Rethinking social relations: towards a different phenomenology of places Stephen Read Abstract: So-called phenomenological approaches to the understanding

of social and spatial relations usually deal with these in terms of mental space, existential space, social space and so on. These modes of space are regarded as subjecti e, soft and short on the hard mathematical, geometric or objecti e properties that gi e spatial analysis a rigorous analytical capability. ! argue here that this misrepresents and misunderstands a central principle of phenomenology and o erloo"s phenomenologys potential to objectively map us in our world. !n its essence phenomenology is founded on the relation of intentionality,. !t is not necessarily about an interior mentality at all but about an intentional subject-object relation in the world. The model that says there is an interior subjecti e or imaginati e realm on the one hand and an exterior objecti e, physical or real one on the other, between which relations must be established for human "nowledge or action to be produced, is replaced by one in which a perfectly real subject at one end of an intentional relation is connected to a perfectly real object at the other. # different phenomenology of places would be about how these relations between subjects and objects are structured and intentional "nowledge and action mediated in the world. !t would be about the environmental relation where the notion of en ironment is captured in the relations between intentional subjects and the objects of those subjects attention and intention. ! argue that this is e entually about how we order and construct human worlds technologically and spatially so that we may effecti ely inhabit and use them. These worlds exist as whole networ"s of subjects and objects, in part-whole, mutually constituti e, relations with worlds. The translation of the intentional relation into geography and urbanism in ol es us in an historical process of the construction of metageographical structures through which subjects establish and order their "nowledge of and practices in the world. $nclosures, di isions and connections made by us in the world ha e shaped these structures and established the geographical and urban frames of our li es. This re%uires us to understand the human world as an historical construction, an anthroposphere, of regions and places, as equipment for framing our "nowledge of the world and our local and translocal actions in it. ! start by loo"ing critically at social relations as these are imagined today, finding their origins in an $nlightenment metaphysics which bifurcates nature into mental and corporeal realms, and suggest an alternati e founded in this reassessment of phenomenology. This alternati e centres our attention on the anthroposphere as a construction, and a topological structure of places, organised as a layering of places and infrastructural grids into a set of normati e le els which ha e a metageographical, intelligibility-gi ing and practice-defining, character. Structures of places, grids and le els are perfectly objecti e and mappable and are proposed as the foundation of a new phenomenological urban and geographical model.

Approaching relations anew The technical disciplines which map human or social relations generally formalise these as models and in terms of the spaces these models incorporate. !t is this "ind of mapping and these "inds of mappers ! am addressing. &henomenology has most often been associated here with a soft subjecti ity and with the perspecti e of indi idual experience. &henomenological mappings are therefore often of indi idual and subjecti e perceptions of an objecti e world. 'ith this emphasis on the indi idual subject, the perspecti e extends also into indi idual choice approaches where, in time geography ()*gerstrand +,-./, for example, structure is produced by indi iduals with personal time budgets ma"ing indi idual choices about mo ement and other beha iours. #t the same time, cogniti e approaches, li"e that of mental mapping (0ynch +,12/, see the indi idual percei ing subject producing mental maps represented in the indi idual interior mind. &henomenology has indeed shared the belief that humans are cogniti e subjects (3arela +,,1/, internally processing representations of the world, rather than being simply situated in-the-world, and although most phenomenologists after )usserl ha e understood the subject as being in a direct relation with a material en ironment, the multiplicity and ariability of indi idual and subjecti e spaces has still for the most part been assumed to be an effect of the error-prone nature of subjecti e perception and representation when faced with a definite singular objecti ity. This 4artesian doubt has also been behind %uestions about the reliability of phenomenological descriptions and interpretations (Seamon 5222/. The assumption has been that the mind is a rather inexact, e en faulty, computer, and the basis of this assumption is an $nlightenment model of mind incorporating a di ision between a personal and error-prone subjecti ity and perception and an objecti e reality and certainty. 6oth the association of subjecti ity with the indi idual and the interiority of subjecti e processes will be treated here as problematic. The %uestion of the mediation of perception and intention should be treated in reality and in the world, and not collapsed, as ! will outline, to one of crossing a gap between subjecti ity and objecti ity or mind and world. The map itself also needs to be reconsidered. 7ormally considered in orthographic projection (in time geography with a time axis added/, the map has been associated with the objecti e side of the subjecti ity-objecti ity di ision and has embedded problematic assumptions about the nature of our perspecti e on and our "nowledge of the world. !t has also been associated with an absolute space of cartographic or geodesic coordinates and a $uclidian geometry and distance that apply uni ersally. The map ! will propose can be represented orthographically for isualisation and analytical purposes, but will contain objects, subjects and places organised in their own humanly-constructed spaces that embed normati e geographical characters and scales. The coordinate geometry and distances of the map itself are not assumed to be objecti e in relation to these spaces and are not determining of these spaces.

! will begin by re iewing and criti%uing social relations as we most often thin" of them today. This will necessitate following a discussion and criti%ue of $nlightenment metaphysics, in terms of the relations between subject and object, and mind and world, before building a proposal that our human-world relations are an objecti e factor of the world itself understood in terms of these relations. ! will be addressing the %uestion of an alternati e to the di ision of existence into mind and world, firstly by re iewing phenomenologys well-"nown role in a criti%ue of artificial intelligence and then by way of a reinterpretation of phenomenology in non-subjecti e terms, and in relation to technology and e%uipment, that was highlighted in an hermeneutical philosophy of science. The alternati e phenomenological iew ! will present is one that emerges first by restating the foundation of phenomenology in the intentional relation and by posing subject and object as the two objecti e poles of this relation, and then by situating this relation in the world and finding mediation in the way this relation is reliably enacted in the world. This reliable enaction is through the e%uipment and artefacts we surround oursel es with. ! will restate this iew also in terms of an urban model consisting of patterns of objects, places and networ" infrastructures constructed in the world. These patterns will incorporate a structure of places together with the infrastructure technologies that support these. This alternati e non-mentalist, non-subjecti ist+ phenomenology of places will problematise our con entional iew of subjecti ity and mind, and re eal the roles of objects, technologies and construction, and our own nature as emplaced creatures, enabled and constrained by this emplacement. !n short then, ! aim to rematerialise and complexify social relations, bringing them bac" into the world. !n doing this ! hope at the same time to say something about techni%ue and construction as %ualities and characters of the human and the social. 'e should again be able to map human and social things in an objecti e way, but in a way which also finds subject positions and socialtechnical conditions and constructions bac" in our objecti e mappings. Taking the world out of social relations #s researchers and builders of models and theories, our intuitions are powerfully formed by the unstated philosophies and metaphysics we wor" with. This is not something we can circum ent8 such philosophical or metaphysical bac"grounds are a condition of our wor"ing effecti ely in communities of li"e-thin"ers, but they are also a constraint on what may be possible or allowable to thin" in these communities. Thomas 9uhn was one of the first to highlight this social and practice dimension to "nowledge (9uhn +,15/. This means our intuitions are not always the best guide as we go forward and insights from outside the community can re eal what is un%uestioned in the community and open new ways to progress. !n what is
+

&atric" )eelan, who ! will refer to later, used the word non-objecti e. The point is that the subjecti e-objecti e dichotomy is rendered superfluous in a position which understands us as actors and constructors of a sociotechnical world rather than subjects reflecting from an interior subjecti ity on an exterior objecti e world.

for many the most intuiti e way of modelling social relations, ties of interaction between humans as social agents, and the structural effects of these are analysed. Social networ" theory ('asserman and :aust +,,;8 Scott 5222/ ta"es social networ"s to consist of social agents and the ties between them and not much more than this. Starting from this parsimonious set up social networ" theorists can begin to thin" how indi iduals can come together to create enduring, functioning societies. <eorg Simmel had suggested that social reality consists of interrelated clusters in which smaller groups or units are built up into larger ones which then o erlap with one another (Simmel +,==8+>2-+>=/. $mile ?ur"heim had argued that human societies are made up of interrelated indi iduals and that the reasons for social regularities are to be found in the structure of social en ironments rather than in the indi iduals (?ur"heim +,=+/. @ne of social networ" theorys founding fathers en isioned it as a "ind of physics, complete with its own social atoms and laws of social gra itation (Aoreno +,>;/ and social networ"s pro ided a way of ma"ing tangible the sorts of structure Simmel and ?ur"heim concei ed. The basic structure created in social networ"s is the group or community, so that a structural scaling is achie ed and agency may transfer from the social agent to higher-order structures which may then "now and act in their turn as sorts of super-indi iduals. )owe er, the social networ" idea has failed to account for some of the things we might expect to learn from relations. !n particular, while the theory accounts for some non-local structural effects of local ties, it has difficulties with understanding higher-order structure or globality as an acti e contextual dimension, or indeed any acti e relations beyond the direct relations of indi iduals or groups (:riedman 522-8 Robertson +,,>8 4hapman 522;/.5 Social networ" theory has been criticised for its abstraction, its reification of strong ties, and its mechanical understanding of the indi idual and of social accretion. )ow higher-order communities are durably maintained along with their moral orders (0atour +,,5/ remains an open %uestion and ! will return to this later. The extent of the abstraction is e ident from the fact that no material world appears as a rele ant constituent or e en bac"ground to these relations. Society is a relational abstraction consisting of nothing more than the matrix of social relations. The social world or social en ironment is simply this abstraction, and we are not as"ed to consider how it may be possible to imagine relations at all without the mediation of a material world. # tacit assumption concerning the autonomous acti e nature of the subject is supported and maintained, while what is object is assumed to be either irrele ant or subject to the transparent influence or control of its acti e opposite. !n fact the assumption is that we may abstract the social world away from its material supports as easily as we separate mental and corporeal realms. 'e imagine social relations inhabiting an autonomous immaterial
5

The influence of globality, or the world, on our e eryday sense of order or sense of coherence is not captured in the aggregati e social networ"s model B which needs the larger material framewor"s ! will be suggesting here to con incingly stabilise social relations. !n the schematic ! will propose places and objects are always parts which exist in mutually constituti e relations with wholes. )ere globality profoundly affects what things and places are.

domain analogous to the mental, and social networ"s thoroughly internalise the assumption of the di ision of existence into acti e mental and passi e corporeal realms and reproduce this metaphysics as a social model. To see how this wor"s we could re isit the foundations of our modern system of thought as this was formulated by )ume, 0oc"e and ?escartes. )owe er, these metaphysics ha e already ta"en an interesting contemporary turn in artificial intelligence. )ume and 0oc"e had concei ed mind as a symbolmanipulating machine and #! researchers had simply applied this model as the digital computer became a ailable to them, to build $nlightenment metaphysics into the computer, and embed, or so they thought, mind into computing machines. Cnderpinning #! therefore was the classic di ision of nature into res extensa B corporeal substance B and res cogitans B mental substance or consciousness. #! formalised relations between the poles of this di ision by way of a representational-computational model. This model had minded-beings interiorising an immaterial representation of an exterior material world which was then processed in order to produce "nowledge about and action in the world (:odor +,.+8 &ylyshyn +,.2/. &erceptual input was internalised as manipulable symbols which could then be computed to produce output in the form of abstract "nowledge about or action in the world. !n this scheme intelligent minds "now about or act upon dumb matter, and mind is the acti e polarity while exterior reality remains acted upon. #s the )eideggerian philosopher )ubert ?reyfus suggested, #! was Dhard at wor" turning rationalist philosophy into a research programmeE (?reyfus 522-F5;-/. and putting mind in the network Guestions about the abstraction of social networ"s ha e, howe er, also gi en rise to elaborations of this basic idea. !n the +,12s Ael in 'ebber warned against Dsome deep-seated doctrine that see"s order in simple mappable patternsE ('ebber +,1>F=;/. )e suggested our communities were becoming disentangled from the constraints of the models we used (including those of strong ties, place and distance/ and highlighted other associational and institutional ties formed in modern social organisations and di isions of labour. )is urban realms were groups of people in community with one another across geographical space and without being spatially delimited. )e thought of these as cultural rather than territorial communities sharing acti ities and "nowledge without propin%uityH ('ebber +,1>/. 'ebber pointed at the same time to the ways new technologies were freeing the constraints of proximate face-to-face relations and creating Dnon-place urban realmsE ('ebber +,1;/. 'ebbers social relations began to incorporate some of the new structures and constructions of modern society, but were no less immaterial and abstract. Aeanwhile space was corporeal and becoming steadily less rele ant and more threatened as embodied proximity and face-to-face relations (6oden and Aolotch +,,;/. #t the same time, a new factor, networ"s B understood in terms of new communications technologies and high-speed mobility B was emerging. 4ities were redrawn in these terms as

dense clusters of no longer ery rele ant space, consisting of proximate social lin"s, on the one hand, and networ"s, comprising abstract and irtual business, economic, cultural, associational and social lin"s, on the other. The spatial disintegration or explosion ('right and Stewart +,-58 'ebber +,1>/ of the cities of the CS# after the middle of the twentieth century, followed rapidly by those in $urope and other regions, was attributed to these new networ"s. The networ"s ga e structure to 'ebbers non-place urban realm and community without propin%uityH by mediating these through technological and especially microelectronic networ"s. !t was in these terms that technology entered social networ"s as a medium through which human and social relations of networ"ed indi idualism ('ellman 522+/ and a networ" society (4astells 5222a/ became possible. This was hailed as no less than a re olution in social organisation and relations as, according to this iew, technology established new structures of social relations and ushered in an !nformation #ge (4astells 5222a8 522;8 5222b/. The networ"s were seen as the armature of contemporary business and industrial production and of globalisation. They were also seen as the armature of a contemporary networ" society Dwhose social structure is made of networ"s powered by microelectronics-based information and communication technologiesE (4astells +,.,/. This is the foundation of the distinction made today between spaces of places and spaces of flows (4astells +,.,/ in which a dynamic contemporary business and society is mediated through an electronic space of flows, lea ing an older space of places of place-bound and embodied communities in a state of stasis and decline. # world of sorts has entered the relational abstraction with the networ" technologies, but the basic metaphysics remains intact, with machines and networ"s facilitating acti e but disembodied relations in a irtual electronic realm. :or 'ebber and many others, urban society has escaped the place-bound city and Dthe concept of urbanism and the concept of city are no longer coterminousE ('ebber +,,1/. The pressing urban problem becomes the mediation between a irtuality of a space of flows and a reality of a space of places. Dismantling the metaphysics of virtuality The contemporary di ision of networ" irtuality and place reality is a corollary of a system of thought that has its origin in the se enteenth century. The continuing power and persistence of this system may owe as much though to its being embedded in influential research and de elopment programmes as it does to the innate persuasi eness of the philosophies of )ume, 0oc"e and ?escartes. These research programmes ha e succeeded in building this system of thought not just into popular discourse and academic literatures and debates but also into the machines and networ"s through which we conduct a large part of our li es. # product of this is the naturalness of the idea of a networ" society as a irtual relational abstraction shaped in high-tech information networ"s today (4astells 5222a/.

The products and contents of informational networ"s are seen as a weightless, frictionless "nowledge or information (see Read 522,/. This maintains "nowledge as immaterial and placelessly a ailable, and seems to negate worldly mediation. !n fact the mediation between autonomous mental and corporeal domains re-emerges in this model as a mediation between a non-place, dynamic and frictionless domain of a networ" society (a space of flows/ and a static, conser ati e and threatened domain of real places (a space of places/ (4astells +,.,/. !n the space of flows and in our relation with machines, "nowledge is not intrinsically or necessarily situated but exists in a placeless connected networ" realm. 'hen this "nowledge is situated, it is usually presented to us in orthographic projection. The relation of "nowledge to situation is made problematic again as the "nowledge of the obser er from orthographic perspecti e is conflated with "nowledge on the ground. &hilip #gre has noted how we see this clearly in computer games where the "nowledge of the player is conflated with the "nowledge of the agent on the screen (#gre+,,-/. )owe er #! was not simply a channel through which $nlightenment metaphysics in aded our technics and artefacts8 it was also the forum for an extended and continuing debate about the hidden metaphysics of this model and the search for an alternati e. !n this debate, ?reyfus started by suggesting that mind and world (or social actor and en ironment/ are not separated in the first place and dont need to communicate across any mindreality gap at all. :or him "nowledge and action should not be credited to the internally-"nowing subject but rather to the situation of the subject in the world and the relation between subject and world. The "ey for )eidegger and for ?reyfus was that in bringing things to our "nowledge or imagination, we incorporate them with our situated sel es (Dasein/ and begin relating to them directly. Things are in a ery important sense in the way we form a relation with them and ta"e them into our li es and acti ities. 'orldly things are disclosed to us in our relation to them and in the way they become something for us. 'e dont relate, in other words, across a gap between us and a world, we are simply in it. Reality here is not accessed through interior representation but is practical, situated and there to us. ?reyfus criti%ue was to some extent pro o"ed, and the argument fuelled and sustained, by a lac" of progress in formalising intelligence within the pre ailing paradigm. ?reyfus %uestioned the presumption that processes of mind in ol ed the manipulation of abstract symbols according to sets of formal rules (?reyfus +,1=/. )e %uestioned also whether reality consists of atomic facts and things, and whether "nowledge is e en in principle formalisable in terms of uni ersally applicable rules or laws. )is alternati e was a radical contextualism, shifting thin"ing away from an idealisation and internalisation of order and intelligence in mind or machine, and towards an in-the-world basis to order and reality. 4ognition, understood as an indi idual and private, internal process, becomes redundant when the reasons for "nowledge and action are situated externally and publicly in-theworld (Read 522.8 Read 52+>/.

?reyfus inter ention pro o"ed some prominent #! researchers to participate in open-ended research in Dpsychology by re erse engineeringE ()augeland +,,-/. Rodney 6roo"s for example based his robotics on the idea that the world ser ed as the sufficient representation of itself in the domain of reality (6roo"s +,,-/ and his machines were set off to simply learn on the go. Terry 'inograd recognised that the sharing of coherent and meaningful "nowledge or information depended on sharing a common context or frame of reference for that meaning. The representation-computation model had allocated meaning and significance to things through representation and language, but 'inograd recognised we dont so much exchange information in communication as call to attention some aspect of the world the communicators already share ('inograd +,-5/. &art of that context of agreement is of course the world of e eryday stuff we surround oursel es with. ?reyfus emphasised the embodiment of action and being in the world and the situatedness of "nowledge. !ts not us (or intelligent machines/ who learn something about the world, but us and world who come together in significant conjunctures of "nowledge or action and in a continuous process of relation and mutual adjustment. 'hat ?reyfus inter ention in fact highlighted was our relations with respect to a world of things and both our and their integration with and dependence on this context or world for practical being or "nowledge to emerge. #s ?on !hde points out this is less a matter of embodiment and more a shift of the location of the subject from a bodily interior to a directed relation with the world and with things (and people/ in that world (!hde 52+2/. :rom this point on the emphasis will be on the nature of that world, and in particular on its adjustment and preparedness for us and for our intentional "nowledge and action. Redefining ob ect!ivity This suggests that material things ha e meaningful existences in relation to us and our acti ities, and beyond our mental images and language, and that being out there in the world and amongst things is what is significant for subjecti ity and social organisation. @thers, including philosophers li"e )annah #rendt, anthropologists li"e #ndrI 0eroi-<ourhan, and sociologists li"e 6runo 0atour, ha e de eloped this insight. #rendt sees us inhabiting a Dworld between thingsE (#rendt +,-2/, 0eroi-<ourhan sees us ma"ing human worlds by exteriorising a curtain of objects (0eroi-<ourhan+,,>/, while 0atour has argued that nonhumans de elop social relations just as much as humans do. )e has suggested that humans alone do not and cannot hold our communities and societies together and that the missing mass in our societies consists of nonhuman relations and the spatial organisation of objects and artefacts (0atour +,,5/. )e emphasises an order networ"ed in arrangements of humans and nonhumans and the actions that join them up. !ndeed, he argues that in these networ"s we find it difficult to separate the respecti e human, practice and technical parts and that these parts come together in negotiations between people and things B particularly people and artefacts. 'ith the reintegration of mind and world, we seem to arri e also at

the reintegration of other polarities, li"e those of people and things and society and technology, and we could start thin"ing of these human-nonhuman arrangements as sociotechnical systems ()ughes +,.-/. These networ"s and systems are different to the ones we saw in networ" societies in which ad anced technology ends up appropriating the dynamic, creati e role mind ta"es in the classic mind-world bifurcation. 0atours examples of objects and technologies B li"e that of the door-closer B testify to an acti e integration of humans and nonhumans that goes far beyond microelectronics. This suggests a ery different metaphysics and we can begin to get a sense of what this metaphysics means from hermeneutical phenomenologists of science li"e &atric" )eelan, who loo"ed at the hands-on practice of experimental science. )eelan pointed to the way the ostensibly subjecti e factor of the intentional human experimenter is hermeneutically shifted in experimental practice into the ostensibly objecti e e%uipment of experiment. The obser er is, according to )eelan, not outside the experiment, ma"ing notes from his or her subjecti e position about what is objecti ely going on. $%uipment is not a passi e container of the experiment. !nstead the e%uipment is designed and is being minutely manipulated, adjusted and maintained by the obser er and other operati es, so that it becomes aligned with the intentionality of the obser er and ends up producing the results intended ()eelan +,--/. This is also the character of 0atours negotiations between human and nonhuman factorsF nonhuman material acts with the human actor in an actor-networ" (0atour 522=/. 'e could say that subjecti ity, objecti ity and practice are distributed in a closed networ" that has the character of the world ! will discuss later. ?on !hde calls this a material or extended hermeneutics B a directed negotiation with things and processes until they end up doing what we re%uire of them (!hde 522,/. !n this so-called technoscience perspecti e acting and "nowing escape the bounds of the subject as this is customarily defined, and creep out into the e%uipment, which is to some greater or lesser extent already prepared to do what is expected of it. Aediation here is by way of a subjecti ity escaped from the bounds of the subject and into worldly material, already prepared by engineers, builders and technicians. Aediation wor"s through subject, object, practice in a networ"ed and systematised way. !nstead of imagining a society mediated in high-tech electronic spaces, and then imagining this high-tech as a corollary of an immaterial irtual mind, we should start from the position that human relations with the world ha e long been mediated technologically, with technology understood here in a broad sense. &aul $dwards alerts us to the fact that the ubi%uity and low-tech nature of most of the technologies that surround us hides from us their central roles in human "nowledge and action ($dwards 522>/. This suggests also that if networ"s and technologies ha e always defined what our subjecti ities and societies are capable of, the hightech networ"s and technologies of today may be just the latest telling of the same story. # more historical ta"e on this may show also how the networ"s of today are by necessity tied to processes of technological inno ation and substitution which sees mules and camel trains replaced by railways and trans-continental highways, horse-borne messengers replaced by postal

systems and email and electronic messaging systems, and the carvel replaced by the container ship. # material hermeneutical or actor-networ" iew would represent a substantial shift away from the dualist and mentalist position of understanding order and intelligence as subsisting in either a mental or electronic informational realm. )ere the power of "nowledge and action would inhere in networ"s of organised human and nonhuman, or social and technical, factors. !t would also re%uire a substantial shift in our methods of mapping, away from the orthographic representation as a pri ileged objecti ity, and towards the re ealing of a structure of sociotechnical networ"s or systems through which people order their "nowledge of the world. "utting world back into relations ?reyfus has proposed reality is relati e to us. This relati e to us refers to the intentionality captured in the subject-object relation. This relation is no longer mediated between autonomous realms of mind and corporeality. )eelan has shown how the intentional relation becomes conditional on and mediated through the e%uipment we manipulate and through which results in the form of objects and "nowledge are produced. The situations in which we "now and do things are specific instances of this technically mediated intentional relation. This ma"es situations technically specific and multiple. They become preprepared in-the-world networ"s or spaces for acting and "nowing, and artefacts in themsel es. This testifies to the locally strategic nature of organised e%uipment and artefacts and to the spaces of "nowledge, shared in communities, they contribute to defining and maintaining. 7ot all of these will be high-tech though most of them probably were high-tech at some time in the past. #ccording to )eidegger, De%uipment ... always is in terms of its belonging to other e%uipmentE ()eidegger +,15F ,-/. There is always a totality of objects and practices, a practical and e%uipmental whole, in which objects and practices define each other in their relations. This fitting of object or subject into a context is called in ol ement ()eidegger +,15/. !t is a fitting into an intelligible world where world refers not to the simple totality of physical objects, but to the nexus of functionality and intelligibility organised by our e%uipment on the one hand and practices on the other. @ur en ironments are realised as an in-the-world relationality of meaningful objects. This is a iew which emphasises the o erwhelmingly artefactual nature of the world in which we "now and do things (Aitcham +,,=/> and then understands agency as distributed between agent and en ironment through the entrainment of the objects ma"ing up the en ironment with human acti ity (4lar" +,,-8 4lar" and 4halmers +,,.8 )utchins +,,=/.
>

4arl Aitcham is only one of the more recent theorists who has argued we li e in a world of our own ma"ing and that the things we encounter in that world are artefacts. )owe er Aitcham also sees this as a new thing whereas ! am suggesting, along with others li"e #rendt and 0eroi-<ourhan that this technical character and capacity has defined the human condition historically.

These situated collecti e understandings underpin the intrinsic sociality of the objects themsel es that 0atour insists on8 the objecti e world around us is a world of objects entrained with and in relation to us. #bstract distinctions between the subjecti e and the objecti e are not coherent in this iew. Rather what is significant is the organised relations of objects with subjects in settings embedding "nowledge and the possibilities of action. #lthough people connect with artefacts and e%uipment indi idually, the meanings and functions of things are commonly understood in settings and within the communities of practice (9uhn +,15/ that use them. 'orlds of common understanding are social and normati e, but it is through our indi idual emplacements in relation to things that our "nowledge of them and their possibilities emerges. These situations are total worlds that en iron us because they are already prepared for in ol ement and action by being organised around subject-object relations. !n ol ement in them may also be restricted, howe er, to those who ha e the credentials and the s"ills to access, understand and use them. )umans ha e managed to create multiple situations, multiple worlds, and multiple forms of life and the way they ha e done this is by forming multiple worlds and spaces, technologically, within which objects, subjects and actions (things, "nowledge and practices/ are internally enabled and regulated. @n the basis of the technoscience perspecti e, an alternati e relational phenomenology of place is possibleF one in which emplaced objects constitute a material organisation through which our "nowledge and action are mediated in situ. This alternati e relational iew would a oid any necessity of an interiority of imagination8 subjecti ity is exteriorised and captured in the perfectly real relations between subjects and objects mediated through sociotechnical networ"s. The significance of this is that we can now tal" of a human world consisting of real things (and their spaces and places/ that can be mapped and analysed. These objects participate in action chains and se%uences B participation implying neither a subject-centred nor an objectcentred perspecti e on action but one where the subject-object, actoren ironment relation stands at the centre of the analysis. #etageographies The character of these sociotechnical worlds may begin to be Dcon eyed in such expressions as the world of the parent, the runners world, or the world of the treesitterE (Thomson 5221F ;;-/, but because our li es are emplaced, these worlds will also be integrated with and constrained by structure inherent in territories and places. #s we become urban citiJens and neighbours, as we create national societies, and as we become a global multitude, the territorial dimensions of these communities and social identities will also be constructed. !n fact all the worlds we inhabit will be geographical in the sense that e erything we do will ha e a situation and be emplaced. There is a structure to this geography, howe er, that relates to an historical formation and normati e formalisation of the planet into what 0ewis and

'igen ha e called metageographies. These are Dthe set of spatial structures through which people order their "nowledge of the worldE (0ewis and 'igen+,,-F ix/. #s we can by now expect, these spatial structures will relate to objects entrained with the practices and ways of life of territories and places. These territories and places would be technically structured in such a way as to support the normati e practices associated with them. The technics would mediate what the territories and places were and regulate and regularise the way they were enacted. This worldly mediation would consist of an organised and strategic integration of technological, intentional and practice dimensions. The best way to understand this is by way of an exampleF we can get a sense of how these territorial spaces are formed and what they mean if we begin with )eideggers carpenters wor"bench and then extend our point of iew outward. The wor"bench is a place constructed to emplace the tools and support the practice of carpentry. !n this place there are a set of objects (the tools/, a place or setting (the wor"bench/, a s"illed subject (the carpenter/ and a practice (carpentry/ which, when ta"en together, form a world within which the carpenters attention and intentions are captured, and within which he wor"s and produces things. Tools and other objects ta"e their meanings from this world, and a nail and hammer are entrained8 they are to-hand and can be swept up in the mo ement of ma"ing a chair. !n this situation the e%uipment and space of the wor"bench disappear into the bac"ground B becoming to all intents and purposes not present to the carpenter B as his attention goes to the object of the action, the chair. Things are to-hand where their practical meanings and the actions they participate in coincide. #t the same time the wor"bench can become an object of attention itself B and become present B when the carpenter is preparing it for wor"ing. #lso, the nail, dis-placed by a few meters, will lose its entrainment and become present as an object that needs to pic"ed up off the floor and replaced to where it belongs. !n a human world to-handedness wor"s next to presentness and relies on presentness to prepare and maintain places for action.; #n object that is to-hand exists in what )eidegger calls a region. Regions organise the things we are in ol ed with in relation to practice. The region is a framing and referencing of objects, and a setting prepared for action. 'e see the region as we prepare or tidy up or otherwise get ready for action, but the character of the region is as a bac"ground to action and attention. 'e are capable of being in ol ed in that world as we are capable of stepping out of it in order to fix, prepare or tidy up. 6ut different settings and different worlds also exist in relation to one another. 'orlds may be nested in relation to one another so that the nail is on the wor"bench8 the wor"bench is in the wor"shop8 the wor"shop is in the town ()eidegger +,15F-,/. # nail may slip from being to-hand in one world to being present in another as easily as slipping off the wor"bench B so there is
;

)eidegger used the terms zuhanden and vorhanden for these different conditions of objects being respecti ely engaged with the subject as part of the action, and present to attention as an obstruction or in the course of preparation or maintenance of settings for action ()eidegger +,15F+>=-+;./.

no necessary, literal boundary between these worlds. # nesting of worlds or settings, is as organised and prepared in their relations to one another as each setting is indi idually. The nesting also allows us to %uic"ly increase possible scales and scopes of action, ta"ing us beyond the reach of our hands and our immediate lines of sight. The carpenter uses the setting of the street grid of the town in order to connect his wor"shop with the post office. The postal ser ice is organised as a region of post offices such that a letter may pass from the post office in the street grid of one town to the post office in a street grid of another B and through that street grid to the letters recipient. The postal ser ice maintains and uses a system of pathways and roads to interconnect the towns in the county. The wor"bench and tools, the wor"shop and its interior spaces, the urban street grid distributing the di ision of labour of an urban community, are each organisations of objects, subjects and practices that wor" together in stable and repeatable ways. $ach region constitutes a way of life and a world. $ach gi es a concrete measure of a scale of wor"ing associated with its own objects. 6ut each region limits us to doing things in one framing and at one measure or scale, while different settings are connected to one another in ways that allow them to be negotiated se%uentially in chains of actions that span multiple regions. These regions are articulated so we may mo e outwards, and ertically through le els, beyond the reach of hands and ision. The whole structure of places is a tight fit of territorial units of different scales matched with communities of practice that "now how to use them. #ll this facilitates a flexible cross-scalar coordination of social and economic acti ity, ultimately across ast distances. !t is through this relati ely low-tech (certainly in its original forms/ topology, or structure of places, rather than through contemporary high-tech communication and mobility technologies that space as distance is and has always been annihilated ()ar ey +,.,/. 4ommunities of practice already "now how to locate themsel es and do things in the appropriate networ"s. 7ewcomers learn these things and join communities of rush-hour commuters or tourist shoppers or creati e-region entrepreneurs. This is not by reference to a set of cartographic or geodetic coordinates but by a topological frame of referencing of objects and places alongside, inside or outside specific settings. These alongsides, insides and outsides relate to the networ"s and not to territorial boundings. They are organised in networ"ed metageographical le els and scalar types. The nail is on the wor"bench in alongside relations with the hammer and chisel8 the bench is in the wor"shop in alongside relations with the office and wood store. The wor"shop is in the town in an alongside relations to home, the post office and the inn the carpenter isits. Rather than dealing with uni ersals of space and scale we are dealing with particular, located, scaled and delimited organisational networ"s, and the e%uipment and "now-how to enable intentions and actions. #t the urban le el the street grid is normally considered to be a medium for accessibility between objects already defined. 'hat we see in the account ! ha e just gi en is something differentF the grid is the pre-condition for the definition of the objects concerned. !n a space of flows, the nodes are

ontologically transparent objects that define places and pro ide the datum8 here the grid itself is the datum, specifying scale, producing the nodes and defining the elements of the town.= !t is by being framed in the grid that the carpenter, ba"er and blac"smith are identified and defined as constituents of an urban world B as urban parts of an urban whole. #t the same time, other grids at different le els and scales identify tools as parts of a wor"bench, furniture and stores as parts of a wor"shop, and a networ" of towns as parts of a postal region. The networ" positi ely organises rather than passi ely connecting and its space is not a surface across which flows are traced, rather it is a topology and networ"ed world of meaningful relations that underwrites effecti e places and practices. An alternative phenomenology of places Aetageographical structures construct scale alongside place. So all places come integral with their scales. 'e could start by imagining networ"s of small things and places, medium siJed things and places, large and extra large things and places (&rytherch 522-/. )owe er, its not the siJes of the things but the scopes of the wholes they are part of that defines the scales of metageographies. These scopes, and the metageographies themsel es, are normati e and historically constructed. They are cities, regions, nations, and centres, suburbs and neighbourhoods, but expressed not as objects in isolation but in networ"s of parts that ma"e up wholes. 'e thin" of them as autonomous things that ha e always been there, but they are historically constructed and naturalised rather than natural. 'e use these both to access and to order our acti ities in networ"s and also to relate to other places through their part-whole relationships with other networ"s at other scales and scopes. The best studied examples of such networ"s are world-city networ"s (:riedmann +,.1, +,,=8 6ea erstoc" et al. +,,,/. )ere world and city are co-constituti e and interdependent, whole and part, mutually constructed in the networ". 'orld is itself a metageographical construction comprising a networ" of cities and city deri es its meaning from its relations in the networ". These are not the only part-whole structures defining territorial entities8 a smaller-scaled but formally analogous city-neighbourhood networ" is a regular feature of $uropean industrial cities. )ere again, part and whole (neighbourhood and city/ are mutually constructed in the networ" (see Read forthcoming/. #t smaller scales still, streets or houses, would be the parts ma"ing up the whole of the neighbourhood, while rooms are the parts ma"ing up the house. These structures ha e been imagined as bounded territories, and some ha e borders that are Jealously defined and guarded, but all of them are constructed and gi en practical reality for their users in the networ"s through which they are enacted and used. 'orlds, empires and trading leagues are historical constructions, formed in networ"s of cities8 counties and
=

'hat the flat ontologies of 0atour and others li"e Aarston et al. (522=/ miss with their networ"s freely connecting heterogeneous subjects and objects across scale le els, is the dependency of the objects (and subjects/ themsel es on scaled networ"s of objects (and subjects/ for their definition as existent things.

principalities ha e appropriated and organised territories at smaller scales as networ"s of towns8 nation states are a relati ely recent in ention and construction intended to stabilise shifting political authorities and allegiances, again constructed and organised around a networ" of urban centres8 inner city neighbourhoods were constructed as parts of the industrial city, and out-oftown centres and suburbs were in ented and constructed as parts of the postindustrial metropolitan city-region. The neighbourhood is in the city and the city in the metropolitan region, nation and world and these places exist in ertically structured nested relations with one another while neighbourhoods and cities relate horiJontally with other neighbourhoods and cities. $ach one of these metageographies is a networ" in itself and each is part of a larger-scaled networ" and contains smallerscaled networ"s. This is topologically a stac"ing of layers so that each of these metageographies exists in organised relations with others. 6ut this is a layering of different networ" spaces rather than of territorial units bounded in a uni ersal space and in Russian doll relations with each other. There are no necessary boundaries between the layers and one may slip out of the part and into the whole as easily as passing from a neighbourhood bac" street into a city main street. #t the same time it is not possible to confuse the street with the neighbourhood or the neighbourhood with the city, or the city with the world for that matter, because the part-whole structure is at the same time a "nowledge structure and a structure constructed and realised in the world. !t is one of those concrete abstractions that exist simultaneously in "nowledge and reality and gi e the lie to the $nlightenment bifurcation of nature. #n alternati e phenomenology of places would deal with regions and places as sociotechnical networ"s which include emplaced objects, the technical grids that connect them and the communities of practices who "now and use them. !t would deal at the same time with the ways technical grids, networ"s of places, communities and practices are articulated with one another o er scale differences. # different phenomenology of places would focus on places in networ"ed regions and the ways they support practice and object worlds as sociotechnical systems. 'e li e en ironed by such worlds and systems. 9arin 9norr-4etina has in a research project which has spanned two decades in estigated the networ"s and cultures of global financial trading. # world is created in a high-tech construction in ol ing optical cables and satellite lin"s, along with a lot of expensi e computing hardware and software, to present the objects of the global financial mar"et real-time to traders where er they ha e access to a terminal (9norr-4etina and 6ruegger, 5225/. :inancial traders do and see things in a technical system that goes far beyond technics to be acutely tuned to their indi idual perceptions and conceptions, and to a culture and practice of trading that spans the globe. !ntention and meaning ha e been shifted into e%uipment and into what 9norr-4etina calls synthetic situations (9norr-4etina 522,/ in offices and on trading floors. There is a world created in this sociotechnics that seems to annihilate space and time. This annihilation is, ! ha e argued before (Read 522,/, not more than a highly designed and maintained effect of the technics, and this world doesnt exist in isolation8 it is lin"ed to other spaces so that the world of global trading may be exited and the trader can use the office, or can exit the

building to use the street networ" to find the metro and go home. $ach of these steps in a chain of acti ities is a transition from one situation, setting and world into another. The space of global trading re%uires both access and security through portals with the spaces of offices, buildings, streets, public transportation systems, and so on, and each of these portals will be as technically and socially designed and effecti e as the spaces themsel es. The networ" of global trading is undoubtedly a powerful technology, but whether technologies li"e these imply anything about a society any more fundamentally new than mercantile or industrial societies were is a matter for debate. &articular worlds, e en contemporary global ones, may be less influential on their own than they are in their topological relations with other worlds. They may define their power more in the ways access is regulated through portals with other networ"s than through their own particular technical and social operations and scopes. The contemporary distinction between spaces of flows and spaces of places falls away as global networ"s become articulated with other ery e eryday networ"s and places. @ne of the functions of mo ement infrastructures li"e road, rail, metro and airline systems will be to define places and coordinate metageographies in their scales and scopes. :or a 0ondon Cnderground user, 0ondon is the famous underground map realised. The infrastructure is in ested with a diagramatic topology and realises a specific place-structure. This structure founds a world through a particular technics and culture of tra el by underground, which includes access, tic"eting, information and security procedures. 6ut it connects also to significant places that ser e as portals to more global spaces, and responds to an o erground networ", a pre-existing structure of places to which the underground adds structure and emphasis. !t connects to the street grids of the neighbourhoods centred by underground stations, and it regulates profoundly the ways these different metageographies and cultures are articulated with each other. The e%uipment here may not be as high-tech as in 9norr-4etinas example, but is no inconsiderable matter. 6eside the transportation systems themsel es and their signalling, scheduling and other support systems, there are public facilities, shops, offices and housing built in a systematic relation to transportation systems, business and industry to which employees, suppliers and clients need to be connected, and all manner of other technical and support systems, including street and line maintenance, energy, water and drainage systems, stairs and lifts, street and passenger signage that need to be incorporated. #ll of this is maintained in a high state of efficiency and order, reflecting the strategic role of this regulating and regularising infrastructure. 4ities, regions, nations, worlds and their parts are articulated, consolidated and stabilised in airline, underground, road, rail and other technical mo ement grids, but what is real is not just the material but also the coherence-gi ing, sense-ma"ing structures of part, whole and scale. The effect is that today the whole is loc"ed into synoptics territorial users understand, with well-"nown places made isible and present locally and trans-locally. 0ondon is indi isibly and se eral times o er, percept, concept, techni%ue, object, networ", culture

and practice, a patch of integrated and strategic territorial order historically constructed and realised. The structures that ma"e it up differ from and precede the cartographic map. They order the world according to a different order of precepts than the distances, geometries and boundings of the map. These constructions ha e their own remar"able le els of stability and persistence as place-structures, and as coordinated di ersities of cultures and practices. ?ifferent indi iduals and different cultures and practices share, before all else, these structures of places as common "nowledge. Ta"en together, these structures are a practical objecti ity which informs e ery mo ement and e ery action B as well as e ery further inter ention B in our human world. This reassessment of phenomenology centres our attention on the historical construction of our anthroposphere, which includes a topological structure of places organised by a layering of infrastructural grids into a set of normati e le els which ha e a metageographical, intelligibility-gi ing and community of practice defining, character. Structure of places, grids and le els are perfectly objecti e and mappable and are proposed as the foundation of a different phenomenological urban and geographical model. :urther contributions will set out these structures in real examples in order to assess their potential as an urban and geographical model.

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