The Dictionary of Human Geography (41 page)

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Authors: Michael Watts

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deduction
A form of reasoning which as the reverse of the sequence deployed in induction moves from the general to the particular. It takes what is known (or assumed) as given, and deduces possible con sequences from those axioms. In an empirical situation which is the normal context for the application of deductive reasoning in human geography the deductions are normally expressed as hypotheses, statements of expectations on the basis of prior knowledge. Formal procedures are then deployed to test the validity/falsifiability of those statements (cf. falsification), most of which involve the ?scientific methods? normally associated with positivism. (See also abduction.) rj (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Harvey (1969). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
deep ecology
A radical form of environ mentalism that argues that nature has an inherent right to exist, that humans are part of nature and that our ecological awareness comes from experiencing ourselves within nature (Devall and Sessions, 1985). Deep ecology is both a philosophy and a practice associated with the Western ENviRoNMENTAL MovEMENT. Although it draws on earlier ideas, the term emerged when the Danish philosopher Arne Naess (1973) distinguished between ?shallow? and ?deep? ecology. The former approach was seen as technocentric, anthropocentric and reformist. In contrast, deep ecology has emerged and developed as a philosophy that is ecocentric; advocates dismantling the dominant socio economic systems through which humans appropriate nature; and argues for biocentric equality, so that the desire by humans to dominate nature is eliminated in favour of humans, as one species, living in nature. Humans, like other species, must respect nature?s limits and thresholds in order for all forms of life to live on a sustainable basis. (NEW PARAGRAPH) There is diversity in both the thought and practice of deep ecology. The practice includes very radical, single issue, deep ecology organ izations such as the Animal Liberation Front, which is dedicated to ANiMAL welfare, through violence and other means if necessary, and groups such as Earth First!, which was pro moted as the activist version of deep ecology. (NEW PARAGRAPH) In addition to local site defence groups, the philosophy has also influenced formally organ ized activist organizations and Green political parties in many developed countries (Luke, (NEW PARAGRAPH) . Within geography, while there has been more engagement with deep ecology by human geographers, Haigh (2002) advocates that deep ecology guide the teaching, research and practice of physical geography. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Deep ecology has been critiqued as roman ticism, fundamentally flawed in its conception of non human parts of nature having intrinsic value, and anti humanist in its approach (this was a major debate in the 1980s with social ecologists led by Murray Bookchin). Deep ecology has also been critiqued for its inability to distinguish between different parts of humanity (men and women, rich and poor, different cultural beliefs and practices) and its celebration of outdoor experiences in nature, which Luke (2002) labelled ?sports personism? and claimed was a potentially dangerous form of ?utopian ecologism?. The danger partly arises from the lack of a transition strategy in deep ecology, other than individual action, to move from the present situation to a future deep ecology state of ?harmony? with nature (Luke, 2002). Despite the critiques, deep ecology has been influential and cannot be ignored. It has encouraged a wider appreci ation of nature and modern humanity?s often destructive relations with it. pm (NEW PARAGRAPH)
defensible space
A concept associated with Oscar Newman (1972, 1996), who identified MoDERNisT design of high rise buildings in ?park like? settings as a key factor increasing residents? vulnerability to crime. Studying crime statistics for public housing in New York City, he argued that crimes such as rape increased dramatically in anonymous interior public spaces. He argued that high density housing can be safe if designed according to principles of defensible space, which allow residents to claim territory, provide opportunities for resident self surveillance, reduce the stigma and isolation ofpublic hous ing, and connect public housing to other safe spaces by orienting buildings to public streets rather than interior pathways. These ideas were taken up and tested more rigorously in the UK by Coleman (1985), and have been extended into situational crime prevention pro grams such as Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) and Safe Cities Programs (Wekerle and Whitzman, (NEW PARAGRAPH) . These more recent programmes focus on public space (rather than the semi public (NEW PARAGRAPH) spaces of public housing) and address percep tions and fear of crime as well as actual crime. The Safe Cities Program in particular empha sizes a broad community oriented approach to problem solving. Recent efforts to control crime through surveillance, such as security cam eras, are distinct from the concept of defensible space, which emphasizes the need to create the architectural framework to enable residents to control their own environment. gp (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Wekerle and Whitzman (1995). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
deindustrialization
A sustained decline in industrial (especially manufacturing) activity and capacity (cf. industrialization). It may involve the absolute and/or relative decline of industrial output, employment and other means of production. Such changes are quite normal in the course of economic develop ment. However, when they are linked to the declining competitiveness of industrial pro duction to meet extra regional, domestic and international demand within reasonable levels of employment and a sustainable balance of payments, deindustrialization represents a process of underdevelopment. The causes of deindustrialization are complex. In the contemporary global economy, they lie in a combination of local circumstances and loca tional adjustment to global conditions. In a capitalist economy, the rate of profit and its determination must lie at the centre of any explanation of these changing spatial configurations of industrial activity. (See also rustbelt.) rl (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Bluestone and Harrison (1982); Martin and Rowthorne (1986). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
deliberative mapping
The collaborative creation of maps by multiple authors who share a common interest or complementary exper tise. Also known as ?collaborative mapping?, ?participatory mapping? or ?geocollaboration?, deliberative mapping is a form of distributed mapping supported by geographic informa tion systems and online software designed for group decision making in map design, envi ronmental planning, political redistricting or emergency response (MacGillavry, 2003). Collaboration can be in real time or asyn chronous, over a period of days, weeks or even years (Schafer, Ganoe, Xiao, Coch and Carroll, 2005). The dialogue is both verbal and graphic, as participants at adjoining workstations or continents apart suggest applications as well as modifications. mm (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) MacEachren and Brewer (2004). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
democracy
The term ?democracy? has a simple meaning: ?Rule by the people?. But the meaning of ?people? and ?rule? are far from straightforward. The historical geography of democracy is therefore the ongoing process of finding answers to various practical prob lems: who should rule, how rule should be organized, and over what scope of activities. But these practical issues are internally related to questions of justification, which means that democracy is a highly contested concept in both theory and practice. As a result, the empirical analysis of democratic politics cannot avoid issues of normative democratic theory. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Modern democratic theory depends on a distinctive geographical imagination. It assumes that democracy is framed by bounded territories, involving a nested hierarchy of scales contained within the nation state (see also boundary). Key thinkers of this trad ition have focused considerable attention on the geographical organization of democratic politics in complex, spatially extensive territor ies (Dahl, 1989). The limitations of this terri torial framing of democracy are increasingly subjected to critical investigation in political science (Shapiro and Hacker Cordon, 1999). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Until very recently, there has been little explicit focus in human geography on the nor mative questions that are at the core of debates about the relationship between democracy and spatiality. This is the result of political geo graphy?s avoidance of reflection on the norma tive basis of political issues. However, the 1990s saw a shift in various sub disciplines towards investigating the entwinement ofprac tical issues with normative issues central to democratic theory; for example, issues of par ticipation in development geography, issues of deliberation in urban planning, and issues of citizenship in environmental studies. Aspects of democratic theory are now present across human geography (Barnett and Low, 2004). (NEW PARAGRAPH) electoral geography is the sub field in which the geographies of democracy have always been a concern. Much of this has focused on mapping distributions of votes, but recent attention has focused on developing more sophisticated, spatially sensitive explan ationsforvotingbehaviour (Agnew, 1996).The spatial organization of electoral systems effects how votes are translated into representative majorities in liberal democracies (see liberal ism). The spatial organization of formal democracy therefore has consequences for de mocratic outcomes in terms of basic criteria of equality and representativeness. Research on this process has broadened out to include the geographies of campaigning, party formation and political communication. This has also involved more explicit considerations of the normative issues at stake in the traditional issues such as gerrymandering, re districting and representation (Johnston, 1999; Hannah, 2001). (NEW PARAGRAPH) The past two decades have seen the global ?diffusion of democracy?, in the wake of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, political transitions away from authoritarian ism in latin america, africa and asia, and the application of norms of ?Good Governance? in the geopolitics of Western international engagements. Geographers have investigated the degree to which the adoption of demo cratic forms of governance can be accounted for by specifically geographical factors (O?Loughlin, Ward, Lofdahl et al., 1998), contributing to renewed debates concerning whether democracy can only be established and sustained after various socio economic and cultural prerequisites have been met (Przeworski, 1995). The theoretical assump tions and the practical devices through which liberal forms of electoral democracy have been circulated as the global norm have also been critically interrogated (Bell and Staeheli, 2001). Debates about democratization raise fundamental questions regarding the degree to which the norms of Western, liberal, repre sentative democracy can and should be prac tically applied in non Western contexts and deployed as normative benchmarks of critical analysis (see ethnocentrism; eurocentrism: see also Slater, 2002). The geographical mobil ity of democratic practices suggests that the devices through which different imperatives of democratic rule are enacted can be com bined, adapted and reordered in different geographical contexts (Saward, 2003). This points to the importance of issues of temporal sequencing and spatial organization to the successful institutionalization of the complex, competing imperatives of democratic deliber ation, decision making, accountability, partici pation and revision (Dryzek, 2005). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Criticisms of liberal, representative demo cracy that assume the nation state as the natural container of democratic politics have encouraged geographers to pay increasing attention to various alternative models of democracy. In contrast to the focus of electoral geography on the formal democratic proced ures of elections, voting and parties, geograph ers have turned to notions of participatory democracy and radical democracy to con sider the diverse practices and sites where ques tions of accountability, citizenship, justice and participation are contested (Young, 2000). One feature of these explorations is a commit ment to thinking of democracy as more than simply a procedure for legitimizing the decisions of centralized bureaucracies. Models of deliberative democracy are now in the ascendant in democratic theory, implying a much more active role for citizens in all facets of decision making, as well as the extension of democratic norms to a far wider array of activities. These sorts of arguments are often associated with calls for the decentralization of decision making and political participation to sub national scales of regions and cities. At the same time, there is increasing attention given to emergent forms of transnational democracy (Anderson, 2002a), focusing on the degree to which systems of globalized economic and political governance can be subordinated to democratic oversight (Held, 1996). In this work in particular, there is increasing attention given to the diverse ?agents of justice? through which democratic justice can be pursued and secured (O?Neill, 2001), moving beyond an exclusive focus on states as the privileged con tainers of democratic politics (cf. Low, 2003). This emphasis on the global dimensions of democratic politics has two important impli cations for geographical research in these areas. First, it indicates that rather than opposing representative to participatory forms of democ racy, any viable form of democratic polity is likely to combine aspects of these practices in different ways. For both practical and norma tive reasons, representation seems an irredu cible aspect of any viable, pluralistic model of democracy. Not only do representative proced ures enable the time space distanciation of democratic politics, but they also embody important principles of difference and non identity within the demos (Barnett, 2003, Ch. 1). Representation is also an unavoidable mechanism for the integration of so called ?mute interests? for example, future gener ations or non human actors which concerns with environmental futures has made a much more imperative consideration for democratic theory (Goodin, 2003). The second reason why the globalization of democracy is signifi cant is that it suggests a move beyond the pre dominant territorial framing of the spatiality (NEW PARAGRAPH) of democracy. Rather than thinking simply in terms ofthe need to articulate sub national and national scales with global scales, discussions of these topics increasingly focus on the diverse spatialities ofdemocracy, ones which articulate territorial and non territorial practices, scalar and non scalar conceptualizations of space (Low, 1997). cb (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Barnett and Low (2004); Dunn (2005); Held (1996); Mann (2005). (NEW PARAGRAPH)

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