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Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 14:36:47 -0500
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Subject: Re: Classic Sources on Study of Place and Space
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fyi mapsters,
I thought you might find this item from H-Urban interesting, thought
provoking, maddening, and even, for its citations...useful!!! Alice H.-----
Forwarded by ahudson/MHT/Nypl on 03/15/2001 02:40 PM -----
Wendy Plotkin
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edu> cc:
Sent by: Subject: Re: Classic
H-NET Urban Sources on Study of Place and
History Space
Discussion
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03/15/2001
02:07 PM
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H-NET Urban
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Discussion
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1) Posted by Richard H. Schein <[log in to unmask]>
Sharon Pearce asked for "classics" on space and place. She also
associates the terms with the concept of landscape. As those three
words are (to borrow from Raymond Williams) "keywords" in the
discipline of geography, I am struck with the general absence of
citations from that literature in her proffered list.
I assume this is due in part to (a) the often failure of geographers
to speak to wider academic and lay audiences; (b) a conflation in her
bibliography between those articles that treat space, place, and
landscape as a priori givens and those that ask more theoretical and
conceptual questions about what these terms might mean (and what their
implication then might be). Presumably the latter are her "narrower
and more academic studies," and they do seem to get shorter shrift.
Place (and its conflation with community) does seem to be a hot-button
topic these days in the popular literature, from BOWLING ALONE to THE
GEOGRAPHIES OF NOWHERE to New Urbanist solutions for suburban
anomie. In the spirit of bridging (inter-disciplinary) boundaries, and
with the realization that despite my disciplinary chauvinism,
geographers do not have any exclusive claim to the terms, I offer the
following.
You could do worse than to consult the DICTIONARY OF HUMAN GEOGRAPHY
(4th edition), Ed. R.J. Johnston, Derek Gregory, Geraldine Pratt,
Michael Watts (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000) under the entries for place,
space, cultural landscape and landscape. For my money, the most
interesting work in these areas in the last generation is predicated
on "de-essentializing" the concepts; consequently demonstrating that
places and landscapes are ultimately what Doreen Massey calls the loci
of articulated social relationships. In doing so, we not only collapse
the distinction between space and place (where space is the Cartesian
grid and place is a humanistic reading), we also can allow for place
meaning to be fluid and contestable at both the individual and
societal level. Beyond Massey's essays (and her best on this topic is
probably Doreen Massey. 1993. "Power-Geometry and a progressive sense
of place." In MAPPING THE FUTURES: LOCAL CULTURES, GLOBAL CHANGE,
ed. Jon Bird et al, pp. 59-69. New York: Routledge), key works on
space (and place) might then include David Harvey's CONDITION OF
POSTMODERNITY and Ed Soja's POSTMODERN GEOGRAPHIES. Both draw upon
Henri LeFebvre's PRODUCTION OF SPACE (as well as his WRITINGS ON
CITIES); and I assume that Pearce does the same, as her categories of
built, planned, imaginary, literary would seem to be drawn from
LeFebvre (and I note that many of these works are cited in Dolores
Hayden's book, which Pearce mentions).
Rosalyn Deutsche on democracy and the public sphere/public space is
still one of the best things around (and is reproduced in her recent
book EVICTIONS: ART AND SPATIAL POLITICS [see the H-Urban review at
http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=22562870858851]). On
landscape, I suggest books by Denis Cosgrove (SOCIAL FORMATION AND
SYMBOLIC LANDSCAPE is his first which "unpacks" western ideas about
landscape since the Renaissance), James Duncan (see THE CITY AS TEXT,
or co-edited works with David Ley and Trevor Barnes, WRITING WORLDS
AND PLACE/CULTURE/REPRESENTATION), and Don Mitchell or Groth and
Bressi (eds. UNDERSTANDING ORDINARY LANDSCAPES), as well as those
listed by Pearce. I'd better quit as there is the danger of simply
reading down my bookshelves within geographical sub-disciplines (next
up: Agnew and Duncan, eds., THE POWER OF PLACE or Nast and Pile eds.,
PLACES THROUGH THE BODY)
Finally, I am somewhat troubled by what is probably meant as a minor
annotation in Pearce's bibliography, and I am over-reading. In citing
Blunt and Rose WRITING WOMEN AND SPACE, she notes that the book has an
overtly political bent. I suppose if the emphasis is on "overtly" then
I am overreacting. But if the emphasis is on the fact of the political
bent, so do all of those other books she mentions (and I don't mean
this in a sinister or conspiratorial way). Simply, the lesson to be
drawn from literatures on the production of space and place is that
these "things" are never neutral (even the Cartesian grid in the form
of the Mercator projection got its due on "The West Wing" last
Wednesday evening!): space, place, landscape are particular
epistemological framings on the world that, if not overtly political,
are nevertheless implicated in the processes of social (and political
and economic and cultural) reproduction regardless of authorial
intention.
*************************
Richard H. Schein
Department of Geography
1457 P.O.T.
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY 40506-0027
USA
(859) 257-2119 [direct/voice mail]
(859) 257-2931 [department office]
(859) 323-1969 [fax]
[log in to unmask]
http://www.uky.edu/AS/Geography/
3) Posted by Marshall Feldman <[log in to unmask]>
Given the way you have framed the problem, Henri Lefebvre's _The
Production of Space_ is relevant. This enigmatic, but important book,
is where Lefebvre makes his famous distinction between conceived,
perceived, and lived space.
You also might want to look through the Open University's (UK)
four-book series, _Understanding Cities_. There are lots of brief
excerpts dealing with the experience of lived space as place. Their
sources may be helpful.
Marsh Feldman
University of Rhode Island
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