The Dictionary of Human Geography (197 page)

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Authors: Michael Watts

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subsidiarity
The principle that authority should be exercised at the most local level consistent with effectiveness, and that higher level institutions should have only ?subsidiary? functions. The idea originated in Catholic social teaching and became a central concept in theories of fEderaLism. In European Union law and politics, it refers to the division of powers between the EU, member states, and regional and local authorities in a system of multi level governance. Federalists argue that subsidiarity implies increased devoLution to regional bodies. In EU law, however, it mainly protects the rights of national govern ments vis a vis the EU?s supranational institu tions. jp (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Jordan (2000). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
subsistence agriculture
A form of organiz ing food production such that a group (house hoLd, village, society) secures food sufficient for its own reproduction over time (see sociaL reproduction). Subsistence production, (NEW PARAGRAPH) which includes not only crop production but also hunting, fishing and pastoraLism, is typ ically understood to be based on the direct exploitation of the environment, as opposed to manufacture (Neitschmann, 1973). Subsistence also suggests production for use, as opposed to for exchange, although subsist ence groups might share food and other (NEW PARAGRAPH) resources for ritual, ceremonial or social reci procity purposes. Subsistence agriculture can thereby be seen as a form of cultural adapta tion by which social groups adapt to and regulate ecosystems of which they are apart (see cuLturaL ecoLogy). In marxist eco nomics, subsistence production without mar ket involvement of any sort is referred to as primitive economy, the earliest stage of eco nomic development: household subsistence producers with some degree of production for sale, or who purchase some goods in mar kets are generally referred to as peasants. Because production of surpluses and/or partial commoditization is often associated with the over exploitation of both nature and direct producers (Blaikie, 1985) (see poLiticaL ecoLogy), subsistence societies appear to be more egalitarian in their social relations, des pite the fact that their organization might be highly patriarchal. Although subsistence production is rare in the modern world, it allows for the possibility of substantive group autonomy from both state and market. For that reason, it is occasionally conjured up as a utopian ideal among communards, or invoked as something that ought to be pro tected in traditional societies (e.g. Norbert Hodge, 1991). jgu (NEW PARAGRAPH)
substitutionism
The products of agricul ture present special obstacles and barriers for industrial production. food, with its necessary links to heaLth, well being, sociability and cuLture, represents impediments to the sim ple notion of replacement of foodstuffs by industrial products (appropriationism). But the growth and maturity of the food industry has witnessed a discontinuous but permanent pro cess to achieve the industrial production of food. Goodman, Sorj and Wilkinson (1987, p. 2) refer to the rising proportion of vaLue added attributable to industrial production in the food system and the gradual replacements of agricultural by non agricultural products (e.g. of sugar derived from sugar cane, by synthetic sugars) as the twin characteristics of what they call substitutionism. (See also agrarian Question; agro food system.) mw (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Walker (2005). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
suburb/anization
Suburbanization is a pro cess whereby people, housing, industry, com merce, and retailing spread out beyond traditional urban areas, forming dispersed Landscapes that are still connected to cities by commuting. These are comprised of diverse suburbs with a variety of social, economic and landscape characteristics and have, as a result, been interpreted in a variety of ways. In terms of their culture and design, they have fre quently been criticized for their blandness, lack of community and segregation. These cri tiques are paralleled by concerns about the environmental impact of suburban landscape forms and ways of life (see edge city; exopolis; ribbon development; sprawl). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Low density, automobile oriented suburbs are increasingly common features of urban regions across the globe and certain elements of the suburban form, such as gated com munities, are springing up in numerous countries (Webster, Glasze and Frantz, (NEW PARAGRAPH) . The process of suburbanization is differentiated somewhat by the local or national conditions in which it operates. Lemansky (2006), for instance, describes the character of suburbanization and the creation of master planned gated communi ties in post apartheid South Africa and notes the complex patterns of proximity, social exclusion and connection that exist between wealthy and poor residents of sub urban Cape Town. Zhou and Ma (2000), for their part, emphasize the importance of sub urbanization in a number of Chinese cities. They argue that it is at a much less devel oped stage (with suburbs still dominated by central cities) than in the ?classic? case of the USA. They also suggest that the role of the strong Chinese state in shaping suburban ization has a great deal to do with the dis tinctiveness of this case. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Yet, the US case is worth considering as a specific and by no means easily generalizable example of the political economy of subur banization. The US suburbanization process accelerated in the 1920s with the explosion of automobile ownership in the 1920s. ?Automobile suburbs' such as the low density Country Club District in Kansas City, Missouri, which included the first car oriented shopping mall, emerged in the 1920s as pri vate developers sought to profit from increased automobility. The Depression of the early 1930s dampened the housing mar ket, making it an unattractive investment for private developers. The state's subsequent intervention sought to stimulate and regulate the development industry while bolstering the ideological pre eminence of the private prop erty system (Walker, 1981). By the early 1960s, half the country's urban population lived in suburbs. This trend in residential suburbanization has been paralleled by manufacturing, commerce and retail, which have all suburbanized. Contemporary authors emphasize the increasing autonomy of US suburbs from traditional central cities, and speak of a ?postsuburban' situation (cf. Zhou and Ma, 2000). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suburbanization is, then, a process that both reflects and constitutes the political and economic geographies of contemporary cities. It is also a focus of those interested in social and cultural questions, particularly around race and gender. Ethnic suburban ization is raising important questions about the validity of arguments about the social homogeneity of suburbs and is also empha sizing the global connectedness of these places (Li, 1998). Nonetheless, suburban geographies are still marked by significant discrimination (see redlining; urban man agers and gatekeepers). The shaping of gender roles and relations in and through suburban space is also a major focus of geo graphical enquiry. In the postwar period, suburban domesticity became a hegemonic idea through which to reinforce traditional gender relations and connections between women and waged work. Analysis of con temporary relationships between gender, suburbia and work has entailed, among other things, a focus on gender differentiation in travel patterns and accessibility to waged work and public facilities (England, (NEW PARAGRAPH) . em (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Bourne (1996); Walker (1981). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
sunbelt/snowbelt
A popular term describ ing the polarization of the US space economy from the 1960s on: it contrasts areas of relative economic decline (especially in manufacturing industry) concentrated in the country's north east (the ?snowbelt?, or ?frostbelt?: cf. rust belt) with those, largely in the south and west, experiencing rapid economic and population growth. This change in the inter regional div ision of labour reflects the comparative advantage and competitive advantages enjoyed by sunbelt states through relatively cheap and non unionized labour, their attract ive physical environments, and substantial federal government investment there as in the aerospace and other defence industries. The term is now frequently applied in other countries: the M4 motorway corridor extend ing west from London through Swindon to (NEW PARAGRAPH) Bristol is sometimes referred to as the UK?s sunbelt. rj (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Markusen (1987). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
sunk costs
Incurred costs that are invariant with output (unlike variable costs) and can not readily be recouped. In economic geog raphy, sunk costs include those made by a firm in a particular location which, because they cannot be recouped, act as a disincentive to either or both of restructuring and relocation that is, for the firm exiting either the activity or the place (cf. exit, voice and LoyaLty). Clark and Wrigley (1995) identi fied three types of sunk cost: set up sunk costs (initial investments in plant and machinery, for example); accumulated sunk costs (normal, unrecoupable, costs of doing business); and exit sunk costs (such as those involved not only in abandoning premises and plant, but also in making workers redundant and paying for their pensions). They identify three types of exit strategy that involve acceptance of sunk costs that might not be (fully) recovered: strategic reallocation using the resources for different activities, which will incur costs (re equipping a plant, for example, and retraining workers); REStRUCtURING, which may involve either or both of plant closure and staff redundancy; and corporate ref ormation, which may involve bankruptcy or liquidation. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Clark and Wrigley (1995, p. 210) present 15 separate propositions regarding sunk costs and their importance to their ?belief that the management of sunk costs across a variety of competitive domains is a vital component in any explanation of the spatial patterns of restructuring?. The accumulation of sunk costs can reduce a firm?s flexibility and thus its ability to respond to the changing pres sures associated with gLobaLization. Firms are rarely able to respond costlessly to those imperatives, but those that economize on their sunk costs should be better placed to respond to changing patterns and geograph ies of supply and demand. rj (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Baumol and Willig (1981); Clark and Wrigley (1997). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
surface
A surface is the exterior side of something, or the conceptual boundary from the outside to the inside of a three (NEW PARAGRAPH) dimensional object. The Earth is an irregu lar spheroid; its surface (of elevation) is ground or sea level. The surface is continu ous but, within a study region, sampling height everywhere is impossible. Instead, the surface can be approximated by a series of discrete (x, y, z) data tuples (e.g. x and y are longitude and latitude; z is height above mean sea level), or as a mathematical model (e.g. a trend surFace). The z is not limited to elevation, however: statistical (NEW PARAGRAPH) surfaces are also used to visualize ?hot spots? of criMe, disease, etc., for which local statistics and methods of local interpol ation (such as population surface modelling: Martin, Tate and Langford, 2000) are important. rh (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Burrough and McDonnell (1998). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
surveillance
The observation or monitoring of social behaviour by individuals and insti tutions. Typically, surveillance straddles or compresses the geographical distance between its subject(s) and the person(s) tasked with undertaking the monitoring (cf. tiMe space coMpression). Virtually all social relations involve elements of surveillance. However, ini tiatives involving mass or institutionalized sur veillance are most often legitimized as a purported means to minimize risk or to enforce some notion of normalization or dis cipline over a population or place portrayed as hazardous, deviant or pathological (see also security). (NEW PARAGRAPH) huMan geography has shown a growing recent interest in surveillance and its imbri cations with Modernity. A key stimulus has been the writings of French philosopher Michel Foucault, and in particular Surveillir et punir (1975), translated into English as Discipline and punish (1977a [1975]). Through an analysis of Bentham?s panopticon and history of French prisons, Foucault argued that distinctively modern societies were dominated by what he called disciplinary power. This operated through spatially partitioning societies into prisons, workhouses, clinics, barracks, schools and so on. At the same time, architectural tech niques were applied to these institutions that allowed persistent visual inspection and control by supervisors. Foucault?s cru cial point was that by internalizing this possibility of scrutiny, suBjects became ?normalized? by monitoring, moderating and controlling their own behaviour. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Since the nineteenth century, these ?fixed?, architectural models of panopticism have been complemented by a widening range of surveillance machines, many of which now routinely include diffused, interconnecting, computerized devices. Human geographers and others have thus addressed the satur ation of contemporary societies with sites of continuous, machinic surveillance. Early research emphasized the social implications of geographic information systems (Pickles, 1995a) and the proliferation of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras to monitor public spaces (Koskela, 2000). The significance of these practices is not confined to the political and commercial: they also have important military applica tions. Late modern war places a premium on persistent surveillance from aerial and space mounted platforms, including Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or ?drones? that transmit real time imagery to command and control centres and ground troops: these images can feed directly into the iden tification and execution of targets through what Graham (2009b) calls the ?algorithmic gaze?. (NEW PARAGRAPH) These practices have spiralled far beyond their initial spheres of application, and an important emerging strand of work in surveil lance geography analyses how everyday Life in highly computerized societies is coming to be constituted through a burgeoning range of interlinked, digital surveillance systems. This ?calculative background?, as Thrift (2004b) terms it, is increasingly automated, inter nationalized and organized through the active agency of computer code. This means that the geographies of life chances, mobiLities, access rights, border crossings and service privileges are now sorted through largely invisible systems of digitized surveillance, working simultaneously across multiple geo graphical scales (Graham, 2005). This hap pens through sites as diverse as call centres, supermarket checkouts, TV viewing, digital CCTV cameras, neighbourhood GIS sys tems, mobile phones, webcams, web sites, computerized automobiles, and national bor der or airport security checkpoints. Rather than emerging as some all seeing electronic ?Panopticon? or some dystopian ?Big Brother? drawn from Orwell?s classic novel 1984, however, these systems of surveillance remain fragmented and operate instead as multiple ?Little Brothers?. Oligoptic rather than panoptic, they do not monitor all spaces and behaviours at all times. Instead, their (NEW PARAGRAPH) geographies overlap, cross cut and intersect in complex ways that are currently poorly understood. sg (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Levin (2002); Lyon (2006). See also Surveillance and Society, an open access journal at http://www. surveillance and society.org. (NEW PARAGRAPH)

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