Spatiality, Maps, and Mathematics in Critical Human Geography: Toward a Repetition with Difference

Abstract

Quantitative and cartographic methods are today often associated with absolute, Newtonian conceptions of space. We argue that some such methods have not always been and need not be so allied. Present geographic approaches to relational space have been largely advanced through radical political economic and feminist thought. Yet we identify quantitative and cartographic methods (taking as exemplars a range of thinkers, some of whom were most prominent in the 1960s and 1970s) that can contribute to these approaches to relational space. We suggest neglected methods to revisit, new alliances to be forged with critical human geography and cultural critique, and possible paths to enliven geographical imaginations.

在今日, 量化与製图方法经常关乎牛顿式的绝对空间之概念。我们主张, 这些方法之中, 有些并非总是且必须此般联合绝对空间。当今研究关系性空间的地理学方法, 透过基进的政治经济与女权主义思想, 已有了大幅的进展。但我们仍指认能够对这些研究关系性空间的方法做出贡献的量化及製图方法 (以一系列的思想家作为案例, 其中有些人在 1960 年代与 1970 年代相当知名)。我们指出需重新探讨的受忽略之方法, 需结合批判人文地理学和文化批评的崭新联盟, 以及使得地理学想像更活泼有生气的可能途径。

En este momento, los métodos cuantitativos y cartográficos a menudo están asociados con las concepciones absolutas, newtonianas, del espacio. Nuestro argumento es que algunos de tales métodos no siempre han estado aliados de ese modo, ni necesitan estarlo. Los actuales enfoques geográficos con el espacio relacional en gran medida han sido fomentados por medio del pensamiento económico político radical y por el pensamiento feminista. Sin embargo, identificamos los métodos cuantitativo y cartográfico (tomando como ejemplos un rango de pensadores, algunos de los cuales gozaron de mayor prominencia en los años 1960 y 1970), que pueden contribuir a estos enfoques del espacio relacional. Sugerimos qué métodos olvidados volver a visitar, nuevas alianzas para ser trabajadas con la geografía humana crítica y con la crítica cultural, y rutas posibles a seguir para alentar las imaginaciones geográficas.

Key Words:

• computation
• critical GIS
• geographic thought
• mapping
• social theory
• space

关键词:

• 计算
• 批判地理信息系统
• 地理思想
• 製图
• 社会理论
• 空间。

Palabras clave:

• computación
• SIG crítico
• pensamiento geográfico
• mapeo
• teoría social
• espacio

Notes

1 By GIS here and elsewhere, unless specified, we mean to refer not only to traditional desktop GIS but also to the now much wider technological infrastructure of GPS, Web mapping, location-based services, and so on, as is by now commonplace in the critical GIS community.

2 See also the map of “where commuters run over black children on the Pointes-Downtown track” (The Detroit Geographical Expedition and Institute 1971, 17–18).

3 See also Forer (1978, 241). Bunge's Seattle isochrone maps are regularly reproduced as exemplars of space “distorted” by travel time—perhaps an indication, given that they are over a half-century old, of how little sustained attention has been paid to this problem.

4 We refrain from singling out particular texts, as our point is not that any one book is especially guilty but that the focus of the implied quantitative and computational methods curriculum in geography has switched from geographical process to the nuts and bolts of tools and techniques. These are important, but there is a danger of missing the forest for the trees.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David O'Sullivan

DAVID O'SULLIVAN is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720–4740. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests are in simulation models and geographic complexity, urban neighborhood change, and the social and political implications of geospatial technology. He is the author of more than fifty peer-reviewed papers and book chapters and (with David Unwin) Geographic Information Analysis (2010) and (with George Perry) Spatial Simulation: Exploring Pattern and Process (2013).

Luke Bergmann

LUKE BERGMANN is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195. E-mail: [email protected]. He constructs conceptual and empirical tools to represent, analyze, and visualize worldly phenomena as interconnected—indeed, as being partially constituted by process and relation. His research and teaching stretch across several thematic focuses, from economy to environment, disease to development, social theory to computation, and China to world, but they all contribute to his core intellectual commitment to helping foster a relational geography.

Jim E. Thatcher

JIM E. THATCHER is an Assistant Professor of Urban Studies at the University of Washington Tacoma, Tacoma, WA 98402. E-mail: [email protected]. His research examines the recursive relations among extremely large geospatial data sets, the creation and analysis of those data sets, and society. Often referred to as critical data studies or digital political ecologies, his work has been featured in media outlets including NPR and The Atlantic.