The Dictionary of Human Geography (96 page)

Read The Dictionary of Human Geography Online

Authors: Michael Watts

BOOK: The Dictionary of Human Geography
7.58Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
tion?, but it was fundamentally a theoretical revolution, and it was the commitment to theorization that did much to constitute human geography as a research discipline (and en route to facilitate conversations with other disciplines). In the 1960s there were several calls for the development of a distinctively geographical body of theory: a theoretical corpus that would be the ex clusive preserve of geography and thus serve to guarantee its intellectual and in stitutional legitimacy. At the end of that decade, Harvey concluded his prospectus for Explanation in geography (1969) with an injunction: ?By our theories you shall know us?. This was always an unlikely pro spect at best (and a dangerous one at worst), and most human geographers including Harvey himself (see Castree and Gregory, 2006) became much more interested in establishing the inter disciplinary significance ofplace and space for social analysis. This has itself been an interdisciplinary project, not least be cause, as Harvey has constantly empha sized, the incorporation of such spatial concepts (the contextual) into conven tional social theory (the compositional) is radically unsettling. What is sometimes called ?the spatial turn? has thus been de scribed by more than human geographers: so much so, in fact, that accounts of land scape, place, region and space have be come commonplace in many areas of the humanities and social sciences (Crang and Thrift, 2000; Hubbard, Kitchin and Val entine, 2004; Warf and Arias, 2008). (NEW PARAGRAPH) The developments summarized in the pre vious two paragraphs resulted in what Kwan (NEW PARAGRAPH) identifies as a divide even a ?rift? between ?spatial analytical geographies? invested in the development and use of quan titative techniques and geospatial technologies on one side and ?socio cultural geographies? involved in the development and use of critical social theory and more qualitative methods on the other. Kwan insists that this is unproduct ive: there is no direct and immediate relation between epistemology and method, she in sists, so that ?the choice between critical social theory and spatial analysis is false.? She urges the development of ?hybrid geographies? that ?challenge the boundary and forge creative connections between socio cultural and spatial analytical geographies? (p. 758). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Kwan?s hybrid geographies are not (quite) Whatmore?s (2002a) hybrid geographies, but they both speak of transcending the divisions between the cultural, social or ?human? sci ences and the biological, physical or ?natural? sciences, and they both emphasize the role of feminist theories and feminist geographies in ?talking across the divide? (cf. Kwan, 2007). (NEW PARAGRAPH) In disciplinary terms, however, what matters most is the substantive work carried out under the sign of human geography. Although they are unlikely soul mates, Martin (2001b) and Harvey (2006c) have both criticized what they characterize as the deflection of human geog raphy from rigorous, substantive inquiry through a fixation on, even an obsession with, abstract philosophical and theoretical issues. Although they were writing from op posite sides of the Atlantic, their complaints were largely addressed to a British audience and arise, in part, from recent differences in intellectual history and institutional context. It has become increasingly difficult to identify a common ?Anglo American? human geography (cf. Johnston and Sidaway, 2004a,b), a devel opment that has coincided with an emerging critique of Anglo American hegemony within the international discipline(s). If the coinci dence seems ironic, this last critique is about more than language: it is about language used to privilege particular conceptual formations. And the criticisms made by Martin and Harvey also arise from opposition to equally particular philosophies and modes of theory. philosophy was once given extraordinary legislative authority in human geography, par ticularly the philosophy of scieNce, and stand ard textbooks have commonly distinguished different philosophical traditions and mapped them more or less directly on to human geog raphy (Johnston, 1986b [1983]; Cloke, Philo and Sadler, 1991; Peet, 1998) (see pheNoM eNoLogy; positivisM; reaLisM; structuraL isM). But as human geographers were drawn away from fouNdatioNaL philosophies like these and, coincidentally, into considerations of political and moral philosophy, so they be came less impressed by exclusively scientific credentials and the power of Philosophy with a capital P to provide them (see her MeNeutics; pragMatisM; post structuraL isM). Many of the philosophical writings that have attracted human geographers in recent years have engaged most directly with (and transformed) the core concerns of the human ities and the human sciences see, for ex ample, decoNstructioN, discourse and perforMativity and in doing so they have opened up wholly new areas of geographical reflection: affect, desire, MeMory and the like. This has produced a complex terrain in which different philosophical concerns have been brought into relation and juxtaposition with one another, and where philosophy has come to be treated more as a resource and less as a tribunal. Similarly, it was once possible to map human geography as a series of positions on an intellectual landscape that was, in effect, an absolute space: theoretical coordinates es tablished the singularity of different systems of concepts. But here too there has been a sea change, and most human geographers now accept that no one theoretical system can ask all the important questions, still less provide all the cogent answers. They thus find them selves working in (and producing) the tense space between contending and colliding sys tems of concepts. The result of these philo sophical and theoretical innovations has been to shake the very foundations of enquiry in human geography, as they have in the other humanities and social sciences, and the oppo sitions that once skewered the field (such as ?agency? and ?structure?, but the list is now much longer) have been called into radical question (Cloke and Johnston, 2005). A sec ond response, then, might be that critics such as Martin and Harvey lament these tectonic shifts and yearn for solid ground (though they undoubtedly stand in different places on it). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Whatever one makes of this, however, their point remains a sharp one. It is not difficult to see why the demands of navigating this new (NEW PARAGRAPH) terrain should have prompted some human geographers to become so preoccupied with philosophical and theoretical issues that these become not so much moments in as substi tutes for substantive inquiry: a refuge from the capriciousness and, indeed, riskiness of the empirical. On this reading, it is symptomatic that of the 26 ?key texts in human geography? identified by Hubbard, Kitchin and Valentine (2008), barely a handful focus on the results of empirical analysis. But there are many other key texts, and many writers have reactivated and reformulated sites that have long been focal to human geography borders, cities, industries, regions and territory, for example and opened up new ones, such as the body, the hoMe, the shopping mall, the prisoN and the zoo. They have reworked trad itional themes in both the past and the pre sent, including coLoNiaLisM, deveLopMeNt, iMperiaLisM, iNdustriaLizatioN, ModerNiza tioN, urbaNizatioN and war, and explored new ones such as fiLM, Law, MoNey, Music, perforMaNce, sexuaLity, terrorisM and tourisM. And there has been a continuing stream of principled work on different places and their interconnections that collectively gives the lie to the monstrous assertion that ?the world is flat? (cf. Smith, 2005a: see gLob ALizatioN). It would take a brave or foolhardy person to issue a programmatic statement in the face of such diversity, but this has not prevented attempts to chart the future of human geography. The spirited reactions to Harvey?s (1984) ?historical materialist mani festo?, or Amin and Thrift?s (2005a: cf. Thrift, (NEW PARAGRAPH) revisionist prospectus twenty odd years later, testify not only to the diversity of human geography, but also to a continued vitality that depends on an irreplaceable intimacy between theory and practice. dg (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Cloke and Johnston (2005); Gregory (1994, chs 1 and 2); Massey, Allen and Sarre (1999). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
human rights
A right is an entitlement that is usually encoded in a legal context (see Law). One can distinguish between human rights and citizenship rights. citizenship rights are guaranteed by governments for nationals of a particular territory, whereas human rights are thought to be geographically and politic ally universal. Hannah Arendt (1973) warned that human rights are the least desirable rights because they imply the absence of protection by a NatioN state; the rights of citizens are superior to human rights because they are both applicable and enforceable. Matters are not that simple, however, because rights may be, and in fact often are, legally sus pended during a ?state of emergency? (see ex ception, space of). (NEW PARAGRAPH) The liberal model of rights is derived from seventeenth century political thought that fo cuses on the rights accorded to individuals as well as the obligations that individuals owe society and the state (Kofman, 2003). Critics of LiberaLism question the scale at which rights are borne in other words, that of the individual and highlight group or communal rights (Isin and Wood, 1999), or deconstruct political community as pre given (Mouffe, 1992). Despite the limits of liberalism and rights based political change, Blomley (1994, p. 410) argues that ?[r]ights have not gone away. As such, the dismissal of rights based struggles as incoherent or counter progressive seems condescending.? Blomley and Pratt (NEW PARAGRAPH) contend that rights are open to a var iety of readings, their meaning indeterminate. Rights can be mobilized effectively at different scaLes to constructive ends. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Pratt (2004, p. 85) explores the limits and possibilities of human rights discourse, noting that any form of the universal is ?necessarily exclusionary but paradoxically holds within it the means to be challenged by those who are excluded by it?. This paradox is evident in the struggles of the Filipino caregivers who live in their employers? homes and trade their free dom and mobility for paid work. Pratt maps the ways in which rights are mobilized in dif ferent spaces: at the scale of the Body, between the [private] home and [public] Canadian so ciEty, in the context of the Canadian state and on the global commons. Similarly, Bosco (2006, 2007) charts the ways in which human rights have been fought for by the Madres de Plaza de Mayo in Argentina through the mo bilization of a series of territorially dispersed social Networks. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Practically speaking, human rights have been encoded in United Nations documents and institutions, and in international law, since the Second World War. In 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted, though it was not legally binding (it was a declaration, not a treaty). In 1966, two legally binding human rights instruments were created to protect civil and political rights, on the one hand, and economic, social and cultural rights on the other. These covenants depend upon the ratification of a sufficient number of states, which they received in 1976. (NEW PARAGRAPH) The provisions of the International Coven ant on Civil and Political Rights have been privileged over those of the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The first ensures respect for citizens regardless of Language, reLigion, sex, political opinion and so on, as well as the right to liberty of movement and freedom. The latter includes provisions that are more applicable to devel oping countries than to highly industrialized ones, such as the right to food, shelter, work, and basic medical and educational services. While the first covenant applies to individuals, the second refers to particular groups of people. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Tensions exist between the sovereignty of states to govern and the human rights of their citizens. The slippage in scale between the state with its right to govern and individuals with human rights can be traced to the poten tially contradictory terms enshrined in the 1945 UN Charter and the 1948 UN Declar ation of Human Rights. While the ?General Assembly shall ... [assist] in the realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, lan guage, or religion? (Article 13 (1b)), its con stituent members are states whose sovereignty and security prevail. The UN Charter has mechanisms to ensure the protection and en forcement of peace and international secur ity, but it outlines few obligations for the protection of human rights. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Since the early 1990s, the UN Security Coun cil has extended the meaning of what constitutes a threat to international peace and security in the Charter, and increased the conditionality of sov ereignty. Developing countries have expressed concern about this interpretation as potentially interfering in internal affairs. Sovereignty is seen as a last line of defence against the will of the (largely Western) ?international community?. While the UN remains an organization com prised of member states within a framework of liberal rights and freedoms, it has challenged the abuse of sovereignty in places such as northern Iraq, Bosnia Herzegovina, Somalia and East Timor. Sovereignty is qualified, and the abroga tion ofpeople?s human rights within a given state is no longer a domestic matter, at least with a UN context. (NEW PARAGRAPH) There are many human rights instruments that have been ratified, including the Conven tion on the Elimination of Discrimination again Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The USA has signed neither of these legal instruments, illustrating that unilateralism by the world?s superpower (NEW PARAGRAPH) can undermine the application and monitoring of basic human rights provisions. jh (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Bosco (2006); Kobayashi and Proctor (2003); Koffman (2003). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
humanism
A philosophical tradition that places human faculties (reason, consciousness and the like) at the centre of human action in order to account for and inform conduct. Humanism has a long history in European phiLosophy, where it is usually traced back to the Renaissance, but it played a pivotal role in much later reformulations of modern huMaN geography. The architects of an ex plicitly huMaNistic geography used a broadly based humanism as a crucial foundation for their critique of spatiaL scieNce. To Tuan (1976b, p. 266), humanism in its various forms provided ?an expansive view of what the human person is and can do?. ?More com prehensive than science?, he continued, hu manism accords a central place to those uniquely human capacities that lie at the core of the humanities: consciousness, critical re flection and creativity that in turn inculcate a sense of historicity. While he did not see hu manism as an alternative to ?scientific geog raphy?, Entrikin (1976, pp. 616, 632) argued that such an approach ?helps to counter the objective and abstractive tendencies of some scientific geographers? and reviewed the twin philosophies of existeNtiaLisM and pheNoM eNoLogy to reaffirm ?the importance of the study of meaning and value in human geog raphy?. Others insisted on the political and ethical significance of humanism. A stream of work on huMaN ageNcy and human geog raphy challenged the narrowly conceived and often deterministic assumptions about human action that had been incorporated into both spatial science and behaviouraL geography (Ley, 1981) and reworked one of Marx?s iconic statements thus: ?People make geog raphy, but not just as they please and not under conditions of their own choosing? (Gregory, 1981). Others treated humanism as a well spring for ethical reflection: ?The recovery of the human subject?, Buttimer (1990, p. 28) concluded, allowed for what would now be called a cosMopoLitaNisM and a heightened sensitivity to what she identified as ?the ??barbarism?? of our times? (see also ethics). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Even as these claims were being registered, however, Cosgrove provided a series of compelling reconstructions of the historical trajectory of humanism that suggested a less celebratory interpretation. Focusing on the concept of LaNdscape, Cosgrove (1984) showed that Renaissance humanism was about certainty rather than individual subject ivity, and that it was deeply implicated not only in the geometric obsessions that the critics of spatial science sought so strenuously to repudiate, but also in a visual ideoLogy that underwrote a constellation of distinctively bourgeois power and privilege. Others took different routes to arrive at parallel conclu sions. Approaches through feMiNist geog raphy and post coLoNiaLisM revealed that the supposedly universal ?human subject? at the centre of conventional humanism was not only a subject whose class position was art fully unmarked, as Cosgrove had shown, but also a subject whose heterosexuality, mascu linity and whiteNess were concealed too. Seen thus, humanism was exposed as a normative political ideological project. Many of these subsequent critiques were informed by post structuraLisM, which licensed what came to be categorized as an aNti huMaNisM: an ap proach that, far from being uninterested in or dismissive of human subjects and human ac tions, seeks to analyse the multiple ways in which different human subjects are consti tuted. This project has been radicalized by a posthuMaNisM that, critical of the anthropo centrism shared by humanism and anti humanism, admits non human actors to the production of nominally ?human? but in fact constitutively ?hybrid? geographies. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Similar critiques have been mobilized to question and contest the rise of what Douzinas (NEW PARAGRAPH) calls a ?military humanism? that pro motes military intervention and war in the name of supposedly universal huMaN rights, or ?Humanity? more generally. These projects often promote, on their dark side, the co production of spaces of exception (see exceptioN, spaces of), whose denizens are constructed as sub human and hence un worthy of protection. Here, humanism func tions as a sort of anthropological machine, conferring and withdrawing the status of ?human? from its objects (cf. bare Life). dg (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Cloke, Philo and Sadler (1991, ch. 3); Douzinas (NEW PARAGRAPH) (2003). (NEW PARAGRAPH)

Other books

Known by Kendra Elliot
The Big Reap by Chris F. Holm
Corked by Cabernet by Michele Scott
Endgame by Ann Aguirre
Flee From Evil by Connie Almony
Only Human by Tom Holt
Socks by Beverly Cleary
Fury by Jenika Snow
The Other Shore by Gao Xingjian