idEOLOgy critique. On this view, the rediscovery of rhet oric helps us to see that all orthodoxies and norms are really just contingent constructs, whose reproduction is neither natural nor rea sonable, but is really the effect of rhetorical strategies as part of political agendas. (NEW PARAGRAPH) There remain two areas in which a consider ation of rhetoric might still have a creative impact on research agendas in huMAN geography. First, the rhetorical responsive account of action, practice and subjectivity developed by Shotter (NEW PARAGRAPH) , and building on the tradition of Gilbert Austin, Mikhail Bakhtin, Kenneth Burke, Rom Harre, Paul Ricoeur, Lev Vygotsky, Ludwig Wittgenstein and others, retains its potential for redeeming the concept of discourse from the prevalent representational construal to which it has been subjected in geography, by returning it to a fuller sense of language in use and lan guage oriented to action (cf. representation). This in turn would have implications for meth odological analysis of both archival data and talk data generated in focus groups, inter views and ethnographic situations (see ethnog RAPhY). Second, understanding rhetoric as the effort to move and affect audiences through vari ous modes of appeal and persuasion points towards an alternative approach to the analysis of pubLic space that investigates the different types of rhetorical force that are deployed to con vene publics (Barnett, 2007). cb (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Fish (1995); Smith (1996). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
rhizome
Botanically, a rhizome is an under ground system of stalks, nodes and roots through which a plant spreads horizontally and sends out new shoots. The MetAPhoricaL use of the term has been associated with the philoso phy of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1987). For them, that which is rhizomatic is counterpoised to that which is arborescent, or tree like. Unlike vertical and hierarchical arbor eal structures, rhizomes are comprised of non hierarchical networks within which there are many ways to proceed from one point to another. According to Deleuze and Guattari, such rhizomatic networks are resistant to and disruptive of ordered vertical and thus striated spaces, such as those of the state (see also post structuralism). ajs (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Bonta and Protevi (2004); Marston, Jones and Woodward (2005). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
rhythmanalysis
A term coined by the French Marxist Henri Lefebvre (1901 91) to describe a mode of analysis characterized by its receptivity to temporal dimensions, parti cularly moments, cycles, tempo, repetition and difference (see time). Lefebvre (2004 [1992]) is concerned not merely with the analy sis of rhythms bodily, social, daily, seasonal, lunar but also analysis through rhythm. In the latter case he is particularly interested in the way in which the study of rhythms can shed light on the workings of the modern city, everyday Life, the body and capitalist production. Lefebvre shows how space and time need to be thought together rather than separately, and how a non linear conception of time and history is a crucial balance to his famous rethinking of the production of space. Lefebvre's conception of rhythmanaly sis may be contrasted with the more mechan ical, high modernist conceptualizations of Torsten Hagerstrand?s time geography, but also can be profitably related to Ermarth?s (1992) account of the crisis of representational time under postmodernism (cf. representa tion) and her own, quintessentially rhythmic sensibility that emphasizes repetition and pulse rather than linear sequence. se (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Lefebvre (2004 [1992]). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
ribbon development
Development strung along major roads within, on the edges of, or stretching beyond urban areas. It is generally associated with commercial establishments looking for cheap, easily accessible sites with high visibility to large volumes of passing automobile traffic. Ribbon developments are perhaps epitomized by the classic American ?highway strip?, where development is often no more than one block deep on each side of the road. Celebrated by some as classic Americana, as worthwhile vernacular architecture, or as the spatial manifestation of market forces, ribbon development is increasingly criticized as an element of socially, economically and environ mentally problematic urban sprawL. em (NEW PARAGRAPH)
rights
A right is a power or privilege to which one is justly entitled. Rights are often distinguished from duties (i.e. the behaviour expected of others, including the state) and privileges (that which can be conferred or invoked). Rights presuppose corresponding obligations upon others to do something, or to refrain from doing something. My right to freedom of speech, for example, requires the state to abstain from summarily repressing my speech. Rights are capable of several mean ings, depending upon the context within which they are put to work. So, for example, moral and formal/legal rights may differ. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Within national jurisdictions (cf. human rights), formal rights can be subdivided. Civil rights refer to those entitlements of per sonal liberty given to all citizens by Law (such as property rights, freedom of association, religion, movement, and protection from arbi trary arrest). Political rights are those that bear on the establishment and operation of the state, such as the right to vote. Social rights entail the entitlements of citizens to social benefits, such as health or education. The political priority accorded these different rights and their intersection is, of course, a crucial issue for any political community. Debate also turns on which entities can be legal rights holders: Are we to include chil dren? animals? The insane? Ecosystems? (NEW PARAGRAPH) Rights are central to both statecraft and social life, and have become a standard feature of the constitutional apparatus of the modern state. Rights claims carry special force: in ascribing rights to certain social relations, we ?shift them out of the realm of the merely desirable and into the domain of the morally essential? (Jones, 1995, p. 4). For Laclau and Mouffe (1985), a vocabulary of rights allows for the politicization of power relations. That which had been cast as subordination (i.e. as something that appeared natural and unchanging) can be reframed as oppression (i.e. unjust and contingent). (NEW PARAGRAPH) However, others worry at the ways in which rights can cast political subjectivity in par ticular and limited ways, and reproduce con tingent visions ofthe social and political world. For this reason, argues one strain of critical scholarship, we should be sceptical of the pro gressive potential of rights. Others counter by arguing that rights are ?protean and irresolute signifiers? (Brown 1997b, p. 86), whose vary ing and often expansionary meanings can be put to work in diverse political sites. (NEW PARAGRAPH) What, then, of the geography of rights? It is clear that space shapes the ways in which rights are construed, contested and put to work (Blomley, 1994; Blomley and Pratt, 2001). Liberal rights (see liberalism), most particu larly, help produce, and operate within, sharply demarcated spaces. The way this ?sociopoli tical map? (Walzer, 1984, p. 315) is produced may affect the ways in which subjectivity is produced, as well as shaping the political possi bilities associated with rights (Marston, 2004b). (NEW PARAGRAPH) As Pratt (2004) argues, spatial representa tion can be used to close rights down as well as open them up. Representations of the spaces of the body, the public private divide (see private and pubLic spheres) and the nation can all serve to delimit or deny rights. And yet, Pratt argues, activists seeking to advance rights based claims in defence of Filipino domestic workers within Canada have put other spatial representations such as scaLe, international human rights and the ?empty space? of liberal universalism to pro ductive work. At an extreme, the peripheral and exclusionary locations to which marginal ized groups have been assigned can also be used as a space from which to contest and challenge the ordering of rights (Chouinard, 2001; Peake and Ray, 2001). (NEW PARAGRAPH) The relation between rights and space takes on a particular dimension when it comes to pubLic space. Public space is historically predicated on particular and related forms of territorial exclusion, with only certain subjects being deemed appropriate rights bearers in relation, in part, to the degree to which they were imagined as fully formed citizens (see citizenship). Yet public space, Don Mitchell (2003, p. 29) argues, is a site made through political struggle, as outsider groups, such as women, the working class and ethnic minor ities, have fought their way into the public realm. Such a struggle necessarily entails rights. Again, rights can be used to deny public space to certain populations or can be used as a tool to pry public space, and thus, citizen ship, open. Both rights and space, then, are said to be co produced: social action ?always operates simultaneously to influence the pro duction of law and the production of space? (Mitchell, 2003a). (NEW PARAGRAPH) It is because of the political valence of rights, and their spatiality, that geographers have become interested in rights in more than a descriptive sense. Lefebvre?s (1996) call for a ?right to the city? has been invoked by those who seek to articulate a normative vision of space and social justice (Harvey, 2000b). However, much of this work, while interesting and even inspirational, remains under theor ized, and fails to engage the broader critical literature on rights, their politics and their geographies. nkb (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Marx (1975); Purcell (2002). (NEW PARAGRAPH)

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