Environment and Planning D: Society and Space

The abstract for this paper is presented in the form of a preface:

Preface. In this paper we are concerned with the structure of the debate over modernism and postmodernism in geography. We feel we are being asked to take a position, for (or against) modernism and against (or for) postmodernism. We have different reasons for refusing the politics of this choice. Both of us take a separate route to this refusal, as shown in this paper. Some words of warning are necessary before we begin. Given the broad scope of this paper, it will be obvious that some liberties will have to be taken in the presentation. We hope that these limitations will be excused by readers sympathetic to the underlying purpose of the paper, which is to invite the most general of debates on this topic⁽¹⁾. In this vein, we conclude that there are more possibilities for critical and subversive geography than we are being allowed.

In this paper I examine the character of what might be termed ‘Foucault's geography’, and in so doing I wish to respect the ‘otherness' of how Michel Foucault treats space and place rather than coopting his insights into a broader conceptualisation of the society-space nexus. In the first part of the paper I discuss the more theoretical dimensions to his geography, explaining how his vision of social life necessarily calls forth an alertness to ‘spaces of dispersion’, and here I draw upon both his ‘archaeological’ approach to history and his reading of Raymond Roussel. In the second part of the paper I discuss the more substantive dimensions of his geography, considering the way in which space and place enter centrally into his various historical studies. My account here is quite critical, highlighting a geometric turn that both overplays abstract spatial relations and underplays concrete place associations, but I still conclude that Foucault provides an evocative flavour of ‘substantive geographies' which squares with his claimed sensitivity to spaces of dispersion. My overall argument is that Foucault's geography emerges directly from his own suspicion of the certainties (the order, coherence, truth, reason) supposed by most historians and social scientists to lie at the heart of social life, and as such I think that it can be adjudged a ‘truly’ postmodern human geography in a manner that, say, Edward Soja's postmodern geographies cannot. We might not like this Foucauldian version of a postmodern human geography, but I think that there is much that we can learn from it, even if we then choose to retain our faith in a more obviously modernist conceptual, practical, and political geographical project.

For a number of authors, the term deconstruction has come to signify an ‘interruption’ within the constitutive discourses of contemporary human geography. Specifically, a deconstructive event is said to mark a site where the coherent and legitimate linking of geographical phrases can no longer be maintained. It should come as no surprise, therefore, to discover that the deconstructive event of ‘interruption’ has been drawn upon as a device capable of marking the limit beyond which modern geography cannot go. Paradoxically, however, it is precisely upon the basis of this absolutely unbreachable limit that one can begin to think about a site which is nevertheless beyond it. Postmodernity is the name usually given to this ‘site’ beyond the ‘interruption’ of modernity. Whether or not one is for or against the attempted passage from the horizons of modernity, one will nevertheless have sought to have done with the event of ‘interruption’ itself. At its simplest, deconstruction is the reversible pathway, or pivot, which connects the modern with the postmodern. This, at least, is what the dialecticians have told us. Within this paper, the texts of Derrida and Lyotard will be drawn upon in order to argue that deconstruction and postmodernism have nothing to do with the passage from modernity into postmodernity. Specifically, it will be argued that the dialectical understanding of the term ‘interruption’ betrays a serious imprecision within our understanding of modernity itself. Ultimately, there will have been neither ‘interruption’ nor ‘pivot’ within the course of this paper, only the interminable vacillation of an interruption without interruption.

Jameson described postmodernism as a change in Western urban populations' ‘cognitive maps' of the world. But this seemed to suggest a totalising change in our space-time regimes or ‘social spatialisations’ which does not fit with everyday experiences of contemporary life. There is a continuity of most aspects of social spatialisation (which, denying locality and regionalism, once unified the empire of Western modernity). Yet, even small shifts may have notable impacts. If “space makes a difference” (Sayer), it is more important than ever to go on to specify what is different about space and spatiality today. Only changes in the spatialisation of presence and absence (a dialectic which was at the heart of modernity) can be empirically demonstrated. The distinction between modernity and postmodernity must be argued on this basis. After a survey of ‘what remains the same’, postmodern spatial differences, and why they matter are approached via a meditation on our relation to Others who bring the far-off and exotic into the cosy, local world of our everyday lives. The collapse of presence and absence, correlated with an everyday synthesis of proximity and remoteness; near and far; past, future, and present suggest the erasure of a set of cultural oppositions which structured the social imaginary, representations, and practices. Modernist, spatialised oppositions such as public-private, insider-outsider, and subject-object are changed, affecting the nature of the public sphere, forcing new ethical perspectives on community membership, and new understanding of our relationship to Others and to the environment.

In a recent paper entitled “Travels in the postmodern”, Elspeth Probyn uses the metaphors of local, locale, and location to open up a political dialogue between feminism and postmodernism, providing a particularly explicit example of a more general use of spatial figures in contemporary theoretical debate. These spatial references are not entirely figurative, but allude to our positioning within particular contexts, which both frame and are constructed by our texts. Thus, Probyn's dialogue inevitably raises geographical questions. Moreover, geography is not merely a passive, unnamed party through which Probyn's dialogue is conducted; it is not immune from or in any way ‘outside’ the situatedness its terminology is employed to articulate. In this context, the metaphorical maps Probyn uses to find her way between the differing terrains of feminism and postmodernism are far from neutral, truthful, transparent representations. In this paper an extension of Probyn's travels at the boundaries between feminism and postmodernism is sought by introducing a more active, self-critical geographical voice. The often hidden tensions underlying the linkages between geography, postmodernism, and feminism are explored, and key issues at the interface between critical human geography and feminist deconstruction are brought to the fore.

An attempt is made to broaden the agenda for institutionalist studies in urban and regional analysis by demonstrating that local managers are important social reproductive variables. A study of two social-service managers documents their need to socialize workers into an organizational culture and the influence of past sociospatial landscapes on their regulatory methods. It is posited that managers are bearers of spatiality, mediating the imprint of past and present sociospatial configurations through the lens of evolving biographies. The results suggest that (1) managers are critical constructors of organizational reality and that (2) past processes of spatiality influence such manager constructions.