GE21001 Dynamic Human WorldsLecture 2

How do human geographers investigate space, economics,

power and inequality?

Dr. Susan P. Mains

Geographydynamichumanworlds.wordpress.com

Lecture Outline

Defining Space

Society-Space & Inequality

Approaches to space, economics, power and inequality—some examples

Useful Reading:

Susan J. Smith. 2009. “Society-Space,” Chapter 2 of Introducing Human Geographies, 2nd Edition by Cloke et al., p18-33.

Defining Space

• Space and society

• Previously: “regard spatial arrangements as a more or less straightforward reflection of social divisions” (Smith 2009, 18)

• More complex, multiple relations & processes

• Diversity of approaches in human geography

Defining Space

• Space and society

• Moving from more “fixed” ideas about space and differences between places

• descriptionpatternsrelative space

• Towards understanding power and space– Why places were where they were?– How different individuals/institutions used and

related to spaces in varying ways

Defining Space

1) “Space and time (or space-time) are now seen as being ‘produced’ or ‘constituted’ through action and interaction”

(Derek Gregory, 2000, p. 771, The Dictionary of Human Geography, Blackwell).

Defining Space

2) “Space and time cannot be held fast in fixed compartments, measured intervals or regular geometries”

(Derek Gregory, 2000, p. 772, The Dictionary of Human Geography, Blackwell).

Defining Space

3) “productions of space are inseparable from productions of NATURE”

(Derek Gregory, 2000, p. 772, The Dictionary of Human Geography, Blackwell).

Defining Space

• Space and social practices are intertwined

• They are dynamic

• Material and social

• Rhythm and feel of the same space may vary

• Physically spaces may be in close proximity, but economically worlds apart

Princes Street Gardens & Castle, Edinburgh

Trafalgar Square, London

Jakarta, Indonesia

Space and Place

• Place giving space meaning

• Emotional attachments, experiences

• Places are dynamic and relational

• “Sense of place”

• Stories, events, identities linked to places

Places are “Happening”!

• Place is an event in that sense too... There can be no assumption of pre-given coherence, or of community or collective identity. Rather the throwntogetherness of place demands negotiation.– Doreen Massey, For Space (2005)

Space, Power and Inequality

• Critical: challenging positivist “objective” researcher

• Research is a product of society

• Different forms of knowledge & data

• Questioning abstraction & reduction

Space, Power and Inequality

• World is socially constructed– Shaped by experiences– Political perspectives– Access to information

• Books, television news, government policies, social campaigns

• Challenging taken-for-granted notions of space

Space, Power and Inequality

• Some examples of topics using a Marxian approach:

• Don Mitchell--landscapes of migrant workers in California

• David Harvey--cinema and changing economic relations

• Doreen Massey--spatial divisions of labour in landscape

Space, Power and Inequality

Combining Marxist & Feminist Approaches: Socialist Feminism

• Urban planning: where are the different individuals or households?

• E.g., the difficulties for a working class single mother to access paid work, while locating childcare, accessing public transportation and maintaining a suitable income without having to travel lengthy distances daily.

Homeless Women’s Meal Program, D.C.

“Social networks in time and space: Homeless women on Skid Row” Annals of the AAG Vol.80, No.2 (1990)

Jennifer Wolch