Abstract
Space is not an aseptic dimension: It is an experience that brings together physical, conceptual and emotional elements that shape individual and communal perceptions of inhabiting the world. This expanded understanding of space (which moves beyond space as a physical dimension alone) is the result of a debate that emerged in the late 19th century and bloomed after the Second World War. However, this understanding has not percolated into common development planning; even today, the spatial dimension is often oversimplified by researchers and professionals designing and implementing development initiatives. The definition of space remains limited to an ensemble of geographical coordinates that locate a particular place in a map of the world. In so doing, the key human experience that is built on sensorial perception, affective and intellectual interpretations, and public and private individual and collective narratives of interaction with space are left out. The People, Place and Space Reader attempts to address this gap by charting the rich cultural debate that shaped the social sciences in the past century and led to analyse space as a socially, culturally and emotionally constructed category, rather than a boundless three-dimensional expanse that exists independently of people’s perceptions and interactions.
The idea for the book was developed from experiences in the environmental psychology programme at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. The People, Place and Space Reader provides excerpted writings of scholars, designers, social thinkers and activists whose teachings and research explore cultural understandings of space and place. In contrast to previous collections, the book provides a cross-disciplinary presentation of the key approaches that have characterized the scientific study of space as a social construct. It encompasses works from psychology, geography, anthropology, sociology, architecture, design and urban planning: all disciplines that fundamentally contributed to defining the ‘environmental social sciences’, which tends to use transdisciplinary analysis of interrelations between people and the natural environment. The book’s approach mirrors the different specializations and backgrounds of the editors. There are geographers (Jen J. Gieseking and Cindi Katz), designers (Wiliam Mangold), anthropologists (Setha Low) and psychologists (Susan Saegert), bound together by their shared interest in the relationship between society and space.
Divided into 12 thematic sections, The People, Place and Space Reader is designed to lead readers beyond disciplinary boundaries and help them appreciate the complexity and transdisciplinary nature of debates in the environmental social sciences. It also discusses how the concept of space has interacted with themes such as gender, race, power, migration and globalization, creating a tapestry of concepts marked by cross-fertilization with other disciplines and defining the ground for an engaged approach to space analysis.
The book can be approached in different ways. On the one hand, each section can be read individually exploring the particular key elements shared by the collected papers. For example, the first section, ‘Diverse conceptions of the relationships between people, place, and space’ (pp. 1–38), collects the writings of David Harvey, Rem Koolhaas, Miwon Kwon, Kurt Lewin, Seta Low and Susan Ruddick that offer a critical contribution to explain that space is not just a plain mathematical grid of simultaneous presences, but is shaped by possibilities of access and movement, affections, and continuous construction and deconstruction of tangible and intangible objects. On the other hand, the reader can focus on themes that cross-cut different sections. For example, elements for a critical understanding of subjective perception and conceptualization of space can be found in Section 9, ‘The social production of space and time’ (pp. 283–320), in which selected papers, by Anthony D. King, Henri Lefebre, Katherine McKittrick, Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Neil Smith and Virgina Woolf, point out how people construct and experience space and time, as well as in Section 4, ‘Power, subjectivity, and space’ (pp. 103–44), where writings by Pierre Bourdieu, Kim Dovey, Ruth W. Gilmore, Stephen D.N. Graham, Allan Pred and Melissa W. Wright show how behavioural restriction enforced by policies and regulations affects to the subjective perception of space.
The book can also help understand the theoretical foundations of on-going debates in the environmental social sciences, for example, on links with postmodern philosophy and ‘French theory’. While the theoretical debates are strongly interlaced with contemporary development of Western philosophy, the book demonstrates the reach of environmental social sciences by delving into landscapes and societies away from North America and Europe. For example, while Li Zhang investigates the relationship between crime and migration in Beijing, Abdou Maliq Simone analyses the interaction between people and space in Johannesburg, and Wendy Wolford discusses the special imaginaries emerging from the struggle for land in Brazil. Thus, The People, Place and Space Reader turns into a tool for appreciating the overall scale of debates and heuristic perspectives the environmental social sciences open worldwide.
The 69 papers contained in the book represent a solid introduction for students to concepts, methodologies and approaches in environmental social sciences. Although designed for graduate programmes, the book can be easily adopted in undergraduate courses. For students, the book also represents a useful compass for selecting seminal papers for their secondary research.
The selected papers are mostly produced in the past 50 years, thus leaving out early ethnographic studies that motivated rethinking the links between space and culture. They are thematically clustered in a way that supports a synchronic understanding of the debate about space and society. For those students and scholars more interested in the historical development of the concepts, the selection may be limited. However, further materials and reading lists can be found online at
Overall, the book is a useful starting point for engaging with the key debates that encompass psychology, geography, anthropology, sociology, architecture, design and urban planning. It is particularly useful for development professionals who will find many cues on rethinking the relationship between individuals and space, the role of individual and collective experiences of space and place, and the need to foster bottom-up practices in the fields of economic and social development.