The Dictionary of Human Geography (83 page)

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Authors: Michael Watts

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mentaLism was cast (Grove, 1995), the rela tions between geography and traveL writing, and calls for feminist readings of the tradition (Domosh, 1991, Rose, 1995). There is a grow ing recognition too that the narrative of West ern geography cannot be sequestered from its wider channels of intellectual exchange even in the early modern period. Patterns of trade and the transmission of knowledge between ?East' and ?West' played a major role in the shaping of various European geographies. As for practical engagements, Ryan?s (1998) account of the connections between geography, photography and racial representation in the Victorian era, and feminist reflections on fieLdwork have opened up these arenas to theoretically informed interrogation. Embedded within at least of some of these accounts is a conviction that ?geography' is a negotiated entity, and that a central task of its historians is to ascertain how and why certain practices and procedures come to be accounted authoritative, and hence nor mative, at certain moments in time and in cer tain spatial settings. (NEW PARAGRAPH) It is plain, then, that the ?history of geog raphy' comprises a variety of enterprises that have been engaged in various ways. Nevertheless, a broad shift can be detected from the ?encyclopaedism? of earlier works (which operated in a cumulative chronological fashion) towards a more recent ?genealogical' perspective (which aims to disclose the tangled connections between power and knowledge). The subversive character of the latter has been embraced with differing degrees of enthusi asm: some now insist that the idea of history as a single master narrative is a Western ?myth?, while others, unenamoured of an al together radical reLativism (in which truth is taken to be relative to circumstance) or suspicious that the genealogist is implicated in an impossible self referential dilemma (namely, that the thesis is self refuting), sug gest that there is more value in thinking of discourses as ?contested traditions? socially embodied and temporally extended conversa tions that act as stabilizing constraints on the elucidation of meaning (MacIntyre, 1990). Insofar as ?encyclopaedia?, ?geneaL ogy? and ?tradition? as modes of historical interrogation reflect differing attitudes to wards what has come to be called the Enlight enment project, the history of geography as a scholarly pursuit has a significant role to play in debates within the discipline over the relations between knowledge, power, representation and sociaL construction (Gregory, 1994). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Moreover, recent reassertions of the signifi cance of pLace and space in historical investi gations of human knowing (Shapin, 1998; Livingstone, 2003c) are bringing the issue of geography?s own knowledge spaces to the fore. Thus attention is beginning to be directed towards understanding the different sites and spaces at a range of scaLes within which geographical knowledge is produced and circulates. Investigations of the perfo rmative geographies in seventeenth century court masques and triumphal processions (Withers, 1997), field sites and expeditionary settings as venues of geographical enquiry and evocation (Driver and Martins, 2005), museums as spaces of display (Naylor, 2002), archives and the construction of geographi cal knowledge (Withers, 2002), the use of personal diaries and field journals to recon struct learning experiences (Lorimer, 2003), mission stations as imperial sites of local knowledge (Livingstone, 2005b), ships as in struments of geodetic survey (Sorrenson, 1996), and meteorological stations (Naylor, (NEW PARAGRAPH) are illustrative of this spatial turn. The city itself as a laboratory field site has also been investigated as an epistemic ?truth spot? and thus fundamental to the credibility of certain scientific claims; this is exemplified par excellence in the chicago schooL of urban studies (Gieryn, 2006). Other venues such as census bureaus, GIS laboratories, botanical gardens, trading floors, art studios, fields of military operation (see war) and government departments where geograph ical knowledge of various sorts is made and remade are no less in need of interro (NEW PARAGRAPH) gation. Interest too is developing on the ways in which geographical texts have been read in particular locations, and of regional differ ences in what has been called reviewing cul tures (Rupke, 1999). All this confirms that ?the history of geography? as an undertaking is now beginning (all too ironically) to take ?geography? much more seriously namely, by reconceptualizing the enterprise as ?the historical geography of geographical know ledges and practices?. DnL (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Glacken (1967); Johnston and Sidaway (2004); Livingstone (1992); Stoddart (1986). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
geo-informatics
Geo informatics is the interface and collaboration between the Earth and the information sciences (notably computer science) to use geocoded data (see geocoDing) to better model, visualize and understand the Earth?s complexity. More specific topics of research that have been in cluded at the annual international conference in geo informatics have included: discovery, integration, management and visuaLiza tion of geoscience data; internet enabled geographic information systems (gis); location based services, including gLobaL positioning systems; spatial data modelling in hyperspaces; remote sensing; and interoperabiLity. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Looking at the research themes listed above, it is evident that the interests of geo informatics overlap with those of geographic informa tion science and geocomputation. To find common ground is not surprising: each has an interdisciplinary nature, bound by an interest in geographical datasets and the computa tional requirements to store, process and make sense of them. Each also brings a spatial perspective to answer the questions of social and physical science (and also the interactions between social and physical systems). And each is a young field of research, born out of much older traditions. However, whereas the origins of GISc are in navigation, cartog raphy, Demography, resource management and spatiaL anaLysis, and the roots of geo computation lie in using high performance computing for applied spatiaL science, the seeds of geo informatics were germinated in the geodetic (e.g. surveying) traditions of engineering, geology, oceanography and other geosciences. (NEW PARAGRAPH) These geodetic and geoscientific founda tions are revealed by the keen focus of geo informatics on geographical data their storage, integration, analysis and visualization. Traditional surveying in the geosciences has involved a methodological and spatially ordered collection of data or samples of a phenomenon, in order to better understand that which is being investigated. The need for scientific rig our has not changed in research. What is new is the more extensive surveiLLance of the Earth?s social and natural systems (e.g. by remote sensing) that has developed over recent decades, and the huge amounts of data that routinely are collected by (or to enable) the functioning of societies (e.g. population data from governance, consumer data from com merce, organizational data from pubic service management and so forth). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Increased data sharing, new technologies and new techniques for analysis affect the the ory and practice of handling geographical in formation (Goodchild and Longley, 2005). For example, storing extensive and multivari ate datasets to model and represent complex systems (physical or social) is not best achieved by the sorts of simplifying assump tions commonly used to capture and to map socioeconomic data. A straightforward data base design used in GIS takes the idea that geographical features have a fixed and unam biguous location which can be defined by their coordinate position in a planar space, the encoding of which is prioritized. Other infor mation, such as the height of the Earth?s surface at the feature?s position, the height of the feature itself or the data/time at which the feature was observed are secondary informa tion, stored as ?just another? attribute along side other information about the feature (e.g. what the feature is called, its size etc.) (Worboys, 2005). Such an approach works well when mapping, for example, census information collected on a particular date, once every ten years, and describing geographical features that are fixed in time and space (i.e. the cen sus population, per census tract, on the date of enumeration). It is not suitable for storing or visualizing data about dynamic processes where the temporal component of the analysis is at least as important as the spatial, or for modelling or querying genuinely three dimensional features for example, rock or soil layers, or subterranean walkways (at sub way stations) that can fold under themselves and therefore occupy multiple positions in multidimensional space (Raper, 2000). (NEW PARAGRAPH) To integrate and to extract meaningful knowledge from data collected for different reasons, at different times, at different scaLes, using different cLassification frameworks and different ontoLogies, is a task that bridges between science and computers and that provides the structure of geo informatics research. It is not an easy task. As the geo informatics portal at the Pan American Center for Earth and Environmental Studies states, ?currently, the chaotic distribution of available data sets, lack of documentation about them, and lack of easy to use access tools and computer modeling and analysis codes are major obstacles for scientists and educators alike? (http://paces.geo.utep.edu). There, geo informatics is described as the ?field in which geoscientists and computer scien tists are working together to provide the means to address a variety of complex sci entific questions using advanced informa tion technologies and integrated analysis?. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Writing from an urban and regionaL pLanning perspective, Holmberg (1994) sums up the scope of geo informatics which incorporates elements of computation, sci ence, systems modelling and society. To him, geo informatics is the technological and scientific discipline guiding the design of sys tems for sensing, modelling, representing, visualizing, monitoring, processing and com municating geo information. The ?big chal lenge? of geo informatics, then, is to handle geographical information in geographically minded ways, to help understand geographical systems, to undertake geographical problem solving and to progress the development of the geographical sciences. rh (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Kavanagh (2002); Wolf and Ghilani (2005). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
geopiety
A term coined by J.K. Wright (1947) to refer to a reverential attitude to wards and caring for the Earth. After three decades of relative obscurity, the term was re introduced to a new generation of geog raphers in the mid 1970s by Yi Fu Tuan (1976a). It formed an important component of Tuan?s notion of topophiLia, which in turn was one of the key concepts in humanistic geography. The implied spiritual approach to nature, while rooted in nineteenth century romanticism, continues to resonate for con temporary romantics, including the exponents of deep ecoLogy. jsd (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Tuan (1976a). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
geopolitics
A title of an academic journal, a catch all category for international violence, an orphaned sub field of late imperial geog raphy resurrected in neo imperial America and, simultaneously, the focus of diverse forms of demythologization and debunking by scholars of criticaL human geography, this is a term that defies easy definition. As a category of news reporting, it is used in the media to describe violence relating to the division, control and contestation of terri tory. The business pages of newspapers thus often feature references to ?geopolitical con cerns' as a way of describing the impact of international politics and violence. After ter rorist attacks on commuter trains in India and Israel's invasion of Lebanon in the sum mer of 2006, for instance, The Financial Times review of global markets read as follows: ?Gold also pushed higher on continued geopolitical concerns following bomb blasts in Mumbai and clashes around the Israel Lebanon bor der? (Tassell, 2006, p. 26). Academically, however, geopolitics is a much more complex and contested term, with a long history of formal definition and redefinition. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The original definitions of the field go back to the ?classical geopolitics? of military minded academics such as the British imperialist Half ord Mackinder, the Nazi expansionist Karl Haushofer and the Dutch American Cold War strategist Nicholas Spykman. For them, geopolitics was all about how international relations relate to the spatial layout of oceans, continents, natural resources, military or ganization, political systems and perceived ter ritorial threats and opportunities (for an excellent overview, see Foster, 2006). In this respect, a constant geopolitical focus has been the Eurasian continental meta region stretch ing from Eastern Europe through Russia to Central Asia. This was the so called ?Heart land' that Mackinder argued was key to global imperial power (see imperiaLism). It was some of this same territory that Haushofer argued the Nazis should seize as lebensraum, or living space, for their self described master race. After the Soviet Union established control over the region at the end of the Second World War, it was this same area that Ameri cans such as George Kennan argued should be contained, an argument that underpinned US coLd war geopolitics aimed at controlling what Spykman had previously described as the ?Rimlands' around the ?Heartland' (Dalby, 1990). Isaiah Bowman, the US geographer and presidential advisor who, early on, advo cated American dominance in and around the region, was once dubbed ?the American Haushofer? (Smith, N., 2003c). However, just as American imperialists have traditionally talked about an American Century rather than a geographically defined american empire, American advocates of geopolitical dominance have generally avoided talk of geo politics because of its associations with Euro pean imperialism and fascism. This reticence amongst US strategists began to change after 11 September 2001: a shift towards unabashed imperial attitudes occurred that was also sig nalled by the return to influence of the old Cold War geopolitical grandee Henry Kissinger. But whether referring explicitly to geopolitics or not, geopolitical discourse has continued to develop apace since the end of the Cold War; the transition from President Reagan's anti Soviet invocation of an ?Evil Empire? to President Bush?s angst about an ?Axis of Evil? being just one of the more imaginative and egregious attempts to remap the terrain of Mackinder's Heartland as a way of simultan eously defining the American homeLand (Coleman, 2004). (NEW PARAGRAPH) While classical geopolitics continues to in form policy making, critical geographers have over the past two decades developed a vibrant new field of criticaL geopoLitics. Under this broad umbrella they have sought to examine the ways in which a broad range of imagina tive geographies, such as the ?Evil Empire?, actively shape world politics (see O Tuathail, 1996b; O Tuathail and Dalby, 1998; Agnew, 2003a). Critical geopolitics continues to grow more diverse by the year: ranging from exam inations of geopolitical discourse in the history of popular culture (Sharp, 2000a), to studies of the orientaLism that informs the geopolit ics of both the colonial past and present (Gregory, 2004; Slater, 2004), to critiques of the geopolitical justification of torture (Hannah, 2006b), to reflections on the geo political preoccupations of revolutionary Islam (Watts, 2007). Thus while practitioners of classical geopolitics keep producing geopolit ical representations that they claim are real, the core concern for the critics is precisely this objectivist claim on reality. Critical geo politics instead demonstrates the ideological power of geopolitical representations to ?script? space to concoct, for example, a story about Iraq having weapons of mass de struction and then using that script to legitim ate war. However, in debunking such geopolitical scriptings, the critical scholarship raises at least three further sorts of question about the relationships between geopolitics and the real world: the first concerns the rela tionship between imaginative geopolitical scripts and the far from imaginative death and destruction they inspire or help legitimate; the second relates to how such destructive conse quences relate to the creative Destruction of gLobaLization and neo LiberaLism; and the third concerns the reciprocal influence of these economic mediations on the ongoing ar ticulation of new neo liberal geopolitical scripts that emphasize economic integration over Cold War containment. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Geographical scholarship on the ?war on terror? has connected critical geopolitical concerns about the US President Bush admin istration?s fear mongering with all three ques tions about the ties between geopolitics and real world relations. Derek Gregory (2004b) has shown how in Afghanistan and Iraq the people construed by the ?war on terror? script as the enemy have suffered lethal conse quences as a result of the ?god tricks? of long distance geopolitical representations. He also has continued to argue in this way that the geopolitics has constructed spaces of excep tion (see exception, spaces of) and legal van ishing points, where huge numbers of people are treated as outcasts from humanity and the tenuous protections of international Law (Gregory, 2007). Focusing, by contrast, on the arrogance of the American exceptionalism that has helped create these spaces of excep tion, recent reflections on the ties between American imperialism and neo liberalism have highlighted how the relationship is also highly contradictory. For example, geopolit ical strategies about building American dom inance over the miDDLe east and its oiL spigots exist in uneasy tension with ongoing interests in maintaining transnational business, cLass harmony and support for the dollar against the backcloth of rising concerns about Ameri can indebtedness to East Asian and OPEC owners of US bonds (Smith, N., 2003c; Harvey, 2004b). These economic contexts in which geopolitical scripts are developed and implemented have further been found to be changing the nature of the scripts themselves, leading to a neo liberal geopolitics (Roberts, Secord and Sparke, 2003) which, with its dis tinctly economic emphases on globalization and connection over isolation and contain ment, has also been called ?geoeconomics? (Sparke, 2005). ms (NEW PARAGRAPH) Geopolitik A school of poLiticaL geography, and specifically geopoLitics, disseminated in inter war Germany by the geographer and military officer Karl Haushofer (1869 1946) and the journal Zeitschrift fur Geopolitik (1922 (NEW PARAGRAPH) 44). The term in fact originated with the Swedish political scientist Rudolf Kjellen, whose ideas, along with Ratzel?s organic the ory of the state, provided a spurious rationale to justify German expansionism (Parker, 1985: see also anthropogeography; Lebens raum). Although Geopolitik was associated with Hitler?s Nazi Party, however, there were important differences. Whereas Geopolitik was influenced by the significance of natural laws in its understanding of social and politi cal life (cf. darwinism), National Socialism saw societies as determined by biological in heritance and was both predicated on and powered by racism (Bassin, 1987a: see also fascism). The term is often used to portray Geopolitik as a purely German phenomenon, but it should be noted that the British geog rapher Sir Halford Mackinder also made ref erence to organic or natural understandings of state and society. cf (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Bassin, Newman, Reuber and Agnew (2004). (NEW PARAGRAPH)

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