This book engages with the politics of social and environmental justice, and

seeks new ways to think about the future of urbanization in the twenty-first
century. It establishes foundational concepts for understanding how space,
time, place and nalure - the material frames of daily life - are constituted and
represented through social practices, not as separate elements but in relation to
each 'other, It describes how geographical differences are produced, and shows
how they then become fundamental to the exploration of pulitical, economic
and ecological alternatives to contemporary life.
The book is divided into four parts. Part I describes the problematic nature
of action and analysis at different scales of time and space, and introduces the
reader to the modes of dialectical thinking and discourse which are used
throughuut the remainder of the work. Part II examines how "nature" and
"envn.'onment" have been understood and vatued in relation to processes of
social change and seeks, from this. basis, to make sense of contemporary
environmental issues.
Part Ill, in a wide-ranging discussion of history, geography and culture.
explores the meaning of the social "production" of space and time, and clarifies
problems related <"otherness" and difference". The final part of the book
deploys the foundational arguments the author has established to consider
contemporary problems of SOCial justice that have yesulted from recent chan.ges
in geographical divisions of labor, in the environment, and in the pace and
quality of urbanization.
Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference speaks to a ...videreadership
of students of social, cultural and spatial theory and of the dynamics of
contemporary life. It is a ~onvincing demonstration that it is both possible and
necessary to value difference and to seek a just social ordeL

Justice Nature
& the Geography
of Difference
l

to

David Harvey is Professor of Geography at the Johns Hopkins University.

From 1987-1993 he was Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at
Oxford University. He received the Outstanding Contributor Award from
the ~Association of American Geographers in 1980; the Anders Retzius Gold
Medal from the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography in 1989;

the Patron's Medal of the Royal Goographical Society in 1995, and the
Vautrin Lud Priz.e in France in the same year, His books lndude Explanation
in Geography (1969); Socia/jnstice and the City (1973, new edition 1988)*;
The Limit, to Capital (1982)*, The (J,ban Experience (19B8)*, and The
Condition of Postmodemily (1989)*. *Publi,hed by Blackwell
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.David Harvey

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Justice, Nature and the

Geography of Difference

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Thoughts for a Prologue

Admowledgments
Introduction

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L Social justice. 2. Social change. 3. Social values.
4. Global mvlronmencai J.IaIIf\e. 5. CultUral :darivi'll!1. 6. Space and time. 1. T:tle.
HM216.H26 1996

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69
77

0'''-''.

9
10
11

Part III Prologue

The Social Construction of Space and Time
The Currency of Space-Time
From Space to Place and Back Ag.tin

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PART lfl SPACE, TIME, AND PLACE

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THE NATURE OF ENVIRONMENT

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Part 11 Prologue
The Dominacion of Nature and irs Discontents
Valuing Nature ::.- P",-,,", ;;'c'C-' r c. '
'5
The Dialectics of ~cial and Environmental Change
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lIarvey, David, 1935Justice, I1amre, ard the geography of cUterence/Dayid Harvey.

ORlENTATIONS
t-.1ilitant Particularism and Global Ambition
Dialectics
The Leibnizian Conceit
The DialeSJi,s o OiSGeH~
H~st?ri~ Agency and the Loci of Social Change

PART IV JUSTICE, DIFFERENCE, k'1D POLITICS

Part N Prologue
12 Class Relarions, Social Justice. and the Political

13
14

Goography of Diffi:reru,e
The Environment of Jmtice
Possible Urban Worlds

329
334

366
403

VI

Contents

Thoughts for an Epilogue

439

Bibliography

440

Index

456

Ii

Thoughts for a Prologue

Here is a map of our country:

here is the Sea of Indifference, glazed with salt
This is me haunted river flowing from brow to groin
v..re dare not taste its water
This is. the desert where missiles are planted like corms
This is the breadbasket of foreclosed farms
This is me birthplace of me rockabilly boy
This is the cemetery of the poor
who died for democraq This is a battlefield
from a nineteenth-century Volar the shrine is famous
This is the sea-town of myth and story when the fishing fleets
went bankrupt here is where the jobs were on the pier
processing frozen fishsticks hourly'\vages and no shares
TIlese are other batrlcfidds Centralia Detroit
here are the forests primeval
copper
silv'er lodes
These are the suburbs of acquiescence silence rising fumelike

me

me

from the streets

This is the capital of money and dolor v..!hose spires

flare up through air inversions whose bridges are crumbling
whose children are drifring blind alleys pent
between coiled rolls of ra7.0r wire
I promised to show you a map you say but rhis is a mural
men yes let it be these are small distinctions
where do ~'e see it from is the quesrion
Adrienne Rich An Atlas of.he Difficult WVrld

Acknowledgments

The lines from ''An Atlas of the Difficul, World," from An Atlas oirhe Difficult
Workl Poems 198~-1991 by Adrienne Rich. Copyright ]991 by Adrienne
Rich. Reprmted 'wIth permission of the author and w.w. Norton & Company.
Inc.

Introduction

In recent years I have frequently found mysdf speaking at conferences on

"globalization," The conference at Duke University in November, 1994, was
by far the most imeresting. It brought together diverse people not only from
many disciplines and. walks of life but also from many differem countries. It
was a weiwme change to listen to academics, activists, and representatives from
the arts from countries like South Korea, China, India, Russia, and Egypt as
opposed to the cather repetitive and sterile dlscussions of globalization
(increasingly dubbed by cynics "'globaloney") that all too otten occur in
university settings in the United States Of Europe. But the atmosphere of the
conference was frequently tense and arguments often hard [0 follow.
illusrrative of the inroads that hypercritical current.~ of thought like
poststtucturalism, posrmodernisrn, deconstruction, and the like have made
throughout the world.
But what truly rendered the occasion memorable for me was my stay in the
Omni Hotel in Durham, North Carolina. The hotel was full of fomili" - of
a very distinctive sort. The men wore either slighdy baggy suits. or blazers and
flannels, usually embellished with a jolly necktie. The children were remarkably
well behaved, the hoys typically dre",ed in blazers and Ilannds and the gitls
for the most pan in frilly dresses. And the women all wore ankle-length dresses
and, most distincrive of all, had long hair, the only permissible de-.,.riation
apparently being to loop it up into a bun, This was definitely not Levi, Calvin
Klein or even Benetton territory (though Laura Ashley could have made it)not a pair of jeans in sight, And everyone was remarkably friendly, bestowing
beaming "hellos" and "'good-days" to obvious d.eviams from the sartorial norm
such as myself:
I was curious enough to follow this distinctive crowd Vv1.uther it was headed
and soon found myself in the midst of the Southeastern Regional Meeting of
Evangelical Pentecostal Preachers. I was intrigued enough lO stay. An evening
of participant observation taught me a lot. I could not hdp contrasting, for
-exatnple~ the incredible enthusiasm, joy, and vigor of the Pentecostal meeting

2
:.::.
!ll
1'

Introduction

Introduction

with the angst and competitivt: tension at (he globalization conference. \'V'hile
the Pentecostal meeting was vey much led from the front by white male
preachers {no concern hce to balance the program according to criteria of
gender or race), the levels a:1d degree of enthusiastic audience partlc:pation
were extraordinarily high, compared (0 the heard-it-aH-before incredulity and
resentful passivity of the campus audience. Funhermorc, for the Pentecostals
it was an orchestration of emotions and pao;;sions rather than of intdlcc: that
v.'aS being sought and the ends and objectives of the orchcs:-ra6on were dear.
I wondered what the parallel ohjective of the globalization conference might
be. I had a hard time finding my strong or cohcrcm answer to that question.
The preacher who ope:led the ceremonies that evening did so with the
following invocation. "Through these four days, he said, '"'we have come to
understand the founci:Jtional beliefs that keep us firmly on the rock."
Foundational beliefiIl wondered what on earth would happen if I started lO
talk about foundational beliefs in the globalization conference. The deconstructionists would go to work "With icy precision, the relativists would callously
sneer, the critical theorists would rub their hands and say "this simply will not
do" and the postmndernists would exclaim "what a dinosaur!" And I myseif
agree that all foundational beliefs should be scrutinized and Guestioned. But
what troubled me was the thought that when a political gro~p armed ""irith
strong and unambiguous ioundational beliefS confronts a bunch of doubting
Thomases whose only fOll ndational belief.is skepticism towa.rd.s all foundaTIonal
beliefs, then it is ramer easy to predict who will win. \V'hich led me to the
follOWIng reflection: the task of critical analysis is not, surely, to prove the
impossibitity of foundational bdiefs (or truths), bur to find a more plausihle
and adequate basis for (he fonndational beliefs that make interpretation and
political action meaningfu~, creative., and possible.
Ll this book, 1 try to define a set of workabl~ foundational concepts for
lUlderstanding space-rime, place, and environment (nawrc). The critical search
for such foundalional concepts is, of amrse, no trivial or easy task. It requires
nothing short of establishing a metaphysical basis for enquiry. But it is
dangerous in academia these days to confess to heing m('ta about anything, for
to do so Ls to suggest a longing for something mystically outside of us (or
sometimes within us) to which we can appeal to stabilize rhe flood of chaotic
images, ephemeral represent:lti?ns, contorted posirionings, and multiple
fragmentations of knowledge within which we now have our collective being.
But metaphysics in its traditional sen.se is precisely about the kind of critical
enquiry that allows fur the free interplay of passions, emotions, rationalityo and
intellect rather than the~r restrictive compartmentalizations. That balance is
not ahvays easy to strike. If, tor example. the Pemecosi:als were ul1du\- hlgh
on chatged emotions and the coUective orchestration of passions and desires
for highly resu~ctive ends, then we academics surely err in being far too highly
captivated by the cerebral and highly disciplined On every sense, both positive

and negative, of that word) qualities of our own individualistic, professionally

dt'ned, fragmented., and otten egotisric~ly driven enterprises. l\.1etaphysics at
its best also seeks general principles to understand but never repress the evident
complexity of physical, biological, and social life. Enquiry of this sort is never
easy going and during the writing of this book I have often foun~ myself
longing for the easy simplicities of faith of the Pentecostals, the certitudes of
positivism or the absolutes of dogmatic Marxism.
As the evening with the Pentecostals wore on, it became evident that there
was a very particular politic:al target f-or the occasion. And that target was
racism. The blood of Jesus, it was said, will wash away all signs of racial
distinction. R2..cial discrimination within the church was construed as a barrier
to the expansion of its powers and in the midst ofextraordinary scenes preacher
after preacher exhoned
assembled whites (0 embrace their black brethren
with joy, humility, and understanding. And so ir was that an audience that in
the- comext of the US south would be traditionally thought hostile to radal
integration came to embrace (on the surface at least) not only the black
brethren present but also the ideal of racial equality in the eyes of the church
and of the Lord. Now 1 happen to be in favor of almost atlywng that mitigates
the destructive, degrading, and debilitating practices of racism in the United
States and it certainly seemed to me th:;.t more may have been accomplished
on that score in one ev-ening of Pemecm;ral preaching than in two decades of
lip-service paid in my own university to ideals of affirmative action. There was,
however, a hirch. E\>1l has, apparently, [0 reside somewhere and the
denunciation of the trairorous Jews, the murderers ofJesus Christ, hovered over
the Pentecostal proceedings making me wonder how much the politics of the
occasion was also dominated by an anempt to wean away actual or potential
Mrican-}\.meric-..n supporters of Farrakhan's "Nation of Islam."
On my way out of the meeting I found myself confronted not only with a
whole battery of preadIers dying to tell me what appalling sinners they once
had been and how wondrous it was to rediscover the ways of the Lord, bur a
set of booths ~dling everyrhing from religious icons and books to T-shirts. A
particular T-clIirt caught my eye and I could not resist buying it. Produced hy
Righteous Wear, a Jesus OJr1st Centered Compan), it proclaimed in startling
colors:

me

GET RIGHT
OR
GET LEFT
Deconstructionists could have a fidd day ,"lith (hat one, 1 thought. Authority
for the logo was located, however, in Ecclesiastes 10:2 and lvfatthew 25:33-1.
Reing in the Omnl Hotd, I had instant access to Crideons Bible and, on
repairing to my room, I checked the two citations. Ecclesiastes merely stated
that God placed wisdom on His right hand and foolishness on His lett. I didn't
111ind that since being of the political left I have long recognized that it takes

Introduction

Introduction

a little foolishness to change anything. Bur the passage from Matthew was
much more horhcrsome. God separates the nations as a shepherd separates tile
sheep from the goats. And the sheep were placed on His right hand from
whence they inherited the kingdom and the goats were placed on His lefl hand
and condemned to "the eterml fire ptepared fOr the devil and his angels." Now
it is a standing joke among many of his friends dlat God i~ not a leftist
sympathizer, but condemnatio:l to such total damnation seemed a bit too
much.
So why, e).-actly, were the goats condemned to the eternal fire? The reason
given is that:
I w-...s hungry and you gave me no food, I W'aS thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe
me, sick or In prison and you did not visit mc.

The goats protest that they did not see Him hungry, thirsty, naked, slck, or in
prison. God notes that they have met such people all around them on a daily
basis and S<lys "if you did it not to the least of these, you did it not to me."
Now these happen to be rather old-fashioned, traditional, and, dare I say
it, "foundational" values fur a socialist politics. So what has happened to those
concerns? 'h'hy was there so litde talu: up on such questions in tllt: globali-zacion
conference? And how corne the religious "right" now dai..ms these concerns as
their ov.n? On this last point I immediatdy had a provocative wought. If God
is located somewhere in space then maybe what appears to be on His left is
actually to our right! This tUfns out to be a far from trivial point: Leibniz,
whose ideas I will often invoke (particularly in chapter 10), contested Newtons
theories of ahsolute space and time and insisted upon a relattonal theory of
space-time on the theological grounds that the absolute theory diminished
God's powers by making it seem as if He was located in (rather than creator
and Lord of) space ::Ind time. In the Leibnizian view it \-vould be impossible
to talk of God having a left or right hand because God is an omnipresent pov.-er
throaghollt the universe and not to be construed as someone who sits
somewhere in space and time surveying all that happens.
W'hat seems like an arcane seventeenth-century theological controversy has
a comemporaJ}' echo. In the current rush to provide "cognitive maps" of
every-dllng going on in art, politics, the humanities, literary, and social theory,
etc. (:.Happing the \~est r,ttropean Lefi, lvfapping !tleology,

Of

Locating Culture

to cite some recent book tides), the question of the relative location of variOl:S
political groupings, stances, ideas. and movements has hecome a major
crittrion of evaluation o.nd judgment. The discussion unfortunately evades tne
problem that mapping requires a map and that maps are typically totalizing,
usually two-dimensional, Canesian, and very undialectical devices with which
itis possible to propound any mixture of eATraordinary insights and monstrous

lies. hhthemati(.":ians (likt Euler and Gauss) long ago proved, for example, that
it is impossible to map even the spherical surface of the earth on a flat piece
of paper without distortion. and the history of map projec[lons (including
those of a '.:opologica1 varie:y) indicates an infinity of possible mapping sysrems
ma.king ~t possible to rr3..:"1sform left into right 00: hmh into nowhere, depending
upon the particular projec:ion chosen. This is not to say that maps are useless
- fur from it (a:1d f shall frequently appeal to them :n what follows.). But the
mapping meta?hor subsumes (and sometimes obscures) the problematics of
represenration within an often unquestioned choice to employ one particular
projection {and I deliberately use the term in hath its mathematical and
psychological sense:) rather than some other. For myself, I think the whole
rhetoric of icft versus no-ht (radical versus reactionary, progressive versus
conserv:ttive; revolutiona;;' versus counterrevolutionary) is less than helpfid
these dayS since all sorts of differer.t meanings are being assigned to those terms
(often d~pcnding upon the unspecified map deployed). IfI generally resort in
what follows to the binary of pro- or anti-capitalist (socialist) then it is partly
out of an urge to come up with somewhat cleare.r terms of diSCUSSIon, even
though, I hasten to concede, even that hinary is conhlsed enough.
B~ weaseling out of God's damning judgment through such arcane
aro-umeots (theological or otherwise) hardly seemed the point. I needed to
reflect upon how the conference on globalization (myself included),
ostensibly "radical" and leftist'" (though not remarkably anti-capitalist) in its
orientation, might help to feed the hU!1gry, clothe the naked, minister to the
sick, and generally pursue the foundational aims of socialisdanti-capitalist
politics. It is not sufficient, I concluded. t:O explore the metaphysical
groundings, the foundational beliefs, that might be applied to understanding
abstract terms as \-vell as the concrete politics of space, rime, place, and
environment (nature) in isolat:on. Such explorations should simultaneousiy
pursue a political commitment to feed, nourish, dome and susrain the hungry,
the pOOt, and :he weak. Concerns ahour social justice {and hmv [Q understand
ac.d operationalize foundational beiiefs ahout that contested term) L""ereby
i intertwine with the question of how to understand foundational geographical
: concepts.
At the intersection of aU these arguments lies the: question of me just
productron
geographic/if differences. We need critical" ways to think about
diflerences- ill ecof~ca1, cultural. economic, political, and social
conditions get produced (particularly through those hutl"..an activities that we
are in a pml[lon in principle [Q modify or control) and we also need ways to
evaluate the justice/inj usti~e of the differences so produced. \Vhile, like most
socialists, I have a certain attachment to the principle of equality, for example,
this plainly cannot mean the erasure of all forms. of geographical difference
(even presullling :mch erasure would be feasible in a world that includes Nepal,
Kicaragua, Finland, Italy, Saudi Arabia, and the United States). Indeed. the

now

o//mi

Introduction

Introduction

equality principle could juS( as easily imply the proliforation of geographical

differences of a certain benign sort (leading immediately to the question of how
to cons.true vdut is Dr is not "benign"). Uneven geographical development is a
concept deserv.ing of the closest elabonuion and attention. Furthermore, any
historical---geographical materialist worth his or her salt, must surdy recognize
that radically sliffer~nt ~Qcio-ecological cir(um.~ta'lce~_jtnptr ~~.t~_sliffe~nt
approaChes to
question of what is Dr is not just.. The basdine argument I
shal! therefore adopt - a~ ~~ment which I
will now be happy
to concede - is that ~~!ial_ agd ecologicatqiJl:~Te~_ces ;}re nor only const#uted
by but constitu#ve td\vhat 1 shall call socio-ecoiogical and potiticakl!nortlic
processes. This includes me difficult prospect that such processes are
OOllStjiutive of the very standards of social justice t..~at may he used-to evaluate
afl~rmodify -theIr -own operation. )ds iriyfoiinda~?Iia! ~Ill t~~~Cl~_solia
ooncept~:if ~pp~atuS~-t2~~!1qlJi.re into -t1_~-r~m~ss_ of such rdatiollS __ amlhow
thc ~~,_~j~~~ia; _L~__~1!!~__g~~s ,1~~~()_riEalh__ ~~A geographi_~~h::~~~~~~d.
Coincidentally, I also consider this work to be an enquiry into the
Joy.ndational principles.for an,adequate historical-googra,phig,Lr:ngteQ@gn.-i.!Jthe Marxist tradition.
A number of general themes intertwine in the chapocrs that foHow. I want
here to lay some of these out in advance as guiding threads or signposts..

me

suspecr-many

The Problem of Dialectics

I try to develop a dialectical and relational approach ro the general topic at
hand. The nature of dialectics is often misunderstood and there are, in
addition, many forms of dialectics that can reasonably claim our attention. I
therefore thought it wise to set out (in chapter 2) some initial principles of
dialectics {as I interpret them} as a guide to the theoretical-and conceptual
practice that fullows. To some, of course, the very mention of the word
dialectics sounds unpromising and unduly complicated, though to others, such
as those working in literary theory, dialectical formulations are nOV{ so
commonplace as to be old hat Resistance to this way of thinking has been
much stronger in the social sciences for obvious reasons (even laying aside the
poHtical implications. it challenges standard applications of statistical
methods and mathematical modeling procedures, not so much in terms of
actual practices but in terms of interpretations and meanings). In this regard
I find myself siding with literary theory and arguing strongly againstrhat ,"ery
large segment of social theory and of the physical. biological, and engineering
sciences that sits comfortably and often unquestioningly in a positivist or
simple empiricist mode of thought and work I would like to persuade my
colleagues in these fields that an Wlderstanding of dialectics can deepen our
understanding of socio-ecological processes in all manner of ways, without

entirely refuting or abandoning findings arrived at by other means. In

particular, I want to offer a dialectical way to emphasize relations and totalities,
as opposed to isolated causal chains and innwnerable fragmented and
sometimes contradictory hypotheses proven statistically correct at the 0.5 percent level of significance. Part of the work of the dialectician is, then, to
translate and transform other bodies of knowledge accumulated by different:
strucrures of enquiry and to show how such uansfotmarions and translations
are revealing of new and often interesting insights. There are, however, limits
to that process leaving a residue of problems and issues for which translation
is hard if not impossible. These are most clearly evident in the way fundamental
understandings are derived concerning foundational concepts such as space,
time, and nature. Since I concentrate for the most part on these foundational
topics, the difference that dialectical argument and praxis make5 ",ill be very
much in evidence throughout.

The Problem of Historical-Geographical Materialism

While dialectics is relatively weakly implanted in the social, physical, biological,
and engineering sciences, it is a familiar mode of thought in some segmencs
of the humanities, becoming particularly powerful: with the wave of
philosophizing in literary theory and the pervasive influences of Hegel, Marx,
Heidegger, Derrida, and a host of others. The relational dialectics 1 adopt has
made headway, for example, in feminist theory for imeresting reasons.
According to Friedman (1995), "cultural narratives of relational positionality"
have permitted feminists to move heyond the confines of what she calls "scripts
of denial, accusation and confeqslon" that rest on simple binaries and often
upon essentialist categories (e.g., women/good: men/had). Within a relational
framework, "identities shift ......ith a changing context, dependent upon the point
of reference" so thar there are no essences Of ahsolutes. "Identities arc fluid sites
that can be understood differently depending on the vantage point of their
fOffilation and function." I strongly support this way of thinking. But here my
argument also moves gently in contra-flow (recalling, perhaps, the power of
the simple binaries of those evangelical preachers).
The reducrjon of everything to fluxes and flows, and the consequent
emphasis upon the transi(oriness of all forms and positions has its limits. If
evef)-'thing that is solid is ahvays instantaneously melting into air, then it is very
hard to accompJish anything or even set one's mind to do anydung. Faced v.--ith
that difficulty the temptation is strong to go back to some simple
foundational beliefS (whether these be a fetishism of the f.nnily on the right
or of somethiqg called "resistance" on the left) and dismiss the process-based
arguments our of hand T believe such a maneuver would be fundamentally
:w~ong. But while I accept the general argument that process, flux, and flow

should be given a certain ontological priority in understanding the lodd, I

also w:u:t to insist that dli& is precisely the reason why we should pay so rr:.udl.
n:Ofe :.:areful attention to what I will later call the "permanences" that ~~d
u.s,_and which we also cons~ruct ~o help solidifY and give meanin,g...hQ_uur.lives.
Furr~ore, while it is formally true thar everything can be reduced (0 flows
- including, as A.~. 'X'hirehead says, Cleopatra's Needle and the Sphinx - we
are in daily practice surrounded by chingE-. insrtrutiollS, discourses, and even
states of mind of such relative permanence and power that it would be foolish
not fO acknowledge those ev.ident qualities. There is, I hdieve~ little point in
asserting some sort of "dissolution of all fixity and permanence" in the famous
"last instance" it: as far as we human beings are concerned, that last instance
is noovherc in sight. The "solid rock" ofhistorical-geographical materialism is
here used to say that dialectical argwnentation cannot be understood as outside
of the concrete material conditions of the world in which we find ourselves;
and those concrete conditions are often so set in literal concrete (at least in
relation to the time and space of human action) that we must perforce
acknowledge their permanence, significance, and power,
All of this has politic-al import. Consider, for example, Dcrrida's
extraordinary fantasy in Spectm' of.1\farx in which immersion in the Hows is
thought somehow to be radical and revolutionary in itself. The move that
makes this possible is to separate "dialectics" from aU tangible sense of
hisrorical-geographical conditions as weI) a,: from any rootedness in a tangible
and organized politics. Derrida can then envisage a "New International without
status, without tide and without name ... without party, without country.
without nationru community." This is, a.'> Eagleton (1995: 37) remarks. "the
ultimate post-srructuralist fantasy': an opposition without anyrhing as
distastefully systemic or drably 'orthodox' as an opposition, a dissent beyond
ail formulable discourse, a promise which would betray itself in the act of
fulfillment, a perpetual excited openess to the l\tfessiah who had better not let
us down by doing anything as determinate as coming."
\X'e need not only to understand but also to create permanences organization, insrl[Utions, doctrines, programs, formalized structures, and the
like - in order to change anything in any kind of meaningful or directed way.
And ir is at this point mar I part company with that genre of relational dialectics
that h~s become pure idealism. I seek a far firmer grounding to politics in dIe
concrete hislUriGtl and geographical conditions in which human action
unfulds. In this regard, therefore, I find myself writing agaimt an emerging
trend, grounded in dialectical and relational waYI> of thinking. producing what
might be called <;;a new idealism" in which thought and discourse are believed
(0 be all :hal matter in powering the historical geography of socio-t:cological
and political--economic change.

-\.-.-....,-

lnlroduction

Tntrnductum

The Problem of Theorizing

There is a great deal of talk these clap about practices of "theorizing" and of
"getting the theory right." These are concerns that I share hut I hasten to add
that it is not always easy to understand what is meant by theorizing and theory.
It stands to reason that these terms take on very special meaning when I assume
a dialectical (relational), histnrical---geographical and materialist approach to
knowledge and that the rules of theor;zing are here quite different from how
they might be construed in, say; an analytic or positivist approach. The
knowledges and theories produced by such difference means are not wholly
incompatible with each other. But nor are they directly assimilable to each
odler. The general stance I take is mat a dialectical, historical-geographical and
materialist theory, because it deals with totalities, particularities, motion. and
fixity in a certain way, holds out the prospect of embracing many other forms
of cllt:orizing within its frame, sometimes. with only minimal loss [0 the
_integrity of the original (though in other instances the losses may be
substantial). I am not concerned to justify that argument here. But t11ere is
one hne of thought that is so fundamental to what fullows that it is worth
broaching in advance.
The insertion of spatial considerations into most forms of social theorizing
(dialectical and nondialectical) often turns out to be profoundly disruptive of
how the theory can be specified and pur to work. Socia! theoretic metanarratives (such as those provided by Marx and \veber} usually concentrate
on processes of temporal change, keeping spatiality constant. If spatiality
typically disrupts received theory and dominant metanarratives, then those
who, for whatever reason, want (0 disrupt them can most easily do so by
invoking some sort of spatiality. This accounrs, I suspect, for the extraordinary
eruption of spatial metaphors in poststructuralist and posrmodemist work (the
work of Foucault being quite explicit on the point).
But here, too, I find myse1fin a somewhat odd posidon. For Vio1rile I wdcome
o.n the one hand the explosion ofinterest (again, much of it in literary rather
than social theory) in things spatial and a proliferation of texts and arguments
that wrestle with what spatiality might be all about, it has never been my
intention to me such a cor:.ceprual apparatus to attack meta-theory per se. ~1-y
concern is, ramer, with trying to rebuild !viarxian meta-theory in such a way
to incorporate an understanding of spatio-temporality (and socio-ecological
issues) within its frame. This has me writing against those uses of spatiality
and of sp<>.tial metaphor whose sole purpose seems to be to take unreconcilable
o-'difference, incommunicability, particularity, and irreducible individualism and
-fix- dIem in stone.
It has never been my point to argue that spatiality makes theory impossible:
--I want-to reconstruct theory with space (and the "relation to narur~") clearly
integrated within it as foundational elements. The only way (0 do that is to

as

10

Introduction

introduction

theorize what might be meant

by the production of space" in particular or,

more generally, "the production of nature." Such a project .is not without its

difficulties {as the length and intricacy of some of the argument in this book
illustrates}. But we should and, I think, do end up with a very diffirent kind
of understanding of how theory should be construed and what a "meta-theory"
should look like. I believe it possible. on r:his basis, to construct a general theory
of dialectit:al and historical geographical materialism.

11

that values are or can he held (;OllStant). In some areas of science, as we shall
see, this dialectical/relational view of the inevitable fusion of facts and values
has undergone a revival of sorts, as multiple contestations have arisen over, for
example, how ro interpret quantum theory.

Th.~!!L!.,hesL<!]~c~ti:s, 1~ se~~mC::E to r9?l~~_~s!i,,~.~J~::.

of "valucs" wirh an understanding orprocesses of v;ruation. ' Once we come

tQ apprecIate hOVi
and why certain Iill1dSOIpcnnanence~rct.!ll~rrc~d in p;:ttticw.ar placeS--~

SUCIlproassesoperaie,wecanaIsct6etterundefStalldh;

and~~~~d;;"~iiiants~i vai~~m~~i~p;;.:weWil1in~

The Question ofYalues and the Nature of Justice

Situating oneself in the full flood pfall the flu= and flows of social change
rn:akesrppeart~~y:p;~~tt of~u';~v"~th:.wniClt~t(t:an'in:ra;~tt!&:~llective

()r-WeIG""di~d-social action- suspect. This is not a new thought. Sometime

'--,_....------

towards the end of thc second century. camped along the misty. ague-plagued
regions of the Danube, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, trying 'tainly to hold
back the barbarian hordes that threatened the borders and the permanence of
the Roman Empire, wrote in his 1l-feditatiom:

One thing hastens into being, another hastens oUt of it. Even while a thing is
in the act of coming into existence, some part of it has already ceased to be.
Flux and change are for ever renevo--ing the fabric of the universe .... In such a
running river, w3ere there is no finn foothold, what is there fur a m;m lu value
among all the many things that are racing past him?
It is not :hard in these times to empathize with the question. But the question
cannot be evaded~ not despite but because of all the manifest insecurities and
volatilities in the political economy of daily life and the parallel preocrupation
in radical segments of the humanities and the arts with emphasizing (even
hypostashing) the instabilities offluxes and flows. It is in this realm of "values"
that comerva:ive and religious thought has its strongest appeal, precisely
because the p~esumption of permanence (in culture) or of eternal truths (in
religion) gives a stability to values that tadical thought finds hard to acknowledge. Bur meaningful political acrion (and, for that matter, even meaningful
analysis) cannot proceed without some embedded notions of value, if only a
determination as to what is or is oat imporram to analyze intellecrually let alone
to struggle for politically.
In some forms of enquiry, of course, the distinction between "facts'" and
"values" is held to be sacrosanct. To permit values to enter into the domain of
scientinc objective enquiry, for example, is often seen [0 taint all evidence and
results and render then: suspect or useless. In the dialecticallrelational view,
the separation of facts and values: is impossible to achieve (except by sleight of
hand or "within certain strictly limited domains where it may reasonably be beld

subscribe. In what follows, therefore. there is a constant preoccupation with

~_~"sf~~1?fu=h~~~J.._~~J!~~m<i'12~,~l-]ir,eI:!?~e:~~ of,
retau"Ve1y permanent \cUues can be or have been ~nstructed as pivots toiaIVerse ...,

f~;OfsOCl,?:!g!1,~iql9n7Lir~~iUfdO~btl~;~tlce:Tor;xaffip1e:"" '

me "perpetual reruni" to considerations of money as a. dominant symbol of a

process of valuation that affects us all~ I had at one point toyed with the idea
of raking ali the passages mat dealt v-lith money and assembling them into one

chapter. But, in the end. it seemed more appropriate to let the question of
money permeate the various chapters in much the same way that it penneates
almost every facet of socio-ecological~ personal, and collective life in the world
we have now constructed. The process of money valuation is, it transpires,
simultaneoLLSly a process definiflg space, time, environment, and place and I
shall endeavor to unravel trutt connection in some detail.
But money is not the only Way in which the process of valuation can be
understood. The relatively permanent configurations of ""'<lInes around family,
gender. religion, nation, ethnic identity, humanism. and various ideals of
morality and justice, indicate
existence of quite different and sometimes
amagonistic processes of valuation. How these difterent processes: can be
reconciled. is in itself a major topic of enquiry (and nor a little hemusement,
as
Evangelical Pentecostal example of selling righteous wear" through a
"Jesus Christ Centered, Company" iUustrates). The Poo-'e{' of money, fur
example. can be used to support other processes of valuation. Bur it can also
undermine them and come into conflict with them. In what follows, such
conflicts will be the occasional focus of attention. And if I ultimately converge
on the value "social justice" as a central concern it is only in part for personal
historical teasons (it allows me to revisit the terrain of my nrst "Marxist" work,
~'5ocial Justice and the City, written more than two decades ago). I also firmly
.believe that this is die best terrain of valuing upon which the anti-capitalist
~.rrusgle can take its stand (no matter whethet that struggle is weakly reformist
'as in the "Blairism" of the British Labour Party or more revolutionary as
implied by the environmental justice movement) .
.. While, therefore, it may be true, as that old reprobate Lawrence Durrell once
that "life consists of perpetual choosing and the perpetual
'-reservation of judgement," a political movement has to make its choice and

me

me

12

Introduction

Introduction

not reserve irs judgment. This was, I bdie-..'C, the central difference between
the Evangelical Pentecostals and the globalization conference - the former had
no reservations of judgment whereas finding and expressing such reservations
IS the name of the game in many intellectual modes of though! and practice.
r~tUl values, like the Sphin..x, will ultimately dissolve and it is particularly hard
given the swift-flowing currents of change to settle on any particular set of core
values for very long. fim we havt: no option except to articulate values and stick
by them if emancipatory change is to be produced. Values inhere in socio}. spatial processes, furthermore, and the l>truggle to dlange the former is
j simultaneously a struggle to change the latter (and vice venia). And it is precisely
{ at this point thar the human imaginary has to be deployed to its full force in
quest for progressive socio-ecological and political-economic change.

II

L7he

The Politics of Possibility

One of the viruses of a dialecticaiirelational approach is that iE opens up all
sorts- of possibilities that might otherwise appear foreclosed. It doe.: iiO in the
first instance in the realms of thought and discourse and far this reason it can
be the fount for all manner of Utopian ,schemes and fantas"ies (of the sort that
Derrida has recently offered). But I also regard iE important, theoretically and
poli[ically. to root the sense of those possibilities in the mass of constraints [hal
derive from our embeddedness in nature, space-Eime, place and a particular
kind of socio-ecological order (capitalism) that regulaxc:s the material conditions of daily life.
TIllS is no remDte or arcane issue. For just a" the Evangelical Pentecostal
preachers \vere building a political force by appeal to religious conviction to
build the city of God hen:: un earth, so we find a variety of pro-capitalisl:
policical mavemems animated by articulation of some sort of Utopian vision.
I turn, for example. to a report in the Nev..! York Times (Augcst 23, 1995) on
a conference on "Cyberspace and the American Dream." Alvin Toffier, author
of The Third Wave. was an important presence at the conference. He argues
that a "'third wave" information-based revolution is replacing "second wave"
industrialism and is now in the process of forming a "civilization wim,it5 own
distinctive world outlook, its own ways of dealing with time, space, logic, and
causaliry." This in itsdfis an in:-eresring theme; but ifTofficr is right, then the
processes and rules producing historical-geographical difference are also
presumably undergoing a revolutionary shift. Now it 50 happens that Tomer
is a widely read "postindustrial" and "Utopian" thinker. He is also politically
influential Ncv,.1: Gingrich, Republican leader of the US House ofRcprcscnratives, has adopted Tomer as one of his "'gurus" and has evolved a r-evoJutionary
rheroric in which the dismantling of the institutional structures of the
regulatory and welfare state IS seen as an imperative prelude :0 the liberation

13

of emancipatory "'third wave" forces now supposedly hemmed in by the

institutions, practices. and decrepit power s.tructures of a fading era of "second
wave" industrial capiralism. The press repoct in the New York Times continues

by stating that a new coalition offorees (from hoth left and right of the political
spectrum) is organizing "to harness the brightest minds of high technology and
use their collective brainpower 1:0 assist Mr Gingrich as he tries ro reshape the
nations political and economic landscape in preparation fOr the information
revolution." And there are many who now believe rh:ir an emanciparory
revolution in political economy, in social relatior:s, in the explorations of
identity, semantic worlds, and artIstic forms is being born out of the capacity
to create a "vIrtual" reality in cyberspace. Gingrich wonders, furthermore, if
it might be possible to distribute laptop computers ro every child in America
as a solution to all social and economic ills and a columnist in the Baltimore
Sun argues that the way out of rhe long-term structural unemployment and
confinement of human talents in the desolate public housing projects of the
inner city lS through access to the entrepreneurial possibilities of the Internet.
There is more than a him of an ott-criticized and, some vmuld say, quite
"vulgar" Marxist view of history in all of this: only liberate the contemporary
"'productive forces" (technologies) from their socio-economic ane political chains
(government regulation) and let the liberties of the market take command, the
argument runs, and all will be well with the world. fvIuch of the revolutionary
power and wide5pread appeal of the hegemonic pro-capitalist version of this
Utopian argument derives, I suspect, from the beguiling simplicity of rhis
vulgar Marxist formulation (part~cularly when articulated with the clarity and
conviction of someone like lviargaret Thatcher or Newt Gingrich).
The connection benveen this "'right-wing Utopianism" and political pnwer
and practice is significant. Even if it is a far from dominant argument (eyen
within the right) it is a potent pro-capitalist weapon with which to go to work
against a whole array of fOrces that would, in the name of equaliry, justice,
morality, or just plain political--economic and ecological common S>.-Dfi5-e, seek
to curb, regulate, and diminish all the manifest excesses for which capitalism
is jusdy infamous. The connection also highlights the difficulry of anticapiralist politics. Unable to deploy its own Utopian vislon (though there are
plenty of mini-versions), anti-capitalisE politics lacks the power to animate.and
. llicibilize a mass movement on J. global basis. That was not true of The
_:.-:. Communist .LUani{esttJ, but, as I think Marx. would himsdf be the first to
-~:apl)feciate, we ~not seek the poetry of our future in the parrlcular poetry of
EI::at past, however appealing it still may be. And while it may seem insulting
.JQ in"dllde Derrida and Tomer in the same sentence, both provide Uwpian
~'YJ:'Iions. but the latter, in part by his s.implici(y. clarity and seeming rootedness
')n~the materiality of the world, is proving far more effective at changing it.
.
of Marx's well-known antipathy to Utopian t:hink.ing, it may seem
cc;~~.. Strililge to include him in a discussion of this son. But Marx produced a certain

14

Introduction

Introduction

kind of Utopianism that he was most anxious to keep separate from other
varieties. \Vhen he writes in Capital that "what separates the worst of architects
from the best of bees" is (hac the former erects his structure in imagination
before giving it material form" he opens a creative space for the human
imagination to phy both a constructive and a key role. \Vben he writes in the
Eighteenth Brumaire, that each revolutionary movement has to crea.te its own
poetry particularly in those situations v.-nere
""content" (the process of
revolutionary change) outstrips "the phrase" (the capacity to represent W1W is
happening), then he indicates a task for the revolutionary imagination that it
is essential to fulfill. This raises the que<;tion for aU of us: what kind of
architecture (in the broadest possibJe sense of that term) do we collectively want
to create for
socia-ecological \\-'Orld in which we have our being? Not to
pose that question is to evade the most crucial task confronting all forms of
human action. It is with this in mind that I struggle to find foundational
concepts fOr the human imaginary to contemplate our embeddedness in space,
time, nature, and place.

me

me

I have struggled in what follows to wriLe as clearly as simply as 1 <:an often on

diffic:'ut and complicated subjects. But we can never wrire (to paraphrase Marx)
under historical or geographical conditions of our own making. As the
conference on globalizauon indicated, the proliferating influence of what are
loosely called "poststructuralist" and "postmodernis{' -ways of thinking and
writing makes it parricularly hard these days to hnd anything as mundane as
a common language fOr expression, particular~y in academi:;.. Ye( the highly
specialized and distinctive languages thar have heen evolved these last 30 ytars
often have something vcry impon-ant ro say. I have therefore OITen found mysdf
forced (somerimc~ with good effect) to take up such languages ami ttTUlS, if
only to givc due consideration to what are serJOUS arguments worthy of equally
seriolls scrutiny. And in some instances I have found it useful to intern:llize
wirhin my m~n text certain specialized languages as privileged modes of
expression of particular hut important standpoims. Partly for tills rcason, I
decided to devote a whole chapter to the topic of"discourse'" in order to clarify
my ovm discursive strategies while trying to position the role of the rapidly
proliferating modes of representation in processes of socio-ecological and
politica1--economic change. In other imrallces, mos( particularly in the
Jevdopmenr of the relational rheory of space and time in chapter 8; I had no
option excepr to engage with metaphysics at a fairly high le-vel of abstracaon.
Foundational concepts do noc come easily and, as Ivbrx commented in one
of his many prefaces to Capital the difficulties that arise cannot easily be
brushed aside. This is, he went on to remark:

wa

a disadvantage I am pm.v-erless to overco:ne, unless it be by forewarning

forearming lbose readers who zealously seek the truth. There .is no royal road

15

to science. and cnti those who do not dread the fatiguing dimb of its steep paths
have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.

I hope that those who climb the path will find the summit as illuminating as

I do.

an

Not
historical and geographical conditions of existence are inhibiting [Q
the production of new ways of chinking. I want to acknowledge the peculiarly
&...'Urable conditions that have allowed my own work to proceed. One of the
great privileges of university life is to sec up and co-reach course; in such a way
as to be able to learn from a variety of very talented people working in diverse
fidds. I want to thank GoA. Cohen. Andrew Glrn. l\eil Hertz, Bill Leslie.
Kirstie McClure, Emily ivfartin, Erica Schoenberger, Erik Sw-yngedouw,
Katherine Verdery~ Gavin Williams, and Reds Wolman fur providing an opportunity for extended dialogue through sllch a ronnat, It is a similar privilege to
work with some extraordinarily talented graduate students who struggle gamely
to educate me in matters that 1 might otherwise be deeply resistant to. 11u:y
wi1l doubtless throw lip their hands in ITuscratlon at roy failure to take on board
everything they have said o but my work has been immeasurably strengthened
by their contributions. I include here the Oxford contingent of Clive Barnett,
Maarren Hajer, ArKlfo Loukaki, Andrew Merrifield, Adrian Passmore and
Mike Sam=, and Felicity Callard. Lisa Kim Davis and Melissa Wright in Johns
Hopkins. Over the years T have been able to present my ideas in innumcrable
seminars, meerihgs, and wotkshops and I want to thank all of those - and there
were many of them - who on such occasions responded. with tough and fairminded questions and criticisms. Some of the material~ presented here have
also been published (in whole or in part) in books and journals and the many
editorial comments received have also been helpful. Working '!A>ith Sallie Davies
of rhe BBe on a series of radio programs abo proved to be a great learning
e,,--perience. Among my close colleagues and friends. some of whom have at
various times looked at and commented on the work in progress, I want to
thank Kevin _Archer, Patrick Bond, Mike Johns, Vicente Navarro, Ric Pfeffer,
13enell OIlman, Erica Schoenberger. Erik Swyngedouw, and Dick Walker. I
Jaost particularly want to thank Neil Smith for rescuing the whole project from
oblivioll with hi~ patient encouragement when days became very dark and
. ,_prospects for closure very bleak and John Davey of Blackwell Publishers tor
.:.-h,is _ pacience, ellcouragcmem, and lively interest in the ptO.iect. These may nor
",he the best of times, but friends and colleagues of this caliber make absolutely
,
that it is not tht worst of times ei~her. Finally, all my love goes to
Delfina with whom it has been possible to explore W;1YS ofthought
that are inuueasurably richer than those I could ever hope to achieve

PART!

Orientations

1
Militant Particularism and Global
Ambition

I. Local Militancy and the Politics of a Research Project

TweCI-Y Years On, Punch, A:Jg'Jsr 8th, 1928.

T~e

l"yJansell Collec::ion.

In 1988, shortly after taking up a position in Oxford, I became involved in a

research project concerning the fate of the Rover car plant in that city. Oxford,
particularly for outsiden;, is usually imagined as a. city of dreaming spires and
university grandeur, but as late as 1973 the car plant at Cowley in east Oxford
employed some 27,000 worker,), compared to Ie:;s than 3,000 in the employ
of the university. The insertion of the Morris Motors car plant into the
medieval social fabric of the city early in the century had had enormous effects
~pon the political and economic life of the place, paralleling almost exactly
the rhree-stage: padl to socialist consciousness set out in The Ccrmmunist
-,-Wanifesto. Workers had steadily been massed together over the years in and
~ouna the ,car plant and its ancillary installations, had become conscious of
'.:theIr own interests and built institutions (primarily rhe unions) to defend and
p~mote those interests. During the 19305 and again in the 19605 and early
~979s, the car plant was the focus of some of the mo'St virulent class :-;tfuggles
future of the industrial rclarions in Brimin. ] 'he workers' movement
'~il","ltall<,o'lsly created a powerful po~itIcal instrument in the form of a local
Party that ultimately assumed continuous contra] of the local council
980. But by 1988 rationalizations and cut-hacks had reduced (he work
around 10,000; by 1993 it was down to less than 5,000 (as opposed
,000 or so then in the employ of the university). The threat of total
:the car plant vras never far away.
the Cowley story, The Factory and the City: The Story ofthe C<lW/ey
in Oxford, edited by Teresa Hay---rer and myself was published late
originared in research work conducted in support uf a campaign
>S!:.,crosul-ethat began in 1988, when British Aerospace {RAe) acq',lired the
,,"0' "OIr.p,any in a sweetheart privatizarion deal from the Thatcher

20

Orimt4tiom

MilitaflJ Partk'ularism and Global Ambition 21

government. Partial dO:iure and rationalization at the plant was immediately

announced and the prospect of asset-stripping or even tOtal closure loomed.
Land values i" Oxford were hig\' and BAc, with the property boom in full
flood, acquired a property development company specializing in the creation
ofhusiness parks (.A.rlingron Securities) in 1989. The fear was that work would
be transferred to Longbridge (Birming..~am) or, worse still, to a greenfield
nonunion site in Swindon (where Honda was already involved in coproduction arrangements "rith Rover) releasing the Oxford land for lucrative
redcvdopr.lent [hat would offer almost no prospects [or employment to a
community of several thousand people that had evolved over many years :0
serve the car plan:. RAe's subsequent pro:5mble sale of Rover to BMW (while
Arlingwn retained the released land) shows the fears were not groundless.
An initial meeting to discuss a campaign agains[ closure drew representatives from many sectors. It was agreed to set up a resemch group to provide
information on 'wha( was happening and what the effects of any mOVE!) hy BAt
might be on the work force and on the Oxford economy. The Oxford ~Ol?r
Industry Research Project (OMIRP) was formed and I agreed to cha:r It.
Shordy'thereafter, the union leadership in the plant withdrew its support for
both
campaign and the research, and most of the Labour members on the_
city council followed suit. The research was then left w a small group ot
independent researchers mainly based in the Oxford Polytechnic (now Oxford
Brookes University) and Oxford University, aided by dissident shop~steward.s
or ex-workers from Cowley.
For personal reasons I was not active in the campaign nor did I engage m.ll.ch
\\;th the initial research. I did help to publicize
results and to mobilIze
resources for the research project which the union leadership and the ma~~rjty
of the local Labour Party actively tried to stop - they did not want anything
to 'rock the boat' in thelr 'delicate negotiations' with BAe over the future of
the plant and the si,e. Fortuitously. OMIRP produced a pamphlet: C0U;iey
Works, at the very moment when BAe announced another 'h<lye of ratl0naltzations that would cut the work force in half and release half of the land for
redevelopment. The hi~-rOIY of the plant together with the story of the struggle
to launch a campaign and the dynamics of the subsequent run-down are well
described in the bouk.
Teresa Hayter, the coordiriator of 01viIRP,. received a research fellmvship at
St Peter's College in 1989 to pull togemer a book about the history of l.A}wley,
the faiied campaign, and the political problems of mobilizing resistance to the
arbitrary actions of corporate capital. The book involved the formatIon of a
broad-based group, Each contributor produced a chapter (or chapters) on
topics with which they were most familiar. Each chapter was. read by others
and comments went back and forth until a final version was arrived at. T agreed,
partly for purposes of making the book more attractive to prospectlve.publ~~,
to be a co-editor of the book with Teresa Hayter. This meant that In additIon

to the one chapter I co--authored, I spem: quite a lot of time, along ~'ith Hayter,

editing. commissioning new segments to ensure full coverage, and generally

trying to keep the book as a whole in view v.Me attending ro the parts.
The book is a fa<;cinating document. It brings together radically different
positionalities - varying from an unnamed shop-steward in the plant, others
who had worked there or who had h..--en long-term residents of ea"t Oxford,
as wdl as acade~ics. planners and independent leftists" The language differs
radically from chapter to chapter. The activist voice em~nating from the plant
experience contrasts with the more abstract judgments of the acadew..ics, for
example, while the perspective from the community reads differently from the
perspective of the production line. In the preface V,re argued that the heterogeneity of voices and of styles was a very particular strength of the book.
It was early evident, hO.'eVer, that the many contributors had quite different
political perspectives and interpretations. Initially, these differences were
negotiated through; everyone trod warily through a minefield of differences
in order to get to the orner side with a completed book The difficulties arose
w:th the conclusion. I proposed two condusions, one by Hayter and one by
mvsdf, so that readers might get a better hand1c on the political differences
~d be left to judge for themselves. This W3..<; rejected, And .~o I drafted a
conclusion based on various ideas put fonvard by several members of the group.
That draft conclusion succeeded in exploding almost every mine that had been
negotiated in the writing of the book. Matters became extremely tense,
difficult, and sometimes hostile between Hayter and me, with the group to
some-degree polarized around us.
In the midst of these intense arguments, I recall a lunch in St Peter's College
at:which Hayter challenged me to detine my loyalties. She was very dear about
hers.- They lay with the militant shop-stCVi<"afds in the plant, who were not only
on
laboring under the most appalling conditions but daily
suueJ(ling to win back control from a reactionary union leadership so as to
basis for socialism. By contrast, she saw me as a free-floating
}furist imtellectual who had 00 particular loyalties to anyone. So where did
'.rnylO)'altles' lie?
a stunning question and I have had to think about it a great deal since.

the

me

and

'--

....\,;~~~r:l~~I~:re~c:al~lt'arguing that while loyalty

to those still employed in the

there were many more people in east Oxford who had
had no prospects for employment (for example, alienated
disco,ht"ntoo young people some of whom had taken to joy-riding bringing
\iinlaltZation and police oppression for the ",,-hole commlilliry ir. their wake)
equal time. l~Jl along, I noted, Hayter had. treated my concerns
of community as a parallel force to the politics of [he workplace
I further thought that some consideration should be given to
of"bcialiism in Oxford under conditions in which the working-class
. th" f.. ,J been built around the plant were plainly weakening and

22

Orientatian.J

Militant Particularism and GlvbalAmbition

even threatened with elimination. This meant the search for some broader
coalition of force; bom to support the workers in the plant and [0 perpetuate
the socialiSt cause. I also thought it would be disloyal not to put a cricical
distance between us and what had happened in order to better undersmnd why
the campaign hac failed ill take off. Hayter refused to countenance anything
that sounded critical of the strategy of -;:he campaign and like'Ntse rejected any
perspective mat did not: accept as its basis the critical struggle for power on
the shop-floor of the plant.
But all ."orts of other issues divided us. Deteriorating work conditions in the
plant, for example, made it hard to argue unequivocally for me long-term
preservation of what were in effect "shit-jobs>'" even though it was plainly
imperative to defend such jobs in the short-run because t..here were no reasonable alternatives. The issue here was not Lo subordinate short-term actions to
long-term pipe-dreams, bm to point out how difficult it is to move on a longtefm trajectory when short-term exigencies demand something quite different. I was also roncemed about the incredible overcapacity in the automobile
industry in Britain as well as in Europe in general. Something was going (0
have to give ,~ome"'nere and some way had to be tound to protect workers'
Interests in general without falling into the reactionary poHdcs of the "new
realism'" then paralyzing official union politics. But across what space sho~d
that generality be calculated? Britain? Europe? The world? I found myself
arguing for at least a European-wide perspective on adjusnnents in automobile
production capacity, but found it hard to juscify- stopping at that scale when
pressed. There were also important ecological issues to be considered eeriving
not only from the plant itself (the paint shop w.:IS a notorious pollution source)
but also from the natUl'e of the product. 1-faking Rover cars for the
rich
and so contributing to ecological degradation hardly seemed a worthy longterm socialist objective. The ecological issue ought not to be ducked, I fdt,
even though it was plain that the bourgeois north Oxford. heritage interests
would likely use it to get rid of the car plant altogether if giY""...u the chance.
The problem of time-horizon and class: interests. needed to be explicitly debated
rather man buried. Furthermore, while I would in no way defend the appalling
beha.vior of BAe, I did think it relevant to point out that the company had
lost about one-third of its stockmarket value in the first few months of 1992
and that its hopes for a kiiHng on the property market had been seriously
diminished in the property crash of 1990. This posed queslions of new forms
of public or community control over corporate activity (such as BAe's tum to
property speculation as an alternative to production) that would nor repeat
the bitter history of nationa1i7.3.tion (such a.<i die disastrous rationalizations and
reordering of j~b strucrures already suffered by Rover, when it was British
Leyland in the 1970s).
I felt it would be disloyal to the conception of socialism not to talk aboL:t
all of these issues in the conclusion. Not. I hasten to add, with the idea that

wtra

23

they could be resolved, but because they opened a. terrain of discllssion implicit
in the materials assembled in [he book. Such a conclusion wocld keep options
open and help readers consider active choices across a broad telT2in of possibilities while paying proper attention to the complexities and difficulties. But
Ha~'ter feJt~ even though she partially agreed on the long-term significance of
such ideas, that discussing them would dilute
immediate struggle to keep
jobs in Cowley and prevent their transfer to a greenfield nonunion site in
S-windon. The is:;ue:i I wanttd to raise could he attended to, she held, only
vroen the work Orce and the progressive stewards had regained their strength
and power in the workplace.
I Was operating, it became plain, at a different level and with different kinds
of abstraction. Bur the impetu:i for the campaign. the research, and the book
did not come from me. It arose OUt of the extraordinary strength and power
of a tradition of union militancy emanating from the plant. This tradition had
its OVO'Il version of -internationa1i~m and presumptions to universal truth,
although a case could be made that its capture and ossification by a rather
narrow Trotskyist rhetoric was as much a part of the problem as the rome
fundamental conflict between Hayrer's and my perspective. But it would be
vo;rong CO depict the argument in sectarian teflilli. For the issue of a purdy plantbased -versus a more-encompassing politi.;:s was always there. I could not
aha:ndon my loyalty to the 1x:lief that the politics of a supposedly unproblematic-extension outwards from the plant of a. prospective model of a total :iOcial
transformation is fundamentally Hawed. The view that what is right and good
from the-standpoint of
militant shop-stewards at Cowley; is right and good
for: the city, and by eXTension, for society ar large is far TOO simplistic. Other
levds:-and kinds of abstraction have to be deployed if socialism is to hreak out
loea.l bonds and become a viable alternative to capitalism as a working
-,-,,-,~- '-', production and social relations. Bm there is something equally
r~~~'l~~~t~cabout imposing a politics guided by abstractions upon people who
of their lives and labor over many years in a parrirular v..ray in a

me

me

"--)(j-'wn"t.I,,,,,,1 and what kinds of abstraction should be deployed? And what

be loyal ro abstractions rather than to actual people? Beneath
qUlest'Olls lie others. What is it that constitutes a privileged claim to
how can we judge, understand, adjudicate. and perhaps
h<rmivh different knowledges coru;uucteJ at very diIferent levels of
radically different material conditions?

iltl!"'",,,, to

tJtaYlruJmd Williams and the Politics of Abstraction

re.~"es1iolosthat preoccupied Raymond Williams, erupting frequently
.",,n(,u';I!, foe reasons that will shortly become apparent, they are

188

The .J'Vtlt'.1re o[Environment

that they were and continue w be somehow "closer to nature" than -we are (even
Guh~1., i~ seem to me, falls into this trap). Faced with the ecological ,rulnerahility
ofren associated y,rlrh such "p:-oximity to cature," indigenous groups can
transfotm bOTh their pnctices a:ad their views of naU:re "'lith startling rapidity.
Further:nore, even when armed with all kinds of cultural traditiol1S and
symboHc gestures dnt indicate deep respect for the spirituality in nature, they
can engage in extensive ecosystemic transforma(ions that undermine Their
ability to co:l!llUe with a given mode of production. The Chinese may have
ecologically sensitive traditions of Tao, Buddhism, and Confucianism
(traditioru of thought which have played an important role in promoting an
"ecological consciousness" in the west) hut the historical geography of
deforestation, land degradation. river erosion, and flooding in China CO!1tains
not a few environmental events which would be regarded as catastrophes by
modern-day standards. Archeological evidence likewise suggests that late iceage hunting groups bunted many of their prey to extinction while fire must
surely rate J;<j one of the most fur-reaching ~gents of ecological transformation
ever --acquired, allowing very small groups to exercise immense ecosystemic
influencc (Sauer, 1956),
The: point here is not to argue that there is nothing new under tbe sun
--about the ecological disturbance generated by human accivities, but to assess
what exactly is new and unduly stressful, gjven the unprecedented rapidity
and scale of coutempora.ry soclo-ecologiul transformations. But histodcalgeographical enquiries of this sort also put in perspective those claims typically
advanced by some ecologists -cl13.( once upon a time "'people everywhere knew
how 1:0 live in harmony with [he natural world" (Gold.-,;mith 1992: xvii) and
to view with sk~pticis~ Bookchin's (1990a: 97) equally dubious claim rhat a
relatively self-sufficient commurutyo visibly dependent on its environment for
the means of life, would gain a new r~spect for the organic interrelationships
that sus:ain it." Much comemporary ecologically conscious" rheroric pays far
too much attemion to what indige:lOus groups say without looking at what
-;:hey do. We cannot conclude, for example, that native-American practices are
ecologically superior to ours from statemea[s such as those of Luther Standing

Bear that:
We are of the soil and the.wi( is of us. We love the birds -and the beasts tnat
grew with us on rhis soil. They drank the same water as we did and breathed
the same air. We are all one itl nature. Believing so, ther:~ ,vas in our heans a
great peace and. a wellingkindrn:ss for all living, growing things. (Ci[edio Booth

and Jacobs, 1990: 27)

The inference of"bener and rr.ore harreonious ec.o1ogical practices" from state-"
ments of this sort would require heliefin either some external spirirual guidance,
to ensure ecologically "right" outcomes, or :an nlraorilinary omniscience in

T
i

_.

TheD'1e
'
,
1a ctJ.es a/Sonal and Environmental Change
189

m~genous or pre-capiralistic judgments and

'.
actton thaT L... I1SU8Jly plagued b _an
f pI.aCtlce~ in a dynamic field. of
possibility of over-exploita-tio Y f manner 0 . umntended consequences. "The
,
f
n 0 a resource IS perfeccl
'bl
nouon 0 peoples living cl
'
Y compau e v;,.;th our
ose to nature observmg d.
.
Hail
a and Levins, 1992: 195) Funh~
'" an a~ng accordingly"
(
suggested that all high civilizat' 'th . nnore, comparatlVe studies have
IOns at Incorporated i t
'Ii '
were metastable 'and that th '
h.
n ensl cation stratep-it:.s
eu growt tra)ecto'
b '
0of accelerating energy atnl ti
h ' TIes can e mterpreted as those
.
",c on, to t e pomt (hat both th
socIOeconomic structures were st t h d
.
e ecosystem and the
,
re c e to capacIne with t d
d I' ,
absoJute calonc productivi and in lit
. ,>>>
s ea yor ec Inmg
societies have had their shtyare f Pj ~ultlPubtratlos (Butzer, 1982: 320),."J1
o eco oglca y ased difficul '
goes on to assert. we have much to )
&
tIes and. as Butzer
lnill
..,
earn om studying them,
. ~nous or pre-capitalist practices are not th.,. fO
.
Dr mfenor to our own J'm1: be
ch
,ere fe, necessanly superior
cause su groups posses~ di
h
respect Eo r nature rather than the
d"P
,scourses t at avow

rno ern
romethean"
. d fd
non or mastery (see Leiss 1974) G
dm
atUtu eo ominaargument con~a Benton (' 1989' I' 99r~) h anhn (19~la) ~ surely correct in his
I '
'
- t att e theSIS of"
mastery o\'er nature"
( aylllg aside its gendered overt;nes 6 h...
destructiveness' it can J'ust
'jor1t '-- momen9 does not necessarily entail
,
'
_=y~m~'
'
practlces. It was. as we have alread n
. fig. ~lng> and nurruring
tradition to assert "'maste
.' h Y ored, precIsely the Intent of the esrhetic
,.
ry Wit our tyranny" with respect th
."
to e nacural world.
U'ncnucal acceptance of "'ecolo 'call _
furthermore he poll"I'call
d' Y consCIOUS- sounding statements c':)n
,
l
V mmea mg L h
S ill
--'?
thoughts cited above with th _
~ er tan ng Bear prefaced. the
very
grearplainsisdaimedbyth Leak
POhitl. argument that <{this land of the
e
otaastruve
"N'
well have strong claims t i d 'ghry own.
attve-Arnericans may
.
oanIlts,totheus"'fthlds'
mnemoruc upon which to h d h . sense
." 0.
e an cape as a
creation of an "ecological!
an. t e;r h
. of hlStoncai id.entit-y, but the
} conscJOus r etonc abo t
. '1-----'
.
h
u a pnvi '-5"--U relation to
the Jand to SUppOTt them lS,
as
we
ave
already
arg
d,
all
.
ue an -too-familiar and
dangerous praccice,

i..

record

- Inspection of the historical

ra hia1
. , words like "nature" and "env' -geog"P C
reveals much about why
ltonment contam "such
d'
of_, h uman history" (W'W
an extraor mary amount
ecological
. ~ ,ttms~ 1 ~80: 67). The intert'i\>inings of social and
; ; . a[ y practices as well as in the realms
f d 1
:
, e s encs, and the like are such as to
ak 0 I eo~,
; _
literary or artistic) project
.
b
m ~ every SOCIal
'.
and vice versa.. S~lch a pr::~7~:ash::r~ature, enVIronment, and
,
in th-" h'
'al
.. 0
not, surely, be too hard

matenahst tr a d'IUon
,
all t"h . '- lstonc
.
to swallow. !vfarx
.
' .. at we can dIscover who and h
'pi>te,,,j,1 eV"ffi) only through transformin th... w at we are (our s~ecies
put the dialecti~ of social d
19"cl world around us and III so
change at the center of all
. . - __ history. But is there some an eco Ogl
that dialectical evolutI.
way to create a general enough language to
onary movement?

:1
,
'I

190

The Dialectics olSocial and EntJironmentai GJimge

The Nllt;o.J,re of EnvironmerJt

I
':

HI. Towards an Evolutionary View

.
1 guage than we currently possess for
We badly need a much mo~.~rufied an
that resides witn the social
, ..
stbllirv Iowa rds nature
L
f
exercising the Jom! respon.
.
f th oity of science Has, 0
.'
.. _1'
The questlOri 0 e u

and biologlGWphySK'" SClences.

I
b Marx (1964). But senous
d anvumes- llot east Y
b . h
"d h ever a biological asIS as
course, been b roache m , .
.
the social theory 51 e W ~n
fo d d
h
I ' 1 d th ~ way social Darwinism un e
problems ave ar:tsen on

been invoked (familiar exa..-np es mCl~ e C

red in the debate over sociont n!lrficularlv as applied
Nazism the profound social antagOnIsms ?enera

____ 1' .
f h
genIcsmoveme );'-,
. al science side has otten been to
bjology and the disIDiU h1Story 0 t e cu
.
)
The
response
on
t h e soc! .
d
to mdal categoflC\.
I . _.1 ide of social projt:Cts an act
- tion of the e<.:o OglGU s
th.
retreao: from any exaroma
'f h had to be consuued as. some mg
as if these eimer did not matter or as Ith~ ::.: . not satisfactory and that ways
r.

1 want to argue at uus is

1
"external 'to enqwry.
langu
then means to trans ate
n
have to be found to cr:ate if ~o: ahcommo dange;!~ territory- an open field
.
. d roams. ThiS 15, owe:ver,
d.
across discurSive 0
dial . __ I ode~ of thinking - an It may
r
ther
than
ectlcaJ
m
~
h
' I
h
for organicist or 0 lmc ra ,
.
l 'cal stances on borh t e sow,
. deep shifts in ontologlCal and epISternO OgI
reqUire
. : C 'd
if it is to succeed.
and namral SClentlllC S1 eS,
f all thought about how to
But the territory cannot be. l~ e~Pdtyl 0
propose a dialectical and
With this III IDm et me
al . f
approach !:~h e pro ble m . .
gb h
understand the di ecnc<; 0
f< till king rhroll
ow to
th
sch
relational
ema or
n
. 1
h
is to break down e
socm-env1ronmental change. ~h~ Sl~P cst sc. ema
. ,~ proctss into four distInctive- facets.
eva1ut10n~J

.
(the roduction of hierarchy
.. ..<>.nd the 'struggle for ex1stence
P
1. Competmon
and homogeneity).
_. _ .
.
ental niches (the production
A J _

and diversihcatlon mto envtrQnffi

2. "..uapraTIo n
of diversi~).
' d mutual aid (the production of social
3. Collaboration. cooperaoon , an
forms).

4. EnviTOnmental transformations

(the roducuon of namre),

la' al categories rath er t han murualJy e.'{clusive

I want to treat th cse as re tlOn
.
nali s effecUi of the others, Thus
processes and thereby to insist "[hat each mtet e
cooperado n ("reciproc~l
<;ocio--biologl.'its arc correct when they argu
adaptllJC fonn of competl,
th .
f' d term) is in some sense an
h '
altruisrr!' is elr pre erre
-'
k h
peutive moment the ~ aplOg
tion. The difficulty is that they rna, e t t: com ., the ideological struggle
l I (.
-onvcruent gesture gJ\ en
.th
moment of al e sc always a \..d
.
bsorb colla~oration WI 10
to "naturalize" capitalism) and use a aptatulOn to a pie of that habit anaiyv.eJ
:::
k. Tb' . an exce ent exam
_1..:
thc competitive rramewor
us tS I '
ong moments into hieraru1r
ring
internal
re
atlOll5 am
.
f
f
inchapte:r 4, 0 conver
.
" ' t Bur from arelarional potnt O
cal causal ~1Iucturcs aimost WIthout notlcmg 1 .

;:t

191

view competition can just as easily be seen as a form of cooperation. The

example of territoriality examined in chapter 7, is an imeresting case in point.
But is it not also a fundamental tenet of the liberal theory of capitalism that
rampant competition between L.'1.dividuals produces a collaborative social effect
called "society?" Adaptation and diversific~ion of species and acri-..rities into
special ruches is also a form of both competition and collaboration and the
effect is to transfDffil environments in ways that may make the latter more
rather than less diverse, Species may diversifY furdter creating more diversified
niches. The produccion of a more diversified nature in tum produces greater
diversity of species.
The =mple of the liberal theory of capitalism, however weakly implanted it
is t:J practicc and however ideological its content, can be pressed further into
service here to alert us to something dse important. For within that theory it is
not simply competition that maLLets, but me particular modeofcompetition, the
rules and regulations that ensure that only one sort of competition - that within
freely functioning markets respet.'ting property rig..1ts and freedom of contract _
-...vill prevail. From this perspectiv~ it seems as if the nonnal causal ordering implied
in socio-biology gets reversed becaw.,e it is omy through the collaborative and
cooperative Structures of society (however coerced) mat competition and the
stmggle fOr existence can be orchestrated to do its work. But the point here is
not to change the causal ordering and thereby to make it seem as if society (the
mode of cooperation) has in some way contained nature (competition, adapration, and envirorunental change). It is much more appropriate to suggest that
c-ompetition is always regulated in importar:t ways by the effi:cts intcrnalized
within it of cooperation, adaptation. and environmental transformations.
Thinking in rhese terms allows us better to see how a particular kind of environmental transfonnation (such as the great water projects of the US west) afl1xts
both the mode of competition (within society as well as between species) and
the mode of collaboration/adaptation. Capitalistic competition consequently
means something quite different in the agribusiness sector in California compared
to, say, dairy producers in WlSCOnsm. because the forms of environmental
transfonnation have been so radically different in the two places.
I will not elaborate much further on this ide&, btl[ lL should be apparent
that there a..re different modes of competirion, adaptation, cooperation, and
,environmental transformation. Given the relational/dialectical theory advancoed in chapters 2--4, it should also be plain that each facet ofthe overall process
tnternohizes a great deal of heterogeneity within itself. Such heterogeneity is a
source of contradiction. tension, and conflict, sparking Intense struggles fur
l>...egemony, and controL A mode of prod.uction~ In Marx's sense, can
be con...trued as a particular regulated unity of these different modalities.
transition from one mode of production entails transformations in all
modali,ties' in relation to each orher, including, of course, the nature of the
produced

The Dialectics ofSuda! arul Environmental Change

192

The Nat'.tre of Environment

_ ".
' "" the fundamental phySIcal
. h .
ay 0 f ueplctlDg
,
What I am proposmg ere 1S -a W
th
k through aU social, cUltural,
.
d rocesses at ,"vor
ch
and biological cond mons an p . I h"
"al
~aphv and to do it: in su
.'
te a tanU1b e istone ge0l:)
al d
economIC protects to CIea
tr a!
"cal dements as a ban an
.
-1_'
e hysic
anu'b"!
100g!.
a way as not to renw::I tnas p.
.'
h' But mv purpose IS also
"'
k
d
lluman hIStorical geograp j " ,
.
ch way as to understan d the
PasSIve hac groun dito .
d processes lfl su a
to specify these con nons an
~ .'
',n neITotiarinlY through these
. ...
e n ' -e human aCtiVIty
~ t>
b
h
OSSlbllines
ror
co
ectIV
.
'h~
1
divt:fse outcomes of t e sort
P
~.t I
tsto generate slgm cant y
C"
funaamemal e emen
_ ._
hical development envisages. lYen,
that a Marxist theory ofhlSton~~apb" I g",cal evolutionary process, then
f;"
nts In tue 10 0
"th th
for exampk, the our morne . larl th human species) can work v.'1
e
or~nisI!ls of any sort {most partlC~" y e
.
and environmental modi~.'
daptatlOfl cooperation,
ch
momentS of compet1tlon. a
od '
dica11y different outcomes (su as
leadon in a \'ariety of w~ys to pr. u)ce;:: T
tural laws can be done away
"djir
d ~ ot prod-uCHon. l~O na
_L _
.
qmte rrerent mo. e
elman in 1868, but "what am Ulangc, 10
with. Ivi.arx wrote 10 a letter to Kug.
1 th i.:
in which these laws
.
.
_'
ces IS on y e lorm
.
historically dIfferent Clrcumstan "
therefore is the particular way In
" Wh
h ve to pay attentton r o , '
.
opcra-::e.
at we a:
)
k ' th these quite different POSSl"
( . of anv sort wor Wl
h
which organtsm~ ~,
"
_
And to do mat requires mat some my
bilities indynamtcandlfi(er~~lV~W~}'S-'''d
e" must be eroded, rendered
the artificial break be[Ween SOCIety an
natur
vcd
" b
'general, I do nOllind it hard
POrous. and eventuallyhdissol
"h'gbJy a mact anu
While my lang~g.e ~re l~ ~
_
differemiate it further, to capture
th
"th
"
I thinking lnto mOllon, to
to set thIS stye 0 t a l >
'a!" flow into each 0 er Wi our
. hich the natur. aI1..ll soC1
!
some of the ",,-ars m w
-..
f cio biology And there are P enty
falling back into the typical rcdu~tiOUlS~ 1 5~ ay- of lo~king at the problem.
~
h" .
ssarily an 1SO ateu W

th
ofhinIS that t 1S is not nece
anal
th difficulties of developmg e
When, for example, Callo?, 98~ St
~ay he treats the scallop as an
domestication of scallop tishmg m b b
I'] the common protocol that
" hill
cess there V feac ling
.J
active agent 10 Lew 0 e pr,G
'Ii ' ',till th. social sphere. And in so uomg
"
f
nr'il"
is
con
nea
WI
n
e
(allia
n
age -, '
'ch
.'
collaboration
nee
says the quesno 0 fl'
d
in Whl
competitlon,
__the opens up t he w way.
al ansformation all run into eaL.u
.
d
en
...
uonment
tr
formation), ad aptanon, an
f . n1ti.-onmental change. Bateson
era! process 0 .~OClo-e
, I din
orner as part 0 f a more g c n .
'
-h"tch aU species (me
u g
.
.
th d Ifercnr Wa'r'S m v.
. _1\1 98B) likc'Wtse POintS OlIt e I
!" through their behavioL ArUm;m
human beings) can affect subseG~~t evo- U~~l han e the physical and social
make active choices and by then bchav:~.1.- c
g They ;Usa modify thci::
"
I . h h 'd endants naye to cope.
'
conditions Wlth W liC t elf esc
d' ~
d by moving expose themselves
.

t changed con lUaus an

h
behaVior III response 0
diff
"bil',o'es for evolutionarv c ange.
, "th
p
erent poSS!
"
rone.'condmorn atopen u r
d
~'_gawhoiesetofprocessesln
"') l'k . rgues lor un erstanuuJ.
al '
Lewontin (19 8~ 1~ eWlse a . I
bj"
t~ the laws of nature, tenng

.<
ot sunp V 0 (err 0
which organIsms are n
.
.
bjects transforming nature
themselves to bend to the inevitab~, but a~tlve ~~ the uneasy bou:1dary
according to its laws.'" Through e orts Sil 1 as
,

(?

i=c

193

,,,ill

between the social and the natural worlds

surely be dissolved, as indeed
it must, and analysis brought w the point where we might lose our fears of
"bIological determination" by recognizing, as Fuss (1989) so powerfully argues
in her discussion of essentialism in feminism. that the distinction between
biological essentialism and social constructionism is itself a false construction
that thoroughly deserves to be dissolved" Haraway (1995) has produced some
exempla.ry work'on the practical and material dissolution of this boundary in
social and scientific practices. But she al"o pays careful attention to how scricdy
that boundary gets policed in our- thoughts, in our disciplfnes~ and in our
courses and provides food for thought as to what configurations of corporate
and state power have most to gain from that poHcing, And it is through a
critical understanding of how such power relations play out in policicalecological debates that we can arrive at a deeper conception of what ecosocialist
pulitics might be all abollf~

Iv. Towards an Ecosocialist Politics

Defining a proper ground for a socialist approach to environmentalecological politics has proven a peculiarly difficult problem. In part this has to
do with the way jn which the socialist-Nfarxist movement took over from
capitalism a strongly productivist ethic and a broadly instrumental approach
[0 a sllpposedly distinct natural \\-"Grid and sought a transformation of social
relations on the basis of a further Hberation of the productive forces. It has
subsequently proven hard to wean Marxism away from a rather hu.bristic view
of the domination of nature thesis. In addition, Ivfarxisrn has shared with much
of bourgeois social ~cience a general abhorrence of the idea that "'nature" -can
control, determine, or even limit any kind of human endeavor, In 50 doing it
has either avoided a definition of any foundational view of nature altogether.
or resorted to a rather too simplistIC rhetoric about "the humanization of
nature" backed by a dialectical and historical materialism that somehow
absorbed the problem by appeal to a set of epistemological/ontological
principles. And in those rdI'e cases when h-4arxist:s have taken the material
biological and physical conditions of existence as foundational to their materialism, they have either lapsed into some form of environmencal determinism (as
in the case of Wittlogd, 1953) or into a damaging materialist pessimism
(Timpanaro, 1970; Benton, 1989). The effect has been ro create a polarity
w:rth;, " ]vlarxism between "materjalist triumphalisrn and materialist pessimism"
1978: 9) that uncomfortably reflects the bourgeois habit of taking
trinrr:phalist path when aU goes right:m.d invoking Malthusian limlts when
go v,'Tong,
while there have been numerous principled writings in the Marxist
"''''rl;'';~n on the question of nature, beginning with Engds' The Dialectics of

Iii
194

The l'lature of Environment

..(C

. .
ks such as Schmidt's JJarxs Gmcept OJ
Nature and connnulllg,through ;~or fill C " oductionofnattUe" in Uneven
lYature, Smith's exploranon of the 1 ea dm ~r ...... "-"";nation of Marxism and
dv Grun anllS ~.u.
I: .
Development, and > most rea: n ;, 'ai' to counter the rhetoric and pouucs
Ecology, the armory of :rvf~sm-soCi. 1sm h not been v;tell stocked, The
..
'd f
logical movements
as
I' ' as a
of a nsmg tI e 0 eco
.
.
ental--ecological po 1tics
.
h
to
reject
envlronm
.
n
elt ~r
response, ~ b
much of it patently is) or t~ conc~e ~ part
buurgeOls diversIOn (as. mdeed, .
d
b il-d MarxIsm-socialism on
.
a!
l ' cal hetonc an try to re U
'
to enVIronment -eeo Ogl r
'cal L da' ns from those that tradiUon.
cal
d
praCU
wun
tlO
.
rather different theoren an ..
.
d olitical action. And 10 some
lass political projects an P
'cul I
''
aily grounded WOf1.Gng-c
made to do both, with not partl ar y
fonnu~ations a noble attempt has been
fdicitous results,
hn Bdlamv Foster, published with all
Consider, for ~":,:,,ple, a book by io Review P;ess, entitled The Vulnerable

e:

the Marxist credibiln:y ?f ~~e

Mo~{h ~vironment. Foster strongly argues that

Planet:A Short Ec()nOml~ Hntory oJ. t~e of tutt'.ne but of society." He goes o~ to
"the crisis of the earth 1S not a cnSIS 1 ' , .. 1, in the ""'eSt and production
,
' f r accumwatlons S<lli-C
discuss how acc.lUllulaUon 0
Co
ist VlOria have had devastatmg
. , ak'
hat was the
IT'-.mun
c
for productIOns s e In W ,

W Id WaI II setting the s..age lOr

'
VlIOnment Since o r ,
th .
ld
th
effects upon e wor . ~ en
ecolo 'cal crisis. There is much at IS
a contemporary condition of planeta!Jh
twO central failings in the
,
d dl' , the account ut ere are
'd tha

mgt

persuasIve an t mg III .
lanet
ecological crisis. the very 1 ea t
analysis, First. the postuia~on ofba\I;,
harr
acu'on or that we can actually
.
h"leraetournan
.
h
the planet is some oW \~ n
. C_
h I ubristic claims of those w 0
n neo-aUve rurffi t e l
- 'I
destroy the earth , repeats 1
tI'
b
'hat
the earth is somehow hagt e
. .
The -u teXtlS.t
.
aspire;:o planelarJ d oromano n ..:-.
or caring physicians to nurse 1t
and that we need ~ become cann~ ~S;:Foster's extraordinarily hubristic
is
back from sickness mto he:Jth. Thd <all .
rmlnization of the entire planet
,
"h
lOUS an co ectl"'e 0.0 if
conclusion that t e conse
. _ d th
rth has become a necesSIty
in the common interesr of humaruty an :e.ca
f tl earth by forces of

bl despolIauon 0
Ie
, .
we are to prevent the Hr~a e , "
UCl'a! to understand that it 15
.
. d
d." A...... 'n;;:t t hI.S It 15 cr
institunonalize ~ree
' 'b...... ~
0 the lanet eanh, that the worst we can
materially impossIble for us to d:srr y. p f
,. onment so as to make
.
.
at
formauons 0 our emu
'1
do is to engage III materl tranS
bl for our own species being, whl e
'hcations (both positive and
life less rather than more comfod,ta e
h
d als..., ocs h ave ranllu
"h
recognizing that w ~r. we o. I . Vl'ta! fur.-hermore, to disaggregat.e t e
.
) C
h
Ii
'1119 speoes. t 15
,

J'ff
negatlve, lor ot er \i --0

~
bl
that exist ar qUite 1 erent
.
." .
t
mble set ot pro ems.
d
o
envirorunentallssue mto a an ' .
f
climate warming, an
.
f
th
l bal issues 0 ozone,
'd
scales, varymg ro~
ego
soil de letion, desertificatlOn, a~
biodiversity to reglOnal pocaIrob!emds of . S water quality. breathable <11:,
.
th
e1
!ze quesno n
deforestation to e mor
r 'cal' he millenarian and apocalypu-<and radon in the ~m~nt.. Po, Itl. ~ thad a dubious history. It is not a ,
proclamation that ecoClde lS lffir~H~ent
J
bt to the arguments long
good basis for left politics and 1t is very vu.nera e

01

The Dialectics o/Social and Environmental Change

195

advanced by Simon (1981) and now by Easterbrook (1995), that conditions

of life (as measured, for example, by tife expectancy) are better now than they
have ever been and that the doomsday scenario -of the environmentalists is farfetched and improbable. 1<urthermo're, as Poster's condusion all too dearly
indicates, there is nothing in the argument that cannot be made broadly
compatible with a segment of corporate capital's concerns to rationalize
planetary management in their own interests. Bur then this is precisely what
happens when the class content of the whole environmental-ecological
argument gets subordinated to an apocalyp:k 1<':iS:10n of a planetary ecological
crisis,
The second failing (which connects powerfully to the first) lies in me
specification and interpretation of four ecological laws [largely drawn from
Barry Commoner (1990), whose dedication to progressive left and ecological
issues has been long-standing]. They are "(1} everything I:; connected to
everything else, (2) everything must go somewhere, (3) nature knows best, and
(4) nothing comes from nothing. '" The first is an important truism which has
very little meaning without recognizing t:~at some dUngs are more connected
than others. It is precisely rhe task of ecologicaJ analysis to try and identifY
unintended consequences (both short- and long-term, positive and negative)
and to indicate whar the major effects of actions are. Without such understandings there is litde that can be said for or against specific forms of
envIronmental modification on the bash of this law. The second law properly
indicates that there is no solution to active pollution problems except to move
(hem around (a. version of Engels' comment on how the bourgeoisie handles
its housing problem - see chapter 13). The fOurth law properly points out the:
ClUtlOnaty principle (based on the laws of thermodynamics) that energy in
usable form for human beings can indeed he depleted (though never
desuoyed). The t.hird law is where the real problem lies. For to say "nature
knows best" is to presume that nature can "know" something. This principle,
as I showed in chapter 6. then dissolves either into the (once more hubristic)
idea that someone IS somehow in a privileged position to know ",~at nature
kcows or into the conservative view that our environmental transformations
should be as limited as possible (the "tread lighclyon the surface of the earth"
injunction favored by many ecologists). foster thus accepts uncritically
C:ofllm,ar,er', arg'llITler't that "any major man-made change in a natural system
is likely to be detrimental to that syste.lll." To whid, I wouM want to reply"r
"hope so" leaving open the question as to whether the changes are favorable or
:.:, detrimental to social or other forms of lik and what meaning such changes
ha:ve for social relations, life chances of individuals, ecological beings,
.. ' ,
the Eke,
. Foster uses these laws to arrive at a thorough and convincing condemnation
[~i-C<\pilali'sm in which the market, not na.ture, knows bes[, the only connection
matters is the cash nexus, it doesn't matter where something goes as long

196

The Nature o..fEnvironment

as it doesn't re-enter the circuit of capital and goods in nature are considered
a free gift, All of this is reasonably true and Foster does a good job of explaining
how destructive the consequences can be, But the difficulties begin when these
same ecological laws are applied to socialbm, I hope it would be true that
socialists. rather than nature, will know best. Indeed, the only persuasive reason
for joining the socialist (as opposed to the fascist, libertarian, corporate
capitalist, planetary management) cause is precisely that socialists know best
how to engage In environmental-eco-logical transformations in such a way as
to realize long-term socialist goals of feeding the hungry~ clothing the poor,
providing reasonable life-chances for all, and opening up paths towards the
liberation of diverse human cre<'..tlvities.
But ecosocialist politics cannot avoid the v.ital analytic point that much of
what happens in the environment today is highly dependent upon capiralisr
behaviors, instlmtions. activities, and power structures. The sustainability of
contemporary environments heavily depends upon keeping capitalism going,
To put things this way is nor co argue for co~tinuation of the capitalist system
of environmental transfurmation, but to recognize that the task of socialism
is to think through the duality of ecological-social transformations as part of
a far more coherent project than has hitherto been the case, To paraphrase
Marx, we can collectivdy hope to produce our ovm_ environmental history, but
oniy under environmental conditions that have been handed down to liS by
way of a long historical geography of capital circulation, the extraction of
surplus values, monc:ized exchange, and the circu~arion of commodities.
On the one hand, therefore, we cannot afford to limit options by internalizcarcit
ing a capitalistic logic in which conceptS of sustainabiiity, ecos
)'. and
overpopulation are deeply implicated. But on the other hand, we cannot avoid
the probh::m of conversion of capitalistic ecosystems, in which, for e.xatnple.
the circulation of money and the extraction of surplus values have become
primary ecological variables. The task is. [hen, to both define and fight for a
particular kind of ecosociilist project that extricates us from the peculiar social
oppressions and comradictions that capitalism is produdng through its h~h1y
specific ecological projects, ~1arx hinted at [his dilemma:
In our days, every'thing seer:1S pregnant wi.d: its coTItrary. Machin::::ry, gifted with
the wonderful po~r of shoneni:Jg and frunifying human labor, we behold
starving and overworking it. The nevi-fangled sources of Vi'-calth, by some _5tnLTJge
weird spell, are turned into sources of want. The victories of art seem bought
by [he loss of character, At th.e same pace that mankind masters nature, mw
seems to become enslaved to oilier men or m his own infamy. Even the pure
ce
light of science .iecms una.bl{: LO shine out on the dark background ofigno-ran .
1\11 Qur invention and progress seem ill n:::sult in endowing material forces with
intcl1ecmallie, and in stultif)Ting human life into a marerial force. (Gted in
Grundmann, 1991b: 228)

The Diale'
f' iaI and Environmentt1! Change
cttes ~}joe

197

It IS then tempting, but not sufficient to cite En el }

resolurion to ecolocrlcal as w'ell
~al dilemmas:
g s path roward~ an effecrive
-tr
as soct

by long aCld often cruel experience and by coll .

"
material, we are gradually I
. t
ectm? and analyzmg historical
, earnmg.o ~t a dca- VI
f th ' "
remote, social effects of au
od'::'
" .1. CW 0
e mwrect, more
.
r pr UCllon actlvltJes ac,d
_r'
opporrunlrv
to
control
and
f""orLt
h
tr_ _
so
are allorded. an
'
'-t>-lla e t ese ell::Lts as
II
Th'
we ..., . is regulauon.
h owever, requires something more than mere kn
de 0 f productlo
owl~.lt rcqmres
a complete
re.mlution in our hitherto . .
exl~t1fig rna
d' '
revolution in our whole contempor'.. ry SOCl'al ord er. n. an Slllluir:-.illeously a
I say this is insufficient because it leaves unr I d
ooncerningtheactualdirccti n
'ai' esove far too many dilemmas
betWeen Manists and eeol o. any ecosoc~ 1St might take. And here the debate
ts
has hitherto largely been aogIS
matt ofrall s.ttJPes. ha5fixmuch to offer. That debate
_
er 0 artIcul atmg ed
..
b
other. more dialectical w
t
b
, . POSItIOns, ut there are
ays, 0 go a out readmg it
ha

rageth er conceptual blocks in such

~ cit th ,per ps even to rub
will conclude with the five k ~
a ":,,,-y h~th ey cat~ fire." In that spirit I
.
E} areas In W Ie such a bb'
" "gh
ecosoclahst conceptual poHtics catch fire.
ru mg nuo- t help

1, Alienation,
Self-realization and the Esthe'""
,I'Deveto'Pment

'
H~~ oJ
Ideals of sdf-realization" are wides
d'
,
parallel in certain wavs M '
prea 1n t~e ecological literarure. They
"
' 1 arxs concerns, partIcularl . 'rl_
, _ P'h ltoJophit lvfanusm'P' ts 0+1844b
I ' I
y ill I ne J:.conom1-C and
.
f, h
. . 'J
ur a so 10 ater works such
tb ern d '
__
Of uman emanClpanon a..t1d self-deveIorment th rou h th as ~e . , n nsse,
our Cl"cative powen.:. In the M
'
.
e woriilllg out of
arxtst
rradi Ion
h g
T

'

concerned as it has been with'

.h
o-wever, qUlte properly
Impovens mem and dep ' , '
he j'b
'
ofth e productive forces came t b
he
nvatlOll. t
1 eratton
,
0
e seen as [ "pri 'j d d
exclusIVe means towards th h de
VI ege an to some degree
: G,"ndmann, 1991b: 54), A;;e ;". b' goal of hu=n sdf-realization (see
.
The e 1"
".
su, It ecame a goal in lfself.
,.
co ogtcal cfltlque of socialist "producUv' ,.. h
torces tvfarxists to re-examint: dIe roblem~'
l~ IS. ere hdptUl~ since it
;vleszaros 1970' Ollm
19~6)P
U d .Des of alienation (Ree, to, example
,
,
an.
I
n er c . 1"
'
relations, ",,-age labor and [11~ C~" 'h'
apf ltalIkSm, pnvare property, dass
.lenate us from any "sensu ... H..-dS
ISms 0
mar et
ch
d..
ex :mge separate and
aI
,
ous an Imrnediale C
(.
,
menrcd and partial sen~es cl' ,bl
d
onract except In those frag",
~
a ue"a e un er class 0 de d -1:".' ,
. nature" as ',veIl as
h h
.
- r re UlvlSlOns of labor)
rom ot er Uffian bel
B if
.
.
that
is his bod;' with which
_
on
tfhe IS not to die." Th heal' f h
~ m contInuous
:
T"
e
"00 t at body IS fund
al
',__
1.0 respect" nature is to ITS
.
ament" to our
.,
through work :s to tepee! OUISjelVes, To engage "lith and transform
'd
'
.
ranSlorm ourseves This form
But estrangement from immedia
...
s one 31 e.ofMarxs
te S,-llSllOUS engagement WitTI nanrre

~atur~

h;~m~: ~n l~ves ~ature"

198

The Nature of Erwironment

.
.
.
~.
ness formation. It therefore 15 a step on a
is an cssennal moment In con~clOuf5 I' - (d Ingold, 1986, cited above).
.'
d sel rea rlaUon.
.
path towards emanclpatlOn an.
,.
estrangeme;;nt of consciousness
But herein lies a paradox. This nev~r-enillt_ng dpatory forms of knowledge
.'
d the constructlon 0 eman
nr.rmits rellCXlVlty an
bl
t- how to n;::[Uffl to t h at W h'ch
J
r-_ . b '-' poseschepro emo
.
unalien~ted relanon to
(such as saence)j ut 1t alSO
.
fi
H w (0 recuperate an
f
-. relations'\ in the face of
consciousness alienates. us rom. 0
' ,. . d forms 0 SOCi.al
nature (as weH as unaIJena,e
d ech I cal-social organization. dlen
-Hillor an t
no ogl
I contempora..ry diViSiOns 0
.
-h b' ds Marxists and eeo ogtsts
on
pro'oct
,--,at
tn
becomes part ot a carom
j
j

ineluctably together.
.
dit-Ion was in the first instance,
,
f th romantiC tra
.,
The secular verSlOn 0
e
.
h -. th t toO hi~h a price was
. .'
.
.
taking t e VIew a
8'L

heavilYT esthetiC m 1[S onentation,

d
_
or sensuous capacItIes to
_1
. . . . . anon to 0
C1
paid for matemu. eman pation m ~
articularly in the advanced
.
b t in more recent years, p
ds
Iappropnate nature.
u
_1
b
.. ' m has ;uso een on ascetic groun , revo tmg
_
, th
capitalist countnes, e Cr1tlClS
d th
is of mass consumensm
.__ "
fl'. devdoped un er e aeg
'''\
against the quauty 0 i,e
d th
.zed consumption of na:ure
eforgaru t ,_I '..-alues The religious
('including rhe mass tounst trade an
,
'd'ffi
t set 0 nonma e I l a t
.
and seeking fur a qUite. I. ,eren ather different and yet they all have m
versions and secular vcrslorn look r
. ' t the self (and. therefore
.'
God or prmamlty 0
common that proXImIty to
th
cu' n of a certain attitude to
"
f I
If) d ends on e constrU 0
,
reaitzatton 0 t 1e se
ep,
ced bv romanticis.m and estheCic
concerns,
:
d ,here is some evid.ence that he
nature, The young Marx, mfluer:'
eli a Viewpomt an
.
.' - I
was very sympa theUc to sa
~t.,.' bee e much less explicit in hIS ater
this sympr.thythout:/.l.
tt
am
lYilll

neve r aL.-doned
writings.,
.
d' ~
.-.-h where a recuperation might
.
ts ht asun er is exa....U)r
Where these sentlmen sp
, back as many ecotogists seem
Mar:xi there can be no gOLng
,
L__ ~
be soaght. Po r
sts,-ated re Iatlon
' to neLL.......
"~"e (or a world built soiety on 1<ll.X_
d
to propose, to an unme t
- -an world of nonsoen-talist and commumtan
k
w-face rdations), to a pre-ca~l d'"
f I bar The onhr path.is to see
,.
. h r ted IVlSlOfiS 0 a .
ch
tific understanrungs Wit 1ml
ilia' b nd" the mediations su
almearu,
t go evo
I) and -rnteItect,u.
.1 C'C..
~ te~nical rationality. money.
Politi.cal.,culrnra
kn I d
aruzanOfilli due1eng,
f
h
as scientlfic ow e ge, org
.
__L owl ...l~:
the significance 0 sue
'
h e while auul e"""ng
dd
d
and COImno ~ty exc aJ1!?
'at o{modern wcic},". foun e ~n
mediations. The em:mctpatory ~ol~~~ But this cannot be, as it so often lS.
alienation, m~t connnu~ to bc exp "
. 'on as the end poir.t, the goal. T~
an end in its-elt for thaL IS to treat ailenatl
~'thou..-.h "in higher form
, d h . 1 M '$ concern to recuperate
&'-'
, _I'
ecologl."ts an r e ear y ~rx - I _
h ) that modern-day cap1tallSm
'f
. ' ( ;vel as trom ot ers
the alienatlon rom natme as'i
"
I f ' oosocialist project. The quest
,
b f meotal,;:Toa 0 anye
Ie .L-.
instanclates must e a un
~
? ful lay (making sure, for examp ,Ulii-Ifo: me:;ningful work as well as meanmg P '
"J becomes a central issue
"
b
ht by "loss 0 fch aracter
'_.1
"victories of art are not mug
ras the nettle of ecologluu
throuah which the labor movemen~t can g P
h s and in theiast
fj
ar~entation concerning alienation trom nature, rom ot ef.
,
J

Tk Dialectics o,lSociai arjd Environmental C.bange

199

instance, from oursdves. The idea of "re-enchantment" with the semuous

world through a more sensitive science. more sensitive social rclarions and
material practices, through meaningful labor processes, provides a better
language than that of alienation with all of its essentialist overtones. But here
we hit another problem: re--enchantment with nature is already a consumer
it::m and a central aim of the commodification and Disneyfication of our
experience of nature, In what ways~ then, can we differentiate benveen an
"audlentic" and an "alienated" (commodified and ''.t:lisne-flied''') re-enchantment
with our natural world?
This does not deny the relevance or power of phenomenological approaches
in exploring the potentlalities of more intimate and immediate relations to
nature or to others (usually with particular emphasis upon an intimate
knowledge of place - see chapter 11). The depth and imen.qiry of feeling
implicit even in Heideggels appro-ach is not irrelevant, any more than .is the
search for adequate poetic languages, representations, symbolic systems. Sartre's
existentialism owes as much, after all, to Marx as to Heidegger. The danger
arises when such modes of thought are postulated as the sole basis of politics
(in which case they become inward-looking, exclusionary, and even neofascistic), when it was surely lvfarx's intent to search for the unity within the
duality of existential and mediated experiences of the world. Exploring that
duality has to be at the center of ecosoci.alist politics, implying an uncomfortable bue instructive duality of values bernreen the purely instrumental
(mediated) and the existential (unmediated),

2, Social Relations and Ecological Project!

Explorations of our species potential" and our capacity for "self-realizadon"
require that we take cognizance of the relarion between ecologicaJ projects and
the social relations needed to initiate, implement, and manage them. Nuclear
power, for example, requires highly centralized and nOlldemocracic power
relations coupled with hierarchical command and control structures if it is to
work successfully. Objections to it therefore focus as much on the social
relations it implies as on the ecological problems of health and long-term
hazardous wastes, The nature of many of the ecological projects undena.ken
in the Soviet Union likewise required social relations that were fundamentally
at odds with the theoretical project of constrccting a new society founded on
egalitarianism anti democracy; But this sort of critique is the easy part, For if
we hlTn the equation around, and state that the only kinds of ecological ptojet.:t.s
to be undertaken are those which are comlMent with nonhierarchica1, decenhighly denocraric, and radically egalitarian social relations, then lhe
of possible ecological project."i becomes highly restricted, perhaps even
-.I.te-lhr""eni'11g for substantial numbers of people. Adoption of sud1 a stance
'Certainly ,lor,s rIOt accord with the open exploration of our species potentiality

The Dialectics ofSocial and Environmental Change 201

I
I

The Nature (Jf Environment

200
-,1

- -

.
f the tangible matena!

choices that minimize as opposed. to accenmate risks in the metabolic rdation

to nature is then a key pan of the social and political problem to be resolved.

and would probably militate against the all e~lat1~n 0

- h f th
rid's populatIOn ltves_
misery ill which IDue 0 . e WO .ha will always be a contradictory situarion,
There is, here, no resolution to 'YO t
f th
.
ad seeking political
.' full the nature 0
e tellillon ar
save that 0 f recogmzmg
Y
.'
d' I
have also to recogn:zc the
ways to liv-e with its effects: More.m:me "~a[e Y'rorwee" of certain kinds of social
- fro
h mstanClatlOn In na
effects that anse
m t e
.
I h" nk we must contemporary ccorelations:. If, for example, we vlaew, as. (1 ts of cirie~ and the capital and
.
. the bU1 t envlronmen
. .
d -fth
cosvstems are insranGatlons
systems as mcorporatmg .
' n
h
ID them an i
esee ~
commodlty uows t at susra
h' c <Ll (as opposed to cataStrophically
'._" SOci'a! reI'
. .is
of capUaLlSt
atlOnS, menwatIea5JUe
~.
'lahle to us! ThiS

4_ The Dialectics of Commonality and Diffirence

destructive) social and. eco~ogical tf'a.nstorbmat~ns a:oav:e typicallv 'glib and

. que:.-tl0n to answer, ut ere,.
.
I -II
by no means an easy
ch f th cological movement simp y wt

not

simplistic ansv.'ers on offer from

mll

ee

do (see chap:er 13)_

3_ The Question ofTechnowgy

nd
':f
~f fon:tio"n(~his s~~:~:r~;~).n~:
.

'd

production where?y he. sustatI~

tee

s 1

lays

therehy also
bare the mode
the mental conceptions that How

attribu!~ _~y

it is plainly wrong to
HOm 1
arx,.. ~ to Marx ('\:lisdose:s" cannot be read as UCLertechno:,-oglcai deter~lInt~m
1
d of technological choices in embedmines"), the centrahty of tedlno ogy ~
d ) means that careful
.
.
l ' at "-'rolects (an Ylce versa
ding social relations m eeo og~c. r . 'dID
(1991 b) is here, surely on
- h
b,= aid {O tillS Issue. Grun
ann
.'
attention as to ~ P
.
f the deep tensiom Jll Marrs
d hen he pomrs to some a
strong
Vi'
hby capital not IY
If
f,
r
example
mac
illery
"ffi
-U
own approa ch
~. : o .
alue b~t also deprives iliem of thelf ski
dispossess workers of theu .surp u.~ v
_
. alienatino- ways. then

_L ,I
edi t g then relatlons to nature In
.~
,
andvrrtuOSltywnuem a ill
"
th collectivity of the pro,ect
- 'h
um
we lUstst on e
,
self-rea! rlatlon \ owever m . "
ch
to'} may be in jeopardy for

en:

very

groun s

me

f dealing with Nature, the process of

"Technology dl""lose.s marlS _mOhie

ployed

on

=~o~~~~:::~. ~:,:n~~7:!~eE:7;~~~~~h~;U~:r;:::t;O~~

aim of exerClsmg greater :O~ a!

-a! b
ts But the probkm goes even
-_L_ d In1m soC! eneu.
.
enviroml1entaI f1:>lUt an m
._x
b
eatm us (with rts
l'cal .
-iliat caplla11Sm cqu.
,
deeper. The techno ogl
ml~es ~.
) -th r 'ro be roundly rejected
f
llW1cal projects el e na
.
C
ed' waV- thar better
Particular mues -0 SOClO-eCO ~if) r gradua'lh'l tranSlorm
ill
~~
J
(as manyecoog1StS
noW suggest. 0 .... d fth~
tal conceptions (such as
accord with socialist social relanons, <ill he fl" mfen them -' -guments over
1 .
) t at ow rom
. III
~,hose co~cernint:~ re ~n~ t~s~~.i:_bcautifur here come into pia)T: no: as
appwpnate tee 0 ogy
.
.
, . th construction at SOCial'.1

1
r tralectones 101 c
.
,
necessary tech no Iogtcal p,rmClp es. 0_ . the future techndogical organizatwn ~,
ism.. but as a set of question marks over
H
ft through techno1ogiaU ..
ofasocialist society (d. Commoner, 1990). ow to 51

've

Since much of the radical ecological critique now in vogue has its roots in
anarchism, it has typically taken the path of emphasizing community. locality.
place, proximity tD "nature," particularity,. and decentralization (deeply
antagonisric to state po"\yers) as opposed to the more traditional socialistic
concerns with the universality of proletarian struggles and the overthrow of
capitalism as a world-historical system of domination. Any ecosocialist project
has to confront that opposition. Here I think a more geographical historical
materialism, one that is more ecologically sensitive. has muc-h to offer: both
in terms of analysis as well as in rerms: of prospective transfurmations. The
general stcuggle against capita1i$t forms. of domination is ahvays made up of
particular struggles against the specific lcinds of socia-ecological projects in
which capitalists are engaged and the distinctive social relations they presuppose
{against commercial forestry and timber management in
Himalayas as
against large-scale "\\'ater projecrs in C..a.Iifornia or nuclear power in France}. The
articulation of socialist principles of struggle therefore varies gready with the
nature and scale of the socio-ecological project to be confronted. And by the
same token) the narure of the socialist transfonnation sought depends crucially
upon the sodo-ecological possibilities that exist in relation to particular
projects, looking very dIfferent in Nicaragua or Zimbabv.."'e from how it looks
in Sweden and very different in terms of multinational finam.:e from how it
looks in terms of medical wastes dumped next to housing projects. But it is
at this point that the general presumptions uf tht transition to so(..wism deserve
to be reflected llpon. Socialism is not necessarily about the construction of
homogeneity. The exploration of our species potentiality can presumably also
be about the creative search for and exploration of diversity and heterogeneity.
Socia-ecological projects, much more in tune with confronting questions of
alienation (and re-enchantment) and opening up diverse possibilities for sdfrealil.allon, can be regarded. as fundamentally part of some socialist future. The
failures of capitaJism to produce anything other than the uneven geographical
developmen[ of bland, comrnoditized, homogeneity is, surely, one: of the roost
-striking features of its .failures.
The radical ecological literature that :tDcw;es on place consuu.crion,
, llior"l';io"ulisrn, and the like here has something creative to offer, pardy as an
-.e,,,,lle_m ground for critique of capitalism's production of waste (do we reaHy
to ship British beet to Au..stra1ia and .=\ustralian beer to Britain?) as well
i!s production of serial conformity .in urban design and the like. Mumford
depicted the region, for example~ like its corresponding artifact, the
_ fas] a collective work of art" not found "as a finished product in nature,

202

The Dialectics ofSocial and Environmental Change 203

The Nature ofEnviromnent

not solely me creation of human will and fantasy." Em~e~ed in a socialist

project of ecological transformation, such a way of thinkmg turns ~n the
"production of nature" as diverse localized works ~f ~ coupled ",,11th the
creation of ecosvstemic differences which can respect diversIty of culture, places,
and ecosystem;. The richness of human capacity fm complexity and d~vers~ty
r
in a con~ext of the free exploration of the richness, complexity. and dn e.rsl.tr
encountered in the rest of nature can become a vital part of any ecosoCiahst
project. "Each of us," says a bioregional~t like B~rg (c~ted in Alexan~er, 199{);
170) "inhabits a 'terrain of consciousness determmed ill large part b) the .rlac;
we dwell in, the work we do, and the people with -whom we share our lives.
And there is absolutely no reason not to follow h~,m in arguing that :the recreation of caring and sustainable human cultures", ought to ~come pa.r~ uf
the 'real work' of our time." In so doing he is echomg something that denves
as much from Raymond Williams as from Heidegger.
..
_
But we also hit here the point of departure of ecosooahsm tro~ pure
bioregionalist, place, and local communitarian po~i~ics. The problem 1S that
there is more than a hint of authoritarianism. surveillance. and. confi~em~nt
in the enforced localism of such a decentralized. politics and a naive belief mat
(1) respect for human diversity is compatible with ~e belief th(at ai.I decentralized societie... will necessarily constrUct themselves upon the vmlightenment,~
values of democracy; libertY, freedom, justice and other such like desitf:era~"
(Sale, 1985) rath<r than in tenns of slavery, sexual oppression, and the Jike(see
Dobson, 1990: 122), (2) that the "impoverishment" which often attaches (0
communal autarky and strong restrictions on foreign trade c~ be ove:come,
and {3) mat restrictions on popu~ation movemems coupled 'with excl~o~l~ of
1zm
disruptive "forci.gners" can somehow be squared with ideals of maxun
g
individual freedoms, democracy. a..'"1d openness to "'others.'" Young's (19~Oa)
salutary warnings (see chapter 12) concerning
ni~cmarc of co.r:u-numtarian politics in which community is defined. ~ ~amst oth.ers and. therefore
rormulated in an entirely exclusionary, chauvlUIsnc, ,arld raCist way. 15 not mat
easily avoided.. V::lhen Goldsmith condescending)y w~tes (cited in Dobson,
1990: 97), [Of example. that "a certain number of fore1gners could he allaw~
to settle," but that they would not "'partake in the running of the"oommu~t}'
llmil such time as [he citizens elected them to be of their numbet, the lealll~g
towards a policies of exclusion that is neofascist becomes rather t?O close for
comfort. The ""ecologisn{ of the righ:-wing Lombardy League~ 1ll northern
Italy, for example, shares exactly such a perspective not only With. ::-espe~t to
r!Je immigration of non-Italians but also with respect to moveme~ts trom
southern Italy. Furthermore, there is in mis thinking a presumptiOn that
bioreo"ions are given, by nature or by history, rather than that they are made
b
.

d"ffi
at and
by a variet"j of intersecting processes operatlng at qUlte I erent tel~por
.spatial scales. In other words, bioregions get thought about, m a ,m~st
undialectical fashion, as. the things rather than as unstable products of sh:frmg

me

processes. This then provokes the question: at what scale should a bioregion.
place, or human community be defined?
~s:;ci~ist p~lit~cs must, we can conclude, pay attention to a politics in
which unIversality has a dual meaning. This is best expr~s-ed in Young's
~1990~: 105) rule t~t "universality in the sense of the participation and
mciUSlOn of every~lle 1Il moral aud social life does not imply universality in
the ~~se of ad~ptlon of a general poim of view that leaves behind particular
a:ffihatJo~s, feelings, commitments. and desires." The perpetual negotiation of
r~e relatIOn between those two senses of universality, whether read across
differences o~ gender, ethnicity, or other social affiliation or across the diversity
of socio-ecul.ogical projects that might be explored under socialism, mu;t
therefore remain at the heart of ecomcialist thinking.

5. The Question oJTemporal and Spatial. Scales

~t first sight, the que1>"tion of scale appears as a purely technical matter. Where,

lor example, do ecrniystems (or socio-ecological projects) begin and where do

they end, ~ow does a pond differ from the globe, how is it that processes which
operate '\\'lth profOUlld effect at one scale become irrelevant at another? "I!i;mes
of appropriate scalin~" Haila and Levins (1992: 236) argue, "'are among the
~dam:ntal" thoor~cal challenges in the understanding of society-nature
mteractl~ns, There IS, they say, ~no single 'correct' way" to define temporal
and spatIal scales: these art constituted by the organisms considered so that
different scales are simultaneously present at any particular site in nature (see
ch~pter 10): If, as is in the dialectical view (see chapter 2), there are no basic
uruts to WhlCh everything can he reduced, then t.'lJ.e choice of scale at which
to examine processes becomes both crucial and problcrnatic. The difficulty is
co:npounded by the fact that the remporal and spatial scales at which human
bemgs opera:e as ecological agents have also been changing. Cronon (1983:
99) notes, for e:ample, how even before colonial settlement began in New
~ngland, long-di~ce trade from Europe 'was bringing two hitherto largely
Isolated ecosystems meo contact with one another in such a way as to commercialize the Indians' material culture and dissolve their earli~r ecological
practices. If we think these days of the scale defined by the rommodirv and
_money flows that put our breakf...sts upon the table, and how that scale has
changed ~r t~e bst hundred years, then immediately it becomes apparent
thar th.ere IS an mstability in the definition ofscale which arises out of practices
of capItal accumulation, commodity exchange, and the like (see chapters 9
and 10)"
Yet~ as Smit~ (1992: 72) rer:1arks, ""the theory of the production of geogr:phlcal scale (to whIch I would add also the production of -ocmporalicies)
IS grossly underdeveloped" It seems to imply rhe production of a nested
of scales (/Tom global to local) leaving us always with the politicalo

24

Orientations

far better articula.ted in his novels than in his cultural theorizing. My purpose
here is not. 1 should make plain, w hold up Williams as some paragon of virtue
on these matters. Indeed, 1 accept the criricism that the nearer he steers to what
might be called "cultural holism" - the view that culture mlL'>"L be understood.
as a "'whole 'Way of life" and m.at social practices have to be construed as
"indiswluble elements of a continuous social material process" -- the closer he
comes to an organicist view of the social order; a 'community' characterized
by a certain "structure of feeling" as a "total vray of life" that cannot hdp but
be exclusionary with respect to outsiders and in some respects oppressive for
insiders too. T~e critical interventions of Said (1989) and of Gilroy (1987)
strongly point out the difficulty with respect to outsiders, the laner accusing
\Vi.1liams: of complicity with a metropolitan colonialism and imperialism by
virtue of his situatedness within the "structures of feeling" that were associated
with working-class support for [he British Empire. A purely organicist view
makes it equally difficult to examine multiple forces of oppression and dominacion within a cultural configuration. Williams, it is generally acknov;rledged,
is nowhere near sensitive enough on the gender issne, for tlalllple, though,
again, he felt he handled such questions much I?-0re firmly in his noy~ than
in his theorizing. Roman's (1993) sympathetic and constructive critique of
some of the pitfalls into which WIlliams sometimes seems to fall is exemplary
in exposing some of the dangers as well as ,the opportunities that Williams
creates hom both a feminist and a more racially sensitive perspective. There
is no doubt either, that Williams' rductance to let go of"livoo experience" leads
him to accept, as Hall (1989: 62) has remarked, a rather "'empiricist norion of
experience" as if there is nothing problematiC about taking daily experience as
a direct basis for theorY consaucrion. Williams' reticence in this regard has even
led som~, like Sned~ke[ (1993), to conc1ude~ erroneously I believe, that
Williams made no real theoreEical contributions at all, savt: giving Gramsci's
nOrlOilli of hegemony a new and somewhat more nuanced lease oflife. Yet there
is a certain paradox at work here for it is also true, as Snedeker (1993: 113)
concedes, that \Vtlliams' influence, in spite of all his supposed- defects, "remains
powerful in contemporary cultural studies, with their emphasis on (he counter
hegemonies of feminist, Third World. and working class movements."
I will not try either to defend or offer a systematic critique of Willi arm in
the controversial stances he took on politics and culture [see the edited
collections by Eagleton (1989) and Dworkin and Roman (1993) for extended
d..iscu~.ions]. Bur there are two crucial points concerning tis work that help
explain why so many of his most trenchant critics find merr...sdves retu~g
so often to his formulations. The first concerns the dialectical way in whlCh
his concepts get formulated. Consider. for example, the following passage:

.A1ilitant Particularism ilnd Glohal Ambition

is this ilnmediate and regular conversion of experience into finished prodLcts.
W.'!at is defensible as a procedure in conscious history, whece on certain
asswnptions many actions can he definitively taken as having ended, is habitually
projected, not only in:o the always moving substance of the past, but int~
contemporary life, in which rdationships, institutions and forraations in which
we are still actively involved are converted, by this procedural mode, into
formed wholes rather than forming and formative processes. Analysis is then
centred on relations between these produced institutions, furmarions, and
experiences, so that now, as in that produced pase:, only the fixed. explicit forms
exist, and living presence is always, by definicion, receding. {Williams, 1977:
128-9)

Williams is not immune from the tendency to procl.uce alienated conceptions

tbar instanciate "formed wholes" as dominants over "forming and formative
processes." But certainly in this passage he declares a strong preference for
dialectical readings that prioritize the understanding of processes over things,
so that any organicist notion of community, for example. is necessarily
tempered by the knowledge of the complicated Rows and processes that sustain
it. Williams here charts a terrain of theoretical possibilities in which the
xeduction of rdations between people into relations between -concepts can be
as rontinuously challenged as can our understanding of relationships, institutions, and forms be brought: alive by focusing att:cntion on the processes at work
producing, sustaining, or dissolving them.
The second point is t.."at the manner of "embeddedness" [as contemporary
rodologists - such as Granovetrer (1985) -like to refer to it] of political action
IIiwhat anthropologists 1ih: to term "intimate culture" (Lomnitz-Adler, 1991)
.1s.'s:imultaneollsly empowering and. problematic. But it also follows that the
~~~:~ractions.to which we appeal cannot he understood independently ofwhar~eijt.is that political and theoretical activity is embedded in, and whatever
Jj:Is .~thar social life is being intimate about. A study of some of Wi]iams'
-TQtmU1ations Gm here be extremely helpful, since he both uses and systematic~f qtjestions the notion of embeddedness and intimate culture throughout
.~."!lts:'YfQ[~ In what follows, I shall pay particular attention to the "...ay Williams
,-.,~ :!.~e:~r5(~ironment, space and place as framing concepts that help define what
ih~~<id.eas .rnibofn mean.

III. The Novel as Environmental History

fingers dose on this lichened sandstone. "With this stone and this grass,

n;;;tc?~~:"~;allthis
place
received and made and remade. Its generations
iii
suddwj present. (People of the Black MormUlim, VoL 1,
W3.S

Jn most description and analysis, c.uture and society arc expressed in an hab~t~
pa.s.t tense. The strongest barrier to the recognition of human cultural actlv1ty

25

26

Militant Particularism and GicbalAmbihon

Orientationr

So encl." the opening statemem of WIlliams' last and unfinished novel. The
story begins in 23,OOOBC and passes across periods of vasr environmental and
social change. The second story, for example. is set at the edge of the great ice
sheet that _surrounded the Black Mountains at the maximum point of glaciation
in 16,OOOBC. Subsequent episodes take up the advent of settled agriculrure,
writing, and other key moments of transformation of both the physical and
social environment through human action. The earlier reconstructions draw
heavily on archeological. paleological, and environmental history (the list of
sources furnished at the end of volume 2 is extensive indeed) -while the later
periods lean much more heavily on the works of economic, social, and cultural
historians. making this a fictional account deeply rooted in those material
realities identihed through research across a wide range of disciplines. In
episode after episode, the people who have traversed and struggled in that place
are imagined .into life.
So why was one ofBritains most eminent socialist ffiinkers. in the very last
fictional "work he undertook. writing the social and environmental history of
the Black Mountains?
One partial answer to that question presumably lies in Williams' insistence
that social- beings can never escape their embeddedness in the world of nature
and that no ronception of political action could, in the final analysis, afford
abstractions that did not encompass the fact. "Nature" was a key word for
Williams (!983b: 219) - perhaps "the most comple>: word in the language"
since the idea ont "contairu, though often unnoticed, an extraordinary amount
of human history ... both complicated and changing, as other ideas and experiences change" (Williams. 1980; 67). An enquiry into environmental history
as well as into changing conceptions of nature therefore provided a privileged
and powerful way to enquire imo and understand social and cultural change.
Williams cunsuues the social and. environmental dialectically, as different faces
of the same coin. Close attention to the environmental side was, however,
bound to throw into relief certain features that might otherwise be missed. His
materialism and critical realism always see to it that work (or what he elsewhere
calls "livelihood") - broadly understood as simultaneously life-giving and
culturally creative activity - is the fundamental process through which our
rdation to and understanding of the world of nature gets constituted.. "Once
we begin to speak of men mixing their lahour with the eanh, we are in a v.1tole
world of new relations between man and nature and to separate natural history
from social history becomes extremely problematic" (Williams, 1980: 76). Such
a dialectiCal and. transforroative view of how specific social rclations connect
to new ways of mixing labor with the land, is not unique to Williams. Ite-choe.'i,
for example, the views of Marx: and Engels that "as long as men exist, the
history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned" because
by acting on the external world and changing it. lwe1 at the same time change
[our] own nature" (Marx, 1967: 173). Witliam Cronon (1983: 13-14),

27

do}'--en of the rontemporary movement to create a distinctivdy environmental

form of history; makes a similar argument:

An ecological history begins by assuming a dynamic and changing rd.ationship

between environment and culture, one as apt to produce contradictions as
continuities, Moreover, it assumes that L'Ie interactions of the two are dialectical.
Environment may initially shape the range of choices available to a people at a
given moment bur men eulture reshapes environment responding to those
choices. The reshaped environment presents a new set of possioilities for cultural
reproduccion, thus setting up a new cycle of mutual determination. Changes
in the way people create and re-create their livelihood must be analysed in
terms of changes not only in their focial r~latums but in their erologiatlones as

well

me

But the environmental history of

Black Mountains is not something that
evolves purely in place. The novel records waves of migration and colonization which situate the history of the Bla-ck Mountains in a matrix of spatiality,
constituted by the Rov.'S and movements pulsing across Europe and beyond.
The distinctiveness, or what Williams affectionately calls the "sweetness of the
plaut gets constructed through the working out in that place of interventions
influences from outside. The three themes of place. space, and enVll-onm~t are cighdy interwoven in this particular novel as inseparable elements in

ana.

complex processes of social and environmental transformation.

--But why choose the lloyd as a vehicle to explore these themes? Why not

.write sUaight environmental history. or rest content with the abundant source
.II!:~terials upon

which Williams drav..'S? I think there are two reasons.

laid out .in the novels as key characters reflect on the
the: krlow,led"" and undemandings they hold. In People ofthe Black
.

A1im,,"taiml[Vo]
..

I, pp. 10-12) we find GI)'fi - the person through whom the

t~~~.'~~~fJ:;o:f the past become historically present - reflecting on discipof the place:

kinds of scrutiny that were built inro these

disdp1i~es

had their

,;~:;t~:i'.'

They would reduce what they were studying to an

in the worst cases to material for an enclosed career. Iflives
seriously sought, a powerful attachment to lives and
demanded. The polystyrene model and it'l textual

er;::l~~.~~~~ remained different fr-om the substance they reronE)

.. A.l hi;; books <lnd maps in the library, or in the home
'Y;.th,.""" common history which could be trans1atlXi anywhere,
evidence and rational inquiry. Yet he had only to move
fm, a different kind of mind to assert itself: stubhornly
\;:~~~~reaclring beyond to a wider common flow, where touch
V1
rewrd and analysis; not history as narrative hut stories as

28

ldilitant Partic-.darism and GlobatAmbition

Orientations

This is a familiar theme in Williams' novd (and it presages the move within the
discipline of history of a shift from narrarive to story form). In Border Country
(po 10) we similarly encounter rviatthew Price, like Williams, ~ambridge
educated. son of a railway signalman from a rural Welsh commUnity. but now
fictionally placed as a university'lecturer in eConomic history in london. His
work on population movements in Wales in the nineteenth century has hit :an
impasse. The data are all there but somerhing is missing:
The techniques I have learned. have th.e solidity and precision of ice cuhes, while
a given temperatue is maintained. But it is a temperature I .::an't really maintain;
the uoor of the box keeps flying open. It's hardly a populatlOn movement from
Glynmawr to Loncon. bu: it's a {;hange of substana::, as it must have been for
them, when they left their \'illages. And the ways of measuring this are not only
outside my discipline. They -are somewhere else altogether, thar I can flel but
not handle, touch but WI grmp. [my i(alics]

The implication is clear enough and applies with greac force to Williams~ own
work. Concerned with the Hved lives of people, the novel form allows hIm to
represent the daily qualities of those lives in ways that co~ld n~t ~e handl~
or grasped by other means. So whHe on the one hand W.i~a.tns l~Sts that his
novels should not be treated as separate from his cultural theonzmg, he also
freely admirs that he found some themes far easier to explore in his novds than
in his theoretical v.-'Ork (Williams.. 1989a: 319).
But there is another r~ason hel~nd the choiCE of a nOYd form. He wants to
emphasize the -ways in which personal and particular choices made under given
conditions are the verv essence of historical-geographical change. The novd
is not subject to dos~e in the same way that more analYTic fOrms of thinJ:ing
are. There are alway~ choices and possibilities, perpetually unresolved tensIOns
and differences, subde shifts in structures of feeling all of which stand to alter
the terms of debate and political action, even under the most diHicul[ and dire
of condidons. Williams greatly admired Brecht's theater. Brecht, he says, di5Cov:ered "ways of enacting genuine alternatives: not so much as in traditional
drama, through
embodiment of alternatives: in opposing characters, but
by rheir embodiment in one person, who lives through this way and [he~
that and invites us to draw our own conclusions'" (Williams. 1961: 157). TillS
means "there is no imposed resolution - the tension is there to the end, and
we are invited 1:0 consider it;" All ofWiUiams' central characters live that tensioo. The stories of the people of the Black Mountains are precisely about that
also. Politically this allows Williams to remind us of the way in which these
peoples, by virtue of the choices they made and the ways they lived
'
are "ali historically present." His aim is empowerment in the present
.
celebrating the ~Lrength and capacity to survive in the past. But there

me

something else at work too:

29

The crisis which came to me on the death of my father, who was a socialist and
a railw-ay worker -- I haven't been able to explain this to people properly, perhaps
I explained it partly in my novel Border Country- ....-as the sense ofa kiru:i ofdefeat
for an idea clvaltH. Maybe this was an unreasonable response. All right, he died,
he died too early, bur men and women die. Bll[ it Vi.'<lS very difficult not to see
him as a victim at the end. I suppose it was this klnd of experience 'which sent me
back to the historical novel I'm now-writing, People (jfthe Black !l-1ountains, ahoUt
the movements ofhistorJ over a very long period, in and through a parricular place
in Wales.. And this historv is a record of ... defeat, invasion, victimization,
oppression. "When one sees-what ~'<lS done to the people who are physically my
ancestors, one feds it to be almost incredible ... The defeats have occurred over
and over again, and what my novel 1S ther: trfing to explore is simply the condition
of anything surviving at all It's not a matter of the simple patriotic ansv.-er: we'[e
Welsh, and still here. rt'.<; the infinite resilience, even deviousness, with ....4llch
people have managed to persist in profoundly Wlfavourable concli;io!lS, and the
itriking diversity ofbeiiefi in which they'm: expressed their autcmomy. A sense Ifvalue
which has won its Wily through different kinds t~fcppressiun ofdifferent forms ... an

ingratu:d and indestlik-tible yet alw changing embodiment of the fJ'JssibiL~ of

common lifo. (W'illiams, 1989a: 321-2) [my italics~

Theembeddedness that Williams celebrates is the ability of human beings, as

soddl beings, to perperuate and. nurture in their daily lives and cultural practices
the-possibility of common values in the midst of a striking heterogeneity of
beliefS. The maintenance of such values depends crucially, however, upon a
certain kind of interpersonal rdating that typically occurs in parcicular places.

IV,

The Dialectics of Space and Place

build.ing in the Black Mountains? It was place that ,",,{"as

"".".'ll' ,,=, v<u ,",u made and remade," But what did "place" mean to Williams?
his key words (though "community" which is generally given
.:'~j]lJCC,I)OllIid connotation in his work is). Nevcrthdess:
. 'theory of socialism must now centrally involve place, Remember the
was that the proletariat had no country, th~ [actor whidI rliffere:n~
property owning cla'>ses. But place has been shown to be a
in -the bonding process- - more so perhaps for the working c~a2S
:al'itaJl-"wnin,~ d",,,-by the explosion or the international economy
drlU"iv, effocrsof deindustrializ-ation upon old communities. When
lm,wd nn, the importance of pIau: is more dt'.uly Ce\lea1ed. (\V.il1i3.c"Ds,

edt,e>! ofworking~dass political action is, according co this account,

.''',,r ,. In his novels, however, the meaning of place becomes

I"

30

Militant Particularism and GlobalAmbition 3l

Orientations

particularly dear. Tht: processes of place creation and dissolution - again a very
1:1

dialectical conception as compared to the formed enuty of an actual place - are

active momems in the action, But the constitution of place cannot be abstracted from the shifting patterns of space relations. This principle is constantly
reiterated in People of the Black Mountains and it also informs the incredibly
rich literary analysis of The Country and the City. It is rendered even more vivid
in the strike episode in Border Country: political consciousness in a rural Welsh
v.ili-age community, traversed by a railVilay line along which goods and
information flow, gets transfurmed. by virtue of its rdarion to the miners' strike
in South \Vales, only in the end to be sold out by decisions taken in London.
In an essay on the g~eral strike ofl926 Williams (1989a: 105-<5) makes clear
how the episode in Border Country was shaped only after long conversations
with his father. He then reflects on the strucrure of the problem as follows:
These men at iliat country station were industria! workers, trade unionists, in
a small group v,rithin a primarily rtlr.J and agriculrural economy. All of dleJ:l,
like my father, still had dose connections with that agricultural life. ... At the
same time, by the very fact of the railway, ,;vith ~he trains pa..."Sing through, from
the ci.tie:s, trom the factories, from the ports, from the collieries. and by the fact
of tbe telephone and the telegraph, which was especially important for the
signaimen, ",,110 rhrough it had a community with other signalmen over a wide
social netwOrk, talking beyond their work with men they might never actually
.rru::tt but whom they knew very well through voice, opinion and swry. they were
part of a modem industrial working dMS.

The strike episode sho\\'S how something special is achieved in that place - in
this case a realization of class consciousness and an understanding of the
possibility (and this. word is always lurking in the margins of all Williams'
discussions) of a real alternative. But this possibility is arrived at through the
internalization within that particular place and community of impulses
originating from outside. Hmv ex:"(ernal impulses were transformed into a very
local structure of feeling" is a crucial part of the story. Something very special
occurred in the fictional Glynmawr ([he strike, he narrates, had raised the:
prospects of common improvement" to an extraordinary practical vividness"
_ Border Country, p. 153) and the actual !Landy to give a. meaning ro socialism'
that was of a. peculiarly high order, thus making the tragedy ofits sell-out from
af:;.r particularly devasrating.
But there is a counterflow at work here. After
collapse of the strike,
of its d:-ynamk leaderso Morgan Prosser. takes to doing business deals until
ultimately becomes the biggest businessman in the valley, only in the end
be bought out by corporate capital. Says Morgan:

me

"this place is finished, as it was. What matters from now on is not the fidds,
not rhe moun~ns, but th~ rood. There'll be no village, as a place on its own.

There'll just be a name you pass through, houses along the road. And that's
where yuu'll be living, mind. On a roadside." (Border Coun:try~ p. 242)

While .;vior~ al~a}'-s p~fesses his willingness to give up his business ways if
another genume attern.atlve for common betterment can be found, he pushes
home relentlessly the VIew that the only choice is either to "settle" in place and
take \\-hat comes or to internalize whatever can be had from the external forces
at play and use them to particular, personal, or place-bound advantage.
In The Fight for Mawd, this local internalization of ""f'italistic values h=mes
even more apparent. Says Peter Owen, the radical soc101ocist coupted to look ar
:hat a new
b~t in the rural ~ackwater of lvlanod in Wales might mean,

ro:m

~stoty is back. there m the bloody centre: the BirminghamDusseldorf ~s. V:1th offices m Lo~n, "Brussels, .Paris, Rome." 'CWhat always
-brw us up JS clllS money from outSIde cornplams a local resident Gwen {p.
140}. As me tale o~ s~cret land.company procurements comes to light, we see
?OW a faceless capItalism exerciSes a deeply corrupting influence on everyone
In the place:

the actual

The companies. And then the distance, the everyday obviousness of the distance
between that lane in Man.od. all the immediate problems of Gwen and Ivor

and

Trevor ~nd Gethin and the others: the distance from them to this register of
comfJ3.1l!es, but at ~ same rime the relations are so solid, so registered. The
~ ~ra1lSact1ons reach nght down to them. Not just as a force from oULSidt hut <IE
-_i,aforce they've e~~ed
~ now part of. Yet still aforce that cares nothing
.ahollt them, that s ,ust dnvmg Its own way. (Fig)ft for Mdnod, p. 15-3)

wi:I:.

fullows for Matthew is the bitter realization mat:

what ~eems Oll~ own. interests, as these farmers are duing in Manod,
[thiS proce.';s~ hut IS part of it; is ir510cal reproduction.
tllli' pc~es

'"cultep:~bl~s of political id~nti~ depending upon die spatial

which political thought and action IS construed as possible:

orr. NleUrrg," Peter :;:d. "He lives in Uanidloes or in Europe, I can't

'" Tom Meurig la:1ghed" ...
up his mind," Perer said, "whether co pwciaim an immediate
Celtic Peoples, with honorary membership for the BasqUe>, or
,'simoh 'n
over Europe, v.ith trus new communal socialism iliey've
10 the hills."
.' ~leung said,. "or the third possibiliry: getting one of our
. Dmnct Cuuncil," (Fight for Manod, p. 133)

:ake

~~.:;r~,::~I:~~~~'~:~~ an incredible tension. It turns out that the

external forces in Manod depends crucially upon a farmer

32

: l

Militant Parricuurism tlrr.4 Global Ambition 33

OrientatiunJ

on the district council having privileged knowledge of plans being hatched elsewhere. The relevant place and range of political action (as well as action in the
novel) cannot get resolved outside of a particularly dialectical way of defining
lovaltie... to place across space. And within such loyalties we "ill always find a peculi~ tension between resistance and complicity to dominant social processes.

V. The Place of Socialist Politics

Williams tries to incorporate "place" more directly into socialist theorizing. The
key phrase here is what Wtlli3.'31S calls "militant particularism." I want to pay
particular attention to this idea since it captures something "'ery important
about both the history and prospects for socialism. Wtiliams (1989a: 249; 115)
reflects as follows:
The unique and extraordinary character of working class self-organization has
heen that it has tried to connect particular struggles to a general struggle in one
quite special way. It has set out, as a movement. w make real what i~ at ~t
sight the extraotdinary claim that the defence and advancement of certaln
particular interests, properly hrought together, are in fact the general mtcresL

Ideals forged out of the affirmative experience of solidarities in one place: get
generalized and universalized as a working modcl of a neVl form of society that
,,<ill benefit all of humaniry. This is what Williams means by "militant
particularism'" and he sees it as deeply- ingrained into the history of progressive
socialism in Britain as well as "a most significant part of the history ofWales."
It is not hard to generalize the point~ even though Wtlliams himself wa.<;
reluctant to let go of the particularities :md specificities uf actual places as t..~e
fUndamental basis for his thinking. The French revolutionaries, after all,
proclaimed docITlnes of "the rights of man"; the international workers movement proclaimed the global transition to socialism for the benefit of all; the
civil rights movement in the United States articulated a politics of universal
racial justice; certain ..,yings of contemporary feminism and the ecology movemenr project their miJit:llt pan:icularism as (he basis for a wide-ranging social
reconstruction that will advantage, if not save, us all.
\~'ilHams appears to suggest that many if nOl all forms of political engagement have their grounding in some kind of militam particularism (such as dla!,'
which I encountered in Cowley). But the difficulry is:
.fhat because it had hegur. as local and affirmative, assuming an u..'probleroatic
extension from its o.'TI local and community experience to a much more genera!
movemtllf, it was always lnsufficientiy a-.vare of the quite sy:'ttematic obsrades
which stood in the way. (Williams, 1989a: 115)

Such obstacles could only be understood through abstractions capable of

confronting processes not accessible to direct loea! experience. And here is the
rub. The move from tangible solidarities understood as patterns of social life
organized in affective and Imowable communities to a more abstract set of
conception.. that would have universal purchase involves a move from one level
of abstraction - attached to place - to another level of abstraction capable of
reaching out across space. _And in that move, something \vas hound to he lost.
"In carr~c," Williams ruefully ~otes, '<necessarily, the politics of negation, the
politics of differentiation, the politics of ahstract analysis. And these, whether
we liked them or not, were now ncccs.sary even to unde~d what was happening." Even the language changes, shifting from words like our community," and "our people" in the coal1ields to "tl\c organised working class,'" the
"proletariat" and the "masses" in the metropolis where the abstractions are most
hody debated (Loyalties, p. 293).
The shifr from one conceptual world, from one level of abstraction to
another. can threaten the common purpose and values that ground the militant
particularism achieved in particular places:
This was my saddest discovery: when I found that in myself ... that most crucial
form of imperialism had happened. That is to say, where parts of your mind
are taken over by a system of ideas, <t sy'Srem of feding:>, which really do emanate
from the power centre. Right back in )"OUI own mind, and right back inside the
0PP.tessed and deprived community there arc reproduced dements of the
~inking and the feeling of that dominating cenae .... If that negative politics
- ,is the only politics then it is the final victory of a mode of thought which seems
ultimate product of capitalist society. \\fhatever its political label it is
.c.. c "nu<<< of thought which really has made relations between men into relations
. ; i><'tW,eCri things or relations between concepts. (Williams, 1989a: 117)

;1:;'~~:~, between the different leve~s and kinds of abstractions to which

.~
necessarily appeal in order to understand their relation to the world,
;~,fp)artiClltiatly vivid in his novels, often internalized within the conflicting

In Border UJuntry, Matthew takes the name given

.
into the wider world, but in Glynmawr he is always known as
his mother wanted. The dualitv of that identity - who is he
:..
- is perpetually at work thr~ughout the r:.ovel. Caught i~
.-'t becomes almost impossible to find a language with which to

to detachment: the language itsdf, consistently ahstracci:Ig and

:supported him in this. And the detadunem was real in anomet
in this house. hoth a child and a srrarl..ger. He could 110t speak as
speak really as himself at all, but only in the terms that this
, . ({Jorde, Country, p. 83)

34

lvfilitant Particularism and ClobalAmbition 35

Orientations

The tension is registered even In the way in which a familiar landscape gets
remembered:
It was one thi.ng to carry its image in bis mind. as he did, everywhere, never .a
day passing but he dosed his eyes and saw it again, his only landscape. Rut It
.vas different to stand and look at the reality. ItwdS .not less beautiful; every detail
of the land came up with its old excitement. But it W".,s not still. as the image
had been. It wa5 no longer a landscape or a view, but a \-'ailey rhat people were
using. He realized as hewatch~ what had happened in ~~g away, The v-.Jley
as landscape had. heen taken, but its wmk forgotten. The VISitor sees beauty: the

inhabitant a place where he works and has friends. Far away, closing his eyes, he
had been seeing this valley, but as a visitor sees it, as the guide book sees it: this
.iller. in which he had lived more than half his life. (Border Country, p. 75)
This distinction between a "tourist gaze" and lived lives in piace is vital to
Williams. Lived lives and the sense of value that attaches thereto are embedded
in an environment actively molded and achieved through work, play, -and a
wide array of cultural practices. There is a deep coatinuity here between the
environmental. ambience of Border Country and the more explicit environmental history of People ofthe Bltuk ~"Jounttlins. Only at the end of the former
novd can MauhewfW'ill come together, perhaps to reconcile the different
structures of feeling that arise th!"ough the mind that asserts itself walking on
the moum:ain and the knowledge achieved through the "polystyrene models
and their theoretical equivalents"':
now it seems like the end of exile. No[ going hack, bu-::the feeling of exile ending.
For the distance is measured, and that is 'what marreR>. By measuri:1g the
di1>uoce, we come home. (Border Country, p. 351)

Again and again, tlUs same duality erupts in Williams' novels. TIle battle
between different levels of abstractions, between distinctively understood
particularities of places and the necessary absuacrions required to tak~ those
understandings imo a wider realm, the right to transform militant particularism into sometbing more substantial on the world stage of capitalism - all of
these elerr..ents hecome cenrrallines of contradiction and tension that power
the story line of the novds. Loyalties turns crucially on such tensions. And in
that novel we get a far profm.lllder explora(ion of political dilemmas dun comes
from any of the theoretical work.

VI. A Question of Loyalties

'I'he story of Loyalties begins with a meeting in 1936 betv;'een Welsh
and Cambridge University students on a farmstead in Wales to work

common means to fight fascism in Spain. Out of that meeting comes a brief
passionate liaison between a Welsh girl, Nesta. who has Striking artistic talents,
and Norman, a young Cambridge student from an upper-class background
The question of their distinctive places, both materially and in the structure
of society, is. raised immediately. She maintains that the place - Danycapd has made her what she is; he graciously concedes that it mmt thcTefore be a
good place but then urges her not to get stuck in it. She remains for the rest
ofhet life there - the woman embedded in the particular place that has bnth
nurtured. her and which she continues to llUITUIe - while he, the man, returns
to a more cosmopolitan, internationalist, and seemingly roorless world of
international political intrigue and scientific enquiry. Though the two never
talk again after their brief initial encounters, the novel turns on the continuance
of the tension between them primarily in the figure of GViyn, the son born
out 'of wedlock between t'l-VO class and gender positions - the one closely placeootI?-d and the other ranging more widely across space - within a supposedly
common politics defined largely through the Communist party. Gwyn, like
Iv1atthew Price in Border Country internalizes the tension: raised in that place
virhere Nesta dwells, he eventually goes to Cambridge to study, in part a.t
insistence of Norman's sister. who performs a crucial link role nurturing a
familial connection to Gwyn that Norman broadly ignores.
The place-bound policies arising out of the experience of class solidarities
,and gender relations in Wales in radically diftcrent from the more abstract
conceptions held by academics and party leaders. The difference is not, it
~,1}ld be noted, between parochialism and universalism. The winer, Bert, who
~tttriateJy marries Gwyn's mother and becomes Gwyn's real father, fights in
- ,
other workers and students. "'When the student, who was dose
ii\:Nij,rmian at Cambridge, is killed in action, Ben acquires his binoculars (a
sJil;i)l\i,lic: terrain of vision?) only on his deathbed to hand them on to Gwyn.
in World War II (billed as "the ultimate war against fascism"),
<t- hideous iniury in Normandy that permanencly disfigures his face
the marks of his internationalist commitments on his

me

Gwyn's biological father. dwells in a different world and fashions

the party and to the cause in a radically different way. Perhaps
Burg=, Maclean, Philby, and Blum (the Cambridge group who
agents during the 1930s), Norman, an accomplished scientist,
in' passing on scientific knowledge to the Communist powers,
perpetual men~al pre5'-:ures acquiring internal mental
anguiish,,, over whether to sustain loyalties contracted in one era
-sense, in a cold war world where conscience might dictate
Williams does not, interestingly, condemn :N"orman,
iitter.:leatht"djudgment is powerfully registered against these
>In their class" - (hey used Wi we know now Vie got to do it

36

Militant Particularism and GlobalAmbitirm 37

Orimtatiol1J

by ourselves." Gwyn echoes this .judgment - Norman and his ilk were the very
worst "because they involved in mcir betrayal what shodd have been the
altemadve: their own working class party. their soaalism."
But Gwyn's final angry confrontation with Norman (see below) is paralleled
by an extraordinary outburst directed against Gwyn by his mother Nesta. The
occasion arises when she reveals to him two sketch portraics she has hidden
away _ one of the young Norman, fair-haired and ethereal and the other of a
now-deceased Bert. drawn after his return from the war, a !'ortrait that "was
terrible beyond. any likeness, as if the already damaged face was still beir-'6
broken am:' pulled apart." G",,'Yll is deeply moved but can only say how
"intensdy beautiful" the latter portrait is;
She "las staring at him angrily. Her face and body seemed twisted with sudden
pain, He -w<lli bewildered because he had never seen her in even ordinary ange:.
She had. been always .so contained and quiet and pleasant> ahvays younger than
her age, self-possessed and slightly 'h-ithdrawn.
"It is not beautiful!" she screamed, if! a terrible high voice.
"M:u:n, please, I didn'l mean that," Gwyn struggled to say.
"'Do yOll understard ::lothing?" she screamed. "Do you know nothing? Have
you learned no6ing?"
"-Mam, an 1 meant-"
"It is not beautiful!" she cried again. "-It's ugly. [t's destroying! It's human
flesh hroken and pulped!"
"Yes. Yes in him. But the truth. that yOll saw the troth -"
"It's ugly, it's ugly!" she screamed now past all controL (Loyaltit!S, pp 347-8)

or

This violem dash sensibilities, of "strucrures of feeling" as Williams putS it.

says it alL' i'he problem here is not only the level of abstraction at which the
w~rld view of ,socialist politics gets cOllStitmed.. but of the very different Structures of feeling that can attach to those different levels of abstraction. Gwyn
has acquired the distance to look upon the portrait of Bert as a work of art,
as a thing of beauty precisely because it can capmre and represent the av.fulness
of disfigurement with an elemental truth. But for Nesta it is not the repre~
sentation that matters, but what is being rtpresented; the sheer pain of that
always remains fundamental and elemental,
The difficulties posed by the search for any kind of critical distance then .'
come more dearly into focus, In Border Country, for exampte, Ma.tthew/~lill ..
takes to climbing the nearhy mountain, the Kestrel) ana admiring the .
frum on high. Looking at "the patch" where he had been raised, he knew

mere,

was not only a place, out people, yet from here it was as if no one lived
no one had ever lived there, and yet, in its stillness, it was a memory of himselL
'" The moumain had this power, m abstract and to darify, but in the end he .
could not stay here: he mus~ go back down where he iived.

And then:
On the way down the shapes fuded and the ordinary identities returned. The
voice in his mind faded and the ordinary voice ca.~le back. Like old Blakelv
asking, digging his stick in the turf. ~"hat will you be reading, Will? Books, s;?
No better not, History. sir. History from the Kesrrel, where you sir and watch
memory move, across the ",,-ide valley. That was the sense of it to \\-"arch, to
interpret, to try and get clear. Only the wind narrowing the eyes. :;.nd so much
living in you, deciding what you will see and howyou wiU see it. Never above,
watching. You>U lind what you're watching is yoursdf. (Bonk,. Country,
pp.291-3)

But it is .not only the level of abstraction at which dirrerent representations

operate that is vital here. There is something else going on in these interc~oes
that derives from the kind of abstraction achievable given different ways of
acquiring knowledge of the world. There is a polarization in Williams'
argument. Ingold (1993: 41), in a ramer different context, describes the opposition as Jhat between a ".-ision of the world as a sphere which encompasses us
or as a globe q.pon \vhich we can gaze:
the local is not a more limited or aarrowly focused apprehension than the global,
it is one that rests on an altogether diffcrcm mode of apprehension - one based
'on au active, perceptual engagement with componenUi of the dwelt-in Vi,-'Of:'d,

- in' die practical. business of life, rather than on the detached, disinterested
observation of a world apart. In the local perspecrive the world is a sphere ...
~tred oil a particular place. From this experiential centre, the acrention of those
.yiho live there is drawn ever c.eeper into me worI~ in the quest for knowledge
:a:nd. understanding.
;o.~'',",fi

Bert and Nesta seem always to be rea.cr...ing out from their centered

}~I;>l:e-I)a."y,:ar)e1- ,vbereas Norman always tries to understand the world in

d~:~:~;c:'7n en route to his political

commitmerits.

Gv.yn jntemali-res
and is given with conflicting thoughts and feelings. Yet,
ms seerr~ to be saying, we cannot do without both kinds of abs[[actioo
than we can do without the conflicting modes of rcprcse!ltation that
attach to them. Williams tries to define a complementary, even
between thc two visions, though I think it is evident on what
opposii,ion he feels most comfortable. We should, he again and
never forget the brute ugliness of the realities of lived experience
. We should not estheticize or theorize those lived realities
as felt" pains and passions. To do so is to diminish or even to
against injustice and exploitation that powers so much of
!>Ocial change. The formulaic view that "truth is beauty," for
to be treated wirh the wrath that ),festa metes out.
=r

38

Militant Particularism and Global Ambition 39

Orimtatiom

The question of loyalties is defined, then, both by the level and kind of
abstraction through which political questions are fonnulated. As an affective
and emotive political force, loyalties always attach to certain definite structures
of feding. TIl.e richest charac[ers in all of Williams' novels are precisely those
who internalize different a'1.d conflicting loyalties to radically different structun', of feding - Gwyn in Loyalties or Matthew Price in Burda C""ntry and
Owen Price in Second Generation. And it is no accident that Williams turns
to the novel to explore the tensions. The Brechtian strategy is- everywhere
apparent and suggests not only mat the tensions can never be resolved but that
we should never expect them to be so. By perpetually keeping them open. we
keep open a primary resource for the creative thinking and practices necessary
to a.chievt: progressive social change.
This is a telling formulation of a problem that many must recognize. I recognize it not only as someone who, like Williams, went from an English state
school to a Cambridge educarion~ but also more immediately in the contested
politics of the Cowley project- Where did my loyalties lie? Williams' warnings
are salutary. The possibility of betrayal looms, in our heads as
as in our
actions, as we move from one level of absuaccion or from one kind ofepistemology w another, The dissident: ,hop-stewards in the Cowley "" plant probably
said unkindly words about me of exactly the sort that Bert said of "the class
runaways" in Loyalties. Interestingly. Hayter inserted into the oonclusion the very
!luang woeds of a shop-steward in the plant: "Betrayal is a process, not an
individual act, and it is not always conscious." 'While the comment was not
directed at me, jt could wdl have been in the light of our discussions.
But betra}''al is a complex as well as a bitter term. Let me go back to the
-fictional account in Loyalties (pp. 317-19). Here is how Norman's dose
associate defends him to Gwyn:

we"

(0 wh.ich .one belongs. But you

have only to look at the shifu of alliance and hostility, bodl the international
shifts and within them the complex alliances and hostilities of classes, to know
how dynamic this definable qUaflcity becomes. There are traiwrs within a class
to a nation, and within a nation to a dass. People who live in rimes when these
loyalties are stable arc more fortunate than we were."
"Not only in 'Limes. in places," Gwyn -said.

"There are genuine acts of betrayal of groups

In any case, ~orman was involved in scientific reliearch mat had a COIDI)le',,",,
different domain of .reference. This entailed:
a dynamic conflict within a highly specialized fiekl.. It was vital to prevent it,
through imbalance, reaching that exception-ally dangerous stage in which., byits
ovm logic, il passed beyond nations and classes and beyond all the loyalties dlat

any of us had known. Except, perhaps, in me end, a simple loyalty to tru: h'lIDan'
species.

Noth~ng of su~h mo~em was involved in the Cowley case of course. Although

there IS one mmor tw"lSt at the end of Lo-yalties that would make the connection.
Norman, -allowed to recire without disgrace. has bought in a wood to save it
from development- In the face of Gwyn's accusation of class betrayal of "the
morality of shared existence" that underlies the militant particularism of a
rommunity like Danycapel, Norman argues:
You abuse what you call my class hut what you are really abusing is knowledge
and reason. By the way the society is. it is here, v;im us, that ideas are generated.
So it has been with sociaJi.'ill1: at once the good ideas and the errors. Yet we have
begun to rorrect them, and this is all that can be done. In reason and in conscience our duty now is not to something called socialism, it is to {;(mserving and
saving the earth. Yet nothing significant for either is generared among what you
call your fellow countrymen. Indeed, that is, prcosdy> their deprivation. It is also
their inadequacy, and then what arc you asking of me. That I should he loyal to
ignorance, to shortSightedness, [0 prejudice, because dlese exist in my fellow
countrymen? That I should stay still and connive [n the destruction of the earth
because my fellow countrymen are taking parr h""l iti And that I should do this
because of some traditional scruple, that I am bound to inherit a common
inadequacy, a common ignorance, because in; hearers speak
same tongue,

me

inhabit the same threatened island?"Wbat morality, really, do you propose in that?
GWyn's response is sharp enough:
. What you thought about communism. what you now think about nature, is no
:.more than a projection of what suited you. The:Get that for others each belief
:#-s~bStantial metely enabled you to deceive them. (Loyalties, p. 364)

,e'rgIlment in Loyalties is not, of course resolved. And I think Williams'

to "inSist that it can never be. Loyalties contracted at one scale, in one
:,l><~'md in terms of a particular structure of feeling, cannot easily be carried
','1>{".i,.n.hD.i, transfOrmation or translation into the kinds ofloyalcies required
_socialism a viahle movement either elsewhere or in general. But in
-. _
- something important gets Jost leaving behind a bitter
of always unresolved tension.

Loyalties, Identities, and Political Commitments

l~ads to some uncomfortable political reflections. Let me depict

The socialist cause in Britain has always been powered

lip,articullari':,ms of the sort that W.Jliams described in Wales and I
good deal ofhisroricaI evidence could, I bdieve, be
lin>su,pp0rl: of' th~t argument. A recent volwne of essays on Fighting

40

;1

I'i j'i

Back in Appalachia (Fisher, 1993) documents the point brilliantiy within the
Uni[cd States. But those militant particularisms - even when they can be
brought together into a national movement - as they have been at ...<anous
historical moments by the Labour Party in Britain - are in some senses
profoundly conservative because they rest on the perpetuation of patterns of
soci-al relations and commurit}, solidarities -loyalties - achieved under a certain kind of oppressive and uncaring industrial order. "While ownership may
change (through nationalization, for example), the mines and assembly lines

must be kept going for these are the material bases for the ways of social rdating

i ,i

':

'i ,

;H

i"

,
"

!:

Afilittmt Particularism and Global Ambition 41

Orientations

and mechanisms of class solidarity embedded in particular places and communities. Socialist politics acquires irs conservative edge because it cannot easily
be about the radical transformation and overthrow of old modes of ",rorking
and living _ it must in the nrst instance be about keeping the coal mines open
and the assembly lines moving at any COs[ (witness the tangles of indus[[ial
policy of successive British Labour governments in the 19605 and 1970s).
Should the: S[ruggle at Cowley be to keep the increasingly oppressive:: jobs in
the car plant going, or to seek out different, better, healthier, more satisfYing
jobs in some quite different and more ecologically sensitive system of produc~
cion? At a time of weakne&" and no alternatives, the CowL]' struggle necessarily
focused on the former objective, but I had the disrinct impression that even
in the long-run and under rtte best of circumstances it would always he thus
for those working on the shopfloor, for those most strongly imbued with the
militant particularism associated with working in the piant.
There is another way of putting this. Can the political and social identities
furged tlllder an oppressive industrial order of a certain sort operating in a certain
place survive the collapse Of radical transformation of that order? The immediate
answer I shall profer i~ "'no" (and again I think a good deal of evidence can he
marshalled to support mat conclusion). If that is so, then perpetuation of rhose
political identities and loyalties requires perpcruation of the oppressive condi~
tions that gave rise [Q them. Working-class movemems may then seek te
perpetuate or return to the conditions of oppression that spawned them, in much
same way that those women who hayC acquired their sense of self under
conditions of male violence .return again and again to living with violent men.
That parallel is instructive here. It is, as many feminists have argued and .
many women have shown. possible to break the pattern, to come out of the
dependency. Working-class movements can similarly retain a revolutionary
impulse while raking on new political identities under uansforcred conditions
of working and E...ring. But it is a lor.g hard process that needs a lot of
work. Williams recognizes this difficu1ty explicitly in his discussion

me

ecological issue:
It ~s no use simply ~ying (C South Wales miners that all around: them is an
ecolugical disaster. They .already know. They liye in It. They have lived in it for

generations. They carry it.wi.th th~. in their Iu::'-gs.... B'.lt you cannot just say
to people who have comnu::ted their lives and. then conunwl.ities w certain kinds

of productio~

th~t this ~as all got to be changed.. You can't ju.'it say: rome our
of the ~ar~ mdusrnes, con:e out of the dangerous industries, let liS do
some~H~lg Detter. .Eve~""thing will have to be done by negotiation, by equirable
negotlatJOn, and It ,vlll have to be taken steadily along the 'WaY. (WIlli
1989a: 220)
I
\
amI',

The worry at ~e end of that road of negotiation, is that socialist parnes and
governme~ts WIll only ~ucceed in undermining the .social .utd political idenrities
and l?yaines that proVIde the seed-bed of their o\\n support (again, quite a bit
eVIdence can be .m~h~led for that proposition in western Europe since
World W::r II). SO,c:ahsm, l~ could be argued. is always about the negation of
the. m:tenal c~ndi~ons of Its own political identity. But it so happens that
capitalISm has fortul tously taken a path these last 20 years towards the eliminacio~ ~fmanT. of the mili.tant particularisms that have traditionally grounded
sooalls[ POll?CS - the mmes have dosed, the a-ssembly lines cut back or shut
do~, the shtp-yards turned silent, ,}7e then either take the position that Hayter
VOiCed to me - that the future of.~ocialism in Oxford depended on the outcome
o~ a struggle ro get mass, employment in car production back into Cowley (a
vlew_I.could nor accept) or else we have to search for new combinations of
both. old and new- forms of militant particularism ro ground a rather different
ver~io~ of socialist politics. I see no option except to take the iauer path, how~
~'f.r drfficult and problematic it may be. This does not entail the abandon~
'~.~nt. of class politics for those of the "new social movements" but th
of different forms of alli<k"""lces that can reconstitute ar.d ;enew
P:9li.ri0. Put pragmatically, class poiitics in Oxfurd could sillvi ve the total
:'.: . .' the Cowley plant, hur only if it secures a new basis.
is still another dimension to all this, wlucll has to du with tbe question
sq.Ie and temporal horizon. With respect to the former. Neil Smith
has Tecencly remarked how we have June a very bad job of
,.k;i;'tti~g, to 1''1';o(iate bem--een and link across d~fferent spatial scales of socisJ
political action. He emphasizes what I see as a central confusion
of socialism arising: out of an extensive silence
'S8ueSllon of scale":

0:

~'p~.~racion

clas~

h~~ry'o g,o~"ph;,calscalc - more correctly the theoq of the production

" ,:,,,,.,,y underdeveloped. In effect, thee is no socia!
,f 1:eo:!;,aph;c,ji scai~, not ro mention an historical materialist one. And

pan in our whole geographical construction of maceriailife.

Tianamen Square a local e-vent, a regional or

repr~ion ~f

or was

it

an tnxrnational event? We might rcasomhlv assume

,.",hi.ch immediately reinforces the conclusion tha: ;oci.allife

constructs sorr:e 50rt of nested hierarchical 5pace rather than a

42

Militant Particularism and Global Ambition 43

Grimtations
mosaic How do we critically conceive of these various nested scales, how do
we arbitrate and trans1ate between them?

. ~ ~!

'I'

I>,

, , 1 ~!,~I

I,

Capitalism as a social system has managed not only to negotiate but often t~
accive1y manipulate such dilemmas of scale in its forms of class struggle. This
has been particularly true of its penchane fur achieving uneven sectoral and
geographical development so as to force a divisive competitiveness between
places defined at different scales. But where does "place" begin and end? And
is there a scale beyond which ""militant particularism" becomes i~possible to
ground let alone sustain? The problem for socialist pol~cics is to find wa~ to
answer such questions, not in any final sense, but precisely through definmg
modes of communication and translation between different kinds and levels
of abstraction.

VIII. On Conclusions
I conceded that Hayter write the conclusion to The Factory and the City. The
book, after all, was largely the result of her effortS. The result reads very oddly.
Broadly "workerist" assertions iliat focus exclusively on the struggl~ to regain
radical control in the plant are ameliorated here and dIen: by questions about
overcapacity, community involvement, and
envir~nment. !he e~ is
~uange since it fu.its to identify any productive internalIzed. tCDSlOn. This 1S a
pity: there was an opportunity here not to seek closure of an argument but to
use the marerials in the book to reflect upon and learn from what had
happened, ro open up a. terrain of discussion and debate_ I. cannot help --contrasting our effort with the far more thoughtful conclusIOn - 1arg~y
focusing upon the tension between dass-based and p~~-based Mar:ast
perspectives on me one hand and neo-populist communlta:lan perspe~ves
on the other _ provided hy Stephen Fisher in Fighting Back In Appalach,a, an
edited collection of incidents of struggle and conflict in Appalachia that has
many parallels in terms of l.he multiple voices it incorporates.
Our failure helps explain, I think, why Williams resorted to the novel to
explore certain dilemrnas_ The closure that we often seem compeUe~ [0 sear~ :
for in a pjece of cultural or political economic research can more easily rem:llll
perpetually open fur reflection in
novel form, even. when, ~<
Matthew Price, some sort of reconciliation becomes pOSSible once the
is measured.'" Dual conclusions to the Cowley book would have kept
and options open. the tensions alive, at the same time as it wo~d
highlighted
qUestioll of the difttrcnt levels and kinds ~f a~str.lctlons.
In view of all this, I was quite startled to read Williams novel
Generation, sometime after
Cowley book \-\'as finished. This novel
published in 1964 and set in Oxford at around that time. It revolves

me

me

me

me

the tensions berween a university-based socialism on the one .hand and the
contested politics within the car plant on the other. The opening paragraph
sets the scene for the problem of socialise politics in a divided city:

If you stand. today, in Between Town Road, you Gill see either wav:. west to the

and

spires and towers of the cathedral and coUeges; east to the yank
sheds of the
motor works. You see different worlds, hut there is no frontier between them:
there is only the movemen: and traflic of a single city. (Second Gen"eration, p. 9)

Kate Owen, a local labour Party organizer and wife of a union leader in the
plant is torn between loyalty to family and community and the SeA."Ual freedom
that beckons from the other side of the class divide "Within a university-based.
socialism. Peter Owen, her son, is likewise caught in between. He is studying
for his doctorate in industrial sociology at an Oxford college at the same time
as.a violent shopHoor srruggle is wearing his father down and down in Cowley.
All the themes Williams del,<elops elsewhere concerning the contested
knowledge that it is possible to acquire and hold are richly developed here,
induding the interplays of gender and class within "structures of feeling"
embed.ded in socialist politics worked out in different places.
Many of the sub~antive issues that arose in the work on the Cowley project
actually crop tip, WIthout resolution> in Second Generation. Had I.read it before
rathe~ than after becoming associated with the Cowley research~ my approach
might have been different. [ would on the one hand. have insisted on the
~rechtian strategy of keeping the conclusions open. But on the other I would.
~,:etaken more notice of Williams' (1989a: 220) injunction that everything
,WIll. have to be done by negotiation, equitable negotiation, and it will have to
~:\aken steadily aJong the way."

IX.. Evaluations and Possibilities

iliieewo,rds "space," "place," and environment" encompass much of what
do. Their meaning has been contested within geography over the
fierce debates (particularly in the radical journal Antipode) over, for
and why localities and places might be said to matter and how
view relations benveen place and space (see, for example, Agnew
1989; Cooke, 1989, 1990; Massey, 1991; Pred, 1984; Smith,
1989, 1992a). And in the course of this discussion, the
of abstracrion and scale has again and again been raised (see

1989; Cooke, 1989; Duncan and Savage, 1989; Horvam and

;~E~;~: 1993; SWf11gedouw, 1992b; as well as Smith, 1990,

. are not the only ones to deal in such matters. In recent

to be attributed to space, place, and nature have become

44

/1

Orientations

a crucia) matter of debate in socia), cultural, and literary theory (see, for
example, Carter et .ai., 1993) - a debate in which geographers have certainlyparticipated (see Bird et a1., 1993; Gregory am! Urry, 1985; Keith and Pile,
1993). The.se sorts of concerns and interests have been impelled in pan by the
question of the relations between what appears to be an emergent global
capitalise culture on the one h.and and the reassertion of all sorts of reactionary
a;.,; well as potentially progressive "militant particularisms" based in particular
places on the other, coupled with a seemingly serious: threat of global
environmental degradation. But the concerns have also-in pan been produced
by a burgeoning tradition of culrural studies that Raymond Williams helped
to define, with its emphasis upon structures of feding, values, embeddedness,
difference, and the particularities of the l,'Ounterhegemonic discourses and social
relations oppositional groups construct.
Williams thought a great deal about questions of space. place, and environment and eVldendy worried as to how they might be brought into play both
in his cultural meary and in his views on socialism. Transformations of space,
place, and environment are neither neutral nor innocent with respect to
pracrices of domination and control. lndeed, they are fundamental framing
decisions _ replete with multiple possibilities - thar govern the conditions
(often oppressive) over how lives can be lived. Such issues cannot be left
unaddressed in struggles for liberation. Furthermore. suc..'I struggles
necessa:ily internalize a certain reflexivity, if nor an unresolvable tension,
concerning boLh the levels and kinds of abstractions they inevitably embrace
as parr and pared of their working tools for practical action.
The fact that Williams' dealings and concerns: over space. place, and
environment are voiced primarily in his novels suggests, however, a certain
hesitancy if not an outright difficulty in getting this tripartite conceptual
apparatus into the heart of cultural theory. The conclusion is not, however that
space, place, and environment cannot be incorporated into social and cultural
theory, but that practices of meorizing have to be opened up to the possibilities
and dilemmas that such an incorporation requires. By treating Williams at his
word, and seeing his novels and his criJ:ical cultural theory as complementary,
we identify a field of theoriung far richer than that which many of the high
theorists of contemporary culture currently envision. Theory is never a matter
of pure abstraction. Theoretical pract.ice must be constructed as a continuous
diah:ctic bern-een the mil~tant particularism of lived lives and a struggle to
achieve sufficient critiGl.1 disrance and detachment to formulate global
ambitions. The problematic that con-sideration ofWtlliams' works as a whole
defines is universal enough to bring its own rewards. It indicates the crucial
importance of building a critical ma.terialist and thoroughly grounded. (in the
literal sense) understanding of place, space, and environment into cu.w.r~ M'",
social theol)"; The stakes in such a project are high. Theory cannot be
to bear upon the world of daily political practices without finding ways

Militant Particularism and Global Ambitiun 45

embed in it the. materialities of place, space, and rnvironment. Such embedding

cannot be ~hjcved by confined metaphorical and idealist allusions LO such
phenom:na (as occurs, for exam~le, in the work of Foucault when he appeals
to a sparta! concept of heterotoflJd as a field for radical action) '1
.
. th ha
r
.1Vvamb-lUon
1D e. c pters that .fOllow, is to provide such a materialist ff,al~ework for
ana1ysr~ and thereby mtegrate space, place, and environment into Theories of
the social process as well as into thinking about practical politics.

Dialectics 47
formed wholes ra~ than forming and formative processes.. Ana2ysis is
then centred on relanons be:ween these produced institutions, formations, and
exFciences? ~ that now, as in that prodw.;ed past., only dle fixed explicil forms
ext.~, and hvmg presence is: always, by definition, receding. (Williams, 1977:
l28-9)

2
Dialectics

But Wi~i~ did_ not or could not put this mode of thought to work in
confrontmg ISSUes of place, spatio-terr-..porality, and environment dlrecdy in his
cultural them."y.. He has not bee::l alone in this. In geography and the sociaJ
sciences, the craft of dialectical rea.'iOning is not well undersmod, so the lack
of dialectical trc-atment of space. place. and environment is not surpri...ing. In
literary theory, however, dialectical modes of thoughr have become dominanr
in recent years, thanks in part to
resurgent influence of Hegel, Marx,
Heidegger, Althusser, Foucault, Ricoeur, Derrida, and many others trained in
the uaditions of European philosophy. As literary theory permeates social
rheory; the stage is set for strong confrontations between broadly positivist,
empiricist. and. historical matenali5t tradicions on the one hand ami a vast array
of phenomenological, hermeneutic, and dialectical traditions on the other.
is then very likely that nondialectical readings, however well intentioned., of
dialectiCally constructed arguments will generate v.-idcspread misinterpret~
ations. Within the recent history ofgeography; for example, Duncan and Ley's
(1982) Cartesian and positivist reading of dialectical work has played hav~c
(possibly designedly '0) with the general undemanding of dialectics. For this

me

Raymond Williams chose to handle the complex issues of place. space. and
environment by resort to the "possible worlds" of fiction. But was this a
necessary rather than a contingent feature of his expiorations in cultural theory?
In this chapter I begin upon the task of showing that such a move is ln no way
necessary. I hope to show that historical materialist enquiry infused with
d.ialectical understandings can integrate themes of space~ place, and environment (nature) into both social and literary theory_ Mo."t such theory has not
in the past taken such a project seriously. And till.'} in spite of abundant mention
and appeal to spatia-temporal. place-bound, and environmental metaphors

(such as Althnsser's "'continents of knowledge." Jameson's "'cognitive mapping,"

Foucault's "heterotopia," and a host of studies with titles like the "'geography
of the imagination," "the space oflitcrature," and the like). There seems to be
a world of difference, as Smith and Katz (1993) ohserve, between invocation
of space, place. and environment (nature) as convenient metaphors on the one
hand. and integrating them as historical and geographical realities into social
and literary theory on die mher. I shall abo hope to show that such a theoretical
project not only has a transfurP.1arive effect llpon the terrain of theory, but also
opens up a (err.lln of political possibilities.
The first step down this road is to provide some sort of grounding in dialectics. WIlliams was, of course, deeply imbued with dialectical ways of thinking.
Consider, once again, the following passage:

ana

In mos.t description and :malysis, cult'"Jfe

society are expressed in an habitual
past tense. The strongest barrier to che recognition of human cultural aclivir:-f
is this .immediate a."ld regular conversion of experience into finishexl products.
"What i" defensible as a procedure in ronscious history, where on certain
assumptions many -acti.ons can be definitively taken -as having endtxl, is habitually
projected, not only into
always moving substance of the past, but inw
rontemporaIJ' lite, in , ....hich relacio[;.ships, instirucions and formations j:l
whiG~ we are still :actively involved are con';'ened, by this procedural mode, into

me

it

feaso~, I, thi~ it important ~ set.ollt, as si.t~ply as possible, the general principles of~alectlcs, to explore Its epIstemological and ontological underpinning'!
~d. to illustrate by way of examples how it might operate at the interfaces of
social, geographical, and literary theory.
I b~gin ~i.th a caveat: There is, of course, much Marxist thought that is either
nondjalecrtcal or (as In the case of analytical Marxism) overtly hostile to
dialeqtics, and a whole rradition of dialectical thinkina (most stro~ly inAuenc_e_d ,by_ r:..eibni?:, Hegel, Heidegger, and Derrida, rho:gh its origim; go hack at
<leasL:to the Greeks) that is by no means !\1arxist. Furthermore, there are
.
of dialectic... within rhe Marxisr tradition [Bhaskar
I
of them] and parallel strains of thought such as "process~~, ~,,,e'~t,hilo,ophy" an~ :'organic" lines of argument advanced by, for example,

i ~i~~~~;'i:~~e~:

Dav1a.

Bohm, and a variety of contemporary ecologists such

}!_Il.d. Capra.. that hear some sort of kinship to Marx's dialectics.
'.'.' ,:","",.- for example, the statement from Williams cited above and (hat of

.Wohitdiead (1985: 90):

1l.s~ructure

" ..

of evolving processes_ The reality is the proceiis.. It is noncolour red is re"J.i. The colour red is ingrediem in the process

'I

48

Diafectics 49

Orientations

Or Bohm (1983: 48):

The notion that reality is to be understood as process is an mcient one, going
back at least to Heraclitus, who said that everything flows .... I regard
essence
uf dlC notion of process as given by the statement: Not only 18 everything
c..;"anging, but all is flux. That is (0 say, wh.at isis the process ofbecQrning itself,
while all objects, events, entit:es, conditions, structures, etc. are tOnus that can
be abstracted from this process.

me

Then compare these statements with Oilman's (1993: 11) formutation of

f....1arx's position:
Dialectics restructures our thinking about reality by replacing the common ",cnse
notion of "thing," as something that has a history and has external connection'
\\-ith other things, with notions of "'process," which contains its history and
possible futures, and "'relation," whic..~ contains as part of what it is lts ties with
other relations.

In what follows I shall occasionally take up these parallel ways of thinking in

order to illustrate the broader frame of reference within which Marx's version
of dialectics lies. So while I try to situate myself firmly in the Marxist tradition,
I shall try to take due cognisance of the Iichness of the dialectical traditlon as
a whole.

1. The Principles of Dialectics

Marx chose never to write out any principles of dialectics for a very good
reason. The only way to understand his method is by following his pracli..:e.
This suggests that the reduction of dialectics to a set of "principles" migh( be
self-defeating. The dialectic is a process and not a thing and it is. furthermore,
a process in which the Cartesian separations bct\veen mind and matter, between
thought and action, betv.'een consciousness and materiality; het\veen theory and
practice have no purchase. The long-standing debate, for example. oyer
whether the dialectic is an ontological statemen, about the nature of realIty or
a convenient epistemology for understanding nature is, from tilis standpoint,
as spurious as the Cartesian separation hetween mind and JIlatter. Yet'

debate does have significance. The debate over what constitutes a

mode of argument:;.tion" is, OIlman argues, :a debate over how to ,,",,",r< f,c,rn
:he phenomena. we encounter in everyday life. Setting down the principles
dialectics provides an opening &~bit for further enquiry, a
discussion of how to formulate such abstractions. i\hrx, of course, had
example of Hegel's logic and memod before him and WiIhout careful study
it, he probably could not have arrived at the dialectical practices embedded

Capita( the apparatus of conceptual ~bstractions that alloVl-ed him to

understand the world in the way he did, nor could he have formulated his
political strategies ar..d practices ..
To write out "'the principles of dialectical argumentation" is like going back
to Hegel as a prelude to doing something much more Marxist. It is a necessary
"going back" but only a means to go fonvard onto a. terrain of action on which
the principles themselves, in the fashion of Marx, disappear into a How of
theoretical and political practices. I shall not evoke Hegel's particular formulation here, but try to swnmarire as simply as I can some of the basic theses about
dialectics that can be discilled not only iom :Marx's praccices hut also from
those who have in recent years been drawn back to reflect on what dialectics

might mean.
The principles of dialectics can be summarized in 11 propositions.
1. Dialectical thinking emphasizes the understanding of processes. Rows,
fluxes, and relations over the analysis of elements, chings, structures, and
organized systems. The citations already given are quite explicit 0::1 that
point. There is a deep ontological principle i:wolved here, for dialecticians in effeL1: hold that elemems, things, structures, and systerm do not
exist outside of or prior to the processes, flows, and .relations that create,
sustain, or umJermim:: them. For example. in our contemporary world,
flOws of capital (goods, and money} and of people give rise to, susrain. or
'undermine places sm.:h as factories, neighborhoods. and cities understood
as things. Epistemologically, the process of enquiry usually inverts [his
emphasis: we get to understal1.d processes by looking either at the attributes
of .rhat appear to us in the first instance to he sea-evident things or at
. the - relations between them. We typically investigate ilov{s of goods,
:-money, and people by examining relationships between existing entities
n~:-]lik.e factories, neighborhoods, and cities. Newton, likelise, did. not start
'>rit~ grav-tty, but with the apple, his head, the earth, and the moon. This
; Imcthod only really allows us, however, to compare the s:cat:: of rdauons
'J;eiween such entities at different points in time (a confining method called
:'c<)m'Parati,~ statics"). On this basis we may infer something about the
haY< generated a change of state but the idea that the entities
'"crellnchan:~inlg in themselves quickly leads us to a causal and mechanistic
1Y<lY'lf thilnklng, Dialectical reasoning holds, howeycr, [hat this epistemocondition should get reversed when it comes to formularing
,t",crl,ons, concepts, and theories abol!( the world. This transforms the
of things with which positi",sm and empiricism
into a much more confusing world of relations and flows
manifest as Things. Consider, fOr example, the definition of
1n dassical political economy and in neoclassical economics it
defined as a stock of productive assets of a cert~ value (a set

piaa,,,,,,I",,

50

Dialectics 51

an'rotations

of things) out of which a tl.ow of services can be generated. But in Marx's

definition, capital is constituted as both the process of circulation of value
(a flow) and the stock of assets ("things" like commodities, money,
production apparatus) implicated in those Haws. In so far. as workers
become embedded in that process (as inputs to production and as
consumers of finished products) so they too become "'appendages" of and
thereby a particular manifestation of "capital'" ("'variable capital" in ~1arx's
termi~ology). "!vloney" similarly takes on all manner of "thing-like" forms
but those "things" (like coins or entries on a computer screen) only have
meaning in terms of the processes of social production and exchange that
validate them. Without
processes continually working to support it,
money would be meaningless.
This Vt--ay of rhinking is rather more widespread than is generally
realized. Quantum theory, for example, has the same entity (e.~., an dec(fon) behavinl! under one set of circumstances as a wave, and In anomer
set of circums~:;mu:s as a particle" (Bohm and Peat, 1987: 40). Since matter
{thing-like substances} and energy (a flow) are interchangeable, ?eith~r one
nor the orner can be prioritized as an exclusive focus of enqUiry Wtthout
serious loss of insight and understanding. Electrons rhus appear as both
"things" and as "flows." Yet it took many years for physicists to recognize
that these two conceptions were not incommensurable or mutually
exclusive. Only when they overcame this barrier, could modem quantum
theory begin t~ take shape. It has likewise proven very difficult for social
scientists (0 abandon what OHman (1993: 34) calls the common sense
view" - erected into a philosophical system by Locke, Hume, and others
_ that "dlett are things and there arc rdation.q, and mat neither can be
subsumed in the other."
2. Elements or "things" (as I s..1ull call them) are constituted out of flows,
processes, and relations operating within hounded fields which co~~t~:e
structured systems or wholes. A dialectical conception of both the mdivtdual co: tiling" and the structured system of v.nich it is a pan: rests entirely on
an. understanding of the processes and relations by which ming and
structured SYstem are constituted. This idea is not intuitiv-ely self-evident since we ar: surrounded by "things" that seem to have such a permanent
and solid character thar it is difficult to imagine them as somehow in
We cannot downplay, therefore, the significance of what Whiteh."d
(1985: 137) calls "perm-anences" ~ the innumerable "practically indlesoruc
rible objects" that we daily encounter in [he world and without
physical and biological life would not and could not exist as we now lill".
it. But, he went on to observe. even somerhing as solid and long
as an Egyptian pyramid is constituted out of matter in motion. Di.al,rt'~
forces uS always to ask the question of every "thing" or "event"
encounter: by what process was it constituted and how is it su:;tajined?

me

3. The "things" and systeIILS which many .ItSeaochers treat as irreducible and
therefore unproblematic are seen in dialectical thought as internally contradictory by virtue of the multiple processes that constitute them. I am, for
purposes of social theory, considered an individual within a social system
and for certain restricted forms of enquiry such a supposition might appear
entirely reasonable. But further inspection shov.'S that J am a rather contradictory and problematic "thing" created by all sorts of processes. My body
contains a variety of life-supporting organs such as the heart~ lungs, liver,
and digestive system "whose functioning is more or less automatic, and
required by the fact tbat the body ... is involved in the perpetual process
ofintemal self-reconstruction" (Ingold~ 1986: 18). The metabolicprocesses- which permit that internal self-reconstruction to proceed entail
exchanges with my environment and a whole range of transformariye processes which are necessary for the maintenance of my bodily individuality. If me processes change. then the hody IS either transformed or ceases:
to exist. My sociality (for example, the acquisition oflanguage and symbolic skills) is likewise built up through my capturing ofcertain powers which
reside in social processes. Continuous reconstitution ofrho.'ie pov;rers (with
respect to mental facruties and symbolic skills, for example) is a process
which is as perpet:uaJ as my life is- long (we all know what it means to "keep
sharp" or "get rusty" at what we do). To put the matter this way is not to
v;ew the "thing" (or the system) as a passive product of external proce.~..es

(I e<rtainly do not view myself that way). What is remarkable about living
systems is the way they capture diffuse (and often high enuopy) energy
odnfurmation 110"'"'5 and assemble them into complex but well-ordered
(low entropy) forms. Human individuals. furthermore, have a. remarkable
capacity to capture and reorganize energy and information flows in ways
which are creative rather than pa~sive. But the fact that they do so in no
:'way challenges rhe ontological proposition that "things" and sysrems are
perpetually constituted and reconsti[uted (like the places set up in
.Williams' noyds) out of processes.
-'::4-: "Things" are alv.-ays assumed. "to be internally heterogeneous [ix.,
.cofm,dictoryl at every level" (Levins and Lewontin, 1985: 272\ This
from the first twO propositions but is worth stating explicidy. There
four major points to be made here:
Any "thing" can be decompo~d into a collecrion of other "things"
_<,'.c.-.'.C, ..c are in some relation to each. other. For example, a city can be
;'!'A~,";ider<:d as a "thing" in interaction with other cities, but it can also be

down into neighborhoods or zones which can in turn be broken

into people. houses, schools, -factories. etc. which can in turn be
down ad infinitum, The ad infinitum clause is very important
pllSeitsays that there are no irreducible building blocks of "things" for
lYe tlieor<:ti,:ai reconstruction of how the world works. It then follows chat

i
I
!

52

Orientations
what looh lila! a system at one level of analysis (e.g. a city) becomes a
part at another level, e.g., a global network of world cities. This idea has
become very important in contemporary quantum physics where a
fundamental guiding principle is mat "'whatever we say a thing or structure
is, it isn't" because "there is ah\'ays something more than v..rhat we savand
something different" (Bohm and Peat, 1987: 141-2). Thete is,';' Levins
and Lev..-ontin (1985: 278) put it, "'no basement" since experience -shows
that "all p.:eviously proposed undecomposable 'basic units' have so far
turned out to be decomposable, and the decomposition has opened up
new domains for investigation and practice." It is legitimate to investigate "each le,,-d of organization without having to search for fundamental
units." The other implication, taken seriously in the dialectics of deconstruction, is that all fixed and frozen ca(egories are capable of dissolution.
Critical practice in the humaniries is very much guided these days, perhaps
overly so, by concerns to dissolve fixed categories within conflicting fields
and fluxes of socio-linguistic and representational practices.
(b) If all "things" ace heterogeneous by virtue of the complex processes (or
relations) which constitute them, then the only way we can understand the
qualitative and quantitative attributes of "things" is by understandlng the
processes and relations they internalize, Oilman (1976) has been very
explicit abollt this in constructing his arguments concerning intern~
relations. But such arguments are now advanced in much of the ecological
literature (see Eckersley, 1992: 49-55; Naess, 1989: 79; Zimmerman,
1988). The only way we can understand the (=ntradictory) qualitative and
quantitative attribute... of "things" is by und.erstand1ng the processes and
relationships which constlture them and \\-hich they internalize. 1. as an
individual, cannot be understood except by ''ay of ~he metabolic, social,
and other processes which I inLefnalize. This implies, however. that I neces-santy internalize heterogeneity and. a bundle of associated contradictions.
Contradiction is here understood in the sense given to ~he term by OIlman
(1990: 49), as "a union of two or more internally related processes that are
simultaneously supporting and undermining one another." This is a
senriment that \Vhirehead (1985: 155), always preferring the word "event"
w thing because it: captures the dynamism involved, characrerizes as follows:
the cO:1cepr of intcrnfil relations requires the concept of substance as the
ac:iv;ty synthesising the relationships into its emergent character. The event
is what it is, by reason of the unification in itself of a mulEip1icity of
relationship5.

[Cf., here also> Maurice Wilkins' (1987) discussion of the operation

principles of complementarity in microbiology and orher spheres
science and creative endeavor.]

Dialectic;

53

~ c) . ~here is, however, a limitation ro be pm upon this :argument. I as an

mdlvldual~ do not in practice internalize everything in the universe, but
abs~rb mal.~ywhat is relevant to me through my relationships (metabolic,

politlcal, cultural, etc.) to processes operating over a relatively

bounded field (my ecosystem, economy, culture, etc.). There is, however,
no fixed or Ii priori boundary to this system. \Vhere roy relevant environment begins and ends is itself a function of the ecologi~al, economic, and
other processes which are relevant to me. Relevance is dependent, furthermore, 0.r:- ~y own actions (the atmosphere relevant to my breathing, to
take a trIvIal exampie, depends on whether I stay indoors all day take a
hike in the country. or fly to Los Angeles).

(d;_ Setting bOlUldaries with res.pect to space, time, scale, and environment
then becomes a ~ajor strategic consideration in the development of
concepts: ahl)Tract}::'flS, and theories. h is usually the case that any
substantial change ill these boundaries will radically change the nature of
the ~ncepu:, ab~tractions, and theories. In geography we often encounthis p~blem In the form of the paradoxes generated. by different scales
ot ecolog1cal correlation. We will frequently encounter this scale problem
in what follows.
5. Sp~ and rime are neither absolute nor external to processes but are
conungent and contained with them. There are multiple spaces and times
(and space-times) implicated in different physical, biological, and social
pro:esses. The latter all produ:e - to use Lefebvre's (1991) terminologythen own forms of s~e and ~Ime. P~cesses do not operate in but actively
,:comrruct space and time and In so dOlllg define disrinctive scales for their
devd?p~ent. This is a complicated problem; it \\-'iH be the subject of
.cnqlliry ill part III.
<6: pans and wholes are mutually constitutive of each other. "Part makes
':Y'~ol~, and whole makes p'an" (Levins and Lewontin, 1985). This is a
pnnClple that Giddens (1984) promote.<; in some _of his writings on
sttucruration theory (agency makes structure and structure makes
it is, of course, a fundamental principle which operates across
breadth and range of Marx's work. To say that parts and wholes
."" mutltallyconsurutive of each other is to say much more than that there
SOCial,

tc:

'.?)iJ"2:~~tI;::~~c~Joop between them. In the process of capturing the pov;rer.s

':'~
in those ecological and economk systems which are relevant
.reconstinue or transform them within myself even before
back to reconstitute or transform the J.)'~Lem from which
were initially derived.. To take a coup]e of trivial but
:xampi,cs; I breath in, I reconstitute myself by virtue of the
I -gam but ill the process transform the chemistry of the air within
1- breath out and in so doing transform the a;mosphere around
takeIn 1'deas and thoughts L~rough listening and reading. I sain
.- I _


S4

Orientations

a sense of sdfhood thereby but in the process reformulate and transform

words and in projecting them back into society change the social world.
Reductionist practices "typically ignore this relationship, isolating pans as

Dialectics 55
pan of what things ate, [our] research problem [can] only be how, when,
and into what [things or ~'Yscems J change and why they sometimes appear
not to change." Levins and Lew-ontin make a similar point

preexisting units of whicll wholes are then composed." while some holistic
praccices reverse the preferential treatment.
7. The interdigitation of parts and wholes entails "the interchangeability of
subject and object, of cause and effect" (Levins and Lewontin, 1985: 274).

Organisms, for example, have to be looked at as buth the subjects and the
obiects of evolution in exactly the same way that individuals have to be
co~idered. as both subjects and objects of processes uf social change. The
reversibility of cause and effect renders causally specified models (even
when endowed with feedback loops) inappropriate. Precisely by virtue of
its embeddedness in and representation of the flow of continuous
processes, dialectics makes limited appeal to cause and effec~ argument ~d
then only as a particular limiting case. Causal argumentatlOn necessarIly
rests, [or example, upon absolute not relational conceptions of space and

,ime. There can be, argues 'O,"hltehead (1920: 53), "no exp1mation" of
"nalure as process" or the passing of time. "~.o\ll that can be done is to use
language which may specularively demonsrrate [them]."
8. TraDsformative behavior - creativity" - arises out of the contradictions
which attach both to the internalized heterogeneity of (hings" and out
of the more obvious heterogeneity present within systems. Heterogeneity,
as OIlman and Levins and l.ewontin 0985: 278) insist, means more than
mere diversity: "the pares and proce~s confront each othcr as opposite...,
conditional on the v.r-holes of vdtich they are parts.'" Out of these opposi~
(ions, themselves constituted out of the flow of process, creative tensions
and transformarive behaviors arise. Becoming, to appropriate Hegel's
language, arises out of the opposition between being and not-being. Or,
to cite Whirehead (1969: 28), the "principle of process" is that "being is
consciruted by becoming." In the dialectical view~ opposing forces,
themsdves constituted out of processes, in turn become parcicwar nodal
points for further patterns of transformative activity. Mane! and nQ{matter, posirive and negative charges, repulsion and attraction, life and
death, mind and matter, masculine and feminine, capital and labor. etc.
are constituted as oppositions around 'which congeal a whole host of tram~
formative activities that both reproduce the oppositions and restTU(;ture
the physical, biological, and social world
9. "Change is a characteristic of all systems and all aspects. of systems"
and Lewontin, 1985: 275). This is perhaps the most imponant of
dialectical principles and one which Oilman (1990, 1993) pues above
others. The implication is that change and instahility are the norm
that the appearance of stability of things'" or systems is what has to

explained. In Ollman's (1990; 34) words, "given that change is

The dialectical view insists that persistence and equilibrium are not the
natural state of things but require explanation, which must be sought in
the actions of the opposing fOrces. The conditions under which the opposing furces balance and the system as a whole is in stable equilibrium are quite
special. They require the simultaneous satisfaction of as many mamematical relations as there are variables in the system, usually expressed as
inequalities among the paramerers of mat -system.

Nature, says Whitehead (1969: 33) is always abour the perpetual exploracion of novelty. Since transfurmative action - and I here think primarily
of creative rather than routine action - arises out of contradiction, it
follows that it can in principle be found anywhere and everywhere in

rhe physical, biological, and social world (see chapter 5). To put it this
way does not imply, however. that all moments within some continuous
process are equally significant as creative points of transtorrnarive
activity. The theoretical and empirical re~earch task is to identiiJ those
Characteristic "moments" and "forms" (i.e., ""things") emhedded within
co.nrinuous flows which can produce radical transformations or where,
conversely, "'gatekeeping" or ocher mechanisms might be constructed so
as- to give a "thing" or a system (surn as a person, a city, a region, a nation
state) qualities of identity, integrity, and relative stability. If, as is intuirively
Obvious, the physical world around us appears to be constituted by what
_.:Whi(ehead (1969: 241-8) calb "permanences'" - relarivdy stable configurations of matter and things - then the issue of how such permanences
"are- maintained yet also imegra.led into a dynamic world of processes
-beComes a critical subject of analysis. Again, this tension is the focus of
Contradiction. "If the opposites, static and fluent," writes Whitehead
=
_ (i:99: 408), "have once been so explained separately to characterize
'-::-'di:verse actualities, the interplay between the thing which is static and the
.
which are fluent involves contradiction at every step in irs
" The question of "agency" in social and biological as well as
l!i~~';io'~j~~~~~l systems has to be formulated. broadly in such terms.
':')
enquiry is itself a process that produces permanencessuch as COlltheories, and institutionalized structures of knowledge
stand to be supported or undermined by continuing processes of
certain relationship is implied between the researcher and the
a relationship which is not construed in terms of an "outsider'"
looking in Oll the researched as an object, but one between

suhjects tach ofwhieb necessarily internalizes something from

56

Orimta~dlrJJ

the other by virtue of dle processes that connect them. ObservaClon of

the world is, Heisenberg argued, inevitably intervenrion in the world, in
much rhe same way that dt:wnstructiorusts will argue that the reading of
a text is fur.damental to its production. Marx. similarly insists that only
by transforming the world can we transform ourselves; that it is impossible
to understand the world without simultaneously changing it a.<; well as
ourselves. Formal dialectical logic cannot, therefore, be presupposed as an
ontological qaality of nature: to do so would be to superimpme a
particular mental logic on the world as an act of mind over manec. The
dialectical unity of mental and material activities (expressed by ylarx as
the unit'! of theory and praxis), can never be broken, only attenuated or
temporarily alienated.
11. The exploration of<Cpossible v,rorlds" is integral to dialectical thinking. In
some ways this idea goes back to Aristotle, broadly rejected by seventeenthcentury science, that ""the becoming of a natural being is a constant process
of actualization of its potentiality" (Leclerc, 1986: 21). The exploration
of potentialidcs for change, fOr self-realization, for the construction of new
collective identities andsoci-al orders, new totalities (e.g., social ecosystems),
and the like is a fundamental motif in Marxian dialectical thinking.
Bookchin likewise argues that education (the exploration of possibilities)
rather than deduction (spinning out the implications of known truths)
or induction (di~covering the general laws regulating what already exists)
is the central motif of dialectical praxis as well as the primary purpose of
knowledge construction. When the location theorist August Losch (1954),
in his opening argument proposed that our task "is not to explain Dill sorry
reality; but to improve it" and wncluded with his vision of a science which
"like architecture rather than architectural histOIY. creates rather than
describes," he was bringing to bear a dialectical (albeit Hegelian) sense of
creative science as the e.'{plorarion of more rational and equitable spatially
ordered worlds. It is in this sense that his (infamous) statement that if"tbe
model does not conform to reality then it is reality that is wrong" has to __:
be undersrood.
Dialecti.cal enquiry necessarily incorporates, therefore, the building of '
emical, moral, and political choices (values) into its own process and
the cOlbt:ructed knowledges that result a.~ discourses situated in a play
power directed towards some goal or oilier. Values and goals (what
might can the "teleological" as well ~.~ the ><Utopian" moment of
thought), are nO[ imposed -as universal abstractions from outside
arrived at through a living process (including intellectual e~~:'~r:~:~
ded in forms of praxis and plays of power attaching to the
this or that po:entiality (in oarsdves a.<; well as in the world we
The rise of a distinctively "green-value theory" in recent years,
excellent case study of how an intersection of socia-ecological

Dialectics 57
and phys of power can generate a new vision of possibilities. The search
for possibilitieswas, of course, aI-ways central to Raymond Williams' work:
recall how he repeatedly Invokes that "sense of value which has won its
way through different kinds of oppression of different forms ... [as~ an
ingrained and indestructihle yet also changing embodiment of the
possibilities of a common life" (WiJIiams, 1989a: 321-2). The search for
those possibilities is, given the dialectical rules of engagement, contained
within, rather than articulated before o.r a..?ter social practices, including
those of the research process. It is never, therefore, a mat teI of choosing
between different applications of neutral knowledge, but always an
embedded search for possibilities that lies at the very heart of dialectical
argumentation.

n. Dialectical Concepts, Abstractions, and. Theories

There is a long-standing debate over whether the world is inherently dialectical
or whether the -dialectic is simply une convenient :.et of assumptions or logic
to represent certain aspects of physical, biological, and social processes. The
former view, "'h-hich I shall call the strung vt:rsion uf ilialectical argumentation,
was powerfully promoted. by Engels, most particularly in The Dialectics of
lva-tltre and Allti-Duhring. While Marx made no general statement un the
subject;- he certainly held that social proce;;.ses at work under capitalism were
inherently dialectical. This strong view has come in for considerable criricism
in part because of its association with ideas of teleology and do....--rrines of
emergence and immanence which appear almost deterministic in their
. evohItionary implications. The meaning of this controversy depends in part
~Hl-:-h:nv dialectics is represented in the first place. The rather mechanical
iendering of Hegel's dialectic as just a matter of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis
. -.cenainly suggest~, when set down synchronically, a rather simplistic teleology
-~t-lass s_uuggie under capitalism necessarily gives rise to a classless socialism}.
for example, looked to the IOgIcai and idealist conception of dialectical
out in Hegel a<; his model ;1.<; what wa.<; truly dialectical. So
and again insisted on me strong view that the natural
,.~~.~~~:;~:~;~setisagain
inherently dialectical, he in fact imposed a particular logical
imell'talcoIKePti,on (Hegel's) of t-nat that dialectics was on the natural and
;s,5cHJ"iorld. Marx, on the other hand, though he starts with Hegel, achieved
f,'tdhjl.materialist transformation of Hegel's views (d. Bhaskar, 1989: chapter
i1) to dissolve the dialectic as a logic imo a flow of argument and
way I have here tried to specifY dialectics, by fucusing on the
between processes, 6ings~ and systems, a,roids many of the prol-lbequeathed and readies abstract discussion of dialectics as
Plin.cipb for dissolution into a flow of argument. This seems rn be

58

IJi,zIeCt1cS

Orientations

::md positive theory of geographical location of human activities, started with

a very simple set of generative principles concerning the maximization of profit
by individual agents subject to monopoJistic competition and economies of
scale. From these principles he generated landscape pattern.; of remarkable
spadal cornplexiry (I note in pa'ising how many geographers misinterpret his
work to be about geometrical patterns directly when it is really about the variety
of geographical patterns that can be produced. out of a simple set of generative
principles). Work on fractals, chaos theoI')'; and the like, illustrates how generative orders of even greater complexity can be developed out of simple rules of
pro=s. Bohm and Peat (1987: 157) argue, furthermore, that the whole idea
of such generative orders "is not restricted simply to mathematics but is of
potential relevance to all areas of experience." They appJy it to painting. musical
composition. novel wricing:

much more in accord with MarXs own practice. I therefore see no reason to
abandon the strong version of dialectics when formulated in this way. The least
iliat can be said of it is that there is as much evidence for the argwnent that
processes constitute things and. systems in the narural and social world as there
is evidence for any alternative proposition.
There is, however, an acute epistemological problem of how to present,
codify, abstract, and theorize the vast amount of information of seemingly
incomparable status generated out of me kind of research program which a
dialectical stance mandates. The principles of dialectical enquiry as enunciated above (entailing multiple changes of scale, perspective, orientation, and the
like, while internalizing contradictions, oppositions. and heterogeneity at every
level), should' generate a perpetual state of motion in our concepts and our
thoughts. But the negative side of this flexibility and openness is that it appears
to have litde chance of producing anything except a vast panoply of insecure
and shifung concepts and findings (of the sort that much of literary theory is
showing itself all too adept at producing these days), For those unfamiliar with
dialectical thinking, the seeming slipperiness of dialectical concepts elicits a
good deal of scepticism, impatience. and distmst. If, as Pareto argued (in a
passage that Oilman makes much of), Marx's words are like bats, simultaneously having the character of birds and mice, then it seems possib~e to see
anything one wants to in any parcicular situation. The purpose of multIple and
relational approaches to phenomena is, a'i OIlman points out in his commentary on this passage, to try to identify a resrricred number of very general
underlying processes which simultaneously unif; and d~lJerentiate the
phenomena we see in the world around us. This was very much the focus
of -whitehead's concerns. In this sense, dialectics does seek a path towards a
certain kind of ontological security, or reductionism - not a reductionism to
"'thingS but ro an understanding of common generative processes and relations.
In this way we can conceive, lor example, of a common process of capital
circulation'giving rise to an infinite variety of physical city landscapes and social
forms.

This commitment to parsimony and generality with respect to processes

{though not to things or systems) is common across a variety offidds, which
range from David Bohm's work in quantum theory and its implications for
physical, biological) social, and esthetic forms (see Bohm, 1983; ~iey and Peat,
1987; Bohm and Peat, 1987), Wilkins' (1987) pursuit ot
.
complementariry and the union of opposites in fidds as diverse as
molecular biology, psydlOlogy. music, and the visual arts, Levins
tin's work on dialectical biology, as well as !v1arx's dialeccical m'ltelcialism"
Perhaps one of the mosl interesting findings from such studies is thar
proce'>ses can give rise to highly diversified and highly complex as well
quire unpredictable results. There are precedents fOr this kind of
spatial analysis. August LOsch, for exampLe, in searching for both a

59

In all this activity, what is crucial is that in some sense the artist is alv,.<I}'"s working
from the generative source of the idea and allowing !:he work to unrold. into ever
more definite forms, In this reg-'.ud his or her thought is similar to that which
is proper to science. It proceeds from an origin in free play which chen unfold~
lIltn ever more crystallized forms.

In sc~g the generative principles to work in this way; Bohm and Peat embrace
a dialectical view of human creativity, one that unifies art and science in a
certain complementarity of opposites. In so doing, they come do...e to cmbracing (apparently without knuwing it} Adorno's interpretation ofthe work of art
;as a"dialectical image" understood as "crystallizations of the historical process"
_'and as "objective consteIlations in which the social condition represents itself'
. (cite<! in Williams, 1977: 103).
- ~one of this means that underlying generative processes are easy to
i .. ',[(lell1tnyor specifY. Indeed, the immense complexity of "things" and systems
:WIllCII~v,e encounter mala.: it particularly hard, given the_epistemological
we must always start with "thinb>S" and systems as they are,
~ .'~}iden;:ify UIIcderly.ing; PIUOess;" ,Old to speL1fy them ex:at:tly right. Furthermore,
,'roCel~es intersect and intertwine - capital circulation and ecological
Pri\ces.,cs inu"",ect, for example, to create complex forms of environmental
this requires either a reformulation of the idea of process
.!!llc<iei(cpnsiCiClOari,on or finding ways to describe how different processes
.intersect. The emphasis on prioritizing process which I have
suggests, however, that the search for order which has
characterized western science since the Renaissance is itself
from a search to classifY and categorize things and the relations
into a search for generative principles Virhich produce orders
and systems with definable quantitative and qualitative attributes)
types.

I ..

.0Itt,,,,,,,,

60

Dialectics 61

Orimmtiotts

Ill. Relations with Other Systems of Thought

Dialeccical thinking (and 1 now concentrate on its memal and representational side
alone) is one out of several possible modes of approach to tL.'1derstanding and
representing the human condition and the world in which human life unfolds. It
is in many respects intuicivdyappealing. ifonly because we experience life as process
(radler than as a "thing" or as an amalgam of ,'things" and relarionshjps between

them), and because we are ronscmtiy having to copewith the problem of keeping
me process going even in the very act of producing the many "rhings" wim 'which
we surrowld ourselves. Furthermore, we are all acutely aware of -what it means to
become committed ro the process of maimaining, developing, or letting go of the
"things" "'Ie create (such as dwellin~ machines, money, skills). Academics surely
also will rocogillze that how we learn is 'yet:y different from what -we write and thar
the w-ntten word often returns to haunt us as the power of a fixed "-thing," an alien
force, that can rule our lives even no matter hm.' hard we strive to go beyond it.
But intuiti've appeal has never provided the only or even the main jusrification for
accepting any parrirular set of epistemOlogical or ontological assumptions as the
basis for generating knowledge. Indeed, much of the success: of .feStern science
has been based upon the construction of coun(er~inruitive ways of thinking.
A primary opposing system of thought is given by the Cartesian rationality
which was built into da'isical physics and has since become the basis of theorizing in many of the other natural sciences, in engineering, medicine, the social ".
sciences, and philosophy (particularly of the analytic variety). Levins and
Lewoncin (1985; 269) categorize this mode in terms of "four ontological
commitments, which then pur their stamp on the process of creating knowledge." These four commitments are:
There

:s a na:ural set of units or parts of which any whole system is made,

These un~ts are homogeneous .\,,-:lhin themselves, at (east insofar as they affect
the whole of which they are parts.

The parts are omologicaUy prior to the whole.; that i.~, the parts exist in isolation
and come together to make whole.~. The parrs hav't: intrinsic properties, which
they possc~s in isolation and which they lend to the ",,-hole. In the simplest cases
tne whole is nothing but the sum of its parts; more complex cases allow for
in::era.ctions of the parts to produce added pIOpeIti-~ of ::he whole.
Causes are separale from effects, causes being the properties of sub}ero, and
eftects the properties of objectS. 'h'hile causes may respond to information
coming h'om effects ,{so-called "feedback loops), there is no ambtguity abour
whidl is causing suhject and which is caused object. (This distinction persists
in statistia; as independent and dependent variables.)

This Cartesm view is widespread and it, too, has a certain inruitive
We encounter "things" (e.g., individuals) and systems (e.g., transport a.t~d

munication nets) which appear to have a stahle and self-evident existence so

that it appears perfecciy reasonable to build knowledge upon categorizations
of them and upon the pattern of causal relations between them. From the
dial~t~cal point of :iew, however, thili is to look at matters in an unduly
r:swctlve and on~-sl~ed way. ~ins and Lewontin go on, correctly in my
VIew, to ~hara~L.enze the CarteSian view as an "alienated'~ form of reasoning
because !t depICts a world in which "parts are separated from wholes and
reified as. cllln~s in ~emsel~e~> ca~s separated from effects, subjects separated
from objects. Whitehead, (1969: 8-9) objections take a slighcly different
hut equally mterestmg tack. Descartes' separation between mind and. matter
is fundamentally incoherent, he argues, since no reason can be found for
~e distin:Uon. ~o while the Cartesian system "'obviously says something that
15 true .... its notions are. too abstract to penetrate into the nature of things."
Worse stilt the separanon induces "a curious mixture of rationalism and
irrationafum" into the method of natural science so that "its preva1ent tone of
thought has been ardently rationalistic within its Oln borders and
dogmatic;ally irrational beyond those borders." Marx (1967: 352) voiced a
similar objection that the "'weak points in the abstract materialism of natural
science, a materialism that excludes history and its process, are at once evident
from the abstract and ideological conceptions ofits spokesmen, whenever thev
venture beyond the bounds of their own speciality."
'
1vfarx was in general highly critical of the "common sense" view which
~henever i~ su~~ in seeing a distinction it fails to see a unity, and where
it. s~es.: umty it fail~ to see a distinction" and so surrepticiously petrifies"
,distmcttons to the pomt wht:re they become incapable of generating new ideas
let alone new Insights into how the world
(cited in OIlman, 1990: 44).
He:~ould, doubcless~ be equally st:a.thing about the atomiscic and causative
_.re:asocing w?ich .do~.inate~ in contemporary eCOnOnllC5 and sociology, the
_' m~~-od:ologtcal mdivIdualism which pervades much of current political

wow

. phtlosophy, and the like.

But it would be "'Tong to view Cartesian and dialectical conceptions as
incompatible in all senses, as someone like Capra (1982) and
to.
degree Levins and. Le1.vontin (1985) tend to do. Cast in a lllore
light they can provide a fecund source of new ideas, In
".1''; }li~o!retica' physics what were seen in the nineteenth centu!)" as radicallv incom.$,:~sUIable_ ,propositions "that matter is in its essence of ~ particle n~ture, or
o~ a wave nature," were ultimately treated as a unity under the
In quantum theory. Here, (00, there is an intuitive rendition which
common sense reading. We all know what Heraclitus meant when
we cannot step into the same river twice, but we also all know
. a sense in 'which we can return again and again to the banks of
. A: ,his point, howev'er, there may indeed arise some sort of claim
:~suljietiolrity of the dialectical view; precisely because it allows fOr an

 '?I
i
62

Dialectics 63

OrientdtWl1s

understanding of "'dUngs" and systems as if they are real and stable as a special
case ofthe proposition that processes are always at work crearing and sustaining
"things" and systems. The converse proposition appears not to hold, however.

Cartesian thinking has a hard time coping with change and process except in
terms of compard.tive statics, ca.use and effect feedback loops. or the linearities

builc into examination of experimentally determined and mechanically

specified rates of change (as represented in d.ifIerential calculus). This was the
sort of realization that led the anthropologist Anthony Leeds (1994: 32).
towards the end of a very active career, to begin to shift perspective:
In earlier year.s I thought of society ." as a structure of positions, roles, statuses,
groups, insrirutiom, and so on, all given shape ... by the cultures on which they
draw. Proce<>s, I saw as "forces,'" movement, connection, pressures, taking place
in and Wlong these loci or nodes of organization, peopled by individual......
Although this still seems largely true to me, it has also come to seem a static
view _ more societal order than societal becoming.... Since it does not seem
inherent in nature ... that these loci exist, it seems unacceptable simply to take
them as axiomatic; rathet we must "earm for ways to account for their
appearances and forms. More and more, the problems of becoming .-. have led
me to look at society as cuntinuous process, out of which structure or order
precipitates in the furm;; of the loci listed above....

Ollman's (1990: 32) argument is particularly strong on exactly this same point

emt

In the view- which currently dominates the social sciences, things

and undergo change. The two are logiCllly distinct. History is something that happens to
things; it is not part of their nature. Hence the difficulty of examining change
in subject~ from which it has been removed at
start.

me

nature not less than its momentary existence." The prior commitment to
process rather than to "thing" or system could not be more plainly stated.
Capital is directly conceptualized, therefore, as a process or as a relatum ramer
[han as a "thing"'. It is viewed, in its simplest incarnation, as a flow which at
one moment" assumes the form" of money, and at another assumes the
"form" of commodities or the "form" of productive activity. "Value,'" Marx
(1967; 152-3) wrItes, "is here the active factor in a process, in Vitruch, while
constantly assuming the form in turn of money and commodities. it at the
same time changes in magnitude, differentiates itsdf by throwing off surplus
value from itsdE ... Value therefore now become?> value in proa:sl), money in

process and, as such. capiral." This process definition diffi:rs radically from that
typically incorporated into neoclassical economics where capital .is treated as
an unproblematic (i.e., noncontradictory) stock of assets (of things) "'-lth
certain qualitative and quantitacive attributes which. when set in motion by
human agency, embody causative powers (e.g. capital investment creates
unemployment). ~1arx's point is not that the.re is no such thing as a stock of
a'isets, but that we cannot understand what those assets are about. what thev
are worth or how they might be used without understanding the process ~
whidl they are embedded, in particular the process which gives rise to, reconsritutes, maintains~ devalues. or destroys them. "When lvlarx argues that capital
does" or "capital creates" he is not arguing that a thing called capital has causal
power, but that the process of capital Circulation, understood as a whole, is at
the center of 1>.jral social transformations and for that reason has to be looked
upon as embodying a po"",'erfu[ generacive principle affecting social life.
We can understand. this argument more generally by examining the follow-

ingstatemen[ drawn from the Grumbisse(pp. 99-100):

The conclusion we reach is not that production, distribution, exchange and

-consumption are identical. but they all furm members of a totality, distinctions
within a unity. Production p.redomjnates not only over itself, in the antithetical
definition of production~ but over uther moments as well. The process always
c.x:istence."
.returns to- production to begin anew. That exchange :md consumption cannot
he predominant is self-evident. Likewise, distribution as distribution of products;
'." .- while as distribution of the agents of production it is itself a moment of producIv. Dialectical Applications ~ Marx's Conception of Capital
_,~i.on.. A. denite production thus determine:; a definite consumption. distribu_rion- and exchange as " ...ell as tkJinite re1:J.tiom between these diffirmt mQments.
I want here to look more dosdy at Marx's particular use of dialectical thinking. '~
,i;\.,"A,m"iuedi.y. however, in its one-sided form, production is itself determined by
My purpose is not to argue whether he Wd.S right or w.rong, but to
moments. For example if the market, i.e. the sphere of exchange.
hl'fW he purs dialectical thinking to work to understalld capitalism a... a
grmvs in qu.antity and the: divisions between its

.f\.1arx, on the other hand, abstracts "'every historical form as in fluid movemenf,
and therefore takes into account irs transient nature not ksthan its momentary

.w_.. __,

system defined and bounded by a process of capital circulation. His

in Capital dlrccdy signals adherence to a materialist dialectics in
priority of process over thing and system is everywhere apparent.
capturo::l by his statement, cited above, that he aims to abstract "'every
social form as in fluid movement" so as to take into account "its

men

become deeper. A change in distribution changes production,

of capital, different distribution of the population between
etc. Finally, me needs of consumption determine produc-

" ~~':~"::~': t1!.kes place between me different moments. 'l'his is the

~~,
organic whole.

64

Orientations

Dialecticr 65

anyone individual internalize certain powers that reside in their environment,

Those unfamiliar widl dialectical ways of iliinking will, quite reasonably, regard
creatively transform them and thereby change the course of history or of
such a statement as obscure if not incredibly tautological (the obscurity in part
evolution?
derives from the fact that this was written as notes for Marx's own guidance
In effect, the quesrion can be answered only through a detailed historical
and not as a definitlve text designed to persuade a sceptical public). But if we
materialist enquiry into the process of internalization that produces capital at
track back to my initial representation of dialectical thinking. it becomes plain
the point of production itsell: What MaD< seeks to e:;tablish beyond any shadow
enough what Marx is saying. The reproduction of social life is being treated
of
doubt is that ir is the appropriation of the form-ghring fire of the labor
as a continuous process oper.:l\.tng within certain bounds which define a totality
procesS> rhe appropriation of aU manner of creative possibilities and powers of
or a whole. Under capitalism (as v.tell as in certain other kinds of society)
the laborer (mental and cooperative capacities, fur example) that aUo"\\'S capital
this process becomes internally differentiated so as to contain distinctive
to "be" in the world at alL But the internalization of chese powers of labor as
"moments" of production, exchange, distribution, and consumption. \Vhen
powers of capital at the point of production entails the transformation of the
we look closely at anyone of ruese "moments'" we find that it cannot be
labore! into an appendage of capital, not only within production but in all
understood independently of the process as a whole which passes through all
spheres of mental, social, and physical activity. The ligure of the "cyborg," now
the other moments. Production, therefore, necessarily internalizes impulses and
given such currency by Haraway's (1990) remarkable manifesto on the subject,
pressures emanating from consumption, exchange, and distribution. But to
enters upon the historical stage with the colonization of prodllction by capitalist
think of production only in those terms is to think of it '''one-sidedly.'' We also
powers and the internalization of the powers of labor within the figure of capital
have to recognize that production internalizes influences from itsdf (i.e., it is
itself,
internally heterogeneous and contradiccory ~ chis is why Marx says that
There are all sorts of -things to be said pro or contra the tvlarxian (or more
production is antithetical" to itself) and. that creative and transformative
broadly, the dialectical) vicw~ of course. It may be, for example, that there are
powers with respect to the process as a whole potentially reside within its .
"{
othec "moments" (such as reproduction and all that this entails) which ought
domain. But that potentiality presumably resides elsewhere also. If we
to be incorporatt':d in the schema or that his suess on the significance of labor
understand production in a broad sense to mean an} transformative activity
in production as the radical point of departure ror the transformation of both
(no matter where it occurs), then plainly wc are by d.efinition asserting the
social relacions and the relation to nature is overemphatic. But the fundamental
"predominance" of production over everything else. But Marx also insists that
point-1 want to insist on here is that critique of Marx (and of those Marrists
the poim of maximum leverage, the point of maximum transformauve capacky
who follow his dialectical procedures) should at least recognize what he is doing
and, in the famous last instance, the "moment" which exacises a "determinand how he is doing it and not read him or {mis)repre.~nt him unthinkingly
anr" transformative power oyer the system. as a whole lies within rather than
through- Cartesian, posici,,-ist, or analvcic lenses.
without the domain of production. Transformative activities in other
-~-~--_'3ut let us suppose~ for iUmrrative- purposes, that ~fan: correctly captured
domains then only have relevance for the process as a whole when they are
,the- general process of capital circulation through his abstractions. It is then
internalized withU; the production moment.
imponanr to see how such a theoretical furmulation is (u) elaborated upon and
Now if we read this passage in Cartesian terms, we might: interpret Marx 3.';
_':
(b) put to work as an "explanatory" device.
saying '(hat production as an independent entity causes changes in consump,to (a) we find Marx building more and more specific versions
tion, exchange and distribution, But this is exactly what :btlarx is not saying. .
He car-not say it, precisely because production, according to his concepcion.
:\:;~~~~f~:~~:~ ~~~~:::,~~~ the process of circulation of capital in general by
:~;
that different processes arrach to differem kinds of capital, such
internalizes relations v.-lrh all the other moments (and vice versa). Yer: he -.
. y~"'",dulStrial, mO!ley (finance), merchant, landed and even state capital (borsaying (and I am not concerned whether he was right or wrong) that thetra~
and laxation). Differences can also be specified according to rhe
formative moment in the whole proceis resides at the moment ofpr,oducliull.'
capital {whether it is fixed, large scale, embedded in the
and that it is there where we have to concenuatt: our attention if we wish
_as well as according to different organizational forms (joint srock
understand the creative mechanisms by Wh1ch the process (in rhis case
small businesses, land tenure conditions in agriculture, and the
circulation of capita]) is reconstituted, transformed, or enhanced.
uncertain dynamics of class differentiation and struggle is a major
short, are the powers that reside in this process of capital circulation
(uneven
development, internalized comradictlon and instability, 'fhe
at the momem of production in such a way as to tran.sform the 'y,wn '"
;<'api,a1 circularion in general is modified by disaggregation into more
it fOrIES but a fleecing and.. inherently unstable moment? This seems
'(es",,,,ifir though intersecting conditions of circulation. Capital in
reasonably question to ask. It is in principle no different from asking

66

Orientations

Dialectics 67

general now has to be considered. not as an undifferentiated unity but as

.<;omeming which is heterogeneous and often internally contradictory. The
discoverv of which of these internal differentiations has primaL)' or
signifi~ce depends on the historical, geographical, and theoretical intenogarion of material circumstances (this is why Marx's dialectics have to be
considered as coupled with a certain conception of materialism). For example,
the often fraught relations betvreen financiers ("finance capital") and the
industrial interest ("'industrial capital") have periodically erupted into crises of
considerable magnitude fur the whole system of capital circulation.
To elaborate on the theory in this way is not, however, to introduce a mass
of external contingencies. The organization of firms or of nation states. to take
just a couple of examples, is nor an external event that interferes with a pure
circulation process of capital. In each elSe, we attempt to understand a social
form (a particular kind of entity or organizational form, such as a corporation
or a government) as arising out of the circulation process and commanding a
particular moment" in the circulation of capital. That entity (a corporation,
for example) has a shaping influence by virtue of the powers it internalizes and
the creativity of the transformations (social as well as material) which it
accomplishes. But its existence is embedded in the continuous flow of the
process of which it is a part and, like any other entity, it internalizes contradictions, is heterogeneou."i, and inherendy unscable by virtue of the complex
processes whic..~ support, reconstitute, or develop it. The recent history of both
firms and nation state<; would. I think. broadly- justify- such a view of their
status. Lewontin (1982), incidentally, provides a similar interpretation fur the
mediating role of the organism (in the conteXt of genetic mutations and
environmental adaptations) in evolution: organisms through their productive
acti",rl.ties transform the environment,.,: to which they subsequently adapt in
exactly the same way that firms acrivdy transform the social and economic
environments to which they must perforce then adapt.
The work ofdabofation, further specification, and better artirularioh of
theory is on-going and can never be complete. if only because the world is :H'~':
always changing, in part b~use oIllie creative thoughts and activities generated ",
by dialeccicians as well as others (Cartesians in particular!). Theorizing, like
any other process. is as continuous and transforrnarive, as heterogeneous an~
a<; contradictory, as any other process whjch dialecticians confront ..fhere IS
always plenty more to do something more to be said" and innurnerable
of theoretical intervention to be examined and acted upon. The process
dialectical thinking and irs application to human affairs has also to
produced, sustained. devdoped. The aim and objective of my own work
The Limits to Copital) has in part been gi{,en over ro '
extensions to the theory and beuer specif:ying its operation
respect to
and space. But 1 would also "'31lt to better define the domains within
certain kinds of capitalistic processes operate and 'With what eH-eca; and

me

w-har kinds of transformative opportunities thereby arise to change the

trajectory of socia1life.
& an explanarory device, the theory does not operate as a simple predkcoc
of events (states: of things). It has to be viewed more as a set of generarive and
transformative principles. embedded in continuous processes, which, byvirrue
ofinttrnalized heterogeneity and contradiction, reveals the possibility to create
all kinds of new but always transient states- of thin gs. Here, too, we encOlmter
a major source of misunderstanding. To explain phenomena in terms of the
circulation of capital certainly does not imply that all phenomena that lie
within its domain have to he or are the same. Limiting and quite extraordinary
situations could arise where this was indeed the case, but the generative and
transformative principles embed.ded in the circulation processes are such as to
give rise to as- many shapes and forms of socia11ife (of commodities, ofcapitalist
cities. of consumption habits, for example) as someone like Manddbrot can
generate through :fractal methods. Yet there is an underlying unity to the
production of such differences and that underlying unity sets limits on the
nature of the differentiations which can be generated. Socialist social relations
cannot, for example, he produced. out of capiralistic generative principles.
The purpose of materialist enquiry is not to test in some positivistic or formal
sense whether or not capital circulation exists (we know it does) but to show
in what lOr~ over what domains (within '\\-.fIat bounds) and with what effects
it operates and. what transformative possibilities exist. Can we show, for
example, that what is usually teferred to as cultural prcx.:luction" lies within
its domain or not? Are there circumstances in, for example, the circulation of
capital through built environments or in the production of space which require
~ to re-think the specification of the process? Can we track the circulation of
' .Capital through state apparatuses and functions and what does this mean for
:{~ut conception of the limits and potentialities of state pov..w What happens
-'if capital circulation is barred from direct operation in certain sectors (e.g.>
"health care or education) or if it is suddenly liberated to How into arenas
~,furmerl, denied to it (like the former Soviet bloc)? In what ways and in what
is social change promoted by capital circulation and in whar .respects
be regarded as a stahle rather chan as an inherently unstable process~
the instance of capital circulation (itself a loosely hounded domain of

the problem is to explore the forms and domains of operation,

generative and transformative principles at work. This implies a
materialist research strategy. Treating nation states, fur example, as
entities and examining their behaviour and performance acrord~ set of economic indicators is of limited. value. The principles of
thinking would sugge<t that ,he fums of enquiry should be on how
states: internalize pow--crs (or lose their grip on such powers), in what
are heterogeneous and internally contradictory; and in what ways
tensions result in the kind ofcreativity or self-destructiveness

68

Orientations

which leads to new configurations of activity. And how, finally. do such

activities transform social life?
The charge that Marxists read off'" from theory to reality is from this
perspective sadly misplaced. This is not to claim that all :Marxist enq~ry of
this sort is error free. Generative principles can get distorted, domams of
operation can be imagined rather than substantiated, and materialist studies
of actual processes are just as liable to get lost in a thicket of detail as any other
kind of research. Through construction of generative principles and theories,
h1arxists themselves seek, of course, to change me world. But chis does not
imply that the results of enquiry will alwaYii be appropriate or that they can
never be confused and destructive. lvlarxist argumentation cannot, any more
than any other way of thinking, escape the dilemmas described by Bohm and
Peat (1987: 57) as follows:

3
The Leibnizian Conceit

Throughout much of this argument, I have invoked the idea of "internal

relations" as being fundamental to dialectics. I shall now try to clarify this idea,
in order to avoid some of the confusions and substantial eIfOIS that can arise.

We cannor impose any woddview we like and hope that it will work. -The cycle
of perception and. action cannot be maintained in a totally arbitrary fashion
unless we collude to suppress the things we do not wish to see while, at the same
time, trying to Da1ntaiu, at all costs, the things that we desire most in our image
or

For OIlman dialectia; are inherently radical, materialist, and Marxist. From
[his it might be erroneously concluded (though OHman certainly does not do
so) that the notion of imemaJ relations lead.<; down
same path. Since, in
subsequent chapters, 1 shall have recourse to the figure ofLeibniz (a precursor
of- thinking on internal relations whose influence OIlman acknowledges) as
proposing a relational view of space and time, I shall here bridly take up his
particular version of internal relations: the problem being, of course] that
Leihniz is generally considered a d.eeply conservative theoretician in political
matters. as wdl as a foundational figure in the rise of that German idealist
tradition against which Marx rebelled.*
In
,lvfonadnlogy~ -written towards the very end of his life, Leibniz proposes
ainftaphysics founded on the concept of a monad that internalizes everything
:here is, Each monad mirrors the universe: a principle of "'correspondence"
internally ronsritutcs each monad as that mirror of the universe. leibniz
restricts this correspondence principle in tv{O respects. First, each monad has
a distinctive position and pcrspccrivc in rdation to the universe and its mirror-

the world.. Oearly the roM: of supporting such false vision of reality must

me

eventually be paid.

And, it is fair to comment, many have paid the cost of such a false vision on
the parr of Marxism. But then no other processes of thought can claim a mantle
of untarnished virtue.

t\

me

"'onf"", interested in the history of geographical thought, it is \\'OT'".b noting that Gunnar

~;

;;';~~;;:;:~:~:~:::bo~ th equally impressed -with Olir:un's book on Alimatioll and its emphasis

wh:=n it was first publis~.ed in 1972, but L~t the-linguistic and ideali~t
""hid: Olsson subsequeEtly took the ~dea is in all o-tht:r respects quite -at odds

work in hisrorical-geographical materialis:n. Perhaps for simila: reasons

ll~~3:~.~~~7:n~:: his own version of dialect::cal realism il:. a book of intimidating
'-:i
hoth a cerr..ln convergence betweer. hls own work and that of

'::::;::~::;:~ OIlman. fOr tending to treat dialectics as pure epistemology rather

:'i

ontological position. Such controversies are not easy to SOIt out but
to how the notion of intet:lal relations connects to dialectical argumentation.

70

The Leibnizian Conceit 71

Orit:ntaU(}11S

jng therefure emphasizes certain proximate regions and perspectives rather than
others, Secondly, monads vary in the quality of the mirroring they achieve ~
some sharper and others more blurry.
But if I am a monad and I internalize everything there is then all I need to
understand the universe is to contemplate my OV.TI inner self To he sure, ",hat
I learn win be conditioned by my positionality and perspective as well a" by
the acuity of my mirroring capacity. But it is still.reasonable to argue, as leibniz
indeed did, that "r am the measure of all things" and that deep reflection on
my own internal conditions IS all that.is required to achieve full knowledge of
the universe. Let me, for purposes of identificacion, call this the "Leibnizian
conceit." It poses some very important problems as well as possibilities and I
shall have reason to come hack to it again and again in subsequent chapters.
Let me first comment on the conditions iliat were associated with Lei~niz>s
formulation of this thesis. Most recent presentations on Leibniz focus purdy
on his writings and his metaphysics as a set of ideas. I have to go back to a
"rork first published in 1948 by Meyer (translated in to English in 1952) to
find an argument thar attempts to weave together Leibniz's derivation of
metaphysical principles: and the circumstances of his world. That ,"",orld was
"Wen v,.;th strife and controversy. religious wars and violence, pestilence and
plague, political intrigue and chaotic fragmentations, and all manner of
unsettling discoveries (geographical, scientific, etc.). And Leibniz was deeply
engaged in the politics of that world, trying to find solutions, to establish
harmonies where there were none, to negotiate Tational outcomes, to reconcile
ideas about God's perfection '1,./ith the obvious imperfections in daily life as well
as Virith the extraordinary advances then occurring in science (particularly
Nevi'ton's work) and in philosophy (particularly Descartes). He was also an
active participant in contemporary geopolitical struggles
practices. Meyer
seeks to understand how l.eibniis .ideas grew out of his experience of thatworld. And, most crucially, he interprets the theses arrived at in the .Alom:.r!o/ogy
as registering a moment of failure:

Meyer's -commentary is not withollt relevance and force with respect to a wide
range of contemporary theorhations. I shall briefly take up two examples. Consider, first, Derrida'); resort to something akin to the Leibnizian conceit in his
discussion of self-other relations as he examines how the "european subject"
(an entiry that Lelbniz was also crucially concerned w.ith) constitutes itself on
the inside through the construction of an "other" - the colonial subject. Spivak
(1988: 2')4), in her interesting commentary on the whole problem of how the
colonized other can speak. attacks the "first world intellectual masquerading
as the absent nonrepresenter who lets the oppressed speak for themsdves" and
approvingly cites Derrida's strategy as follows:
To render thought or the thinking subject transparent or invisible seems ... to
hide the rdendess recognition of the Other by assimilation. It is in the interest
of such cautions that Detrida does not wroke "letting the other(s; speak for
himself" but rather invokes an "appeal" to, or "'call" to the "quite-other" .. _ of
"rendering delirious thaI interior voice lha.t is t.he voice of the other ill us."

The dangers L->J such a gesture are obvious, If the only way in which the "'other"
can be represented is through "rendering delirious" the 'voices that I have
internalized in the process of discov~ring mysdt~ then very soon the identities
of'Tauue -c'est mai" become as surely planted as did the thesis oc'retat c'est
mai." And this is exacdy 'where .Meyer fdt the fatal contradiction lay in
Leibniz's strategy:
Ldhniz claims that the observation of the essence of thing." i... nothing else but

an observation of the essence of our own spirit. ... The intellectual individuality
of man, informed by an entirely new ethos of intellectual achievement, becomes
the measure of all human exL,,;:ence. In this doctrine of personalist ahsolucismwhid:: is essentially the saIT'd: as Louis:xIV'"'s doctrine of political absolutism - no
real community is possible. And at this point Leibniz's conception of man's

ana

In his later life Leibniz becom~' fully convinced. that he has found a soiution to
the problem of rdating the individcal to the universaL ... The ultima thule of

monadological reRection.is complete retreat into the isolated Self; biographically speaking, freedom and commitment cease to be related in any stable manner,
ur:til at the very end of Leibniz's life they bn:ak Que i.nto fatal conflict. At the
point vmerl.:: Leibn.iz advances the self-conscious claim of raising the essence of
his own individuaiity to a universal law lies the distinction between his critical
and his speculative philosophy; a.nd at this point th.e philosopher becomes
isolated fraIL. the rest of the world. He flees: the noisy, chaoue controversy of
the contemporary scene in order to listen to the distinct, quasi-mathematical
''Diu: of his inner ffionologuc; fur only now can he find the nvo fundamenul
principles of his monadological system, the principles uf"wlContradicted truth.,
and of "sufficient reason." (Meyer, ::'951: 9)

sovereign spirit comes 10 Gmtradic lID; own idea of tolt:nttioll. The cunununwealth becomes a mere "aggreg:ue of monads''', and the aesthetically significant
.cOncept of"harmonia mundi" can no longer bridge me gulf between indi"idual
.. men, states, or moons.
,.Icc" ,".',',

second example is drawn from the frequent appeal on the part of

ecologists not only to dialectic. . but also ;:0 a version of the philosophy
relations that echoes the Lcibnizian conceit. Arn~ Na.css, the found.er
e~ology movement, was a serious student of Spin07.a ;i.od evidently
.
tra.inlng to great effect. In decp ecology i( becomes
Self {understood as something transcendental ro the egotistical
become the medium for "rendering delirious". (to appropriate
. phrase) that interior voice that is the voice of that great other -within us (sec chapter 7). Through self-discipline we can render Oill

! ,;' -'. "TI1rm-1

!,

72

The Leitmizian Conceit 73

Orientations

vision of na.ture less blurry and hope, by virtue of the "correspondence rules":

we internalize. to arrive at an understanding of the eA"""ternaJ world by erecting

a monadic Self into the measure of all things.
I am not seeking here to discredlI the Leibnizian conceit entirely. Strategies

of this sort have been of enormous importance duoughout history and

presumably will continue to playa role. But. left to itself, not only does it run
into the futal contradiction of the sort that beset Leibniz [is this why Derrida

(1994) has remrned to lY1arx?] , but it also begets a cacophony of "inner

monologues" (of the sort that Derrida, for one, is particularly adept at producIng) on the part of philosophers and literary theorists who have all too dearly
retreated from the noisy chaotic controversy of
contemporary scene,"
withdrawn into an isolat~d self, and thereby s~vered any connection between
freedom and political commitment.
In any case, the Leibnizian conceit precisely underlies that form of philosophical idealism which 1v1arx, through his dialogue with ~egd, rejec~ed,
Whitehead (1985: 193--4), while ackno,,~edging haw much hIS own doannes
owe to Leibniz, yoices a number of parallel objections. Leibni2, he argues, had

me

un his hands:
two distinctive points. of vlev;r. One was that the final real entity is a..'1 organising
acciviry, fusing ingredients into a unity. so that this unity is the reality. The other
point of view is that the final real entities are: subsmnces suppo~g qu~Li~es.
The first point ofview depends upon the acceptance ofintemal rdauons bmding
together aU reality. The latter is inconsistent with the re;::lity of such relations.

To combine these two points of vit:!, his monads were therefore windowless:
and their passions merely mirrored rhe universe by the divine arrangement of a
pre-establishcd harmony.
Thus there can be "'no concrete reality of internal relations" in the sense of
acrual processes of internalization open to investigation: God (or what i Iegd
later chose to call "spirit") has to function as the Deus ex machinaforthe whole
system to work.
While Leibniz may have furnished a foundation swne for "the great achievements of German philosophy" he leaves behind some awkward problems as
to how to use the doctrine of internal relations in practica; affairs. There are
three main difficulties. The frst, dealt with at some length in OHman (1976:
appendix A), is that if everything is about fioVl.o""S [hen how are we to speak
any particulars or individuals at all? If indi'l/iduatio!l, the identification
individual; or of what Strawson (1965) calls particulars IS considered depe..-r: ::'
dent on spatial-temporalloc<!tion then shifting the grounds for defining
,
and rime, which, as we sl-.all see in chapter 10, is indeed the necessary
don of the relational view, shifts the grounds for how inruviduals, parti,:ul"'"),,
and entities (such as "things" and "bodies") are to be identified and uno:kc;ro<>d,:

The conception of the fundamental elements or individuals of which the world

is composed is then perpetually open to que<;tIon. Srrawson (p. 119) state".
for example "'that no system which does not allow for spatial or temporal
entities can be a system which allows for particulars at :all." And in advancing
his views on how particulars and entities are to be established, he uses Leibniz's
arguments as a foil to construct what he considers a more coherent and comprehensive way to individuate phenomena. leibniis monads are entity-like
enough, it turns out, to provide easy means to rebut Strawsons objection~, but
they are unsatisfactory as a general argument for the reasons -whitehead
correccly advances. The answer here, given by writers as diverse as OlL'llall,
Whitehead, and Bahm. is that there is no particular barrier to consrruing things
and entities as "permanences" or even as relatively autonomous entities
provided we recognize how those things and entities ~e constituted, sustained
and ultimately dissolved in flow& and how all entities are relationallv defined
with respect to others.
'
To thiS Whitehead (1985; 203) perceptivelyadd5 two other objections. He
6rst observes;
The difficulty which arises in respect -ro internal relations is to explain now any

particular truth is possible. Insofar as there are internal relations, evelything mu...<:t
depend upon everything else. But if this be the case, we cannot know about
anything until we equally know everything else. Apparently, therefore. we are
unde: the necessity of S2ying everything at once. This supposed ne.cessity js
palpably untrue. According:y it is incumbent on us to explain how iliere can be
internal relations. steing that we admit finiLe lruUlS.

We will encounter this difficulty again in chapter 12, where I take up some of
the groundings of identity politics. If I internalize everything (including evcry
"otherness") there is, then I am under the necessity to speak for everyone there
is which is equivalent to saying nothing particular at all Equally serious, is that
"the: doctrine of internal relations makes it impossible to attribute 'change' to
anyacrual entity" (%itehead, 1969: 74)_ If all monads internalize everything
is, then under what impulses can they change except by their own internal
~."vo]i!cio,"? Put another way. to say that flux and change is everywhere is
',1'<lui"a],ont to saying that it is also nowhere in particular.
This may all seem to be a rather arcane and erudite issue, so let me illustrate
more practical and political-economic importance by a return to f...1"arx's
of capital as outlined earlier_ The argument, recall, is that producconsumption, exchange. and distribution are separate moments of a
(a How of value), that e-ach moment internalizes the conditions of the
but that the moment of production is regarded in some sense as
nwm1Fn",IA common Marxist readbg of this is that we only have to revolu(o~ to study) the moment of production to change for understand) the

The Leibnizian Conceit 75

7 4 Orientations

. . ItoSS than
thing

nalized there But th IS IS no

ed: to Marxism in the -name of
rhe idealist view of internal reL".tlons :p?rr 1ll of the criticisms launched
historical materialism. From thLS stan ~l~t :o~ems of Marxism in which
" 1"
d econOmlstlC lor
_L
aP:linst "foumlauo na 1St an
h ve some "Justification. SUCH
n""
' t h e only relevant category a
th
. b ""
( d ,dealist) to the degree at
ProductiOn 15 treateti as
re lei nruan an
arguments become even mo
___ 11, eal d ("windowless") moment" ""
t ed. as a hcrmeut,;ali} S e
.
_~ ..... h
"production lS cons ru
. . I" _L-O"~ which ev=y .....mg
" db"
spondence pnnop e Ull U};U

albeit charactenze ya corre

L __
n moment in
contmuous
-,,--" "th" -t rather t,=, as an ope
"
f
else is inter[lallLtu W1 m I - _
h"
10 k very different if the notion 0
flow of social and political lite. ~ut t tngsld fO onadic entities (which appear
"
- - tednotmawor 0 m
"f
internal relations IS Sltua
__ ~C
'
and internalizations
0
") b
~ ntinuous trallhl.ormanons
[
as "permanences
ut as ...0
_ _) "thin the overall process 0
"
(
.
thngs entltles WI
diffe~ent "moments
evenrs,..l.1
,
oductlon.
1.A"_~'
politica.l-econom.1C repr .
an e and distribution, to go back to IVhll~S
production, consumption, exch g,. h' th ocial process, each internai."
all levant moments"W1t 111 e s
.. .
f
formul~lOn, are
Ie
1983: 297) makes a parallel cfltlClSffi 0"
izing effect' of the others" Bow (
h B h calls "the implicate order
lorill" how w at 0 m
d
" hi!
Lei.bni;r. albelt w e exp
tod ' din both con:;ciousness an matter
rovides a common ground for un ~ erstan. g
p ." tl Wl-thin dIe wholeness ot beCOffil.llg:
con JOll1 y
o

.'

whole world because all else is lfl:er.

me

. ~ element be a moment which, Hke

mQtn~t of
We pwpose .. - that mebbasi.. . ely r:::tate
_I
d to meas.u.ements
of ~ce
and rune,
~
~r-.
consciousness, cannot e preciS
l ' fin d
i.on whidl is extended m space
1tat vague~y ae e reg
...
but rallier covers a w~Th
_ d duration of a. moment may vary nom
'tlme
e extent an
.
ch
and has duraUon ill

.
I
'\s wit..~ conscl0Usness, ea
something very .small w s~methLndg very da~e~dt~on it enfolds all the others,
" explicate or er, an m
h I
,]J
moment has a certain
. h' f ch. ~(Jment in the woe to
though in its own way_
the relauo~
elva -in which it "nulds'" all me
the others is implied by its total ~n,ent:~ th~:~ Y cion is similar of Leibniz's
!. j
"thin it In cert<l.ln wavs till:> no
.
othets er.foI(leU Wi
.,

rors"
whole in its own way, some m great
ide-a of monads, each of which mu iliff,
ce is th:at Lcibniz's monads had. a
detail and ul;~ers rather vaguely, The. leren
nly moments and <U"e thus
.
b ~ ou.r OaS1C e emeuts arc 0
permanentex1stenCC, ~ er~ 'd a of "'actual occasions.'" is doser to me one
not penn-anenr. \v'lutehead SIC
....l.. _
~.G the i.mplicare Qrder to
- cliff,
ce bemg Ul<I.t we u..".
propctled. here, the ma.m
_eren "
f
ments whereas \~litehead does

me

s.:

1: 0

the

e.."<;Jress the q

ualities 2nd reb.nons h IpS 0 ow rna

this in 3. rather different way.

>

"

, d internal re~a-:-i.ons.
" I d' ffi
. . ersions of how to und\ffstan
f
There are, plam y, 1_ ere~L v
a fairl 'consistent feature of much 0 my
My own preference (and it has. been ""th"
Oce5ses rather than to take
' .
f moments wt m pr
.
k , IS to treat 0
.
th d ent for sole considerationPrevious wor
"
"
f

product10n as e em
. ththe monadlC View 0 , sa),
.
b
-d 1 as moments in elf
d"b t on must e COllSl ereu
.
Consumption, exchange, lstn u ~
d th racess ofinternalizadon as it

awn right precisely in order to un erstan

ep

occurs in production. Marx produced. strong arguments to suppon his view

that the moment of production was more crucial than the others to explaining
how capitalism works and how socialism might be achieved, but this does not
in any way justify neglect of the other moments - indeed, working on those
other moments (such as. consumption) is a fruitful way towards internalizing
specific and desired forms of change within production {the most obvious case
is when consumer boycotts affect production acti"--icies). To the degree that
Ollman ills to make such distinctions clear enough (though I suspect he agrees
with me), he leaves open
possibility for hoth a conservative and idealist
doctrine of internal relations as well as a purely productivist" version of
Marxian political economy.
This stili leaves the thorny question of where change comes from in
particular. in a world consrrued in terms of internal relations. Why might
certain agents for change (such as an organized working class) be considered
as more fundamental than others? This is perhaps the foremost question to be
answered and it will be a major preoccupation in later chapters. For the
moment, all that 1 need record. is that critical assessment of doctrines of internal
relations places that as a metaph}'Sical as well as a political issue of paramount
importance. Leibnds particular solution, arrived at in the Monadology, was
founded on failures of political practice that made retreat imo the windowless
wofld' (his study) of;lIl intellectual monad engaging in extensive correspondence with
outside world a particularly attractive proposition. Hardly
surprisingly, the political filllures of the left in the last two decades have
rendered a similar retreat into a windowless Leibnizian world of internalized
relations, as for example in the case of Ddeuze (1993), a rather atrra-ctive
option. It has been facilirated in many respects by the perfection of computer
technolob..tes : another innovation of I.eibniz who, as Heim (1991) palms out.
developed not only the first calculating machine but also the binary arithmetic
-'a universal calculus that would compile all human culture, bringing every
ll<l[ur"JlI~oua.gt: into a sinb.-Le shared data base - to go With it]. The pit."UlIC
of-the monadic individual, locked onto a computer screen connected by
modem into a. vast world of correspondence in cyberspace in many respects is
a fulfillment (repetiti.on) of the Leibnizian dream. "Monads have no windows,
but they do have terminals" writes Helm, going on to describe a cyberworld
. ".vhich Leibniz's "monadological metaphysics" underpin both the logic and
i;;,-etdt,c ontOlogy" of cyberspace. A.nd there are many who now regard intensive
; F'''plorati,on of this new space as a form of radical and revolutionary action. I
to this topic in chapter 1 O.
< rloe "new radical idealism," as I shall call it, rests largely on such a withdrawal
is something which in itself the pure doctrine of Inte.rnal relations is
iROw'''k~ to prevent, except by embedding it deeply in the political commit[or, as Bhaskar (1993) prtfen; it, in the "Jiberawry axiology"] that gave
dialectics.and his historical materialism so much of its power. Otherwise

me

me

. 'as fatal
d olitical "'ommitment becomes Just
the severance between freedom an al 'cal'" work as it ultimately became for
eCll
a. contradiction for contemporary 1 ch
h a strong claim to be at least
. h' focus on ange. as
.
Leibniz. Dialectics, WIt Its .
Bhaskar (1993) notes, there are van~U5
one of the key modes of ~~qU1ry. B~t,. as.
rtant to be as explicit: as posSible
strains within that traditIOn and it IS Iffi PO
it might mean ro bring some
. cs can operate an d what
t~
wry
concerning how dial~Ct1.
. ' Ie:;: to bear upon any furm 0 . enq. ".'
ramer man other dtalecttcal pnnghClP dial ' lly (a kind of meta-dtalecttc tf
'cc
ode 5 of mou t
eellca ,
uaIIy
Treating ilirn:rcnt m
tic rather than as mut
,
L
entary mough antagontS
, . , h This' s an
you will) as comp.u::ffi
.
' ld creatIve lDStg ts.
1
exclusive and unrelated can, for thas reasonj yteil "'The finest harmony is born
, . 1 hat me Greeks
understoo we ,
f all b ming"
ancient pnnClp e t
.
d "disc cd is the law 0
eco
.
'en~ations are always restricting and
from differences,'" said Herach~us. ,~
repres . J ~.~_~ always "to rub together
Ma rx, likewise held mat,L"one-Sided
bes ' v to proceeu "'bb'
problematic and that we
twa,
ch fire." Perhaps a lmle
ru l11'g
conceptual blocks in such a war that they dca, k about socio-geographical and.

76

Orientdtium

rlVe v;raVS to

un

in the right vtay can d 13It cr~a:h

'bring spatio-temporality, p ace,. an
environmental change. all.
oW to es of social and literary theory. in the
environmem (nature) wlthm the fram ch a mode of argument to work to
chapters that follow. I shall try to puhtallSU
dissolve dialectics as an absuact
, I' I the process Is try. to and theoretical practl. ce5
see vrhat it can yte u. n
, '1 . t .. flow of argumentauon
set of pnnclp es ill 0 ..

4
II,

The Dialectics of Discourse

Writing is a form of discourse. 'When I engage in it I am bound by its rules.

~c use 4i!Kourses to _persuade ~~~.~ an.~ oth.:;.rs ~.:-~ way oI.,
understanding (and often acti~g",~owa;asr-~ s"'UbJ~ct matter. ~vS ,~~,-?
important. I h::,~ Has
a profOWld "rave of ~recently on the nature

neen

inherent timi
ound by rules 0 discourse.
,
~crry to both -reH~cttlirough discourse on what we think and do,

~:DpestN~~;E~~g~~~&9i%t;~Jj~~s ~"-

in: _ortant

im, Fcations. It opens up the creati~iossi~~ fOr" cti~cal

reflection. But it so poses angers 0
euiafl!Y;![ car,lkadlnto ~ laSl~
. in which multiplying disalrsiv~ions hf2me so i~erw~at

i!"",

'!:"~_~.~~l~l~~~hlsJ,.~gj~~~mg_-PimP,Jj,iYk~~___, ,
There has also been much salutary discussion recently on the "subJect
positionality" or the "standpoint" embedded in particular discourses. Attention has been drawn to the hidden positionalities and power plays that lie
buried within even che most seemingly innocuous and ethically neutral
discourses. It is difficult now to advance any claims to "truth" or even
"relevance" or "politics'" wirhout providing some initta] grounds (including
declarations o["~ubject positionalityn) upon which to base such claims. This
mandatory ini(ial ~'ture opens the flood gates for a lo[ of personal self.
as well as useful critical reflection . .N, Professor Paik Nak-chung, a
member of the oppositional South Korean writer's union recencly
dlSet'veld, he would normally feel embarra.<;sed to talk about himself, but when
-'visiting the United States he had discovered a thoroughly respectable way to
that: it was called "revealing one's subject positionality."
<,

dJiiiliWU4IZIIII-------'"..::,~---~

The Dialectic> ofDisctJurse 79

Orientations
_
tal
to be taken up later .
truction ot fund.amen terms
rds nug"uhf
how the discurs[Ve cons
.
,_
d J'ustice being key wo
mace-111m? pwce, an
~L
posedly
\ environment~ ~ature, I
di~ursive realities to which SUOl termS sup
th
operate in rdauon to me non
"dialectical cognitive map" to repre~ent e
allude. To this end. I COllbLruct a
that map to situate what discourse
\~ flow of social processes and th: use d what sodal and literary theories
tan
\ miuht be about and to better un
ing to design some met~-theory ot
~ ab~ut. I am not, I shou\d
t:'U1~eliable for that. My aim is far m~re
~ the social process - m.-at:s. : ap to assess the form, the power._~e ~~u:
zano
modest: to create an mltt ~ . '
t:-;tanons inherent in different meort
78

=_

ha.s:s

ell"lL

bI'

POSSl 1 lUes """

weII as t he

lllill

\. (including roy own).

I

I. The Basic Framework

.
_tothesocialproccss (figure 4 .1).
I begin by defining six distincuve mo:er;.~t goes on in social and literary
These are basic markers to ~t;~ ~e substantive invesciga-cions to foll~w.
theory. They also lay a ~o~ V{O
~. J far as possible, any sense of ~r.lor
I use the term "'moment lfi orde: ~ a'V~l ) ~ mancnces'" _ things, entitles,
crystallization of proC~sna1 aCtiVitres t~cs= the moments in no particular
clearly bounded domams, or systems. p

order of significance.

~"h, be d fined as ,he moment

IdiscauTsecanroUyuJ
e
__ n_:~ ab t
nguag<
f coded ways availahle to us fur ","""g ali,
of resort to rhe vast panoply 0.
rid.
.'
about. and reprcsentmg the wo
fpower is itself both
wnung
. ' s of ower. The moment o .
. .cal
(b) Discourses are mamfeStlUon. d P t . but power relations (poli~ . '
h
eneo
US an
comp
ex.
fu
d
tal
Wldlln
internallY eterog
..
) and pressures are n amen
economic, symboli~ mt11tary. etc.
.
f how they work is therefore
the social proce.<iS and some .concepnon a
wcial processes.
crucial for und.erstanding .

(a) The moment 0

ffa

Discourse/language

Beliefslvaluesldesires \

power
Institutions/rituals
Social relations
Material practices

". a Cognitive Map of

Figue 4.1 "Moments m

me Social Process.

(c) We all po~~ess beliefs, fancasies, values, and desires about how the world

is (ontologies), how better understandings of the world might he achieved

(epistemologies), and how Ifwe l\'aIlt to be !fl the "WOrld, This complex
interior world 1 shall designate as the moment of th(JUght~ fonta.ry, and desire
(the "imagina.ri') recognizing that such term~ are scarcely adeqtlate ror
what I mean to say and that the separation betwee-,''l them may mislead
(the thought-body dichotomy implied cannot easily he justified, for
example).
(d) The moment of institution building broadly refers to the organization of
political and social rdations between individuals on a more or less durable
basis, We- here recognize that human thoughts and desires 6m become
collectively manikst and reilied as cultural ritnals (such as those of religion
authority, and deference) or, more obviously, as seemingly permanent social
institutions (such as those of law, the state~ politics, science, education,
religion, the academy, the professions, the military; and the market place),
(e) The moment of material practices focuses on the material embeddedness
of human life. Material practices are the sensuous and experiential. nexus
- the point of bodily being in the world - from which all primary
knowledge of the world ultimately derives. But material practices also
instantiate and objectify human desires in the material world, not only
through the reproduction of sdE and bodily being but also through
modifications of surrounding environments encompassing everything from
the microtechnologies of the liyjng and the workplace through to the built
forms and created environments of cities, agrarian landscapes, and glohally
.
modified ecosystems.
if) The moment of social "lations describes the various forms of sociality
human beings engage in, and the more or less durable orderings of social
relations to which this sociality may give rise. It focuses on the V'lay
human beings relate to each other - "'modes of social relating'" - as they
live their lives, produce together, communicate, etc. Cooperative structures,
divisions of labor, social hierarchies of class, race, age> and gender, or
differenti:u-ed individual or group access: to material and symbolic
activities and social power, are some of the issues encompassed within this
moment.
1 am here reducing a vast array of activities to six fundamental moments
social life. The socia! process, as I conceive of it, flows in, through and
around all of these moments and the activitie-''i of each and every individual
. emhrace aU of the moments simulraneously. While this highly schematic
very Cartesian} representation ha... the advantage of immediate clarity. it
liable to lead to egregious error left in such a raw fOnTI. So I offer some
;;';J.mrn!ialte clarifications, building on the dialectical ....vay of thinking outlined
in ,haoce, 2.

The Dialectics ofDiJcourse

"0
o

O";enUitiom
"
.
diale':ti 1. Each moment IS. constl-.
The analytics 1 . .vant w work With are L_ l- ~C11-h:
flow of
1.
.
..,1', '
c 'C o',,,,rs Wlt m
_.~--'-.
~ an internw~reJ,atlo):LOJ.....J..lJ,e-,- ~!"-~"- . ~>~---. ~--'~"-\i,---r-<that occurs. at

ilic

sooarana

~___ -~.-. - .
aI"
me sense e-.'eI)'T mg
",--~,..,,",,-"""'"'
;;;;i211ife, Disco~:~~ _~:~~r:, _l~ ~ce.n'~:~~rktridaslOun.-aation;r .stareU1~nt
'::'L'-'~"'-~'--"--'Ylts~!tliUS glvmg creden
I' fo dauonai View
OUier mom~~
.d f th text" or Foucau ts un
d

tuted

'rtiitli~"; is nothing ~utSl . e 0

e
s human thou~~~J~;~~> an.
,
'
) Dlscourses expres
_ .,..- --' ,--- -- . cd
n
that cUscourse ts pow-er . ': ___.. -"an"b~--d-miterlanv conSHaffi > exRe
desire. They__ar_e_~?_ i~1!~u~on _,r
-a'~owei~reta:rio~~l~r1:nesamc
cntijlly groll~~~h~ ~a~U?r:s_ ?~:~wrfd:OrlieL;IDQmsij!~1!fiiiL~~le

J.I:r:-

~~:;;:::(:;~~Z;:,u=ple, beli~:.;"dpr~~~~:~::ell as bemg

iliecteu1)y them).
h moments is insufficient, misleadBut to privilege discourse above ot
at elations has to be used Gl
'ng and even dangeroUS. The theory ditntden_l; r " and the pttfalls of the
l
'
d th
f "mona C 1 eal1sm
" .
a way mat avoi s e trap o .
\i
nation of one "moment I~
. "E rs arIse W en exanu
.\
d
"Ldbnl'lian conceIt.
IrO
WItv of the social process. ~ gam aD
held sufficiem to understand the to
'h
ert a dialectically correct
r
f tho:: sort t at conY
a~ we will find S:1ppages 0
.j
f h text" mto talse statements
b
'k "there IS
. n othinO"to outs:Wf:
0 t e
'U "
,
sratement \j e
d
gh texts" (or Worse stJ > every,
b
derswo throu
'fa
!'
that "everythmg can e un
d
n'
and equally
se practices
be understoo as sue j
'1 d ( d
thing iJ a tem: and can
.
f textS as the pn,'1 ege an
the deconstructIon 0
that seek to use, :.ay.
.1
d'
tli
to unuerstan mg,
f
somxtimes the 0 n1)
Y pa way
. tv of trttnslatwn rom one
sli d through an actlVI ,
cd
,\
2. Internal rclations are ape
. f
1mt is being desire to w lat
moment to a.."lother But ~anslat1o~ ro.n:;(~ay, 1: fraught WIth dangers and
. being said. done. mst1tntlonah~d..
.,
d al gets lost. Translations
15
hID
d someumes a great e ,
.
fro
difficulties. Somet g, an
diffi-ult enough, but translation m
from one ianguage to another are as discourse 1S often a slippery bUSIness
say, power as pht~ica1 furce r~ PO;;rent moments so {hat slippage, ambigtlA gap always eX1S~ between the
bl
ut HegemOO1C discourses
Ld
quences lnevlCa "ace
( h
icy and unmtenuc conse.
s of litical-economic pmver ~uc
can be pohced bv a represstve appara~th po - us1v invading deeply held
c'
c~
t Union) WI out :,eno ~..
ffe
as that in the Jonner ........vle
'1 hn' and gender eli fences or

bout
raela
et
Ie
f certal'.J.
b l' fs. fantasies, an d de~tres a
>
1 The power 0
e le
d
d the supernamral.
th'" eXistence of Go , naHon, an
n ' SID fascism, che reitgiOtiS
~
.1:_
(Thatchertsm ,-eront ,
fr
kinds of political UlllCO UIse
)
>
the other hand, denve om
r10k ill the UnnedS:ates In the 19905 may;\, ~~_econorolc power to bott.
~
f those seeking po me
c.
d
the uncanny capaCity 0
..... do e 1 held beliefs. fantasies, Rill, an
mobtlizc and subtly promote cert3~at ~~iHzaHon to sustain and promote
desires against mhers and uulize t
.
moment
certain confiauratlon of power relatlons.

<

internalizes forces
or

. This makes the

mimesiS.

81

:S2E~Ondence: rules" operative across moments crucial for how we

understanitlhe-sociat-ptocess-to worJ.r,-~----"

.-.".

~-

3. EadrmomentTminaliZes Jieterogene"Iry largely by way of a variety of

conflicting effects from all the other moments (an idea that Alclmsser sought
co capture through use of the term "overderermination"), Power relations
are not homogeneous, for example, We cannot know a priori whether we
should appeal to authoritative versus economic; gender-based. versus classba.<;ed, symbolic versus raw physical dimensions of power (just to take a fC';V'
examples of categories that are deployed). Contestation over deeply held
belief;, desires. and v.Jues is likewise everywhere evident, frequently pitting
different fantasy worlds in the form of Utopian desires and strivings against
each oth.er in severe internalized traumas or bitter external polemical/
political conflicts. Heterogeneity ofbdiefs and. incoherent ways of desiring
and valuing can be found wiL~in each. and every one of us, generating plent)t
of inner turmoil and moral torments. Racist, elitist. and sexist thoughts
surface in surprising ways even among those who dedicate their lives to
campaigning against such phenomena. in exactly the same way that new
material social practices designed to achieve a change in power relations can
become unglued by subtle shifts of emphasis that reinstate old power
relarions within, for example, new material practices and divisions of labor.
4. I have so far construed the relations between "moments" as 10"''5, as open
processes that pass unhindered from one moment to all others. But flows
often ~'Srallize into 'rthings, t? "elements. and isolahle \iomalns"

or

'~i~-t~~s;'~'~-ia;:";SS"iime~a'reram-tepefiIi'Imence(ana'sori1e~~tev~~1'"&it1lr~'''<"

l!rn~i::~~::~~1 ~:.~!~Ecifi~~l'!~s:.R,ilf-:_a20!?-~ ~! !ree-nvL~.~ .'~

..E::<:e~~~s_~~~~~:,~o~c:::.~~~!O STeate actUal,.J2.q!lli:!!s...fl:~",-.!J.!....the s2.Q~L.

and QJ-~terial world around us. Examples might be matcriallandscapcs (such
.~~r~icies ~i;:n-~~that seem almost impossible to transfonn by
virtue of the solid way they have been constructed, divisions of labor that
are so routinized and organized through an infrasITucture of factory and
machinery that they seem impossible not to replicate.. socially constructed
discourses that tightly constrain and regulate behaviors (fur example,
discourses about time and space outlined in part III), and even discourses
which become so widely accepted and reified, that they themselves become
part of a landscape of knowledge seemingly impermeable to change. This
problem of how "things" crystallize out of processes preoccupied Adorno.
Coles (1993: 232) "Tites:
For Adorno the world.is thoroughly relational. Each thing is a "'crystallization"
ofits relation .v:ith others. Yet the language of "cry~alljzacion" is as important
here as that of "relation". The rela.tional world is not one of pure Huidity and
harmony, but one ",-:here things crysullize into highly dense, infinitely specic,
and often ",.ery recalcitrant entities thar resist the surrounding world in which

The Dialectics ofDiscourse 83

82

Orientati.ons
d
Ad
rh first movement toVi<U a
they are born.. One wuld say that for orno, ~ .
Fboth this relational
dialogi::al understandi~g of freedom lies in a rocogronon 0
quality and this recaluuance.
d riaid}ties of
ces power strUctures, an
tr
My ~tvnment 15 oot that permanen "
h R' d processes that COll5U, -,,rel
kin relauon to t e m
h
discourse ate ir evant or wea
h
.lysis should confront aw
. ist hOWe'ler, t at an
ted
fite them. 1 do v.'afit to IDS'
1\ id internal relations can !>e ~n~~ .
~ can occur h ow U
~~ ,~,- ~"'~ at 0ther

such pe:manenu:s
"ilieliiteii);iHzanon otrorces opera:U1~ ~~ =_~
inro social cansauollJ,ndhow
'- --cg-afid me sOCial causa-~ ~-- ~-- 'ghtlimitorunderminethepermane~ -.d-' d -;~;nt
mo~:~!S ~l .
~
"tatOO. The_,l;latiOJU~J!:,- ~r~ a.t!-X.S~:=~
-on
WItll
wnlch
ther.
are:
~s.?:~
~~~"".~.
hi
has
j'ust
such
an.~ air
of a
U~.~~.' ~ -~
- --""
. human story,
~
roduct of concentrated poVi'"Cr m
full'
naliz.es, a -wide range of
.
bee
. uccess Y mter
. --;"al
P

~permanence p:ect~ely ,_ aUSC it.~ re[aiions~. andinsufuu'op:al~iU~~!.lSOCl

'~d ~_~A =im causal~w=,
desires and belief" 3iS=urses,
h b me an entrty en OWQ..l n -~~~- ~-

pracuces and J)<lS there y- ero

~e o-p-;;'ates as :l causative agent.
, ul-d-be Silly
t deny chatth e nation
, would be
It wo
o.
11 demonsttate1>, it
But as the case of the Sovlet Uillon so -we
man:ntlv criven, indepen,
11
"'at ~powers, as
per
. 0
ually stlly to accept t osc ca
.
eq
_~_l
S produce entItles.
:u1
dd
dent of how SQetaI p.roce.~
si here a causal or cin.: ;u roo
So although I am expliCltly
:ose in power set up discourses
says, for :xamPde., ~_ .t
as to regulate practices of
(of the wrt that
es an ucstres so
cd
' r_ f:
that shape be\leIS, rantasl
t.
ial prouuction and repr uc'ldi
that
set the stage tor mater
all
institution b U1 ng
.al lations that -fin y retum ro
Hon activities that in turn construc;:l ret to recognize that siruauons
ensure me perpetuation of po~er),
w.lafi( d cItcular) logic is at work.
'
ms as if such a call' an
h h ld
hich
roay anse in w
It see
d
.
illusion} of mose woo
J..
dream
(an
sometIme"
l
'
It is llndoubtcdly we
..-.-..1", cd' such a rucu ar causauve
be or are re5Ui...t
In
h
nower that matters can
de!Y difficult from t e standch '
nen appelii sperate
"hi
r
manner. Su SltuatIOns 0
'd be use it seems ImpOSSl e
.ona1 movement prccis Y ca
oint of any opposltl
_L
h _L. bask arfTUfficnt concerns
P
- i-So even UIOUg w...
to
al
to break out of the oreu anry.
causah' the crYstallization of calli
internal relations rather than ch t)d: I cal ~ysteID of internal rda
utofsu a taecu
.l '
structures (pcrmanences) 0
.
blero s not only for an ysts
"-does
occur,
posmg
pro
f
I d
y
ks I t1 e evaluauon 0 soaa an
tions can and frequenu
"L
cia!
process
wor
n
1
fr
but aho for h ow Ule so
h
b
'd to shifts in language om
.
1
tt ntion as to e pal
literary thcones, case a e
Ilized ausal schema.
free flowing processes to a ~ta ha c. the moment of communicanve
5. The importance of disc~~e lsprerJ:~::gardingccrtainlinesofaccionandll

nuttroh

persuasion or discu..~ion em-ween

rial field of operation as-we

belief. Acts of coIDmunicauo~ ha~e a ccdrtalll sP~e socially consuucted and

raj'
b mof which depm upon
d' as a tempo Ity, 0
.' fi
urucation over space an tun"'
technologically mediated capacttles or coIDID rdinanty comp'icated. so that
. hill discourses are extraD
The games P1ayed Wlt

the discursive moment becomes indistinguishable, a.~ Foucault argues, from

the n---ercise of power itsel But this is predselywhat is meant by internalization: the discursive moment is a form of power, it fs J,_ mode <?f forma,~on _of

bdiefs-;md~dC5tre!r,'it-is ih-ltsdf~aii LrisriiuaOll,~:i!Ii9~_~~J)J~[;d~p_ ~

rllateIial practice, aJundanleiitaT momffi't ';{experi~p.ce. D.~J,!l~"Sl==~~
be-purc, isolated or -ins~ated from other mOInents in ~~ life, howoo

abstr~~~ ~d ';~~~y trafl~SOindenttlley-"tecoine:-N'~r~iheyOe~1fiSUlafm'~~'

and-Sepifat~ fron', thosee'~c.mg--:ilie dis;;;;;:~fug;H~l;i;;L;'~-:'0i9jl;
iit{!iviltu:rlly-and~0)teciivdy) are the!?e'\fers of disC!)Ur"",On che omer hand,
~",urses, mough humanly produced, have m~,;;~a:.lh;:bit;)fass~

-a certalupoweroverndW-mdiVidtia!S"tllink and_ ~~e. -:rn-cllis, ~~'i~\nany

;;tJier-'ra---cettorthe~~pr-Ocess:llm:;;;b~u;g;~ ~pris~n themselves in
systems and things of their own coflSuuction. This does not detract from
the ineluctable fact that discourse is ahvays social rdating hetween people.
But it does pose the thorny question of what kind of social rdating i5 going.
on. And this can best be approached by examining the relation of language
to discourse and the determinative power of both in relation to social being.

II. The Moment of Language (Discourses)

The words discourse" and "language are often used interchangeably. While
there are evident overlaps, it is, I think, useful to treat language as in some sense
more fundamental, as one of the key raw materials out of which specific
discourses, understood as bounded. (sometimes stricdy so) ways of representthe world~ get shaped..
Debates over the powers of languagc have taken all sorts of twists and turns
in the twentieth century. To begin with, important distinctions have been
suggested that lead to diffCrcnt definitions of language, the most celebrated
_being Saussure's distinction between "langue (langnage as a strucrnre ofinternal relations, grammatical rules, word posirionings) and "'parole" (common~
everyday speech). Some view language a'i an objective and :fixed srructure of
possibilities (pe,haps genetically coded) that human beings use, albeit in diverse
ways, while others see language a.<; either a subjective or broadly historical
construction. Those of the latter persuasion broadly divide over the question
as lo whether changes in language lead or follow changes in material practices,
jru,titlJti,mal forms, social and power relations, belief" and me like, This relates
the controversy over the relation between language and that to which it
;C",uppo;"dily refers - reflection rheories of language (the idea that words are
<l'im,otic of the realities theY describe) here butt heads with consrrucrivist ideas
view that our underst~ding of the ""real" is constructed through words).
then: are all sorts of intermediate positions and synthetic dialectical
d!lrmula,tiOl]'s that bridge or mediate these simple binaries.

ing

'I
,I

Th, Diakcti
84

.rD'

almost v.;rnollt nori'

, .
- cs OJ - JScourse 85
.,
Clng It, "mply through h
d
th1S example illustrates ' th ere IS
. not h'mg"'d
- tt e .
me
of
. .ium
'"
,y But as
0, ra e issue with the
.
e ermlrusttc' about this I c
.
conversIons of dial ' I
. an, and
d .talk
capl. ' for example) into causal- I '
eenca process arguments (abour
re attons-between-things arguments I .
IpoSSIble to a'ltuid the tricks that Ianguage
can I . th
. t 1S
~ a variety of terms to describe snow: Th P In e .same way as we can
sIgruficance of language dicc
d" e pomt here IS to be aware of th
,
ha
"erences an lin .'stlC
.
e
Ing w t seems an irrefutable propo . t .
Imitations, while concedm constructing understandings of _ 51dlon.~ a~ language has a vital role to plaY
do such differences in ian
me . a:lllg action in the world. But wh'
the reason the Eskimos
ul . t:1 Here it IS perfectly feasible to answer th Y
d
iaI
em tip e names for
L___
at
an mater practices of n::producci
.
snow 15 lJCI.;ause their social
-w-e no:v have multiple names for
requlftallc in exactly the same way that

Orienrations

langu'~

I cannot resolve these controversies (\ doubt anyone ever will) but the position I take on them has a role to play in the subsequent analysis. If, for example,
the conceptions of space and time, of nawre and the environment. of place
and justice, differ both betWeen and within different social formations and

cultural configurations (as I shalllar-er argue). then I need. some w;ry to interpret

both how differences in languages and meanings arise and what significance
must be .rtached to the exi>tence and perpetuation of distinctive meanings.
Consider. for example, the implications of accepting what is known as the
Whorf-Sapir hypothesis. This view arose out of anthropological studies of
native-American cultures and the realization that there was a radical difference
in how native-Americans and Europeans perceived, understood, and acted
towarth the "same" reality. Space and time, for example, haa quite diffi:rent
and unassiroilahle meanings from the standpoint of native-Americans (this

h~

"O<-~-1

term steel"
.
used to be sufficient.

diffc~m worlds, not the same world with diffcrenr labels attached."

This teads, when taken tOO literally, to some kind of linguistic determinism,
in which language diffi,rences are seen to lie at the roor of different perceptions,
understandings and constructions of reality and, hence, of different behaviors,
practices, and belief;. The implications are highly relativistic (each culture has
its own incommunicable structure of feeling and understanding of the world)
at the same time as they are deeply anri-Eurocencric (the idea that ,,'>.ere is one
and only one superior _ for example, scientific - mode of representing and understanding the world is denied), But there are some nuances in the Whorfian "iew.
Whorf's argument is usually represented in terIns of the diffe.rent way worth
relate to things in dilterent cultural circumstances - the famous example being
that of the Eskimo who hill> a vase array of different words to describe what
we generically and simplistically refer to as "snow: and "no therefore perceive
and act upon the world in ways to which Europeans remain
precisely
because of linguistic impmerishment. But Wharf was much more interested
in grammatical constructions rather man nouns and this has great relevance
to my own argument. Time, for example, is constructed grammatically through,
in the European case, an daborare system of past tenses {hat simpiy does not
exist in many native-American languages. We learn fundamental ideas abact
time, without being partic.ularly aware: of it, s.imply by learning our grammar.
Just as important is the grammatical di"incrion between nouns (things) and
verbs (processes). Whorf here used me example of "fire" which in native
American ianguag is usually treated as a verb (a process) rather than a noun
cs
(a thing), But in most European languages "fire" is a noun and we h.ve a
tendency, therefore, to think of it a.s a "thing" ratherthan a, a "process:
example of Wharf's is useful fur it sheds light on how dialectical formulations
emphasizing processes can so easily be translated infO relations between ming;

obli,~ous

Th~

r .

exi~

di~n

point wiU be "..ken up later). This led Sapir to argue that "no twO languages
are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social
realitv," and that, therefore, "the worlds in which different socie.ties live are

ay

rem: me

".

i~

Ie aliO)'S Iior W h'Ieh t h e generic

ThebIssue
.
--"
easily
iof
' the det
crmmate
power of language 0 vcr sociaI life
. cannot so
e dsffilssed
howeveL
"1\.1
master of languag;while in fact :n acr:,'" though he were the shaper and
Hctdegger. (1971'.p. 146) and a WIde
. 'gUtlc.
the master or~ I nan, says
r remains
f
concur WIth
him in thiS JU
. d gment In ange
.
rece 0 commentato!"S
- and theonsts
.
escent mto discourse" h
.
nt years, what Palmer call th
dill
, SOCl'al and lirerary theorv:
as consequendy
becorne more and. more hegemoni
s
e
W h
_ n
to the illusory premise!prorruse:
,'. eave Iallen victim. Palmer (1990. 3).
argues,c
that language,
broadlv conceived as systems of' -:6 .
d
on mere words to incluJ
b I,
SlgtU cation that extend well
bey
communicatin
t ~ym u s and structm
. I_
_ g (from th c articulated
to the hl-
. es 0 f all ways of
WIt un which s00'all::.
I unmal) ,~
1- th e essentlru
' . ground
ue 1S embcdd d Lan
the- relarions of ckssc~. d nd e.
guage thus construers being: it de
ille st'
=. ge w, ",ex attentive to specthc
.-.
. or '"
age on which consoousness makes' his
hierarchies' it is
scripted. As its own mastcr, ma=vcr 1 its
torieal entrance and poli:i", is
be no reduc-..1on ofirs bPVi'
' ~ouage" lS nonrcferential> and th ere can
~.nnmgs and meani
J

, c

.,

ngs to some primcd =rerio"ealiry."

alme~ s obJections to this m on

language,"he argues (p.
_ 5),
ove"aare
strongly voiced . "In th e current fi.xation
material'
~~ often sacrificed on the alt~ ot- an 'd allS: udndel'standing of the past is all
tnnue
. nee. What then gets lost "'is th 1 e I-1ze readi ng 0 f d'Iscourse and its
an mterp
,
lty of the
.
retatlons
used '\II; itlun the .e centra
r.'
_
~uestl.on:
How are rn"1S
d _
generate and participate in th
I t~te~cu.:tlons of m~ututions? How do th
d
e re atlOns of PO'
d J.
ey
__ _
oes not argue [hat the
f
ver an oruering?" (p 45)
in the'31
mument
0 languag (.1:__
.

soel process but tha

.
I
e ULScourse) is neutral or
od:;

~
t seflOUS o
f_L
, _ UplCS a hegemonic and deter . _
I 1:ises 0 unrn::rstanding arise when
place f l .
IlUUate pace.
0C anguage
m the soo-al process is a
._ .
'd
f
c'luCI,dlv
onsl er, for example th.
. matter 0 acute political
.;::
summarized bv
C
'
e
mtefiSlve
debate
with:
..
, ameron (1992), over the r I fl
;fi emUllsm,
T

oe

anguage as a vehicle

f'

.1

"'"I
i

86 Orientations
fur thc oppression of women, At one end of the spectrum there are those, like
Dale Spender, who see language as cntitely "man roade," encoding a male point
of view, a patriarchal symbolic order of meaning, that so thoroughly defines
women's reality as to imprison both men and women within an "iron cagc' of
sexist language, The political antidote is ro build an altemam" language that
encodes fi:minine meanings that define auronomy, self-determination, and the
emancipation of women, The difficulty here is that if meanings within language
are entirely self_referential then there would be no way to escape or even to
identify ,,'te problem, For this reason, some of the most creative contributions
ouse
of feminist theoty have come from a consideration of how the 'prisonh
of
language," the evident pattiarehy of the dominant symbolic order, can be dis,
rupted only by appeal to some relation berween the moment of language and
the "psychoanalytic" moment of fantasy and desire andior the moment of bodily
a
practices. Some influential ieminist theotists - lriganry and Krisrev being the
most prominent _ have made use of (and to some degree reworked) Lacanian
psydlO.nalysis precisely because i, dwells npon the relational moment of insertion
and socialization of the body into a symbolic order where the phallus reigns
supreme(Cameron, 1992: 119, 169)" lIut, as Cameron goes Oll to sugg",--r, thi,
cannot be construed in isolation from other moments in the social proL-e5S:
Lmguage, though the socially produced means of thought, is not socially
controlled. InC-Teasingly control over dIe development of language
lts use is
hdd by state institutions, including mass media and monopolistic private
enterprise as in journalism we! ll.dvert:ising.. " The semiologists have somcriroes
r.,iled to appreciate the
and existence of class or other minority control

~nd

po~sihililY

over language

It is impossible to probe far inrn d" role of language from any standpoint,
including feminism, without encountering d" question of its relation to the
other moments of the social process, A> Cameron (1992: 220) concludes:
W1U1e language is certainly" political issue for the repressed peoples ofthe world,
I think it would be wise to think long a..'1t1 hard about the poliries of bbming
opp""sion ,oldy or pdn=iiy on \',r.guage, Fm" th.e powcrful, alta all, ther< is
much to recom..-nend this aa.;Qunt: it deflects attention from dIe fact that poor,
Black. and femaie speakers are disadv-.:.n.tagea becall-se they are poor, Black and
female .. " Iflar:guage is detached from t..l"e context of social relations, bloVi.'U np
w occup'Y the whole picture instead of appearing as a piece of me picture, it
loses its connection

to

the struggle as a .....thole.

Any consideration of the moment oflanguage (and of discourse) that .ttemp"

to isolate it from the other "moments" of the ",ci;J.l process is doomed to
myopia, And this, I take to be dte heaLt of the arguments advanced under the
name of historical materialism. Here. for example, is Palmer's version:

Histo~;ca1
mate "al"
"
n

The Dialectic, aiD"

h
mount? 87
1Sll) as no difficulty .
odating
t~e materiality of text
.. and the 1m on H', acc.?n:un
an appreciation of
~scourse plays a role in consrructi P an:~ bot. disc~)Urse.... It can accept that
unp orrance Ianguage plavsin the politics
ng SOC-tal
emg, )"'" as it
" can appreciate the
fl ho
~ry t~ormation. T.'le-opposition betw:e:disur and the process of rn'OlucionInto a tillS- versus th.at counce"
f.
. course and materialism hardens
dis
-mg 0 lllterprettv ch .
th
course d~:rnds recognition of the totalizi: ~lcesa: every point where
:anguage, wmmg and texts, elevating itself to g discu.rsIVC determinations of
IS both evet"'JWhere and nOV/here.
an aU-encompassing authority

mar.

But
Palmer
here adds another wnn
"kle to the

"7'
th
tlon. .to be sure," he ,,"Tires"
argument
at deserves considera,m th'lsprocessrh
<
,.
roa. y as to include YIn'u allyeverythi
e text IS_ often conce"rved so
fr
ill
b
relatJons of authority,n
I hy ng.
to mstitutions' to soC!'a1
n geograp
fu om words.
I
scapes, bodies, and cultural eo fi > . r ex~p e, we now find cities laudE th
n guranons h
"
'
ven e institutions, powers SOCl'al I ' elOg mterpreted purdy as texts
,
d'
, r e atwflS and
'.1

10 pro uang, say, urban life get red

d
' . . marenaI practices at work
both exuaordinary and stanr
. lice to te~ts m a totalizing gesture that'

reduc~:!"~;:'~.:::;,totalizing

those engaging in the

rhetoric of many;}
not to he
' mIsunderstood _ one thi ng to say iliamake the
(dipomt :lw.:lln
-,,- in oroer
ev
mg there is and that ill . gIi:.1 ~L:_t texts. scourses) internalize
",
eaIun w u=<=
be"d
d eryth
.
econstrucuomst tactics to bear b th
17- can
sal
by brinmnu
,-1..\
Il
0
upon actual t
(lUst"
'~'b
noVcul, as we as upon a wide ran
exes
OrIes. geographies.
moment has clear s.....
nwcance (SUWl
.. asofmovi
phenomena
. .
.
'5
. ,m which the semIotic
mgs. monuments, landsupes d
cod
es, pamttngs, sculptures, build,
~uch as religious rituals politicalcCSS es,. and even a wide range of ev-enbi
,
th
'
ceremonIes a d
ul
"
ano er to insist that the whol
'Id
pOP, at carnivals), But it
0r
~eeding to be read and deconstrueced e
15 nothlllg other than a text
hke Baudrill.1....rd. succumbs
h cd ThIS 15 the fatal error to which someo
oee
"
as e r uces the life
ne
urs upon a Cinema screen and
th'
Is
process to something that
hi
no Ing e e (b'
I .. '
recent works, that the GUlf Wa did
I,;,re y C"Hmmg, in one of
( .e, (1991: 7, 72, 143)
really" take place), Henri
a
a WIllful dalliance with nihilism" is h
h tdO .mng and reductionist gesture
work..}:
ow e eplcted even Baudrill""d's carI"leI

_r

q~te

,w.

attackeds~ ,::~:

(U.'

Semioloov
"
t>J raises dilliC ul t questions
'OCIhen codes y,.~rked up nom liter"rv n~xts
are applied.
to SfY.1CCS _ to urban s . ...
on rh
d.
paces,
,
- e pur y uesc.:iptive
level An
~ ~ n, as may casi1y be-s.hown
1
iaI
. Y attempt: to use :mch ..1->
tpherin
'"u soc space must surely r dI tha
COua> as a means of
dec
I1le5s-age, and dle inhabitinO" of .
~ lce. t space itself to the sratus of a

say-w~ ~Cmal

~\'ade history and practice

befo~e

w~

t> S It to
e statuS of a reading. This is both t
be'r;;;d::
producd
be'ng ,",uf, n<Jf
'. wuh bodies and lives i th. ~ pea,. but rather m order to be lived !y"
anginal]
n ell: own partlcular urban context. (ltal!cs
' . .1Il the)

It produced in mder

to

w::

The Dialectics of Discourse

n
\
~

"
;

88 Orientations
, . cl
hat define<! by the historical
O'1n:7onlS osewt
h
h
The position I am efe conv~b: ~ th b "ds to some degree, upon. t e
d
Wtlhams
at
Ull
)
.
'
",
materialism of Ray"IDO n
. .
Han uaae" Wtlhams _'\~ns }~
,10new'ng work ofVolo&inov. "A: gsfi!1~y9r-~-f~h-~f;~"-~~~iniYlii'th.e ';orld."
\. ' 1
d timuon 0 uman De b-.""",,,':"{,,'-""-.-'.
lways implicidy or exp_~~~tJ:~ ~~-.'S:'-"--'f-~'*-"'--rth"'t~}~ofB."elng~but it IS so
~~~-"'ir'\Vll11Ws"insis~ '<c.onstHut;~:uc~
material praccice~ dictate
not in an)' one-way determ manv: sens. '.
(1977 p. 29) an indissoluble
' ,
_ .1
age "IS ' he lUSlSts
language or vice versa. L
r angu.
ch i( has to be understoou as a
n
an
seh-creauo
.
As
Sil
,
c
a
l
'
cture
(and
dement 0 f h uro.
.
'X'hile it acquires a lUrm stru.
'\
n
historical-geographiCal creano ' d
eat deal about what that m1ght be),
structuralist linguistic~ have rev: al ~ a gr d as autonomous from the broader
e
'tt cannot ever, in the final analysts, e trea.:
<lvt', has then to be seen as a
1
h'
aI
chang=gu-,,'
flow of historica1-geograp 1C
~. . dynamic presence and a constanl
,
kind of creation and Ie-creation:: a
perSIstent.
"( 31), U~ble signs are:
regenerauve proa:ss p.

, ,
f

~,:

th:t

.
him individuals are 'b
born
.'
ial process, mto W
living evidence of a conu:mmg SOC
,-1. 'ch thf"V then actively contrl ute
. th
sh ed, but town!.
-: ,,"'.'"
and within which ey all! ap
Ii d
eified "language and soctety
. .
Wemen n notar
".D
'
"
in a contmumg p~ocess. ,..
N
'this language simply a reI1,e:UOI: ~r
but an active. SOCi:U lan.gua.~;, 1 ~,~is_we have rather, is a graspmg 01' midS
"f"
[n;aJlhrWll3. ..
,
jba.~
"expression u matertx.
, ~J'
'cal consciousness
is salULaU'll !
. " th ~1-. lwu-uagc, which as pracu
. '
L fTl'We is the
reallty rolly'
b..
. 1 d'
ductive. actlVlty, ." :ang""""t>
. turar~s all social actn'lty, lnC u m~ pro.
1,........ mic and arucul-at.cd
sa....
.'
d cbangmg expenence, a Up...
articulation of :h!.s ac';.[Ve.. a~ rWilliams, 1977: 37-8)
'-- _~ , social presence m the: woJ ,
.

1'-'

.
alizes from ail moments in the social pmcess IS
The sense rl12t language mtefn
all that internalization to rule the
b Williams does not ow
very SHlongthi~e~: fo~ll~ws Volo~inov who insisted that
,
.
game. n

- rial arbitrary unit than t[ ..,..as

,
fixed, neutral. nonrderen ,
f
.
the word-sign was less a .
d
dined component 0 coromunt.
'1
ch
g,
constan v GlO
. _1
al
an active. his"..onca1 y angm
d'
r tkt were iliem~,'\-es \v-ays
.
, d by tones an contCX"'"
. ' 'dual;
d
cation, its meanIng comcye ,
I
social o-roups, ludiVl
, an
ruduru of struggles -and conructS among c asses,
b

~is.Q)ur5es. (palmer, 1990: 23)

HI. The Internal Heterogeneity of Discourses

.'
al' ed within each
can by "heterogeneity mtern lZ
Let me daborate on w at m
of discourse.
f science, medicine, and the
moment" by reference to the momeIldi:
h expert scour~s 0
,
'
or
Discourses vary from t e
.
<Ii
that attach to instttutions
, .,
rktng scourses
h to t h"
L<_' .... ~ the parncUlar wa
d
.
throug
os"
prOlC-bS10u",
.
d ' on and repro uctton,
f
divisions of labor in material pro u~
elf and. nature including those 0
al discourses about sooety, S ,
more ge ncr
h

I
I

89

parody, humot a!i well as of religion, nationhood and political identity. Such
discourses are always porous WIth respect to e:;.ch other and in the normal
course of events we find ourselves sv.ltching from one discursive mode to
another often without noticing it. AnalYSIS reveals that such shifts imply all
sort of slippages, ambiguities, and incollerences. But such slippages occur not
only as ,ve perform discursive and communicauve acts with children, partners,
the teacher, the doctor, [he police officer, tht: gas-station attendant, or
boss.
Slippages occur just as manifestly even within settings that in other respects
seem relatively stable as regards
discursive rules that are supposed to operate.
Scientists: suddenly resort to metaphors drawn from sexual experience to code
their understandings of supposedly objecti't"e facts, la'W'}'efs turn (0 literary
narratives to substantiate their cases, and philosophers use the language of the
market place ill substantiate their metaphysical daims. Such slippages are, 1
shall argue particulady in chapters 7 and 13. particularly sITongly manifest in
environmental debates where conflicting metaphors of nature abound and
where cool-headed scientists suddenly slip into a metaphorical market language
ahout how "we may be running out of time" {an odd idea when one reads
Stephen Hawking on "a short history" of that commodity) and passionately
engaged nature romanticists and deep ecologists suddenly invoke the
scientific authority of Lovelock's modd of Gaia, quanrum mechanics or the
mathematical discourse of chaos theorv as if it is all the same to them .
As a cunsequence it JS not hard to see' how contestation is always in-cernalized
within the discursive moment. Counter-hegemonic and dissident discourses
(feminism, all[i-r.lctsm, ecologism. postcolonialism. and the sexual subject are
some of the contemporary favorites of the avant-garde in academia, for
example) erupt to challenge hegemonic forms and it is out of such contestation that social change may flow. Intertextual analysis can illustrate how
discursive etlec:s mark out a complex "trace" across a variety of seemingly
Independent discursive domains, sometimes pres~ disruptive effects but
in other instances offering hidden supports to pervasive tdeologit:s:. Supposedly neutf'al scientific discourses, as we shall see in chapter 7, offer silent but
strong support to capitalist free market and sexist ideologies, for example.
But fiercely fought struggles within the discursive moment do not necessarily carryover unmodified to other moments. Feminists may effectively
change discourses about 'women, gender, and sexuality within academia (or,
,,..,.,.JllOre likely, in limited domains such as hisrory and the humanities, leaving
'die s;cienoesbroadiy untouched) voithour seriously affecting deeply hdd fantadesires, and bdiefs, material social practices (around child-rearing and
:~,ousevmrk for example), or the fundamentals of pm'..-er relations. A mere
;coanl'" (,I words does little if the connotations and associations build back into
Jd<:nti;calconfignfations of meaning. ~iggers" have changed their appellation
'","""-p to "bJacks" to ".African-Americans" v,.Jthin the United States withremoving racial prejudices. This does not me:;.n that the struggle to change

me

me

T'~
I

I
90

Orientations

discoill

"

is redundant, merely tbat such struggles function as a necessary but

se
not sufficient moment for cha.nges 1:0 OCClif elsewhere.
The internalization of heterogeneity within the roo ment of discourse create~
abundant oppof(wlitics to sow confusion as well as enlightenment. Discourses
can obfmca , hide, and misrepresent relations w other "moments" within the
te
flow of suciallife. I am not talking soldy here about tbe technique of"thc big
lie," for there are all sorts of means \w which a discourse can so limit or
constrain vision (sometimes unwittingly) so as to prevent discussion of serious
problerr,s, Class discourses may hide serious gender and race issues and vice
versa. }\nd when under attack, we may defend ourselves by disrupting discourse
ddiberately as a means to defray power. Marx "'Iestled with this difficulty
primarily under tbe rubric of "fetishism: But the objectification and reification
of fluid social processes, the conversion of relations betWeen people into
relations be~>een concepts as Williams so aptly put it, also have their part to
play. This use of Jiscoursc to confuse rather than to enlighten, primarily
attaches 'W the drive to defend some entrenched power position (practice",
beHefs, institutions) or some space of resistance by preventing issues from being
identified and articulated. In the recent debate over healrh care in the United
States, for example, poll afta poll of popular opinion showed a belief that
univetsal coverage was desirable. that discriminarory prattices against the sick
and the infirm were unjust and rhat something had to be done to contain
medical costs, The difficulty was to define a set of institutions and practices
that could march up to that belief and here those who held a lot of politicaleconomic power _ insurance companies, hospitals. doctors.. and the like - were
in a position ro launch a discursive offensive that so confused issues that
nothing of moment was done, The discursive thrust was to block change - to
use discourses as a means for nondecision-making - ra.ther than to facilitate
it, Two issues arise our of what Foucault calls ''the radical pluralism" and
heterogeneiry of discourses, First, how do different discourses rdare to each
other, if at all! Is there a common enough language to make any kind of
common politics possible> Foucault correctly attaekE the idea of some sor< of
"spirit of tue age" or "weltanschauung" as far roo simple-minded, He show,
how different institutional power.ba..es generate quite distinctive discourses
appropriate to rheir own circumstances and disciplinary aims. But tbe
identification of difference does not deny the po:w-ibility of identity, leaving
the issue of what kind of identity, what kind of common language, IDight be
possible in the midst of dh'ference. I shall return to this ques<ion in what follows
r
became if, for example, discursive differences Oyer what is mean by "nature"
and the "environment" are irreconcilable, then no common politics towards
the environment are possible, leaving the whole question of our rdation ro
"namre" as an effect of whalcleI discourse happens to be hegemonic in a
particular time and place.

Th

ThDIe'
e Ul etta ofDiscourse 91

..

e seron question 15 this h

md value of the variety of th~o;::~andiwe rellecr di:cursively on t.oe power
lIterary theorv? The d'al 'cal
.. scourses avatlable within social d
_.;
1 ectl
map of th
'al
an
outset. of this chapter can faolitat th
e sOfCi process proposed. at the
I
h e a t sort 0
.
d
exp Ole t at map in somewhat greater detail
exercLSe an I naw want to

I
1
i

Iv: The Genera! Character of SOC1'a! Theones

'
Volosi~ov, in moving to a conclusion of his

the Ph,IoJophy o[Language touches u

. remarkable tract on Marxism and
schema that I began k.f ou't!"mmg:
pon VIrtually all aspects of the six-po'illt
OJ

Wirhou~

a way of revealing itself in I

..
personality does not exist . _I. C anguage, be It only In inner speech
elU::er IOf ltsdf or for th
'
.
e mner personality and its
_.
0
ern... , Language lights up
th
~~L
consCIousness' lmg
em

WlUl

intricacy and

fundi

' _

uage creates them and endows

Personality is itself generJ.=rb~ ~ and it docs not work the other way
g
abstract forms of langu01IW bu; rauth
not so much, to be sure, in
Personality, trom
r.
~-,
er 'In e ldeolo
the standpoint
ofits
,?kal the mes of language.

~guathge~

th~

language, and this theme underz:er, subJecttve content, is it theme of

channel of the more stahl
g~
doproen and variation within th
.
e constructlOns of Ian
C
e
r:.ut an expremon ofinnerperso1JuIhI' h . guage. onsequently, a word-is
'L'
lied
'WJ' rat er. mnerp
I

tnwttrt1.y tmpe
word. And the
rd . >
ersona 1ty is an expressed or
tht social JUler-d.CUOll of material ;:so~~~ expresston of social intercourse, -of
1
that thoroughly materia.l intcrrour
h tt:S, of producers, The conditions of
of th
.
5C ate w at cctcrm'
.1
dO<
. e~tlc and srructmal sh;l ilia th '
me a~o mn mon the kind
glven m~c and in any given en:o~en e mne~ p.ersonaitty will receive at any
along ::Ith language, in
concrete at., .. T e ~nne: personality is generated
one of" us most impO<taot d
l:
od compIe.'leusrve sense of the word
.
an pWlOund th
Th
' as
meanwhile, is a factor in the gen'
emes..
e generation of language
,
erauve pnxess f
'al
'
Inseparable frOll that COIlllllWll-' .
. 0 SOcl communiGi.cion. a factor
d
.
cation and its ma al b
~ermmes differentiation in a society . _ . t~n ase. The material base
hierarchically
and deploys persons mteractin
: > Its SOC10POlrW.:al
,
-thin -order; it orw.Jni7'p<;
~o~- sooe'Jro
tune, conditions forms and _
f
g WI
It, Thereby are the place
b the
'
means 0 verbal c
..
'
. y r same wken, thevici.ssitud fthe. .. ommumcatton determined and
the devdopment of Iangoa
d
u;""mce in any given period
differentiality in perceptions o} its e. egree of LtS mviolahility, the degree of
0 us
and verbal individualization
(=15, 2 as)pocts, the narure of its ideational
,,., pp,
-3

me

.~

~ ~ ,~dividu,"

here locates the role of langu

d'
,;"(lirecri'>llality
.~
0 fd etermination" In thO ,age (Jscourse) Wlthm some sort of
and
. I
.
IS Instance the djrect'
r
matena practices throu h l a n
lODa Ity runs from
age'
.'~,akin,' ,n otherwise
incoherent' g li gu[ h to personality and beliefs
,
_
mner e- 0 t e b'
b d
'
fI ':i'Clal forces and material activities Th' s." Ject toa ly respoasive to
Ul
dialectical formulations {of th' _ is IShan excellent illustration of
e sort t at Volosinov is generally

92 Orientations
e
comrr.irted to) get metamorphosed, otter, through the tricks oflanguag itself,
into more sireplified causa!. $chemas. But it also squarely faces up to :he issue
of det-:rmin-ation. Where is tl'1.e leveraging point for social change? A philosophy

of internal tebtions left ef'.t:irdy to itself evades the questi.on.

Wlthin the history of social theory >::he long debate over where the true
pO'nt for social change might lie bas frequently been reduced to the
search for causal structure, The unthinking crystallization of Raid, dialectical,
and dynamic formulations into Glusal schema, can, howev et, generate serious
misunderstandings on the part of both critics and acolytes alike. Foucault, In
his search for an emancipator}' politics of the body, is said to concentrate on
the nexus bet\oVeen discomses and power as the prime caUSe of whatever social
change there is, Derrida. while arguing (correctly, in my view) rhat the text
internalizes all, appears to suggest (or at least many of his acolytes do) thar
textual deconstructions (in the narrow sense) are inherendy revolutionary.
is thought to focus on the relation between beliefs (primarily religioUS)
and institution building. and !vIarx is usually rFad as treating everydung else,
at least in the celebrated. "last instance," as deri:vative of material practices
(pro<iuctive fotce,), In each caSC one moment is converted into wme sort of

~everage

~Weber

entity endowed with independent causal powers.

Each major theorist, it is true, tends to appeal to a particuhtf structure of
"permane
" (dements) that transfixrdations between d;cvarious "momems'
nces
to give a structured order to a society, And th.ere is often ,orne ,ort of privileging
of one or other moment as the iocm; of social change, Such a structured S}.'"SteID
seems to imprison the social process in an iron cage of reproductive circular
causality (such as Marx's '"logic of capital," \X/eber's "bureaucratic-technocratic
rationality" or Spendds "pri,onhouse of language"), The dilemma of social
change is then typically posed in terms of how rbis system perpematcs itself
through circul", and cumulative causation and how it might break down, either
under the weight of its own imernal contradictions Cl\1arx) or ilirough sume
kind of volumaristic eruption or erosion at the margins. In either case, we
can reasonably ask where lS the agency (the locus of power) that can transform
the structure and liberate the social. process from the permanences it has
achieved?
But these causal versions, for v..hich plenty of textual evidence can be found,
email
misreadings of the much more complex: arguments of most major
theorists. The mme dialectically minded simultaneously keep open an entirely
difrerent level of theorizing. In Marx's case, for example, much of tbe argument
i, precisely about how dynamic and fluid processes get transformed historically into "structured permanence? such as those inscribed within the political
ecorcomy of capitalism and the logic of capital accumuhcion, And in looking
for the locus of social change, Marx dearly "tates that it is in tbe realms of
discourses and beliefs tha>:: we become conscious of poiitical issues and '"'fight
them out." Furthermore, this "fighting out necessarily entails institntioa buM,

~el.ious

in (be'
.
~
The Diale~1ics ofDiscourse 93
tl g, It trade umODS , poli
p a cal
rnes
. , state powers h
. .
lat promote and r~.i~t h
'd'
> egemolllc lllstitUrIOns
'i:>Ul
egemolllc iScourses et )
fun
moment on the path t 'irds
C
'
c. as a
damental
to' ' T h
.
transrormed.
material
.
re.taUons.
e se--...rch for aU: t . c
practIces and social
,m M arxs'thought and pd.(;:oce
. <;matrve
'
a mrms
all thof political
"
,...-economIC power operates
in both his analytic work and crosl~ , _ e moments" of social action. Marx,
'
po me> move, freely fr
ano er.
e amous "last instan " f th
om one moment to
th Th
reproduction, then op~rales' c: 0
e material practices of production and
.
' as It were as both th
'
measurmg point of achieve
th:
e starhng point and --he
L_ b
rnent- epomt.ner"'w
bl '
"
'""' een accomplished 1m
..11 as money ope 't e canIt tangr y "5' what
\ liC
a evement for the circulation f
' ai' h [a es as t .e measuring rod of
o caplt t rough irs
chi
as money. <::ommodities and prod " ) 1. A"

variOUS metaJIlorphoses
" b ecause Marx 'beli
pr
posmon
thUCdon' .lYlacenal
.
. actices occupy theif key
privileged grounding for ~ at 5en suallllteractlOn with the world is the
di
f
orms 0 f h uman knowl d
d c__
stan ngs 0 what it means to "b ", th
1
e ge an mf aU underbelief _ it grounds much f
e ill ~ war d. And !vfarx is not alone in this
'
0 western SClence, fur exam I 1.,f~ :_1
are t e measUrIng point precise! b
' ,
p e. l'VIatefiat practices
.
y ecause It I:> unl .
f
h _
mteracuon with the world th t
Ii
Y In krrns 0 the sensual
a we can re- gare wh'<l.t 1t
. now means to "be" in
t e wor d.

jU"~

~ But

does this imply that the moment of

'
.,
ot meaningful social change"' Thi
Id matenal practices IS the sole locus
s
~Iarx>s historical materiali . D'dwhou appe:r ,tovbe a fWldamentallenet of
. The uemum
r
SIll.
I
e not expliccl ~nm al
.
In
Ideology that th
' Ii
- J ~b.le. ong W1th
Engeis
>
e materia st conception of history:
.
relies on expounding the real process of product'
production of life itsdf _ and
"
... ton - sGlrtmg from the material
'th d
compre{1ending the fu ot-
......1
an created by this mode of rooumo'
..
:nr.ercourse connected
as the basis of aU histc~ destb. ~,1.~.clyu.soCietyInitsvariousstages
mg
explaining how all th'" difff"rent"h
tot 1.n itS action as the state, and
_1
~
~
t eoretcal product
nd
religion, philosophY
m
al"
orms
of conscious. ' or ltv erc etc ar s fa
.
process of thei: formation from th "b .. '
lSe rom It, and tracing
he .depicted in its totality (and r::~s; us the "who.le thing can, of COUIse;
variOUS sides on one anomer),
c, too, the rea.procal action of these

:m.

nes.~,

ili"

ai~

me

The causal
internal__ Ltension in "~sage
this
.
,
w.a.v
IS obvIOUS enougll. 'X'ha[ beg'
.
"
MAlerna starting WIth th~
"al'
ms as a one-

ac:,on of different "moments" within':teH bas~ IS converted into reciprocal

"tlits totality the moment of Ian
e totahry m the parentheses. And \vith
_,the German Ideology
guage has a key role to play; Here is Marx in

Gilly IlO'~, mIT having considered four m

,Ihe~~ hIstorical relationship, d
find ~_~ents, [uur aspects of the fundaness . bu
' 0 V,re
tnat man also nN:S
.
."
>
t e..-en so, not inherent
"'''
r-~ ('sses '"<:onSClOUSspirit" is affiicted with cl
' nt 'pure consciousness. From the start the
l.e crnse 0 being ourdened" with matter> wh'ICJ:'h here

94

Orientations
makes its appearance in the form of agitated hyers of air, sound, in short of
language. l.anguage is as old as men, and for thax reason is really beginning to

exist for me personally as weil; for language, like consciousness, only arises from
the need, the r:.ecessity ofinterwUISC ...villi other men."
And in the Eighteenth Brnmaire, Marx depicts the relation between the

imaginary and language as viral to political action:

Men make their history> but not of their own free will; not under circumstances
they themselves have chosen hur under the given and inherited circumstances
with which they are direcdy confronted. The traditi.on of the dead generations
weighs like a nightmare on the minds of the living. And, just when they appear
t.o be engaged in the revoiutlonary transformation of themselves and their
material surroundings. in the creation of something which does not yet exist.
pKcisely ar such epochs of revolutionary crisis they timidly "'njure up spui"

of the past to help the..."TI~ they borrow their names, slogans and costumes so as
to "rage a new wocld-hi"orical =ne in this ve"".-able disguise and bnrrowed
language, Luther put on the mask of the aposde p,ul; the Revolurion of
1789draped itself alternatively as the Roman republic and dIe Roman
1814
enlpire; and the revolution of 1848 knew no better than to parody at some points
1789 and at others the revolntiona..'Y uad!ttons of 1793-5. In the same way.
the beginner -who has learned a new language at'ways retranslates it into his
mother tongue: he can only be said to express him;e;elfin it freely when he can
mmipulare it withnut reference to rhe old, and when he forgets his origimu

language white using the new onc.

This preoccupation with language is a persistent theme in Maris work as he
ptob<s the fetishistic conceprions ofboUIgeois political economy and seeks to
subs-titute an entirely different language of political-economy, Through a
deconstruction of the monetized language of the commodity and of pront and
the creation of an alternative ianguage that emphasizes exploitation. Marx
hoped to use the power of language, and of naming, to a political
end, His purpose is to make us srare into the abyss of capitalism's oontradicwry and destructive logic as an economic system, while understanding how
its political-econorrllc power is replicated not only by social material pracrices
of production-distr,blltion-<:onsumprion, but also by its hegemonic powers
with respect to ideology (discourses), institutions (the state appruatm but also

e,~dendy

institutions of learnir..g, law and rdigion). Marx moves freely between

"moments" in both his theoretical works (like Capital) and his more overtly
political writings, Matetial practices are not the only leverage for change, but
they are rhe momem upon which all othet effects and forces (including those
within materia! practices themselves) must converge in ordet for change to be
registered as real (experiential and material) rather than temain as imagined
and fictirious, A nomnechanical and dialectical teading of Marx thus teveals

TheD'/e'
a rather different understandin ofrus at
ut cUes ofDiscou,.,e 95
cau;sal 5([llcture,
g
gument compared to readings seeki
l'oucault is similarly liable t
' '
ng
schema. At first sight,' h d
0 mtStnterpretation when reduced fO a
aI
di _
e oe.s seem to dwell
th
"caus
~cou.rses as a privileged moment in his schem on. ~ derermm.arive power of
argumem seems to be that ower" 0
e of things, But hIS more genecal
lllsnrunonaliv based social P
. perates through discursively informed d
a
'
pracn= that are primaril'
an
ry powers exerted on rhe hod? Disc
y organized as disciplinbetween power, social practices> n InstltUtlOns
~ur::es f~rm
1 t through
af' _1_these relations
wers om these other morne
'th
' n ern lUng meir forms and
&
po
d
igarns
' its seemingly' aut ntsin es
scourse
. ocial process. The moment of
,
II'
onamous
dis
i Iinary powers with respect t
SOCIa ne
. cp
r to the degrE'e that t h .
b hL
.reIS amncsra
'th
0
ot Wfffi and reinforce it Th fun'
respect to the processes that
L
'<

C
ctlonofdl
'
scourse IS to create truths" th
are m ract . effects of truth" 'th' th
tcy
h
' to be. Such "effects
m ill f e6

daIm
th:o~rse rather than the universal truths
Foucault's view, precisely becauseothtru
ecome particularly pernicious in
the hospital, the prisonJ\ which
ey em,anate from institutions (the asy!:.m
,IS to und
' th~sc I I
operate as tncar at"
f
" ,
ermme
'CHeers 0 f truth" d nh Ions 0 power. HI" m'
aIn aIm
a!ways
an to. s th
ow how
'
. an internalized effiect 0f0thermom
. truth in discours eJS
o IS argument lies in t h e '
&ents in e SOCIal process. The appeal
way it moves om
fth
ow E'2C moment internali iY'
one moment to anomer shoWl'
'les crrects of oth
N
ng
h _
h
moment of desires/beliefs/values ladcin . ~rs. or are references to the
~perhaps out of deference to Laean) in g~n ~lS ,:ork, though he preferred
archeology" of know! edge on th e grounds
s histotlcal
ed'
th" studies to produc< an
.T
lscover esse..,1tial trurhs abou~ desires Uk at It was lmpossible ever to
always confined ro the world of
.al-rr. e Marx, he accepts that we are
of m
.a l i .
maten errects thou h h b d
aten ty
mcotporate past 6courses,
e roa ens the notion
passages ill which It is poss.ibl
di
.
while th. ere are mnumerable
"discurSlVf
_ determinism" of th e to th scern ill Pou
caul
t a tendency towards
dis
e sore at says w
;

courses available to us the p h '

e are orever Imprisoned by the
[,1'
,assages were hake,,-L
a y contam more than casual hints f
b' . e
5 SUUJ arguments imrar.iart
ot;. a radical pluralism, an internal::- 19Wty, In R through his insistence
heterogeneity, within the discursive
moment .itself. but also b a eaI
of anY Iogtc
. 0 f derermination
Y ppar alL
to some moment th
. were. outside
at IS. as 1t

1'd'

:'1

t~

So ~,

n:

Historical Agmq and the Loci a/Social Change 97

5
. al Agenc}T and the Loci of Social
H lstonC
Change

Wiliiams was hardly the archet}~ anti-humanist. But his concerrn with delermination, and particularly with the PO\Nef of historically constituted language
put him on the borderland (ahv-ays, it seems, his preferred posicion) ix:tVlteen the
hUill.mh:tic and the anti-humanistic tradir.ions. But what is irn"Joftant in this
passage (and there are many 5uch in Williams' writing), is the ins:stence that there
18 something thar cannot be captured within the dominant forms of a moment
(ie this case language). This "something" is "stubbornly" resistant to being
abe:orbed imo any structured logic of relational determinations. Adorno advances
a si,Eilar idea_ Fo, him, according to Coles (1993: 232), magic and myth:
tend to open up a space beyond the immediately given for the acknowledgement or non-identity, of more than we currently gra~. The world ceases to be
an immutable force plessillg UpOlllht" sd[, an_d the selfs grasp of [he wo:ld ceases
TO have the characte.r of an immutable and exhatstive cage as ffi)'th acknowledges
a suqlw; that transcends our experience, into which both the self and the world
might move.

.
. . theories of the sort that Foucault and
How do predominandy am~~umdiam~ttcal_lty
fOfm of social change? Soroe
f r lilC rect10n
. th t
Marx advance, account 0
. L"
th social proces.,>, TIlust exISt
a
-d'
mewhere
WituIn
e
'a1 d
sort of agency, resl mg so
' . ~.l . n f the repressive SOC1 or ers
-1-e seemi~ ....ly automatlc reprouUCtlO 0
can illSIupt Ul..
Hy .
typically depicted in sOCial theory.

and

L On Residuals and Marginality

f r arv theoci~ adopt a
.
d ~ 1 important subset 0 Ite! ,
"
b" "
Most social theones ~n aJ
uently making jt appear as if the !iU Jea
eq
resolureiy anti-humarus t ton~; fr
auto"om~TJ out<;ide of the system
of
.
~ has littl e or no
b(the individual person;
.
d"
a1 relations that forms. that su )ecL
socially and historically constttu~e m~er;. d' ctionalitv and. patterning of
While the underlying e.'X:planart?n 0
~h ~the ove[~l1 sense of iroprison ~ m one theonsr to ano e,
F d with
change may va!"'( .tro
. ' th
cializin process is very SHong. ace.
ment of the indiVIdual Wlthm e so I b g forced by the logic of therr own
h . ts have frequent v een
- - " . cl .
me
this si.tuation. t eo~:
haU caU' a "residual" or a "'surplus WI lin, so
arguments to identity~what ISh . ell 'escape the dominant: log1C',t~e
cia! process, t at -",om ovo
.
flinmll~t1C
moment ()
s of the so
d
_
fL -tstot"V the problemattcs 0 '""b-"
de dea weight 0 " -;'
fGI fldisciplina!)'~ apparatus, 1
call fur example, Williams' recountll1g 0
Y ~
incarceration, or whatever. Re
>

thoughts as he roams the Welsh mountainS:

H

. the vailev there w-a,s a

.
'i:1.theliblary,orin th e h ou~m.
"
; . of
At bs books anC maps .
j
L _
_1 ed. any;witere
III a commun.t}
;vhich -oolu uc trail:at
'
. s for

h
common lstory '\ . '" . Y h had only to move on the mnU!1talU .
evidence and rational mqUlry. ~t lec
bL _' I ll<ldv- and local. vet reachi.ng
- . d t as~-t:rtltsC 1: stu !)Urn y
~
'd d
a different kin d ot mm 0 ~
.
ch d bread.th replaced recoI an
' j -- common flow, wnere toU an
bPVOfl d to a W!UU

IT
_
h'
. as narrative but stones as lYCS.
analysiS; not IStory

Perhaps the most telling example is that of Foucault. whose resolute antihumanism is hardly in doubt, hur who locared the residual and open point of
resistance as bodly pleasures, "\\niJe simultaneously depicting me political
history of "the distinctive ways in which various successive power/knowledge
regimes institute the body as an object v,-ithin. their respective techniques and
practices" (fraser, 1989: 61). The effect is to make the body the primary site
of contestation in the social order, -::.he implication being that there is always
something residual in the politics of the hody that is o;Jtside of the regimes of
control that are applied to it, no :natter how rmalizing and how draconia..'l
those regimes may be. The particular choice of the hody as a site of resistance
derived in large degree from Foucauh:'s personal preoccupations, but by the
same token, much of [he influence of his argument derive." from a wi_despread
sympathy Vt-ith the view that repressions on the body deserve to be resisted and
that the politic: of ilie body is ",-here revoIunona..."'1' accion may well reside.
Kristev3, to take another example. argues her way out of the determinacy
of the symboltc order of the father (me phallus), by appeal to the realm of the
semiotic, which attaches to the pre-Oedipal maternally oriented pha;;e of a
child's life. That phase is ungendered and, precisely for
reason, exists as
the only ground for real as opposed to superficial challenges to the symbolic
order. W11jle women have privileged access (0 [hat realm by virtue of their
maternal functions, the realm is not closed to men (they, too, had a pre-Oedipal
phase). Traces of rhi;.; semiotic moment persist as a permanent subterranean
. challenge to the symbolic order, Kristeva locates them in, for example, the
poetry of .:vlallarme and Rimbaud. as well as in feminist theory irselE It is only
put of this semiotic realm, she argues, that truly re'tolutionary consciousness
can arise.

mat

Phenomenologists, on the other hand, tend co locate the moment ofinderer-

HistoricalAgency and the Lod ofS .

98 Orientations
er
existential moment of experience itself.
Heidegg saW language as
master of us, the experiential moment of what he called. "'presencing" - appropriating some facet of the world into one's own being - was the potential site
of that surplus which could be the source of an alrernativc way of being in the
world, outside of the technica1_scientific-economic rationality that -was

of :,ntas)". In othet word, we pay a tice r '

,,0
ocial Change 99
_ t.'le real of the trauma _ m t b'.f
0 gam acce...s to reality": somethmg'

~1hile

omern.-ise threarening to rule over the lifewodd of the individual.

There is, however, a difficulty with this approach. The suspicion lurks thar
what is actUally being talked about is a way to escape from the power of
particular theorizations rather than anything that has to do with the processes
of social change occurring in actual historical.-geographical situations. Antihumanistic theorists, it appears, dig themselves out of the difficulties they have
themsdves created by finding some conveniem corner of "freedom' that is
outside of their own system of determination. There are, thus, soroe readings
of Marx (Gouldneis being by far the most explicit) thar see twO distinctive
l'vlarxisms _ '[hat of imprisonment in the logic of capit:a1 and that of voluntarrevolutionary action. If this is the case, {hen a serious question arises a.,
to whether the locus of change (in Marx's wse in organized working-class
action) is really there or simply a necessary fiction that att.ch.cs to the
theoretical argument. 1 shall later provide grounds for refuting this imerpretation, hut the question ofloeating agency is so pervasive thar we must perforce
cover all bases. In addition, the turn (0 a "residual" or "surplUS'" -within wme
moment also has the unhappy habit of i,,;elf becoming the sole cause, the sole
locus of agency fot change within the social system. Let me ill""trate witl. twO

i~tic

case studies.

1. The Case ofthe Lacanian Residual

The first case is drawn from that most difficult of all "moments" in the flow
of sociality: that which concerns the realms of human belief, desires, fantasies,
fears, dreams, and values. Since Freud, this has become the privileged terrain
of psychoanalysis. A psychoanalytic understanding of desire and its tealization!
denial/repression is noW frequentl)' privileged as an irreducible "moment" of
freedom and as, therefore, the "true" lo...'""Us of change.
Consider, for example, Zizek's (1993) Lacanian analysis of the unexpected
revival of nationalism in eastern Europe in the wake of the collapse of CommuniS\: rule. The fundamental thesis of Lacan, Zizek holds (p. li8)
is that wnM we call "reality" constitures itself agalns t the background of ", an
excusion of some trauma;:ic Real. Tills is precisely what Lacan has in lr...ind when
he sap thar fantaSy is the ultimate support of rwty, "wJir( stabilize, itself

when some fantasy frame of a symbolic bliss" doses- off the view into the abps
of the ReaL Far from being a. kind of dreamlike cobweb that prevents us from
"'secing reality as it effectively is," fantasy constitu:es what we c.all reality: the
roost common bodily "reality" is constituted via::! detour through the cobweb

us

e repressed.

II

..

Twoimmd
. e late coneIusions are adduced F
" ... .
fantasy, LC., for something real to be . ~st> realIty IS always framed by a
"fit the preordained
rdin
expenenced as part of "reality" .

.~-.

.,
coo
ates of our funtaw
" (
It must
15 . . . ursrve actIVlty is meaningless l' d
de - j :space p. 43) and secondly
Z'nek'1fiSlSts
. that fantasy constitutesn a epen
"hard mof :,t5 antasy support (p. 213).'
to

__

~I' , , . .

dle symbolic order

so

fd'

,kernel that resists reduction 'th

IscurSlve activicies

e1

ef

qU;Ultles or reality. "The Real: sa s Zizek, . or to any supposedly "objective"

IS a surplus, a hard kernel which ~esisr'
m a passage that echoes Williams
or metaphoricizarion.

s any proctSS of modeling, simulation

A strong distinction
is invoked here between tlu,.'
' ,
process _ re al ltles of experience and f d.
ee moments in the social
support them. Zizek pursues ,hese 0 lSCourses and the fanto.sy beliefS that
natlonh.ood, the formation of an en~~~e~~'~lceds t~ I.ook at how the ideology of
YI.AJ e llaUOll, occurs:
1>

This
paradoxical'
'
exIStence c f an enricv'\vh'ch "." nl
ill dle other's belief) in its txist
,'. , thl
JS 0 Y insofar as subjects believe
(causes. th"
__
I
ena:: is. h
t: modt:
in.,- proper to ideoloD'ical
. e nonnat"
order of causali
' ufb ..~'"b
which'
d
ty 1S ere mverte:d.
. . th
~
. . is pro uced by its effects (th 'dE !"""";..-..J
,illlce 1t 1S e Cause itself
Iy, It 1S prccisclvat this po' be: oo':'"'5~ pracnces it animates), Sigrur
idealism"
.
. mt t at tne dlf!erence between Lt
" . ncant_ emerges most furcefully: lacan do
red
can and disrursive
to a perform::.tive eflect of th di
,es not, liCe the (nariona.:, ere.) Cause
' ,lr
e SCUfSlve pmc"
th
. c.
rS1Ve I:Uect does not lJ.aVe
L__ enougil"substan" ces
at rerer to it. Th~ pure
discu
todd-"
a ause _ and the Lacaman
' teem, of the, ce to compel
attraction pWpet
" .. L
C

me

a t:U so tnat a Cause obtains its

.. rrange ~U.l)~tall.ce" which mUSl be
substance acknowled~..t b
h
pos:tlve ontologIcal consistency thI
..
5~ ypsye oanalv . f
' .... on y
rtexplicidy in Encore). A nation existso {SIS, 15 0 co~e enjo),ment(as ucan states
cific
to be materialized in a ~et [
'a! 0 y a~ long as ItS sflC
enjoymentconcinu
>tha tha
O;,UCI.
pracnces d
"
es
m}
t ,~tructure these practi
T
' ~ ,trailslllltted through national
that
N
.
ITS.
a emp:1aslZe ill "d
,
atlon is not a bi.oloPical
_____ 1..:_".
a econstructionis!::" mode
CDn.'itrt

eor ua.L1!~1.l.l.O'loncal
fact but a contingent discursive
letton,
an o'rJdetennlned
ul f
m emph.
res t 0 textual pmctices, 1S
'thus misleadinc-:: such
as1S overlooks the remaind::
ment WJUCU
..l., _I.. mus, be presenT C_- -N er' 0 - some real
i ' kernd ofo<:o,'oy" no nd
scursf'le
ootoIogle
. aI consistency.
1U.r atl.on qua diS cumve
' ennty-effect
,
La achieve its

-,_There is a lot going on in th;

~
"""tin"i")fl"
S passage, };Iote. ~~;.
fi h
the construction of the
,.
ot_nationhood understood'
to
i
a
l
'
as a flLuaJ.IZCd entin/' (
_
soc practlces that mate rat'
.
... or permanence)
e
fantasy/helief/desire. At least f< r flZth a !peclfic relation between discourse
Social
our 0
e moments" 'de 'fi~.J
relationships (class and
d'
~ ntl cu in ftgure 4.1
cr
:
of labor) are ignored h.
gedlld hierarchies, lateral distinctions
' uwever an le Pop ul .
'
w en it plainly is not Th
'ak' tifi
ilion 15 tIearcu ~ homo-h

0\;,

ch

~~.:::s
1
manthassum~tion
0
er subjects'

.
e we JUS cat
t;
statement that nationhood is about subj;:'

Historical Agency and the Loci ofSocia! Change 101

100

Orientations

as an

ns> (1983'1 interpretation of natIon

beliefs. The parallel t.o Anderso
. ':L . m'l-sing from the argument,
. ,..
"ld power IS lJ.l'>.ewtSe ~
.
'
"imagined commumty IS: strl ,ng.
. e1 ' at the momeot of rcvoluuon, m
but then Zizek's point is that It was preciS. >t
"master signifier") appeared
1989 tharpower (understood psychoanal~ck Y as :_'t it "really'" was nor); the
,
th
h
Zizebs qUI [0 ailB" ,
.
to be vacated (even aug, as
th
p ......c of the "missmg master

. how

at empty s --

question he nies to answer IS.

.
Thes: are all -&scinaring qUestions:
siu"ifier" got to be filled by nauonafum. th "fficulties begin. It is one thing
h
"
. h
entlSWere
eUi
.
"
The final step in t e argum .
" 'dual' n the psychoanalytic moment,
to identifY a "stubborn~ recalcltrantchresl
\0 anv other llloment (such as
T

d ll)' any su PO" er

ch
but qui.te another to e . ) Wh th n follows is a reductiOIllst psy 0discourse or material pracuces .
at e european nationalism based on
.
f
en;- eastern .Ll
analvtic interpretatlon 0 resurg ~ ~
c
and d.esire. The IOrces

.
ot human (antas)'
b
1on
"enjoyment" as an e.xpress
.
"
ent' in the social process ecome
internalized within thiS: on~ pa~tlcular ~o~ arilv as an alternative to other
the locus of social detemunation. Pose p:un 'L: as a means to e~cape from
. k'
t appears prtma w y
..
.
theorizations, Zize s argumen anal' f how a nationalist patInes - Its
them rather than as a cogent
YSlSnd
relations its social rdations,
. .
d
.ces its discourses a power
~
..
instttUtio ns -an pram n '
any wong root in daily hfe.
as well as its "fantasy space - 1S actU ,
J

. '

".ruch

2. v~ices from the Margins

(1993: In

,
r .cal ax ment in recent times has been
One of the least admirable traits l~ ~o l t i ) g u S"voices from the margins." as
.
.
dical po lUCS towaru
.
1'h
the romantiC turn In [a
d h efore more rcvolunonary.
e
'J f
. 1 ~~corrupt an t er
h
somehow marc aut eotlC, es:s
> d' __ n " ther" so radically outs! eo
,
th
ch are so fa lUW-Y 0
,

idea is that there are use w o .

.na1 in [dation to the \fon cage
the dominant systems o~ determi~at1on, s;=;nd only they have;: the capacity
f' 1ar and cumulauve catL'iatiQn, tha
Y f
Th
d only they have
o CltCU .....!- th cetishisms that fool the lest 0 us.
ey an
to see t h rOt.qyJ- e I'
the cap<icity to gener~1e radical ch~ .nalized "other" fOT political salvation
In part this romantl.c turn to dle
.gJ. b'I' . ftraditional movements (such
'fr
. at the ma IltvO
. derives from a certa11l ustratlon ,
di . _, .hallge The thesIs some nOW
I
)
loment
ra
"'"
c

as those of the worlting c ass to fth

L~ classes is so thoroughly OCCUpC
pace 0
e worKing
1_ di
ad.vance is that the lanta.sy s.
cd. b
. a1' f corrunodjfication, me scur',ed b}' the imaginaries supenmpos
y CUpIt, 15 d ...... inated by a rudllessly
"
I
r'
I culture IS SO ou.....
c
sive field of working- ass po ltl.C~' . '
f potential political resis[ance
eli
d ~he mstltutlOUS 0
. ai'
'
exploitadve mass me a,
d . cor orated within caplt 15I mter.
. d d b h lden to an ll1 p
. d
't
so bureaucratJ'Le an
e ~
.
a collective entity is concente to exl~
ula
ests, that the working class ~even if suchh
ndage of capitali:.-.r accwn , L. b
nothinv more t an an appe
.
b
. acnt
any more) 1l<L> ecome
, .~"b

b' ectivi '. Its ca.pacuy to e an ag: ,

tion in ics culture, its pohttcs and Its su J
been severely comproroL'>
h'
.cal
h aegnmenr goes, ,~
of revolutionary c hange, so t e th
arch f, an altemacive agent of lSWfl
ed if not totally eviscerated. Ergo, e se
or
7

an..

?. "

change. While this is an argument I do not share, it is not one that can be
dogmatically dismissed.
But there are other reasons for the romantic rum towards voices from the
margins as a vehicle- for political salvation at the center. Zizek suggests, for
example. that the Christian tradition of believing that authentic nobility of
purpose somehow attaches to conditions of total degradation (such as those
chat put Christ on the cross) carries with it the presumption that it is only the
impoverished, the marginalized. and the repressed Vi"1'l0 have the capacity ro
uanscend their state, tell us plain trums. and lead us into the promised land.
"Transcendence'"' is the operative ",,'Ord here as is the vision that true nobility
can e.cist only in the miilit of degrndatiOfL It then comes as a bitter disappointment to discover that the impoverished, the marginalized, and the oppressed
often lad<. that extraordinary and moving nobility that can occasionally be
found and that they often aspire not to a radically different social order, but
'CO one that gives them a piece of what the privileged already have. Movements
of marginalized "'others" are often held to a far higher standard ofmoral purpose
and polItical commitment man are those of political activism at the center,
But there are more solid reasons to take seriously-the question of marginalirj'
as a point of escape from imprisonment in dominant discourses, Raymond
Williams (see chapter 1) actively used his posirionality on ",he border" as a
fimdamental resource with
ro chaiienge dominant ideas. Says Di Michde

one gers the impresslon thar Willian:.s did always live on the border, in a sort of
metaphorical "border country'" of his own which allowed him -tD look deep
inside, with grea: advamage, borb at England and at Wales. He could Jook, as
.it were, from there and from here sloultan...<>ously at his two worlds, w-hich never
appeared to him 2S t"...o landscapes or phu:es; they were in fact !andscapes "'with
figures," living "\';'Urlds and authentic communities, where people were socially
and cultLUaUy present with their various types of fulfillment and despair, with
their crises and successes, with their mYths and bdiefS, with their "full rich life."
From that privileged oorder country;' experience, Williams: n. could conceive
the idea of a multifaceted "vorlJ.-view v;-niCJ.1.1et him discover significant re1aions
between poopJe, whidt are Clut naLUraliy "t,-lven" bUl have to be consciously
pursued ar..d hwughr nnt on the snrfacc by tenaciolls, cvm hrtnnfnl search and
effort. These telationsl--jps must be lived and felt, in the first ?lace; they must
be worked out by t..~e impartial and neutral observer, in :he second place.

is at work here is a crucial ability (attached to the th~is of militant

.~. parti,cularisrr, in dialogue with universalizing politics) to use what we now call
:Tstandpoint" (and Williams frequently resorted [0 that term) and location
to create a critical space from which to challenge hegemonic discourses,
even, a.s we S<iW in chapter 1, those discourses abOut the "proletar"so~iali$lm" that were dedicated to the emancipation of a marginalized

1
102

Orientations

Historical Agency and the Loci o"S

i Co,nange
'J acta

103

the
.
".
di-- 1 ' margm:- a SIte of creativity and power" - th

t 15 rom thiS space in

and disempowered working class. But '[he borderland space that Williams
defined for himself had rather more complex functions in his life. work, and
thoug!lt. It was in part an actual material place of refuge (either as recorded
in memory or in day-to-day active experience), partially outside of the embrace
of overwhelmingly powerful social processes and social relations. This
CC
experiential realm umkrpinned a "metaphorical" point of resi>tan outside
of the language of dominant and hegemonic discourses. Such a location
provides a unique point of resistance beyond the reach of some all-emhracing
and determinate theory (a unique "strUcture of feeling" outside of external
forces of determination), Here was the u)timate refuge ofa counter-hegemonic
politiCS that could never he ",ken away, the residual place that could never be
tamed (in much the same fashion that Foucault appealed to the human body).
eli
This was the space from which alternative discourses, politics, imaginari

could
emanate.
Bell Hooks (1990) resorts to a-similar line of argument. In a poignant essay
on Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness, Bell Hooks traces
her "journey from smail town Southern black tife," overcoming
reprcssions
of home and community ('''mama and daddy aggressively silencing me .. ' the

me

censorship of black conununities") to arrive at the university, all along the way
being !Drced struggle against "efforts to silence my coming to voice." Along

'0

the way she had to confront the repressions of language:

Bell Hoob shapes a

fa

JUSt a girl comlng slowiy into womanhood when I read. Adrienne Rich's
words. "This is me oppressvr's language. yet I new it to talk to you." This
language mat enabled me to attend graduate school to write a dissertation, to
speak <li joh interviews, carries the scent of oppression. Language is abo a place
of struggle, ... Dare i speak to oppressed and oppressor in the same voice? Dare
I speak to you in <i b.nguage that will rowe beyond the boundaries of domination
_ a language ill;)t will not bind you, fence you in, or hold you?

She learned to transgress boundaries, and to push against oppressions "set by

race, se.x, and dass domination." It was a journey full of pain. "Coming to voice'"
eotailed "intwse
emotionalllpheaval regarding place, identity, desire:"

pt:~sonal

Intervenuon:

This
marginality
rtS1 a cemraJ. locrrion for the
h
..
L

d'

egemoruc discourse that ;<' "or'

[" ____ j .
. pro ucnon 0" a counterL
~JustlOwrulli
b
h
mruewavonelivcs AB ..Ll
WQCGS u(m abitsofbeingand
I
'.
. SUUl, was not spcak:in f
..
ox _ to gtve '.Iv or surrender as p~rt f
. g.o a margmahcy one wishe.s to
a site one stays in din~ t
"b 0 m~vmg mto me center - but rather of
{I
,
tr 0 even, ecauSt' 1t nour'"h
'
.
t ouers to one the possib:1:-, f
.1: __ I
.
b es one s capac1ty to resist

_
.
llll}
0
!atill:ai
perspecuve
fro
hch
.
,.
1
to unagme alternatives, new wurlds.
m W 1 to see and create,
.

But what kinds of new worlds;!. Reslstance to what-- Th

.
gcn er, an class: To a monett'zed economy and .
e oppresslOns
of race'
di .
d
d
t e
ousand and one postm de
_ . a commo Hud culture? To
h th
_1'
0
rn ways ot dYl ) To

allenatmg way of lire? To h

. di
ng. 0 a supenmposed and
egemomc scourses C d d<
th
. .
t e emanapation of blacks and
)' Th tn U 109 ose proclaiming
h .1.
e an'
I h
t e auove. As with Wtll'
h women.
:
swer sure y as to be all of
.
laffiS, t e lOCUS on Ian
.
h
to t e way lIfe gets lived and th
do
guage IS ~werlilUy connected
h
meed. and power gets = c i s 7r!~ ne, th:: way soc:a1 relation, are experiBm discutsive struggles wed' .
(discourse) " a place of struggle.
lived lives and dominant poag m 11S~ atlOn from the historical geography of
. .
wer re anons are me . ....1.. ..

00 {S rnslsts, "a mythic nono f

. ar
anIllf,'-'-ss. 11m is not'" Bell
I
lfi
H
The margin is not simply n.o t=rgh lty.b It comes from Jived

rage

1 was

I,.;ill.

metap or

lit

experi~nce.

un erpmmngs. From that Ioea,,'

' rful an imagmary thar ha.-'\ reaJ
on a powe
cend
.
d .
emanClpatory discourses shap d
th
ot supposedlY
e at e center can be emnatlon
launched:
'
I am ~alth'1g for them to stop ralkin about the '"
"
how unponant it is to he bl
.g 1
other, to StDp even describ"mg
ah out me
_L . "
a
e
to
speaK
about
diff(
other" is also a mask:
.
erence.... Often this speech
0

eras ""N

' an opprcssl-;.-c talkhidin

[0 1
o.
need to hear youe voice when I can
" g gaps ... It annihilares,
speak aboHt yourself. No need to hear
about you better rh.an you
pam. I want [Q know vou: story And !our
Only tell me about your
new way. Tell it back. 't
. . d
en I WIU tell it back: to you in a

ca~

:eli.

~
V01::e.

.,

0YOUlfiSUla

'!h'b

0:vn. Re-wntmg you, J write m elf anewway

at. It Las become mint:, my

Hill the colonizer, the speaking': b'

~} am still author, -authority. I am
talk.
su ,ect,:m you are now at the center of my

Ev~r)'wher-e we go there is pr-essure ~o silence uur voices, to coopt and undermine them, :Mosdy, of course, V\'C are not there. We never "arri.ve" or "'can't stay."
Back in those spaces where we come from, we kill ourselves in despair-, dro"vning
odern
in nihilism, caught in poverty, in addiction, in evety posun
moUe of dying

that can be named. Yet when we feN remain in that "other" space, weare of;:en
toO isolated, too alone. We die there tOO. Those of us who ji,,"e, who "'make it,"

pass~onare1y holding on to aspects. of that '"tlownhome" ~ifc- we uo not inteIll

to lose while simultaneously .seeking new knowledge and experience. invent

_Contronted
H L 'with SUcl1 00Iomzmg discourses it'
h
"
00",", like Spivak, preferrin D
d' 0 '
J5 not
ard to imagine
rendering delirious the
o;r~ a.s r;;ort ~e Leibnizian conceit
,::; ;
here challenges heg'<lIl di e ot er wlrhin oneself." But Bell
,
. f
ony III scourse bY
at
"
(0 material practices, ri[uals
'al
d appe to.an experienrial
and desires find
.
' ~~Cl , an power relatIons) in which
','U'scourseo
expresslOn OUCSlde of that permttted b'f some dominant
o.

YOle;

:0

spaa;:s of radical openne.ss. \Ylithout su-ch spaces we would not S\llVive .... for
me this space of radical openness is a. margin - a profoUnd.

edge.

.....----------Historical Agency and the Loci ofSocial Change

104

Orimtdti01lS
" '"
.
his "v. .e" is that "us" in
margins, that we
Stop. W,:-greayou ashberators. T .
."
f domination but a place of
who i.nhabit m.arg:nal space that tS not a Slte 0
resistance. Enter that space... '

me

bili:z.ed and constructed at the margin,

The internalization of these effects, mo
la
f struggle. The idea or
wimin discourse is what: :nakes la.t~age a P ce :erestandpoint, of location, and of place 15 very strong
,
-.I--'es yet I needed
call d h me to move bevondb ounU<li 1 ' .
.
I had to leave that space I
e o . . f "h me" manges With the
deed
the
very
meamng
0
0
At
also to .retUrn there. ... I n
,
..'
A'
home is nowhere.
.- . '
f r-aUl.callWtlOa. t tunes.
1
experience of dem oruzaUon, 0
d alienation. Then horr.e is no
nl
eme esmmgemt:nt an
d
times, one knows u YalI
.
"1
- d t place which enables an
.
1
l ' locatIOns. r orne is ia
longer lust one pace. t IS.
.
lace where: one discovers. new
- d d everchangllw perspectIVes, a p
promotes vane an
'.
<::"_.
_
CX
- re-.ll
~ ',-", fronners ot dlttere11 ways 0 f seemg
'J'

.
. ass
need. elucidation. Is there a movement
The transitions at work m thtS P "Lage "( _
but in some ways restrictive
.. '"
"
-~htcall nome a;;ecure
.)
from a reat space one fillY"'d b
"' . . ,--ording to strict rules to a
.
.
hi 1 to grow an ecome ~
enVIronment m w c 1
d- IT. t kind of becoming, open w
-cal .) "th . to open to a IHCren
.
.
roetaphon
p ace
at IS
......1-.
the worId'. And if so
how 1S this
ul'
hrou5'-~out
.
the multiple forces p sanng
t --rt..
.1 _. er' The first is to slide into
. ed? lUere are twO <lang :..
metaphorical place co~st,ltHt,
e of radical openness, to uansform that_
(he Leibnizian conceIt m t~e nam)
osedly sufficient unw itselt
-cal 1 . t
wmdow ess space supp .
.
metaphon p ace 1~ 0 a
'd (cf D 1 uze's (1993) considerations

because it internalize:. effects fro:n o~tsl e . C~e fa postmodern world of

d' to -tide mto acceptan-- 0
.
"
on 1,eibni1.]. The sewn IS :.
d-~
t
become a mere pomt ot
d
Ivable merem.:e, 0
.
II
fragmentation an unreso
"f
ss is. bv definition radicaL Be
converl!ence of everything ther~:ls as, 1 o~enneconfron'., and accepts dispersal
~
h d' th rnrectlon' one
....,
~
Hooks apr-ears to ca m at
'.
f new world order that reveals
_
.
t f the construcr.on 0 a
d
n
and tragmentano as par 0
,
n order that docs not deroan
more fully where we arc, who we can Decome, a

forgenieg:
-c
-d - os on Zizek and Bell Hooks is
th twO bne! consl er-atlO
'd
The purpose 0 f esc
f " -d al" a "surplus" somehow outst e
~
. h Thideaoareslu or
d
brl>[ to exarome .ow t e .
.es of determination gets set up. Once iocate ,
of Of beyond [he hegemo~lc rU,I
h I
~ f ao-encv. of resistance, of an
- used t 0 Identl
"caIfv, t e OCID 0 .0d' _ . . alit)' of hlSWfl
that smp)us 15
.Ih
the heb>emomc hectlOn
.
I
or$!2llizinoforce [lilt can c ange , ~ fr
- fr
.1..:ch to resist dOlW nO
b.
I
ears tillS ee pomt om Will
o-eographlcal change. n re.cent Y -I
d" th maroins." Voices from the
o
_ h'
. t been ocate on e
b
ant practices as mcre.asmg Y
II H 1.' h en location is emblemauc hani
Be
00K5 C os
hmargin - an d m t IS reg
d
h dosest attenrion as the hat Into
become those to whom we are urge h P~Ytht <I us of agcUC)T to give change
.
-al cha e. Sow ere tJ e oc
.' 1
gers of senouS soct
ng
'al'"
e form or other mcreas1 n g Y
direction and how is it that spat! tty IS In som
invoked ir.. the argument?

105

II. The Locus of Change

The simplest answer to rhe first question - where is the locus of agency? - is
everywhere. This is nO[ as unhelpful :an answer as it might at first seem. To
begin with, me presumption from a dialectical! process-based and historical
materialist view of the world is that it is not change per se that has to be
explained, but the forces that hold down change and/or which give it a certain
directionalicy. There is no single moment within rhe social p.rocess devoid of
the capacity for transformative acriviry - a new imaginary; a new discourse
arising out of some peculiar hybrid of others; new rituals or institutional
configurations; new modes of social relating; new ma-rerial pracci{;es and bodily
experiences; ll.eV\'T political power relations arising out of their internalized
contr-a.dictions. Each and eveN one of these moments is full to the brim with
transformativ'C potentialities. Slnce divisions of labor attach unevenly across
the different momems, individuals with special expertise in, say, the discursive
realm or the political institutional rea 1m, always have the possibility to exercise
some kind of agency for change even within their own limited situations .
But several interesting questions then follow:
1. Hemr are all-of these diverse potentialities and possibilities controlled a..'1d

me

disciplined to produce permanences,

circular causal structures and
systems that we daily encounter in that entity we caU society? How do the
stabilities of a hb'torica11y and geographically achieved: social order crystallize our from within the fIlLX and fluidity of social processes? Historical
materialism does address that question. !vlarx's Grundrisse is an extraordinary exercise in such a form of enquiry, looking in derail. for example,
at how money -arises out of exchange and capital out of the circulation of
money. He did not complete that analysis but others, following in his
footsteps and broadly using the method that he pioneered, have told a far
more derailed story of capitalism's origins.
2. How are "correspondence rules" established between the different moments to guarantee the stability of a given social order? Marx's general
argument is particularly strong on this poim, even though It is susceptible
to -a rather misleading mechanical and causal interprelalion. Discourses,
imaginaries, powers, social re:'ations, institutions, and material practices
mm;t become dlfferenriations within [he totality of capi-r-.Jism understood
not as a thing, but as an on--going social process that traverses all moments
of the social process. 1v1arx's beginning poim was material practices and
the experienrial world of daily life and labor. But he then delves into
-the necessary relations between all che different momems that help
keep the social order stable (stable here does not mean changeless, for
_Ca-pitaEsm reproduces itself only through change, though only of a certain
, soit).

.......---------l-listorical Agmry and the Loci ofSocial Change 107

106

Orientations

.
.rhi thi process such that tenSIOns
Are there internal contradictions WI n
s. t of levepo-e for change?
3_
-th th
nts become a pom
""b
between and Wi in e morne
'thi
pttalism . Such contraL th
as the case Wl n ca
f
Marx certainly thougnt is W .
. temat battleground 0
J.
--1'
italism into .an m
d
dictions automatlUlliY turn cap f
_
ever exactlY be predicte
L
balance 0 pOwelS can n
di contlictmo- torce5 wuos e
'T'Le class contra etlon
0
, h
-cal hange open 1H
leaving the trajectOlY ot ISwn
Cd
produc... crises of over-I d'borthetenencyw
f
between capita an 1 ,
ital COli led with the distnregra.tlOn
0 a
P
accumulation/devaluanon o,f elp
(I -cal bl ) the need to guarantee
.
InO" geopo ttl
lOCS, ,
'al
40bal capltruism mto wan. b
f
ed 00 preserve enrrepreneUfI
5'
.. L and
"~ as part 0 a ne
all
freedom of speecu
enqul:ll
"dissident vui....es. these are
.
d""
whi
e
repressmg
.
'al"
creatiVIty an mlttatlve..
_
'T'L
cask of histoncal materl 1St
.
adi'
within capltahsm. i He
" "
ul
major conte cHons.
wh'
th
- contradictions he III partlc ar
.
th
tablish
ere
e
mom
"
linked
cnqUlIV IS en to es
_
d L thev mi~ht be mtff
- In
h cal tuatlofiS an H.OW
,'&1.
.
htstorical---geograp 1 Sl
1 l\.hrx looks at the way cert2.m
dte Hgbteenth Brumlttrt, for examp c,
b' d Wlthin orner contraIy to become urie
contradictions ocmme salient on
al'
.. of 1847-8 reveals the
ulatlonldev uatlon cnsiS
dictions - the overaccum.
b dis laced by state repressions
central capital-labor contradicaon on1~ malie l~timacy, and institutions.
mto an internalized cnSiS of bourgeodlS egf~' lus" or a "residual-' outside
"
ofanyt eao a surp
f b
4. Nlarxwas deep1y SUSpICiOUS..
h'
tal rocesses, Because 0 t e
of the overall flow of det~rmmatlb~ W.l:._ m SOCpol!tS unthin the system that
th.. are mnumera ie u::verage
d i r ' al
contradIctlOns, Lte _.
or indiVIduals to try to re ect saO
can be seIzed. upon by dissident groups
al
we-ak links. Hhtorical
- th There are ways
change down thi s or t h al: pa,
d h
k links formed and were
t>
' k s to understan oW wca
h
materialist enqUiry see
_ item mto its present state, w ere
explO1ted in the past to bnng thealsooa sdY' " might noW extst, and how
"fi
C
[repro uctlon
ds
'weak links III the ed1 ce 01. S,oCle ds f
f'_ what kinds of social en
.
~kin
0 agents IUr
,
I
they might be usedbYeel"
of social change? Again> the SImplest
5 So who and where are the agents
h I,ves -acts and talks 15

.
"""'~rvWhere. Everyone w 0 1
"
.I
answer is everyone, ... , ~! ,..
11'
'
int concerning the perpetual
implicated. This is precl"ely Wi mms ~ di . duals But why do certain
through use b Yln --.'1.
.'
reconstitution 0 f Ia nguage
.' L
cia! order as unduly repressl ve
, _
me to vtew tae so
.
And h
indiViduals or groups co
h' '
re restrictive quesnoll.
GIN
..
eli at changet T 1S IS a mo
.
.
of
and reqUlrmg ra G
.. ai'
llectively to affect the tra,ecrory
do they get mobiiized indIVl ~ iy or co.
'The purpose of historical
f
re difficult questwns, .
d
change? These are ar mo
d
d
dhow individU:i.h- an groups
c"
_
al'. an un erstall
matenalist an ySU': IS to try
, h '
.1~
d act in accordance Wl
d
d th msdves and t err reauty an
. thi
came to un erstan
e .
ch th . f; rtUitous and contingent m s,
that wlderstanding. There t5 mU . at ~s o_hieh an agents find Ihemse1ves
[ the contra.di cUon5-Ul W
d
If and
precisely becausc 0
' h rv w urulerstan onese
~mbroiled and the resultant ~eterogen~ty ill ol~~ca1-economic change an
, reality. The effect IS to m e p ,>
ones
ha "cal} affair
unpredictable (and far fro-m mec1. ru
J

-m

The dance of historical change becomes as vulnerable to the sexual whims

and fantasies of aging dictators, for example, as it does to coherent mass
movements. And even when mass movements are at work, the determination
ofwhat conuamctions are seen a.~ primary is always up fOT grahs. Politics must
engage ...vim ali moments of the social process simultaneously, establishing its
own counter-ooherences within and correspondence rules between discourses,
institutions, social relations, power politics, and the imaginary and material
practices. Given the slippages that can occur between these moments, and the
difficulties of translation that I earlier invoked there is noclring automatically
predictable about these relations either. It is, therefore, just as important to
engage with :,.~e imaginary of the worker as with the experiential world of life
and labor. Struggle can never locate itself exclusively or even primarily at one
moment within the socia! process.
All of this must sound, and in some respects is. profoundly at odds with
traditional views of lYiarx's historical materialism. Yet it seems to me the only
conceivable way to view the question of agency and locus of change in a
genuinely dialectical and historical materialist manner. So what remains is the
problem of how to reconcile these views with some of the more obvious features
of Marx's argument - in particular the commitment to revolutionary class
struggle - that on the surface appear so incompatible with them.
The problem for Marx is not to explain change because change is the norm
and :stabiJity the rare occurrence. Nor is Ivlarx's general problem one of
explaining how particular groups, interests, and powers "seize dle time" and
turn this or that aspect of the social process to their own advantage or lo~e out
in a particular high stakes game (as happened in France between 1848 and
1852, for example). What l\-1arx y,;as interested in was revolutort. He was
concerned to understand hov., the totality of the social ordering that constituted
capitalism could change; how; in short, capitalism might be overthrown. But
that also meant understanding how capitalism as a social ordering could
preserve itself ilirough changes (technological, administraciv'e, discursive) and.
through all sorts of struggles (wars, civil rights movements, colonial
encounters, ethnic conflicts, etc.). This converges directly on the single most
important question: what arc the necessary and sufficient conditions to
transform the i>'tructure of capitalist social ordering to produce an alternative
kind of society called "socialist" or "Communist"? lvIarx's conclusion was quite
simple and, I think, indubitably correct: the only way to transcend capitalism
"''as through a class struggle waged against capiraJist class and. their associared
interests across all moments of the social process.
So the question for Marx is not whn is going to be an historical agent because
. all of us are, But how can one kind of collcctlve agent crystallize out as an
'.~)yerw helming political for('.e that can accomplish this revolutionary task. The
'lUC>UM' of agency is defined in terms of a political commitment. But 'why
'" ,t>ou:idwe commit ourselves to that politics rather than some other? The answer

........----------HistoriaJI Agenry and the Loci tJj&h--ial Change.

108

Orientations

is simple enough. The structure of permanences and in<:ernali'Jed relations

secured within the capitalist social order is, in Marx's view, extraordinarily

damaging to the lives of unto~d millions; it is immoral and unjust, at the same
rime as it is life-threateni:tg to tht: human species and a travesty of denial of
our species potential, TIlere IS more than a litde romanticism incorporated in
that answer (particularly evocation of a species potential), nut without that sort
of imaginary as an aitt:rnatlve, the reality of human destitution, impoverishment and degradation in the midst of plet:ty becomes unbearable.
There are, of course, all sorts of arguments to be ~-et against Marx.. The class
opposition has never properly constituted itself as a coherent force and even
when it has achieved some modicum of power h: has not radically transformed
matters. Even if there were historical periods and geographical places where
class opposition to capitalism congealed it has now effectively been dissipated.
Above aU, the single-minded pursuit of class questions does not allow of a
proper consioeration of other important hiswrical oppressions on me basis of
gender, sexual preference. lifestyle, racial, ethnic. or religious identities and
affiliations. geographical region, cultural configuration, and the like. There are
certain truths to all of these objections and many circumstances in which the
intertwining of, say, racial. gender, geographical, and class issues creates aU sorts
of complexities that make it imperative for several sets of oppressions to be
addressed,
But the converse complaint must also be registered: those who reject Marx's
political commitment and the notion of dass agency that necessarily attaches
to it in effect turn their backs on his depiction of the human destiuuion,
degradation ~.nd denial that lie at capitalism's door and become complicitous
as historical agents with the rep~oduction of the particular set of permanences
that capltalism has tightly fashioned out of otherwise open, fluid., and. dynamic
social processes.
Put that bluntly, the force of Iv1arx's political commitment makes many
people nervous, Foucault (1984: 46) probably speaks fur many when he wrir",:
This work done a( the limits of ourseh-e; IUUS[, on the one !-'land. opt:n up a
.realm Qfhistorical enquiry, and, on the other, put itself to
test of rcatty, of
contemporary re-.ility, both to grasp the pl1Jms >,.there change is possible .and
desirable, and. to determine the precise form this change should take. This means
that the his.tori;::a1 ontology of ourselves must turn away hom all projects u1.at
daim to be global or radical. In fact we know from experience that the d-aim
to escape from the systerr. of contemporary reality so as to proJuce the overall
programs of anott...cr society, of another way of thinking, another (;uit.lfC,

me

anomer vision of the worid, has led only to the rerum of the most dangeromt:.:aditions.

The warning is salutary and deserves to be taken seriously. But the turning a-way

from all projects that claim to be global or radical is deeply damaging, It leads

109

Foucault
.
hat are "-,
_" to prefer proJectn
",ways partial and local" b
h L
t ese rta.tlze generality i
d'ffi
_ .
lit ( en Hope
h
\\"liliams' idea of milit~n: p~uc.rcnlt ,:ay. AHdotthwhlch brings us back close to
cu ansm an
e serond
ral
'
,
ear.Iler posed: how is it that "th epartla
'I an d t h
I
e
local" gene_1 question
('
gwse or other) _ is now so fre
tl'
- spatla.lJty ,m some
that can ex . cal
quen } appealed to as the lOCHS of residual forces
erClse r
power over the trajectorv
, of social change-'

III. Towards a Theory 0f H'lSoonc

. al-Geographical Materialism

:.calm di~ ~e

In recent years, the extraordinary but now ui

.
advanced that "space" defines [he
of
'WIdespread claim, has been
_.-I
de'hcnce, of o~emess, the uncontrolled, the unpredictable the
th I .
'
unexpectcu, an ence,
locus f
and
e everagmg point for emanci t
0 agency
PoIi .
residual to all metatheories of thr: or-;-'al
ucs. Space defines the untamable
mat deserve critical scrutin Thevso;:s process. Th~se ar: very strong claims
the geogra h f cliff
y.
"' P ~ ~ the question ot how to understand
p y0
uerence. the spanalitv of ili - . .'
..
issues of agency and socia!. dete m.
.'
~nzatIoru;> III rdatlon to the
r
(1994) description of those mo , mau~n~,Hth:re, to: example, is Knorr-Cecina's
.
_
'iiements WI ill SOClO)O t:, ""
I
With Enlightenment thinki
'
. lat fImp
rupture

th
ng and"a negation
of gy
many
h y a.J ~L
- .
leatureS at have been associated wtt
_' h therno dern "Thes ' 0 t e ucuI11tlve
on microanalysis as:
.
e movements t:enter

me

a derailed description of social episodes through

discourse analysis or visual memo J_
. means such
- us_ ... lv!ost Importantly

~at ethnography,

oh ses h
scovctcd, emphasized and described h In I
,rotcroan.....i
ave
<Ii
body of rnicruanalv1:lc research .. '[ ~_._!.~nar.lfe of modem life; me whole
"'
rests on UC<tiI:tlllg con - ,
'
. d'
such as "local order" and "'.00 . cali " .
...:epLS, epitomize 0)' lerms

"setting" and the "stlge" me;aphe::: . ty in :th.nome~od?]ogy, "situation",

meaning and" _ dn "'.
r ill syrr:.bolic mteracttomsm, "province" of
Sltuare e.ss m phenomenology et Th
hI
revolution is a revolution not abo t wh
c.
e woe ffilcroanalytiC
ofexperience.
u
at IS sm ,but about [he sptttialization

.ill

This same seatimenr can be arrived at from

. ill
..
Foucault (1984: 56)
th th d'
a qUIre fferenr dlfectlon, When
argues at e lalecnc IS "a w
f
d'
h
open
and haza.rdous real'inL/O f confl'In by reduci' ay 0 Heva I'mg t e always
.
'
he mvokes a vers,' _~ of th'e d' _, 'hat
ng~"
it to a
ege tan skeleton"
and "differentiate the networks and levels
h
a;,nong events"
the tdeologies of Hegel and Marx can th 0 W c t .C}T
~ng. Escape from
to the particularities of ~ .at.
en most readIly be achieved by appeal
with the rather widespr~dt1. Ity ~~~kl l~vets; connections). This accords
that time is "the privileged ;:~:': r I f h oss. \198.8: 8) attributes to Feuerba.ch,
subordinates where 5p
I g IJ 0.1 r e dl~lectlclan, because it exdudes and
ace to erates anu coo,.dt
"Wi ..
(1985) "6 nates. I tthm geograp~y we also
fi lld advocates of this viev.'. Saver
"'
\
~ or examp e, argues that TIme is the

_=.

:an~t ~t1n:~sh

......-----------110

Orientatiom

',jJ

HistoricalAgenq and the Loci ofSocial Change

d domain of the

realm of necessity (and hence the quite proper y pnv egfe.

(d
.
f
ia1 th
) whereas space is the realm 0 conungency. an

absuactlons 0 soc
cory
.'
d d
. of articularist eroplrical
therefore quite properly the pnvllege
omatn
P
-

geographical enquiry~
h bl I am resolutely opposed to t.~e claim that
Let me put ~y car on, t edta e.. .
or dleorizarion and even roore
u
"

d of SOCial eterIDmatlon
space IS outsl e
.
f th d.i' . N r do I accept - a':

emphatically that it is someho~ oU~lde 0

e r ~~:C.ui~ent! the idea that
least without considerable qualific~t1on -r thedi~~' itl
~s and revolutionary
.,.,
the sues 0 fa ca1 openn
.
spaces on tI1e margm are . -.
.
ssible to construct,
'b'ury This is not to sav that hbera1:ed spaces are Im~
'u
cal
paSS! 1 .
. '_
.ar
cannot be used, m el ler a r
or
that social construCOons ot span lty
..
I'
, politics. Nor
.
ic dements withm revo utlOnaI)
,
metaphorical sense, as suateg
"'.
fr
h
;aro1t1 are not worth
'--'I
d
"tmeanthat
VOICes omt em bIDost emp haU(.;al y, oes 1
'
1"
italist domination.
- I
polin cal stIugg e agams t cap
listening to or ute evant to
.ai"'
of political strategie!i
Indeed, as I shall .~ter hopc_ to s~ow,. a ~pa:~ IZTitics. Bur I do challenge
any !orm o~ emanC1~ . ry POth
t of freedom
(geopolitics) is cruCIal __for
.J "rule
. CJ f spatiality as e momen
'
the turn to the supposeu 1
termt'"'th 0, dL d f social change. To think in
.
f'
c and ther~ ore e sec uC 0
the SIte 0 reslstaOC,
'III)
fundamentally misconstrue
such terms is, I shall later argue (see part
, .to
"
If
d
through Ll,e social proces~
how space IS U:se consutute
.
I
ed academic ueogMntS here in part dcrh'e from expenence. enter
0 h
Y ~rgume
h
th bdief in uniqueness of place supposedly put t e
~p~Y :n ~ e~ w en _e r"
. exce tionalist claim beca.-ne a matter uf
disCiplme outsIde of thoory. Tlus
t much of mvacademic life
'-b - the 19605 and I ror one, nave spen
,
herce lit:: ate ill
'
. .
d to discover :he ways in
subsequently seeking to refute th~ pro~osmon ;nmight be understood 'hod,
v\.~ich topics like space, place, an : envlTchnm:n
lit'l--l ~ornmitments. nlV
,
d
'call Apart ,rom angmg po Qll ,
,
theoretlcally an prnctl _ y.
, 1:
d t dialectics derives in 1arge degree
m
. dl ual
tD h' toneal matenaus an o
.
mt ed
turn. IS . this was the best way to explore such q~estlons, I
d ' . ' thelr haste to
from the conclUSIon that
' odd h
many contemporary aea eIDlCS, ill
therefore find It
t at so
'soninu set of meta-theories,
fines
f
what
mey.see.1:as anryle_Impn
n
d
0
of argumentation that produce >
escape th e con
'gh
t to return to an exceptlonaust S
h
d
~l t Wall
_
S a dall.lisdess, fragmented, unenlig {enil~g,-:n
In the geography oft~e 195~..
hi h
(cal presumptions and pre!u{itces
unproductive scyle ot work 1ll "th' c th edore td
'l"h imperialism and' under,
'-_'
graDhy esc a to ow.
.
(ill 1950s acarn::wlC geo.
.
ul ' ') h'd 'behind excepUOOId
fi
ld
Ii cap'",) accum aUon 1

standing the wor as a e _?ghr

,LI b argued that the theoretical
,
'-,
Of
. it rot [reasonau v e
aIls! Cl<UIDS.
COUIse,
d' ,
f ch a dismal style 0 f
,
chi ed akes tbe pro uctlon 0 Sll
sophisticatton now a ev m
~
Sivak (19-88: 280)
. I B
knowledgeable a conunentatot as p
workunlike.y. utt:yenas
.'
h
a retreat from meta-theory:
worries about the political implH.:anons at too -asty

r_.

ht seem the French inteHec1-!o.-'eVer reductionistic an econormc a.......]$lS:rug . d'

rise -w-.,.s in the
tuals forget at their peril L~at this entire ovcrdetennme enterp

h, .

III

inlerest of a dynamic economic situation requiring that interests, motives

(desices), and power (of kno1A1edge) be ruthlessly dislocated. To invoke that
dislocation now as a radical discovery that should make us diagnose the
economic (conditions of e.xistencc that separate Out "classes" de..-'<criptivdy) as -a
piece of aa[ed analytic machinery may well be to conrlllue the work of that
dis:o.cacio: and unwittingly [0 help in securing "a DEW balance of hegemonic
rdatlons.

But there are important reasons why beliefs about the contingency ofsp;;.tiality
afe so widespread.. To begin with, the insertion of spatiality, and even more

particularly the insertion of some notion of the dynamic and fluid consuucnon of spatiality as a product of material and social processes, typically disrupts
many social theories. Consider the case of neoclassical economics, where theory
crucially depends upon showing how equiHbriwn prices form in competitive
environments. W'hat Koopmans and Beckmann shoii'/ed, was that equilibrium
was impossible to achieve in even a relatively simple spatiallocation/allocation
problem. This "paradox" (which played a role in the award of a Nobel prize
to Koopmans) has never been resolved, leaving neoclassical economic theory
to elaborate its arguments on a foundation of shifting sand. The same can be
said of certain kinds of class analysis (which stumble on spatializations such
as neighborhood, network, community, cit'/> and nation), much of analytical
Marxism (the theorizations of Roemer and Wright, for example), version.'> of
the Hegelian dialectic (including its recent resurrection in bowdlerized form
in Fukuvamas "end ofhlstory") and some renditions of historical materialism
that ha;e worked out their theoretical schemas as if spatial ordering and the
Changing production of space was of no importance.
Many social theories have ignored space (or, more accurately, assumed a
stable and unchanging spatial structure of entities and permanences). Many
of the propositions advanced or deduced from those theories faU apart when
spatiality is reintroduced. The assaulr on such theoric... using spatiality as a
means w undercut them has therefore been both correct and salutary. But the
inference that there can be no theory of the production of space or that the
search for any sort of general or meta-theory m!.L'n be abandoned, is plainly
wrong.
But now, then, can a theoretictl discourse ahoen spatiality be constructed
and how can histo~ical materialism be made more explicitly geographical? Later
ch;::.pters will take up L.~ose questions in muc.h greater detail Here I shall simply
confine myself to some preliminary remarks on what a discourse about
"hi~orical-geographical materialism" runst address.

1. The discursive activity of "mapping space" is a fundamearal prerequi<;ite to

the structuring of any kind of knowledge. All talk about "'situatedness,"
"location" and "positionality" is meaningless without a mapping of the space

.........--------

112 Orientatiom
in ",ohich those simatious, Iocatiom, and positions occur. j\nd this is equally
(me no matter whether the space being mapped is metaphorical or reaL
2. :h..fapping is a discursive activity iliat incorporates power. The power to map
the world in one way rather than another is a crucic.l wo1 in political
struggles. power struggles over mapping (again, no matter whether dlese
are maps of so-called real" or metaphorical spaces) are therefore fur.daI

mental moments in the production of discourses.

3. Social relations are always spatial and exist within ;a certain produced
framework of sparialities. Put another way, social rdaci.ons are, in all respeCUi,
mappings of some sort. be they symbolic. figurati. ."C, or materiaL The
organization of social rdauons demands a mapping so that people know
their place. Revolutionary activity entails a re-mapping of social relations
and agents who no longer acknowledge that place to which they were
formerly -assigned. From this it follows that the production of spatial
relations (and of discourses about space rdations) is a production of social

relations and to alter one is to alter the other.

4. Material prat..:tices transform the spaces of experience from which all
knowledge of spatiality is derived. These transformative material practices
in p:llt accord with discursive maps and plans (and are therefore expressing
of both social rektions and po"\\"er) but they are also manifestations of
symbolic meanings, mythologies, ili:sires. The sparialities produced
through material practices (be they frameworks fur living, for communication, for v{ork, for symbol~ activities and rituals, for enjoyment) also
constitute the material framework within which social relations, power
structures. and discursive practices unfold.
5. Instirations are prodUced spaces of a more or less duraMe sort.ln the mOSl
obvious sense they are territorializations - territories of control and
surveillance,
of jurisdiction, and domains of organization and
administIation. But they also email the organization of .!.)'lUoolic spaces
(monuments, shrine~, v.-.ills, gates, imerio[ spaces of the house) and the
spacial orchestrat~on of semiotic systems thQ.r support and guide ail manner
ofinstitutlonal practices and a.l!.egiances. Insertion into the symbolic spatl?l
order and learning to read the st:miotics of institutionalized landscapes is
an effect of power upon the individual '(hat has a primary role in

terrai~s

guaranteeing subservience to tht: social order.

6. The imaginary (thoughts, fmtasies, and desirt:5) is a fertile source of all sorts
of possible spatial worlds that can prefigure - albeit incohcrendy - all
mannef of different discourses, power relations, social relations, institutional
srructures. and material practices. The imaginary of spatiality is of crucial
sigr.ificance in the search for alternative mappings. of the social proct":ss- and
of its outcomes. The structures of roany social and Hterary theories are, in
this regard, often steret mappings of otherwise intractable processes and
evenrs by appeal to a certain imaginary. The secrecy is ofren a deliberate

Historical Agency
Loci ofS'
'I E"
J and the
_
una
Lmmge

113

of the presu?posltlons
' '
f
masking
.
h'
behind
th
.
f' . 0 . power and of social rel'
anons t at lie
.
. .e perpetuatton 0 Illstttli[lOfiS. The moment of
-'
-th
lmagmanes into di
' 'therelOre
C

ot ese
cntical
. converslOn
h
scourses 15
but because it is at that
theSa',fiSe
it
th
nons of and
. I.
."
e Imposlrevu SlOns agamst lllsnlmions, power, and social 1 '
re atlons
b ecome most apparent.

~e[erminate,

relarion~ ~::~~:t

~at ~s

This schematic overvlew of SOffie of the e.ral

.
.
historical-geoc-raphical
materl""l'
'th respect to
g h
ne clI' onentatloilS
of a
r;r
at SID WI
'al'
a great deal out. In what follows I shall
fl an illg spatl lty leaves
only with respect to spac, but.,
:th at(cmp( to esh out this sdH::ma, not
_

alSO V.1
respect to
nate
ch
place, and environment. But hismrical-geo
h'
as time,
Him IS a form of
discourse and it, too, has its positionalitv
understand the world'
.L
d'IT'
the sacral process, It helps
m ra::.ner lrrert:nt ways to h
.
h.."
conventional social and literarv theories Bur as M I t ose gIVen vi more
15 not only. to understand the' worId b'ut aIso to ch
arx eng. ago
our task
B argued,
L --ge
what? Here the question of poli i 1
.
It.. ut cnange it into
I believe the fundamen'" co t[ cda. ~mffi1tmenr 1S cruCIaL So if, like Marx,
UI.l
n ra lCtlOn we have t
c.
. th
.
destructive Ingic of capicl, th en h'Istonc
'al---ueographlcal
COillront'ai'15 at
ot the
L.
regarded as a dlscur .
.. b
maten ISm lIaS to be
Sive moment 10 relanon to that Ii' cal b' ,
I began
book'
po tl 0 jectlve.
' by remarking' the vitTiring of a
" an en=vem
'th' th But, as
ofd lscourse and inevitably bound bits. rul
In
e realm
language may be a vital locus of'irrY Ie
lImItatIOns. Discourse and

7 t~~s s~
!:~~c ma~n
:m
~

plac~ f

.~""'b. ~ntWl
are n~r.the only or even

B~ta~d y

necessarHy the most Ll11portant

0
"confined there, Nevertheless, the critical
e. In
a book I am
the nature of the di
cap ty to use discourse to Ratet on
scourses we construct can h
.
to play. And that is what the rest of thi b k ,aveban Important political role
S

s:~gg

00

15

a out.

"\~lttng

.....-----------PART II

The Nature of Environment

.....-----------Part II Prologue

.Around "Earthd.ay" 1970, I recall reading a special issue of the business journal
Fortune. It celebrated the rise of the environmental issue as a "'non-cIass issue"
and President Nixon, in an invited editorial, opined that fejturc generations
would judge us entirely by the quality of environment they inherited. On

"Earthday" itself. I attended a campus rally in Baltimore and heard several

rousing speeches, mostly by middle class white radicals, attacking the lack of
roncern for the qualities of the air we breathed, the water we ar-ank, the food
we consumed and lamenting rhe materialist and consumerisr approach to the

world which was producing all manner of resource depletion and

environmental degradation. The following day I wen:: to the Left Bank Jazz

dub, a popular spot frequented by African-American fiunilies in Baltimore. The

musicians interspersed their music with interactive commentary over the
deteriorating state of the environment. They talked about lack of jobs, poor
housing, racial discrimination, crumbling cities, culminating in the daim,
which sem the whole place into paroxysms of cheering, that their main
environmental problem was President Richard Ni1.-oil.
\Vhat struck me at the time, and what continues to strike me, is that the
,"'ciIvironmemal issue" necessarily means sud. ditTerem dlings w different

that in aggregate it encompasses quite literally every[hing there is.

leaders worry about the political and legal environment, politicians
about the economic environment, city dwellers worry aboUt the social

Jj~Slness

Copyright "tv1ichad Bussdle.

~' :i:~:::~:~~:' and, doubcless, criminals wony about the environment of law

~,!

and polluters worry about the regulatory environment. That a

should be used In such a multitude of ways testifies to its
;t~n&umental incoherence as a unitary concept. Yet, like the word "nature," the
of which "contains, though often unnoticed, an exuaordinary amount of
history ... hoth complicated and changing, as other ideas and
change" (Williams, 1980: 67), ,he use, to which a word like
~i")mrnent is put prove instf'.lcrive. The "unnoticed." aspect of this poses
difficulties. Lovejoy (1964: 7-14) comments:

Part II Prologue

118 The Nature 0iEm/ironment

It is largely because of their ambiguities that mere words are capable of
independent action as forces in history. A term, a phase, a formula. which gains
currenc-f or accepTance because one of its meanings, or of the thoughts which
it suggests, is congenial to the prevalent beliefs, the slandards of v.tlue, and tastes
of a cetain age, may help to alter bdicfs, standards of value, and tastes, beca':.lSe
othe meanings or suggested implications, not clearly distinguished by l.~ose who
employ it, gradually become the dominant dements of signification. The word
"nature," it need hardly be said, is the most extraordinary example of this.

The contemporary battleground over words like nature" and "environment"

is a teading edgt: of political conflicr, precisely because of the "incompletely
explicit assumptinm, or more or tess unconscious mental habits." which surround
them. And it is, of course, primarily in the [ealms of ideology and discourse
where "we become conscious of political matters and fight t.~em out."
The fight in part arises because words like "nam[C" and "environment"
convey a commonality and universality of concern that can all tOO easily be
captured by particularist politics. "'Environment'" is, after all, .-.b.atever surrounds or, to be more precise, whatever exists in the surroundings of some
being that is relevant to the state of that being at a particular place and time.
The "situatedness" of a being and irs internal conditions and needs have as
much to say about the definicion of environment as the surrounding conditions
themselves, while the criteria of rdevance can also vary 'widely. A Los Angeles
police officer standing at the corner of Normandie and. Figueroa just after the
Rodney King verdict came in, will hardly be thinking about the ozone hde,
any more than the sdentis( studying the devdopment of that hole in the nether
regions of the Antarctic will be thinking deeply about an uprising in Los
Angeles, Conditions, needs, desires, and situation arc rarely stable for long,
rendering the idea of some stable definition of environmental problems moot.
Yet each and everyone of us is situated. in an "environment" and
of us
therefore have some ~nse ofwhat an "'environmental issue" might be. In recenr
years~ however. a rough convention has emerged, which circumscribes
"environmental issues" to a particular subset of possible meanings, prima.ri1y
focusing on the relationship between human activity and well-being, on the
one hand and (a) the condition or "health'" of the biame or ecosystem which
supports human life, (b) .~pecific qualities of air, water, soil, and landscapes,
and. (c) the quantities and. qualities of the "narural resource base" for human
activity, including both reproducible and exhaU5tiblc assets. But even mildly
bioce.ntric imerpretations would quite properly challenge the implici.t division
between "'nature" and "culture" in this convention. The consequent politicall
philosophical division berween "environmentalists" who adoyt an exrern3l ana
often managerial stance towards the environment and "ecologists" who view
human activities as embedded in nature (and who consequendy conSHue the
notion of human health in emotive, esthetic as well as insuwnental terms) is

an

?eoom~g

119

case~

politically contentious (see Dobson, 1990) In

.
Increasmg public acceptance of the idea. tha
ch .
any
there IS
at least as far as the surface eenl'
t mll
,of what we call natural,"
cd has bee..'"l. . nifi
~ of the globe and Its atmosphere is concern,'_
'"l5 candy modified by hum.n action (Marsh 1965' Th
19)6;
" betw',
omas,
. GoudIe, 1986; Turner er al "' 1990) . The d"lstmctwn
buil
enVlfonments of cities and the humanl modified.'
een
t
even remote regions then appears
of rural and
tion of a rather
ideolo " al""d'
ash a parucular manifestath .
0"""""'0
g C IstmCtlOn etween the
d
e CIty (Williams, 1973), We ignore the ideological ower of that
':"
at 0IUI peril. however, since it underlies a pervasive ;:1ti-urb b'
eeo ogl{;al rhetoric.
an las m mUUJ.

lonO'-stan..t:~~

arbi~

envlronm~ts
c:~t

co~ntry
1

~nct1'::'

In
'
' , from which
trywhat
and fullows
m.ake I shallf tryh to establish a th eorcucal
pOSItion
In so doi
I wa:~se 0 w at are ~enerally called environmental issues."
ng. h'
0 connect those Issues to questions of social ch
d
".
augean
e
theway!nwlch"
all
.al '
or cllVllonment" is valued. I seck tn sh
th
propos COn(;{".rnllig the environment" are necessar' ,
.
ow at
proposals for social change and th
.
~L
Ii) and SImultaneously
.
at acuon on mem always
'Is th '
'
anon
in nat un::" uf a certa'ill regIme
.
. ental
e mstantl.
0 f val ues. Ultlm
t 1 b
.
enVlfonrnental and social change into a dialectical d his ~calcy, y pu~ng
name of wnkin I h
d '
an
ton -geographical
f .h
ft g, ope to enve constructive ways to confront t.~e dilemma
o i at so 0 en appear to be conuadicto and. ft
S
definitions of env.ironmental problems. ry
0 en mutually exclusive social

to

n:-tu:.

.....------------The Domination ofNature and irs Discontents

proj~lS

121

in which the "domination" of nature is presumed both possible and

desirable.

6
The Domination of Nature and its
Discontents

In what follows I shall try to see if there are ways to bridge this antagonism
and turn it into a creative rather than destructive tension. Can a progressive
ecological politics be imtented that does not in some way or other invoke some
sense of superior understanding, dominion, and even domination? Is there or
ought there to be a place for a distinctivdy "ecological" angle to progressive
socialist politics? And. if so, what should it be? And how did we arrive at this
seeming impasse in which
struggle for emancipation from dass oppressions
appears so antagonistic to the struggle to emancipate human beings from a
purely ins'::rumentaJ relation to nature?

me

II. The Domination of Nature

1. The Issue
1 begin witlL t\\'O quotations.
.
di belonging to us. When we
We ahuse land beclUs~we rewhga~chtt as ~ ~o~e !"av begin r~ use itw.th love
see land as a commuruty"tO
1
we e eng,
, 7
and respect. ~"JdQ Leopold, The Sand Cnunty Aimo"ac
-,
'ry it mU5( dissolve the communiry....
.
.
\\I'here money 1S not itself ~ COlT~mburu '.
. et tlJat labour should directly
.
I
r
condiuon ot ourgeOls soc! )' .
.
I
It IS the e ementary pre
d . it l- that i!loney should dtrect y
.
'ue, i e money- an stm ar:v
h'
produce excnange va.:.
th i' b
b ~nlY insofar as he alienates. 15
purchase labour, a..'ld therefore etha ebur~di" u~. ~d <:.imultaneDusht bet...-umes

_L
b-a
Monev er Y reGU] a
.
d
aCtlVlty m u:e exc nge. .....
'
at h ce for L~e survr,ra! for
all, an

the real community, sicu: It 1$ t~e ge:;r Ii s~.~z...1arx. Grundriw,

at the same time the SOCIal prouua

pr. 224-6)

a.

. ha L
ld h"" in mind is a hopeless
From MarXs perspective the land ethic r t oopo
evaiIs 100 ld',
.
. ' ~ here me commuruty of money pr
'
po
quest ill a bourgOOLS sOCle~ W -.

ction of an alternative mode of

land ethic would necessaniy ental! thefcon~:.

The clarity and self-evident
production and consumption to m~t? capl lS~. enerated a raporochement
ualities of that argument have not, mtere:n:n~ y. g -' . h [wo"have bv and.
and SOCdl~lst p:n:~;;e two quot.;uons
~etween ecologicaUenvironmentalist th
. ed tagoniscic to each 0 er an lllspe.... 0
.
f h
large remam an 'i
[ tho nki g and action outSide 0 t e
revea 15 why. Leopold defines a rea m ~ 1 n , more biocentric way of
.
f th conOIDY- 1m is a much
..
narrov.r constramts 0
e e ..
'd'
entration on revolution~zl.llg
thinking. Working-class polines an Its cone ate rather than resolve the
tlU
best an instrumental and
political economic processes. appears to.
problem as Leopold defines 1t, b;~use if ~ C~~i~i5m pursues "'Promethean:"
manage:ial approach to nature. 1 t Its wars" s

:!: .

P7

Contemporary ecological thought often traces the origins of such questions,

as weU as many of our contemporary environmental His, back [0 the hubris
and wrong-headedness ofEnlighrenment acceptance of the thesis that nature
was there for the m;ing and that the domination of nature ,vas a feasible projeer.
This argument is badly in need of scrutiny.
Philosophical arguments favoring the domination, "mastery,'" controL or
"humanization" of nature, though they may have l-t...ad ideological taproots in
the Christian doctrine of dominion (White, 1967), came strongly into their
_ own during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Francis Bacon vigorously propounded such views and in a celebrated passage in the Discourse on
Method Descartes argued that the "general good of all mankind" could bese
_~~_ pursued not hy remIT to speculative philosophy but by the attainment of
','knowledge that is useful in life'" so as to "render ourselves the masters and
:p~sessors of nature.'" Such views were implicated in the development of
-modern science and the rise of discinctively instrumental and capitalistic values
respect "to the hWllan use of the "natural" world. Descartes and Bacon,
(1967: 368) argued, "saw with the eyes of the manufacturing period."
H",.umals were no longer vie-wed as living assistants as they were in the 1-1iddle
and construed instead as mach~nes. This "'anticipated an alteration in
, of production and the practical subjugation ofN:;.ture by Man as a result
altered methods of mought." W'hile Marx's judgment is a bit fonnmaie,
I~,ercl"dess think it important to see the articulation of ideas of domination
au overall package of thought, heliefS, sensibilities, attitudes, and
which gained ascendancy in the political economy of western
society during the seventeenth and eighteenth q::nruries (see Cassirer,
1974; Metchant, 1983).
particular role of the "'domination of nature" thesis cae best be undcrin'relation to the twin Enlightenment ideals of human eJrutncipa.t:ion and

me

The Domination oflVature and ,ts Discontent!

The Nature ofEnvironmmt

.
.
.'
.'
ddressed a whole range of issues start~ng Wl~
se/frealtzatwn. Err:anczpdtton a needs h kal. biological, and socialmsecu:l,P ys fth . dividual by state, dynasoc,
Problems of material wants and

112

..
f oppressIon 0 e m .
ties pa~:sing throll gh vanetles 0
. . from superstition, false
,
. .
d
- thr ugh to emanClpauon
.
or class priVlleges. an ?owers>. . 0
d iler of supposedly irranonal
.
anized rdlo'on,
an a m a n n . _ , _ ,
Hed
COnscIousness, org
tr
,'
even Vc:loUtl propOSl'n'on, but it cerrdllllY cau
beliefs. Self-reaIrzatwn was an
. --n..
Wlth which humans are
.
d ImaginatiVe powers
for the release of the creative a n .
f tirely new- ....istas for individual

individually endowed and the ?P:;;o:: :duction. consumption. artistic,

human development~ whether it . .
1 P It was also accompanied. by what
scientific and. cultural output, pol~ucs> or, av;.
of modern -culture, a new
_" "the
lve subjective turn
Taylor (1994: 29 ) callS
mass
LO-k f "mes as being with inner
.
do'
hi hwecometot[llH 0 ou
.

fOrm of mwar ess ill w e . h'

b
es a key component of acnon
depths." The "voice of nature ~lt ill ~s ecob'~~~Fe turn poses acute dangers
Plain! this massive su Jc~'
and underlitarldi ng.
y,. h f
al L~'ons - it produces the very
.h
hil p y 0 Intern retaU
",'
when coupled WIt any P 050 d d bbed "the Leibnizian conceit. But, It
worst forms of what I have alrea y u
. betwttn 'T' and "'It"
.
th useful th gh dangerou, separation

also facilitates at
. .ou
'.'
the rocesses at work "in nature.
that grounds modem SClentIfic enqlUI?' fitho
p
f .............e so as to facilitate
.
th key unlockinot esretso ,~~
That separation was e . to.
-----n
emancipation and self-rea1iza~on..
(ften a collective project) and selfThe twin aims of emanclpatlon 0,
.
ble but frequently
. di .J. alized) were msepara

realization {for
most parr, m fVl u . .
of nature attached to both, it.
n

h thesiS 0 do.mmano
ronuadiclOry-. Smce [ e. .
k'
c- them to become apparent.
adKtlons But 1t tOO time 10r
d
d
ali
intern Y!. co~tr.
- uhlie s here was quite properly viewe. as a
Iniually, em~C1pauon 1~ m,e P bilePindividual self_realization was vlewed
precondition tor self-rea1t~on, w .
nds And it Vi.'aS presumed that
as a proper means to collecuve emanClparory e
.
reason could always unite the two. But:

me

tcx:,.

dl
n
not as a sound body of
The whole eighn:enth century:-~erstan ~~:f ~~g",. a force which is fully
knowledge. prinoples, ru::- d tru 5, u~as~
What reason is and what it can
comprehensible only in its a~ncy ~l b :~ b its function. And its most
do can never be known by Its resll ts diut 1 y I Y.l:~'<'oh't:S _~rlhing merely
T

b' d and to

sso ve.

Ut....

'C .......

1'.I..

important funcnon 15 (0 t n .
.
d
_ ...J...;, believed on the eVIdence
, 11' 1 data of ex~Iience, an evh y u>.ti'g
il b
f:u::m<lJ, a SlIUp e. .
r- h '
. d it does. no{ rest content unt It ~as
of rev-datiun, tradition, and aut .or~
nent parts and into their last
analyzed an these things i~t~ rh~r s~p .est c;:~po k of dissolution begins the
elements of belief and Oplmon. Fo owmg .tth~thwodi: _~".A -rn;rts; it has to build
.
n __ ~~ cannotstonWl
e sp'-"-~ rwork of con.'ouucoon. ~In
-r'
68' 13)
from them a new .structure, a nue whole. (Cassuet, 19 .

. de tTUCtion 'of doubting and seeking,

The outcome of this p.ro~ess ofa:;at1ve _:l' 1
ix) was by no means as
.
down and building up (Cosmer,
. ..
th ugh did share
teanng
d . . B t EnlIghtenment 0
t
homogeneous as many naY{ eptct it. u

%8'

123

the belief that the secrets of nature - including human nature - stood to be
revealed and that knowledge - and self-knowledge - could be used not only
to make human beings more at home with and comfortable in the world but
also to open up a terrain of conscious political choice as to the trajectory of
collective human development. The Enlightenment attributed to critical
thought, furthermore, "not merely an imitative function hut the power and
task of shaping l.fe itself' (C=irer, 1968: vii). It is, Foucault (1984: 42)
suggests, this critical attitude rather than any body of doctrinal elements that
still binds us so strongly to Enlightenment practices. But the Enlightenment
also tended to share a particular -vJev..' of how
secrets of natuIe and human
nature w-ere to be uncovered. It departed. in certain key respects from the grand
systematic and deductive systems of the seventeenth century - as .represented
in the work of Descartes, Leibniz. and Spinoza - and looked to Newton (and
Locke) as its guide. The beginning point of enquiry i.5 phenomenal experience
- observation - and the method applied to the data so acquired is analysis with
the objective of uncovering the universal principles ami laws embedded.in the
facts without recourse to any kind of transcendental explanation (such <:Ui the
universal harmonies p.resumed by Leibniz as a manifestation of God's w.isdom),
It was only through &covery of the "true laws" of nanne that we could learn
"to work with nature as nature does'" in ways beneficial to our species being.
These Enlightenment principles have powerfully shaped attimdes to the
natural world in ways that have lasted to this day.. They were, and continue to
be. riddled, however, with their awn particular "irrationalities." Presumptions
were built .into how the world vras to be understood that could not themselves
be subject to rational or inductive proo We have already considered (see
Chapter 2) how Cartesian rationality. which continued in some respects to
ground Enlighterunent thought. was mired at a certain level in serious -contradictions. And we ",ill later take up (chapter 10) how Newton's conceptions of
ahsolute space and time similarly entailed unwarranted a prrori conceptions.
Newton and his fullowers presumed there were universal laws governing the
.l;I1aterial world waiting to be uncovered and given their proper logicall
-iAathematicaJ expression. Harne exposed the transcendent presumptions in
-:-that and, in typical Enlightenment fashion tore apart Newtons mathematical
to build up his own version of sceptical empiricism. Hllme also
,.
~re\vork<>d lDescarres I1llnd-bo~y dualism in important ways such that Callicott
;(seern'lpt,or 7) can now appeal to it to ground ecological ethics. A, the
.~i!;ht,ee"'th century wore on, the conceptual tension between the mechanical
that preoccupied Newton and the study of biological organisms and
also became more and more apparent, in some ways presagIng the
COtternporary 'COIlHit:ts between philosophies of organism (sum as those
philosophies of mechanical systems. And the applianion
nmu S<::leIltitlC rneth",i to the srudy ofsociety produced a variety of srni=,
",persist to this day.

me

The Domination o./.'Naturf'

--- J,',~-S D''$Contents
~
.. a:na

124

The Natun: of Em'ironment

Enlightenment thinking was, in fact, remarkably heterogeneous. Vico and

Rousseau, for example, supported. the general 'view of emancipation and selfreali7.ation but diffured radiaJly from Descmes, Locke, Voltaire, and the
encyclopedists on what to seek and how to get there. Both cast radical doubt
upon the power of scientific knowledge (0 understand the meaning of nature
(Vko insisted that this was outside of us and merefoIe impo&-ible to understand
whereas we could understand society because we had made it). While the twin
aims of emancipation and self-realization might command broad support
among aU the dissenting classes and revolutionary-minded. elements in society,
the exact meaning attached to each differed markedly from place to place and
group to group, Enlightenment thought was in fact riddled with pracciaJ biases
'with respect to race, gender, geography, and class. But beyond these obvlou...
and very damaging blind spots, radically differem choices of preferred means
{and their ultimate embedding in social practices) had, furthermore; strong
implications both for the definition of preferred ohjectives and for the deve:lop~
mental path actually proposed,
Oassical political economy. child of the Enlightenment in the hand" of
Locke, Hume, and Adam Smith and further daborated on by Ricardo and Mill,
looked [0 the freedom of the market as wen as its hidden hand - a llidden
hand. which forced technological change and the mobilization of science to the
art of production _ as a means to couple the increasing prodUctivity ~vhich
would free society from want and need, with a .;:apacity for individualized self
realization through market choice. This is not to imply (hat any kind of
production or consumption 'WDuld do, for it was the profourid belief and hope
of more than just marginal thinkers within this tradition that freedom of choice
in consumption would be accomplished by a refinement of taste, a cultivation
of leisure and civilized values and beha'\cior, that virould endow society with a
degree of civilization heretofore unkno""n (this continued to be a fcrv";" belief
even as bte as John Maynard Keynes), Freedom from excessive stare interference, from aristocratic and dynastic privileges, were powerful elements in
liberal rhetoric. Yet it remained either silent or troubled with respect to the
dispossessed peasantry and the wurking classes which were tlooding into urban
centers across Europe, as- well as with respect to the f-ates of women and
colonized peoples. This liberal strain. of thinking is, of course, still with us,
both philosophically and practically in tenus of the vast flood of privatization
schemes and free-market rhetoric thaI: now dominates economic reform
programs (for exar;1ple, in what oace used to be the Soviet bloc), Lee the marlret
do its work 2.>.'"ld emancipation and. self-realization will follow, is the
philosophy of most of the world's major capitalistic powers and institutions
(such as the World Bank and the IMF),
This tench:, howevet, to breed a highly instrumental view of na~ure as
consisting of capital assets - as resources - available for human exploitarion.
a
One side~effect of eighreenth century political economy was that the dotnin -

"

"I

,',I"

~"

,"

IJ!' !

125

tton of nature was vievo--ed as a necess

. .
..
realization, Sophisticated kn wiedg"'Y Pfrereqwslte to emanClpatlon and self,
0
eonaturewas
'ed'
de
ma..'1.1pulate the natural wor Id to human purnnses
reqwr
1 ' , m or r (0
exchar..ge) even to humanize it ( d ll' r - ,'. to ex:p Olt It for market
design, But the thesis of do'
,an se its ~ua.llUes) according to human
,
mmatlOn never deltberatd
b d th d
Han and despoliation of tlIe natutal world P d yem race
uld e estrucprotec(ron and enhancement of
tal
. ru ence wo
require the
natu assets- as a form of ~ 'tal
'
condi!lons of such abundance t:hat lfeean
r
dunCle
I c kedde 1
C:ipl
except
d under
.
sense,
I
destruction
and
depIct'
u1d
be
P
etlon
rna
.
f
Ion co
found th'
, e rauonal
Immense abundance that l't d'd
Wh'
1 not matter,
en't'en 1t was
d th a SIgn
. of -such
would adjust to indicate a condition f
. 1 ma.t:te~e
e pnce system
if gross de;.;poliatiun could b d 0 hScar~ty that reqillfoo attention. And
.
e oun , t en tue fault I
;th h '
prat.l1ces
_ merch~-t and ay . t e 'tal'
Imprudent
, of a rapacious and um:anng
came Into itii own during this
'ad rh h' . agr~nan C.apl Ism that
itself.
pen ,fa er t an WIth EnlIghtenment thought

"1

..

'"'

Enlightenment
_
thinkers embraced~ h ovo/ever a vaster
I f
t an
by the liberal t h '
,
pallOp Y 0 proposals
h those VOiced
oppositional
that the! '.
deoonsts. Some of these ~'ere so perverse and
e IS room to bate whethe.- th d
upon as pan of the Enligh
. ey eserve to be even looked
_tenment corpus sn.
'
Th '
specific views of sdf-realization and
"ISU strtctu.
ey Included the
Sade as well as those ofJacoblem.ancl~at!~n set out by the Marquis de
.an revo utlOnanes like B b u B 'f th
other major attracto.r wirhi n L
. ch
_ a e 'li
. lit I ' ere is one
uw;
aos 0 f po Ib'li'
muuimrian
tradition
whicl
a
l
'
d
I ties, It es m the COffi1 ways saw. an contmue' t
. .
.
seIf.-real Ization as a collective rather th 'eli 'd
see, emancipatIon and
tariaru of all sorts, Utopian socialists, ,an ~ VI UailstlC concern. Communiel
as a host of democratic moral
as well
. ' a .east tIllS In common: that the
free market cannot provide th
realization for the mass f th e appulIOp,nate ,m~s for emancipation and sdf-

~~

theo~i:arha~(S; ~d pro.to~Commu.nists.

e pop atlon either In pan

'

h I

some al ternanve form of political

'
_,
or 1n woe and that
or a "moral economy" of some s:c::nu~~ :g~llIza:on a, truly public realm
ment promises, From thi
.. .
oun to ddrver on EnlightenL

s perspecnve, It IS even possibl

th d
'
,sel
now made so much of b d
,e to see e octIll;e of
Iffiphcltly articulated by Aldo Le 'ld) Y eep, ecologlsts such as Naess tand
ment impulse pro) ected acr'"""c a opo. ~ a partlcular version of
Enlighten~ I .
v...,
conceptIOn 0 f cornrn ',- hich
b
WIlO e blOSYS[em in which hum
1''
bed
UnIt} W
em races the
M ' .
an .I e 1S em
ded (see cha ter 7)
nmet:=enth-century v'ersion of the Enrgb
p,' , 0ppoSltion [Q that ofliberal th
. , al 1 tenment project 1S III polar
,
, .
eory, yet It IS so at odd 'th
'
c~mmunttatlan doctrines H
f
, s V.'1 most verSIOns of
._ -qllestions of emancipatio~ anedw'""lf' ..~_t.co~e, JUs~ as deeply in-:erested in
se -rr.aJIZatlOn as hi d'
sense I1y ~ubscribed to Enrgh
.
is opponents an
In this
freed fu
I
tenment alms But in Ct ' I L- h
.:
om of the market, the hidden hand
.
.
rn: sows how
-reahn of exchange "ut 0
.
' necessarily dd1VeIS equality in the
. __ " _
<..'
ppresslon and
I"
f
":pioduction and it is L'terefore fa all fl exPdorratlOn.o the working class in
,
a t y awe mechamsm for making good on

H~lzatlOn

me

a:x:s

7'rta

126

The Dominatum ofNature and its Discontents

The Nature uf Enmron1r.ent

Th

emanCIpatlOn 0

f the

king class has as

WOf

.
ltS

Enlightenment proffil&eS.
e.
cial and olitica1 control over market
the very least srfl.ctcalsO
t:
p. of power relations in the
Precondition at
J if
"bl the aru tranSlormanon
operations ana., ~OSSl e, U r . rh d"scursive and. institutional spheres.

realm of producnon as ,:e .as 1ll ~ bie detached entirely from individual
Marx argued [hat self-realization shoul
.
f ealizarion of self through
selfishness and greed. d bens~ as a pro'mec~:~tica1ly organized society.
.
. th th rs m co ectlve 0[ co
_L
relations Wi
0 e.
.
erall d Marx certainly to accept u:w.t
Emancipation from social want l~_ g~ . e f nature was a necessary condi.
f the 1.dea that the uummauon
0
dly
some versIon 0
. tho
J Le tOO accepts a broa
.'
dm
Isregarull .
)
tion for human emancipauon ~
d
U"
~ttitude towards natural
."
th pomorphic an contrO mg
67
instrumentaust. an .r~
alm of freedom, he wrote (Marx. 19 :

ar:

environmental condlttons. The re

Vol. 3, p. 820), consists:

. nail
mating their interchange
in socialized man, the associate pt~ucers, rano y ~
d ofbein ruled by
.
.
,
. t under theIr commun control, mstea
g
With nature, hnngmg 1
.'
tho
.'"
th least expenditure of energy and
j

d
adnevmg
15 Wl
e
'
it as -a bltnu power, an
d . th ot: their human nature.
under conditions most favorable to, an wor Y
.
. as Grondmann (1991b) has recently noted,
f th
u\. arly dialectical way in which
0'
. IYlrtbecauseo epee 1
somewhat am tguous ill r- .
b tv\ en the social and natural worlds,

But the exact meanIng of thIS IS,

1v1arx conceptualized th,e int~;~o;, s:lf-:alizarion rested strongly on me

but aho because Marn po
. b.
!y to fellow human beings but
re~nrure of an unalienated rdanons I,P not fn
which ~nitalist industry
~.
.
d
us eXnf':nence 0 nature
--r
alsotothatcreatlvean sensuo
r- I::--ct1 h tthe conditions were that
d
d
opaque
=" Y w a
had renden::d so Istant an

rth" f our human nature remains

t nature mostWO y o .
rcnderedthe reIallon 0 .
b d
. the face of modern SCIence,
fied And how tillS was to. e' one III s a whole host of pracu'cal
unspeCl 1 .
teclmology, and indus~a:l orgamzatlon pose

aim:s

difficulties for the MarxlaD thdeory. h.

th
of emancipation and self..
had to be foun to ac lcve e
.
Sorne way
. th E r h
ent view that modern SC1ence,
g
realization without abandonu:
~ n ;~::~cipate human beings from
indusuy, an~ t~chnol~f pro~ed\~c: to a state of perpetual want, insecur.ity
the natural hrruts whlC con
i
ccssary fur the exercise of crea-

so
of life-chances and absence to the full be lrdr ne t ,,,hidl I shall subsequendy

. fican t conun urns 0

tive powers. These are slgnl
blish that I\1arx in no way
I .mplY want to esta
return. For the moment SI
'.

din a articular version of the

!ide-ranging and strong
objected. to overall Enlight:mnent ~msh 1D~~~
domination of nature theSIS, but at e 1
. .
theorists of the
. h'm th lib ral and commumtanan
objections to the way 1fl w l'
eh e
H also meant something rather
ed th
' s and byw atmeaIlS. e
.
ose aim d th 'deas of domination, science, and progr~slVe
day imerpret
s ecial when he connecte
e1

. nat
ais of a turure
I~eration of the productive fOrces to achieve tounciauo go
i

ha.:e

127

communistic society. For Marx what really mattered was the devdopment of
conscious powers for the continuous production of nature in ways that would
undermine class privileges and oppressions and liberate the creative powers of
individuals to produce themselves tluough the production of nature.

Ifliberal and Marxian theory accept albeit conflicting versions ofthe domination of nature thesis as fundamental to their emancipatory projects, then two
of the major currents of thought which have shaped politics over the past two
centuries appear to have at least dlis common ba<it:. Dissent from the domination
view has not been lacking, however, and the main lines of dissent were already
weU-d.eflned within the Enlightenment itself. It was. to begin with, entirely
possible that nature's laws" would ultimately show that human beings were
prisoners of nature rather chan masters of it. This formed, as we shall see, the
~lalthusian basis fur opposition to .Enlightenment Utopianism as regards the
perfectibility of "man. But there were a number ofother ways in which uncovering "nature's laws" had troubJing consequences for Enlightenment optimism.

I. Montesquieu in his fumous text on The Spirit ofthe Lows applied something
loosely akin to scientific method (0 the comparative study of societies. He
set out to uncover the fundamental causes that underlie the seeming chaos
of human history and the enormous diversity of governmental forms. And
one of the fundamental causes identified was soil and climate. "If it is true,"
he wrote, "that memalicies and passions ace extremely different in different
climates, then the laws mmt correspond to the difference of passions and
to the difference .in mentality." This environmental foundation to the
geography of difference did not Jeau him to pure environmental determinism, for it was the task of good government to bting about an adjustment
of laws, and of moral order, to prevailing physical circumstances (Cassircr,
1968: 214; Glacken, 1967: 572-81). But this meant that laws and sJ"'tems
of governance must vary according to environmental constraints, thus
opening up the whole question of environmental influences on hwnan
behavior as 'Well as the Pandoras box of cultural and moraJ relativism based
on environmental difference. Rousseau followed doV\.'11 this path, recogniz.ing that law should recognize local cultural environmental conditions,"
While this plainly challenged the idea of any simple or easy domination of
nature, it also laid the groundwork for later theories of environmentally
based racial difference and environmentally determined cultural superioriIy. Rousseau likewise argued that "despotism is suited to hot climates,
barbarism, tD cold, and good government, to temperate Legions" (cited in
Glacken, 1967: 592).
If
Enlightenment proposed an attack upon enslavement through a certain scientific'"disenchamment" of the Vir'Orld (as Max Webe.r was later to put
it), then rherewas an immediate response of searching for "re-enchantment."
The sense of a loss of contact with the natural world - alienation from

me

128

The Domination (}1Nmure

-.. an d'tts D'tsConte1US

The Nature uf Environrnent

nature _ produced a variety of responses across the spectrum of the class

system. 'fhose being divorced from access to their means of production land _ launched movements of protest that became widespread (the
eighteenth-century diggers and levelers in England being a classic case).
Similar movements continue to be found in peasant societies throughout
the worki~ indicative of an intense resistance to the idea that the peneu'.ations of the free market and of modern science are the only vehicles for
emancipation and self-realization. Those in the upper
of a more
<r.l,ditional frame of mine increasingly sought what Weber (1991: 142)
called. "redemption from the intellectUalism of science in order to return
to one's own nature and therewith to nature in general.''' The "romamic
reaction" had its roots in the eighteenth century - with the Rousseau of
second Discourse and the Nouvelle Hellaise pioneering the way. The
"voice of nature within us" that Rousseau released. when coupled with
"massive subjective turn" had all manner of consequences for how nature
,vas to be construed and thereby rendered conHictual the relationship
between an ideology of domination on the one hand and a politics of
emancipation and self-realization on the other. l'his spav.'lled a traditionincorporating later figures like WordSYlorth, Schiller, and Thoreau - that
is powerfully present, particularly in the deep ecology movement.
3. Even in the absence of clear protest movements. of this sort, Enli.ghtenment
thinkers had to confront dearly the question of exactly what "the humanization of nature" mighr mean and to exactly what effect the newly found
powers of science and rationa\ enquiry, of autonomous moral .iu~o-rnent,
might be used. This question became a central preoccupation of esthetic
theot}', also a child of Enlightenment thought, Baumgarten, drawing heavily
upon Leibniz, led the way in Germany and the Earl ofShaftesbury pushed
an analogous project in Britain. The effect v.'aS to move towards a definition
of "culture" and "the relation w nature" which would have been quite
extraordinary to preceding generations. The rransfonnatioll of nature - its
humanization through landscape gardening, for example - hecame onc
privileged. meilllS of not only rt:gaining what seemed to be lost elsewhere,
but of defining a future for humanity in which self-realization could only
be achieved by liberating the human senses to the sublime and tranScendental experience of being at one with tht world, But if me liberati.on of
the senses became a crucial aspect of the EnlightenElent project through
tO
the rise of esthetics, then the effect vras. not only to achieve what Eagh: :1
(1990: 42, 49) callsa massive introjection of abstraCt reason by the life of
the senses" but to produce an internal opposition to the very provenance

das~es

me

I' I~

,ii,

of reason itself.

:( tl_
\ ,I'

~~"'i ":
, II,'

g'
I

I,
11 ,

I,'

' ,
,

me

Reason, having spun off with Baumgarte::1 the subaltern discourse of

aesthelics, now appears to have been swallowed. up by it. The rational and

129

the
senSllOUS,
tar trom repOlICing
r d ' one another's inner structure, have ended
up wholly
at odds.

SowhileirwasBaum=
....pn'sam b"mon to b'
b~~
flog the d
di
art, landscapes within the aI
f
un erscan ng of poetry,
.
re m 0 reason. such a
' d fi d
mques of reduction that pIa d such a k .
.
e e the techimpact of the color red
ye
ey. role m SCience. To reduce the
upon our senses to Its p i ' h '- -,
to lose something in exact! th
ure y P YSIGLl concept was
v e same \-vay that th ed '
f
meaning to a description' of its
I.cal
er umono alandscape's
essence of what esthetic
. " geo ogl
components was to Jose the
.
expenence v>'3S about Esth th C
remam at the level of ~I _
.~.
encs eretoce had to
.
,,~ flace appearance'
d'
.
lmportant of all, at the level of the totaJi '
:tatel:upact and, most
very hard to come b
'th
ty
esthetic knowlcdg!!C was
Y WI out resort to so tho aki
conceit. The result was to tr ans fO rm the concept
me mg
n to the Leibnizian
of domination
of nature:

pr~Ject

.I~;

It ~. Baumgarten who made the r nant

tlOmmlOfl over aU inferior powen: b e1ongs
P eg to reasand
happy
that
n b
. statement
~L .
never degenerate into tyran ,Th uh.
0 , ut t..'1at mlS rule must
n).
e S Ject shall not b de ' ,
naLure, nor shall it renoun'
ce itS peeuI'"ar char ct ." e_l. pnved of its own
and protected in both th
' , a er; It]S ramer to be understood
ese as_peets, (C.a.'iSlre-r, 1968: 347)

4. Fin.ally, .there is the question of the nature f th

self-realization is meaningful E,
. 0
~ hum~n nature for which
_c, kin
Ulln g was plagued 'th th . ;\en. at lts very. tnceptlOn, E n I'19:h tenment
WI
e question of th
d
and "perfectabilitv" of"
"
d th
e suppose natural goodness"
.
man an
ose who vent cd
'
own mat path met a chorus of di
.
. ill too slffipIistically
d
for example, while he conced d th ,senung VOICes, Rousseau (1973: 60),
e
e vIgorous powe f If .
saw ~ as a double-cdg d '
I'
rose -unprovement
th'
e VIrtue vmgatthesou
f"[
'jdi
an IS errors his VI'ces d L: _ .'
rce 0
mans 'scoverleS
dh
,
an IllS VIrtues makes hi
I
over himsdf and over na;:ure. He be' t ' m at engrh a tyrant both
conservative political comm
g:tDfh. 0 sound much more like orner
entators 0 IS pe .ad h h
much liberty, like too mudl ad.
ult! w en e argued that too
go
wme, co d all too ea:;ilv'
"
C

ruin and intoxicate weak and deE

s~ited.

..
People once a(;Cllst~med t:te const1tutlOns t~ which they are not
wtthout them If th"",7 _tt
h masters are not tn a condition to do
th
, -/ a empt to s alee off the yoke th
ill
" ~s,elves from freedom, as, b m:staki . '
. er w . more estrange
it IS diarnetrica:ll y oVposr:d tb Y . 1
it for llilbndlerlltcence to which
({) hand themselves over to,seder near ~ \\'3.}'S manage, by their revolutions,
befure. (pp. 33---4)
. nceTS, W 0 only make theirchaillS hea.'. . ier than

:g

. Thi, was, of course, the fear that led Edmund

, agamst the French revolutio Th
' Burke to argue passionately
th 'Db
n.
e conservanve case t ded th '
e I erem baseness and evil in h urr.a.n b emgs
.
enbe constrained
to e VIew that
could
only

The Domination ofNature and its Discontents

130

The Nature a/Environment

~Lt in the absence of stich

f" " " 1arrang<:mcnts and u= ,

by the strictest 0 IDstUUtiOna.
d "vilit would disintegrate. TIle
arrangements, all forms of SOCIety an Ct lout of inherent evil and it
to find v.ravs to create goo
. .
problemwas,then,
la sibly)thatthebasemstlficts
J

( .

wa" Adam Smith's genius to sbuggestba-~~~e

"could e mo 1l.tU m
ed d

t:

a social system

that would

"
"h"dde
of gre an avaI1ce
nl'
fr market in which
the 1 n
operate to the benefit ?f all 0 Y in ~ ee fitable directions, And what if
hand" would. guide society as. a w~ole ill ~bro" ) human nature was itself
.
erh Marx's roam contn utton
(and this was paps
table set of qualities that were
malleable, transformable, ~d) he~ceit"l~~s "':on and emancipation could
there fur the making? The aUD: 0 s: -[ rz.a~n an essentialist reading of
not then be held as stable :r~JeCIo~es : ; : Deprived of such essentiaHsr
human wants. needs.. capa~tl~s an, ~
'nature" becomes suspect,
"
th h 1 'lea of aiLenatlon Hom
"
readings t: woe 1
.
th ght uncovered. contradicHOOS
f h esc respects Enlightenment ouurrent environmental de bate.
In allot
"th' 'ts If and raised issues that permeate c
Wi In t e
~ 43)
ctlv <>Ivnes"
We should., Foucault (19';",
corre, - b - '
>

"
" If' the form of a -simplistic and
. that rmglu
present me tn
j '
refu-sc- eve ryth mg
. he Enlightenment wu [cmam
.
.
al
a.tive
you
etther
accept
{lse vou criticize the EnI"gh
auth ontartan tern
..
.
.
.
. t tW"th ill traditionOfltSfatlOnaitsm ... ,ore , . . (-k"ch
he
WI ill e
.
. . les of rauonahtv 'NUl may
ment and then try to escape fToF-lltsdPnnctPb _~l~ free of
blackr.1a.il by
re:;u..
-j
d
d r bad) Anti we hi!0 notkiog
Y...eIl ,,' as goo 0 ,
to detennine what goou a.n
. Jial ctical" nu:mces w e see .
d
intro ucmg
e
he ; 'oJ Enlightenment.
bad dements there may have en .n 1;:; e

this

Th

h"

"

"cd d o=phical concenwbly never been a historical perl an ge,,-- that -hielt

~re as pro
. 've la of the human Imaginary as.
w
tratlon of such free discurst P Y
" of the discurslve adven"
h
t roduced.. To be sure, many
th
the En119 tenmen
"al--econo-'c
practices hut at
"
IP'
. ing poI"lhe
H.u
rures bore little re alion [0 exlS(.
, lObe
The science of nature as
. . hI as it was ae 1 rate.
be

,vas

disjuncture
as meyna e
,
h. t existed. but what stood to
of society wa." meant to reveal no~,ust W cr:r to imitate but to acquire the
created. If thought
exploration of po&.able worlds
power and. task of shapmg II e 1 . ,'.. became a mandatorY aspect of "vhar
and of the limits to human pOSSl~ht~cs
A.nd there is no d.oubt that aU of
all discour.<;es were supposed, to I a oU~'r in the htmulmous politics that
this discursive ferment bad its IO e to P, }.
led into the American and Fren~ ;v~.lUoon~. d respect that EnlightenBut it was in another not enure
lS~O~~ for irs discursive exercises.
ment thought began to findam~re.maten l'~ted their hold, that aspect
,
I'
and monetlzauon conso t
r
As marKet re atlOns.
d th l"b ral theory to accoropan)
of Enlightenment thought that ,:eate...L . e t e litical power and instituh"~~e began to make Inroaw; mto po
market exCll.d.l_-'-f.,
r .cal nomy inspired above all bv,
tional forms. Eighteenth--<:entury po ttt
ceo
,

wa~ Sl1~r.'::;f::-~~n~e

131

Locke) was constantly seeking a rapprochement between state policies and

politics (pankularly with respect to the currency and foreign trade), the
production of wealth, and the proper valuation of whatever political
economists of the period understood as the primary sources of aIi wealth
- bullion, labor, and the land being the prime candidates-. But this meant
that the domination of nature, as wen as the domination of human nature
(particularly in the figure of the laborer) became subsumed within the logic
of the market. The genius of eighteenth-century political economy was this:
that it mobilized the human imaginary of emancipation. progress, and selfrealization into fonns of discourse that could alter the application of
political power and the construction of institutions in ways thaI were
consistent with the growing prevalence of the material practices of market
exchange. It did so, furthermore, while masking social relariocs and the
domination of the laborer that was to follow, white subsuming the cosmic
question of the relation to nature inm a technical discourse concerning the
proper allocation of scarce resources (including those in nature) for the
benefit of human welfare.

III" Political Economy; Environment, and Saa:ard's Dream

The practice and theory of capitaliscic political economy with respect to the
environment has consequently become hegemonic in recent world history.
Within that history, it has been capital circulation that has made the
environment what it is. The complex dialectic in which, as Marx has it, we
make ourselves by transforming the world, gets radically simplified into a rather
simple one-track affair, even aJlav.-ing for the ways in which esrheric judgments,
romantic reactions, nature tourism, vegetarianism, antmal rights movements~
and monetized protections of nature through wilderness and habitat
preservation surround the crass commercialism of our use of nature and so give
it a veneer of accountability and respectability. The prevailing practices dictate
pro:fir--driven transformation of environmental conditions and an approach to
nature which treats of it as a passive set of assets- to be scientifically assessed,
used and valued. in commercial (money) terms.
It is not fashionable these days, of course, to evoke directly a trinmphaHst
attitude to nature. But I think it important to understand that this is what both
the tht:ory and practice of capitalistic political economy entails. This is what
daily practice is aJl about. whether we care to acknowledge it or not, whenever
circulation of capital is let loose upon the land. It has also been the focus
nt, "nn"n visions. In the 1830s the Saint-Simonians announcecl~ for example.
of exploitation of rr~ by man by virtue of the associated capitals of
world undertaking the rational exploitation of the globe:
exploitation
nature becomes henceforth me sole end of man's physical activity"

me

The Domination
132

The NatUre ofEnvironment

'

,
dical simplification of the dialectIC
(cited in Leiss, 1974: 82). fhe conseqtblentr~L:
ur world does not, as is
h' h
make ourselves y marung 0
.'
"
ma

throUO"gh w Ie ''Ie

roach to nature to an ulnmag

sometime;; thou~~~~d~ce mh,e ~Po!ltad!calstaculPPation drives out worldly passions.

,
blood!ess allaJ.1 , m W len
C
.
uve or
th"
' dy the power of montY" to gtve
.den
ts at 1t IS prcas
Indeed, the ev1
ce sugges
.
th t . yeS such extraordinary power to
vent to all manner of human pasSiOns a gl .L Simmel (1978: 251) notes,
'ai' .
oach to and over nature. .ru>
chi
the caplt lstlC appr.
f h- circle in which our antagonistic psy c
"money enlarges the diameter 0 t '- th d ee that money dissolves "into
drives flourish," and it often does. ~h e
Zolis nineteenth--century
pure desire fur it." Here, for examp e, IS, ow I b ',w h' Universal Bank to
, L'
d U YIP'll sees the ISsue as lC ill
15
anti-hero In 111S nov
~.~J'
f o ' on of the Levant:
finance innumerable proJects for the tranS rroall

s:.ard

iO

" .'
'"
will behold a complete resurrection Ov-er -all
"'Look here; cned Saccard... Ydeu ed
"'Which our railways w-Jl traverse
d
la t d plains muse scrt passes,
. r
those epopu. e
'ed,
cIs d canals built. new cities win spnng rrom
_ Yes! fields \ytll be clear. rna an ,;
when we stimulate the system
the soil, life will return asltreturt:s to a:s:b~Y, y 1 !i'onev wiU work these
by injecting new blood into exhauste' velns. es. ,
miracles. "," (Zola, 1991)
, I'
f
ev is assimilated to
here is instructive. The CIrCU atlOil 0 mOD .
.
.
f
d th b' 1 'cal metaphors of the Cl[Culanon 0
the circulation of the blood an
e 10 ogJ
k
strongly that it seems less
' I

ZoIas anguage

ofNature and in Discontents

133

She became angry, and asked if it was allowable that men shou.:d thus spoil the
work of na(Ure, a land so blest, of such exquisire bea.u~. where all climates were
to be found - the glowing plains, the temperate mountain-sides, t.~e perpetual
snows of lofty peaks. }..nd her love o-f life. her ever-buoyant hopefulness, filled
her wiili enthusiasm at [he idea of me all-po\\'erful magic wand with which
science ana speculation could strike this old sleeping soil and suddenly reawaken
it. ... And it was just this that she saw rising again - the forward. irresistible
march, the socia! impulse wW'2l'ds the greatest possibie sum of happiness, the
need of action, of going ahead. without k',D-wing exaccly whither ... and amid
it all there was the globe turned uIW'ide down by the ant-sw"rm rebuilding its
abode, its work never ending. fresh sources of enjoyment ever being discovered,

man's power increasing ten-rold, L.'J.e earth belonging to him more and more
every day. ~1oney, aiding science, yielded progress,

That formula - "money, aiding science. yielding progress - has ever been at
me center of capitalist culture and its Promethean historical geography of
environmental transformations. And Zota was not inventing: he based his
whole novel on the activities of the Pereire brothers, finance capitalists extraordinaire, who schooled in the principles of Saint-Simonian thought conllerted that Utopian vision into a practical politics of financial monopolization,
speculation, and construction that dominated Second Empire France until
their bankruprey in 1867 engineered by the opposition of Rothschild (the
model for the "'bloodless jew'" Gundermann in Zola's novel),

the blood and sexual desire are then put to wor so

. . .
'. of a deep rontlIlU!ty,
and less to be metaphor th an expressl\ e

IV: The Frankfurt School Critique of Domination

bUn is th... central mechanism, the

You m\.:St understand that speculauDn,
g'd bl-oed, t-I_-s it from evf:'f'j
y es it aura s
.
afl1' lik
;uv.:
heart itself, uf a vasr au e o~
b ck in rivers. in all directions. and
source in little streamlets, conects.H. sen It ~ whi-h is the verv life of great
.

gao:
is

establishes an enormoUS circulanon of monl!) ,

'-

enterprises.
.
rr [we have to live; it is the eternal
Speculation -why, it is th~ one 1Uducemen~~out s eculacion, my dear friend,
desire that compels us t? live a~d str~~e. It is the ~ame as in IDve, In love as
there would be no b~css ot an~. n " "~so
le think only of .:heir own
in speculation there 1S much filth, ill ':~ he '~Pand the world vrould come
gratification; yet without love there wo
no,
to an

end.

.
II
d him Even Mme Caroline.
Sacca.rd's vlsi0.o' ru& love ofll~e, sed~:,s;ill~:C prac~ical agent ofSaccard's
the cautious S1ster of ~e ::ngmeer" be . ed bv them). is seduced by both
schemes (and ho. ~lll m the end. tu1fi
Levant ~'ell, is struck by thethe
Saccard and hIS VIS10n. ,She, who knows f th land in relation to human
desolate and unharmoruous present state 0
e

:v

potentialities:

-:\Vhile there were plenty of currents of thought (romanticism, organicism.

:Darwinian biology, Nierzsd.,jan philosophy, to name a few) opposed to the
~core

ideas of

me Enlightenment we owe the frontal assault upon the ideology

of domination of nature to the lYfarxists of the Frankfurt SchooL The distinctive train of thought has subsequently been kept very much alive (though in

.-il transfonned state) by some feminists, particularly of an eco-fuminis( persua--sion as well as by a variety of thinkers in the ecological movement, And even
~though many now hold that the Frankfurt: School's analysis failed, it opened
,,"'" '. '"', ' ~ up a proliferating trail of thought that has been both persistent and influential.
The story of the Frankfnrt School has been thoroughly told and evaluated
,ebewtlere (Jay, 1973; Leiss, 1974, Eckersley, 1992), It sought ro replace the
}'wxjsHml~h'-'i's on class struggle as the motor ofhi'\mry with \\.ftat it saw as
far larger conflict "'between man and nature both without and within." This
viev.ed a.~ "'a conflict whose origins went back to before capitali:;m and
continuation, indeed, intensification, appeared likely after capitalism
end" (Jay, 1973: 256), The Enlighrenment was considered a key
if'c,m.,m in the history of that conflict. a moment of reformulation of beliefs,

The DomindtWn o1'p"rature and 1~~

.- DllContentt 135

The Nar.,tre of Environment

practices, and discourses in which the idea of domination and mastery of nature
became paramount. In The Dialectics of the Enlightenment Horkheimer and.

134

Adorno undertook a dialectical analysis of the consequences of the shifting

terms -of the struggle between "man and nature." Sharing as they did the
Enlightenment objectives of emancipation and self-realization. the question
they clearly posed was this: how is it that those objecuves have been frustrated
("negated" was theit preferred term) by the very philosophical and politicaleconomic shifts and practices designed to realize them? Given the rise of fascism
and. totalitarianism this was a pcess1ng policical proMem rather than an abstra<.:t
concern. The continuing elaboration and proliferation of weapons and deHvery
systems of m~ d.estrUction keeps that concern very much alive. Horkheimer
and Adorno chose not to see lmch negative politics as an aberration or betrayal
of Enlightenment principles but as a distinctive product of the contradictions
implicit in Enlightenment thoughts and practices.
n
In formulating their argument they appealed to a particular verslo of me
theoo- of internal rclations. DescarteS had construed nature as the other" and
in so doing reifiexi nature as a thing - a purely exrernal other - entirely separate
from the wOIld of thought. While Descartes himself still dung strongly to
religious meanings, the effect was to make it seem as if nature had no meaning
in itself. Deprived of any autonomous life force, nature was open to be manipulated without restraint according to the human win. Nature became, as
Heidegger la[er complained, one vast gasoline station'" for human exploitation. What this analysis elided, according to the Frankfurt School, was
dialectiCS of internal relations in which nature was both "something external
to man but also an internal reality'" (Jay, 1973: 267). Domination of the
"-xterna! "other" could and would become internalized, Horkheimer (1947: 94)
argued, creating a a dialectical reversal of the principle of domination by which
man makes himself a tool of tbat same nature which he subjugates." Mastery
ovcr external nature required and produced an oppressive mastery oyer intcmal

me

nature. ,\XlQrsc stilt:

Mastery oyer nature inevitably turns into mastery over men. A vicious circle
results, impri_~oning l>Cien and technology in a firteful dialectic of increasing
mastery and increasing conflin. The attractive promises of mastery over nature
_ social peace and material ahundance fOr all - rem-ain unfulfiUed. The real
danger that the
frustration may be lumert against the instruments of

re~llliting

mastery themselves (science and technology) must not be underestimated. h

integral factors in the ascending spiral of domination over internal and aternal
nature, mey ar~ bound w an irrational dynamic which may destroy the fruits
of their own civilizing rationality. (Leiss, 1974: 194)

What Horkheimer and. Adorno called "'the revolt of nature'" (the return of the
repressed and a rebelliousness manifest as 'violent outbreaks of persistently

repressed mstinctual demands")

.
The effect mav be "to fetter th wthas not nfrccessanlya positive fOrce for change.
_ th.'
fa er
an to ee natur- n th L __ .'

S}D eSls of reason and nature"

. . '-> Wi laM;ISm - a satanic
272).
- seen as one dlSunccive outcome (Jay~ 1973:

The_purpose. of mastery over nature IS

. the security lifo
d.
_ alike for mdividuals and th
. B
-0
e ~ an Its enhancement
.
e speCies. ut the mean
tl
purswng chese obJectives encompass such potenrial destrus presen y available for
eropIoyment in the
fo r exIStence
.
caveness rhat their full
f'
Uffi'
would leave in . all the
so ar gamed at (he price of so much .. I X
...:_ rums
sw.ermg. n'~"
1974: 163-4) advantage

stT'.~~le

It b not my purpose here to undertake

.
of the Frankfurt School'
hany d eep elaboratton,
critique ot defense
'"
s ac Ievements Bur I d h' nk' .
from meir critique of the do . ' f
0 t I
it Important to distill
.
mll1atlon 0 nature Ii
k
.
envlronmenta.1-ecological politics:
ome ey questions. for
1. The role of scientific enquiry as a lib
f,Horkheimer and Adorno did
ab derato~ oree)s called into question.
not an on SCIence (though th did
a reasonably compelling way to unucrstan
J.
d w)'
h s
provide
' ey
th
movement _ particularly th
..
0 many m
e ecological
e nature romantiCIsts d) Th
k'

to r fu
.
.
- o.
ey too it a,,> the
k ey task of critical enq";~
-.J
e rm SCIence ltsel to tTv d
sense of humanity and pn~
d'
,
L.; an recapture some
~rr"
_r osean tomternahzewidll
.
.
CHon at a n:::--enchannnenr" - h th
n SCience Itself some
_
Wit
e world (sometim de - d
oommg alienation from nat '")
,
es plcte as overembedded in that creation of ::Ue: ~ppos;J; to t~e "disenchantment"
They fought a........ ;... st p .. _
d other In Enlightenment though'
5d..L1~ OSlUVlsm an th
. 'fi
"construed in Newtonian/CanCSlan
._ terms be utSCient!
a't. ..
usually
held c method
th
e construction of an a!.te
.
_
open e posslbJluy for
th
1 Th"
rnaUve Selence.
~.
IS questIon was ti -lId COllPJ d
. considerations of rationaHtv/
irrarionalitv.
The F~Y Sch e With
.'
rt
00 l challencred th h
-'
mental ratlOnalitv' and souglIt in
. .Its. p Iace an alt
b
e. egemony
. nali of mstrue power to (Jive a deep<
_.
emaUVe rano .tythat had
th
0-'
r sense ot meamng to life
.u:-d open .~alogjcll relation between human : to recuperate a sensuous
without giving in to what h
beIngs and external nature
-'
teysawasthebfdfu
f
rcIigtous Ideo)oJV, nature idol
d
IceS 0 romantic fury~
.11
or
awry an saCanIC myth H
Stl , of course a vrcrv o p e '
. ow to do that is
' .-,
nquestton
this
. to pay \'" cl
3_ To do.
' the f'faIlkfuJ.-t Schuol cho::.e
.
esthetlC tradition. But what kind of esth . - ery .osc
to the
asked Adorno~ That qu t. al
etlC was po.ssible alter Auschwitz
.
eSloills'sopt
tl
'
nuanced as it is problematic It all
u tno l~ te;t and the
answer is as
0...
'
15
verywe tolib
thel c f
to lU~"1er the return of all tl thad b
crate
lIe 0 the senses
and Enlightenment !elSo: B
heen ~~Pthressed by instrumental rarionality
utw atl~ eresult - . ;:.
was a dynamic but thoruugh/y b al
ul
was asCJSffi. What if it
an mass c ture of consumerism in which

:n

a~tent1on

136

The Nature

The Domination oflVature and its Discontents

(JI Environment

.
~
was ut u for :,.ale? What kind of esthetic
every tet~sh1Sm under the s;:;
Jer Auschwitz? Adorno's response
a:~ punsm on the esth.etic front. ~urity
was posSible after ~etl~ Fo
was to construct a legen ary
. _
tion and corrupt~on. But dllS was
in art ",'as the only guarantee agamb~t ~o~l esture that 10 any case brought
,
a noble "'ut run e 0all too easy to cons:r~~ as ~
e clo;e to traditional bourgeois taste
the esthetic apprectano n at nature -: ry
C
'
ak Adorno it lS
.n ..d the 1dea of art lor art sse.
,
and in some ways tel orce
.
.
f the Leibnizian conceit
-thdrew
in'"o hIS own verslOllO
cal
t
u
tempting [Q arg :,
ch
~d distressing circumstances of the pohti .
in the filee Of.L~C hno;sy daoho
1 But even if dle esthenc gesture of the
wh,ch e .oun unse
doth
worId In - ,
ed merle analyst is foun wanting. e
st
Fran~rtb Sch~edls mf'hatr~~~:f e:etic and in whose name IS a persistent
quesnon roach 0 W
,
.d
\ . ~alI nvironmental arguments.
.
refraln Wi un ceo O~'- e td be
red without at some point tllrnmg
4. None of these q~es([odnthsco~
~=an repressions, desires. and needs.
hoanalysis an
e Issue 0
ed F ankfu rt
to p s y c .
M arx_ and Freud v.'3.S con,oin 111 r
The confrontatton bety..."een 'th
.' b t more often with confusing
i al' ometlIDt:S WI poS1tlve U
Sch00 an YSlS. 5
.
kfurt School hroached a terrain of discussl~n
result:>, But here, too, tile Fran b th
th sense of understanding how, tor
that simply will not go away, o. til e
allongings and macho desires
example, sexual drives and repressIOns, mate!~ . nature") become built
we construe a"- uman
sed .
(everythi ng, in short'that
. elation to nature (mduding that expres
ill
Into ar~ents for a certam~ dly who is this <'self' that 1S struggling (Q
Saccards Vlswn). Put more ro~,
bl
ggles that result can be
be realized and which of the mnumera e ~Ull
_ j

t rv and in what wavf

"
understoou as emanc1pa 0 , .
.' betw"een man a..nd nature
5. While they called into que.~uon th~;ep~at1o~eal to a dialectics of internal
es
and sought to reimegratc t e twj0 "rth Vila a.p stanciated rather than undero t h Frankfurt Schoo neve e ess m i .
relanons, C
.'
'"
I
" In ecolnuical eire es it is a
d h . I bina..'-y diVISion man nature.
~bmine t e. ~;tmp e . . .
f them that thev never rose above the anthropostaooa.rd.line of cntlClSffi o.
d
not therefore move towards a
morphism of that separauo~ ant COEU k t
1992' chapter 5). They
. 1
. vie.'rn
lint see c ers-,-ey,'
th
genume y e-eocentnc
'r ~
I.:
him But this is a ra er
'D
t in the very act 01 cnttclzmg
.
rep Iicatect escar es
~an ecolo' cal thinkers presently recogn17.e.
more general problem than .
Y
.gI
of the Frankfun: School in
While the dialectical form~lsm (Begdf'haI.llsm. al materialist analysis, u'Ius
thof Its powers 0 lstortC
..
the en d got in e way
. 0d f
10 0
f the philosoph" ot
. hr' f
talU km 0 app tcaUon 0
". .
illustranng t e linlts 0 a c~
fh
d
der what circumstances tt 11>
internal relations, the qu~uon 0 ow an u~" as 0 osed to submerging
valid to resort to such a bmary form of analysbed nfPP d For while it is
.
.' ~
p) has to
co ronte .
evervthing m some ecocentn'- sou
".
_has
fixed boundary
n?
in
, uch the case that the "man-nature dichotomy
vetyro
,(1990 199\) again and agam argues, be og
and that it IS, as Ha!."awa}
'.
'-' d chnology a5 well as tn
all
ti me in modem SCIence an te
transgresse d

eh

el:is:

w.

137

our daily practices, we end up in our discourses speaking to and trying to

persuade only that part of the ecological world to which we distinctively
belong. And this is true for even the most wildly ecocentric analyst.
6. The internal relation between the domination of nature as "'other and the
domination of others" opened. up by the Frankfurt School is a continuing
concern. This is a theme that has been extremely important within feminist
politics since the mid-1960s. The thesis that the domination of nature
(usually construed as a woman) is inherently connected t:O the domination
of women has been converted by ecofeminists [such as Shiva (1989)J into
a politics that rests upon the idea that nurturing the environment depends
upon rescuing the feminine principle as paramount in human affairs. Only
in that way. the argU1T'..ent goes.. could the rapaciousness of,. say. Saccard's
sexual drive to dominate and possess the world be counteracted. The depicLioll of nature as feminine, however, did not only license an oppressive male
politiCS of domination and oppression. It also connected, as Soper (1995)
observes, to a rather more complicated set of masculine emotions varying
from that of desire for outright possession (rape) through patriarchal
benevolence and Qedi pal guilt to longing to return to the womb-like
comfort of a nurturing mother earth. So while, in the highly gendered and
oppressive metaphorics of Francis Bacon, abundant evidence could be culled
for the linkage between domination of nature and domination of women,
and while, in the colonial literature (particularly of geographic discovery)
abundant support can be fOund fOr the domination of natute being
rendered equivalent to the domination of"'nacives" (usnally depicted a.... very
"natural" beings), the straight equation of such attitudes to all forms of
masculine desire is suspect. Nevertheless, a cogent argument supporred by
abundant evidence can be constructed that connects a. certain kind of
masculinity with certain forms of scientific enquiry and technological
practices of domination, masrcry and control hath of external and internal
~nature."

ld

me

,
~.

But trus connection between the domination of nantre and the domination
of others has a further dimension. "~a.ture-transforming'" projects of any sort
have distributional consequences and the patent inequity of many of thr::~e has
been the source of powerful conflicts. These are now the focus of struggle in
the environmental justice movement and within a polyglot group of movemenb
kno'\\'ll as "the environmentalism of the pool' (see clw.pter 13). This was not
a theme that tT..Le Frankfurt School explicitly explored, bur it is always latent in
their critical analysis. And some of these conflicts take a curious turn. There is
little ambiguity \linen, say, ma..'<Sive ecological -destruction is visited on an impoverished population - such as that of Bhopal - through the breakdown of
a modern indlLmiai technology that has all the hallmarks of
domination
of nature imprinted on it. But when the World Wildlife Fund presses to create

me

The Dominatitm oflVature and its Discontents

138

The Nature of Environment

_
el

countrY and insists on the eviction of

opmg
a nanrre reserve l~ a dev h
l
. dige
pul~tlons w h 0
ave ong

used that habitat as melr resource base,d

l.

n.Dus po "World WJldlife Fund has acquired. just as sever.c an

then nus suggests tha.t the
.
f
. all of .,..... senses as anyone ill the
. . La! fth d . allan 0 nature In
~'"
'.
dracoman lut: 0 '" e oroll
.
e Enlightenment ever did.. Is It ever
er
World Bank or, tor that ma:r: , m th.
f th dominion/domination/
.
th
. I to avOld some verSIon 0
e
pOSSIble, en, ent1re y
"bl c th t not to convert into some
.
d if
. it ever POSSl e lor a
.
conrrol theslS an} not, 1S . '
l'
thers;' That question IS
.
f the dominionldommanonfcontro mer 0

lfl

II

versIon 0

1 .

never far from the heart of all ecoLOgl~

at

lit' cs

1fleet in certain respects the

The failings of the Frankfurt Scedhool sWhapPilro~t 'peens up a terrain of investi.
fth
.
open up.
0
fecunchry
0
e questIOnS
.,.
b. eh I omesizing
-instinctual urges"

po

gation into "'repressed nature It does ~ ! YP

hard to find independent
{a thoroughl~ essentialist idea) t;.r J~tch ~~: which are being sub;ecred
evidence Qutslde of the very tee ~ ogtes h
~: _1 for rebdlion against the
. .. Whil' dra s attennon to t e potenuat
to cntlClsm.
e It
V:. f ' (and of human narun:) .mdudmg
instrumentalities of domm~tlon 0 d nature
t of mass culture, against the
the techniques of conswnerJdsm anI ' m~oferntheen life world by a homogenizing
bal'zaflon an co omzatl.on
Ittl
processes 0 fgl0
1
ke
modification it provides verv 1 e
.
tal ality and mar t com
'
..
d
msuumen ratlOn
.
~;,...ht channel into productlvc an
vision as to how such rebelhousness h'-'-5'-:i.

'bli
.'
osed to self-destrucnve m 1 sm.
cm.ancipatory dlrecnoIDi as opp
ifi Ii
f "ccu1ty that: are of particular
.
all
f
tho
th are two spec Ie neS 0 rum
But m o b . ere , Th first concerns the I"Imt...,
' .. ", and power 0 f a
import for my own enqurry.
e
' d ees the Frankfurt Schoo}
philosophy of. internal r:lationghs't :dV::~o'Se;OIk was particu.hr~y strong
to thiS mode ot t h o u , .
b
seen was a particularly
appealed
.
h' N
. DialecUC5, as we a v e ,
,
in thiS regard - IS egattve
f.
al 1-,,ons as a revelatory device.
.
f the power 0 Intern re ~
1
trenchant exp oration 0
at .' ' .ch "'everything relates to
But Whitehead's critique of a mode.of ~ YSIS m :Uriate Indeed, Haberma5'
crhing dse" so as to Ie-ad to nothing is here app. p . . h
ld. In
eveIJ
"
a1 . leads nowhere" 15 cast rn r e same rno
judgment that negauve di. eenC'S.
li rion of a dialectics of internal
dttct, the clanger always mherent III ap.p ca
ryth' cis mat there is no
,
. 1 th
rything so mlfrors eve
109 e
relations 1$ preCise y at eve
fl'
rha<- permits an exit from
L
_.1: a1 h
e no moment 0 everage
~
, .
room lUr ralllC c aug ,
1
~ beliefs discourses, instltuUons,
rocesses of domination that total y occupy.
P
,al
.
and SOCIal re ations.
power structures, matert pra:ces, hl
f
ney Having laid aside th~
Secondly, there is the telat
p~o em 0 a.geh' . th Frankfurt School
_L
tl
nt f oontemporanr IStory,
e
f
working cta.% as le age~~ ~
. 1
' f ~ction To be sure, several ()
had difficulty in finding an tema~ve o~
u~ his faith in yoUthful
them found some sort of alternanve - _ar
p. I
ents dedicated
d
H
b~ mas 10 new SOCIa movem
rebellion (powered by Eros) an,
a er
. t'~,.. action. But for the most
.
fan eUllCS 0 f comrnUIDca Iv..
- gfill

139

and trapped in the mechanics of domination of nature, self. and others. Here,
too, a more open conception of internal relations across: diverse moments
of the social process (as olltlined in chapter 4) could have helped open up
the dialectical form of analysis into a more historical and Jess purely logical
mode.
It was for these two fundamental.reasons that the reputation of "pessimism"
became firmly attached to the work of the Frankfurt School. But there were
far more powerful and persuasive arguments for pessimism availahle v;.rithin the
main currents of western thought and these did not in anyway require coming
to terms with Marxism, dialectics, or internal relations. for if ever there was
a cause fur pessimism as regards our rdation to nature, .it surely lay with Parson
Malthus and his docuines,

1:

:u:e

~O::l~:O~~= ~choo'
agency 0 f

c;:ye:~rupt0:e~e:~;ted,

cou)d notalridendtilY' any

ea y rhoroug

al change that ,vas. not

SOCl

V. Eroscarcity and Natural Limits: The Malthusian Tradition

Initially formulated at (he end of the eighteenth century as a straight antidote

Enlightenment optimism, the !vfalcllUsian and neo~Malthusian arguments
concerning ecoscarcity and natural limits have operated as: a perpetual jeremiad
refrain v>1.thin the dominant progressive humanism of the western pro-<:apitalist
tradition. Passion between the sexes (a sdf-rc:alizarion argument) produced
population growth beyond the natural capacities of the eartlis larder and
emancipation hom poverty, waf, and disease was necessarily frustrated as a
result. The drive for self-realization automatically thwarted any hopes for
emancipation from material "rant. But the ecoscarcity argument has, as
Glacken (1967) also shows, a long pre-history, that includes a whole series of
eighteenth-century thinkers, confronted as they all were with the obvious facts
of periodic famines and deadly epidemics. And while most hoped that the
domination of nature might cure such ills~ there were man}' who recognized
that this had to be in dear acknowledgement of what the limits in nature were..
The perpctual return of that argument, and its periodic ascendency, now even
within some currents ofMarxisffi, testifies to the grumbling persistency of the
problem of ecoscarcity.
Benton (1989: 55) argues that "the basic ideas ofhistOIical materialism can
without distortion be regardcd as a proposal for an ecological approach to the
understanding ofhllman nature and history. The difficulty, he asserts, is that
there is a hiatus, "internal to" the mature writings of Man: between this general
commitment and !\tiarx's political-economic conception of the labor process.
I want to propose that a more dialectical reading of Marx, in which the labor
proce5S is seen a~ "a form~g1ving fire" perpetually modifying other processerwhile
_--passing through and ghring rise to distinctive" things." diminates much of that
:hiatus. Not only does it then become possible to explore the commonalities
conflicts between lYfarx's project and some sectors of contemporary
to

140

The Nature of];"nvironment

ecological thinking, but it alw allows us to begin '.:0 construct more adequate
languages: with which to reflect: upon <::he nature of socio-ecological activities
and projects.
The danger here is of accepting. often without knowing it, concepts that:
preclude radical critique. One of the most pervasive and difiicult to surmount
barriers, as I shaH show in later chapte;s, is that wl--.cich imists on separating
out "nature" and "society" as ~oru:[ent e:atities. Wnat is surprising here, is that
even the deepest and the most biocentric of ecoiogis(S at some level accepts
this distinction (or WOr-3e still directly appeals to it by depicting society. for
example, as a Hcancer" let loose upon the planet), By insisting upon a prior
dissolution of the problem inm freely flowing socia-ecological processes, I do
not mean to imply that the particular kind of "permanence" we call "society"
has no meaning discursively or pra<..""ticaliy or that situations do not arise in
which it makes sense to isolate that particu~ar permanence for analysis. But I
do want to insist that radical critique keep open precisely the way in which
this entity (if such it is) gets constituted out of socia-ecological processes.
10 press home this point, I shall examine the role played by ideas of "natural
Jimits" and "'ccoscarcity" (and its cognate term of "overpopu1arion} in contemporary debate. In ecological thinking the issue of natur-allimits is often in the
forefront of discussion. Lee (1989), fOr example, creates a narrative in which
it seems that the rules of human behavior should be derived from the second
law of thermodynamics and (ni; inherent sustaining power of ecosysrems_
J\nydling that violates these two principles is unsustainable -and thereby
doomed to produce ecocarastrophe, We must, therefore, learn to live within
the limits of these twO natural iaws. The difficulty here, of course, is that neithcr
principle is helpful at all in explaining the shifting hiStory of human social
organizarion. or even the genesis of life itself. It is one thing to argue that the
second law of thermodynamics and the laws of ecologic.J dynamics are
necessary conditions within which al~ human societies have their being, but
quite another to treat them as sufficient conditions for die understanding of
human history, To propose the latter would iffipty that the whole of human
historY is an exercise in unsustainability in violation of natural law. This is so
granl an assertion as to be pointle:)S. .
Benton (1989,1992) has insisted that even Marxists, who have tradition~
ally been hostile to the idea, should clearly recognize the "'natural limits" to
human potentialities while Perelman (1993), even more bravdy, asserts that a
dose study of fvfarx's writings shows that he was much more of a Malthusian
t
than he cared to admit. This is a sufficiendy serious argument to v.6.fran a

rerurn to Its origins in the work of Malthus himself.

It is sometimes forgotten that 1vIalthus wrote rus first Essay on the Principle
ofPopuiation in 1798 as a political tract against the Utopia.n sociaEst anarchism
of Godv.in and Condorcet and as an antidote to the hopes of social progress
embodied in Enlightenment thought as well as in the French revolu-;:~on, In

The Domind.tion ofNoture and its Discontents

. .

141

LVS down pnnclples of

ill
.
h- h
govern discourse' concernin
.enqrury W Ie ought. he
perfectibility of man:
g such an tmportant subject a;;o the

hIS mtroducrion .Malthus

argues.

to

A writer may tell me that he thinks a man will ulci

el b
'
GUUlot pmper:vcontradict
1.'
B LC. h
mat y ceomeanoscnch.I
}
nlm. ut L.X:lUre e can t"YTl
b.
,
person over to his opinion. he ought to show tha~-:;ct to nll~ any r~ollable
been gradually elonf!ating th th '0
h
e necks o~ mankind have
,
~,
at
e.lps avep'rO\\
hd
d
promment,
that
the
legs
and
feet
daly
.
L
hO:
ex an th more
b . ,
are 1 a.llenngt elrshm p ar drh
h
1S egmnmg to chan;ge into t b
c thers.. And rill
. th
a e, an b bOlO
at e alr
5 U S 0f lea
wonderful a conversion can be h
..
e p,o a Ilty of so
to expatiate on the h '
s OW~ It is surely lost time and lost elo'quence
appmcss of man In such a state' to describe hl
b th
.
o runrung and fl .
'h"
.
s power, 0
f
a
would be con~~ r'~hpamth 1m lulfid bcondirion where all na~w luxuries
,
ere ewo
eempl ed nl
II
necessaries of life, and where, .conse uenclv each Y , 0 Y m co cecing the
0

be lighc. and h'

IS

'I .

portion or eJSure ample.

.>

man s share of lahour would

Malthus engages in two tactics here. 0 ne .1S to .msist that all d.

ffu
possi Ie social orders be sub' ted
th rules ot_sceptical
. lSCUSSlon
ture
)ee
to e
. 'cal0
.
mto exiSting reality Th
d
fl
empui
enqUIry
di .d
- e secon 15 to oar easily across the social b' 1 .cal
e so
to use me latter as a means to confound the f
10t hOg/i'
e .Jtton
ot the ES.M:',,'
is strong!Y co1ore d by deduetlan
. fro orrner.. et
,
~.:t
. ,erst
pnnclples: namely that food i
. th.
a pnon unwersal
passion between'the sexes is Ii necessary to d e eXistence ot man and that the
ne<:e5sarv an constant. He I
th
postulatcs in the context of a . rld f
paces ese two
"natural law" in which po
rm\:e resources ~nd ~educes the famous
on the means of Subs'lstenP (
gh
.(ageometnc senes) places pressure
ce an ant mette exp
. ).
. bi
poverty, disea.'ie, famine, war and a general t nd anslOn
y producing
In subsequent editions of'th Es
"ateth mcy towar
overpopulation."
0
, ,
c
say IVi
us sought t
ch
emp~n~al substance and scientific respectability to his d d ~lye mu more
fumlshmg as much empirical i mormauon
C

by
as h e coulde uctlve arguments
H at
O
.on to elaborate somewhat on th
.
muster, e so went
example) through which popula;' pre:~tIve ~heck~ (delay of marriage, for
~u.:,bsistence, without resort t 0 the10~
ItS cpt m b~cc with the means of
VI0 ence of famIne d'
d
su sequent evolution in MaIth ' 'd
' lsea.~e, an war. The
. b
us 1 eas on the subject is to
11 1m
0

h
. '

d~l.

y~

::s

n:

ut:7on

fi .

ldsne~1ta

ur'derstoroedPe~!~nt~~7: ~ is:;;e ~eO.Malthusiar: ".djustme:t::'i: wh~~7:~

.dJrllOLffioic 001

crea~
whath~s

'
0 ogl
c ange and social adaptation can
anee III what still remains a fundamental r
a
populanon
(society) and the availability of resources ". ace
forgotten, the class character of Malthus'
Bclut.
l1'tttl.cularlv permo
_
f .
\.. , n smce t IS
<kserv= careful
0
his argument is still very much with us iOt
.

con~~::::~o

bet\Ve,~n

~ngu:~:~A

(1970: 82) recognizes that "misety' has to full somewh

that the positive checks: o f f amine,
'
d'lsease, and poverty will
ere necessarily
and maJfl0

'J'he Drnnnation a/Nature and its Discontents

142

The Nature ofEnvironment

Tl' r iserablc condition is the result of -a

be the 1m: of the lower classes. l'eIl m d
dent of all human regulation."
I:.
.. ' ns"'absouteym epen
hi h

natural law w c !JJn~~o

i l deeply seated rbat no human
Their distress is to b~ ,!nterprete;
~~l)~On this basis lvlillthus arrives,
ingenuity can reach tt (~ah:hll'
. darions' rovidingwelfare to the poor
"'reluctantly," at a:}et of pohey recofmtnen
. ' P because freeing the lowest
,
h
retr.l.tC 0 h uman mIsery
merely Increases t e agg bI'
pansion of their numbers, a
r
"ch ks only resu ts in andeI'x ..L_L. incentive to wor~
IT
classes Irom po51t1ve ec
, th
dard ot hvmg a ec me m mc
gradual reduction In ~r s~
1 h ' . n as waged laborers.. Increasand a diminished contnbutlon t? w~ t Cfheauo ot in general be considered
,
I I

art at sO"lety [ at cann

ing subSIstence eve s to a ~ . ' \. - th h
th t would ot..'-Lerwlse belong
~,
bl art dimInishes e s ares a
as the roost va.l.u~ e P
b
and thus forces more to become
to more industnous and worthy menl :
Mahhus draws :l moral:
s
dependent" (M.althus, 1970: 97). From

797a;.
P.

ought LO be
.
in individual instances, depend em poy ertV
~ ,
Hard. as 1t may appear
b ab olu~~hT necessary to promo7.e
~ -.l..

ulus appears to e s
v..4)'
hdd disgraceful . '- UUI. a snm f
ki d. d cry general attempt to weaken

the happiness of the great m:lSS 0 ~n n an t :ention will always defeat its
thi.S'stimulus, however benevolcnth,ts ap:~:~ ~e parish'ia'.v"S of England have
el no doubt_
w atev . . r war
.
['-b
own pu:rp<:lse. ." 1 e
. .
d
10
the real pi'lCe 0 La our.
.
d
. th . ce ot proV15lons an to wer
nl
ronmhute to fruse e pn
.
. r that class of people ,..<hose 0 y
They have therefore contributed to,-lmpoYens ~
_t...-t . L F.T have not powcr~
.
1 . als rufficult to suppose UM W""
0
d
t of frugalilV obscrvable
Possession is their labour. tIS that
carelessness an ,"''all
fully contributed to generate
ill J:
:.
to
be
remarked among petty
trar}' to
e WSPOSlllO n
.
among t he poor, so con
Th lab
. Door to use a .n.l ....ar expreSSIon,
.11 Eumers
e
~ ourmg,
.
.
""-'b.
1
tradesmen an d smarr
.
th Th . ~
t wants pmoloy thelf who e
C
hand LO mou
elr presen
~'-r
seem always to 1we Hom
.
fu
E
when they have an
Id
think of the rure. ven
. . b t ali that is bMTond their preser..l
attention, an d they se om
. f . thpv seldom exerClse It, U
-,
_ g! ,
opportumry (} savmg, -, _1-'
I _L house The poor laws ot En ana
all peal'-mg to me <UC
necesslUes goes, gener Y s. . . 'b h h
er and the will to save among
,C
b .d to dimmish ot r e pow
.
tnaV t hertlore e sal
eak
f the stro~gest incenuves to
the' com:non people, and thus to w en one ?
.
sobriety and bdustry, and consequently to happrile5s.
.I

.
d all too familiar. Substitute welfare for the poor laws,
ThIS -argument soun s
, for carelessness and want 0 f
drugs for the ale-home, teenage prcgnan~I' \'
f mplaints that has
~
.
d
h
fi d written the faml Iar Itany 0 co
trugahty, an we ere n di
.
f lf~e Ofllicies wwards the lower
increasingly dominated the SCUSSlOil 0 we
r~
'..
d h l.; . ed S ate'> these last 20 years.

classes in .Bntam an t e ~l1t bv ~ialthus' approach to the upper classes But rhis must all ~e ? ! er
d landed inrer~"tS whose roles are more
h
gnizes a
rincipally those of tile muustr an
~losely an:a1y ze<iin The Principle! o(Potittca
IcEucmo=J~:~;~p~t~:
society,
,
1 . g for the contmue d at:
fi
dlfficll ~ 1~ accoum:~n
,.
. activi . sells. the product at a pro t,
The capttahst saves, mvests III pr~ucnve
ty'd
ences the cycle of
ploughs back the profit as new mvestment. an comm

143

accumularion once more. But the capitalist: has to sell the product to someone

if a profit is to be had and the capitalist is saving rather than consuming. If

the capitalist saves too much and the rate of capital accumulation increases too

rapidly, then long before subsistence problems are encountered, the capilaliiit

will find expansion checked by the lack of effective demand for the increased
output. Consequendy; "both capital and population may at tht: same time, and
for a period of great length, be redundant, compared to the effective demand
fOr produce" (Malthus, 1968: 402). Malthus' 50lucion to this efreenve de..rnand
problem (a problem that ,"vas to be central to Keynes' refo.rmularion of the
theory of capitalist crises in me 1930s) is to rely upon the proper exercise of
the povifer to consume on the part of those unproductive classes - the landlords.
b-tare functionaries, elc. - who were outside of the production process.. Malthus
took pains to dissociate himself from any direct apologetics for conspicuou.<;
consumption on the part of the landed gentry. All he wanted to do was to pin
down where the effective demand might come from that would keep capital
accumulation stable:
It is unquestionably true that wealth produces wanlS; but it is a still more
important truth that wants produce wealth. Pach Cluse acts and .reaC""cS upon the
orber, but the order, both of precedence and importmce, is with thev.<Ultswhich
stimulate industry, The greatest of all difficulties in converting uru:ivilized and
thinly poopkd counuies ir.ro civilized and populous ones, is to inspire them t-ith
[he wants besr calculared to excite their exertions in the production of wealth.
One of the greatest benefits v"llich foreign oommerce confers, and the reason
why i( has always appeared an al:most necessary ingredient in dIe progr::ss of
wealth, is its tendency to inspire new wants, to form new ra.'ires, and to finnish
fresh motives tor i.ndustry. .Even civilized and improved countries cannot .aff-ord
to lose any of these motives. (Malthus, 1968: 403)

Effective demand, located in the Illlproducrive classes of society a...'1d stimulated by need creation and foreign uade (the contemporary arguments around
GATT and NAFTA are exemplary in this regard) plays a \;tal role in stimulating both the accumulation of capital and the expansion of employment. Labor.
it may then be argued, will he unemployed if the upper classes fail to consume
as much as pmsible or if there are any restrictions on fOreign trade (again, put
in contemporary terms, the United Srates does a favor to the world hy redistributing spending power to the affiuent cl<lSses, consuming to the hiJt, and
, inslsting upon open world trade),
This theory of effu:ctive demand does not sit easily with the theory of population. For one thing it appears illogical (if not downright ohscene) to assert that
th.e power to consume be withheld from the lowest classes in society in the
name of controlling the pressure of population on re.murces, while asserting
yia the theory of effective demand that the upper classes showd consume as

The Domination oflvature and its Discontems 145

144

d
I
II

.J

i.,

The Nature o[Environrfl'llt

. .
.
d
d ca: iulist countries this obsceruty IS
much as possible. Withl~, the a _vanC:nfid~nce" (and the penchant for debt
now r.illlpant as we find. consumer c d ' d
fundamental to
f
' ) f tbe uppet classes eplete as
financing 0 consumptlO,n 0 f
'tal hi! all forms of welfare for the lower
sustaining the accumulanon 0 capr , w e . . . drain on growth,
th
re rflTarded. as a permclOuS
I h d because ey a _ . ~-c.
classes are sase
'dvanced capitalist countries
. all this same opposltlo n arIses as a
__L
InternatlOn y,
about how the latter's popularion grOVl<LiI is putpreadl to the rest of the world
.
h'
er classes on to an orgy
ting pressure on resources ,,-bite urgmg t elf own UP?b'
t "sustainabl:"
.
n"ce"sary contn utlon 0
of conspicuous consumption as a ... 1>
growth...
, anat-..ms) at least aware of the
"-'tbus
was (unlike many contemporary
d
d
l
Nilli
_ b
. clJ'at the upper asses 0 no
contradiction. He sought to n:soive It y ar~:bbu~ r ulare their numbe~s by
increase
numbers
in :eir station in life. Only
prudent habits generated
ghOUl:, thi the immutable ~aw of nature such that they
the lower classes are cau t Wi n
I ' . ' cc disacrprt'9"'ated into one
b d Th I of popu arlon IS III ewect
=-~imprudent!y. tee.
e ~wr law for the rich. But :tv1althus also has to explain
law for the poor and auot e
be
erated by an increasing power to
why an effective demand ~:-o.t ~en Such a possibility is dismi;;;sed as
consume on the part of the a armg
ses. "tal erel . for the sake of the
illogical because "no one will ever emkP~Y ,","!':, (lv~tb:' 1<168: 404), whici,
d.
. d by those who war lUr 111m ~
, ~
f
d emw occastone .'
Ii
'tv arises out of the n-ploitation 0
is anomer way of saymg thar pro t necessan
{7

thei~

accord:far~::::1edine

the working classes.

":tal.
then is it not also possible that
But if production is controlled by capl iStS, d '
I.
to production
h' ch .. the gran stlmu ams
'
"the laws of private property, W I areal< L
I roduce of the earth fall
.
'
a1
ys
ro
m
e
'Cue
actua
p
do themselves so Iim" It as wa,
_
d . " (Matthes 1970: 245).
.J bl h
f he power ot pro uctlOn.
,
,,--ery cons) era y sort 0 r.
.h
ualified '" 'e.',," qUIckly finding a moral
To this question f..1althus replies wit a q
Y
rarionale:

/emina~~P:~~ti:p'p~::~:~~=

It makes no dlfference in the ac,ute T3.te ofincreas

,
.l.
1._
'r whether thestate 0 t U

d
existence 0 f cnectu. to 1 ,
tb L! f,he 1abouring classe.~ be produce
, ffi'
of~westo
ewuoeo
..
of
slOns an illSU CIWCY,,---::>

dan untayourab1e distribution

structure of sOC1e~~~n"
f~- coil The labourer feels
Ptematurely hy a bad
.\: b
tive eXllaUSt!on 0 me",,-, "

wealth, or necessan Y Ya compara d .

t h ve nearly die same reswt, from
me diffiCulty in the same degree an It mus a
whatever cause it arises.

h laborers a favor bv creating artificial

The control of ;ffectlve demand by
scarcity before natural scarctlles It ~~e,.
.
on all sectors of maJlthe propertied interest prev~nts ~e Vlsitatlon ~:;::~ to a portion of sociery
kind the premature exhausnon 0 resources, an d '
" a pLenomenon
,
tb
f th arts an SClences - 11
the leisure necessary for e progress 0
e

So the properry-O\vning d~..~es h ,0 : e

that "confers on society a mmt signal benefit." Thus is the Enlightenment

project reserved for a small elite Y\~ile everynne else is condemned to jive by
narurallaw. This is an appalling instance of that awful habit of denying one
section of our species the right to be considered human.
Classical political economy frequently invoked natural scarcity and diminishing marginal returns as the root cause of crises and persistent poverty.
Ricardo, for example, adopted much of what Malthus had to say about
overpopulation and ecoscarcity, attributing the falling rate of profit under
capitalism to diminishing returns on land (or on all resources) to the point
where the rent on increasingly scarce resources would absorb aU profit. This
prompted.1vfarx to observe that when faced with a crisis all Ricardo could do
was to take refuge in organic chemistry. Marx, of course, would have no truck
witb the ecoscarcity argument. Poverty and lack of well-being as well as tbe
crisis tendencies of capitalism had to he explained through the internal dynamics of the capitalist mode of production rather than by resource scarcities or
by so-calJed "natural laws" of population, \l;'hat Marx comes up with is a
thorough explanation of the production of impoverishment, of unemployment,
of misery and disease among the lower classes as a necessary ou<:come of how
iamez-foire free-market capitalism works, no matter what the rate of population growth. There is a specific rule of overpopulation under capitalism that
relates ro the need to produce an industrial reserve army, a relative surplus
population, for the expansionary dynamics of a capitalist mode of production.
Yet Marx also recognized that resource endowments had a key tole to play
in generating weldth (a concept quite different from value), insisting by resorr
to a highly gendered. metaphor that the earth was its mother and labor irs father
(1967: 50). He also ins::sted that the "metabolism" v.>ith nature was a universal
and perpetual condition of human labor (l %7: 50) and that disruption of that
metabolism for any reason (and he saw capitalism providing abundant causes
for complaint) could. spdl disaster. Furthermore, we could only ever work
""th n~ture through nature's own laws. It is hard to read rhis without inferring
that Marx, at least. had a profound respect for the qualicies of nature and
the relational-dialecrica1 possibilities inherent within it as well as vvithin
.ourselves. Furthermore, his more detailed. di<>cussions on 1vialchus indicate that
he thought there were many situations in which population dynamics might
have either positive or negative rdations to the reproduction of a particular
-mode of production. C.:apitalisffi, he argued, requires a growing population as
a real foundation for capital accumulation (see Harvey, 1982: 161). "Very
'complicated and varying relations" of production to population could be found
. in -different epochs and places. Even the category of overpopulation cocld
iiomenmes make sense:

In different modes of soci21 procuction there are differem laws of the increase
of population and of overpopulation. .. , Thus what may be overpopulation in

146

The Domination ofNtUUre and its Discontents 147

The Nature of Environment

.
d'
, t b so in another, and thill effere;
one stage of sooal pro ucnon may, no c ~ .
' ed
the haW; of a
rna be different .... The amount ot overpop allon po'Ut on
.
Ove.rspe~fic production is thus just as determinate as thhe aJequlua~ pop.u1h"chtio:~pecific

,
ether are t. e pop anon Vi 1
population ami pop ul anon, taKen ~
,

production basis ca.1 creale. (Grurulrisse, pp. 604-5)

- d a n urion

to

his outright

The ~1.arxist tradition sUDsequen Y pal most

e d Ri ardo And it
"
f th
'ty arguments of Malthus all
C
'
reJectlon 0
e ecoscarCl
ed . r . that all forms of me
sometimes went on to draw, the unwarrant un;:~t~onroduct of apologetic
overpopulation or ecoscarClty a~ument are ~
~ P ed that nature could
bourgeois reasoning. Even worse, It was sometimes asswn h
cis and
.
, by
ie and totally transformed to meet uman nee ,
btheadthmeffin'al'~~""iza::n ~f all nature Vlas an unproblematic prali0~ect inkprinciple
t
~ uu..... ~
. diffi u1' ) S
n too over not
(thougb fraught with technical and econOffilC
c ties, t , h' eel b t d
. r' 1 '~e of the "'mastery" of nature but, 1.'1 15 e ra e
only a stmp tsttc anguag , ch an exhibition of hubris towards the natural
support of Lysenko, gavehsu. convinced Marxis[S shuddered. It was only
rId that even some ot erwISe
..
I . 1 d.i
wO
'b
lear that Lake Baikal was turning into an ceo ogtca
saster
w h en It ccame c~
.
be
b ' d concerning the
to parallel Lake Erie that serious que.~I?n:: gan ~o. e raISe
roper ecological perspectives to be bruit mro soclalism.
h
wtI f
P
.
seems to assume t at gro 1 0
, MAs Grund:nann rompIalm, an, at nmt:S,.
h "there
d
. fo ces im lies an increasing power to dommate nature, w en
pro ~ct1V~::tive
which do not lead in that direction "but, rather~ to
y
m,affi
" ~e~ing uncertainty, I'isk, and uncontrollability as wdll "'thto unnece~
ar
,
"Th' do
t imp y
at concern lUr
oppression in rhe production process.
IS. cs no
h'
.
1 d--.l
. .
tible With a Promet ean Vlew. n ccu;
the natural environment IS mcompa
.
01' cal
" tl ropoccntrism and mastery over nature, tar from cau~ng ec thogtl
an l
.
f
h' ch
ddre'S them Never e ess,
blems are the starting-pomts rom w 1 to a s
. Il"bl
pro
,
.
th " .
and technology would create an mte 19t c
Marx's expectatlon at snen,--," ar
I'
and -:ontroMable world as well as the expec::ation tha~ Qi~ly ca~~ IS::~ea~:~:
d' h wa" of a rational regulation ot our meta 0 1sm WI na
'.
stanbe m t e, Y And this implies a challenge to some of dte presumptions
d
to
questtone.
_ .
fhistotical-geographical marerlallsm.
, .
d
o
tha
M" ts have returned to me ecoscaIOty an
It is in this com:ex.t
t som~
~s
f;
fundamental than
natural limirs argument as bemg III .some sense ar more ared co concede.
lv1arx (or more importantly Manosts) have been prep
p lroat
Unfortunately, the manner of that. feturn by Benton (1:89, ~992). e~:a1isri~
(1993), and O'Connor (1988) often aPI:",rs as .sau capItulatIon to cap ort the
ents Not of course, that any ot them would m any wa~ supp .
argum
. ~,
Ith
d ( d I tt rday neo-MalthUSians connnue
class disrinctlullS that l\.1a us use an a e.
f"
rail' .~ and tne
, '
IT
B th universality 0 natu
lID!wto usc) to such VIC10US euect. ut e
h'
meet
deeper appeal to "naturallavl' as inherently limici~g
1':1' ~p.acttyo:dirion
,
' Iy trea t cdo,s
human desires, is now mcre~"lng
"-" an -axiomatic lmmng C

lrces

r$>o

to:

ofhwnan existence. So what, then. would a dialectical-rdational formulation

of the problem look like?
Consider, to begin with, a key term like "natural resources." In what sense
can we talk about chern as being "limited" and in what ways might we reru;oflably say they are "scarce?" The definition of these key terms is evickntly crucial,
if only for the whole science of economics which usually defines ieseJf as "'the
science of the allocation of scarce resources." So let me offer a relational
definition of the term "'natural resource" as a "cultural, technical and economic
appraisal of dements and processes in nature that can be applied to fulfill social
objectives and goals through specific material practices. n We can unpack the
terms in this definition one by one. "Appraisal" refers to a state of knowledge
and a t.:apacity to understand and communicate discursively that ",-aries
historically and geographically. The long history of capitalism itself shows that
technical and economic appraisals can change rapidly and the addition of the
cultural dimension makes for even greater fluidity and variability in the
definition. Social ohjectives and goals can vary gready depending upon who
is doing the dESiring abom what and how human desires get instlmtionaiized,
discur,si vely expressed, and politically organized. And the elements and
processes in nature change also, not only hecause change is always occurring
(independent of anything human beings do). hut because material practices
are always tram.i:ormarive activities engaged in by human beings operating in
a variety of modes with all sorts of intended and unintended consequences..
What. exiss "in nature" is in a constant state of transformation. To declare a
state of ecoscarcicy is in effect to say that we have not the will. wit. or capacity
to change our state of krlO\\-"-edge, our social goals. cultural modes~ and technological mixes, or our form of economy; and that v.re are powerless to modify
either our material practices or "nature" according to lwman requirements. To
say that scarcity resides in nature and that natural limits exist is to ignore how
scarcirf is socially produced and how "limits" are a social relatioll within nature
(including human society) ramer than some externally imposed necessity.
Even the short history of capitalism surely proves that resources are not fixed,
that all of them are dynamic and changing. It is one dung ro say mar capitalism
in a given state is encountering a condition of ecoscarcity and. overpopulation
of its own distinctive making. Indeed, it can be argued with some force, pace
_Marx, that capitalism as a mode of production necessarily must always do that,
so that to translate this pardcular circumstance into a set of universallimitacions
is to completely elide
policical---ecological point. In this regard at least,
-Bemon (1989: 77), after pursuing the holy grail of natural limits to its own
Jimit, has it right:

me

'What is required is the recognition that each form of soci:J/econonllc life has
its- own specific mode and dynamic of interrelation with irs o\Yn specific contextual wntlirioru. resource materials. energy sources and oaturally mediated

148

The Dominatiun

The Nature of F.n'llironment

me

But many of the terms used in contemporary envirorur~ental debate

incorporate capitalistic values withom lc"1.owing it. Consider, for example, the
most favored. term in much contemporary discussion - "sustainability." That
term means entirely different things to different people (see Reddift. 1.987),
but it is very hard to be in favor of "unsustainable" practices so the term sticks
as positive reinforcement of policies and politics by giving them the aUIa of
being environmentally sensitive. The general drift of the term's use (and in
particular its promotion through the Brundtland Report on Our Common
Future) situates it against the background of sust2.ining a particular set of social
relations by way of a particular set of ecological projects. It is not hard to satirize
lmagin a high(y simplified eCf)WgicaH~qru;mi situatirm (along the lines ofLevelocks DaisyworU on Gaia) in which Nw York City ha.t two species, internatitmai
bankers and cockroaches. Thr ecosystem is quite symbiotic since bankers product:
masses ofW(J.rte paper (now the primary physical export ofNew York City) and that
is the fovared food ofcuci:roachcs. Internatimud bankers are the endangered species
and so "'sustainahility" gets defined in tem',s oforganizing the use of the arth (c.g.
m-ganizing "sustainttbk" agriC'.dture in lvIalawi to focilitate debt repaJ'menrs) tIJ keep
them in busints5.

The model, though far-fetched. is illuminating, since it indicates why and how
it is that international finance, via the World Bank. is these dayS so interested
in ecological sustainabiHty. The duality of ecological and social projects (see
chapter 8) here takes some interesting twists for while it is true that debt
repayment. as ecologists argue, is at the root of many ecological problems it
is precisely the threat of debt default that forces international finance to
recognize that such ecological problems exist. What is then evident is that all
debate about ecoscarciry. natural limits, overpopulation, and sustainability is
a debate about the preservation of a particular SOClaJ order rather than a debate
about the preservation of nature per sr,
Ideas about environment, population, an_d resources are not neutral, They
are political in origin and have political effens. Once, for example, connotations of absolute limi[S. come to surround the concepts of resource, scarcity.
and subsistence, then an absolute limit is set on popu1ation. And the political
implications of a term like overpopu'tat~on can be devastati!1g. Somebody,
somewhere, is redlmdant and mere is not enough to go round. Am I redundant? Of course not. lu_e you reduadant? Of course noe. So who is redundant?
Of course! It filL'>!
__ be them. And if '(here is not enough to go round, then it is
only right and proper that they; who contribute so little to society, ought to

and'tts D'tsconferztJ

149

bear the brunt

of the burden . iill
A-d ,-fwe are to Id .L_
'
mat th
.
Wh OJ bYVlrtueofourskills abiliti ~ d '
ere are certam of us
, aI
, e s , an attainments are ca ahl f"

'
a sign benefit upon manki n d" then .
,
, p e 0 conrernng
Jt IS our bounde d
preserve ourselves for the sake of all
ki d ; th n my to protect and
'W'henever a theory of over
ul ~ n., or e sake of civilization.
dominant class, then tht: subs!;Jen;~on sel~. h.ol~ in a s~ciety ruled by a
of material, poJiticaI --nn'
d ""'ales mvan~ y experience some form
......v- OffilC, an
SOCJ
repres
Th'

unin:ended. eor.sequences {forms of "waste" > "pollution" etc.}. The ecoiogical

problems of any form of social and economic life ... have to be theorized as
outcome of this specific strt:cture of natural/social articulation.

that idea:

ofHa~'
_ 1'( ~ure

result entirely predictable in the t

difference, hO\~"--ever is that
h erms
,

we

SIOll,

IS

"''as, of course, a

~t up y thed Franldilrt
School. The
ere aIrtve at an
<Ii
f

ou(come direru y through class analysis.

un ef.5tan ng

the same

VI. Conclusion
_

:
_ ~ __

We~1:ern discourses regarding the relation to na

a penduJum between oornuco ian a cimism
~ have fr~quencly swung on
unrelieved pessimism not oni f p
and trIumphaltsm at one pole: and
c
naturally imposed limits but e~eo tOlib powers ro escap~ from the clutches of
.
n 0 e autonomous heIn
'd f
. gs omS! e 0 naturedrIven necessities at the other pol I . I think.
ment within the tradition of e. t 1S'th
a stan.dmg and deep embarrasswestern ought thafew' <Ii '
found of escaping from th
. f
. . '- so
m canons can he
.
e staSIS 0 a swllluing pe dul
f"
converting that motion into a I
.ng , alI f
.n
urn 0 OpInIOn and
of "powerful unders"~-"
=dffif q>l! _' To rel""t all talk of dominion

an

sClentifi

ar

'

accept the wllder propositions of some Enl~;t1on fty IS ,a'\ fuolish as to

. whether we like it or not, inheritors of the E I' ~enment thmkers. We are,
only
question is what we make of
the
pos1tlve Side of the Frankfurt S h I
'b'
w t we 0 wrth It, The
, bel'
c 00 COHUl utlon lay. I thi k,' , U
- ,
Its
lcf t".at somewhere sam h
- 'h b ,>
n m Its toplan1sm,
,
'
e ow It mig t e p -bl
h
"d "
Wlthout tyranny, "rati nali _L _
.
OS5! e to ave OIDlfl10n
,0
ty lilat was sometlungm r th
ly
ofh' h
d th
0 e
an pure -mstrumental an d a science that W"~
~
Igerorer anmt h--h
h
constructed. What it co Id
~
.
a W Ie we ave currentlv
u not ,---orne to terms "W1th ( d h
'
'
able._ ohsessions with fascis
I d 'th.
an ere Its understand__
J~

m coup e WI Its
'
ill.alOCtlCS got it: the way) were the d
f,
comnutments to a Hegelian
.
. '
ass orces and pow
I I
k
co..nrmue to keep the pend I
f th
h
. _
ers (lat lave ept and
L:.
uumo
ougtswln
cr'
. gmt:> m ways convenient to
."tllt:-day-to-dav and hence h
. _" _
.."
sort-term perpetuanon of dass rivil
_ _ '_
15, In short, nothing more id. 1 'all
P
ege and power,
. '"
at hand than unconstrain :~
I Y ~~ver~ ~or capitalist interests
..
inductabl .
Ide e
OOgI
opttllusm and doccrines of
'.
he bl:Y coup e to a doom-saying ~.falthusianism th t
._
amed when, as the\'
, invar;abk

I do ' th'rngs go wrong. a can

I.-<1Uwng.

.inte~resting

7t l~~en:nt tradditi~n ~nd

l:

rI
7
Valuing Nature

b .
1m valued their natural world is long and
The history of how human emgs :ve
ttet that now preoccupy many
..
Th d> '~-r011men[5 on the rna:
. __ 1
mtncate.
e lYeIse ..... e--h
b
th fucus of much ecological
segments of society (and. whic~ a.ve eco~e e
from which w break
thinking) fottn a discurnve pomt of potenual leverage
..
d
. . 'c_"
osed
ndulum-sV'ling between OptlI~usm an
out of that: capltaliso ~ . ed. ~ ch tet 6 W'bether it is possible to do

pessimism of which I comp am lfl ~l d . .

t modes of valuation that
. ~rt depends on coming tn terms WI
omman
d dis
. 1
so ill !'-:: ed
u 'Iy with the development of capitalism an
cursfve y
were lDltJat prnc Gll
,.
r
developed through Enlightenment pohucal econoffi}.

L Money and the Valnation of Natnre

child of eighteenth-century thought - articu" and attributed to itself the prime
lated the view of nature. a:' r::uro: nat -allocation of resources that were
theoretical task of determmmg e mUO
the .--.."1,,, of maxiroizTo this end it appealed to the theotyof markers, to
5~
scarce. .0
ntrali of money as the common means to measure
ing utility, and to the ce d.ty
f
values and of dements and processes
fa
"
hererogenetties of human estres, -0 use
. f.rvo of money valuations 0 nature.
"in nature." There are four arguments m
r
.

..

BOurgeoiS pohtical economy -:.

1 Money is the means whereby we

.
f

all' dail - racoce value signific-..n! and

, 1ll
YP
>.
rchase a
l..'ironment Every tlme we pu

very 'widespread aspects 0 our en

.
d
oditY tntDScommodity, we engage with a t~ain of monealtaY :e a:rngn~ to' narur.u
.
through WbIch money v ues
actions across space
.
tal features used in production, conreSOurces o.r significant envlfonroen

sumption, and exchange.

.
I yardstick of value that we
2. Money is the only well-under:stood. and um1Jersd
cticru and intdlecma1
rendy possess. We all use It and possess both a pea
muni eut
wha' eans It serves to com
understanding (of some sort) as to
t It m
.

Valuing Namre

151

cale our ""'ants, needs, desires as well a~ choices, preferences, and 'values,
including those to be put specifically upon "'nature, to others. The comparability of different ecological projects (from the building of dams to wildli&:
or biodiversity conservation measures) depends on the ddinirion of a
common yardstick (implicit or acknowledged) to evaluate whether one is
more justifiable than another. No satisfactory or universally agreed upon
alternative to money has yet been devised for making comparative decisions
on a rational basis. Money, as Macx noted., is a leveler and cynic, reducing
a wondrous multidimensional ecosystemic 'world of use values, of human
desires and needs, as wdl as of subjective meanings. to a common objective
denominator which everyone can understand..
3. Money in our particular society is the bask (though hy no means the only)
form of social power. It is therefore a means to achieve, liberate, and even
emancipate human desires. Its neutral and universal qualities as a mere thing
can be put to usc in an infinite nwnber of ways for purposes that may be
judged good or bad as the case may be. The lack of any moral judgment
inherent in the money fOrm itself, can liberate the individual from direct
repressive socia! constraints (though whether with good or bad effects may
be debated). This leads to the powerful argnment that the market is by far
the best mechanism yet devised to cealize human desires with a maximum
of individual freed~ and the minimum of socio-political restraints.
4. To speak in money terms is always to speak in a language which the holders
of social power appreciate and understand. To seek action on environmental
issues often requires that we not only articulate the problem in universal
(i.e., money) terms that ail can understand, but also that we speak in a voice
that is persuasive to those in power. The discourse of "ecological modernIzation" (see chapter 13) is precisely about trying to respond to environmental issues by way of profitable enterprise. Environmental economics is
also a useful and pragmatic tool for getting environmental issues on the
agenda. I cite here E.P. OdtUIls struggle to gain wetland protection
legislation in his home state of Georgia. which full upon deaf ears until he
put some plausible but rather arbitrary money values on the wurth of
wetlands to the state economy (see Gossdinket aI., 1974). This persuaded
the legislature to formulate, at a .re1ativdy early date, extensive wetland
protection legislation. There:are enough paralld instances (e.g., Margaret
Thatcher's sudden conversion to a shade of green politics in 1988) to make
it quite evident that political dout attaches to being able (0 articulate
environmental issues in raw money terms.
Exactly how to do that poses difficulties. Pearce et al. (1989), for example,
the widely accepted Brundtland Report (1987) view that
'sustall,.bk" devdopment means that present actions should not compromise
abiliry offuture generations to meet their needs, by arguing that the value

152

The Nature ofEnvironmmI

of the tom! stock of assets, both humanly produc-ed (e.g" roads and fields and
factories) and given in "nature" (e.g., minerals, water supplies, etc.), must
remain constant from one generation to anomer. But how can this stock be
quantified? It cannot be m;asured in. noncomparabie physical terms (i.e., in
actual or potendal use values), let alone in terms ofinherenr qualities, so money
values. (exchange values) provide the only collUDon (universal) denominator.
The difficulties Wilh such a procedure arc legion.
1. \'Qhat, for example, is money? Itsdf dead and inert, it acquires its qualities
as a measure of value by means of a social process. The social processes of
exchange which give rise to money, :Marx concluded, show that money is
a representation of socially necessary labor time and price is "me money name
of value." But the processes are contradictory and money is therefore -a)v.lays
a slippery and unreliable represemarion of'V-mue as social labor. Debasement
of the coinage, extraordinary rates of inflation in certain periods and places,
speculative rages, all illustrate how money can itself be seriously unstable
as a represemation of value. Money, vre say, "is only worth what it 'will buy"
and we even talk of "the 'value of money' which means that we vest in
Vl-rhatever is designated as money some social: qu-ali6es inherent in everything else that is exchanged. Furthermore, money appears in multiple guises
_ gold and silver. symbols, tokens, coins, and paper. Should we use dollars,
pounds sterling, yen, crureros, deutschmarks? Moneys of this sort are only
a.<i credible as the credit and power of the state that backs rhem. There have,
furthermore, been historical instances v.1..en formal moneys have been so
discredired that chocolate, cigarettes, or other forms of tangible goods
become forms of currency. To assess the value of "nature" or "the How of
environmental goods and sen'ices" in these t~ms poses acute. problems that
have only partial recompense by way of ,suphi..~ticated methods of calculation of "constant prices," "price deflators," -and noble attempts to calculate
constant rates of exchange in a world of remarkable currency volatility.
2. It is difficult to assign anything bm arbitrary money values to assets
independendy of the market prices actually achieved by the stream of goods
and services which rhey provide . .fu Sraffa long ago observed, this condemns
economk: valuation to a tautology in w1.uch achieved prices become the only
indicators we have of (he money value of assets whose independent value
we are stelcing to determine, Rapid shifts in market prices imply equally
rapid shifts in a.~set values. The massive devaluation of fixed capital in the
~)liilt ~nvironmcnt in recent years (empty factories, warehouses, -and the like)
to say nothing of
effects of periodic property market crashes illu.:.--trates
the intense volatility of asset valuation d.epending upon market behaviors
and conditions. This principle carries over into valuing "natural" assets in
market economies (consider the value of a Texas oi:.well during the oil
scarcity of 1973-5 versus its value in tIle oil glnt of1980). No matter how

me

, .

Valuing Nature

153

sophIstICated the method for val'

"
.
distinction between natu--I d h uHlanlg natural assets" (even assuming the
Cd< an
urn y created
b
," )
necessarily depend on arbit
.
can e maue , the accounts
-r:rn t , stock of capital assets (:":~=:n~The attempt to hand on a COflSring) measured in such money terms ! :;crucred and naturally occur. ular b~ IS ar mary as the assumptions.
3. Money prices attach to
,.
.
partIC
t mgs and pres
h
entitles with respect to which '.
.
uppose exc angeable
inferred. This means that
prp,l~te prfoper:=r., rJghts can be established or
f
we conceIve 0 entzttes as if th
b tak
o any ecosystem of wh.ich they are a
Wt
ey can e
en out
for example, independencl f th
~,e, presume to value the fish,
val
f
Y0
e water III which they , Th
ue 0 a whole eco"y'tem
' ed t
,,~
can bearnv
di SWlm.. e money'
by adding up the sum of its
' a, accor ng to dlls logic, only
relation to the whole Th' . Parts,f Whl~ are construed in an atomistic
. IS way 0 pursumg mon t
val '
.
e ary
umons tends to
b re ak down when we view t eh
all
envuonrnent as beiy. ecosystemically, or dialectically (Nor"....... ~
ng construed otganic.rather than as a Carte.'
chi'.
O"-"'-'-u, 1985; see also chapter 2)
Sian rna ne WIth replaceable parts I d "
of monetary valuations corom'
th
. n ee\..4 pursuit
Lockeian and in sam- _epec"'!:: to a ~roughly Cartesian-NeWtonian-antI-eeo logtcal"
1
world IS constituted (see bel ,) If
onto ogy ofhov. the natural
of deep ecolo!7. ... " <.
O\\ks'
we construe the world, in dIe manner
:t;>.!'
""
nerwor or field
~ rel'
.
participate and from ",wch th
s ot
:tt1ons In which things
the money valuation of tl' er:ca;:ot ~jsolated" (Naess, 1989: 49t
4. Monev.al'
ungs ill emse ves becomes impossible
. ... uatlons presume a certain structur= to .
.
The temporal structure is defined th
h
tlmc as well as to space.
in which present value is calcul ed' mug t e pr~dure of discounting,
benefits. There are no firml .at ~n terms of a cUsoountcd How of future
environmental Hterature is ~lagrfee. ~upon rules for discoum:ng and the
..,
0 cntlCJsm as wen as den
f d'
109
practices in relation t o
'
al qualities Vienses
.
enVIronment
I 'j' 0 , lScountmtetestrates and the ar b
'"
Itranness
0 f"lllteresr r~t
. ' ed0 att Ity in actual
public projects make valuation peculiad diffi~ assIgn on, for example,
more, only makes sense if asse
__
c. Such valuation. h.lrther'
ts are ell,nang",able so tha d'
,
ture
v
ue
of~
say;
the
state
of
f
l
'
t lSCountmg the
fir
al
is totally implausible Th
u1~ergyl uxes ill the ocean or the atmosphere
.
em t1peand ft
which attach ro different
I ' al
0 en no meat notions of time
eco ogle processes al.s
d
e.
for
example
It
might
b
_
obI
di.
0 pose
eep problems,
Whil
,
, c POSS! e to ~cover
till
b
_ tune preferences (or at least make.re
so~e ng a Out human
multiple temporalities at w rk'
asonable assump[lOnS about them),
diffi
- 0 m ecosvstems are ft
f fu d
erem sort. McEvoy (1988: 22'))' .
0 en 0 a
n amentaJly
uk -:-- cl.tes ~e case uf the (nonlinear)
reproductive cvde of sardine
adapted [0 ~logi~ 1 ?lio p" bt!~ns l..n,California waters - the sardines
all
.
vo at! ty "md",duall-"],'
1
ow each generation to br d'
I'
Y Ivmg ong enough to
1
II
ee mat east one good
"'lh
ck
.y co apsed when fishin " . d h
year.
e sto suddencourse, sensible pol.i', gdStrlPP~
stock of its natural buffer," Of
Cle<.; an pract1ees WIth. respee[ to tiS
- k and uncertainty

l .:

.... H ..' "

Lo>

men

!.

nr

me

t:

Vdluing Natun:

154

The NatUre ofETtVirornnent

.
ilffie but rhe point remaInS that the
might have avoided such an out~ ~.
. antagonistic to the lInear,
temporality defined by such eco~ogical
~10rs ; rime we charactenstically
rogressive, and very Newtonian ~~~eptlon.o "m- -,",OPC[ animal, or fish
P
ul'
"N runu liuctuanons
......,.....
use in econOfIllC calc auon. .a d ' _11vcatastrophic and match'd'
(Jdtican
oe<:aSlOnau
_1
populations can be I lOsyn d
. h _L_
~tv of markets and cap1t<l1
d t porall<vwlt = rempor L,
r_
ings uch awaywar em
-'I
-tal
l_LiJin..- conditions IS orren
'
der stab e cap,
"vamill -,
d
aCCUIDU Janon even u n .
f _1 anon can be arnve at..
'bl
B
pposmg some sort 0 valli
h
imposSl e. ut even Sll
.
.
rrent rights versus t e
ri us remaIn concermng ell
__ I
al
profound mot qucs 0
tho
d ther reasons, green Value
- fu
rattons For 1S, an 0
treatment ot turc: gene
' . , d 1.
onisttc to discnunung
theorv' [as Goodin (1992) calls :tl lS'T';"P y aneer';, for tile future should

~
ed' th arJ\..ct
lle -con
practices as reg:t~:e; ~), em the deep ecologist Naess (1989: 127).}be
add up towards lllunlty, v;ntes.
ment all too typical ot the
ditliculty with thIS rrresponSlble kind of stat~ vless'present in the form of
. that it condemns us to a JO

radical ceoIoglsts. 1S
L_
.'
"of phvs1c.al existence. But
lose to the IYdre mirumum
J.
a rate 0 f consumption c .
. abir directs public policy concerns
on this score the rhetOriC of sbusl
th Ity ket to a temporality of inteIbeyond the remporallty pass' em, e mar bilines (de-Shalit 19951,
_C
f wealth-creatmg posS!
'
generational tram,lers 0
f'
They' look verv dlfferent
emcnts can be 0 vanous sorts.
..
is
5. Property arrang
edand
rvatwn or lanrt-use contro .
under conditIons of, say, suong w
pres~
tal
policy to devise a
f contemporary env1[onmen
It is the USk 0 f finch 0
.
. 1
nPNll::lde those holding priv:ate
_.1.
fr
rkWlthwhichtocaJoeorr---~
[9:ju.u>-tory amewo
.'
entail benign ways, perhaps even
~an those which the market
property rights to use them 1ft en~ro~ .
paying attention to rather longert1~e ~1ZO; this theoretical, legal,
discount rate dictates. Ch~lenMng t ou the enVironment has a clear
political problem ma.y be) it stkin~r:r'::_b~nefit argument concerning
enough struC[ure so that som~
. _1 ods d dividualiz.ed propera1 nvtronmeIUal go an m
the relation b etween SOCl e
aluations condemns us. in
,
b
cted Ap~"'
to money v
, r"
tv nghls can e constru - '
l"'-"'-'
d as an "extemalm
,
Id'
. m' h the ecosystem IS VlCwe
'
short, to a war VIeW III W K .
I'
e arbiuarilv chosen and
ali d
human aCtion on Y Via som
,
f
to be intern re m
This is preclSelV the mode 0
imposed pric:e structure or ::r:a(;o~~;~m;~lculate the
of "the trag~
!hUlking which allowed H
d ,,_ I
of some common resource,
n'
which III lVlUlI:1 users
0 f t he com~ons ffi.. . du 1 T
ultimately de:;.u:oy that resource
seeking to maXllU1ze theu I.lldivi a ~i 1y. able is on the surface, it breaks
through overrue. persuasive th.ough t. at parf _ di . dual uuli-IT roaxim!.Zlflg
the presumptIOn 0 III Vl

dm'\'1l not 0 nly w h en

th sit rp dichotomy beDNeen
.
b also as soon as e a
- hln ecosvs[eIDS as well as III
behavior is inappropriate, ut
'd
al disappears as occurs W i t . ,
internal an extern
'
gl' ca11"respect for nature"
,
'
hi
I
h
t e nov.' rather patrontZlll Y
societies In W C 1 W a W
_
belie:S taboos, and the Uke
,
is internalized ill customary usages, rehgtous
(McCay and Acheson, 1987),

t:un

ana

>

thesis

eay

155

6. It is. hard in the light of these problems not to oonclude that there
is something about money valuations that makes them inherently
anti-ecologicaf. confining the field of thinking and of action to instrumental
environmental management. While the point of environmental economics
(in both .its theory and its practice) is to escape from a too-narrow
logic of resource/environmental valuations and to seek ways to put
money values on othenvise unpriced assets, it cannot escape from the
confines of its own institutional and ontologic:al assumptions (which
may well be erroneous) abOUt how the wond is ordered as well as
valued.
7. 1\'1oney as a form of social po'W-er has a certain asymmetry to it - those
who have it can use it to force those who do not to do their bidding.
This power asymmetry in socia 1 relations ineluctably connects to the
inequities in environmental relations in exactly the same way that the
project to dominate nature necessarily entailed a project to dominate people
(Leiss. 1974). Excessive environmental degradation and costs, for example,
can be visited upon the least powerful individuals or even nation states as
environmental hazards in the workplace as well as in the community.
Ozone concentrations in large cities in the United States affect the poor
3...11d "peuple of color" disproportionately and exposure to toxins in the
workplace is class-conditioned. From this arises a conflacion of the
env.ironmental and the social justice issues, leading many to argue that the
solution to the latter is a necessary prerequisite to any attack upon the
fanner (5ee dlapt'" 13),
8. Money, lastly:, hardly satisfies as an appropriate means to represent the
strength or the manifold complexity of human want5-~ desires, passions> and
values~ even though it has the capacity to liberate desires from social
constraints. "We see in the nature of muney itself something of the essence
of prostitution: says Simrnel (1978: 377) and Marx (1973) concurs, Freud
took things even further, picking up all our pendlallt to describe money
as something dirty and unclean ("'filthy lucre'~ and filthy rich" are common
expressions). "It is possible the conrrast bet\veetl che most precious substance
kno'\\'ll m men and the most worthless _.. has led to the specific identification of gold with faeces," he wrote~ and shocked his Victorian readers bv
treating gold as transformed excrement and bourgeois exchange relario~s
as sublimated rituals of the anus. Money, wrote his friend Ferenzci, "'is
nothing other than odorless, dehydrated filth that has been made to shine"
, (Borneman, 1976; 86}. We do n~t have to go so far as Freud and l'erenzci
to recognize that there is something morally or ethically questionable or
downright objectionable to valuing human life in terms of discounted.
lift:time earnings and "nature" (for example, the fate of the grizzly bear and
the spotted owl as species) in monetary terms. This is the negative undenide
to the power of money to press for liberation.

r
156

Capitalism is., from this last standpoint, beset by a central moral dHemma;
money supplants all .other fonDS of imagery (religion, traditional religious
amhority, and the like) -and puts in its place something that either has no
dlstinctive image because it is colorless. odorless, and indifferent in reladon to
the social labor it is supposed to represent, or, if 1;: projects any image at all.
connotes dirt, filth, excremefl!, and prostitution, The effect is t:O create a moral
vacuum at the he>..It .of capitaHsr society - a colorless self-image of value that
can hay'e no purchase upon coHective a~ opposed to individual social identiry.
It cannot provide an image of social bonding or of community in the usual
sense of that term (even though it is the realconununity in the seruethat M2rx
meant it) -and it fails as a central value system to aniculate human hopes and
aspirations in collective terms. 2-.1.oney is what we necessarily aspire to for
purpos.es of daily reproduction and the realization of individual desires, wants,
and needs. In this sense money does indeed become the community; but a
community emptied of any particular moral passion or of humane meanings
even though it engages human passions in furious and obsessive ways.
At this point, the critic of money valuations. who is nevertheless deeply
concerned about environmental degmdacion, is faced. with a dilemma: eschew
the language of daily economic practice and political power and speak in the
wilderness, oc -articulalc deeply-held nonmonerizable values in a language (i .e.,
that of money) believed to be inappropriate or fundamentally alien. The deeper
dilemma is that though money may ~ack mora}. m;:aning in itself, it becomes
the vehide through which human desires :and passions get mediated and
me-.asured. Zota caught the problem directly wht:n he ha" Caroli.i.e say:
Money was the dung-heap that nurtured the growth of tomorrow's humanity,
W'ichollt s~cuhtion there could be no vibrant and fruitful undertakings ar:y
more than :here could be children without lust. It took this excess of passion,
all this comernptibly wasted and lost life to ensure the continuation uf life ....
Money, the poisoner and destroyer, wa<;: becoming the seed-bed for all forms of
social growth. Ir was rot: lllanure needed to sustain the gn:at public works whose
execution was bringing me peoples of the globe together and pacifying the earth.
... Everything. tbat was good came out of that which was evil.
Although the ultimate moral of Zola's novel is that acceptance of that thesis
leads to speculative f.arce and personal tragedy, no less a theorist than Max
Weber sternly and quite properly warned that it was an egregious enor to think
that only good could. come out of good and only evil out of evil. Money rna}'
he profoundly inadequate, soulless, and "[he root of all evil," but ~t does not
necessarily foUow that social and by extension all xological ills result from
market coordinations in which ?rivate property, individualism, and Cloney
ce
,,-aluations operate. On cite other hand, we also have sufficient eVlden
concerning the unrestrained consequences of \Vila!: Kapp caned The Social CostJ

Valuing Nature

rL:

The Nature of F.m1ironm mt

157

.~~Eterp'
'
.,f
Il
rue to kn ow that it is ual' T
Smith thesis that social
d
. eq !y I msory to believe the .Adam
goo automatIcally ar'
-t!
.
t.he hIdden hand of marker b ha'
Left
out ot Ie necessary evils of
474-5) argued, capitalistic pro~e::'~:s~
to 1~ own devices, Marx (1967:
the laborer, bm of robbin th
il progress In the art, not only of robbing
Th
g eso,
e cond:.lsion is, then, rather more ambi
accept. First, all the time we enw..g'
guoodi~tvexch
rhan many might W'ant to
, d .
n- emcomm
.
mO~e)' (an
thIS proposition holds'
fi
.
anges medtated by
.~oclety) it 'will he impossibJ'
J~st as r~y for any prospective socialist
.
e III practtce to avOld rno
ai'
11 uatlons of environmental'
ney v uatlons. Secondly'
al . .
assets ill money ttr
hi] high

and senously defective are not

, , ' d ms, w e
Iy problematic
, a n unmmgate evi'I'D' d
t q are presumes, however the'
f th . 0 JU ge how good or bad
h .h
'
exJStence 0 0
d f I
W lC money valuations c'
::UT~jnst
an be compared d er.rno
- alles ' 0 va uation "'bh
can nature be valued?
an crmc Y Judged. So how else

15:S

II, Do Values Inhere in Nature?

.

There
has been a long history WI'th'ill bourgeo15
" lik f '
C
lOr
an aIternative to rno
0 reSIStance to and search
fumil'
ney as a way to express valu
y, nauon, have all been proC'erred as
" e s... ~on, community,
alternatives I here wish to conside"
th can~dates. but the particukr set of
fa
..
r are Qse wluch see val
'eli'
_
r rOIDa:ltiCI."m, esthetics emi
ali
lieS resl ng In nature
nment
dements of that ethic built ~th' 'th
sm. and eco.Jogism all have strong
'rb (
In
em Andtheid'
,
el er at least in some of its r eli' ') Wh
ea loS not toreign to :Marxism
TheJ
'sh
en nons.
en M
(197')
'.
ewl
Question" thatmoncy has b
an:.L. argued in "On
ofmen and nature _ of its sp=';' aI roo beddthe whole world - both the world
nc-v: ue an th th '
un er the dominion ofpci
at
e View of nature attained
d , al
vate property and mon
al
. '.practlc debasemem of nat
" t.
ey IS a reo contempt for and
ure. ne comes very d
d'
!l:).oney. h as destroyed earlier d
h
ose to en orsillg the view that
The advantage of seeing: per aps 'dr~v:rabJe intrinsic natural values.

ed.i
ues as rest 109 m nat
. th '
)mm ate sense of ontolomcal'
ure IS at It provides an
'cl
0"
secunty and permane
Th
. ..
anI, variegated and
.
nce.
e natural world
:.. ' '.
f.

permanent can(hdate "du '

_. '.
,0 uruversal and permanent aI
. C
or 10 ctlon inro the
.
t!.
v: ues to mmrm human ~.
d
'
__ .. ...
to 0 lerwise ephemeral and fi- m
cd _
action an to gtve
,.
(1968: 223-4),
ag em lIves lef, Goodin, 1992: 40),

R.".'

inconceiv:;
hie to. me that an ethical rel-dlon
' to ,-and can exist . h
. d dm
I
,.,-_,",c.an a uanon for rhcland > an d a high
rS:,o-ard for it:; al WItB out , Dve .
. v ue. Y Value, I
something [rtr broader than m
,
sense so that a . . . ~e econo~c Value; I mean value
.'"or",,;','"
:md beautv of the ~ ~ ngnt v.:h-en tends to prese::-ve the
,
lone commumty. It 15 wrong when it tends

1:

158 The lVature ofEnvironmenr

But how do we know and what does it: mean to say that "integrity, stability
and beaucy'" are qualities that inhere in nature?
This brings us to the crucial question: if values reside in nature, then how
can we know what they are? The routeS to such an underst:anding are many
and varied. Intuition, mysticism, contemplation, religious revelauon, meta-

physics, and personal introspection have aU provided, and continue to provide,

paths for acquiring such understandings. On the surface, at least, these modes
of approach contrast radically with scientific enquiry. Yet, I shalt argue, they
all necessarily share a commonality. All versions of revealed values in nature

rely heavily upon particular human capacities and particular anthropocentric

mediatiom (sometime... evtll upon the charismatic interventions of visionary
individuals), Through deployment of highly emotive terms such as love, caring,
nurturing, responsibility, integrity, beauty, and the like, they inevitably represent such "natural" values in disrinalvdy humanized terms, thus producing
distinctively human discourses abou_t intrinsic values, For some, this "humanizing" of ...~ues in nature is both desirable and in itself ennobling, reflecting
the peculiarities of oll! aINU position in the "great chain of being" (Lovejoy,
1964), '" Humanity it nature becoming C01JJcioUJ afitself' was the motto that the
anarchlst geographer Redus adopted. dearly indicated that the knowing subject
has a creative role to play at least in translating the values inherent in nature
into humanized terms, But if, as Ingold (1986: l04) notes, "the physical world
of nature cannot be apprehended as such, let alone confronted and appropriated, save by a consciousness to some degree emancipated from it,"" thcn how
can we be sure that human beir-.gs are appropriate agents to represent all the

values that resiae in nature?

The ability to discover intrinsic values depends. then, on the ability of
human subjects endowed v.ith consciousness and reflexive as wen as practical
capacities to become neutral mediators of what those values might be, This
often leads, as in religious doctrLnes, to the strict regulation of human practices
(e.g" ascetism or practices like yoga) so as- to ensure the openness of human
consciousness to the natural world, This probiem of anthropocentic mediations is equallY present within scientific enquiry, But here too the scientist is
usually casr in the role of a knowing subject acting as a neutral mediator. under
the strictest guidelines of certain methods and practices (which sometimes put
to shame many a Buddhist), seeking to uncover, understand, and represent
accilratdy the processes at work in namre. If values inhere in namre, then
science by virtue of its objective procedures should provide one reasonably
neutral pach for finding out what they might be. Hence arises the long historr
of a connection betWeen the observation of nature and the search fur
foundational moral principles and values.
How neutral this exercise turned out to be has been the subject of consider~
able debate, Consideration of three examples provides some insight into the
nature of the difficulty,

Valuing Nature

159

1, The FaNe ofthe Sperm and Egg

Feminist work has ,n..
o'~r rhe years revealed'des
d
metaphors in scientific enqui~' Th' _IT . -:1 _prea. resort to gendered
d
1.
.r
e crIect IS Ollen to '\\-Tlte
. al 'd
b
gen er re atlons imo scientific repre
.
f
soa 1 eas a out
make it appear as if those soc al
seman.ons 0 the natural world and thereby
h' W h
- 1 constructlons are "natural" M char
19 Ig IS, for example, the gendered ima
with
>. 1. er at (1983)
fc at bgery
",hich Frances Bacon
approached nature (in essence
spirit to he dominated -d
asda em e ody to be a-plored and a female
an tame b yruseorf; r )' h' C
ments co~cerning experimental method (an i 0 ce m 1~ lOundacional ~guon what IS happening in Shale
' T L ,~ery wh,ch sheds great hght
h
espeares we 1ammg 0+ 'h Sim ,\ Th
not, owever, isolated or sin ular exam 1
'J ~ e
'CUl).
ese arc
essay on "Teddy Bear patri:m1 ", th pes, Haraway (1989), in an insightful
points out how "decadence _ ~e ~
Yo~k Ivf~e:un,ofNatural History,
t
the
stayed in the policics of e
'
d th cuy. cIV11 IZatlOn, machine - was
'
ugemcs an
e art of t'd
Th
us scientific purpose of co
.
axt ermy.
e Museum
fu1JiIled
,
f
nservanon prescrv t'
d th
tlOn 0 permanen(;e in the mids f
b'
a lOn, an
e produc'
to an ur an world th t
h
century seemed to be 0 th b d
.
a even at t e turn of
th...IS
'
Id
n e or er of chaos and II
"I
' I
co apse, t opposed to
th IS wor of troubled sociali-t'IT
"aVl'll' technologyofexhib' d I
as a means to communicate to th e ouill'de wo rid a sense f th
lts ep oyed in part
, o l e natur order (founded
h'
ch
'
0
e true organicism
fd
aI
OO 'efar v, patr,archy. clas
d famil
ough t to be the foundation of bif 'f1
':
s, an
y) which
explicitly used and conrin
sta HY. or any SOClal order. In w doing. it
lies to use pnmatology
promote race, das,'s and gend
la '
f
as a means to produce or
M "
er re flons 0 a certain
arnns (1991) example of the tabl f th
sort,
the extensive medicaJ and b' I ' __ , I' e 0
e egg and sperm as depicted. in
.
10 0gI>.:aJ lterature on h
:
'1' ,
, Iy mstructive. Not onl . h L____
uman leTt! HY IS particulary IS t e leIllale repred t'
menstruation) depicted
ful
uc nre process (particular""
as waste
compared to th '
1
~J
,
Glr-:-C1ty of men [0 generate sperm, b th
ual e Immense y productive
depIcted in terms of a passive female lit ekact
process of fertilization is
as a prize by an active dynamic
d ~'~ cd down. captured, and claimed
arduous journey to
it- ',an Th liSting male sperm after a difficult and
I ki fu I
1> pnze.
e sperm sounds oddi lik
1
,uo. ng r go d or an entre reneue com"
, y e a n exp orer
P
,mage cited above of fi
cial
peuog fur bu,mess (c ZoJas paralld
L. I I
nan
speculation as th .
prod uce anything). It tr _'
h
e wastnw ust necessary to
.
.
ansplres owever that th
I
sClentific studies of human fcrtili"
e mecap lor deployed in
, by no mean... as directed
ty was fundamentall
'
I
.
d
Y 1ll1S t:adi'ng; the sperm
,enerOl"tlc an bra
out to be th l"stl
o~'
\e as It was supposed to be C
.
ra er 1 ess and atmless when left t . . If)
It
to play an active role in fl~~~I"
.
0 lUit:
and
egg turns
til '
eTrnl'ZatJon. But 1t to O k ti
f
elf gendercd predilections as:d
d h
h
,me or researchers to
the egg into the equ,' I ,ethan w en t ey did so it was mainly by
, _
va ent 0 f eagg . ;
fa
.
and victimizes the male ('pe ,l . ress~eb- emme tale who snares,
, erlgtlJfi"g, d '
rm In an eta orate spider' eb "
;0'
evounng mother"
' (1991: 498)
,S w
an
, Ne w'dam,'~1ar1m
suggests,as"did

N;W

claim

'

me

Valuing Nature
The Nature ofEnvironment
,.
f
. .
er stereo pes in their descnptlo ns 0 e~
not lead scientists co t:lurunate ~d I b
'Y describe egg and sperm m
. .
mpv egan t 0
and spt:rm. Instead, SClent:sr", Sl
' WI. plain~y cannot draw any inferences
wong terms. we
.'
d
differen:, but no Iess danl-u.
b 'a peal to investlgatlons an
the ...'alues inherent til nature ) P
whatsoever as to
enquiries of this sort.

160

, ')

2. Darwin, Metaphors
1 the complex metaphors dlat pl~ against
Consider, as a second ex:ml.p~, .n's The Oright of Species. The:e is, fll'srly,
and alongside each other ill ~arWl
.
(about which DarWIn was very
the metaphor of srock breeding p~a~es d) Tltis as Young (1985) points
knmvledgeabie h,y ~rtue of~s farm~:res ~ch' were ~'ell understood. ~n stock
out took the arci:fiaal seiecnon pro
..
osin the immediate difficulty
bre~ing and placed t~em in a;a~~:~t~:~r~ sel;ction. There is, secondly,
of who was
conscIOUS age
.
r d acknowledged as fundame Malthusian metapho~ which Dar;"Jnv~~e~lor competition, survi'val of
mental to this theory. Entrepreneun h
in Darwin's work as
I :6 existence t en "'-ppe
d hich
the fittest in a strugg ~ or ,
'inism could larer appeal an w. ~
"natural" values to whIch so~tal Darw
d I . "'o<les (1989) in a dc'wled
"
.> continues ro ep O'y. ~1
contemporary common 5eJ.1Se .d
cctved in Russia shows, however,
1 eas were re
! 'th .
Darwm.'s
examination 0 f how
.
lly'
d the relevance of '(he :tv at USJan
that the Russial1s almost umv~rsa re!.~e s~, . . . . . le and. competition as an
downplayed mtraspecl '- UUf,Y
metap h or and
.'
evolutionary mecharusm:

me

area

Lb '.
ditions ofRussias national
- -_. I fl wed from tne
asKcon
..
d f
Th' uillfyingnanollaJ.stye 0
d rtical rradlUons an ()
IS
'.
of ;ts class strUcture an pu i
.
r. .
life - from the very nature
' .. cal
lacked a dvnamic pro-lalSseL laue
i.ts land and dimare. Russia': poiLu b ~:l~:ny~ers and pe!lsants. The It:ading
bourgooisie and was doml1l3.~d Y D m:'a1ist-oriented. populism, shared a
J'
narciusm and a WCi
. 'J .1
'delv
mo
.
c ill ompcritive lndlvlUuaIlSffi Wl
Political tenuefiOes,
-al h and a distaste for e <:

an
rooperatiye SOC! et os
ll"
Furthermore, Rw:sla was
. -, Mal-t.
and Great ntatn.
ft
e
"',,~oci<!.ted. wtUI
u~us
'th
c..k, chanc1Ila .and 0 en sever
-~
ul ed i d W1 a SW hu]
tr t>
"
expomsive, sparsely pOp at . aD
.,
consonant with Malthus s 00'.:100
dimate. It !.S difficult to imagtne a settlnl~ i.es5 muruaJ conP.icr by population
.
,
j,lth . w
that orgamsms
were press cd constant Y lOto
This combination of anc-Jv
US!
<:e and resources. . . . .
f
."'"
" -j
1
res-sures
on
lffilC1>
spa
"..
.
J
D
in's
metaphor
0
commonSeI1S1
P
. 'fl nces oe.pnveu af'I';
th
and oon-Jv1al USlan m lllC
(T d . IllS>:;: 1(8)
power and expIaruttory aPrrwal
- .... 0 es, 7

"r

.
'as
ofhis work was not lost on Marx.
Though a great admirer ofDarwm, t~IS
Darwin recognizes among be.~ts
"It is remarkable," he wrote to ~bg~ s'di .o~ ns ot"labor competition,opemng
!:, L
.
WIt 1ts VistO
.'
, '" ft\1arx:
and plants his Engu.:ll SoCl~ty
d M l husian 'struggle for existence \'
up of new markets, InventiOns an . a.l t

and Engels. 1965: 128).

161

Had Darwin (and Wallace} not been so stmck. as were many Englishmen
of that era, by the extraordinary fecundity of tropical environments and oriented their thinking to the sub-Arctic regions, and if they had been socially armed
with images of what we :lOW call "'the moral economy of the peasantry," they
might well have downplayed. as the Russian evolutionists of all political persuasions did, the mechanisms of competition. They might have emphasized
cooperation and mutual aid instead. When Kropotkin arrived in London from
Russia, armed with his theories of mutual aid as a potem force in both natural
and socia.! evolution, he was simply dismissed as an anarchist crank (in spite
of his impressive scientific credentials), so powerful was the aura of social
Darwinism at the rime.
But there is another interesting metaphor at work. in Darwin's argument, to
some degree antagonistic to that of competition and the struggle for existence.
This: had to do vlith species diversification into niches. The guiding metaphor
here seems to hase been the proliferation of the divisions of labor and the
increa.<i.ing roundaboutness of production occurring within the factory system,
abour which Darwin was a1..,o very lalowl(;dgeabJe given iliat he was married
to Emma, the daughtei." of ind.ustrialist Josiah Wedgwood. Increasing specialization and diversification of species into noncompetitive environmental niches
here ameliorates a Story that would otherwise surely end up in one species
dominant over all.
In all of these instances, the interplay of socially grounded metaphors and
scientific enquiry is such as to make it extremely difficult to extract from the
scientific findings any socially untainted information on the values that might
reside .in nature. It is not surprising, therefore, to find Darwin's influential 3!1d
powerful scientific views being appropriated by a wide range of political movements as a "natural" basis for their particular political programs (see Gerratana.,
1973). Nor should we be surprised that others, such as Allee and his ecologist
colleagues at the University of Chicago in the inter-war years, could use their
scientific work on (in this case) animal ecology as a vdllcie to support and even
promote their communitarian, pacifist:, and cooperative views (Mitman. 1992).

3. The Territorial Imperative

Animal ethology in the hands of Ardrey, Lorenz, and Morris suggested mat
territoriality in animals was about exclusive control over localized resources and
The inference was carried over th.ar social systems necessarily have a!l their basis
'competitive struggles for control ofterritories (from the micro-scale of private
,property and local "turf" wars to gcopolitica1 struggles betw'een nation states),
. Territorial exclusions and comperithre struggles were then presumed to be
,natural. This is an is.sue of considerable importance to the argument on place
and community advanced in chapter 11, so it is useful to provide here a provicomment on its validity. Ingold (1986: 143), after careful examination

162

Valuing Nature

The Nature af Environment

_
. al evidence on territorial behavlOr among

of the ext:ensive anthropologtc

- ial" is rarely competitive or
, tit rers, concludes dut terotor lty
hunters anu ga e
exdusionary. It:
. information about the
. ocal rnmunic:arion. conveYing
- B
furnishes a moJe 0 f feclpr
co
hi-L ' f mutual benefit to all parnes. y
resources
w
01
IS
0
th
" ..h
d
locations 0 f peop1e an
d __ ~I... the mainrena:..ce, roUij~
L.
th' whatsoever to QWIUl

the same token, it 11<1'> no mg

b'- social !Tfoup .... (It}tS a means
.
.
f -d iv"" access to resources 'l a
;y.
1 .cal
active dclense. 0 ex Wi
hut common range III an eco og.t
.
an extensIve
ula.r
of effecting cooperatlon over .
burna or flma} which preclud.es reg
situation (the explolution of dIspersed .
. ' me course of exrructive
cooperatlDa ULllCS m
h '
face to face contact bet'r"{een
. e
_ ignorant of each at ers
. I ents adjacent groups,
f
acti\'iri~. Quite sunp~. It prcv
d d thereby spoiling the success 0
.
.
fr
'=1flg the same groun an
1: __ '
''\1 be
positions, om trav
.
'torial comtJttrtmenwox,u(ton rna..!
their respective exploi:rative opera~ons .. - te;ation afru:tu:re. (Ingold, 1986: 143)
perfoctly compatible 1h7t/; the collectwe approp

rdin to this account, are as much about mutual

Territorial stakeoucs, aceo
g
.
'ut competition. Indeed, the
...
bers of a species as aOO
.l'a! ... ,
cooperation b etwt:en IDem
.
collapse;, into a ul ecUl..ill
;"
ana cooperatlOn
,
distinction bet\'ieen camper-non
h
tit
d vice versa under cenam
.
hiL
nbecometeo erall
fu .
relation m W Cll one ca
, ial" In old points out, is solely a nctIon
conditions. Exclusionary rerntor ~ty> d g ,
sort and such rights are a
_C
f s-ttled anu ex USIOnary

In
of property nlr.l rs 0 ~ ~.
And this was, of course, a POlllt ng
oduct of society not mherent In nature.
pr
, r'rood
bv
ago unae
~
, Rousseau (1973: 84):
T

.
round bechought: himself of
The first man who, having endosed atl~ce ~T grough ~o believe him, was rr.e
saving 'This is rrUp..c," and found peop . stmp e ~n
wars and murders, from

r~ founder of civil socit:~Y, from ~o= ~::tc:~:e hav~ saved mankind, hy

man~ horrors and mtsforrune.s I :g

.
his felJoW5' "Beware.
ho w
,
fiU'
in the dio:ch, and crylDg {O

pulling up the s~, or" l~g

undone if you once forget that the trultS
oflistening to this Impoloter, you ~
. itself to nobody,"
of the earth bdong to us all, and. t e earth
A.

III. The Nature of Metaphors

. :t seems to me,
. _
" "fi
these three e..xampIes 15,
.
The conclUSIOn to be iliay.;~ rom
h
scientific way of knowmg
._,
"de
III nanrre we ave no
.
1
d
inescapable. I f ,,-ames resl
al A' liei[ in the metaphors dep aye
dendy
of
the
v
ues
IIDp
b
"
.
d
what t h ey are in epen
"
'E
the names \ve use etral
in mounting spccificynes of sC1entificb~llqU;o:: bees" cannot understand
the depth and pervaslven~ of the pro em
the "praying mantis'" goes to
ilian
the The Communist Manifesto any mor~: d' ' .-f~re ~cial power relarions
. I
it Ips naturauIe I.snn ....
h
church; yet the termmo ogy e
,
e of "the selfish gene or ';: e
'cf
u-okch,n
1990a,.
TI,eianguag
.
and practices" . DV
,
L<Y

"

"

163

blind watchmaker" provide equally vivid social referents of scientific arguments

and Dawkins (1989), most persisrent popularizer of these views, quite unse)fconsciously uses the metaphor of survival condition-s for Chicago g~<TSters as
a convenient metaphor to explain the basic logic of generic selection. Rousseau
(1973: 65), interestingly. spottet! the crick long ago (while, in his maractcrisric way, making active use ofit) when he wrote of "the blunder made by those
who, in reasoning on the state of nature, always import into it ideas gathered
in a state of society:" Ecologists concerned, for example, to aniculate conceptions of equilibrium, plant succes.sion, and climax vegetation as propertiC5 of
the natural world, have reflected as much abom: the hmnan search for
permmence and security as the quest fur an accurate and neutral description
or theorization of ecological processes. And the idea. of hannony with nature
not as a human desire but as a nature-imposed necessity likeVi.rlse smacks of
the view that to be natural is to be harmonious rather than conHictual and
contradictory both of which are quickly dubbed as artificial, the resuh of
"'disturbance" and the like. We have loaded. upon nature, often without knowing it, in OUI science as in our poetry. much of the alternative desire for value
to that implied by money.
But the choice of values li~ v.-ithin us and not in nature. We see, in shan.
only those values which. our value-loaded metaphors allow us to see in ow:
studies of the narural world. Harmony and equilibrium; beauty, integrity and
stabiHo/; cooperation and mutual aid; ugliness and .1oience; hierarchy and
order; competition and the struggle fur existence; rurbulence and unpredictable dynamic change; atomistic causation; dialectics and principles of complementarity; chaos and disorder; fiaL'tals and strange attractors; all of them can
be identified as "natural values" not because they are arbitrarily assigned to
narun; but because no matter how ruthless, pristine, and rigorously
objective" our method of enquiry may be, the framework of interpretation is
given in the metaphor rather than in the evidence. From contemporary
reproductive and cell biology we will learn, for example, that the world
is necessarily hierarchically ordered into command and conrrol systems that
look suspiciously like a Fordist factory system while from contemporary
immunology we will conclude that the world is ordered as a fluid communications systems with dispersed command--control-intelligence networks
-which look much more like contemporary modd~ of flexible industrial and
commercial organization (Martin, 1992),
. "When, therefore, it is claimed that "nature teadlt~s," what ustllily follows,
(1980: 70) remarks, "is selective, according to the speaker's general
.:pur,'os'e:" The solution, here, cannot be to seek scientific enquiry without
jlieta]Dhc)fs. Their deployment (like the parillel deployment of models) lies at
root of the production of all knowledge. It i~ the primary means whereby
human imaginary gets mobilized to gain understandings of the natural and
, worlds and we can no more dispense with chat imaginal)' than we can

164

, b .

Valuing IVature 16legion. Callicott fi r

1
)
value as objective and indep'ende=mP e, acce~ts thac any concept of intrinsic
nt 0 f any valU!
.
ut sometllingca11ed inh
t._-,
h'
ng COllSClomness IS untenable
B
eren Value e argu
b
'
to bolster his anmment h
b 'k
es. can e naturally grounded and
o
e goes ac to H
odified'
suggests that the values you ro'ect
~e, m
by Darwin. Hume
spontaneously in vou becau~ J thn!O obJ:cts, are not arbitrary, but arise
f
.
.
"" 0
f
~ts thee Idconstltutl
th on 0 your namre." From
D arWIn Callicott (1989'. 182) 0h
ea at th "aft .
uman nature is standardilC::d b a l l ,,,e
ectlve constitution of
y natur se ect10n so that:

The Nature of En1Jironment

live without breathing. The qualities of that imaginary, as Ossermatl (1995) so

brilliandy demonstrates in his enchanting book on the history of mathematical
understandings of the universe, were fundamental to erecting more and more
adequate represemations of all sorts of intricate physical processes. Max Black
(1962: 242) reflects "perhaps every science must start with metaphor and end
with algebra; and perhaps without metaphor there would never have been any
algebra," "Metaphoric perception: Rehm and Pe:rr (1987: 35-41) concur, is
"fundamental to all science" both b extending existing thou"aht processes;15 weli
as in penetrating into "as yet unknown domains of reality. which are in .some
sense implicit in the metaphor." And if this argument holds for those branches
of knowledge. such as physics and biology. which are generally held to be
characterized by a certain "purity" of scientific method, then it holds even more
so, as Timpanaro (1970) and Williams (1978) :;gree, with the contested and
often arbitrary and tendentious findings of p"ychoanalysis, This latter field is
in parriClll:ar plagued by intertWining of terms that have a double character "in
dlat they are internally held to be <findings' from empirical evidence and yet at
the same time are quite rapidly diffused in forms. of discourse usually dependent on concepts founded in a more 'normal' linguistic mode., in the development of a language in soeial and historical experience" (Williams, J 978: 14),
But to put it this way dOe5 not mean that the metaphors are purely products
of the human imaginary. unalloyed and untainted by any exposure to material
practices. power relations, and the like. Kuhn (1988: 12) thus holds that all
theories of metaphor presuppose a theory oflitera1 meanings and considers that
tropes like metaphor wouid be unimaginable "except within a community
whose members had previously assimilated ilielr literal use.'" Uteral meanings
do not derive directly from something called "reality" in the sense usually
accorded that term as something emirdy and exclusively outside of thought.
But metaphors do derive their power from the social and material practices
and experiences of [he world to which literal meanings always. atta<..:h.
We can, therefore. only reRect critically npon the dialectical propert1e5
(internalizations) of the metaphors in use and watch carefuUy as human beings
amass scientific and other evidence for a particular naturalized" ~t of values.
And then we find that the values supposedly inherent: in nahlre are properties
of the metaphors, of the human imaginary internalizing and working on the
multiple efl'ec.:s of other moments in the social process, most conspicuously
those of material social practices. "We can never speak about nature," says
Capra (l975: 77) "'without, at the same time, speaking about ourselves."

IV. Deep Ecology, Self-realization and the Leibnizian Conceit

The connection that Capra makes has not gone unrecognized in ecological
thinking and attempts to rescue some ideal of intrinsic or inherent values on

11S

aslS are

cerrain sentiments were naturall select'

.
permitted and facilitared gro h' Y
' ed In a SOCIal environment which
.
~ '- wr In theSlzeandco
l' f'
'~C'nt1ments, however, though fixed b ural ~ ex1ty 0 sooety. The social
IS more than jWit a little room fo thY naulte _.~eled ctlOn, are open-ended., There
Tus,
h '_Just wha: is
, of val
r ec ut'.u e rernunatton
.
,
f
.
'th.
0 chelr objects
d
' ed h
ue, et e-r msrmmentallv
inh
_.
.
erermm
y what Hume called "
" b
or
erenuy is partly
cuI al
reason. III what ',...J-. be be
(Ur. representation," Aldo T,eopold mast rful _
mlc;ut
trer called
and moral sentiments by repr
.
1 e ly played upon our open social
"fellow members" of O:lt maxi:::.:tng p afid(S a.?~ ~imals> soils and vlatec:s as
th
h
Yexpan cd hlOUC co
'"
. ose W 0 are ~cologica.Ilv well-in'
ed
h
mmunlty. HenCE, to
mherencly valuable _ as p~tative me~~m 'fnon uman narural entities are
And fl.atUIe as -a whole is inherently val ers 0 one extended family or society,
to whIch we bdong as men L..

uablc -as the one great family or society

lUtTS or aozens.
.

What
is
' , of eth'"
_
c at work here is"the b'10IoglZatlQn
kn

uncoIDlortably dose as Call-

Wilson {1978: 5-6}:'

~"

lootr ac

d h

t at brings us
owledges, to the sociobiology of

lCS

an

E.O.

evolved. as instinct [fth at perception

, -IS C
'
a poSltlon to investigate I..h
' ,
orreet, sCIence may soon b ..
. which all ecl:icJ pron
t: ve.-y ongrn md meaning of human v-alues
_
fl..

ouncemenr,~ and m ch f li .
.,
_. LH,1oraliry] resides .in the deep
. al
U
0 po tlcal. praaice flow
,L.Mocal.ity]
. .

In

\\ojthin

fro~

the limbic system, a 0):1::; centers of the brain. most probably

. cdls located just ben.c&.th the

y
"'r:h~king,.,raportIOn
o~ newon;;
and hormone~secreting
of the cerebral cortex.

rece.nciy,
has pursued what h e caII s t h e blOphilta
.
.
mamtaiflS\Vilson
that:
hypothesjs"
..ioru
with'of evolution, dming which h umans consra..,thy d - ,
I
nature>have~mbuedH
.-,
an lOtlffiateyinteractcd
:at
. ed alliJ'latcwiththe orno_ saplem
With a deep
cal' b
: .. ,ne to
[11 I:'
,genen' q aseaemouQI:_ .
res~ 0
Ie livmg world M '
th
,_. as jmponallt CO h:..lma:l well-hein as form'
. ~'eeung is nee? '" ~ay
1993: el; Wilson and Kd1:rt, 199J~ dose personal reiatIonshlps.

'--.c.'

are
ideathose,
behindsuch
h'as Ross_ (1993'). W h 0 strongly and rightly "dis ure
t e genetic way of looking at the worId tnat
>

~
IS rapIdly

166

The Nature ofEnllironment

becoming second nature" and challenge "the growing reliance on the authority
of 'nature' to deal with problems that arc primarily social in origin and
development.'" In part the objection to Wilson rests on the reductionism:
the idea thaI the ~-ttole ofhurnan endeavor (including attitudes and behaviors)
can be reconstructed simply on the baslS of genetic information. But it is plainly
wrong to replace one form of reducrionism with another, by, for example,
rejecting all material and biological conditions of human behavior as irrelevant
in favor of a trtumphalist mode of thought in which human history; economy,
and culture reign supreme. This is, therefore, an issue that will be taken up
more directly in chapter 8. For the momeTI(, I shall rest my argument on
the objection that the metaphors and patterns projected onto nature (and
thought therefore to be coded in our genes) are derived precisely frOID the
human social institutions that thereby become naturalized" through

biological enquiry.
If discourses about values are established and communicated through
the mediating powers of language, in.<ttiturions, sociaJ rdations, and the like,
then there seems no way to attribute anything intrinsic to external nature in
them. To rescue his argument from this difficulty, Callicott shifts his terrain
from Darwinian biology to quantum theory. In so doing, he makes a move
that is quite common in modern environmental philosophy: pursuing an active
connection betv.'een seemingly analogous lines of thought in ecology

and contemporary physics. Quantum theory, he argues, has had to abandon

the Cartesian distinction between facb and values and since some version
of the Cartesian dualism underlies Hume's and even Leopold's line of
thought, a radical reconceptualization of the intrinsic argument is required..
If, in quantum theory, there is no reason to distinguish arbitrarily between
mind and matter, facts and values, consciousness and materiality, then physics
and ethics are "'equally descriptive of nature.'" This conclusion, as Zimmerman

(1988: 10) rightly argues. is open to dispute since there are ax least six
different interpretations of quwtum physics (see Bdl, 1989) and hy no
means all of them are antagonistic to Descartes [see, for example. Lockwood's
(1989) active defense of the Cartesian view from within quantum theory).

Valuing Nature

16'"

Smce natu.re is the selffullYexten d ~;u

_, and diffused
.
d th
concentrated and focused in 0
f th.
',an
e self, complementarity
'
'
ne 0
e Jntersecuo
th"kn
or 1l1e or m the traiect nrv of
f the world jm
. ns, . eth L.ots , of dlC ~~b

,~J
one 0
space-Llme (;oncinuUttl nature"
. . 1
es m e luur-dimensional
.
.
15 mtnnslCiIy ","""hie, to th e extent mat the self
IS,mtnnslcally
valuahle..'
A

This is nothing less than a resurrectlon

' of what I l"
_-1
conceit:" the {monadic) s If .
ali
ear ler termeu me leibnizian
. e mtern zes natural val
B
th
n d 0 f conception of "self"
ues. ut rough what
ki
"th

h.ch
can we, or ought we, constru
.
o er W 1 we call nature;' This' th
.
e our ITIatlon
to mat
and"
th
.
IS
e questlOn at which Calf
It IS one
ar has preoccupied de
I
ICOtt arrives

Naess (1989: 79), the leadin Ii ;:. eco ogy.

..
answer: a hwnan being is not g th~ In deep ~ology> InslSts on a rekuional
dati aI
a mg m an cnVlfonment, h
.
r
on system without determin d b
dar" , .
ut a Juncture in a
anext
l'
e oun lesmt1me d
reme Y important definition that has a s' 05
~ space. This is
argument. To begin with. it icks u on
tgru can~ bearing on my whole
and. the di~ectk<d concepSons o~ inte~~r~:~hllosophy ofWhi[ehead
specdically incorporates the view that h I d ns {see chapter 2} and
(Naess, 1989: 59).lt also challenoes conwoe an pan are internally related"
0

chapters 9 and 10) In effe t, N b

. vennonai VIews oftlme and space (see
coIl5trued as a bou~ded en~nr.1 a~dls argutnf
b' g that the individual cannot be
Uk
(~_L
-r a
0 ox unto him
h If. b
. e a pamt WHich is geometricallv defi d
. or erse ~ ut rather
SlOOS) formed by innumerable v~o
nfc.: something that has no dimenat th
".
rs 0 lllnuences and rei .
.
e same JunctIOn. Relationalism:
allons convergmg
<

makes it
.
. easy
. to undermine the belef
1 In orU<lnl<:n1s
can be Isolated from their miJieux. S e... l-;::~-: or p~ons as something dIal:
and the milieux gives rise (0 the
~. o~ mteracuons between organisms

wro:

Organisms and mill .

g assOCIattons as an organism is imerac:Um.
eux are not two things- 'f
..'
vacuum, it would no longer b
1 a mouse were lifted into absolute
s.lfllitarIy, a person 1S" a part f e a mouse. Oro-:.ni"
".
~~ms presuppose
mIlieux
.

0 nature to the extent tha h

h
.
JunctIon 1,vithin the total field Th
. . t e or s e is a relational
relations which define th '. e ~roce.'\S ofidennfication is a process in which
<. ell."
e JunctIOn expand to com .
s
grows towards the "'Self. '" (Nacss. 1989: 56) pnse more and more . The

me

But
Callicott claims that quantum physics views the lli-llVerSe as an internally rela.ted

cosmic "'web." The dualistic view of the ''}'" as residing insi.de of a skin bag and
thus separate from everything else has been undermined by the insi.ght of
contemporary physics (and ecology) that in some sense the world is Illy body:
I -and the world interpenetrate. Since we have tr...ditional1y assumed tiuf the "1"
is internaUy related to all of nature, then we can arguably regard nature, tOO,

intrinsically valuable.. (Zimmerman, 1988: 4)

<I.'>

Getting, away
from""certaln conceptlOns
.
.
of rh
of
emanclpatmg oursdves from ...
. . e status
things" and
analytica1 thought" are theref "~r~ongl atomIstIC or mechanistic trends in
val thr gh
ore VIta steps towards a red 00" . .
f
ue.
ou
a process of Self-Realizat'
. . e ltLon 0 intrinsic

exphuns:

ttJn.

Fox (CIted

ill

>Jaess, 1989: 19)

The ap~ropIiate framework of discourse for d ..

ecology is not one that is fundarn
d
,escnbmg and presenting deep
world, but rather one tba . enfuntallyda to (} WIth
value of the non-human
t 1S
mentally
, to d 0 WI"th the nature and

me

Callicott (1989: 174) himself conclude"

..
168

The Nature of Environment

possibilities of the self, or, we might say, the question of who we are, can become
and shoukl. become in the larger scheme of things,

The word "should" sugge~ts That value norms arise relationally with respect to
the broader biotic community of which we are a part, hut the means by which
we discover them depend fundamentally on the human capacity for uSelfRealization" (as opposed to the narrower sense of "'ego fulfillment" or "selfreallzatlon" as understood. in bourgeois society). The "deep ecology" literature
here tacitly appeals to the notion of a human essence'" or a "human potentiality" (or in 11arx's language, a "species being" ",hose qualities have yet to be
fully reolize<l) from which humanity has become fundamentally alienated (both
actually and potentially) through separation from "nature.'" The desire to restore that lost connection (severed by modern rechnotogy, commodity production. a Promethean or utilitarian approach to nature, the "community'" of
money flows, and the like) then lies at
root of an inmitive, contemplative,
and phenomenological search ~or "Self-ReaHzat:ion.'" Ifvalues are "socially and
economically anchored," Naess (1989: 45) argues, then the philosophical task
is to challenge those instrumental values which alienate. Through "elaboratiun
of a philosophical system" we can arrive at a "comprehensh"t: ';;aluc clarification and disentanglement," so as to spark a collective movement that can
achieve "a substantial reorientation of our whole civi!lz3.tion.."
This philosophical system rests on the indhidual application of the Leibnizian conceit to the understanding of the values that reside in nature. Kaess'
appeal is that we work hard at sharpening our conceptual understanding while
opening ourseh'es up to the innwnerable flows that hind us to me world of
nature. The Jiscourse that results is uncompromisingly hostile to that of environmental management (hence the distinction between deep'" and "shallow"
ecology) or ev.::n to environmemal ethiC'; (unders;::ood in the narrow sense as
the extension ofhuroanly based ethical systems 'CO the animal world), it a1:Jhors
all talk of money v-aluations and the market and places itself fundamenrilly at
odds with hegemonic forms of political power and all of dIe dominant institl!~
tions of market-based as well as socialistically organized societies. It is t-horoughly
revolutionary in its implications, but sees that collective revolution being
accomplished thcough the reallI.l of changing individual prac-;:lces deriving
fundamentally from the processes of Self-Realization. But it does} as we shall
see, make gestures towards communities of resistance and communitarian fOrms
of practical. organization as an element of its strategy for defining entirely new

me

ecological practices.
All sorts of philosophical, metaphys.ica1, and religiolli "clarifications" of deep
er
ecology are available. Naess appeals to Spinoza, but figures like Heidegg also
offer considerable sustenance to thls style of thillking (St<::mer, 1992: 136; Foltz,
1995). Instead. of nature becoming a "gigantic gasoline station," Heidcgger
(1971) argues, nature must be seen as
serving bearer, blossoming and

"me

V,1luing 1Vature 169

frwtmg, spreading out in rock and water risin'

.
g
Mortals, Heidegger concludes ' "d:we
_ 11'III th'att h eysaveth
up Into plant
and anmul,"
arth"b
" '
only snatch something fr
e
d oes not
C
tIe" . ,
om danger. To save ereally
m ut savmg
sometlllng
e mto Its own
. Th
.. eans to set
the rivers free:") lA7tile th prdese?Clngd:
I e slogans of Earth First (e.g" "set
.
'
ey enve n-ect v from th
I cit
Wilham
Abbey
(whose
ego':-n'
al
d
'
e comp ex .arncter
. .
.....,. c evotlon to' h
t e Leib .
. of
owmg It _ is arrogantly tr
.
O1Zlan conceIt - 'WIthout
1m
sophicaHy respectable Heide ~p~;~ parallel those of. the far more philo-

which translates into intern~zing with~ ~~::r;

:: !!cl!egg~r1s pualires~cing,

.
au entlc q
tes of
the external world (again, a ve . Leib . .
learning how to dwell proper! ry d ill<
tactIC), And thi, presupposes
the art of dwelling 'th
y an
ectlv y on earth. If we are to recoVeI

ru~~

hb~te place, Since the question of"

ill ~wever,

nature, we must learn h

b il
lace" ...
to u d, dwell, and
I WID not pursue it further h
_P
e taken up 1n chapter 11,
ecological thinkin echoes H . ere ex~pt to comment on how much deep
"a geographical g
'b eldeggers quest for what Naess (1989: 61 \ calls
sense ot elongmg'" or of be'
h" '
'
,mg at orne m place. The
relarionship proposed here I'S cu.
a vc not passlVe;
,

Wl

To "on!Y 10k"
0
at' nature is extremely culiar b h .
environment happens by doin rr somethi;:e in.
e .a:-lOr"
of an
acting. (Na:::ss, 1989: 63)
'='
g Jt, by livmg tnIt, meditating and

E~eriencing

The activity of place construction

. 1
.
achieve our own
h' _.1
preCIse y because that IS where we can
..
geograp leal sense of bdonging h
b
f"Kanceto anyprocessofSelf-Realiz'
d
.ere ecomes 0 VltalStgnitat10n
argues, "'the local communitv I' th
~ , or.thlsreason,li '--'
Naess (1989: 63)
.
_, s e startIng pomt for
d l'her '
on ecologICal questions Th' ale
po tlGll e 1 atlOn"
.
1st esusoutofth
a1 fth
'- a realm that many deep ecologist b' de e re m o e purely personal
s'. cIng& eply attached to the Leibnizian
conceit, seem to ha~e difficulnr
-J escapmg
om to th
'-"
f
:>cJ~Clka"i~ati'Jn,.
e SOClaIlty 0 any project
J

v: The Mota! Community and EnVlTonmen

'
ta! Values
-N"",s'

and Heidegger's ideas are aralleled b

'
,_-towards a bioregional eth' - Ph' h 1< Y movements m North America
_.

Ie, tn w IC
opold"
d '
the boundar';:
.".
s reCOD1l1len anon mat we
les OL commumtv to mdude
'Is
or collectivdy; the land'" ale'
'[' SOl, waters, plants, and
".'
1 is t en qmte lterall~'"as a '

1-'
:'.
nature in place. The ideals of a lace-b
.
.~
plOgra~lllor lYIng
'_
and lead to principles of I
p d ~~dthenv!fonmema11dentity are
Ber and D
~
.
.10W to
we III e land in a Heide ertan
g
(CIted m Alexander, I Q~,
90' 163) say th-IS means:
gg

learning to live-ill-place in an area that h b

'
past exploitation. It involves b
.
~ een dISrupted
and inju:ed through
econung nanve to a place duough becoming aVt-are

170 The NatUre ofEnvironmenr

of the particular ecological relationships (hat operate within and arQund it. It
means understanding activities and eyolving social behavinr that will enrich the
life of that pha:, resrore its life-supporting systems, and establish an
ecologically and socially sustainable pattern of exlste..'"}(.;e within it. Simply stated
i( jnvolves becoming fullY alive in and wim a place. It involves applying for
membership in a biotic community and ceasing to be its exploiter.

Bioregionali:.m as a cultural movement therefore:

ceiebrates the particular, the unique and. often indescribable features of a place.
It celebrates this through the visual arts, music, drama and. symbols which convey
the feeling of place. (Mills, cited in Alexander, 1990)

We arrive here at the core of whar Goodin (1992: chapter 2) calls a green theory
of""bu_ It is a set of sentiments and propositions which provides a "unified
moral vision" running, in various guises. (hroughout almost all ecological and
green political thinking. It has radical, liberal and quite conservative manife:..-ralions as we shall shordy sec. And by virtUe of irs strong attachment of moral
community to the experience of place. it frequently directs environmental
politics towaIds a preservation and enhancement of the achieved qu.litie:; of

particular places.
But the notion of a moral community also proves problemati.c. Consider,
for example, how it plays in the WOlX of Sagoff (1988) - While individuals often
act as purely self-intcrested and atomistica1ly constituted economic agents
selfishly pursuing their own goals. he argues. they not only can but frequently
do act in completely different ways as members of a "moral community" particularly with respect to env1.ronnu:ntal issues (hence legislation to protect:
endangered specie'i). In the American case he concludes that:
Social regulation most fundamentally has. to do v."ith. the identity of a nation a nation committed. hihl:oricaliy. for example~ to appreciate and preserve -a
fahulous natural heritage and ro pass it on :reasonably undisturbed to future
generations. This is not a question of what we want; it is not exactly a question
of what we believe in; it is a question of what we
There is no theoretical
way to answer such a question; Lt,.e answer has to do with oUI histor/, our
destiny, and QUI self-perception a~ a people. (Sagoff, 1988: 17)

ar~.

muni
There are a .rariety of points to be made here. First, thtS i5 a strongly com
tarian version of the "'Self-Realization" thesis advanced by Fox (see above).
Secondly, it has as much to say about the -construction of a nation's identity
as it does about the environment. And here we immediately hit upon a
difficulty with the moral suasion and political implications of distinctively
green values_ For they are inevitably implicated in the construction of particular
n
kinds of "'moral community" that can .just as easily be nationalistic. exclusio -

an

Valuing Nature

171

y, and -lfl some m~rances violentlY '"<CISne

- as they
b de
can. e
mocrauc..
d ecenrrallZed, and anarchist. Bramwell 198 '

(h

connection. not only via Heid

9), for example, POlllts out the Nazi
er
se
but also via the building of eggdi . w. d r~le ~s more emble.matie than real)
a stmctlv Y la5Clst t di'
romanticism, themes about "hi00 d and soi1" ami th raIii<(ton
German
- around
-d
e extensive and often"
.
e e, mCl entally noting
th h .
t
lllllovattve conservation and alb
.
e
pursued (see also Ferry 1995- ch
5) E or:-tat1on programs that
th
_ _
, - apter
yen ifB
II
e case, It IS not hard to see how diStn"lCtlve attltudes
.'
ramwe
t
. ul overstates
mcnts
C,Lq become pow--~-'Iy 0 partIe ar t:nvtron_
ITfW
rmpIicated'In the h -ldi
f
nanonaliSt or communitarian identi So"
. . ng. 0 any sense of
America when he means th U - dryS' ag ff s msensltlvn y m using the term
.
e mte taces and hi
d
contment of indigenous pe I
d .
s.ren encytodepopulaterhe
..
op e5 an to Ignore llS clas
nd
d
.,
s. ge er, an racial
structure lD his acrount of th
,
e naUons encounter th th
contams many of the same di t b'
cl'
Wi
e environment
Environm tal
..
S ill mg ex USlOfiS.
en politiCS then becomes ca ht
. h
.
generations
a sense of na'-;onal
-d '
ug up In anding
.
u
1 enuty ground d .
. dOY.r"ll
. to future
tralts. Put the other way. rou d
- ali
. e In certam envuomnental
n ,natlon' sm With
mental imagery and identity 15- a most unlike!
some .appeal to environa
of German narron, then forest die-ba ,{ , thguranon. I.f the furest is
ThIS association pla,-A
akey roIem
' SpaIKlng
_. .L: th
t: III a
reat to nanonal. identtrv
)'>.AI.
-.,.
movement but it has also posed
-J
bl e c:ontemporary German green
.
COl151 era e diffiul
fi th
l ' cal
.c ..~ or at movement
because It reveals how contempo
traditions that also prompred d raryN .eco begt senslbdiues have their roots in

~aZlS

~l

C:~

~boI

_ h

le

azIS to

the [lISt"

;m

arge of a state" (Bratnwdl 1989' II'

adical

envrronmentaJists
ecological radical like Spret~ak II
;,~_so~erry, 1995: 91-107)_ Even
'the spiritual dimension of Gre'
,,15
en forced to recognize that
problematic area. in We-.--r Ger
~ po tIcS is an extremdy charged and
I .
many.
r IS relatively easy. of course to .ilio the
.
Nazism, so let me take th
P ry
envlIonmentalist excesses of
namely that of AIdo Leop~ld hIrylf Int~_ a mulu~ more respectable terrain,
mse - n wrm atlng his I d rhwas kee nIy aware of the 01eat
th thc encounter . th an . e 1<:, Leopold
to have plaved in the ere,uion f
- nal c h aract
w
e Ontler was supposed
~.
'
0 nat10
d Ii -cal '
e
Umted
States.
The
dosing
of
fron
.
er
po tl
Identity in
th
argued_ changed radicolly the conditI-ons unUIT
tI,,:,asF
hi~cdenck
Jackson
Turner
W ch d
- th had
tares
been
achieved
and
th
_C
d
emocracy
ill
e United
S
th
dhad
croore pose a thr t t th
.
.
,ose en: ocratk frontier traditions. Leo old's e ca:
e contmuatlon of
hon of WIlderness even of th
rh - Ph . mpha'>Is upon the preserva.
'
e au enhc Ullhng eth
had
-meanmgs that can only b
d
d
os,
strong politIcal
.
eunerstoo a ' nst til b
Importance of the conception of wild
g:uAm . e ackground of the
r -cal -de
erncss to
cncafl cui al -d pu It1 1 ology (see Nash, 1989)_
tur I entIty and
ill C

985.'

li _

diffi:W

-1m

me

. The pomt here is not to sec aUideas about "moral

.lsm or place-bound thinking (

- nali
he
-I
e.g., natlo
sm and

~mmuruty,
imag- ed
'

"

bioregionalcessanyexclusionaryorneo-Nazi Ra
d
.
lfi
communtty}as
_
_ ymon Wrllrams (see chapter 1), huilds

172

,~ ,',

.
,
Valuing Nature 173
expenence Jll our interaction with '" th ".
world. ThiB is particularlv a
0
In
human and
msta..."1Clated in nature th
h
'a1" ,Pparent m the diverSIty of "values"
..
mug soC! actwn In ca .
are pr=arily (and neces=ily) instrumental' and Pl lSt soclety these values
r
te monetary calculus and the
.L~ B
. .U,tl Itanan, dependent upon
__ I
. _1_
rnarru::L. ut an mCUltlve
f- , ,
ValUe IS an;O widespread,
tl.
,,
_
sense 0 mtrmslC natural
(_ h '
par y ill recogrunon at tho -de tha S I
,whet er It be in a narrow e . 'cal
"d
... 1 a t e f-Realization"
. .
,gO!1Sn . or eep" sense) ,
'd
sort 0 f Intimate relation f If
IS not OUtst e of some
.
0 se to nature Th
hC
enVIronmental ethic evd--. . ..e seare tor moral values and an
.
KCS commull1ty poilu .. db'
th
ls..'me fiJUy within che fr
f 1 .. -- 1
eli an nngs e environmental
.
arne 0 eli tillar politi
I a1 h'
,
p~rview of bureaucratic opinio
d th cs. t so nngs It within the
dIscourse of institutions. AU of ~e ~
e regulatoryllegal!administrative
are to be found at work both disc:
value that ! earlier described
demonstrable effects ",.. thi
'cal
~v~ y and aU of them internalize
practices.
'- n practl
polmcs, social relations, and material
red and

The Nature of Envirrmment

elements of such thinking into his socialism. In his novcls the whole contested.
terrain of environmen<:a1 imagery, place-bound ideals, and the disruption of
both by contemporary capitalism become meaningful arguments about me
rootS of alienation and the prob\ematics of the human relation to nature. The
task, then, is to try and articulate the social, political. institutional, and economic circumstances that transform such place-bound sentiments concerning
a special relation to "nature" into exclusionary and sometimes tadical neo-Nazi
directions. The evocation of the Nazi connection by BramweU (though itself
a manifestation of conservative hostility to the greens as "new authoritarians
antagonistic (0 free-market liberalism') is- here very helpful. since it raises the
question of the degree to which strong
towards reactionary rather than
progressive uajecwrics might alwa.ys in the last instance be implicated in green
theories of value. In any case, it quickly becomes :'tpparent that environmental
values drawn from a moral community have as much to say about the politics
of community as they do about the environment. From this standpoint the
extraordinary efflorescence of community-based (If not commWlitarian)
movements as a means to resolve environmental difficulties and to achie\-'C
a more ecological way of life (sec, fur example, Rajan, 1993) is deserving
of appreciative but also deeply critical1icrutiny. By the same token, the vast
cottage industry of thinking that goes under the name of "environmental
ethic.." deserves critical and appreciative scrutiny fur the way in which it
proposes universal moral principles f-or the regulation of u our" relation to
natnre while hiding as hastily and completely as it can any trace of the
militant parcicuiarisms from ,..,hich it usually derives much afits inspirarior:al

~eanings

power.

VI. The Languages of Nature

~onh~an

CJr

b~th t~e
.

?f

.
.1:_Yet there _is in this eclecticism an ommpresent
dan
N nl d .
(U.,!;courses he uneasily s:de b.d
L _ _
ger. ot 0 y
different
'h- h
Y 51 e so (Hat It becom h d
'VIt 1n t e difference But (h _ 0
al.
es ar to spot the unity
.
.
e carelUl an YSIS of th
.
'
embedde d )fl distinctive disco .
th
e way power relatIOns get
and. c~cophony of discourses ~s~:i!:ts. at the
conceptual muddle
n
capitalism. Critical engagement -th m _mnoa: : In the reproduction of
I began bvar ' th -J
WI
at IS no trIVial political task
I
gumg atteddi
f" .
.
filt1on
to make it difficult if not _ - .hl
0
em"ronment" is so confused as
. .
nnpOSSl e to dey-dor an ' cl
.
It IS we mean by it ",-ithout fi _ defi'
of what
_
IS(
rungth e
.. } al'ear conceptlon
f
envlroned and having so
d
di
I:?smon Ity 0 the subject being
me un erstan ng at the r
f'
.
en~cred upon or contemplated by that mb'
ICes 0_ act10n e1ther being
of nature" _ v.ftile all important ; r t1. . lea. We now hnd that the concept
_ , o n e reasons that Will'
I'
S
I lams out med embo d le5 a slffillar set of difficul'
ues, oper (1995: 2) pues it this wav:

:as!

~atureinref.....rs
us
the object of stud of th
al'
'
metaphysi ..... co
' t h Y,
e natur and l)iological sciences'
to

Consider, for a moment, the multiple languages: - scientific, poetic, mythic,

moral and ethkal, economistiC and instrumemal, emotive and affective - in
which ecological issues and value are typical1y atticulated, Some argue that a
trans disciplinary language is required to better represent and resolve
ecological probleU'.s and that the veJY existence of these multiple languages is
a fundamenta.l part of the problem, But there is also a deep reluctance to try
to cram evetj"1:hing we want to say about "nature" and our rdation to it into
ont: singular and homogeneous language. A limited case can be made for both
positions,
The heterogeneity of discourst:s about "nature" has to be accepl:ed as
not only an inevitable but also a very constructive and cteative feature of
ecological argumentation, provided that it is read not as fragmented ar..d
separate modes of "(hought and action embedded in isolated communities, but
as the internalized heterogeneity, the play of difference, which all of us surely

ISSUes

....,

ncermIlg

e diffe

od

'

to

the human' and to t h '

rmg meso belOg of the nanrral a-'
,
e enVlfonment and it
.
Ittl
The natural is both di t'
, h d f
s vanous non-human forms of lire
s lllgU~S e rom the h
d
' c_

_
.
uman an the cultural. but also
the concept throuo-h which
anificial quality otour aw :~ p~se qUe5UOllS about dH: more or less natural or
_ d .,_1"'
a e 2VIDr and cultural fonn ti . ~b
th
-

an qllil.l.lty of human nature' and b '

_ a on, out e extStence
, th ["
,
a out tile resp~tl '
i
f
1Jl
e rormation of indi-vid.'-'
d th _
. ~~ \e ro es o. nature and culture
.
muS an
etr sooal mil
N
IZlllIlenseIy complex and
~.--l'
..leu. ature also carries a.n.
COllUaut>...i.Ory symb li 1 d' ,
contradictory ideolo~es' and - h b
0 C oa, ; It 1.5 the suhject of verv
--l!CC '
.
t>"'
1t as een repre; nted.
-1
luuermg ways.
e
In an er.onnous variety of
<".

"contradictory ideologies" rna be h

seem once statements are cont ex[uaHzed
__
> owever, less contradictoD! than thC"'V
..
d
d
-,
-,
ctrtain kinds of action D ,
b > pO~(fone ,an evaluated in relation
. JS<.:ourses a oU[ namre" and the "natural" b ecome

!t.

T
I

174

The Nature ofEnvirDnmmt

less confusing when taken as moments in a social process in which conflicting

forms of social power struggle to gain command of institutions., social relations
and material practices for particular purposes. This is not necessarily to suggest
that dominant power structures promote one and only one discourse rather
than another (though the dominant utilitarianism and Prometheanism modified by a dose of convenient Malthusianism - that attaches to corporate
capitalism and the modern .':itate is hardly in doubt). Rather, it indicates a
situation in which different conceptions of nature get evoked-for quite different
political and substantive purposes within the overall flow of conflictual social
action.
But (his also means that discourses ahem: nature internalize a wnole range
of contradicmry impulses and confiicrual ideas derived from all of the other
moments in the social process. And from tha.t standpoint. discussion of the
discourses of nature has much to reveal, if only about how the discourses
themselves conceal a concrete political agenda in'the midst of highly abstract,
universalizing, and frequently intensely moral argumentation.
If, as I shall argue in chaprer 8, all socio-political projects are ecological
projects and vice versa, then some conception of "nature" and of "environroeni'
is omniprescent in everything we say and do. If, furthermore, concepts,
o
discourses, and theories can operate, when internalized in socio-ecol gica1
practices and actions, as "material forces" that shape history (c Lovejoy.

1964; Oilman, 1976: 23-4), then the present battles being waged over

the concepts of ""nature" and of "environment" are ofimmense importance (as

we shalt see more concretely in chapter 13). All critical examinations of the
relation to nature arc simultaneouslv critical examinations of society. The
incredible vigor with which ruling i~terests have sought to contain, sha.pe,
mystify, and muddy the contemporary debate over nature and environment
[for the most part within discourses of "ecological modernization," (see chapter
11), "sustainabitity," "green consumerism," or the commodification and
sale of "nature" as a cultural spectacle testifies to the seriousness of mat
connection.
What this in effect means, is that dominant systems of power can advance
and protect a hegemonic discourse of efficient and rational environmental
management and n:s.oun::e allocation for capital accumulation (and to
some degree even construct policies, institutions, and material practices
that draw upon such discourses). But they can also strive discursively as well
as institutionally to manage (he heterogeneity of discourses (even those
of radical opposition) to their own advantage. Sophisticated. discursive strategies
are now in place, for example, to absorb and defray the diflerem imaginaries
that typically root much of radical ecological thinking. Bourgeois institutions
have a long history of exercising "'repressive tolerance" and the current state
ems
of environmental/ecological debate, over goals, values and requirem n,
appears morc and more as an excellent case study of how a limited articutatio

f diffi

Valuing Nature

175

o
~rence can play exactly such a sustaini
1
centralIzed control of the k . . ' .. _1
ng ro e for hegemonic and
ey mstltutrOnal and
.aI
.
ffi.arter for the perpetuation of
. ali
.aI maten practLces that really
of Cri(1Cal reflection and di ca~1t .st SOCt and power relations. The task
.. _1
scurSlve Illterventi
confront head on the question of ho
Ii dons I must Sill ely chen be to
ecology truly radical.
w to n a anguage to make radical

The Dialectic! ofSocial and Environmental Cht.1nge

177

silences, ambiguities, and ambivalences that it becomes almost impossible to

pin down their socio-political programs with any precision even though their
aim may be "nothing less than a non-violent revolUTIon to overthrow our whole
polluting, plundering and materialistic industrial society and, in its place, to
-create a new economic and social order which will allow human beings to live
in harmony with the planet" (Porritt and Winner, cited in Dobson, 1990: 7).
My intention in what follows is not to provide some firm classification or
indeed to engage in critical evaluation of any particular- kind of politics (all of
them are open w serious objections), but to illustrate the incredible politid
diversity to which eIlvironmental----ecoJogical opinio:l IS prone.

8
The Dialectics of Social and
Environmental Change

Authoritarianism

1. Political Values and Environmental-Folngical Issues

.
dertake in enquiring into ";:he
One of the more interesting exer.o.ses .to un OinY1!m"'nts not for ~what they
.1
I meal debate l~ to mspect -t:>~ ....
ab '
environmentat-eco 0b"
' bUt for what it is theY say out
h
.'
IlInent
or
nature,
have to say abo ut t e enVlrO
d '
'ropressive arraY of alteruanve
..
.
.
. llon. In so omg, an 1
:
d
pohncai-econoffilc orgamza
ingI
TO solve the ISsues at han ,
$ ,

arY

social forms are invoked as &cern

Y n~cess
ul'
d villains needing
dis lay' of disparate c puts an
rdi
along with an extrao nary
P d
'
h a hapPY rather than tragic
'f
t eeo raIDa IS to ave
.
to be overthrown J our p.rt:se,?
p dike (1989: 194), not only "occupy
"En'
mentalists
note."
a
1
" b
'
endmg.
V1ro~.
' aditionalr' ht-to-left ideological spectrum, ut

almost every pos1t1on on the ~ 1

' . Ig h'il~ s;~w'taneously claiming they
r tlca POSIUOfi5
Vi,'
also can adapt to illverse po t
a ....... ;
d <l.:r.lin "the authority of
d ]'. . d normal sense. .i "5d.-LO an -;:,-'
""
are beyon po ItiCS" 1.n l~ d"m
.ustifv tne existing condition ot society
narure and he:: laws IS claime el err tu J
' . tv that ",rill solve ecological
,-.l..lU

da'

anewSOCle

n'

or "to he" the foun . ~:l; ~~~~ ~14). What is often at stake i~_ecolo~ca1 and
proDlcms (Gnmthna , . Williams (1980: 71) suggests, is ,he ideas of
environmenuils[ arguments,
different kinds of societies."
.
..1 -colovical arguments,
is that enV1fonment~
b
f
Pan of the pro blem h ere _
- . 0 en to a vast array 0
precisciy because ?f their di~erslty and 1cn~;:::~u~l ai~ost certainly ohject.
uses to which envIronmentalists and eeo og f
'al purposes ranging from
.
bifz.ed for a host 0 speCi
.,
.~
TIlelr rherone gets IDO J
d
dly "natural" fLa.vors ltor
L
A.. di
- tomhpastes an suppose
'al
advertisements lOr ... U cars,.
)
specific targets of SOCl
"
-----~',.l L(mamlyfurwomen to more
.
"
foods) and nanlld.l QOtu"
-.l~_ iopment"or "na...
' ..... eollserv:1tlO;l.
."
- ble ucve
u_.... ....
control and imresunent ill sust.am~_
ecolo -sts and to <;orne degree even
But the other side of that com IS th~tal
gt tend to leave so many
'
f
Ie managen persuasIOn,
.
environmental lSts 0 a rna
.
. th 0 many svmptotnatlC
loopholes in their arguments, litter mell textS wt S
,
h

Ophuls (1977: 161) writes: "whatever its specific fOrm, the policics of the
sustainable society seem likely to move us along the specttwn fium libertarianism
towards authoritarianism" and we have to accept that "the golden age of individualism, liberty and democracy is all but over." Faced v,.-ith escalating 5carcities~

Hci1hroncr (1974: 161) likewise argues, rhere is only one lcind of solution: a social
order "that will blend a 'religiouS orientation and a 'military' discipline [that] may
be repugnant to us, but I suspect it offers the greatest promise fur bringing about
the profound and palnful adaptations that the coming generations must make."
While their personal commjtments arc overtly liberal (and in f Ieilbro!!er's case
sOcial democratic) bor:h authors reiuctantly concede the necessity of some kind
of centralized authoritariani:sm as a "realistic" response to natural resource limit<;:
ailll the painful adaptations that such limits will inevitably force upon us. In the
case of the s.trongly Malrhusian wing of the ecological movement, and Garrett
Hardin is probably the best representative~ the appeal to authoritarian solutions
is explicit as the only possible political solution to the "tragedy ofthe commons."
~lOst ofthe wciting in this genre presumes that resource scarcities (and consequent
limits to grov;'th) and population pressure lie at the heart of the environmentai,eCological issue. Sin<.:e these issues were paramounr in the-early 1970s, this style
.of argument was then also at its height. In recent years, however, "authoritarian
SOJUUoru to the environmental crisis have been abandoned by the movement"
,V_"OD>Dn, 1990; 26). But there is almost always an authoritarian edge somewhere
,l.necological politics,

Corporate and State Managerialism

c ~","',ak version of the authoritarian solution rests upon tht: application of

,hDXhniq,ues of scientific-technical rationality within an administrative state

with strong regulatory and bureaucratic powers in liaison with "big"
,
big corporate capital. The centerpiece of the argument here is that
definition of many ecological problems (e.g., acid rain, the ozone hole,

The Dialectics ofSocial and Em}ironmentai Change

178

The Nature ofEnviron1'f'..ent

.
ticides in the food chain, etc.) is necessarlly science l~ and
global warmtng, pes
th
bilization of scientific expertiSe and

that solutions equall~ depe~ld. UPO~ed.~::ithin a rational (state-led) process

corporate technolo~cal s~s em .
"Ecolo 'cal modernization" (Hajer,
of political-economlc dtaS10~ ~'l .cal !atchword for such a pulitics.
e' eo og1 (
'hal as well as at national
. nmental regulation at g~o
Conservatlon an envlro
d b th . aI d efficient resource managcete as 0 rauon an

scale) wuold here be mterpr

.
fcorporate capitaL particularly
Certam sectors 0
.
" ahl fu
men! for a sustam e turc.
.di tl
hnology necessary for global
those which stand to benefit from prov1 ~ Ie tee f I bal ,.....,,;m:to-ement or
" "
h alth find the unagerv 0 g 0
-~

1992; Weale, 1992: chapter 3) IS

monltormg of planetary e
'.
fi example' (see below, chapter 13).
" bnerarv medicine" very attracUVe', Of
p

Pluralistic Liberalism
.

eed

articularly of speech and opinion) are

filS (

Democratlc nghts and fr ,0

\.P I "cal I,"u'cs precisdy because of the
.
. 1_d essentlal to eco Ogl
po
somenmes regaro.e as
. . .
"'potent walT what a proper
e'
difficulty 0 f denning

tn

OlllnlS1Clent or omn

an,.

hat particular values should

. aI li:;v llllght e an W
environmental,.......eco \ogle po ....,
'- .
al ' Ues Open and perpetual
be brought to bear in discussing enV1r~nmc:nt is.S . .
here diverse
. .
.
tal-ecologlcal LSsues m a SOCiety w
negonauon over cnVlfonmen
)
all
d to flourish is seen as the onty
pressure groups (such as G[e~npeace ware, OW~ al ys kept on the agenda..
ilia the enVIfonmen Issue IS wa
way to assure
t
"
and im~1:itutions are created
Whoever wants (0 speak for or about nature ~an> ironmentallaw) to permit
(such as environmental impact stareIDdelitsjanCoenVensus about environmental
"
th "ghts of trees an ow s. ns
contestation over e n
.
tal protection can best be
L ---- te th best bet lor envltonmen
'
issues, and taou:o
e
. .
1. s between a variety of
reached only after complex n~Ot1:ltblon an~ ~owefpop rarya'f moment in a de~ly
usus is at est omy a tem
inrerest groups. But con,se
."
.
h values to be attrtbuted to
contested and pluralistlc pohtlcs concernmg r e
nature and how to view ecological change.

Conseroatism
.cal r
on the principle of prudence and respect
In some of the ecologl
~terarure, H
,..da tations to and of narurai
for tradition plays a leadmg role. uman a p.
and should not be
b
' d at over centunes

environments have een arnve .

d
arion of existing lanJscape~
'I . disttubecL Conservation an preserv
.
llnnecessan~y,
b _ Ii'
eal to esthetic j udgmel1ts, gtve
and usages, someUIDe5 argued for y exp Cl~app
'Collingwood, 1960)"
-' nng (see IOf eXa!nple,
.
such a framework a ~nservatlve
ad"cal' do They can be strongly antif clus sort have a r 1 e be.
,
.
But arguments 0
h I ' d in an international seton,>
development} a..*ld, w en r ~ .
gh
. -,blv to be
capitalistic {against
,
"al' . T ditIon ou r presu......
h ' an also be .')rrongiy anti-impen true. ra
"
d as
t <) c ed
h
that all-out modernization is always reg e
respect
everyw ere, so

ard

179

problematic. Considerable sympathy can then he extended towards, say,

indigenous peoples under seige from commodification and exchange
relations. All of this has its romantic side, but it can also produce a hard-headed
politics of place that is highly protective of a given environmcnt. The issue is
not nonintervention in the environment. hut preservation of traditional modes
of social and environmental interaction precisely becaus-e these have been found
to work, at least for some (usually but not always elite) groups. The preservation of the political poV\rer and values of such groups is just as important here,
of course, as environmental considerations.

l\1[orat Community
The complex issues which arise when ideais of "moral community" are invoked
have already been examined. Many "communities" evolve some rough consensus as to what their moral obligations are with respect to modes of liocial
relating as weU as to ways of behaving with respect to the "rights of nature'"
(see Nash, 1989). ~~ilc often contested, by ,,'irtue of the internal heterogeneity
of the communiry or because of pressures towards social change. these moral
precepts concerning, for example. the relation to nature (express......a. increasingly
in the field of environmental ethics") can become an importan[ ideological
tool in the attempt to fOrge community solidarities (e.g., nationalist sentiments) and to gain empowerment. This is the space, par excellence of moral
debate (see, fur example, Attfield, 1991) on environmental issues coupled with
the articulation of comrnunitarian politics: and values that cemer on ideals of
civic virtues. A virtuous relation to nature is closely tied to communitarian
ideals of civic virrues.

Ecosocialism
While there is a definite tendency in socialist circles to look upon environmentalism as a middle class and bourgeois issue and to regard proposals for
zero growth and constraints on consumption with intense sll.'lpicion (see
Renton, 1989: 52, for a good summary) there are enough O\-nlaps in enough
areas to make ecosocialism a feasible political project (though it is still a
relatively minor current within most main~1:ream socialist movements), Some
environmental issues, such -as occupatiunal health and safet}~ are of intense
concern to workers, while many ecological groups accept that environmental
-problems can be "traced back rn the <.:apitaiist precept that the choice of
production technology is to be governed solely by private interest in profit
. maximization of marketsha.re" (Commoner, 1990: 219). If we wafltccological
-. sanity," assert Haila. and Levins (1992: 251), "we have to struggle for social
. ,ilJStice." This means social cOlllIol of production technology and the means
of production, control over capitalistic "accumulation for accumulation's sake,

fI

11
"

180

The Nature of Environment

production for productions sake" which lies at the root of many environmental
issues, and a recognition that "the future of humanity !iimply cannot build on
pleasant life for a few and suffering for the majority" (Raila and Levins. 1992:

227). This places the environmental issue firmly within the socialist orbit.
Those socialists (see O'Connor, 1988; Foster, 1994) who accept that there is
an ecological crisis, then argue that a second route to socialism is available; one

the contradiction between the social organization of production and. the (ecological) con&tions of p!:oduction, rather than class contra-

that highlights

dictiom. The necessity for socialism is then in part given because only under
socialism can thorough, enduring, and socially just solutions be found to the

The Dialectics ofSocial and Environmental Change

181

suc.:h self-reliant communities that could b

.
"closer'" to nature. Egalit . .
h'
ec?me, hy VIrtue of their scale
'J
anarusm, non lcrarducal fi
f
..
'
Wi espread local empowerme -t
d
" _ 0r:ms 0 orgamzatlon,
Ean partiCIpatIon In de "
- ,L, and
usu all v depicted as the p lifcal
(
Clslon-maKing are
,

'0
1
norm Dauncey 1988) D
-"
COffiffiUlltty empowerment c
I d -th
.
. ecentrauzation and
, th
' oup e Wi a certam d
fb'
15
en seen as the only effi _ .
I'
egree 0 wregionalism
.
ect1ve so ution to :l...."l alienated J '
'
.
lenanon
in
social
relati
hi
re atlon to nature and
al
ons ps.

The
1 have here oudined are by no means mutual)
ki cispositions
f'
l'
n 0 cooptations from one lin f h
.
y exc: us1\'e and all

World Bank's concern with "'sust~:a~il~~~ to anot~er.can he observed.. The

led to a cooptation of e " ,
ty (
eco,ogIeal and financial) has
i l l euumst argument.. to place
'h
o f d evelopmenr proJ'ccts D
al' d
women in t e forefront
. ecentr Ize green polif ! 'k '
some of the findings if
f
lCS II eWI5e seeks to coopt
.
not some 0 the per
",1 L_
.
centralized seienc.... ofgl b a l .
sonn... nom within a highlv
..
0
enVIronmental man
'
The array of ecolo ical 1"
agement.
mented b
g
po lUes I have here outlined must also b
1
.
. ' y an even vaster and much more com lex
. e supp eP array of special pleading
m which environmental-ec I 'a1 .

0 ogre ISSUes or [ P n '

particular social pur~ S .
c
-,Ulrem>.nts are invoked fur very
r
r --_. ClentlSts, lor example h
f, . eli
as lor attention may c r e a t '
. ' ungry or !Un . ng as well
'cal'
e envlronmemal iSsues that fl
h
and s . I f '
re OCt as mue about
thf ethpo lt1 -economy
,OCIO b'Y a SC1ence as they do bo th
d
o
e "enVIronment. Robert May (1992) a Ro 1

a ut e con irian
writing on the evident urgen
f aki'
yru Society research professor
diversity, focuses, for example cy 0 t h ng m~asures to conserve biological
n
(relative to physics) as on ho ' as dillr,llC th ~ne underfunding of taxonomv
,
Wh'
W to e me
e lffiportan
f
deal
'
ISsue.
He on the one hand . -Ii'
ce 0 or - with the
'd 'fi
sCIent! C Ignorance is dear'
b '
I entt cation of what the r d '
.
y a arner to proper
evant (ssues or soluno
'gh b h
' fu
ns ffil t e, t e perpetual
d. alIIlS'-- r dmore funding sometirne, deservedIy provoke
' ,
acK.'> an Whyte (1939, 261-2),'
seepoasm,
J
example. Writing in 1939. th
pr~~de another and even more insidious
concerned about soil eros. ~ ,es~ ~ 19h}y respected soil scientisrs, deeply
IOn In rtlTlca,. argued that:

om

environmental problems.

Ecofeminism
The natUre-nurture controversy has been nov;l1ere more thoroughly debated
tha..""l in the feminist movement aad IT. . ecofeminism we find a diverse set of
opinions on how to connect the environmental-ecological i-<.:.me with feminist
politics (~ee Plumwooel, 1993; Shiva, 1989 for quite different presentations).
In radical ecofeminism, for example, the devaluation and degradation of nature
is seen a.~ deeply implicated in the parallel devaluations and degradation of
women under a system of parriarchal oppression, One line of political response
is to celebrate rather than deny the web-like interrelations between women

and nature through the devdopment of rituals and symbolism as well as an

ethic of caring, nurturing, and. procreation ..An alternative line of argument
resist'> the essentialism implicit in such an argument and defines a "feminist
environmentalism" in ,vhich the "link bernreen women and the environment
can be seen as structured by a given gender and class (1 caste! race) organization
of production, reproduction, and distribution" (Agarwal, 1992, 119), In both
equations, the feminism is as prominent, if not more so, than the ecology and
solutions to ecological problems arc seen as dependent upon the acceptance

<

'

<

of certain kinds of feminist principles.

Dect"'lltrdli:zed cornmunitarianism
_Most contemporary ecological movements, Dobson (1990: 25) argues, eschew

authoritarian solutions on principle and "argue for a radically participatory

form of society in which discussion takes place and expHdt consent is asked
for and given across the widest possible range of political and soci-al issues,"
Their POliiic; generally derive inspiration from "'the self-reliant community
modelled on anarchiST lines" (O'Riordan, 1981: 307) and wrirers like

Bookchin, Goldsmith, and a host of others (including the German green party)
have tried to articulate the form of social relations: 'which should prevail within

A feudal type of society in which th

.
.
tied ro the lands of their F
.e natlve cultIvators would be [0 Wille extent
,uropean overlords seems ill
meet the needs uf the soil i th
e most generally suited to
n e present stat.. of African d I
Qfi-'lot b e expected to accept C daI<
. ~
eve opment. Africa
Afr- .
,eu ism wJthour a t ggI ,
_
lca It would mean jenison'
th
..
s ru :e; III parts of British
everywhere it would me dmg. c promlsmg experiuu:nt of Indirect Rul
a

an eny:mg to the nady

f h

"

opportunities tor material advanceme-n

. es some 0 t J: libert"j ar:d
_:them. But it would enabl th
I
t to WfllCh their labors should entitle
e who have been the .
~ d wh0 -have the Meanseande peop
hili '
.
pnme cause of ermiCil
tho~ so.
il SeIf'~HHerest um:rammal!"";
a
t;b tor wntrolu
ro ass ume r.:sponsl-bil'ltv fur
f
,
,-U...u
Y rears 0 nat'
.... 1...
'
responsibil:tywas carried out' th~ ul .
. lye IfV......!, would e-'lSllre that
-huma.nitarian consideration f, :. .. . tunate mterests or the soiL At present,
s or c natr.es prevent Europeans from winning

The DialectiCi ofSor.ial and Environmental Cbange

182

The Nature ofEnvironment

.

b
. th
il Humani(\'" may perhaps e
the attainable position of ~ommance over do~:~t, and if "';hite men will not
the higher ideal, but the soil demands a.n:
the vegetation will do so, by the
and black men cannOt assume the POSitWn,
' fin .11" squeezing out the wtlltes.
process 0 f erOSiOn au;
,
h ' the name of the

h+
l~

ment Illustrates

oW, m

s:-a e h Id be plit upon the rightsdlof h othersh

f rcstncttonSS Oll

Both blunt and star t1ing,

L
environment, all ki nu.s
0
.'
th who suppose y ave { e
while conferring rights (and oblIgauons) on I hoseproblem. While few would
' h --t. nolom.r to contro t e
'nki '
knowledge and the h .g teen
'"
' of this kind of thl ng In
there'
s
a
strong
straill
do
nOW dare to be so blatant,
~ _
h a eeminely progressive cument
World Bank arguments and even lin sue th sresour~s of others, in the name
u
rt. Contra over e .
, 'degrad'
"S the B[Undt! and .',.epo
l'ronmenUl
allon,
, abili
prevennng env
c
planeM~
Ilealth,
sustam
ty
or
posals
for
..lo bal cnvironO'.~ J
fa
f many western pro
eis never toO far &om the sur ce: rec.isdv that potentiality stt:nulates a g~od
mental management. Awareness f P
.'
C rm of environmentalIsm
, d I . CQuntnes to any 10
deal of resistance In eve opmg
emanating from the wesL
.
al-ccological issue get" con~
,
h ever the enVltonment
d
Similar issues anse w ~.....
,
The s cia1 issue of Fortune devote to
vetted into a purely esthetIC questlOfl.
ed a strong argument for the
, 1970 for ex:ampj e, contam
uld
the environment m
.,
U ' ed S tes along what we wo
'
of
the
nIt
ta
all
redevelopment of th e d ~wn.t(J\\rn. okin environmental quality (usu y
g
noW call "posuuodern lines, mv , ed
, terfront spaces) as its prim.ary
d
as
Ireel
In
or v. a
) alL'
depicted as user- friendly an
\
'
" ,.,.., ~filson (1992 c ~ It,
"culture 0 nature
goal. The whole contemporary
that
pon environmental quahty
, very cultivated and hard-sold taste.,
preys u
ISa
,
through' comn1crcial cooptatlon.
ed
dude that disrusslon of the
be =pt to con
,
A cynical observer <nigh.l
th
rt way of imrodncing parucu.
. othing more an a cove
. at "
of
environmental !.ssue 1S n .
.. the specter of an ecologiC COSlS or
g
.
Jar social and political projects by ralSln
f nature-imposed necessirf' I
, "
I'
b
~""' to the aothonty a
,--, ' I
lerrittm1ZIDg so uuons Y ap~
L _ b
~.J-r concluston: all et.Ulogtca
0h
dr w a somewuat roaw:::
.
(d
"""Quid wa."lt, (Nlever, (0 a, ~
usl
litical--economic projects an
eo
projectS (and argt~ents) are sun
~!:<; are never socially neutral any
argumems) and VIce versa, EcologiC arg --'~lh, eutral, Lookir.g more closely
,
li 'cal 'lTO"llments are eco10 0 """"",." n
. 'f
to
more than SQC1O-po tl -t;'~--.
rre1 th becomes imperative
I Vir(: are
lines
Inte
ate,
en
..
1
'
d
.
questions.
at thewa)' ecOIogy an po
e ntal1ecolookal
roadl enVlfOnm
I
b"
get. a better handle on how to app

re.

aJ

<

r:

bieal Materialism and the

II. Historieal-Geograp.
. al Pro' ects
Political-Economy of SOClo-ecologlc
J
, ' tal
hy of socio
<.\:
'cl
ord of the hlston geograp
.. cal
There is an exaordinao y n 1 ~Cl'gh n the ways in lillch socio-polin
ecological change that sheds mu
1 t 0

183

and ecological projects intertwine with and at some poinr become indistinguishable from each other, The archive of such materials from archeology (see,
for example, Butzer, 1982), antluopology (see, for example, Bennett, 1976;
Ellen, 1982; Ingold, 1986), geography (Thomas, 1956; Goudie, 1986; Turner
et ai., 1990), and more recently history (cf. the debate in Journal ofAmerican
History, 1990) is extensive indeed. Yet much. of the contemporary debate on
environmental--ccological issues, fur aU of its surfuce devotion to ideals of
multidisdptinarity and a:depth~" operates as if chese materials either do not exist
0'; if rhey do, exist only as a repository of anec.doral evidence .in support of
particular claims. The debate remains at the purdy discursive level and fails
to integrate itsdfwith what we know about the historical-geography of material practices. Systematic work is relatively rare and that which does exist (e.g.
Butzer, 1932) has not been anywhere near as central to discussion as it should.
The debate now arising within Nlan::ism - between. for example. Benton
(1989,1992) and Grundmann (1991., b) - operates at level oflrjstoricai,..
geographical abstraction that is most un-Marxist.
The difficulty in part derives from the tendency in discursive debates to
homogenize the category "nature" (and discuss its social meaning and
consritlltion as a unit.a.Pf category) when it should be regarded as intensely
internally variegated - an unparalleled field of difference, In much the same
way thar ,he formal debate over "language" (see chapter 3) loses sight of the
multiple languages at work in the world. so the general debate over the society!
nature relation loses sight of the incredible degree of ecosyste:mic variation. As
much attention should. then be paid 1:0 the production of difference as to the
,relational meaning of nature in generaL So where does all this difference come
from?

An impressionistic survey illustrates well how societies strive to create

ecological conditions and. environmental niches for themselves which are not
only conducive to their own survival but also manifestations and instanciations
"in nature" of their particular social relations. Since no society can accomplish
such a task """thour encollntering unintended ecological consequences, the
contradiction between social and ecological change can become highly
problematic, even from time to time putting the very survival of the sociery
concerned at risk. lhis latter point was made as long ago as 1864. by that extraordinary pioneer in the study of the historical-geography of environmental
change, George Perkins Marsh, While Marsh recognized that it was often hard
- distinguish between anthropogenic and nonanthropogenic changes. he
>i,epard,..-l it as "certain that man has done much (0 mould the form of the earth's
"i"rf,,~"' ways that were by no means always destructive to human interests.
)lei"",'hpll,oo we have Jong furgotten that the earth was given to us "fur usufruct
not for cummmption, still Jess for profligate waste. " The nee effect of
interventions is that "the hannonies of nature are turned to discords
the intentional changes pale "'in comparison with the contingent and

b
184 The Nature a/Environment
unsought resulls which have flowed from them." Engels, without much in the

way of evidence, made the same poine

Let us not, however, flatter oursdves overmuch on account of our human
victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us. Each
victory, it is true, in the first place brings about the results we expected, but in
the: second and. third places it has quite different, unforeseen effecs which only
toO often cancel the first. ... Thus at every step we are reminded that we by no
means rule ovcr narure like a conqueror over a foreign peopte, like someone
stwding out of nature _ but that we, with flesh. blood, and brain.. belong to
nature, and exist in its midst, and mat aU our mastery of it consists in the fact
that we have t.l)e advantage over all oL~er creatures of being able to learn its laws
and apply them correctly.

This implies the sheer necessity of always raking the duality of social and
ecological change seriously (d. Cronon's "dialectical" views cited in cha.pter 6)
or, as 11arx and Engels' (1975: 55) put it. recognizing that the "'antithe:ois
between nature and history is created" only when '''the relation of man to nature

is excluded from hiswrv."

Putting that relatio~ back into history reveals a lot. Cronon (1983), for
example. shows hmv :a New England environment that was the product of more
than 10)000 years of Indian occupation and forest use (promoting. through
burpjng, the forest edge conditions which tend to be so species diverse) ",'as
misread by the settlers as pristine, virginal~ rich, and underutilized by
indigenous peoples. The implantation of European institutions of governance
and property rights (coupled with dis.tinctively European aspirations towards
accumulation of wealth) wrought an ecological transformation of such
enormity [hat indigenous populations were deprived of the ecological basis fur
their particular way of life. The annihilation of that way of life ami the social
onierings that constructed it (and thereby of Indian peoples. themselves) was
as much an ecological as a. milimry or political ev-ent. In pan tms had to do
wirh the lntro<iucrion of new disease regimes (smaHpox in particular) but
changes in and on the land also made it impossible to sustain a nomadic and
highly flexible indigenous mode of production and reproduction.
One path towards consolidation of a particular set of social relations,
therefore, is to underUlke an ecological transformation which requires the
a
reprodc.ctio of those social. relations in order to sustzin it. Worster (1985 )
n
doubde,s exaggerates in his flamboyant projection onto the American West of
Wittfogd's theses. on tl:e relation between large-scale irrigation schemes and
despotic forms of govcrnment, but his basic argument is surely correct. Once
the original proposals-for a communitarian, decentralized; "biG-regional," riverbasin-confineJ settlement system for the US west, drawn up by the geologist
John Wesley Powell at the end of ,he nineteenth century, WeIe rejeered

The Dialectic, vfSocial and Enr-'tronmenta!

'
Change

185

y a congress dominated bv lar c seal

.
thoroughly vilified in the p'
,g-h e. corporate mterests (Powell being
~
recess), [ ose IntereSts sou...,.l..,t
h '
repro llctlOn through cornu'
f darns me
b'~ to assure
t crr own
d
j
~ uctlOn a
.
ann vast transformations f th
'
ga-water proJects of all sons
,
I'
0
e ""'estern ecoS)'SLem S
..
h
ceo ogtcal project came to dep- d
_.. 1'
~ustammg sue a grandiose
....n
C!UUaHV t:pon th
.
ancc of centralized sta'e
.' u.ass
.1...
e creaHon
, po,vers a., d certain
~l'
'th cand maintenperpetuation fot -xample EIa
cal
. . r" atlOlls" e lOrmat10n and
,
'.
,0
rge-s eagnb
agrariar. prolc-.:ariat). The conseque t b
~messf and an oppressed
landless
'd.
n su VerSlOllO th J ffi
'de
agrarIan emocracv h a s '
d
.
e e ersom;:;n eam of
.
, e v e r sInce create Ju(cn
.1:
.
po (IC of states like Cal,L ' (
'
se cOlllIawctlOm in the boo}'
li
1Ur I11a see .lor exa..'llpl
G t1" b
1m Chinatown)' But h '
h'.
. . e, D[ le 1988 or Polanski's
fi
"
ere aHot er unplicatl
(
hI b
Cronon's work) follows'
,. ..1:.
.
on nota ya sent in much of
,
. .
. contrawctlOns ill the social ela
contradIctLons on [he land d 'th .
.
I'
nons entail social
1 d th _
an WI 11], euJ5YstemlC pr .ects rh
1
on y 0
e rIch occupy privileged. niches' h
. oJ
. emse 'les. Not
to work and live in the mOf" t .
L ._~~ 1. e habItat while the poor tend
' ox;c Of u,..ardo
(ha
[cverydesignoftherranscormed
.
. us zones seec pter
-'eco~ystem IS red I f '
.. 1 13). but
h
onversdy, projects set up in
1'
1 'cal 0 ent 0 Wi SOCIal relations.
C
call d "
pure)' eco ogi
terms rhinks
e green revolution" [or ...... am 1 h'
all
one
of the so,~,
'h pe- ave
m
SOClal consequences (in the
1 _
anner 0 fd'ISITI'b mive and
_ holdings in a few hands and ~ee~ rev? utlofn case the concentration of land
le creation 0 a landless'
.
'. C reated ecosystems tend to bot h
' . and ref! agranan
mstanctat~
h proletarIat).
.systems that gave rise to them t1
h ,.,. d-ed, t ereOre, (he social
..
b
, :lOUg we)' 0 not J
.
t,l.e., ffi1 Ie) ways. This 81m I
' '1
0 so m nonconrradictory
., th
'
P
e
pnnclp
e
ought
to
'gh
_ an It does upon all angles of .
we.
mueh more heavily
, -.1. ~ch'
envirorunental-ecological d b'
I'
"
~'rn . Lew~nt1n (1982: 162) aIQUCS has be
e ate. t.lS a ~rmC!ple
. -.,-m SOCial sCleneo::
1:>
en forgotten as much 10 biOlogy as
We.cannot regard evolution as the "solutio ,. b '
envrronmental "problems" becaus . "
~f:} ~~~cs ot some predetermined
that derermin,e both the proM e 1l IdS the! li'-,t: actr:'lues uf the species themselves
'th. _1 .
ems an so utlOns smullt
1
W1 In melr ~ndivjduallife(
d"
aneous y.... Organisms
_ 1.
imes an III the cours~ of the
I'
not aaapt to environments' th
th ...
Ir eva utlon as a species
_
'
eyro_uct em Th~
.!"
o
e aws of nature al""e'
th
j
.
-J are no! SlfllP v ov<er:ts
fth j .
' ~ nng ernse yes to tne inevitabr
. ~ J
ttansfornung IL1.tilre
accord'109 to Its
'j
e, bur actIVe subteets
.
aW5.
'J

-the effe:xa
IS to:say
PiliSta3
' that what se~Mtes
r~-

C
lrom th e US U'e5t '
!n something all d
al'
,>
IS not so
di rrerences
h gh
c c natur envlronme tal
di' "
.
t ou
these
may
be)
burrhe
h"cal
n
con
, "
!StOfi
geography of st-,~J (IOns
process \!ncorporating
all 0 f'Its moments) through ..'-u.c5-'es

h
' over
ave heen transformed Th"
I'
wale envIronh
eel"tiv'e/v rustless:
how a bandon
th.. is l~p les. that
. we cannot .-.OC1e
lJ
. ed
eXlstmg ecQ"yst
;,; - eInlC
Structures of' say
'errl]Xlf",ry ,CaIJit:ui"m'in
Immense
'
or er to get back close to natur~ ,. Such
'.'
1

are a reworked form of "second nature" that:annot

~::l:~~

~ :

I
The Dialectics ofSocial and Environmental Change 187

:the Nature of Environment

th
'al d'1$aster not only, for e
1
.
thout
-courting
eoo
ogtc
to deteriorate or co11apse Wi
all ~.
d forms that have become
d - d' but for
speCIes an
d
social order that pro uce it,
f. tituted environments (an
, TL
,.
r managemenr 0 COIlS
,
"
dependent on it. lie p~ope
~ _!" "
logical transformatwn mto
" th 1
term SOCLUIstlC or eco
I' , al
in this I incIuue elf ongh
ul're transitional po lUC"
d'!
)
y t ere ore req
d
something comple( y 1 erent ma_ .
~ d sysrems of governance that
,
h'
ch" of po"""er re lalions,
.
h' '
instirutlons, terar le5
10 .stsan
and socialists alike. T is IS so
could well be anathema. to both eeo . gL.u.nnatural about New York
,
fu .J__ tal sense there 15 norhi ng
,
. hi
hecause, m a nua-men
>
'ausition entails an mevJt:l e
"
ch
eco(;'\T"-tem even til iT
h' h
citv' and sustalnlng su an
~JU ,
.'
and social relations W IC
,
"
h
me fonns of SOCIal organtZatlOn
compromIse Wit

186

produced it.
.
j
vstem' may sound sOIUe\\'-hat odd.
etrv a createu ecos,
.'
'T"'
To rerro N cw "ork
1.1
"/
,_ J
.
at w .ecosysteID1C
proJects. (0
. V1'
t be VlewW. as extern
th
b
But human actl ty canno
.
d . pollination WI out ees
than (rvmg (0 Stu Y

view it so makes no more sense

"rth
United States wIthout the
'al
of tht: no eastern
. __ 1
or the precolofi\ ecosystem
Ii d
tht:rwise dedicated ecolog1Gl.l
..
'u1
Iy
odd
to
n
many
0
h
'
beaver. An d it IS parne ar
L'"
f urbanization from t elf
,tit
. r transwrmatlons
0

thinkers exdudmg e ~sl .... e , 1 th ' an ecoloP"ical world everythmg

' ' '
pnnclp e at In
eall
f
purview VIhile mSlstmg 1!l
.
f urbanization is, after , one 0
relates to everything else. The long lllstoPf ~
tal modification iliat have
'fi
C all the processes 0 f enVlronlnen
1. _ ~
the most Signi cant O.i

rv In the lase century rhat process n.a::;

occurred. throughom: recent v.rorld hlstb " I 'al conditions that have never
'et of ~lo at eco ope
h II
, .. '
become exp1GSlve, ,..reatmg a:;
b' al .
L _, emerged that arc w 0 y
"
And
'ronment Issues l.Ld."I'e

I
been seen berare.
errvl
. ,
. . " have created, We WIll sure y
.
.

urbamzl.llg aCtlVltles
I
specific to the eco ogles our.
. h b'
r,: excluding llrban htstoflcal
" tor t he discursive
a!t o~
(
f'
, _1 I" istorical geography see
P a,v a sev'ere pnce
th
II th t 0 envtconmCll(:aJ.i)
at
geographY from e overa
r~s
crl .mists to shift environment
dlapterl4), We have, Gottlieb (1993) corre y I man:.gement of the natural
. "L__
ument about protection or
b
d
analysIs HUm an arg .
f 'I
nts ;n response to the ur an an
d'
~S10n 0 soeu moveme

f
environment to a lSCU~.
e < l " The created environments 0 an
industrial forces of th~ past ~~ndr d yeara;:~ular difficulties, their proneness t~
urbanizing world, thetr qualIties an P d ' . n of nev.' diseases, theLr
c the development an transmtsSlO
ne\vconfigurauons lor
bOlo ('
hatevcr sense) have to
n:
1
bl
of sustama 1 tty 1!1 W
'
extraordinarily d uucn [pro ems.
I ' to ~uch of the ccmemporary
...
f ur attentlon re atlve
.
f
mo\re co t he cenLer 0 0
. h I
ant mo~'cment5 preser1ratlOn 0
'h Wloldeln~, per Ip era "
'cas'
,
preoccupation wU
1"
.
1

scenic landscapes, and the hke.

."
are "active subjects transformmg
'
lik-e all other org-,;Jl1sms,
.
he
Human b elllgs, , I ~
"
al
'the '"ourse
of adaptlllg (0 t
d are ways In
-mtme according to lts aws an
I ' f damenT-<J..Uv misraken, therefore,
tv
truer. t 1S un
.LL.,
ecosystems they t herose cs cons
if th"se -are wo separate
.
,
f ' tv on the ecosvstem a s . .
,0
tb
to speak of the lm~act 0 "sOC1e
h The'tvpica! manner of deptctmg .e
sysrems in intera~tion wlth.;:-eac tl ber'I' d "s~cietv'" ill interaction with a boX
ld
d tn terms 01 a box a e Ie
d ' rhe
wor. aruun u s
ak little intuitive sense (try rawlllg
labelled "'er.vironmem nut only m es

boundary between the boxes in your own dally life) but it also has jusr as little
fundamental theoretical or historical jusrification. rv10ney Hows and commodity movements, for example. have to be regarded as fundamental to
contemporary ecosystems (particularly given urbanization), not only because
of the past geographical transfer of plant and animal species from one
env-:ironment to, another (see Crosby, 1986), but also because these flows
formed and continue to form a coordinating network that keeps contemporary
ecological habitats reproducing and changing in the particular way tltey do, If
those money flows ceased tomorrow, then the disruption within the world's
eco~ystems would be enormous. And as the Hows shift and change their
character, as is always the case given the uneven geographical devdopment of
capitalism, so the creative .impulses embedded in any socio-ecological system
will also shift and change in ways that may be stressful, contradictury or salutary
as the case may be. Here, too, Cronon's (1991) consideration of Chicago as a
dty operating as a fundamental exchange point between and transfonnati-n:
influence within the ecosystems ofNorth}unerica provides an interesting case
study. It in effect rransJates and extends Smith's theses (see Smith, 1990)
concerning "the production of nature" through commodity exchange and
capital accumulation into a detailed historical-geographicaL narrative. The
category environmental or ecological movement" may also for this reason be
a misnomer particularly when applied to resistances of indigenous peoples to
ecological change. Suc.~ resistances may not be ba.'ied, as many in the west
might suppose, upon some deep inner need to preserve a discinctiye and
unalienated relation to nature or to keep intact valued symbols of ancestry and
the like. but upon a much clearer recognition that an ecological transformation imposed from outside (as happened in the colonial New England or as
has more recently happened to rubher tappers in the i\mazon) win destroy
indigenous modes of production, Guha (1989: xii), for example, in his study
of the Chipko "cree-hugging movement in the Himalayas against commerciall0ggingand high-tech forest yie1dmanagement, shows (contra Shivas wdlknown interpretacion) that "the most celebrated 'environmental' movement in
the Third World is viewed by its participants as being above all a peasantmavement in defence: of traditional T!ghts in the forest :md only secondarily, if at
all, an <environmental' or 'feminist' movemenr. Yet, to the degree that a
"homogenizing urban-industrial culture"" is generating its m.vn distinctive
forms 'of eco1ogical and culmr:u contradictions and crises, the Chipko, precisely
by virtue of their ecological practices, "'represent one of the most inno\tative
-responses to the ecological and cultural crisis of modern society'" (Guha, 1989:
196),
Indigenous groups (including those peasant women made so much of in
writings) can, hov,:ever, also be totally unsentimental in their
;.oiol'>gical practices, It is largely a wesrern construction, heavily influenced by
'romantic reaction to .modern industrialism. which leads many to the view

II'\ I
!. II !.:.
,'
,

204

The ~!Vature ()f Environment

ecological question of how to "arbitrate and translate between them." The

ecological argument is incredibly confused on exactly this point. On the one
hand the Gaian planetary health care specialists think globally and seek to act
globally, while the bioregionalists and social anarchists want to think and act
locally, presuming, quite erroneously, that whatever is good for the locality iE
good for the continent or the planet. But at this point the issue becomes
profuundly political as well as ecological, for the political power to act, decide
upon socio-ecological projects and to regulate their unintended consequences
has also to be defined at a certain scale (and in the contemporary world the
nation states mosdy carved out over the last hundred years maintain a
privileged position even though they make no necessary politico-ecological
sense). But (his also says something very concrete about what anyecosocialist
project must confront. On the one hand there wi\! presumably be continuing
transformations in human practices iliat redefine temporal and spatial scales,
while on the omer hand political power structures must be created that have
the capacity to "arbitrate and translate berween'J the d.ifferent scales given by
different kinds of projects. Here, too, it seems that an ecosocialist perspectiv'e
has an enormous import for socialist thinking on how human potentialities
are to he explored and whar kinds of political institutions and power Structures
can be created that are sensitive to the ecological dimensions of any socialist
project.

V. Epilogue
"At the end of eveey labor process," Marx (1967: 174) once observed, "we get
a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its
commencement." The purpose of the kind of labor that! have here engaged
in, is to try and produce conceptual darifications that might enter into the
political practices of a critique of capitalism and the construction of socialism.
But to be realized, as Eckersley so acutely points out, the aspirations released
by analyses of this sort "must be critically related to one's knowkdge of the
present, thereby uniting desire with analysis and [lead on] to informed cultural,
social, and political engagement." To bring my argument full cirde, that means
developing ways to conceptualize and represent ecological issues in ways that
speak to the aspirations of the working-class movement, certain segments of
the women's and. ecologists' movement, as well as to those African-Americans
who, in the Left Bank Jazz Club in Baltimore more than 20 years ago, quite
correccly defined their main environmental problem as the presidency of
Richard Nixon.

PART III

Space, Time, and Place

Part III Prologue

There is a good deal of historical-geographical evidence for the thesis that

different societies (marked by different forms of economy, social and political
organization, and ecological circumstance) have "produced" radically different ideas about space and time. This thesis can be taken further. A seeming
consensus can be constructed from these multiple enquiries to the effect
rime and. space are social constructs.

that

But behind this seeming consensus, there lurk innumerable and potentially
damaging confus-ions. "While, for example, it is now almost conventional to
accept as an article of faith in social science that space and time are constituted

by, as weB as constitutive o social relations and practices, there is often a

slippage in actual accounts into a. much more prosaic presentation in which
social relations occur within some preconstituted and static framework of space

and time. Such slippage is all the more remarkable for passing almost
unnoticed, suggesting that there is something radically amiss in the way
relations berween spatio-temporality and sociality are construed at the very
outset. It is not at all dear, for example. whether or not it is permissible or
.even possible to treat space and time as separate qualities. The number of books
that concentrate on time alone (even a whole journal is now devoted to Time

and Social Theory) suggests that the separation is widely accepted but little
serious consideration is given

to the grounds for or consequences of such a

seI,ar;1ti.>n. Aveni's (1989) fascinadng account of different Empires of Time
:ab.str;,cts entirely from questioning the nature of space, even though the
:<."patiali",ticIUS necessary to consttuct time (as, for example, in all calendars and
litter the text on almost every page. Does the social construction of

and time, furthermore, imply

Copyright Tapestry.

that they are mere social conventions

of any material basis? If space and time are judged to be material

;'1t.mnes then by what means~ outside of imagination or intuition, can these
><ju.alities be established? And then what are we to make of all those plainly
;no:ru:nate:rialist metaphorical uses of concepts of space and time by means of
we speculate (through novels or fantasy) about who or what we are, or

208

Space, Time, and Place

might be, and how the world in general works, And if, finally, the boundary
between material and metaphorical uses is judged. irrdevant, as some now
claim, then does this mean that the virtual reality of cyberspace now under
construction is both just as real and just as fictional as anything yet constructed?
The answers to these questions are important because space and time are
foundational concepts for almost everythiog we think and do. The conclusions
we reach will have far reaching implications for how we understand the world
to be and how we might theorize abour it. In what follows, therefore, I shall
first tty to distill from a rather wide-ranging historical, geographical, and
anthropological literature some sense of what exactly it might mean to speak
of the social construction or "production" of space and time. I wiH then seek
in chapter 10 a general metaphysical fuundation - a relational theoty of
space-time - that seems appropriate to interpret the historical-geographical
findings.
Concepts of space and time affect the way we understand the world to be.
And they also provide a reference system by means of which we locate outselves
(or define OUT "situatedness'" and positionality,' to use the language of chapter
3) with respect to that world. It is therefore impossible to proceed far with a
discussion of space and time without invoking the term "place," This in turn
has implicarions for how we "place" things and how we think of "our place"
in the order of things in particular. But the word "place" also carries a surfeit
of meanings. To begin with, there are all sorts of words such as milieu, locality,
location, locale, neighborhood, region, territoty, and the like, which refer to
the generic qualities of place. There are other terms such as city, village, town,
megalopolis, and state which designate particular kinds of places and stili
others, such as home, hearth, "turf community, and nation, which have such
strong connotations of place that it would be hard to talk about one without
the other. "Place" (like space and time) also has an extraordinary range of
metaphorical meanings. We talk about the place of art in social life, the place
of men in society, our place in
cosmos, and we internalize such notions
psychologically in tenns of knowing our place or feeling we have a place in
the affections or esteem of others. We express norms by putting ~ople, eventsl
and things in their "proper" place and seek to subvert norms by struggling to
define a new place ("on the margin" or "on the border," for example) from
which the oppressed can freely speak. Place has to be one of the most multilayered and multipurpose keywords in our language.
While this immense confusion of meanings makes any theoretical concept
of place immediately suspect, I regard the generality, the ambiguity, and the
multiple layers of meanings as advantageous. It suggests some underlying unity
(or process of internalization) which, if we can approach it right, will reveal a
great deal about social, political, and spatial practices in interrelation with each
othet over time. So although I shan concentrate mainly on the territorial and
material qualities of place, the very looseness of the term lets me explore the

me

Part III Pro!tJgue 209

tnner connections to other meanin
I 1
the collapse of certain kinds of s ati~'b s ~all suggest, for example, that while
ingiy seCUre material and territ!ial d fiar~l~r has ufndermined older and seem"nauon,
. "J th everyfactofthatcollapse(th
e ll1Uons 0 pI
(ch "
ali
aCe su as home" and
compression" or the construction f
ere ty or even threat of "rime-space
.
0 cyberspace) has
upon the Interrogation of metaphorical and
.put rene:ved emphasis
turn, generate material practices that'
Psycholog~cal meanmgs which, in
Fear of the "other" who now seems so ~ve n",,: mttenal definitions of place.
the globe can, for example, lead to all so reaterung y close everywhere around
Explorations of this SOrt should hel I ~~ex~uS1onary territorial behavior.
and "difference" because terr"to .~ c;n
e orny problem of "otherness"
conflated with race, erhnic, ge:.dfl ~..ce-based identity, particularly when
of ~e most pervasive bases fur bo~r, ;~ zgto~, an~ ~lass differentiation, js one
paruculatism) as well as fo
. P gressl;-e p.oliucal mobilizations (militant
. bo "
r reactIonary exdUSlonary' Ii'
wnte a 11t the power of place" .
th
po nes. When people
L'sh'
It seems e y t h .
'
len !Sm of endOWing a thing . h
are e1 er engagmg in a straight
Wlt power or talki
bo
.
process 0 f place construction that has
ng a ut a cerram social
economic implications for how OUr worlmdo~llenbtumG' ~eaning. and political_
of pIa .
.
WI
e. ettlng beh' d h
.
ce ill a manner conSIstent with the social
'.
In t e concept
lS} therefore, an impo~,~t
.

constItution of space and tjme

. .
.~, project lOr any au da'
aI
pnncIples ofhistorical-geographi aI
'aI' n nOn understanding of the
e maten Ism B
'<hi
und erstanding we will also find
'. I
. ut ''" n that foundational
.
. . L ~.
empmca as well th
.cal
~Ilew lUar the trulffivirare of space-time- 1
as eoren support for (he
III relation to the processes of socio-ecot ~~ can only be fully appreciated
part II.
ogI
transformatIon examined in

The Socia! Comtntctwn ofSpace and Time 211

9
The Social Construction of Space and
Time

a:nds ace-call it brain orheartofcreation

zme tist:"o woubi not dwell there! Paul Klee

tear

There, where the power-houscho!all

_ activates every functton; w

0 15

1. The Spaces and TimeS of Social Life

.

'

Ekm ta

Forms a/the Religious Lifo (1915)

Durkheim pomted out m. The

en Tryh firings of anthropologists such
d .
e sOCIal constructs.
ew
cl
that space an urne a r ,
(1963) Hall (1966) and, more reren y
as Hallowell (1955), Uvi-StraU~ugh_Jo~es (1979), Gel! (1992) and Moore
Bourdieu (1977), Munn (19ijfi86),
. . p ducem",litati,'elvdi/firentconcepfi tho 7"ew' dz erentsOCJetles ro
7~
;/
.
th
(1986) con rrn "'1.,
--4l)inhisextraordioarytreauseput e
tions a/space and time. Soro;un f(193! I
Yi-Fu Tuan (1977), Sack (1980),
.
Ii I
the agenua 0 SOC10 ogy,
h'ca!
Idea rm y onto
I'
al (1978) provide geograp I
Parkes and Thrift (1980), and Car ~chem(1e9t 85') Le Go.ff(1980), and Braude!
d h' torians such as Gurevl
,.
J
accounts an 1$
. ' a1 ch
s in conceptions of space anu time
1C
(1974) have elah ora: ed ~n hist: . ~ art historians have, of course, long

in coruiderable detarl. Literary eor~sts an (

r example Ross, 1988) and,
L
f space anu time see, lOr
)
th .
embraced the relatiViSm 0
L_
_~.
. mportant facet in elr
tl ,. (Spain 1992)uavemaueltanl
more recen y~ erntnlSts
. '.
rally
ed. are social constrUcts.
ag~e, tta h. to this conclusion. So
arguments. Space and time, It IS ge~e
But all sortS of confusions an~ IDls,concepnons a c
I begin with four points of clanlicatlOn.
d' e are not wrought out of thin air, but
1. Social consrructions of spa,: an
and time which human beings
shaped out of the varIOUS orms 0 s~~ce ;val For example, night and
encounter in their struggle for matert sun 1 .

tl;'

day; the seasom, Iifecycles in rhe animal and plant world, and the biological
processes which regulate human reproduction and the body, :ITe typical
encounters with v.uious kinds of temporality. But each of these stands to
be modified or even transcended as we harness sources of energy to turn
night into day, as we use an international division of labor to put fresh
produce into our shops at all rimes of the year, as we speed up the lifecycles
of chickens and pigs through genetic engineering and as human life
expectancy rises with improved living standards and medical knowledge.
The discovery of the varying properties of time and space in the material
world (through the study of physics, ecology, biology, geology, etc.) is
thererore fundamental. Such knowledge permits a social choice as to which
particular process or processes shall be used to construct space and rime.
The swing of the pendulum or the pace of radioactive decay are now used,
whereas in other eras it may have been the cyclical motions of the planets
and the stars or the migrations of animal populations. To say that time and
space are socia! constructs does not deny their ultimate embeddedness in
the materiality of the world:
Time is '"in" the universe; the universe is not "'in" rime. Without the universe.
there IS no time; no before) no after. Likewise, space is "in the universe; the
universe is not "in" a region of space. There is no space outside" the universe.
(Hewitt, 1974: 515)

Conceptions of space and time depend equally upon cultural, meraphorical,

and intellectual skills. The rise of a doctrine of "deep rime" (the idea that
"there is no sign of a beginning and no prospect of an end" in the famous
formulation of the geologist James Hutton, writing in 1788) from the midseventeenth through rhe early nineteenth centuries was as much fueled by
metaphorical visions as it was by any observation of rocks and outcrops:

The interplay of internal an_d external sources - of theory informed by

metaphor and observation constrained by theory - marks any major
movement in science. We can grasp the discovery of deep time when we
recognize the metaphors underlying several centuries of debate as a common
heritage of all people who have ever struggled 'with such basic riddles as
direction and immanence. (Goald. 1988: 7)

and space may be "facts of nature" but, as with "\--alues in nature"

<.H'L~"n 5) we cannot know what those facts are outside of our own

. ,,:uh:ut;u embeddedness in language, belief systems, and the like.

constfuctioru of space and time operate with the full force of
.objec':ive &cts to which all individuals and institutions necessarily respond.
say that something is socially constructed is not to say it is personally

II
112 Space, Time, and Pitu:e
subjective. There are, Gurevich (1985: 14) argues, certain "universal
concepts and representations which are canonical for the society as a whole,
and without which no theories, no philosophical, esthetic, political or
religious ideas or systems can be constructed. Once accepted, foundational
concepts like space and time become pervasive: "the obligatory nature of
these categories upon all members of the society" does not "mean that the
society consciously imposes these norms upon its members by requiring
them to perceive the world and react to it in (his particular way; society is
unaware both of the imposition and of the acceptance, the 'absorption', of
these categories and images by its members. For example, in modern
societies we accept clock time, even though such time is: a social construct~
as an objective fact of daily life. It provides a commonly held standard,
outsid.e of anyone person's influence, to which we rurn to organize our lives

and to asseSS and judge all manner of social behaviors and subjective
feelings. Even when we do not conform to i~ we know very well what is
being rebelled against.
4. Social definitions of objective space and time are implicated in processes
of social reproduction. Bourdieu (1977) shows, for example, how in the
case of the north African Kabyle, remporal and spatial organization (the
calendar, the partitions witliin "t,e house, etc.) serve to constitute the social
order through the assignment of people and activities to distinctive places
and rimes. The group orders its hierarchies. its gender roles, and divisions
of labor, in accordance ,,~th a specific mode of spatial and temporal
organization. Its choice of material embeddedness for social constructs of
space and time internalizes social relations (as well as institutional and social
power). The role of women in Kabyle society is, for example, defined in
terms of the spaces oC<.."Upied at specific times. A parricular way of representing (as opposed to using) space and time guides social practices in ways
which secure the social order. Hugh-Jones (1979) in her study of spatial
and temporal processes in northwest Amazonia, undersoo res that argument
by establishing the relationship between the space-time principles which
structure the Pifa-parana Indian cosmos and the building of basie units of
social structure, families, and patrilineal groupS, through marriage and
procreation: the space-time principles articulated in the structure of the
Indian cosmos operate as both an imaginary projection of present experience" and "a projection which both controls present experience and forms
an integral part of it." Representations of space and time arise out of the
world of social practices but: then become a form of regulation of those
practices: which is why, as we shall see, they are so frequendy contested.
In what follows I use twO studies, by Gurevich and Mann, to tease out some
fundamental underlying questions and principles on the social constrUction
of space and time.

The Social Construction ofSfJdcc and Tim,

213

. GurevIch and The Categories ofMedieval Culture

nstl~,

Gurevich ([985) contrasts pre-Chrisrian Ch' .

and practices with respect t0 )
conceptions

space and tlrneand early' Imodern

l'
connectIons to social relations and mode f tabl" . so as to 1 wnmate
"If""th
n
so
es
lshingvalu
.
se, 0 er, nature"
th Iike. H earguestht"
,and
e
des concerrung
o space and time have verv!itt! .
.
a our me ern categories
fd
emcommonwlthth
d
an . experienced by people in other historical e
e r;;ne an space perceived
petlod space and time were not understood: pochs. In the early medieval
as a set of neutral coordinates b eath
. and powerfUl forces
governing
all things
He' ubt th er as mystenous
....
neeD spa
d'
'
emotionally cb ... .....",..I. titne d
bee an tme are axiological1v and
~5C~.
ao space can e good 0
il b Ii'
.
nds of activity. dangerous or h os 11')e to oth ecs' ther
rev.> ene
ki
mak
a1 cia1
. for certain
e merry~ a time for sacrifice a time {;
, e 15 sacr tlme, a time to

with the return of "primordial ~ime"',,andc :e-ethfiactment

of me myth connected
ill
esamewa: th
.
space~ there are sacred pJarh
)
Y ere exists
a sacral
~ or woe wonds sub'
.
J.
eva! rr.an [was} aware of himself th
.
Jeet to special forces ....
Medi
which the world was created
I h as ~ Unlty of all those elements from
.
. ... n t e partIde the h)
mIcrocosm \vas a replie:.. of the macrocosm.
W u e \\'<l.S subsumed; me

This had profound implicarions for how the "self"

.
constItuents of identity) were thought to re Iate to the
and
the body (pnmary
world:
.
Man's
.
app
eh dependence
d.
b on the natural enYITonment
and his i'

r en It as an 0 ~ect upon which h

uld
fr'
.
ncapacuy to
reflection in the idea of the inn
al e COb act om outsLde, finds its cultural
er an ogy etween rna th " .
WOT
e "megacosmos" '\\1Uch h
th
n '- e miCrocosmos'" a..rld
th
Id
elements; and also in the i
favhe e s~e structure and consist of the same
mage 0 t e cru;llIC'" h
bod'
.
y - mcomplete, not
clear
th.)y dIfferentiated from the surroun di nu worId~an
illt
hich'
{<

to

1S

world and absorbing it into itself.

(~. 32)

It

merges, open

unders~;mding of space and time was bound u

.
.
The characteristic traits of th
edi P WIth self-evaluauon (p.
;cord.tng)v of the
ular im' . "e m eval popular culture and
bar6,'''' be
pop
agmatlOfl were constituted by "th I ell'
'tween the body and the world th f!Ul'd'
.
e ev mg 01
(p. 54). Nothing could be more
h
of translrion between
.wtoa.\m< of all things" because "m"
ht ere ore, than ro make "man
and to internalize all th.
,~ hwas t ought to be inseparable from

"nat~al:

~ty

mgs. we J. ere encounter

ater became the Le'b . .
."

I
furth

th

edi

ill

_.1

eVa! OrIgins

. . I ruzun conceIt (see chapter 3).

ermore, the disnnction between . di .d a1
communities) and the earth was
~~ vih.u s or groups (families,
human being' could use th I regar . as Ighly porous and blurred
h
."
elfpace!teJ.rfarmsted
I'"
o fh
t e uUlverse" (pp. 45-7). Tbe dIect was
_ to produce
a oraexamp
e, asof
a
conception

The Sacial Canstruction ofSpace and Time 215

I
214

Space, Time, and Place

,
"
v
close to that which Heldegger (see
"dwelling in the land that comes.
eat force. Says Gurevich of the prechapter 9) was later to :mculate WIt gr
Christian medieval penod:

;:rr

L:

_
th " ith its owners so intimately that
The site of the dwelling h.as "grown ~ogeJ or w man possessed the &rmstead.
the
neither is conceivable without [he ot eI. ~t as
tamp on his personality ....
"
ecl" him and put m: own S
di' .
so it in t~rn possess
.
based on purely geographical COOf ~ates: it IS
S-candina\'1afl topography IS not . ,
. 'fic.ance and geographical space
saturated in emotional and reh.gt,ous Stgnythl 10
space. The one passes
at the same time religiOus-m 0 g
represenl...:>
)
effortlessly into the other. (pp. 48-9

id

.
as relational and dialectical
t s,,"ce an d ume w
,
The medieval way 0 fl 00ki ng a r:
d'd
py;st "outside and bewre
s
d
tIme 1 not ~
rather than abso Iute. pace an.
.
'tself of which they fOrmed an
.
th .
u;ven only ill experIence 1
,

b . ,. ( 102)
experIence: eJ' were 0'
b d hpd from the IlVlng fa nc p.
.
hich
could
not
e
etaC
~
.
fh
indissoluble part, w.
f'
t ciness and of positionality 0 uman
This defined a particular sense 0 sIma e
beings in relation to the world. But:
.
Ch"
irv medieval man's conception
., fr
a~nlsm to
nsuan -; >
"a\
with the tranSItWn om P b-aI
sf.
arion. C{)5mic 5paCe, soc!.
d
t a radical structur
tran orm
of space un erwen
all . en hierarchic structure.
space and ideological space were
gJ-V

.
e indissolubly bound up with religious and m~r~
Spatio-temporality be~am knowledge became so saturated wIth bIblical
concepts such that pOSItiVe h' aI aI es are superimposed on and overrule
"el"
and et IC v U

f .
meanings that r 19tOUS
. . b oke the cyclic world View 0 tIme
. . al "ch'
nstianltv r
. .
the purely cOgillnve v ues.
. aI'~ . which there was a begmnmg, a
.
d a more escbatologtc . vteWb m
b le" (p.
and substItute
"linear and."
lrreversl
d
such
that
ume
""ame
culmination, and an en ,
f .
drama' in which "earthly Ii'te and

'
eneSS
0
time
as
111). The C h nstlan awar
f
ggle between good and evil"
.
as the arena 0 a strll
, _I
the whole ofhistoty are seen aI fr d
f choice as critical to the histonau
t of intern
ee
om
0
..1-:1'
rendered t he momen
Id
b abstracted from lliil Y touunes.
i
-ucb acts cou not
e cepIio deriving fro m d'1neIeD
a:
r
rOcess ....N everth e esS,;:' ' .
ral
ns
P
.
f
TIO-tempo con
) B
The result was a vanety 0 ,spa al
r 'cal ecclesiastical, military, etC.. ut
modes of experience (agncuhur ,po t t l . '
subordinated to an over.
poral concept1OnS were
.
these disparate spatIo-tem.
f
elf-realization and redemptlO n
. .
t n The quest or s
d'
arching Chnsnan concep 10 "
th'
Id be taken into para lSe,
nt m space: e samt coU
d th '.,
"was understoo d as moveme
.
h 11" (p 74). Since space beyon
e

ld
be thrown mto e
fCh
.
tl'an
just as t he stuner coll
..
uar'" the extension 0_
flS
its poSItIVe q ,,/tles, . -t space from the forces
bo unds of Christendom "lost
ft
. I t trugb'e to wre:s
space became part of an 0 en vlO ~n r~ sta of a temporal drama, ther~Y
of evil. Geographical space, the te\~!\~'1e s!'e time as there is "a progresSive.
"expands and increases m complexIty
r

annexation of the inner space of the human soul, revealing hitherto

unsuspected riches," So we see~ concludes Gure;;rich, that neither space nor time
were conceived as fonns "prior to matter"; both are "just as real as the rest of
God's creatures."

III. Munn on The Fame 0/ Gawa

Nancy Munns study, The Fame ofGawa (1986), deals with value formation
through spatio-temporal practices found on a small atoll (population not many
more than 500) within the chain of islands that constitUte the Massim oIl the
northeast of Papua New Guinea. Munn (1986: 121) places the three concepts
of space, time, and value at the heart of a "relational nexus" that acts as "a
template or a generative .rchema ... for constructing intersubjective relations in
which value is both created and signified" She introduces her study with the
assertion that socio-cultural practices "do not simply go on in or through time
and space," but they also "constitute (create) the spacetime ... in which they
go on," Actors are, therefore "concretely producing their own spacetime."
Munn tracks the formation of symbolic systems of meanings - of valuesthrough the socio-cultural practices which socially construct space and time.
Different forms of space-time derive from different social practices. This means
that space-rime in Gawan society is multidimensional and hierarchical depending upon the sorts of social practices being looked at. The effect is to generate
a complex interplay of the incommensurable spacetimes of different trans-actions, rather than "any homogeneous spacetime defined by determinate
calendric frames." But incommensurable does not mean unconnected. A lot
of Gawan activity is precisely about linking one domain of space-time and
value formation to another.
Munn looks at a variety of practices in this light. The house and garden
{onns one sphere of socio-cultural practices and space-rime construction which
is highly gendered as the domain of women, and holds its OW'll distinctive
'temr,l",te for the construction of symbolic meanings and values. Relations
household units, primarily defined by marriage and exchanges
,','b',rween groups (in which the exchange not only of produce and cooked food
also the highly significant gilts of canoes), forms another level and both
these together form the basis for the construction of a much broader sphere
valuatIOn structured around the offering of hospitality to males from other
and the reciprocal male sea:ch for hospitality from orher islands. This
extends the range of individual space-time relations - "giving fOod away
't6,'ov,ers,eas visitors for their own consumption is perceived as initiating a
'!p;,ua'ternpof't1ly extending process" which allows "food to be convened into
Conversely. consumption of food in the domestic sphere by oneself is
ler'::ci1red as negative value because of the contraction of space-time implied.

The Socia! Construction o[Space and Time

216

;I
~ :

I
,

;1 :

Hi

i)

1,,;

Space, Time, and Place

.
.'
th male islanders create a spauo-temporal
These hospitalIty relatIOns among e
d e1ationships which ground the
Id founded in interpersonal contacts an r
'am ) ,
r 'ted orbIt. .

wor
sense of value (
e In a Iml
h less limited and constitutes
sh
II
however,
IS muc
ak
The exchange 0 f kula e s,
.'
d
Id'" 'which males can m e
. al etwo k f their Islm wor
ill
the widest regton n
: 0
".es with whom they have fev"r of
" . th
di tant contemporar
hed
connections Wi more s
. ul'
fshells and of names attac

h" .. The cue atlon 0

,
no face-to-face reIatlons 1pS..
. makes them "the topic of discourse

This poses the problem of how translations are made from one domain
of spatia-temporal practices (as well as associated disccurses and symbols)
to another, for we are not dealing with completely separate worlds} but
with interlocking constructions that take us from the gardens and houses
to the expanded space-time of kula shell exchanges. "The exchange of
canoes for armshells, she argues, "effects a transformation across these different
value levels of spacetime" (p. 150). As one moves from garden produce
to canoes and kula shell exchanges, canoes appear as crucial "spaciotemporal
intermediates" between the internal space-time of Gawan exchanges "'and
the maximal circulation of kula armshells and necklaces in the interisland world. The canoes, constructed by households and internally transmitted from one marriage group to another, not only enable travel from
island to island, but as gifts they allow someone to break into the kula circle
itself

to shells, frees them from IO~:%1 andother times and places." Kula exchange
through which they become aval e III
t completely differem (spatlo.
b' ti 'e space-um e a a
. al
constrUcts an lnterSli Jec:\ . d thr ugh ffering (and receiving) hosplt temporal) value level to that ach.eve h 0 . ale and kula exchange relations,
n In both OSplt lty
I
..
itv to (or from) 0 ther me.
.
.
'I P<Jistered through rna e aCtlVlty,
'J
a l ' cd, while pnIDatl y r-b Iii
however, the v ue acqUlf .
h b
f the male power for contro ng
also has a strong female ~aslS:. attht e - ase, 0 ntrol level, which forms the
.
IS
e terrtale co
and transformrng spaceume .,
f th masculine level of the process
'
ounds and preconditiOn 0
e
. .
dynamlC gr
(p. \60).
"
r th "h evaluative rendering of the selfby slgndiiYiunn's analYSIS unp ~es at t ~
roduction process" and "in producmg
cant others," is "intrinSiC to the va ue-p b
d the sel actors produce their

Once they are set up} however, these intersecting abstractions and discourses
affect and regulate social practices (this conclusion is common also to Bouroieu

!)

and Hugh-Jones). The body, the house, gender relations of reproduction as

well as gender roles, MUlln shows, all become caught up in a wider symbolism
t"E';~m<tM>rre<l

".

"

(t.

of value, which is charactert,

In. er: s acetime _ a spacetime of -selfP d " " ( 9) Value
expand what I cal! mtersubJect
d
ex:ten or
.
d through acts an practh.es p. .
other relationships formed Ind an . al ther than particular and substan"
al an relanon , ra
th
thereby becomes gener d '
f Ga an society as a whole, this means at
tive" (p. 8). From the stan pomt 0 I W
"',ts po'sitive evaluation by external
'b'I' "d
ds entire vJupon

ed
its "interna1 via Ilry epen
..
f"a mode of spacerime lorm
. hd
d
n the constitution 0
.
f
others" whic epen. s upo
. " This is a very relational conceptlOn 0
through the dynamICS of action.
space-time.
Munn's account raises

severa11S5~es.

-whil "the mode of spacetime formed

. e f the actors' selves," there is an

. is also a ,ormano n 0
h h
in a (riven type 0 f practice
d'
~'-';ons arrived at throug t e
<>
di"
b tween tree! cons", /M.-H
d d
important sanctiOn e
h"
f hospitalinr on the one han an
'h' th
d n or t e gtvmg 0
-,
th Thi

.
.

activities WIt In e ,gar e

d bv exchange of kula shells on the 0 cr.
s
the indirect constrUctIOnS generate .'.
fo
d and expressed, While both
'
h
,.aI e (mearung) gets rme
talking
distinction affects ow ' U ' .
ed"
(including specific ways of
. '
,
d
'mbehc m lations
.
such- :---.'.
constructIons pro uces)'
ber
ti aI representat'10ns) , I'ndirectconstrucnons
.
d ..,.
_ discourses - and sym Ie spa
more de endent upon abstractloU ~ :;
as the exchange of kula are fmuch .
and value and as such, they requlIe
, .
f th
tions 0 space-time
'.
d;
generalizatlon 0

e ~o.

al discourses about space--ttme an

the formation of speCIfic soclo-c~ltur erno ' language all become caught up ,
if they are to be sustained. Naming, ill
1'),
in

this

process.

around. space, time and value. For example, bodily space-tiw.e

in the Gawan case "as a condensed sign of the wider spacetime ofwhich
is a part" (p. 17), while the expansions of inrersubjective space-time created
throlll~ hospitali,), and kula exchanges affect the dialectic of hierarchy and
,ft;<,uallty within the community as a whole (p. 20).

oral extenSIon eyon

'
f s.patIotemp
. ,,' (hen the relevant measure
5) "S' ltural spacetune i s } ,
,
own value (p, 1 . OClOCU. zed
t
s of an act'S relative capaCity to

a o-iven leve,

217

expansion of space-time lies at the heart of value construction, then

contraction of space-time (or simply failure to expand it) amounts to a
of value or "negative value~ When Gawans eat their own food instead of
hospitality to others they in dkcr destroy values. But the most
negating mechanism is witchcraft, constituted as a hidden world
"dissolves and disorders the overt, visible spatiotemporal order,
tallizirlg a latent~ negative signicance, and even subverting the apparent
potentials of transmissive acts into negative, des;::ructive value"
13-14). It is through witchcraft that fame gets subverted, communities
"defamed," while individuals suffer from heaviness, illness, death,
and devaluation consequently form a binary and dialectically
)StJ,tUitea couplet within the Gawan world of spatio-temporal practices. The
moment has important social consequences. Witchcraft, by attackwho individuaUy deviate or accumula.te, serves on rIte one hand to
the "fundamental egalitarian premises of the society, especially as these
are embedded in acts of giving as opposed to keeping or consuming
On the other hand, the witch also attacks the polity as a whole to
it nonviable, thus provoking forms of collective action. ~'This evaluative
- the formulation'. in effect~ of positive and negative discourses about
self" Munn (1936: 271) concludes:

218

"~ :

Space, Time, and Place

is intrinsic to the tranSformational process of value production. Indeed, without

these evaluative discourses Gawa cannot produce value for itsdf, inasmuch as
it is through their operation chat Ga.'d.nS define and bring into consciousness
their own value state or the generaistate of viability of the community. (p.271)

rv: Preliminary Theoretical Rd'Iections

So what general points can be distilled from these rwo accounts?
First, from Gurevich 1 would emphasize the relational and dialectical view
of space and time that pervades the medieval account, both pagan and
Christian. But Christianity superimposed a hierarchical and linear' (bounded
space with an end to time) viewpoint on top of (and without eliminating) the
more heterogeneous, diversified and localized conceptions of barbarian societi""
(a difference mainly associated in Gurevidls view with differences in the scale
of economic and political organization). Munn advances the sarne relational
and dialectical \~ew but provides a much more sophisticated and detailed
account of how, in Gawan society; different constructions of space and time
attach to different domains (typically gendered) while also providing ways to
understand the transformacive practices that allow movement from one domain
(that of production within the household which is largely the domain of
women, ror example) to another (such as the e""hange of kula shells as a spatiotemporal practice confined to men), The ultimate unity and multiplicity of
space-times insisted upon as a general principle by Gurevich are in Munn's
account rendered as different spatio-temporalities tangibly linked through
specific social practices.
Secondly, trom Gurevich I would emphasize the way in which both space
and time were understood in the premodern medieval world virn not as
abstractions (of the sort with which we are all now fumiliar), but as an
inthssoluble attribute ofbeing, as material as life itself' (p. 310). While Munn
does not make such a claim in that form, the material qualities of space and
time are omnipresent even when, as in symbolic activities or in the case of
witchcraft, the actual spatio-temporal relarions are hidden trom view. Mwm
(1986: 268) also does a better job in demonstrating the indissoluble link,
generally presumed in Gurevich, between space and time, arguing again and
again that "since the hasic form of social (or sociocultural) being is intrinsically spatiotemporal, it follows that space-time should not be abstracted from
the analytical concept of the sociocultural," If this is generally and theoretico
ally the case, then it would follow that all those accounts that concentrare either.
solely on space or on time must fail. Munn signals her own allegiance to this,
view by dissolving the pait space and time into space-time.
11lirdly, the porosity of the human body and self in relation to t h e "
ing world is worthy of note in both accounts because it frames "self-{lther'
r

The Social Construction ol"Shace and T '

relat'
(' I d'
"r
nme 219
lons !DC u mg the relation to "nature'') .
.
not mean that the "individual"
d ". di 'din a. very partIcular way. It does
, <Ii 'd aI
an In VI uallSm" do
.
m VI u s were construed to . ( d
not eXiSt;. but that
in ways quite different trom =~ an to ~ degree practiced that existence)
believed to internalize all th ill? (em concedopuons and practices. The self was
ere 15 a strong
.
f'
son outlined in chapter 2) b th
Ctrlne 0 mtemal relations of the
~e1f internalize.-; all things the~tthee s:~rse therefore also holds - because the
Idea, that gee.-; back to Protagoras and ;:;,n;e the measure of all things, This
VIewed as some kind of dece _ d
reeks, allows the individual to be
n,-ere center of the
14,17) prefers to put it "bodil
'
cosmos, or, as Munn (1986,
wider spacetime of which it is y spa:eHetJ.Jne se:;ves as a condensed sign of tk
.
,
a part.
nce the mod f
.
m a given type of practice is also a [ . .
e 0 spaCetune formed
of the specific self-other relation b or~:n of the actors' selves (as well as
The effect is to make "th'
S! W 1
these selves are being defined) "
d th
e Intersectlon of the probl
f aI
'
an
at of the constitution of the b'
(
em 0 v ue signification
This relational conception of :e!:~;f more) apparent.
Strathern (1988: 135) provides Some furth delserves some further analysis.
er C lies:

The socialized, internally controlled Western erson m

ofthe domesticating process by which n ral P

USt emerge as a microcosm
The only internal relation here is the:' resourc:s are p~t to cultural USe
nerse1 Other relationships bear'
Y a ~erson s pans belong" to him or
outSIde Ape'
'b
modified by external pressure, asm rom
th
'b .
rson s aun utes are rlms
, '.
h
are e attn utes of thin
b thev
mrnnSIc .to . is. or her identity.... Extrinsic rno'
. gs, Ut
remain
controls IntrmsiC attributes but does not chan diJica:LOn thus transforms or
property of the entity in question. Th
L
enge then status as the definitive
odi
. corum ty metaphor

e relractlOns of this

suggest an Image of petsons srandin in r

proprietors of themselves.

espect of theIr own selv-es as original

. conttast, the "Melanesian pe-on ' I"

~.
IS a IVIngcomm
'f
pro d uced it" (p, 302):
emor.non 0 the actions
>Y"~'" are the objectified fonn ofrelationshi
' .
is at issue but th
. al
. ?S~ and It IS not survival of the self
n;essadly .
e Sutvlv or termmauon of rda .
.
~~.
Imply nurture; it is not an intrins'call b efitJ~ns. Eaung does not
i
be
the Western commodity . _ th y en Clary a~ as it is taken
fieJrpetua.ting Its
. own existence. RatherVIew . at regards the self as thereby
.r

the hazards of the relationships of eathiffi hexpojh~ me Melanesian person

ch eselScomp'

terms IS
not a reflex ofno :~L. W
!her .
.
osea. ... G rowth
'shm
UL'i1liIlent; ra
m bein
un
ent, the nourished perso bear . '
g a proper receptacle
"icmsllip
th the mother f.rther n. > Sh WItness
to the effi .
~L
WI
b
ecaveness of a
>
~SlSters us andorwh
. d'
... Consumption is not simpl
f
Oever is omg the
matter
0 self-replacement th
b
e
and monitoring of relation hi
Th
' en. ut the
... in his or her capacity t tr r S pS"". e sdf as individual subject
g

anSlOtm relatiOns.

-1
220 Space, Time, and Piace
The relational conception of self, individual, and, consequently, of political
identity indicaees a world that p:u:allels not only the insights of dialectical
argumentation and the philosophy ofinternal relations (see chapter 2) but also
that of deep ecologists (such as Naess examined in chapter 7), It constitutes a
rejection of the wotld view traditionally ascribed to Descartes, Newton, and
h,cke and indicates a relational conception of spatio-temporality, It also entails
a dissolution of the fact-value and matter-mind dualities that pervade so much
of western thought. We
take up the consequences of such a world

,,~lllater

VIeW.
What is missing from Gureviclis account (apart from its lack of concern for

gender), however, is some notion ofhow self-other relations and values connect
to the specific ways in which space-time carne to be sccially consttucted both
in the realms of discourse as well as in the realms of practices, social relations,
beliefs, institutions, and politieal-economlc power. Although Gurevich asserts
thar all the categories of medieval culture were mutually intemvined (p. 290)
he nevertheless chooses to treat questions of wealth, labot, money, and value
separately from questions of space-time. While he insists that it was the way
all of these foundational conceptS Worked together that constituted the
"parameters of the medieval human personality; the guidelines of its world view
aud of its behavior patterns, as ways in which human beings came to be aware
of themselves" (p. 298), he fragments the pieces of the puzzle in ways that make
it difficult to reconstitute the ",nole. This problem in Gurevich's account is
handled better by Mwm and there are three particular points of her elaboration
to

which I \vant to draw attention.

First, relations become embodied in things - food. canoes, kula shelli - thus
posing the general enigma that Marx addressed under the rubric of "the
fetishism of commodities or, as Mams (1990: 3) prefers to formulate it in his
opening question in The Gift: "What power resides in the object that causes
its recipient to pay it back?" Mauss, in pursuing an ,answer to the riddle of gift
relationships recognizes that the thing given "itself possesses a soul" and that
"to make a gil! of something (0 someone is w make a present of some part of
onesel" One must, therefore, give back to others what is really part and parcel
of themselves:

that dUng coming from the person is not only morally, but physically and
spiritually, that essence, that food, those goods, whether movable or
immovable. those women or those descendents, those rituals or those actS of
comffilUlion ~ ail exerr a magical or religious hold over you. Finally, the thing
given is not inactive. 'Invested with life, often possessing individuality, it seeks
to return to ,.. its "'place of origin," or to produce ... an equivalent to replace it.
The effect is to create a "mixture of spiritual ties between things thar to some
degree appertain to the soul, and individuals, and groupS that to some extent

The Social Construction o[Space and Time 271

trea~

one another as things." The Paraliel h

.'
k
h ere to Marxs celebrated fetishism
thesIS III which commodity
.
mar et <xc auge tr f,
Ia .

a.x:s orms

hil"

peop e Into relations bern.'een thi

so~~ ~i1arly

Ie ttons between

values is obvious. But there is

mves'!"g things with social
objects become active in rel'
ng
ng m Mausss explanation of how
'1
"
atIon to people.
Iv unns
. .1fl part to insist
. '11986'. 109') answer IS
.
the valulllg process that requires thi
(f. d
on the spatlO-temporaiity of

that can, as it were~ bear

me mess

she also shows that this de-rel

ngs f 00, canoes, kula shells) as mediators

age ad ones fume across space and time. But
J

opment eponds on language:

"When a young man who wishes to advance'ffi kul'

.
only devdop his own kula speech skills b also Ii a IS sttrtlng OUt, he must not
sen'lOf men, I
'

ut
sten
to
th
.
earnmg the path hist .
e diSCUSHons
of more
to kula.

ones~ metaphors, names> and so on, pertinent

The discourse about the thing, or eViuuattve

.1"
fundam
c1iscourses more generaHy, are
ental to the spatio-tem oral'
person. Without naming me!
dP'ractzces of valuing both the thing";d the
_
..
, o r y , lSCOUrses and th rk h

ot ConstItUting a mediated. world f

oral circularion of the nam

.'

,e

whole process

fO sPacesh-tllme rela?ons would fall apart. The

es 0 men, e Is and Islands ".

aspect 0 f t h e emergent spacetime of kula":

1S

an exponential

Fame rno.defs the spaciotemporal expansion of self effi

th
.ected by acts of influence
movement or circuJation of
'
ovmg e mmd of another) into the
th
one s name
The' rrul .
detaching them from thes
_
.... .
C1
atlon of names frees
of discourse through which they e:rn an~es and making them the topic
(p. 117)
come avadable in other times and places.

by reQlStmg these influential acts (m'

em~

.~

circulation
of inform
arion
. of discourses about things
what Marx
calls "the
I and the construCUon
d h
auguage f money") th
a vital facet not only i h
' en an t ere, as here and
d
n reconstructIon of p
.
I
le constitution of the valu h ( "
s ace-ome re ations
The power of obJ' ects
owever eruhlzed, of both people and
an mmgs over us th f
tha
a re
of
thdr
own
and

a i ' e act
t they seem to
lO possess v ue
th
li r
on the way c1iscourses of value envel:; th:" ow; ,"ccount depends
meaning.
m an invest them with

d.:':

I Iin d'l~ useful to recapitulate the general eonce

..
.
4. DISCOurses are I thet
cd .
. ptualizatlOn tud out
,
e argu
mt-rnallz d b Ii Ii
CUllO 1l0":er!,,, practices and modes or
SOCI.'al r ela.....tmg ease
thi . e 5,
. embedded
.
an operate as forms of polit' cal
.
WI n IflsntunonaJized
d.
1
econonuc po v B th
mternaliz.f! events exp .
"er. y e same token
~ enences, structures and
reIa
'
a mere reflection. They act to comutute
.
th'e world
power
cions,
by virtue
of but
the

222 Space, Time, and Puce

multiple rransl
and transfurmations which link them to these other
arions
domains of action understood as a whole, If things seem to have a life of their
own, then it is only because those things which are handled in the realm of
material practices are considered to internalize discursive effects of political
economic power and spario-temporal relations, Only in such terms can we
e
unpack the composite problem of how it is that things b<xom imbued with
social relations and operate with such full force as to appear to govern us (as,
for example, money typically does) more ruthlessly d,an any political clinator
could ever hope to do, This in turD may explain why the one singular power
dictators lack is the power to change the fundanlenrals oflanguage,
But Munn's account also reveals a dialectic of valuation and devaluation as
means to control inequality and to secure some kind of communitarian social
solidarity, The negation of value is just as important as i" production, When
Mauss remarks on how "madly extravagant" podatch can hecome (a phrase that
Derrida treats as revelatory of the underlying madness of economic reason),
he is pointing to a system that negates values as fast as it creates them, Like
potlatch, witchcraft on Gawa negates values and so prevents concentrations of
wealth, enforcing a certain kind of egalitarian democracy.
The dynamics of all of this then becomes a crucial question. Here Munn's
account is notably lacking for she makes it seem as if Gawans live in a selfcontained process of consrructing intersubjective space rimes. Her studies of
Gawa proceed, for example, as if the islanders were entirely free from colonial
influences.
But this is patently not the case and here Gurevich's broad conception of
shifting conceptions of space and time ae<oss the barbarian, Christian and into
the early modern period yields a rather better sense of at least the breadth and
depth of potential changes. So how can we think about these dynamics?

V. External Force and the Social Construction of

Space and Tune

Societies change and grow, they are transformed from within and adapt to
pressures and influences from without. Objective but socially given
conceptions of space and time must change to accommodate new material
practices of social reproducrion, new ways of assigning value,
How are such shifts accomplished? In certain instances the answer is simply
given. New concep" of space-time and value have been imposed by main force
through conquest, imperial expansion or neocolonial domination, The .
European settlement of North America imposed quite alien conceptions of
time and space upon indigenous populations, for example, and in so
altered forever the social framework within which the reproduction of these
nons
peoples could, if at all, take place (see, for example, Hallowell, 1955), Cro

The Social Construction FS

'
fth '
0, 'PdCeandTm" 223
account 0
e Impact of c I .al
I
Indians is again relevant A nfl' 0 om sett ement on the New England
.
.
co let arose ov th diffi
spatlO-temporality and value were constructe;r e
erent ways in which
(1983: 50)

Whereas Indian villages moved fr

h'
abundance through minimal
k offi abltat to habitat to find maxim
d
En5ll" beli'eved in and required
wor ,an so reduce then
' ':mpacton the Jan..i urn
the
permanent settl
E'
u,
.
to rep ace IndIan mobility. here
th
ements. '.. nglish fixity sought
.I .
.'
was e central co a- . th
co Oll1srs mteraq:oo \\-1th th . '
n let ill e ways Indian
d
li I.
d
e!r enVJfonment The ~,~1
san
vrng an using the seasons of the year
d:
Su ~e was over two ways of
conceived of property weal h d ,an ltexpressedmelfinhowtwope I,
,
t > an boundarIes on the landscape, (p, 53) op es

~"ch

And while each Indian villo~e

'
""5 h eId sovereIgn
righ h d
ts t at dined a villo~es
po t
ecological territory th 'h
li ical
th
" fand
i"
' e ng ts were nev
di' dual
'4S
ey orever. People owned what th
d ' er ill VI
rights nor were
was "lirrle sense either of accu uI ,ey rna e WIth their own hands, but there
"the need f<or di'versity and mobilitY)
m mon
or of exdus'~ve use" precisely because
led th
property," Mobi1itymeant that th h d em toavOidacqruringmuchsurplus
possessed rights of use only wh,eyh dad no p~;~anent rights to the land. Thev
Eur
Ie
1 not mdude
f
<
opeam commonly associated with I d .
'
many a the privileges
anobwnershlp; a usef couk! not (and saw
no need to') prevent other vill
ers from t
'
non~lc'ultural food on such landsageandmem
hd
respassmg or gathering
them, Nor did Indians "own any oth ~ dnaf~oncept1on of deriving renr from
berry-picking areas ... and here too ther n 0 and: clam banks, fishing ponds
,mee dilli
e concept a f usufructury 'gh
,
dia"
, n t was crucial,
eren! groups 01 people could h
depending on how they liS-d 't " Pave rrerent
claim
th
.
s on e same tract
'cal
' l. roperty tIghts' th
ceoIOgI use" (Cronan, 1983, 63) Th "sal" ' InO erwords,shlfied
:.c<)lun1zerswas conceived on the
e
e ofland by Indians to the
use rather than alienari . "~_ than 81 e as a compact ro share the land d
ng 1t.
e Enghsh d
an
,,'as sold was not a bundl
f
fr
~ erstood these transactions
.
'
0 usu bstra
uct nghs
.
r.emtories,'
but the land eitself
' , applymg
to a range of
tenoallled fixed no matter what the use 't:~ch i~,,:ea w~ose bounds in theory
:!ti"!e<,ve:t, alienared
"forever"
To th e abstractIon
' of l~i
put bo
and such
.

d lands were'
perpetl11ty was added the ab t r '
f
-,,- un aries alienated
'
f
s actIon 0 price (and I d
o property's value assessed on a unit
scale"
an rent), a measurethe treatmenr ofland and property ary
. More than anything else
,
Engl'IS h conceptions of
as commodities rraded
_J.
'
h'
at illaJKet that
of the colonizers was set in own.ers fIP fr~m Indian ones. The value
a matrIX 0 SOCIally
d
'
was fa lcallyat odds with that of th
'
constructe space-time
d
urban order has been equal I
be IndIan commuruty,
,
f
ysujecttosupe'
dch
o a mathematicall
'al
'
nmpose
ange, The
th
y ratIOn spatIal d ' th
e viUage, the barracks d
or er III e house, the
te;,anlPle,'
even ae<oss the city
'selfwere,
centerpIeces of a late an
nineteenth. f Cai
.totobring
It
centu:y project
Egypt

diI~er.enr'

1. 'J
=

1>

The Social Construction ofSpace and Time 225

.
T 'me and piace
Space,"
.tar
CololllZ. .'
, frameworks of European cap' 15m...
f
into line with the disclplmary
"fers not simply to the establishing 0
ing, Mirchell (1991: IX) observ~~ sr~d of a political order that mscnbes
new forms or personhood, and
a European presence but also . P f
'al
Id
w conceptlon 0 space,
I"
in the SOCl wor a ne
. the
dence of the rea.
. .
the neW means of manufactunng ari1~1l r=ived. The spread of a capItalist
Such impositions were not necess , f' t rsub)' ective space-time has often
.
'tdsense ome
f
value system and Its asSOCla ~.
'fferent eoples into the common net 0
'1 d a fierce battle to SOCIalize
di . P . . and into a respect for
ental e
. . . . d stnal organizatIOn
discipline
'me-spa
imphclt
in In'ghU
'Ii J in strictly Cartesian terms.
ce
tI
'al d i d n ts speel eu
eli ..
partitions. of territo~l an . an uch im sitions abound) public d nInons
While rearguard actlons agamst S
f
conrempotary world have largely
of time and space throughout :nu~h 1 e ent Mitchell (1991: xii) chanc.
d through capltahst ueve opm .
been Impose
.
the',r qualities as follows:
tenzes

time do not automatically accord~ then, with the dominant public sense of
either and, as Hareven (1982) shows, there are intricate ways in which "family
time" can be integrated with and used to offiet the pressing power of the
"industrial time" of deskilling and reskilling of labor lorces and the cyclical
patrerns of employment. More significantly, the class, gender, cultural,
religious, and political differentiation in conceptions of time and space
frequently become arenas of social conflict. New definitions of what is the
correct time and place for everything as well as of the proper objective qualities
of space and time can arise out of such struggles. A few' examples of such
conflict or negotiation are perhaps in order.

224

1. Class Struggle and the Definition ofSpace-Time

and function that characterize mod~rn

of space
th
functions into hierarchIcal
The precise specificationdin'
of
ese d surveillance. the mar
. ki ng out
. .
,. nstitutions, the coor atlon
, .
f supervlSlon an
.
rld
arrangemenrs, the orgamzatlon 0
~ all rontribute to constI't;lctIng a wo
of time into schedules and programmles f
'I~' practices but of a. binary order:
.
f comp ex 0 soc ill
tl at appears to Conslst not 0 a
.
, . ' on the other an inert structure
1
di 'd a1s- nd their aCtlVltles,
.
d
on the one hand in VI u .a
. J: 'duals preexists them, and conrnms ~
d
art trom mwVi,
.
th
uliar
that somehow staIl sap..
S ch techniques have given rIse to epee
gives a framework to th~r byes. u the world seeJ11S resolved into ~e ~oetaphysics of modern1ty, where
tuS practice versuS ins1tUno n,

f' dividual versus appara,

dimensional form 0 tn
ial reality and its meanIDg
'_1 !~fe and irs strucrure ~ or mater
,
sOCial U

I hall have cause to return to 1tS

. .
. correct (anu s
th b d
If such a charactenzatlOn IS

d fluidity of for example, e 0 y

prevalence shortly), then the por~::;:ch and Mun~ here gives way to the
Eo . ed 'ty within a set of absolute
.
ace and time idennfied by
m sp
. f the individual as a pre rm ron
wes.tern conceIt 0
.
strUctures of space and nme.
J

VI. Contesnng

.
f S ace and Time
the Social Construcuon
0
p

. h' the
.
s ace is frequently contested from ~lt lfi 0
The public sense of ume and p
f' di .d al and subjective reSIStance t
"
t anseS our 0 m VI U
d.astral map
Th
IS ill par
k. d the tyranny of the c a '
social order.
oc
the absolute authority of the lcl
u': and painting are full of signs of re~(
Modernist and postmode:ms t ucraraterial measures of space and time: VI' _e
al d, through their exploratlons,'
against simple mathematlcal and m
psychologists and sociologists hav~e~e :r1d of personal and social re pr

highly complicated and ofr~nfi conti /

wpublic practices. Personal space an
.
-hich depart Slgm can Y rom
sentatlOns v.;

In the chapter in Capital on "The Working Day," Marx (1967: 233-5) sets
up a fictitious conversation between capitalist and worker. The former Insists
that a fair-day's work is measured by how much time a worker needs to
recuperate sufficient strength to return to work the next day and that a fairday's wage is given by the money required to cover daily reproduction costs.
The worker replies that such a calculation ignores the shortening of his or her
life which results from Wlfemitting toil and that the measure of a fair-day's
work and wage looks entirely different when calculated over a working life.
Both sides, Marx argues, are correct from the standpoint of the laws of market
exchange, but different class perspectives dictate differeat time-horizons for
social calculation. Between such equal rights, Marx argues, force decides. The
history of struggle over the working day, the working week, the working year
(vacation with pay rights) and the working lifetime (retirement and pension
has subsequently been writ large in the whole historical geography of
struggle (Thompson, 1967; Roediger and Foner, 1989). Marx noted how
.l<'P""dH"" stretched and warped notions of time to their own ends. When the
sought to regulate child labor, "capitalist anthropology" decided "the age
of ,childbLood ended at 10 or at the least 11. When the worlcing day was timed
&Ctory dock moved last and slow as required. When ideas about night
day were important in defining conditions of contract, then the judiciary
appropriate meanings to those terms. When mealtimes were set up~ the
.\!tnadlunery was still kept running.
time discipline crucially depended upon the construction of distincspaces of surveillance. Here Marx anticipates Foucault as he ctyptically
from me bourgeois apologisrs of the eighteenth century:
"exti'l)ating. idl!mess, debauchery and excess," promoting a spirit of industry
.. ,.~~ _ proposes this approved device: to shut up sudl labourers as become
:ael?enaerlt on public suppott, In a word, paupers, in "an ideaiwo-rkhouse." Such.
workhouse must be made a "House of Terror," and not an asylum for

The Social Construction ofSpace and Time

226

Space, Time, and PWe

I ifull ~ d warmly and decently domed and

me nDOC, "where they are to be p e.nt
y e 'fT
' -VIS "ideal workhouse.
r-. cl
k n I thlS House 0 error, Ul
where they do lIt e wor. n
.
ro
time for meals, in such a
me poor shall work 14 hours a day, allowmg P re:'-b
The "House of
12 hours 0 f neat-l<i our ....
italistic soul of 1770 only dreamed,
T errOl" for paupers of which the ~ .
. "Workhouse'" for the industnal
realized a
years later in the shape 0 a gJgan~c .deal this time fades befure the
worker himself. It is called the Factory. And e t
reality. (Marx, 1967: 262-3)
hall

mann~ that there s

w:s

r~marn

lew

. th lab process is fierce and carried

The struggle over spatio-temporalIty m. e
or
into every niche and corner of productlon:
.

..

'formi

reQU\are by stroke of the clock

these minutiae, whIch, WIth milItary Ufilk,

ty 0
t all the products of
.
limi
allies of the wor were not a
the urnes,
ts, P
L.el d
d . _By out of the circumstances as
.
. lim They un ope gra uau
"a!
Parliamentary
cr
d f 00 aion Their formulauon, offiCI
natural. ~aws ofdtheoclammodef~ m~ ~: t~te ~ere the result of a long struggle of
recogmtlOll, an pI
arum Y

classes. (Marx, 1967: 268)

sr

.'
f ano
. t mporality within a given
Read as an account of the constlt~tlOn 0
-e
"'Th Working Day"

d alue creaDon Marxs chapter on

e
.
ad
mode of ~r ueliOH an vd
"
~ host oflater studies and commentaries.
is as prescIent as it 15 &cun , spaw mng

2. Gender Struggles and the Definition ofSpace-Time

.

".

"ields a second example. Under capitalism

gender roles through :t'e
tIme gets construe qUite
d
time as only that taken up m sellIng
curious habit of definmg value wor ngForman (1989) points out, the long
labor power directly to others. Bu~, as ld t the cyclical rimes of nature has .
f
fin ent of a womans wor 0
.
'
hIStory
a con ern.
wm the linear rime of patriarchal histoty,
had the effect of excluding womthen
ld fmale-defined rime." The struggle,
.
"t angers 1fl ewor 0
d
rendenng women s r
th
di .
I 'odd of myth iconography, an
. h'
.
cballenge e tra tiona w
'
d
m t is case~ IS to
. .
.
arallds dominion over nature an
ritual in which male domInIOn o;,erTthlffie p
'Issue which Kristeva (1986)
"
t a1 bemgs
IS 15 an
me
n
over wo . as ~ ur
. al
b'ectivity which is linked, she argues
addresses directly III terms of a fern e su Jto clieal times (repetition) and
in one of her most l~portan~ essa~,
. ded from the linear time of
nwnumental time (eternity), willIe bemg exc u.
d ' ..ll ' The last is
.
"I I
departure progressIOn an arer\ '
history, of projects, te eo ogy,
'
I
. arily to reprodu,
e
very much about production whereal
th:e~~~;t::::~ symbol" When
ction, "survival of the spec1es~ life an ea > : thi
she argues, "more of .
evoking "the name and destmy of womeD, on_ .n th' of +irne becoming
d"
the human speCles an
" ,
.
the space generatIng an ormlng
lak"
d f,
xample that "Time
L:
"(
190) \'V'hen William B e loslste , or e
,
or lUstOty p.
.'

~he gendenng of lather ~~e:tlv according to

hl

ks"

227

and Space are Real Beings. Time is a Man, Space is a Woman, and her masculine Portion is Death" (quoted in Forman, 1989: 4), he was articulating a
widespread allegorical presumption that has strong contemporary echoes. The
inability to relate the time of birthing (and all that this implies) ro the masculine preoccupation with death and history is, in Forman's Ylew one of the
deeper psychological battlegrounds between men and women as well as within
the feminist movement, the latter dividing according to Kristeva between
streams that seek a place alongside men in histoty (equality, civil and political
rights, etc,), a separate feminine identity with meir own distinctive sense of
time-space (as do the ecofeminists) or, as a third wave) seek a place of maternal
love and suffering (and spatio-temporal sense that goes with that) in an attempt
5

to revolutionize the dominant notions of intersubjective space-time and. value.

Discursive arguments of this sort are internalized in social practices. Wigley

provid.es an interesting case stud.y through consideration of the architectural
principles and practices laid out in Alberti's foundational renaissance texts.
Alberti, Wigley (1992: 342) argues, took from Xenophon, the idea that the
sexuality of the woman carmot be self-controlled "because her Huid seJillality
endlessly overllows and disrupts" her own boundaries as well as the boundaries of men, "disturbing .. , if not calling it into question" the latter's identity
(note the relational dialectic of How and permanence). The control and
bounding of the woman is vital to male identity:
the role of architecture is explicitly the control of sexuality.... In Xenophon~

me social institution of marriage is naturalized on the basis of die spatial division

of gender. , .. Marriage is the reason for huilding a house. The house appears to
make a space for the institution. But marriage is already spatial. It cannot be
thought outside the house that is the condition of its possibility before its space.
<,~(i'irlninthe

house, under the maie>s protection~ the woman learns her "natural
learning the place of things" and commanding the spaces of the
hous,:ho.ld, thus "internalizing the very spatial order thar confines her." This
order, Xenophon proposed, "is itself a thing of beauty ... more beautiful
any of (he possessions it orders.
There are tvlo important points here. First, the woman's oth.erwise fluid social
identiltv is constrained by her insertion into a bounded space - the house.
,W)fl(!ly, the ordering of space - considered as beaury - js more important than
creating an esthetic mask for a highly gendered social relation.
extends Xenophon's argument in two ways. First~ the ""closeting off"
of all bodily fimctions helps secure a boundary of the isolated body,
U'1'1ur", spaces of purity and individuality that are protecced from the
characterized, for example, Gurevich's account of the medieval
It. ~>econl:Uy, the privatization of sexuality within the household (the interior
of bedrooms) becomes important:
D

228

Space, Time, and Place

The Social Construction

, '
"'
.
.
d not be understood as the privarrzatlon o.f a pr.eex1Stm~
A!bertl s deSIgn Shoul.
Th b d th t is privatlzed 15 new!}
""'t
eoya
sexuality as that-~n:c:l-ts-pnbvade, Th ew sexuality is produced at the very
,
dId
ed
,t
is
a
neW
0
y.
e
n.
ch'
tha t
sexuaIH.e . n. e .
," . '
me anLSffiS
All 0 f the ei'lsemble 0 f stratNnC
'-b~

moIDent of tts p~lvatl7-at1on.

define and consntuH:

. "DIved in the production of thIS se..xuaLtty

me house are mv

as such, (p, 346)

The productIon

'

f - ce i,- the prod uctlon

:-opa

ualirv and of gender roles.

sex
-J
. '
k d
d
that equal:1on

lS

mas e

an

But in Alberti', work as well as su :?:::~~tact principles of beauty of the

rendered opaque, often throu~~~maskin "in representation and discourse
sort that Xenophon proposed.
'th th g u' n of a truly private and
hldswl
emsetO
dW'1
is connecte,
Ig ey 0 ,
d
.
the honse, An intellectual space

d
I
pace
the
stu
y-mto
individ u aI Ize rna e s
. was the space of an ,ISOIate d
,
d th
wet of the woman, It
beyond sexuahty
an d . e po
' 0 fd'laries (e g ., that ofPepys)
.
. . . CT the prod uctlOn
male identltv engage 10 "nun", eal _.1
rds lPOOlI documents, and the
,' h
non of gen OQ'lt:al reeo -b.
and memOirs, t e protec.
fr
h kind of space that a certam
,.'
ffi
'al ffi
It was om t at
"serious stde 0 nano a am,
'bi (Leibniz probably had a study
ki d of "monadic" discourse became poSS! e ;'ch
f dail life" and the
n,.
. al'
withdrawal from the
aos 0
Y
cd d
of thIS kind), sIgn mg a.
. throll h the production of texrs pr uce
shaping of knowledge and ,dent.'ty
g ,The materiality of the body and
d vNV pnvate spaces.
k f
d
e
in enelos , secure, an -,..
--Lle (as in the wor 0
se If became separ.au
g
the textuality of t he percelvm
'th each other "Such changes
.
.
h f
tand YIn tenSIon W I '
Descartes) and t ere ore_cons h b d
d the subJ'ect," reports Stone (1991:
' The
in th_e SOCl'al econOffi.Y ot both teo yan
f--capital accumuIanon.
100), "very smoothly serve thde PUIdPofses b'Ject removed from the public
,
f"
. tzedbo van 0 asu
productIOn 0 a PIty: 1
d ' 'aI
ad open to manipulation.
"
an isolate SOCI mon
d
.
sphere constructs
. L
(
h
memoirs diaries, an pnvate
. 'h d'
lye lUrmS sue a s ,
d
If \'Vigley IS ng t, !Scurs
b
ted from the constructed an
thoughts of individuals) cannot e( schepatath eluded study the privatized
,
h'ch th occur su as e se
'
ed
gendered spaces m W I , ey.
oom) an' more chan they can be separat
bedroom, and the womans dress!ng r
h Yh e of gender) and the instiru'
. aI I nons (suc as t oS
'ful"
from the power and SOCl re a .
) . stanciated in the "beaUt! y
tiona! forms (such as the famIly ethconobm mIS' household Women's revolt
.
Wlthin e ourgeo
.
d
ordering of domesnc spaces
d'
ral practices that eontalfl an
an
spano-tempo
aI
against both:h e illscourses dared of the on-going struggle over the v ues
control them IS, then, part an P,
. b d
.

ral p raC(ices are 1m ue .

'

229

Douglas, 1977), as is the struggle on the part of some women to define

alternative spa.tial orderings of domestic space to realize an entirely different
conception of gender roles (see Hayden, 1981). But, as Marion Roberts (1991)
so ably shows, the reorganization of London after 1945, inspired by the
Abercrombie Plan, explicitly built spatio-temporal principles of social
reproduction and gender relations into both the interior design of the housing
as well as into the spatial organization of the whole ciry: the effect was to make
it difficult for women to escape from the stereotyped gender role assigned to
them of stay-at-home housewife, mother, and commander-m-chief of the
domestic space. Alberti's id"", had become reality, But then it was also from
that space of entrapment and marginalization that Berty Friedan in The
Feminine Mystique (1963) launched her powerful feminist attack upon "the
problem that had no name" precisely because its location had been so occluded.

3. Ecological Versus Market Definitions o/Spatio-Temporality

Imagine a conversation between an economist and a geologist over the
space-time horiwn for optimal exploitation of a mineral resource. The former
holds that the appropriate time horizon is set by the interest rate and market
.,
,price, but the geologist, holding to a very different conception of time, argues
,.
. that it is the obligation of every generation to leave behind an aliquot share of
- : any resource to the next. There is no logical way to resolve that argument. It>
.
tOo, is resolved by force. The dominant market institutions prevailing under
.,
capitalism .fix time horizons by way of the interest rate and in almost all arenas
,,[economic calculation (including the purchase of a house with a mortgage),
that is the end of the story. We here identi/Y the potentiality for social conflict
.
,,'detiv,inE enrirely from tl,e time horizon over which the effect of a decision is
to operate. While economists often accept the Keynesian maxim mat "in
,:me l{mg run we are all dead" and that the short-run is the only reasonable rime
oyer which to operationalize economic
political decisions,
c':1:nvironn,erltalis" insist that responsibilities must be judged over a far longer
'
horizon within which all furms of lile (including that of humans) must
preserved. The opposition in the sense of time is obvious (see chapter 7).
.'
-the practices are capiralistic, then the time horiwn cannot be that to which
'
envir,orrmentalbits cleave. The purpose of the rhetoric of sustainabiliry is to
public policy towards thinking about time horizons well beyond those
,~n';:outnt,ere,d in the market,
usages and definitions are likewise a contested terrain benveen ecoloand economists, the former tending to operate with a much broader
of the spatial domain of social action, pointing to the spillover
of local activities into patterns of use that affect global warming, add
formation, and global despoliation of the resource base, Such a spatial
ha:pti:on conflicts ,,-ith decisions taken ,,-ith the objective of maximizing land

ana

with whIch spatia-tempo .

dl ' drawi board propositions throug .
Alberti's proposals remamed broa )
ng h
er reality from the
R'
bur became a muc strong
out much of the enrussandsc,:, B"
d the United States. The particular.
nwar
m
ntatn
an
. th
nineteen th century o .
.
.
d disempowerment that went Wi
mix of gendered authOtlty, subJugation, an
and housing design in the
"
f 'enor domesnc space
19"7"
the orgamzatlon 0 m,
d (BI : 1989: 179-91; Cot(, I "
nineteenth century is well docurnente
Uffiln,

oJSpace and Time

Th< Social Construction ofSpace and Time

230

Space, Time, and Place

.
h'
t by land price and the mterest
over a tlme onzon se
.
rent at a parn at
th
l 'cal movement from envlronWhat
separates
e
eco
ogI
'aI
rate (see chapret 13) .
ts makes the former so speCl
mental management (and what in rn~y resPfecconceptions of time and space
. g)'
. d the ""'tety 0
and so interesnn IS preas y.
f
ial
roduction and organization.
which it brings to bear on questions 0 SOC rep

'cuI

t
51 e

. al rd in (and, conversely; the complex

The intricacy of SOCIal control by spa~~ 0 : ; ~the transgression of spatial
ways in which SOCIal or~ers getdeal ~ S Ybolic spaces and the semiotics
boundaries) reqwres sophISticate an YSlS. ym._ -t have to be read in social
de .
example create texts llliI.
of spanal or rmgs, or
'al
. tl' n of the household, of
.
aI
.
mpor orgaruza 0
terms. The llltern spatlo-te
I
st bilize or disrupt social
.' 'th
tcome of strugg es to a
workplaces, 0 f ClUes, IS e ou
Th fixin of spatiality through material
meanings by opposed SOCIal furces, d e
gthat instanciate negotiated or
. '
r dI constructe spacesth all furms of envlronrnen
.
tal
bUIlding creates so I Y .
'al al os (as ill the case W1
irnposed sOCI V u
Th
'aI'zed contrOl of unwanted groupstransformation, c chapte.r 8). , e spain 1 he Id 'y. -and spatial sl;"",atiza "N Age' trave ers t e e n
~-the homeless, gypSies.
ew
.'
por'ary society as it was in the
'des
d h menon 1n contern
tion is as WI prea. a p eno
But b the same token, the search for
medieval world (Sibley, 1995).. ci1lsYth L ' .. the lon";n,, and in some
.al ntrollflS
e aesne,:
"--co---o
emancipation fTom SOC1 co
. c_
'
tsl'de" of hegemonic
.
f
ching rur a space ou
instances even the practices 0 sear
h fYElraln" become valued spaces
,
I'
d al tions Spaces on t e - b - 'cal
sOClal re anons an v ua . differences (see chapter 5). That metaphofl
for those who seek to estabhs ed .
. thro";.t, the formation of UtopIan
rranslat mto aCtion
,,&U
. h
ft b
longmg as 0 en een
. c
I ds migration. The search fur what
..
munes ill lar-awaV an ,
I
communitIeS, c o m .
.
f I'b tty outside of social contra "h
"
a space 0 1 e
.
Foucault calls eterotop" -.tal
.al rdering is to the acrua1 practices
becomes a living proof of how Vi s?atl 0
and institutions of a power-laden SOCIal process. f th Bastille or the =Tes of
.
d
. ns the stormJng 0
e
. b~
Sit-IllS, street . emons(Tan~e ~rikin down of the Berlin Wall, the occupathe US embassy m Tebetan,
. . g.
b ildi
all signs of attack
lIe adrmrustratlOn u
ng are
tion of a factory. or a co . ge.cd Th initiation of some neW social order
against an estahhshed SOClal o. er.
e raJ' 'D separate themselves offfrom
"",uires a ladical change III spatio-temPlo . Ity. t nly devised an entirely new
.-.
.
f th F ch revo utlon no 0

the past, the vICtors 0

e ren). th also broke open all the old spaces of
calendar (see Zerubavel, 1985 eyr
n'lal spaces consistent with thetr
ed a new set 0 ceremo
~_I.~
d
rivilege
an
construct
Th
P .. communards to ~
P
,
uf 1988' 126---37)
e arlSlafi
'
revolutionaryatrns (Ow,
. th. .
.
tasks of organizing for the
another example, :eadily pu: aside errt~c;;:nJown the Vendame column.
that had long ruled over
defense of revolutionary Pans 10 1871, al'
The column was a hated symbol ofalan Ie:, power f the city that had put SO
I f th
ti orgaruzatlon 0
them; it was a symba 0
at spa w th. I
by the building of Hausselt
many segments of the populatlO~ In f h P a~,
lass from the central city.
" b ul ,-.cis and the expulSIOn 0 t e wor ng c
manns 0 ev<u

231

Haussmann imposed an entirely new conception of space into the fabric of

the city, a conception appropriate to a new social order based on capitalistic
(particularly financial) values and state surveillance. The transformation of
,ocial relations and daily life envisaged in the 1871 revolution entailed, or so
the communards felt> the reconstruction of the interior spaces of Paris in a
different nonhierarchical image. So powerful was that urge that the public
spectacle of toppling the Vendome column became a catalytic moment in the
assertion of communard power over the city's spaces (Ross, 1988). The cornmunards tried to build an alternative social order not only by reoccupying the
space from which they had been so unceremoniously expelled but by trying
to reshape the objective social qualities of urban space itself in a nonhierarchical
and commuuitarian image. The subsequent rebuilding of the column was as
much a signal of reaction as was the building of the Basilica of Sacre Coeur
on the heights of Montlnartre in expiation for the commune's supposed sins.
The latter (as I have shown elsewhere - ,ee Harvey, 1989c) was an attempt on
the part of the forces of reaction to shape memory through the construction
of a certain place and, thereby, ro put revolutionary Paris "in its place."
The point of these examples is to illustrate how social space, when it is
contested within the orbit of a given social furmation, can begin to take on
new definitions and meanings. This occurs because the social constirution of
spatio-temporality cannot be divorced from value creation Of, for that matter,
from discourses, power relations, memory, institutions, and the tangible forms
of material practices through which human societies perpetuate themsdves.
The interlinkages are there, always to be observed.

VII. Historical Materialist Perspectives on the Social

Constitution of Space and Time
If space and time are both social and objective, then it fullows that social pro(often conilictual) define their objectificatioIL How, then, can these
,p~'ce= be ,tudied? In the first instance, objectifications ofspace and time must

understood, not by appeal to the world of thoughts, ideas and belielS (though
of these is always rewarding) but from the study of material processes of
",~~lCialrelprodu<:ri;on. Let me illustrate. I ofren ask beginning geography students
&a:msider where their last meal came from. Tracing back all the items used in
e>pl:od,ucti'o,n of that meal reveals a rdation of dependence upon a whole world
labor conducted in many different places under very different social
and ecological conditions of productiOlL 1hat dependency expands even
when we consider the materials and goods used indirectly in the producgoods we directly consume. Yet we can in practice consume our meal
the slightest knowledge of the intricate g<:ography of production and
m,'""", social rdationships embedded in the spatio-temporal system that

r
232

.:1

Space, Time, and Piace

. tern orality of my experience when I go to

our table. The spatI"': thP
ket cook eat and sleep at
Puts it upon ff
th bank shop ill e supermar,
"
work, stop 0 ~t e
, that embodied in the production and exchange of
home IS very dIfferent from
ahl m the former stand,
di' I b
Decisions that seem reason e [0
the commo nes
uy.
.
fr
th latter. Which set of experiences
.
cessanly
pomtareno[ne
, appropnate
.
f om'~_I'e tTheansweris bo th" because
th
. temporahtv 0 capIlallSffi.
th
best captures e spatl~uail historically consttucted. And it is here at
both are equally matenal and eq I Yd' tes) between phenomenologrcal and
the unity (that Munn, for ex,:,",P e, a voca to play signaling the continuing
. 'cal-economiC
. perspecttves comes th
ill
polm

una" and
"'mature M arx.
.
(rath th
rupture) between e yo "
di .
k th
.ty: it is through the me anon
dialogue
er an
But there icalls
als0 :;nother"w~tt~I~:'oa:ph:r:::e1~te. Cronan (1991: 378-84)
of a thmg
ed money
puts it iliis way:
"
.
.
ds and services in a market place wih
Living in the cIty means ~onsuml~~: of the planet, people and places ~t
ties to people and places m evdery.
. d as ~e consume the products of theIr
. . . 'bI unknown an unlffiagme
. bl
remam lllVlSl e,
el' h' of almost unimagma e
lives. T~e market fos~ers :cha.;;:m!usa~~e l~ery instant they are created,
compleXIty, and then hides em d mmodiry exchange hands and we finally
in that last moment when cash an co
consume the things we have purchased.
J

1.1. .

I,

:.1

The Socia! Construction o/Space and Time

233

1\'

me

"

.
builds his whole analysis of the development. of
Cronon (1991. 263-6)
d
examination of changrng
. th
. eteenth century aroun an
th
Chicago In e run
.
poralities and value systems ey
'tv
flows
and
the
new
spatio-tem
coroIDod 1/
.
defined. Yet the paradox of ChIcago:
th

b ught city and country ever closer together.

was that the same market at rod:

.'
ore intimate communication
culnue an lostermg ever m
.....k ..I'

giving them a common

linka es it was creating. Thf geogray,,-, oJ
between them also concealed the veryd
g ,-:...ns The more concentrated the
fa dseahe 0'0 bscure conne,,~ .
.
capita I produced a n r 'J
.
. hi tedand the easier It was to
b
4 )
e
m d the more extenSIVe Its n ,
city markets ecam .
fth rhi
irboughrandsdd . (Cronon, 1991:3 0
forget the ulumate ongIDS 0

ngs

[My italics].
..
(1967' 71-83) picked upon in developing
This was the condit;on that Marx h .. h' of commodities. He sought to
one of his most telhng concepts - tche fittsk"m
eal social (and, we should
th waY tn whi mar ets conc
.
capture bY t hat term e ,
d I'
""e ""nnot tell from looking at.
all' f
tion an re atrons. W' ~

add, geograph IC iflhor':"'h b

produced bv happy laborers working m. a
od'
het er it as een
"
di .
the corum .'ty W
loited child laborers working under con t:005
cooperatIve ill Italy, grosslyexp
d badequate labor legiSla, .
laho . pili
or wage laborers protecte y
k
of slave
on
stan, .
ed The
that sit upon the supermar et
tion and wage agreements In Sw thenfi
p~: of e.xploitarion upon them Of
shelves are mute, we cannot see e nger

tell immediately what part of the world they are from. By further enquiry, the
veil can be lilted on this geographical and social ignorance and we can become
aware on these issues, as happens with consumer boycotts of commodities
produced under particularly inhumane condirions. But in so doing it is
necessary to go beyond whar the market reveals. This was Marx's agenda: to
get behind the yeil, the ferishism of the market, in order to tell the full story
of social reproduction through commodity production and exchange.
For Cronan (1991: 384-5), remaining ignorant of these "nearly infinite"
interrelarions is "to miss our moral respomibility for the ways they shape each
other's landscapes and alter the lives of people and organisms within their
bounds." If the "others" who put breakfast on our table are judged, as they
surely must be, "significant: t.!ren what kinds ofintersubjecrive space-time and
what kind of valuation schema is being consttucted thereby and how does this
affect our sense of self, of moral and polirical identity: If, for example, we
consider it right and proper to show moral concern for those who help put
dinner on the table, then this implies an extension of moral responsibility (and
values) throughout the whole intricate geography and sociality of intersecting
markets. We cannot reasonably go to church on Sunday. donate copiously to
a fund tG help the poor in the parish, and then walk obliviously into the market
to buy grapes grown under conditions of appalling exploitation. We cannot
reasonably argue for high environmental quality in the neighborhood while
srill iflSisring on living at a level which necessarily implies polluting the air
somewhere else. We need to know how space and rime get defined by the quite
different material processes which give us our daily sustenance.
But that idea deserves deeper scrutiny. Murm showed how different spatiotemporalities are defined by diffi:rent social practices in different domains and
that space-time in Gawan society is multidimensional and hierarchical
depending upon the sotts of sodal practices being looked at. But she also sho""
.. the-complex interplay of seemingly incommensurable space-times and that all
sons of sodal mechanisms exist thac translate and transfonn from one
spatio-temporality to another. Those social mechanisms rest on social relations
mediated by things (fuod, canoes, kula shells). Munn's account is complicated
in its details, even for a relatively homogeneous population of no more than
500 people living on one small island. The possibility exists that a similar or,
perhaps, far greater complexity and heterogeneity of spatio-temporaliries might
u<:wwluwithin mntemporary capiralism. If so, we need to identifY the modes
translation and transformation from one spatio-temporality to another)
parricular attenrion to the mediaring role of things.
Bat spatio-temporality within capitalism is usually characterized as a binary
'i.stru.ct[tre. contrasting the various intricately interwoven spario-temporalities [0
found in the "lifewor!d" of individuals (such as the gendered spariotetnp{)raliti.osencountered within the household) and the abstract "rationalized"
;spatj()-t"mjpOI;alities attributed to modernity or capitalism (such as those that

The Social Comtruction ufSpace and Trme 235

Space, Time, and Place
.
chan ) This is how Mitthell (see the
emerge from a dis:uss~on of ':~:~ exa1s0!~ to be implied in Maris anaiycitation above) depIcts It. Such. ~,. ty d"
general feature to be fOund m
C h'
f mrnOUlUes an 1 15 a
sis of the 1eill !SID 0 co
.'
d Hlbermas, Is this dualism approas Lefebvre Heldegger, an
"thing"
.
di
writers as verse
, b fo d throUgh consideration of that
edi te across these different domains.
priate? The answer to that can e un
money-w.hich has the oreatest power to ill a

234

,I:

OA~-

VIII. The Spatio-temporality of Moneys

.
.
is b far the IDost important "thing" in which
Money, m contemporary SOClety,
yvalues articulated, and social powers
social relations become illvested'alr d
'a11 addressed, of how a thing
th m-cry
ea y partl y
incorporated. It poses e .~~- f:
to rule and regulate Qur actions.
uch a li1e 0 Its own as
f
.
can appear to h ave s
.
f al
. t alires some kind 0 spatlot expressIon 0 v ue, In ern
al
MoneYl as a paramoun
.
d. space while expressing v ues

.
eys values over tune an. .. The thesis I shall a dvanoe
temporal Ity - It conv
achieved through certain spaftio-n:IDPorai a~:~~~nder capitalism is closely
is that the heterogeneIty 0 spauo-tempo
d.
h h
eity of money an Irs uses.
mirrored through t e et~r~genth Grundris (p 221-5) that "where money
Marx advances the thesiS In e
.
se p .
.
d so "directly
, it must dissolve the commuruty an
.
is nor itself the commUnlty,
real
'ty" But he nuances this
us!
b
"the
COffimulli ,
and simultaneo y. hie:"'Illthe
I f money only the last of which entails
t by distingws ng
ree ro es 0
,
argwnen

' nal"
.
complete dissolution of traditio
SOCIety.

alth
has a certain substantial and material
1. As an embodimmt of we
money
t enerally used for exchange, but
Id) Such moneys are no g
b I
ch
(
form Stl as go:
. (. di 'd aI C--ily; kin social order) as sym 0 s
.tho th ocial urut In VI u , W J l l "
eI al
stay WI ill e s
d
. They may be converted into jew ty, tarof wealth, status, an presnge.
d th lik
hieb can b~me the bearers
.
.
svrnbolic artelicts, an
e e, W
cial
PIeces, lCOrlS,
d
b I f th continuity of sO
meanIngs
I
emory
an
sym
0 s 0
e
'a! .)
o f ong-ter~,m..'1'1 "_aswellaswithinlargersocl uruts.
(within famlhes - the fanu y Sl vcr .
I
chan--l as"';lN, tributes,
.
. h' the social urut un ess ex
OW
D~'"
.
They remam Wlt III
ul'
"blood money" (compensanon
. ~.-I:zed "commerce" of the k a sort or as
.. _. ~ b
. fOrce
flLlliW
.
. ) Th
also be appropnau:u Y maID
.
for crimes or sms corrunrt:ted
ey caneb money forms is usually spatially
The space-time consntuted
ough su G
'ch (1985' 218) reports of
'bed d I
lasting [uoI= as urevi
.
th
circuIDscn
an ong,.~h hi'W rized and sought-afrer are en
the Norseman, the moneys thO"5'~ gyp

clu

sunk at sea].
.
>/exchan does not sray in place but circulates,
2. Money used as a medium 0
a1ge 51'de barter and gift structures and
fr eI It can operate ang
more or Iess e Y.
d BI ch 1989). Such moneys can
. Ii
d them (see Parry all
0,
.. J:
even be Imp cate ill
.
L_
Id
ins and tokeru to paper Cft:<llts,
assume diverse forms varywg nom go to co

and the like. Furthermore the intentionality of the exchange depends

entirely upon the conception of wealth involved - the sale of indulgences
and the purchase of other ways to appease the gods or enter into heaven
(in Greek mythology it took gold to get ferried across the River Styx into
Hades) is just as important as the use of money to buy goods. The spatiotemporality defined by such practices depends in part upon the
intentionality or use. For exampJe, religious tribute in medieval Europe
flowed to Rome which consequently became the site of assembly of a vast
stock of embodied wealth. Such moneys also depend, however, upon the
trust and faith to be put in the relation between the signifier (money) and
the signified (wealth) and that depends upon the ability of persons to credit
others (see Anderlini and Sabourian, 1992). Credit, therefOre, lies at the
origin of the money form even though the credit system is a much later
construction. Money forms a signifYing system internalizing a wide range
of distinctive practices, discourses, beliefS, institutions, and political,..
economic powers. This system sometimes threatens to become free-floating
and even self-referential, relative to whar the signifiers are supposed to
signilY - hence the distinctive history of monetary crises. The question of
credit, trust, and faith in the money fOrm affects how money can operate
to mediate social relations in space and time (CaHentzis, 1989). Given some
trusted representation of wealth (e.g., Maria Teresa dollars), value relations
between participants can brealr free from ritually circumscribed places and
spaces to become part of a more integrated spatio-temporal world of
exchange. A coin can travel carrying its representative powers with it
through many anonymous hands over many years and over extensive spaces
- provided credit, faith, and trust in both the signifier and the persons doing
the signifying is built into the structuring of spatio-temporal relatioflS.
As a form ofsocialpower, money acquires another distinctive function. Those
who have it can use it fOr all sorts of creative purposes including exercising
control over the acoess of others to social wealth. The oontrol over a thing
converts into control over people. Money is a means fur men to control
women, for lords to control their vassals, for emperors to control their territories and fOr capitalists to controllahorers. But such forms ofsocial control
via money power presume some sort of social ordering in which access to
wealth (however defined) cannot be procured by other means (e.g., peasants
and serfS cannot move out to unclaimed untilled land., women cannot make
their own way in the world, laborers are deprived of the means ofproduction
which have become privatized, etc.). Money as social power therefore
. depends critically upon it being a privileged means to control access to
. wealth. White money as a representation nf value can circulate freely, as
social power it depends on some sort of territorial configuration and soc.io,"< pcJ.ttllcai system (a state apparatus, in shorr) that renders that particular form
social power hegemonic tather than occasional and dispersed.

236

Space, Time, and Piace

The three roles of money that Marx identifies do not replace each otller.
They all remain copresent (gold is still meaningful as an embodiment of wealth,
for example). But the use of money as an individualized and exclusionary form
of social power is a central feature of capitalism. Marx then focuses on that
particular use by capitalists of the social power of money to control laborers
in order to make more money. This analysis rests on a sharp distinction
between wealth (tile physical command over USe values of whatever son) and
value (the expression of generalized social labor through exchange, irself a
hisrorieal product). As an expression of labor values, money operates as botll
measure and as medium of circulation of those values. The (abstract) exchange
value differs from but internalizes the (conerete) ure value ..peers of money.
Only a portion of the total money is used directly as capital (though most
money at some time or another is brought within its orbit), But the story does
not stop there. Merchants, bankers, landlords and rentiers of all kinds can each
use their money power vis-tt-vt's each other as wdl as with respect to the direct
producers to procure some share of the surplus value produced by laborers [see
Harvey (1982: chapters 9-11) for an exegesis of Marx's argumentl. Affiuent
workers control poorer, men control women~ parents. control children~
state
controls society, and political parties or corporations control the state apparatus
(to cire jusr a few examples). Money stands to be used in all manner of different
ways to control all manner of social relations.
The diverse uses of money have not been well analyzed. In practice, Zelizer
(1994: 202) observes, individuals have "invented an extensive array of
currencies, ranging from housekeeping allov..rances, pin money~ and spending
money to money gifts, gift certificates, remittances., tips. Penny Provident
savings, mothers' pensions, and food sramps." They havedifferentiated and
segregated their monies, setting food money apart from rent money~ school
money, or charity money as well as funds for burial, weddings, Christmas, or
recreation." How they do this is often the focus of struggle, and is strongly
affected by family structures, cultural predilections, habits, gender, and class
position. The creation of "earmarked" moneys illustrates the complex web of
social and space-time rdations out of which moneys arise and within which
money uses are embedded. When, for example, money is earmarked within a
household lmit for burials, weddings, vacations, remittances, old age, college
education, or whatever, it is sel: aside for a certain purpose each of which has
a certain spatio-temporality attached to it.
Zelizer unfortunately ignores the spatio-temporalities created by these
different uses while Hareven, in analyzing the different forms of"funily time:
similarly ignores the diverse uses of money. Conjoining the two analyses
provides a rather more complex bur unified picture of how different fields of
social action connect. \Vhile some currencies (such as promises exchanged
among family members) may never escape restricted spatia-temporal domains,
by far the most interesting circumstance is when a "promissory note" verbalized

.
.
The Social Constructim o[Space and Time 237
In one d0-:n~n is realized through action in another, as h
when a child lS promised a reward Ii I .
appens, fur example,
is taken in the form of an l'C
or c earhasmgdup the playroom and thoar reward
th
Th'
e cream purc e fr
trivial example illustrates th
f d '1
am e store.
IS seemingly
e Sorts 0
a.r y pra t
w:h' '"
operative in one domain are constant! b .
C lces.
ereoy currencies"
quite different Spatio-temporal ch Y e~~ translated Into another, acquiring
aractensncs as they 0 W. h
the contemporary version of the ways in which diffi g. e. ere encounter
on Gawa were interlinked thr gh
. th
erent dom:nns of valuation
ou practices at wo t eth
of spatio-temporality at different s atial eal . ye og er separate threads
Smce this is not an a1to~ether!' 'd s es m[o alcoherent SOClal world.
t>
cosy 1 ea to grasp e t ' l I
.
example - the creation of so-called" een mon
me 1 ustrat~ WIth an
unemployment on Vancouver lsl~ in the 1~80s response to WIdespread
Courtenay constructed a Local Em I
' people In the town of
based upon a new kind oflo-- I
p o~?ent and Trade System (LETSystem)
cal money llllmune f r '
. aI
debt charges. supply problem theft,
.
om mternanon recession,
s,
scafClty
and
fl'
(Dauncey, 1988: 51).
'
currency uctuanons"

in

me

A number of people who live locally and who wan

get together, agree to the LETS 'stem rul
t to ~rk and trade together
numbers. Each person then mak/
eS-,1i and glVe themselves acCOUnt
"It " .
s Out two sts, one of 'w
"
d
o ers, WIth prices attached (foIl "
. ants an one of
made up and circulated to everyo o~~ no;-al market, pnces). A joint list is
phone whoever has what they . ne. den t e men:bers lOok down the list and
one b arter are dimina~ed
' want, an start tradIng. ... The I"mllts 0 f one to
~ > as you Can now trade with th
I ' th
as a whole: barter is now a collecn'
..
e peop e.ln e system
ve propOsItlon.

The money in this case is red d

..
individual's trading account. Sucche -to a poslt1vhe or negative entry on each
t b
.ally
u
a 'ystem
I'
as .0 e span
confined
(probably no more than 5 000
'everyone to know each 'h peop e In a geograph1cal area local enough for
'de
ot or personally Dauncey
1 d
. pendent upon both trUSt in th th '.
Iv d suggests~ an is heavily
e 0 ers Jnvo e and adeq t . fo
.
. cludin
(m
g on the reliability of th
e In rmanon
ading parmer). Theuasystem
'.
local . 1 . .
. e
is selfr=>.nonships frlendships
d erson al .
.
to build those qualities rather
d
: ':" Phe
rrust and even
.
nun ermlnlDg t m as ofte ha
convennonal monetary exehan
Th
.
~
n ppens
ge.
e monev 1S created ".

.J:Jl:galJJCW:fse-"bf::meone creating something of real value, and tr~:g':~~

.
.
encoutages personal, local and
.,....
.
bluld self-esteem and self-reliance both individ:u~n,e lnJ~anves ln ways
yas we as Withm the
)mmulllilty as a whole. Finally:

n:
cl.a

fue

ill

or nary economy, there is no COillIUitnlen

m 1 cal
.
lU~ th~ patterns of trading. In return~ it oilers the t~~: 0 f community b,uilt
whlch IS also important. The LETS 'stem d ~
m 0 the global market,
\'ieconolmy or offree global [rad'
).. oes not deny the value of the global
mg - it IS a complementary, not an alternative
.-

The Sucial Constroctirm of5paee and Time 239

Space, Time, and place
dent on such
.
I
mat if a local economy becomes tOO depen

system. It SlillPLY says

hi
til
-es ofinternacional trade wlluls,

238

trading, it becomes very ....-ulnera

..-Ie;~

e ~~nes commu."uty stability and

and mat too much global tfa~ un

susuinabillty. (p. 63)

.
.
.
I of a set ~of social practices set in
The LETSystem IS an interestmg exarn~ e ki d of mOIley that embodies a
motion by indi"1.d~s to create. a certaIn n iweed on the world market.
dtffcrent kind of s~an~-tempordli~:~ !;~ Cr~own ofWorgl in Austria used
There are several histoncal exa.mp
.
d" .
. Britain spawned
.
f
1932-5 and recesSlOnary con IUOUS m
Its own money rom
1
some 400 or so such organi~tions by 1.:r ). ices of valuation (varying from
tsoc
p~act
.' ___ tty in the
The general point is this~ diiferenI cal ( adin
systems to posmoruu1
family-based valuations of scif, to 0 . If
gral d
. ( -,rving from the
k )
. different spanG-tempo
omamS ,v~f .
world mar et occur III
hal fi
.al arkets) but are built mto a smgular
household to locality to ~ um~~'of':i,e money form. Something similar
system under the rela:o:
.
an) the interlocking system of spatloto
much mor...
on Gawa exists with.in
tern porahues that Munn 1
,defines a n:,H"ticular spatlo- ali
Th gh each concrete mone) use
rcaptt sm.
ou
.
d .
h slY.lTio-temporal processes:
- d s so In some r anon to t e r al
temporality, 1t oe
..
f
the world market. This d.i eeoc
L ab tr ct qual,ues 0 money on
_,
reg uIaung tne s a
'cular) and eichange value (simultaneouSlY
between use (often local and pam _
th -ddles posed by the connection
en
local and global) must. be kept ill \'VIew
.
d different moneys in contemporary
between different spauo-tempora 1t1es an
society are to be unravelled.

(thou~~

el~;:~~et

contempor~

if

IX The Historical Geography of Space and TIme under

.

Capitalism

.
nta! conceptions and material practices
all
The construction of new d,omlll t mfuned
tal to the rise of capitalism. The
th
ace and tune were
amen
d
Wl
res~ect to sp
. m the Middle Ages in Europe onwar 5 were
conceptlons _that arose
estahlishin values; in particular
rise of money
associated WM new ways d di' . g and exclusionary form of social power
hange an a stlncuve
as a Ir..eallS 0 f exc
_.
. tal
ul ti n Money became a cent!al
to be used in pursuit of further capl aCCUffi a ~ durerentiating them from
mediator in the valuation of all exchan?'" (strrongalY I bar "Things" had to be
rell as m the ...'21uatlon 0 socl a '
gift and barter) as W
d' I ed
lement'i over which private
. d' .d
d t ularized an ISO at as e
1ll tVl uat~ , par le
.
'
uld be dearlY established. Money came to
property ngbts to buy and sell ':" th
h ' "--':ngthe trading ufvalues
-all
labor tlme mug coorw.1li:U.t
,
mea'fUrc soo' y necessary
f val'
1
the Cartesian-Newtofitan
l'h
ce"ses 0
uanon maae
f
over space.
e new p r o : : . .
cti al from the standpoint 0
conceptions of absolute space and tIme more pra c

t7

me

commerce; they provided unambiguous means for establishing identities (be

it ofindividuals~ things~ properties: collectivities such as nation states as territorial units, and the like).
Le Goff(1980, 1988) shows how the transition from feudalism to capitalism
entailed a fundamental redefinition of concepts of space and time which
then served to reorder the world according to quite new social principles. The
hour was an invention of the thirteenth century, the rn.ClUte and the second
became common measures only as late as the seventeenth (and. we now find
ourselves concerned with nanoseconds and even smaller divisions). While the
first of these measures had. a religious origin (illustrating a deep continuity
between the Judea-Christian view of the world and the rise of capitalism),
the spread of adequate measures of time keeping had much more to do
with the growing concern for efficiency in production, exchange. commerce.
and administration. It was an urban-based revolution "'in mental structures
and. tlleir material expressions" and it was "deeply implicated.'" according to
Le Goff (1980: 36), "in the mechanisms of class struggle." "Equal hours" in
the city, Landes (1983: 78) confirms, "announced the victory of a new cultural
and economic order:' Gurevich (1985: 28-33) likewise argues that "our
modern ca(egories of space and time have very little in common with the time
and space perceived and experienced by people in other historical epochs."
The Renaissance, he goes on to state, signaled "'a transition to another way of
perceiving the world, and to man's new awareness of himself (individualism,
and the conception of the hwnan body as something <exclusive, "alienated'
from the world)." But the victory was partial and patchy, leaving mueh of
even the '\estern world outside of its reach until at least the mid-nineteenth
century.
The history of cartography in the transition from feudalism to capitalism
has, like the history of time-keeping, been very much ahout refiuement of
spatial measurement and representa[i.on according to dearly defined mathematical principles. Here, too. the interests of trade and commerce. of property
territorial rights (of the sort unrecognizable in the feudal world) were of
paramount importance in reshaping mental structures and material practices.
. "When it became dear that geographical knowledge was a vital source of
military and economic power, then the connection between maps and money,
as Landes (1983: 110) shows, followed not &r behind. The introducTion of
. the P[Olemaic map into Florence in 140U and its immediate adoption there
'~<; a means to depict geographical space and store locacional information, was
(,atg)lalbly the fundamental breakthrough in the construction of geographical
',;)mow'lige as we now know it. Ther~er it became possible in principle to
::,"oIllpn::hend the world as a global uniry.
The political significance of this cartographic revolution deserves considera"Rational" mathematical conceptions of space and time were, for example,
'an",;es:sary condition for Enlightenment doctrines of political equality and

and

240

The Social Construction ofSpace and Time 241

Space, Time, and PlAce

social progress. One of the first actions of the French revolutionary assembly

to ordain the systematic mapping of France as a ~e~s to ensure :qu~ty

of olitical representation [though once more I note wah mterest that histonc:l

was

so';ologists, like Zerubavel (1985: 82-100) prefer to concentrate therr

rather than cadastral

attentlon
on the republican calendar as a kAT
-, symbol
.
.
f
g] Till'
ch a familiar constitutional issue in the democraCIes 0
mappm.
s IS su
. ' . ( d
the world (given the whole history of gerrymandermg) that the l;'tlma.e an
often contested) connection between democracy and mapP.mg. IS now taken

.
.
ttempting to draw up an egalitarian system of
for grante.
d But ImagIne a
d th
representation armed only with the Mappa Mundi! On the other han, e
Cartesian grid also has its defects. The peculiar-looking (and now hotly
contested) shapes of constituencies that have to be drawn. up for the
congress in order to ensure adequate political repres~tatlon of mmor~ty

':IS

interests is a contemporary case in point. The Jeffersoman land system, ':lth

its repetitive mathematical grid that still dominates the landscape of the Umted
States sought the rational partitioning of space so as to promote the f~rmatlon
. . di 'd alistic democracy In practice this proved admirable for
'
o f anagrananm VI U
.
.
:ffi
,.
capitalist appropriation of and speculation in spa~. sllbvertJ.~~e erso~s mms,
but it also demonstrates how a particular defimtlon of obJectIve soclal space
facilitated the rise of a new kind of social order.
..
Acccunts of the sort which Le Goff and Landes proVide illustrate how
concepts of space and time connect to capitalisti~ practices. Helgerson (1986)
points out, for example, the intimate connecnon between the fight roth
dynastic privilege and the Renaissance mapping of England (by Speed,. Norden,
Caxton, and the others) in which the polirical relatIon between md,vldual and
.
b arne hegemonic. The new means of cartographlc representatIOn
~~~
.
d~
allowed individuals to see themselves in termS that were more In a~cor ';1
these new definitions of social and political relatiofts. In. the colomal peIlod,
to take a much larer example, the maps of colonial admllllstratlOns had very
distinctive qualities that reflected their social purposeS (Stone, 1988).
Capitalism is, however, a revolutionary mode of prod,:cuon, always restlessly
searching out new organizational forms, new technologies, new li~es~les, n~w
modalities of production and exploitation and, ~er~fore, new obJectl:e soclal
definitions of time and space. Periodical reorgaruzatIons of space relaoons and
of spatial representations have had an extraordinarily powerful effect. The
turnpikes and canals, the railways, steamships and telegraph, the radio and the

their rivals, with the result that social time horizons typically shorten, intensity
of working and living tends to pick up and the pace of change accelerates. The
sarne occurs with the experience of space. The elimination of spatial barriers and
the struggle to "annihilate space by time" is essential to the whole dynamic of
capital accumulation and becomes particularly acute in crises of capital
overaccumulation. The absorption of surpluses of capital (and sometimes lahor)
through geographical expansion into new territories and through the COtlStruCtion of a completely new set of space relations has been nothing short of
remarkable. The construction and reconstruction of space rdations and of the

global space economy, as Henri Lefebvre (1974) acutelyohserves, has been one
of the main mearts to permit the survival of capitalism into the twentieth century.
The general characteristics (as opposed to the detailed where, when and how)
of the historical geography of space and time which results are not accidental
. or arbitrary, but implicit in the very laws of motion of capitalist development.
-The general trend is towards an acceleration in turnover time (the worlds of

production, exchange, consumption all tend to change faster) and a shrinking

of space horizons. In popular tetms, we might say that Tol!ler's (1970) world
of "furure shock" encounters, as it were, Marshall McLuhan's (1966) "global
" Such periodic revolutions in the objective social qualities of time and
;'space are not without their contradictions. It takes, fur example, long-term and

d
on

su~sequently thro~h dose atten~on

Street is so very different from that of the nineteenth-centurY stock

as well as new modes of representation of space.

h'

T e capacl~ to meas~re ~n

divide time has been revolutionized, fitst through the produCtlon and diffus:
of increasingly accurate rime pieces and

intense competition, capitalists with a faster rurnover time survive better than

often high-cost fixed capital investments of slow turnover time (like computer
hardware) to speed up the turnover time of the rest, and it takes the production
'of a specific set of space relations (like a rail network) in order to annihilate
by time. A revolution in temporal and spatial relations often entails,
therefore, not only the destruction of ways of life and social practices built
\arouilld preceding time-space systems, but
a creative destructio:1" of a wide
of physical assets embedded in the landscape. The recent history of
iei,ld.lstlialization is amply iUustrative of the sort of process I have in mind.
The multiple spatio-tempotalities at work within western capitalism do fiot
cohere. If, as is the case, the temporal and sparia! world of contemporary

automobile, containerization, jet cargo transport, telev'Slon and td~comm~

h ve altered. space and time relations and forced new material prac.lces

cattons, a

messages, and the like. The material bases of objective space and time have
become rapidly moving rather than fixed datum points in human aflairs.
Why this movement? Since I have explored its roOts in greater detail elsewhere
(Harvey, 1982, 1989a) r simply summarize the principal argument. Time is a
vital magnitude under capitalism because social labor is the measure of value
and surplus social labor time lies at the origin of profit. Furthermore, the
turnover time of capital is significant because speed-up (in production, in
marketing, in capital turnover) is a powerful competitive means for individual
capitalists to augment profits. In times of economic crisis and of particularly

d ccordinating mecharusms of productlon (automation,

to thespeed an
1'.n
roborization) and the speed of movement of gcods, peop e, llltormano ,

me

and if both depart from that of rural France (then and no';) or of
crofters (then and nowt then

this must be understood as a particuiar

The Socia! Construction ofSpace and Time

242

243

Space, Time, and Piace

,
ate condition shaped by the rules of
set of re:ponse~ to .a pe,:as';i,:r=~u1ation. Furthermore, it is frequently
commodity pro ucnon an ~.
..
th atia-tem rality of finanthe case that tensions arise wlthm capItalIsm as e sp
.. po ~
d
.
.
d
f; es the spano-temporalInes ot pro lIenon,
cial markets outstrlpS an con us .
consumption, urbanization, and the hke.

x. Tune-Space Compression
.
ali '
f
. a1 space and time are both
Rapid changes in the objecnve qu nes 0 SOCl
. all'
cellently
confusing and disturbing. The nervous wonderment ar It
IS ex
captured in the Quarterly Review for 1839:
.
rail <Is even at our present simmering rate of travelling,
Supposmg that our
raboo '
all over En~l"nd, rhe whole population of the
were to be suddenly est l1

~-'<Iv
masse and place
uld
eakin metaphoncally, at once a ance en
,

shed

country wo ,sp
g.
.
I"
As distances were thus
theif chairs nearer to the fires1de of met!" melttdo po. IS.~. he d in size until it
urfu
f
untry WOll as It w ...re, s . . N
annihilated, the 5 . ce 0 ,our co _
-'ty (Cited in Scruvelbusch, 1978:
became not much bIgger t.'lan one mllllense cl .
32),

The poet Heine like,,~se recorded his "tremendous foreboding" on the opening
of the rail link from Paris to Rouen:
.
fl king at things in our notions!
\"'Vnat changes must now occur, In our way 0 00
'
'!late
f'
and space have begun to vaCl

~;:: t~e~i:~~e
C;:l~;;. ~ f~~~ ifth.emountai;tha;~::=l:d:~
d
. on Pans Even noW can sme
j

countries were a vanong

.
ll- >

t my door (Cited in
trees; the North Sea's breakers are ro mg agams
.
Schivelbusch, 1978,34).

.
taken with such sentiments that she chose to introduce
Gevrge El lot was so
. , . v /. U it The Radical
__ I f shift" social relations in Bntam
In 1~e IX nO )
her compi ex [3Je 0
Ing..
h'
_ 'me conditions that
with an extraordinary descnptlon of c angmg space tl
included the following observations:

may shot,

Posterity
be
like a bullet through a tube, by atmospherictress~~:7:
we hester ~o Newcastle; that is a fine result to have among our ope.'ith' th .
wIne.L
d f th
try ~o eo er 15
slow old-fashioned v-ray of getting from one en ~
e coun
l i d m:h
. th
The tube-JourneY can never en m
the better thing to have In e memory.
"-o! Wh
(he happy
as barbrenfas an;d=~~ th~
to picture and narrative; it is th
gathered
ts'de passenger seated on e ox rom
d
ou ughl
.
FE glish life enough of English labours in town an counrry,
eno
stories 0 f l O " ,
C
d
od 'ssey
(0 make episodes lor a mo ern
:y

enough aspects 0 f earth and sl.,-.,~

fi..),

glo:7ng

The German rheater-director Johannes Birringer (1989: 120-38) records a

similar sense of shock (though with a good deal more hyperbole) in a
contemporary setting. On arrival in Dallas and Houston he felt an "unforseen
collapse of space: where "the dispersion and decompositions of the urban hody
(the physical and cultural representation of community) have reached a
hallucinatory stage." He remarks on "the unavoidable fusion and confusion of
geographical realities, or the interchangeability of all places, or the disappearance of visible (stacic) points of reference into a constant commutation of
surface images." The riddle of Houston, he concludes, "is one of community:
fragmented and exploded in all direction ... the city impersonates a speculative disorder, a kind of positive unspecificity on the verge of a paradoxical
hyperbole (global power/local chaos)."
I have called this sense of overwhelming change in space-time dimensionality time-space compression" in order to capture something of Heine's sense
of foreboding and Birringer's sense of collapse. The experience of it forces all
of us to adjust our notions of space and time and to rethink the prospects for
social action. This rethinking is embedded in all manner of politicaleconomic struggles. Failure to rethink can be the prelude to disaster. Cronon
(1991: 105-8, 318-7) provides us with the telling example of John Burrows,
a successful merchant operating out of Davenport, Iowa in the 18408 who
perfected business methods to deal with the uncettainties of trading in
agricultural products, battling seasonal transportation uncertainties across the
badly organized space that stretched between St Louis to New Orleans.
Burrows had to have the fixed capital to warehouse large and often
"unpredictable surges of commodities as well as the cash reserves and credit
capacity to handle large surges of income and expenses. But by 1857 he is
hankrupt, "a victim of the new economic regime", cast aside and left to die a
.
and bitter old man. What drove him under was the coming of the
railroaLd from the hitherto inaccessible Chicago and the new orderings of space
"an,a TILrne that it imposed, "The opening of the Chicago & Rock Island Railroad
bewildered me," he wrote. The coming of the railroad changed all the
The differences between seasons, between night and day as well as
.:jltJ!n,nl,ility to the weather were radically transformed and regularity of
Colm,x:tion coupled with reasonably accurate timetables placed merchants in
diffi:rent operating milieu. Merchants with very little capital or credit
operate out of Chicago opportunistically on low profit margins but rapid
turnover. Burrows, who had much of his capital tied up in fixed
.Iuvestmetlts that had stood him in good stead in the 1840s simply could not
nor find an adequate response. The time-space compression "''Yought
coming of the railroad squeezed him out~ but it did so in part be<:ause,
. new 8trUcrural conditions created by the railroad and by Chicago's
rOF'olitan market were simply too alien to his familiar way of doing busiidentity as a "man of affairs" was so wrapped up with a certain form

244

The Social Construction o[Space and Time 245

Space, Time, and Place

of spatia-temporality mat he could not devise a competitive strategy to carry

him into a quite different spada-temporal world. He tried to operate, in other
words, with a value system that was inconsistent with the new modes of
valuation imposed by the new spatio-temporality of the railroad,
It has long been observed, of course, that changes in the transport netwOrk
favor some locations (like Chicago in the nineteenth century) over others, But
what is interesting in Cronon"s account is that business identities also had to
change to embrace the new spacio-tenlPOral regime. This general point is taken
up in considerable detail in Schoenberger's (1996) account of recent fuilures
of corporate leaders in the United States to adapt their strategies to changed
spatio-temporal conditions of competition, The identity of the players and
the culture of the corporatiot4 acquired under a certain regime of spatiotern porality prevents doing what obviously ought to he done in order to survive
under another.
But changing spatio-temporal orderings have also been the focus of intense
cultural, esthetic, and political debate, Reflection on this idea helps US understand some of the turmoil rhat has occurred within the fields of culrural and
political production in the capitalist era, Consider, glancing backwards, that
complex cultural movement known as modernism (against which postmodernism is supposedly reacting), There is indeed something special that happens
to writing and artistic representation in Paris after 1848 and it is useful to iook
at that against the background of politica1-eco nomic transformations occurring in rhat space and at that rime, Heine's vague foreboding became a dramatic
and traumatic experience in 1848~ when for the first time in the capitalist
world, political-economy assumed an unlooked for simultaneity, The economic collapse and political revolutions that swept across rhe capitals of Europe
in that year indicated that the capitalist world was interlinked in ways rhat had
hirherto seemed unimaginable, The speed and simultaneity ofit all was deeply
troubling and called for some new mode of representation through which this
interlinked world could be represented, Simple narrative structures simply
could not do the job (no marter how brilliantly Dickens ranged across space

and time in a novel like Bleak House),

Baudelaire (1931) took up rhe challenge by defining the modernist problematic as rhe search for universal truths in a world characterized by (spatial)
fragmentation, (remporal) ephemerality and creative destruction, The complex
sentence structure in Flaubert's novels and the brushstrokes of Manet defined
totally new modes of representation of space and time that allowed for neW
ways of rhinking and new possibilities for social and political action, Kern's
(1983) account of the revolution in the representation of space and time that
occurred shortly befOre 1914 (a period of extraordinary experimentation in
fields as diverse as physics, literarnre, painring, and philosophy) emphasizes how
time-space compression generates e.xperiences out of which new conceptions
arise, The avant-garde movements in the cultural field in part reflected but in

part also sought to impose new definitions of s

d '
r
pace an TIme upon a western
capitalism in rhe fulillood f ' I
o

VIO

ent transformatIOn.

The recent complex of movements known as "postmod ' ' I'k '
connected in the writings of auth r
di
crnlSm IS 1 eWlSe
(1982), and Daniel Bell (1976) 0 s as verse as Jameson (1984), Berman
to some new expenence of
d .
have elsewhere
space an d'
tlme,II
rn!5m can be und
' , sought to see how fur postmode'
y
re
atlng
It
to
the
new
experiences
of
space
d'
ers:oo
SImp y
bt rhI
r 'cal
an TIme generated m response
o
e po Itt -:economic crisis of 1973 (Harvey, 1989a), Much f th
advanced capItaltst world was at th
'
f,
, "
0
e
production techniques consum at . tlme horb~ed mtoda maj?~ revolution in
,
, pTI on
a Its an
politJcal
'
pracnces. Strong currents of innovation led to sPeed u
-eco~O!ruc
times, TIme-horizons for d eCISlon
"
acceleraTIon
- p .aandatt
.rurnover
.
m aking (now
f ' of
In International flnanct'al m k
)
h
d
m
ex
0
mlllU tes
ar ers s ortene and lili I C h'
rapidly. And all f h' h 'b
_
'
, esty e us lOllS changed
otIS as <en ~oupled WIth a radical
"
relations, the further reduction of spatial barriers and
of space
geography of capitalist development These ' ' h
e emergence of a new
f '
,
ev ents ave generated a powerful

~organ1Zat10n

~:'';h~:;;;-:r,,:~~~~::~~~nt:~:c~~~ ~p;cts:;feIcultural and political

of to make way for the

mcreased fr
non, 0 ep
(I? community life, of skills, oflifesryles) hav;rentamuch more nOTIceable In literaty and philosophi d'
"
ecome
restructuring of everything fro ' d
' al ad C Iscourse In an era when
, cities has become a
.
~ Infustrl pr licHon techniques to inner
major tOpIC 0 concern Th
L
.
.

, structure of feeling" h'ch h

'
e traru;wrmatlOn III the
,_
W I t e move towards
d' b
" much to do with rhe shifts'
j' , _"
postma ermsm etokens has
ill po ltiG:U-econo'1C
.
th
'_,pver the jast two decades I
pra:tlces at have occurred
of
. . . t seems to refract in partIcular the way in which
"'hetw
corhmmUnjIcatJon have been dematerialized, The erasure of the distance
, , een
' :"ed (a Iiamlliar
'
I ' e SIgn er and rhe Slgtlm
postmodern idea) r
, ,examp e, IS most emph i all
h' d'
, ror
, hallast of materiality" ;: IC y lacb,eve 1ll cyberspace, a world in which "rhe
I
.
.,
sarge y een cast away:
creaTIon of the new, Themes of crean

..

eme~allty

ve estructlOn,

n:

,tan ' ,

th
adev:lflrageo
major step being
taken here, technolooicaUy
' .
b'
~ is the
SltlOn, w h prever
.
us, lrom 10 ormation transported physicallY nd th ~.
.~ .
and fnction~ to information transporred dectr'call ' ala
us. ",galust mertIa
effc _. el +th
.
1 Y ong Wlre5, and thus
; _ _ em\" y WI out resIstance or delay. Add to this th abi1"
.
.
dectromagn .cali
d e I t y [0 store mformatlon
in dema[er~:ngYili" an_.J~ve see ydet :anoth~r significant ~'1d evolutionary step
e mailum an conquenng - as th
.
, (Ber.edikr, 1991: 9)
ey say- sp<lce and tlme,

look, ar the contradictions built into rhese cultural and olitical

ov<:memsC IllUstrates
"P
,.
'd h howI deeply -, are em bedded'III capItalIst
polwcal
:
ons) er t e eu tural response to the recent s d
of capital turnover time. The latter presupposes a ::::e

th~

:~:j;:~r~::7~

246

Space, Time, and Place

The Social Construction ofSpace and Time

consumption habits and lifestyles which consequently become the focus of

of places (their labor supply, their infrastructures, and political recept' .", th .
reSource mIXes, then market ruch
)b
.
M~" elt

capitalist social relations of production and consumption. Capitalist penetra-

mul"

tion of the realm of cultural production becomes particularly attractive because

the lifetime of consumption of images, as opposed to more tangible objects

me

be regarded as a place). The foreboding generated out of the sense of social

space imploding in upon us (forcibly marked by everything from the daily news
to random acts of international terror or global environmental problems)
translates into a crisis of identity.

Who are we and to what space/place do we

belong! Am I a citizen of the world, the nation, the locality? Ca." I have a virtual
existence in cyberspace and what will that mean for the constitution of self,
of value and of the ability to identify place, community; and the like?
Not for the first time in capitalist histoty; if Kern's (1983) account of the petiod
before World War I is correct, the diminution of spatial barriers has provoked
both an increasing sense of exclusionary nationalism and localism, and
an exhilarating sense of the heterogeneity and porosity of cultures and
personaJ...political identifications.
The evident tension between place and space echoes a tension within
capitalist political economy; it takes a specific organization of space to try and
annihilate space and it takes capital oflong turnover time to facilitate the more
rapid tlunover of the rest. These tensions can be examined from yet another

standpoint. Multinational capital should have scant respect for geography these
days precisely because weakening spatial barriers open the whole world as its
profitable oyster. But the reduction of spatial barriers has an equally powerful
opposite effect; small-scale and finely graded differences between the qualities

b th

mCfeases '~ aulphase of capitalisr development in which the po~er :e~o. Pla~
space, partle arly with respect to fi
.al d
ffiman
marked than ever before Th
nann anf lamoney Hows, has become more
.
e gropolitIcs 0 p ce tend to be
than less emphatic. Glob-I'-. th
.
come more rather
am.,aUon

hood or to nation, region, ethnic grouping, or religious belief as specific marks

of identity. Such a quest fur visible and tangible marks of identity is readily

urge to look for roots in a world where image streams a.ccelerate and become
more and morc placeless (unless the television and video screen can properly

ecome even more 1ll1ponant because

=age
ng 0 commumty (of the SOrt which ch
.
.
. .
harbor) becomes ernbedd d
,ful
ara~rtzes BaltImores 'nner
e ill po\\er processes of mter-urban com "
.(Harvey, .19 8 9h). Concern for both the real and fictional uar' p~tItIon

ingredients and our money flows, and the more spatial barriers disintegrate,
so more rather than less of the world's population cling to place and neighbor-

commodity production and consumption (the reenactment of ancient rites and

spectaCles,
excesses of a rampant heritage culture), there is still an insistent

es, etc,

~oken, ~ecome much more concerned about their "good b~Si::s~ ,e,.,Saffil
~nter-~b~lomPfetition for development becomes much more fine-tun:~ ~e

deal of capital and labor has been applied to dominating, organizing, and
orchestrating so-called "cultural" activities. This has been accompanied by a
renewed emphasis upon the production of controlled spectacles (such as the
Olympic Games) which can conveniently double as a means of capital
accumulation and of social control (reviving political interest in the old Roman
formula of "bread and circuses" at a time of greater insecurity).
The reactions to the collapse of spatial barriers are no less contrarlictory. The
more global interrelations become, the more internationalized our dinner

understandable in the midst of fierce time-space compression. No matter that

the capitalist res-ponse has been to invent tradition as yet another item of

'. .

tmauonal capital IS III a better position to exploit them PI

like autos and refrigerators. is almost instantaneous. In recent years, a good

.

247

us generates Its exact

'

..

geopoliricaJ oppositions and warrin

. h " Opposite motion Into
geopolitical fragmentation in globalgc~~: ~ bostlle world. ~e threat of
blocks such as the European Union, the NAFTA, e::~ geopolmcal po:"er
empIre - IS &r from idle.
e Japanese ttading
It is fur these reaso ilia"
.
ns
t It is imperatIVe to come to terms 'th th h'
.
geography of space and time under capitalism Th dial WI al e lstoncal
between place and. s

ecue

Ppo5ItlOns

within a de er fr pace, e~ l~)fl~- and shorr-term time horiwns, exist

ework
.
roduct of :derl:
o~ sh~fts In tlme-space dimensionality that are the
.- P
"L ~t .
~ g capitalISt ImperatIves to accelerate turnover run'
d
to annlHllate space b
Th
d
es an
..
y orne.
e .stu y of how we co e with .
compreSSIon illustrates how sh,'fts l'n th
.
f
P
ume-space
e experIence 0 space d'
new struggles in such fields as th
d uI
an tune generate
.. --.
es encs an c tural rep
.
h
'_ .:basic processes of social reproduction as well
f r~ent;~non~ ow very
implicated in shifting space and
h
as;h pro,,;;ctl~n, are dee1.'ly
. : temporalities is both a constitutive and ~IZ~ ~ pr Umon of spano-

tim:

process in. general as well as fundamental tonthe ~~~Iis:'~:;:;:~: social

"that p~clple holds cross-culturally as well as in radicall diff.
. And
,productIOn and signilicandy differe
'al fu
.
y
erent modes of
, ,
.
nt SOCI
rmatlollS. How and h th .
necessarily the case now needs theoreuca1 expj.IcatlOn.
.
W Y atls

The Currency afSpace-Time 249

common gtound with the youthful and rebellious Marx, who vehemently
argued in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844:

10
The Currency of Space-Time

. to 'a'" that the determination of

"
. ofthe character of
It is hardy more t han a par"" r:a ble exaggerat10n
.' alJ to the- discussion
the meaning of nature reduces ttse/fprmetp ~
time and th~ character a/space.
Alfred North W1lltehead

I. Bodies in Space
b d ( d of all that goes with it - conceptions
The conception of the human 0 Y and 'aI b . gl depends upon definitions
'd . alue an SOC1
em
of self, subjectlVlty, 1 entity,'
, I . al ther than absolute, then it follows
d'
If the latter are re ation ra
ali
of space an rune.
d the con ceptions of spatio-tempor ty are
that conceptions of the body an
ame conclusion can be arrived at
Th
. ' of each oth er. at s
. . bod' I
mutualIy constitutive
.'
If
Wh'tehead argues, It IS
IY
. I diff< en' dltection. , as
1
d
from an enure Y . er
.
locus for all of our experience of space an
sensation that proVIdes the pfltnary
f h h
body' that our common
. . tbro h the sensations 0 t e uman
"
time, then It IS
ng
.
. , . all
t constructed. In Process and Reauty,
e
notions
of
space
and
orne
mItt
y
ge
sens
.
Whitehead (1969: 98-9) wntes:
world is accompanied. by perception of
sense-perception of the conte~Pthi~ary 'th
th t m:akes the body the starting
fthe body . !tIS . sWl ness
a
the "'.
wlthness 0
b'
rId We: find here our eli reet
kn 1 d
f the Clfcumam lent wo '
th

>

point for our 0'0.... e ge 0

" " But we must _ to avoid "solipsism of
e
knowledge of
~~7in 'direct perception something more ~lan ~~
present moment - ~ u ~
,L'. presentational immediacy beglOS ,,"'1
' .. ' .
ed",~ "or] even illS
.
1
presentallomu 1.n1ffi
-:
r
body, The body, hovvever. 1S o~ y :
sense_presentatIon of me contempo ary D'
.d "this body.is mme;
"
b' f the world Just as escartes sat ,
elf"
peculiarly mttmate It 0
' ld'
. Mv process of "being mys
'uld
have
said
"this
actual
wor
IS rome.
.
h h
soesO
.
fth
ld
is my origination from my posseSSIon 0
e war .
_

c:usal.

On

.
thIS

starting

potnt~

I st rhe staid and conservative Whitehead hnds

at ea

>

Sense perception must be the basis of all science. Only when science starts out
from sense perception in the dual furm of sensuous consciousness and sensuous
need - i.e, only when science starts out :&om nature - is it real science. (Cited
in Eagleton, 1990; 197).

But whereas Marx was concerned to show how "the human body, thtough
those exrensions of itself we call society and technology, comes to overreach
itself and bring itself to nothing" (Eagleton, 1990: 198), Whitehead had the
more mundane but equally significant aim of coming to terms with how the
body might ground science. If, for example, the body primarily experiences
the world in tenus of entities bound together in a system of causal efficacy,
then that working model of caU5ality lends immediate credibility to absolute
notions of space and absolute nmions of rime as well as to the view that space
and time are dearly separable and quite diffetent from each other. Such views
of space and time stand, of course, to be modified by what \Vhitehead calls
"the sense-presentation of the contemporaty body" by wruch I ptesume he
means the way in wruch symbolic orders, memory, power telations, and the
like operate to define that "withness" of the body that grounds experience.
Hence, the mutual constitution of the "withness" of the body and of the
~xperience of space and time cannot be understood without reference to those
social practices, such as rhose found on Gawa, of valuation of the body, the
self, and the social being. In the capitalist social ordet we inhabit, these social
practices are powerfully mediated throngh the circulation of different forms
. of money, the placing of meaning on money itself and the "sense-ptesentation"
of the body in everything from contempotary science and the media through
"F",",;' in the esthetics of the body and its cate that connects to the presentation of
everyday life. These are rather difficult matten to sort OUt, and we must
here venture to rather difficult theoretical terrain.
To this end, I shall begin by exploting the ideas of Leibniz and Whitehead
relational aspects of space and time as a counter to the absolute views of
'i N"wt:on as well as to the hegemonic views of Kant. Leibniz was deeply opposed
evidenced by the famous Clarke-Leibniz correspondence) to the
Newtonian absolute conceptions that have typically grounded views of the
. body throughout much of tbe rustory of modern capitalism. As I shall hope
show, the relational approach to spatio-temporality best captures the typical
of thought of medieval and precapitalistic societies about space and time
as those desctibed by Gurevich and Munn}. Though ir has taken a back
in comparlson to absolute (and more recently relativistic) conceptions in
capitalistic societies, the relational view has never entirely disapIt finds a strong, and in some regards more advanced champion than

250

Space, Time, and Place

,
The Cwrt'luy ofSpace-Time 251
neutral contaIners indifferent with
.
within them. He argued instead tha respect to whatever It was that Was placed
t space was aIw-!ni
.
or matter, not, however in th
d
_~"'S connngent on substance
e way un erstood. 1 eIa th
,
geographers when they use the ter " I '
" n r UVlt.y eory or by
.
m re atlveSpace t di
h
'
bent or warped depending
on the matter.
. 0 ill care ow space gets
a relational view in which space and . ~tra'Ver~ed. He developed instead.
<in~ them," and "
th
orne are nothmg aparr from the _L'
owe err existen t th
den'
Uungs
things" (Reschet 1979' 84)' F ceLei e, or
ng tdanons that obtain among
,
.
. or
blUZ space d
material or even ideal in and f th
"
bnt an
tune were not real or

.
0
emSelVe5
took
"
contmgent" (albeit a "well-ground-""
d'th
on secondary" or
'
"
=
an
oro,,hC,
ten'a!)
,
denvatlVe ennrely from the sub t
d
~.r rna
existenCe
th
s anccs an processe- they
,
en, are space and time to he construed;> Co d
; II COntam. So how~
culled. from his writings:
'.
nSl er
e 0 owing statements

Leibniz in the figure of Alfred North \'Vhitehead and strong traces of it are to
be found not only in Marx bur in a wide range of other thinkers, I advocated
the relational view in Sodal1ustice and the City more than 20 years ago and
have broadly held to it since, but I negleaed then as well as in the inten-ening
years to explicate its meaning. I now believe that a proper consideration of

it can enliven and enlighten discussion of the sociality of being in

me

contemporary world,

IL Leibniz on Space and Time

ili

Leibniz, though a dead white European male, occupied a particularly interest-

ing space-time location. Temporally he shared the modernist passion for

science and reason but mixed it with a medieval ontology of how the universe
is constructed. Geopolitically, he is at the center of European scientific
endeavors and political--theological controversies (see chapter 3), yet he also
explored, through his contacts with Jesuit prielts, eastern philosophical and

And as one and the same town viewed from different .d

ent, and. is, as it were, perspectively uhi lied' . .Sl es look altogether diIferffi
the infinite multitude of ~imple ubs P thoIt similarly happens that, through
Ir
StanceS;, ere are,'
,
diuerenr UI1lverSes whith L
nI
as It were, Just as many
,
Huwever are 0 y [ h '
-

mathematical systems. leading Keedham to suggest [probably incorrectly

acrotding to Mungella (1977)1 that he detived calculus as well as binary
arithmetic and modal logic (the fOundations of contemporary computer
languages) from his srudies of the I Ching, It was from this particular
situatedness that he evolved distinctive views on the meanings to be assigned
to space and time. His views have not been held in great e,teem by many
philosophers (particularly after Bertrand Rnsselfs strong critique), but there
are some signs (see Brown, 1990) of serious reconsideration ofhis metaphysics
while many ofhis contributions in the fields of science, mathetnarics, and logic
are now clearly recognized as foundational for a wide range of contemporary
practices (he is now regarded as the metaphysician of cyberspace, for example),
Given Leibniz's resolutely anti-materialist metaphysics, simple adoption of his
arguments poses Cettain difficulties for any Mar:xian view (see chapter 3), But
these are not insurmountable, depending upon the conception of dialectics
involved.
leibniz. as was shown in chap[er 3~ was a silong proponent of the idea of
internal relations. In the MonadDkgy (1991: 24) he SlllIlffi:l.fized his position
thus:
Now chis. interllnkage or accommodation ofaU created things: to each other. and
of each to all the others, brings it about that each simple suh..tan-ce has relations
that express all the others, and is in consequence a perpetual living mirror of

the universe.

It was from this standpoint afinternal relations that he opposed the Newtonian
view that space and time existed in their own right. that they were content-

according to the different points f '

r
the perspecttves of a single one
0 Vlewotea monad. (Leibniz, 1991: 24}

'c":",

: <'
This defines whar I will call the first version of s acio'
,
,P
temporalIty: the Idea
'.. ..:.' that sItuaredness, positionali", d ndi'
'J an co
tlon ptOVIde a
I' r' f
,:; :., ._. spatial perspectives on a single actual.
I mu tlp la.ty 0 remporal
'., - "
which Leib .
UIllVerse. t contrasrs with
d
- filZ explores with. th
Is f
.
a secon
universes of radically differ t
, e too 0 laglc, a multiplicity ofpossible
_.
en spatlo-temporahues:

... there could exist an infinirv f th

0 0
er spaces and. worlds e tire! di~
, ours.
J T hey would have no ~Idistan
c... _..
(
n
Y uerent [from
'eth
..
ce .l..LUlll us nor other sp '-' eI '
lC
e spmts inhabiting them h a d '
eOal r atlons to us)
sensauuns not related t
Exactl
Id f th
wor 0
e space of dreams diff h:
0 ours..
y as the
, such
ers om our waking world, .L _
,,"
ill
a world quite diffi
la:
f'
I.ucre COum even
1979: 94)
crcnt ws 0 motIon. (leiliniz, cited. in Resch er,

th
!::nYytake
called
place

it c.mo.ot be denied that many stories es

~"_J. as possible, even if they do n't
... ,eq"en'C<!ofthe universewhith Godh th'

',' .

'all

novels, fllily be
in this particular
.
'.
as osen - unless someone'
,
du
certa.tn poetic regions in the infinite extent .of s
~nes t
see wand-ering over the earth Kin Anh
f pace an, ~me where
and the fabut
D' d
.g
ur 0 Great Bm:a..m. Amadis
OllS
letn 1 vun Bern Invented. b-.r th Ge
_
ofour o::ntury doesh a : ! e [mans. A famous
<xjJres,.]y af6
not seem to Ve been far from such an 0 inion
rms somewhere (hal maTter
.
all
P
,
(Descartes, l)rinciples ofPhilnso -h _[;elVes
th~ torm~ of~ch
be defended, for it would bli
p.r, art m, Art 47), ThlS opmion
.
0 tcrate i!.ll
beallf'V' f th
'
t hOlce. (Lelbni'l~ cited in Rescher. 1981: 91-2}'"
_,0
e UlllVersc and

ore

m=

252

Space, Time, and Place

Technically, Leibniz argued, space like time, in no matter what universe (for
all universes have some sort of spatio-temporality) is nothing more than "a
structure of relations of an appropriate sort," In particular:
space is the order of coexistenc,~ - that is, the order among the mutually
contemporaneous states of things; while time is the order of succession - thaI is,
the order among the various different mutually coexisting states of things -which
(because they are mutually) coexisting - must, of course. have some sort of
"spacial" structure, (Re5cher, 1979: 86-7)

This brings us to what I consider the first virtue of the Leibnizian system: space
and time are "mutually coordinate in such a way that neither is more fundamental than the other" (Rescher, 1979), They are coordinate as ordering
principles of substances such that both are contingent [this opposes Feuerbach's
view that time is the privileged domain of the dialectic as well as Sayer's (1985)
more recent argument that time is the realm of necessity and space the realm
of the contingent}.
If, however, space is "an order of coexisting substances, then evety world has
irs own space" and "distinct individuals in distinct worlds that do not coexist
with one another" are held to be spatially disjoint or "spatially unrelated somewhat like the dream-worlds of different people" (Rescher, 1981: 86),
Potentially, then, "every possible world has irs own space as it has its own laws,}J
This does not imply that any world can be spaceless, but that the ordering of
space "'is necessarily different in different worlds since different worlds contain
different (and incompatible) substances and these substances internalize such
differences. Hence) a difference in things brings a difference in spaces in its
wake, even as it carries with it a difference oflaws," This I hold to be the second
virtue of Leibniis formulation: that it allows of a "plurality of distinct spaces
as opposed to a single aII-comprehending superspace with many distioct sectors
or subspaces" (Rescber, 1981: 88-9), More particularly, "a space is individuated as a single space through the mutual relatedness and. connectedness of its
parts, and where these elements of mutual relation and interconnection are
absent, the warrant for speaking of a single space is lacking, "
Leibniis reasoning was both theological and metaphysical, In practice, the
physical world which we encounter has only one unique ordering of space and
time so that the possible existence of a plurality of spaces and times is not
directly troublesome for materialist science, The appearance of different spatial
and temporal orderings can come about in such a world only in the sense
the multiple perspectives on the same reality set out in The Monadology, But
Leibniz is concerned with God's creativity and perfection, He thoughr that the
Newtonian view placed God in space and time as if either God's actions were
predetermined or even as if the properties of space and time preceded God,
The discussion of a plurality of spaces and times within multiple possible

The Currency a[Space-Time 203

worlds (each with its own laws of motion) r
'
,
we occupy is an expression of God'
, he~gruzes that the physical world
_C
'
d Ii
s CfeanYe COlee and will F Lcib'
perrectlOn e 'vers "the best of all
'bl
I
' or
ruz, God's
e War ds " Th
I
'
d 1'fferent possible orderings f POSSI d
':
e exp oration of quite
, ul
0 space an tune IS
'!I'
partie ar qualiries of God's choice.
meant to 1 ununate the
The breakthrough into capitalist moderll1'
secularmtion of thinking ab
d ty, many now hold, entailed the
h
"
our Space an Ume Eve Whi eh d
w 0 mamtameda conception ofG d fund'
n
r. ea (1969: 61j,.
Leibniz's formulation of the best Of as 'bl atnental to h,s works, regarded
'
0 POSSI e worlds as "
da '
fu
prod uced ill order to save th f
- C
an au elOus dge
e
ace
ot
a
reator
con
t
d
h.
and antecedent, theolOgians," If h
s ructe vf contemporary,
0wev
the quesrion of which of the ' u1 j er, we, seculariZe matters entirely, then
, hab'
m tip e pOSSIble spat' t
aI
In
it becomes a matter of se ill
'a1 ch '
10- empor worlds We
f G d'
c ar SOCl
Oleos rath th
'
o
0 s singular will. I consider this to be
. er .an an Imposition
argument: that space and time
b "
d the th[r~ Vll'tue of Leibniz's
'!hin SOC!'a1 practices and '" can rha
e Vlewe as ordenng systems inherent
Wl

aCtiVIties
t are in some
'"'
sense chosen {perhaps
arnved at" would be a berrer ph
) th than
ra
gtven, It is, fur example a
relatively short step from th 'draseh "er
ch'
e 1 ea t at every possibi
Id h as its own
'
aractenscic spatial struCtur " (Resch
e wor
rive social furmation has its e
ch er, 19!9: 93) to the idea that each distinc,
d
own araCtenstlC spatial tern al
Its own istinctive Jaws of motion And th.
. por structure and
difference in thinvs" (or as I
uld' _0 ' IS will be so because it is "the
C'
,
wo
praer It the diff. nce '
aI
an d processes) which "brings di lT
"
,
,ere
In soci
practices
'th' .
a uerence In spaces In Its ak
'
WI In It a difference of 1
" (Res he
W
e, even as Jt carries
L 'b ' ,
ows
c r, 1981; 88)
eI nlZs emphasis upon creati,~tv of t h , a l i
'
temporality of succession ope
th' Ii e spatl ty of coeXIStence and the
,
ns up a er nes of argu
-h'ch L
ilpp.arent by conSIderation of hi
'II
.
. .
SownI Ustratt
fment1WJ 1 uecome most
worlds, The world and space f dee
dons 0 mu tlp,e possible spatial
0
ams,
an even of novels d
d'rr
that 0 f'd'
ally experience and
h _ th '
an poerry, lITer

may
aVe
en
own
law
f
'
B
h n a conundrum How d
k
th
s 0 motion, Ut here
'
0 we now
at such spatial
Ids
,," --- each other as opposed to b' diff
wor
are separate
emg uerent pers'
h
pr,op"",d in The Manudolo , Leib ' ,
peet!"';" on t e Same universe
that "whoever asks whe~;'" ano~~s OW~~'ew (cited in Rescher, 1981:
J
as.king to this extent whether the
er ,wdorrha
or another space, can exist
re
are
mIn
s
t com
.
th'
The extreme postmodern '
f r
,munlcate no Ing to
th
VIew 0 uagmentanon and
ed
.
.en depends crucially, if we fullow the I '
f :e~"!"'t spatial
(a) InhabItants experiencin Sens t.
. ogLe 0 Letblllz S atgwnenr,
,
g
a IOns radIcally cliff,
fi
.Incommunicabilitv berw
th
'
erent rom OUfS and
-,
een
ose spatIallv
d
Leibniz presumed (largely In, th i ' , all temporally ordered
1 h eo oglcal ,reasons) that the actual
world in which we lived
multiple monads might d was anfinar~olruo,USlY ordered universe upon
evelop I
ne y diffi
'
Leibniz conformed to the vi
f' I
erent perspectlves, In this
mr1enratic'm opens up a
a sIng e uruverse' but hi s manner of
,"
few 0 b'
varlet} 0 trou Img questions as well ' t' ,
as 111 rrgumg

254

Space, Time, and Pidee

po>sibilities, particularly given the way he sought to impose a metaphysical

unity in the face of political-<:conoroic fragmentation and political chaos (see
chapter 3), Ifwe a=pt rhe ttaIlsfurmation I am here proposing and drop the
theological idea of a singular creative deity and accept social choice and
creativity with respect to the orderings of space and time, then the issue of how
these different social choices are arrived at and whether or not they are embedded in entirely separate worlds of sensation and h'lcoromunicable language (as
opposed to the multiplicarion of perspectives on a single universe) becomes
central to the contemporary discussion around postmodern versUS modernist

There is, perhaps~ motht:r way to put this. LeibDiz made a Silang distinction
between possible and compossible world", While the former embraces an infinite
variety of potential creative choices,
latrer restricts the spadal relations
internalized within a particular c..ilOice set (e.g., the actually-existing monads
in Leibniis argument) to the orderings of coexistence actually found within
that public space (or common universe) which all monads perceive. To be in
that common worM is to share given qualities of space and time by virtue of
the "mutual relatedness and connectedness of its pans." Putting this in the
context of the materials assembled on the social construction of :,,-pace and time
in chapter 9 entails that, while the social choice with respect to sparial and
temporal ordering is potentially infinite, the actual social choice once made,
condemns all "mutually related and connected" members of that social world
to an existence within a common experiential framework of public space and
time. This, of course, is the fundamental point upon "nhlch Gurevich for one
iruists (see p. 212), But here, tOO, there arises another difficulty: for if different
social formations can arise out of each other, then there has to be some way
of uansforming the frameworks of space and time (as well as the Jaws of
motion) which in rurn implies that a plu:ra1ity of spaces and times (as well as
conflicting laws of motion) must at some time or other coe....ast, even if only
temporarily, within a common universe, Incommunicability, of the soct that
characterized the negotiations over land sales between colonial settlers and
Indian gtoups in the early suges of color0.ation of New England, then becomes
parr of the clash of different social definitions of spatio-temporality,
The emphasis upon communicability LI> important here. It prefigures in an
interesting way Habermas's (1987: 322) ueatment of spano-temporality-within
his theory of communicative action. If reason is "'by its very nature incarnated
in conteXts of communicative action>>> he writes, then speech acts connect the
plans and aerions of different actors "in historical time and across social space,"
Bur although there is always a "transcendental moment of universal validity"
that "'bursts every provinciality asunder" so that "the validity claimed for
propositions and norms tran.scends spaces and times, 'blots out' space and tine,'
the acceptance, promulgation and ahove all contestation of such cla.ims can .
never escape the 'here and now' of specific contexts: The parallel here with

perspectives.

me

>

,~

The Currency OfSpllce-Time 255

W:illiams analYSls ot the dilemmas of "mill tant

,," '
ill ltselfsuggests a convergen
fth
bo particwarism 15 startling and
ceo ought a mh
'
frame political action. And there is ow
once
see (chaprer 12) to the idea of "situated
link, as we shall later
notIon of spatio-temporal't .
ge. tha
To contest
I Y15 to conrest the pt
d a dominant
re efine, in thought a1rematrv'
'bI
ocess
t pro uced it and to
' '
d
e pass! e worlds of bein
are ruled out Le'b
" own theory.
g, B "
.
! nns
ul
S uch contestatIOns
Y the assumptIOn of God'
~h
. ut it is r ed. out
b
secularized version of Le'b
' ,s attac ment to d
principles
of hamwn'll
!\
I flIZS a..>-gument
'd
J ' ..
:vith such an ass'UlIlption in favor ofa more can
ently should dispense
mcorporating ideas of dass gender c 1
d ctth model of SOCIal relations
under conditions of a co~
" 0 onthJa an 0 er forms of struggle. Even
on umverse erefore th
b
rrerent
perspectives on th
'
" e r e can e more than JUSt
lT
,,
at commonahrv but
d' ,
di
oPPOSltIons of the so.rt descr'b
.' l ' Iytha
contra lctlOns and
] ed'm chapte 9 W hi
a, plurality
internalize
C llIDp
all of ordering principles of space rand tune
and find t wesci
r
mtern y conflicted as to which
de '
our Yes OTten
example would be the nfl'. or flng perspective to adopt (a simple
, . "
co lcang spatto--temporal'
I '
,
__ aCUv'ItlCS' of parenting on the one h an d and frm Vle?'S.mternahze
from
al
aca
Ie on the other),
n pro esSlon life as an

consrituted~

span~temporalities,
knowl~ str~ng

111'

'f'~ Ir:t

dem

Let me summarize the nature of die ar

,
be interpreted as saying that ther'
,~~t r am here making,
r could
f
d
e 1S a SillS .......... actually "
"'---() space an time and that social
.,
.
ex:rstmg uamework
varied perspectives ("situatedness"
vanatlOns ,anre only by virtue of our
~verse, This view while' 'tseJ"'fwplc n~btypKally refer to it) on a common
:
dO<
'
rn I
allSrle and full f' 'gh
...,_' ___..."."
' ill
. space and tim 0 InSl ts
, erent
th modes of human b e h aVlOT
. regarding
_"",_,,':,"""
eexamples
which
Leibni
'
fd''"'.
.c,
appears
inconsistent
,
z gm:s 0 merelt po bl
rids th
, __ '_
and of novels Th
.
55l e wo
- e worlds
" _:
different fromese :
alternatIve pos~iblc worlds in some sense
, , ',.'

0;;,0 oth~, ,~u~h p~sslble worlds are not entirely

de i:gh ~~z m~ght reasonably claim that in

of human experience
sense the worlds they

CI

~n :~ti~:l ~~~l:e
~

:.perception, Leibnils findings

materia! world of sense
,,,,,:prlCeiv logical constructs, But thev P
ed worlds ot space and time
at the diffurentiation of actual cpatialan.e uS as a means to look more
~
and temporal orderin~ 'h'
,
of production and social {;
.
-'1:>- Wit In
and social understanding of relational s
A s:cw.a:iz.lOllhdlati,on
a g
stron theoretl
pace 'ca!andand
time on a Lelbnmafl
..
_ provides, in shon,
I 'al fr
ot representing
the variegated SOCI' a
l'
ogre . amework
'd
practtces
of constr
f
s ' the expl
' uct!on
f al 0 space
I ill out in chapcer 9 . It a0lpermlts
o production in terms of
rod. ~'
~. oratlon a ternative
;_ f
P u<..:tlon of different possible worlds

o~matlOns.

me

256

Space, Time, ami Place

III. Whitehead's Relational Theory of Space and Time

Alfred North \lihitehcad proposed a relational theory of space and time.
Curiously, he never discussed Leibniz's views in detail (perhaps out of deference
to his friend and collaborator Russell who mounted such -a. devastating attack
against Leibnizs metaphy-sics while learning greatly from his mathematical
logic) though he did occasionally admowlecige both similarities and
differences. The diffi:rellces are important. To begin ,,~th, Whitehead, as befits

someone raised in the traditions of British empiricism, pushed for a realist

rather than a logical version of the relational view. He thereby counters Leibniz's
tendency to veer off into unalloyed idealism. He also had the advantage of

writing after Einstein

publi~hed

the general theory of relativity. While he

disputed Einstein"s interpreratioru: ((hereby opening a gap between the relative

and relational views) he ne....er doubted the importance or verachy ofEnstein's
discoveries. Whitehead consequently provides a much stronger metaphysical
basis for the kind. of materialist dialectical understanding of spatiotemporality for which I am searching, Unfortunately~ his lack of interest in the
dialectical uadition per se (he recognized Hegel's importance, for example, but
confessed he never managed co read more than a page or two of him) denied
him some of the im;ights that Lcibniz provides,
Whitehead published a paper entitled- "La Theorie Rdacionniste de
I'Espace" in 1914. Judged poorly written and overlong by his primary exposiwr
and biographer Victor Lowe (1962: 178), it nevertheless occupied a pivotal
transitional role between the early Whitehead that collaborated with Russell
on Principia Mathematica a!1d the later \Vhitehead that expounded upon a
philosophy of process and organism_ In it, Whitehead argued that we ough'
not to consider physical bodies as if they are first in space and then act upon
each other. Bodies are in space, rather, only because they interact, so that space
is "only ilieexpression of certain properties of their interaction'" (L~"e, 1962).
Space and rime are not, therefore, independent realities, but relations derived.
from processes and events. Put in "Whitehead's awn words:

, .
The Currency of Space- Time 257
wuhm the confines of
hsol
any a
ute conception of space d'
"h
a d UfatlOnless instant is a ver'l- diffi I
.
an Orne, C ange at

.
h

ell
t conceptlon. How
lai
vel OClry WIt OUt referring to th
II
can one exp n
e past as we as the fur
In
chi
answer that question "Whiteh -d
sear ng to
,
, c , was rtorced to co trure,
radteally different philosophv of spa
d'
F n5 uct a new and quite
Once \llhiteltead (1985' 53)
ce an time \ Itzgerald, 1979: 74).
found himself worki~g at ~dL camthe to bel1eve th~t "nature is a processl " he
ID WI most concepno
f'
anSWer to the question "what'
'" r
ns 0 SCienCe. The usual
IS nature, lOr example .."
ell'
stuff, o.r matter., ormat-"-'
the partle
. uIar n
Cltal h ' IS" cou cd m ~enIlS: of
has the propertv of simpl I
'.
~~ c osen IS mdifferent - which
- ~I
e ocatIon In space ana tun
'f
ado
modern ideas, in spacetime." It then followed th e. or, 1 you
pt the more
however YOU do settle wh t
d at as soon as you have settled
,
, a youmeanbya efin'
I
'
can adequately state the relation of
>cu1 Ite p ~ce In space-arne, you
by saying mat it .is just there, in th:t ra::e. ardmatenal bo?y to space-time
concerned, there is nothin m
P, > an so far as Simple location is
61-9). Th' .
f
g ore to he Salti on the subject" (Whitehead 1985.
IS was, 0
course, the famous mech .
. h
'
lStIC
which science had b""",-,At.r r
- d
t eory of nature with
,
~V''''''.'-'J emaIne content sm
th
h
mamly bn:ause it work.ed s
11
ce e seventeent century,
o we across a broad
.
f
practices. But this doctrine of matter:
terraIn 0 technological

:m

is the OUtCOllle of uncritical acceptance of~ ace d.

for natural existence By'L' I d
-p an orne as external couditions

UJIS
0 not mea!) that a..'1 do bt h ._1 r
ou facts of space and time as 11wrOO"
f
Y, li S OU1(l b:: thrown
,
<:r
tents 0 nature Wh tId
.
unconsclOuspresuppositionofsn-ace _.1
be"
a" 0 mean IS the
.
" (WI,
r
aUti time as mg that ~L'.
h-ch
>

[S

set.

itehead, 1920: 20)

This reconceptualization of spatto-temporality led -whitenead to the intriguing terrain of how to devise an adequate language with which to capture
process, motion, flux, and Row without abandoning the obvious commonsense idea that we are surrounded with things possessing relative stability and
definable properties. Once on that terrain, as Fitzgerald (1979: 74) observes,
it became obviom to Whitehead that it was extremely difficult "'to explain
change wirhin the COlmnes of Newton's philosophy of n;ture" and particularly

nature

Whitehead (1920: 153-4) was led to de

th".
.
-.uoctr:L11e that "spano-temporal relations hi s ny e us~ m~eed universal"
ate
a theory based "upon th do .
h P th external and Instead propose
ct!lne t at e relat dne
f
(nter:nal relations" He
b e s s 0 an event are all
.
went on to 0 serve that:
The conception of inLcrnal relatedness involves t h e '

The fundamental order of ideas is first a world of things in rd:uion, then the
space whose fumbmemai entitles are defined by means of thme .relations and
whose properties are deduced rrom the nature -of rhese relations,

WIUllll W

two factors, one the underlying substantial act' . _ ~lS o~ th~ evenr moo
other, the complex of asp:ts L '
[Vlty of tndiY1duahzatlon~ and
- "
ec - bat IS to say the romp1
f Ia dn
entenng Imo the essence of th .
' _
ex 0 Ie te esses as
egtvenevent-whtmare 'ned' rh - ": . a:ctlVlty. In other words the
f '
Unt
In
e 11l1.!lvJdual
,
CU3cept 0 'nternal relaci
'h
SUbstance as the activity ~'nrh '. -.L. eI . on~ reqUlres t e concept
.
.
- "'.. - esrrmg Ule r anonships mto
Its emergent

me

Iatlgllagc here is rarher special d

.
poim-w"'to .,"_
an req~res some exegesis, "Wlhitehead's
.
cnuaze the concept of Simple location "I shall
th
~rtmary elements of nattlre apprehended in our 'immedi~argue
IS no dement ..,matever wh -~h
_
ate expenIt does not follow that N
1...,,' po~es, tIus character of simpJe
J. ewtoruan Selence IS wTong: "by a particUlar

:-t

258

,",
:

I'i'

~. ,

,{
,

Space, Time, and Place

process of constructive abstraction, we can come up with the Newtonian

fOrmulation." But this is only one abstraction out of a field of radically diflerent
possibilities and we cannot understand it without"" reference to iliat from which
it has been extracted." In other words, an understanding of process muS(
precede or parallel an understanding of space and time.
Whitehead's ultimate objective is to replace the Newtonian mechanistic view
with "a philosophy of organism" and in Science and the Modern World (1985:
80ff) he opens the way to that project through a reconsideration of the status
of space and time. He observes that things are both separated and bound together
in spaGe and time. He calls these characters the "separative" and the "prehensive" characters of space-time. How things are separated and bound together
then becomes the focus of attention because it is precisely this bow that is
captured in any definition of space and time. A third characteristic is what
Whitehead terms the "modal" character of space-time within which - and only
within which - a version of simple location can be defined because "everything
which is in space receives a definite limitation of some sort." In other words,
individuation and the definition of things, particulars or n'C1Zts always occurs
in space-time, But which space-time? It is only the modaliry of the definition
that is interesting and that modality is, for Whitehead, always relational. The
effect is to eliminate the idea of simple location as a grounding principle
entirely. Space and time are now construe,d as "simply abstractions from the
to,a1ity of prehensive unifications as mutually patterned in each other '"
space-time is nothing else than a system of pulling together of assemblages
into unities." The word "event" is then defined to mean "one of these spatiotemporal unities." "What is interesting here, of course, is
actual process of
pulling together assemblages into unities so as to define spatio-temporalities.
Three general aspects to his argument stand out.

me

L Whitehead, unlike Leibniz, allows that time can be differentiated from

space. In his earlier writings he saw this differentiation only occurring "at
a somewhat developed stage of the abstractive process" (Whitehead, 1920:
37), But in developing his philosophy of organism he later came to See the
differentiation as a product of the whole process of pulling together
assemblages into organic forms that persisted oyer duration:
it is in this endurance of pattern mat time differentiates itself from space ...
each enduring object discovers in nature and requires from nature a principle
discriminating space from time ... the importance of space as against time,
and of time as against space, has developed with the development of enduring
organisms. (Whitehead, 1985: 150)

The implication is that the evolution of any organism, including that of

society itself (and 'Whitehead was not averse to considering society as

.
The Currency ofSpace-Time 259
Ormtmsm
of some son t h ough h e never deIgnS
'
to
to
. r th
is to some degree predicated on a pani ul
speCh!. e meaning),
e at separanon at tIme and
Sueh as that so prevalent in the
'a1 thea th
space,
d .
SOC!
tv at attaches to
. alis
mo erruty. But we can at least now think of
caPl(
t
of a process. The effect is t
e separation as the product
those arti ul
0 open up an aperture for critical discussion of
itself. p e a t processes that imply such a separation within social theory

th

2. Multiple processes generate multiple reat

ed
.
di~
"
.
as oppos
to Lelbniz's id aI
nerentlanon m spatio-temporalities This Whi h a d '
e
of the most difficult of all propo 'ti .
,
te e recogmzed, was one
Sl ons to accept or understand:

~ di:Her:m measure systems with their divergencies of time reckoning are

. ng, ~ to some extent affront OUr common sense It is n the

vtay m whICh we thInk of the Universe We thi k f .
ot
usual
system and one necessalY space Accord
h n 0 one necessary cirneindefinite number of ..1:'~ d"
fi? to t e new theory. there are an
distinct spaces.

lJ..LSCOr ant tune-senes and an . defi .

In

TIlte

number of

Furthennore, the separation of space and tim

ak'
..
time to be stratified in man dilk
be m. es It pOSSIble for spacey
rent ways y different rime systems:
It is at first sight somewhat of a shock
hink
.
nature into time-sections in' ..1:11::
to t
tha( other bemgs may slice
.
a Ulllerent way to what We do
Our h I
geometry IS merely (he
.
f tb
. ...
Woe
.
.
_.
expresslOn 0
e ways in which differe
Imphcated III different time sy~t
., (Wh' eh
nt events ate
, ems,
It eao, 1922: 336)
1

Concentrating as he does on th~ ph'

f
.
in an aside that luekil "iliff, "
)lSlCS 0 orgamsms, Whitehead argues
y
erences among ourselves"
th

quiteimperceprible.~' But it is not hard b ad

h o~ IS matter are
fO
the social dimension to thi
to N en t e pOInt to understand
. .
s argument. evertheless t h .
.
-pnnc!ple of a multitude of s aces and t i .
'
e exIStence 1n
by Whitehead's (I920' 1! I;
. " mes IS brought back down to earth
work within nature:'
empIrICIst approach to interlinked processes
amid the alternative time-systems that nature ffi th
.
duration giving the best av~rage rogredience f~r ::: th ere WIll ~e one with a
the percipient event. This duration ill b th hIe subordinate parts of
terminus posited by sense-awaren W The tbe wcb e of nature which is the
~
d
.
ess.
us e aracrer of th
. .
event eterml:les the time-system imrr: --1: _ I
'd'
e perCIpIent
,eurate y evl ent m nature.

words, w<: can through observation and ell'

d
of -h
I' Ii ' .
.
r eetlon un erstand
.
\. e mu nPlI ClU~S of spatio-temporalities is primariIv at work
.10 natur~ as we as In the experiential world of a mavin ~ obs
ill so dOIng we come to recognize th .
f g
erver,
e ImpOrtance 0 "cogredience"

1".'

260

Space, Time, and Pwce

,

. .. _
e wa
'b ' ,
e don of composstbluty) - th
y
(Whitehead here paraLds Let mz s con~ P
struct a single consistent~

in which multiple processes flo~ toge er to con

.L
gh ultifaceted tIme-space system.
.
h
coherent, lllOU m
'd
.hich J will occasionally return In w at
~1."

portantl earnw
.
di"
Since lilts is an un
k L
t. ~ ter 9 as to what "cogre 'ence
rc
ample ta en Hom cnap,
..'
follows I OITef an e x :
ed h multiple useS and It 1S qw te
,
M ey I mere argu , as
.
IDlg~t mean. .:- on define a different spa!io-cemi?0rality. Yet m~n~ is,
pOSSIble for each usc to
kind of umbrella to tndicate
so the term operates as a
d
.
in the end,Just money
"b' r.
"
dient'"
uses of a consistent an
re
'd
f"
mpoSSle
or
cog
f
h
a Wl e range 0 co
. .
al"
The fact that some 0 t ese
.
dowed With certain qu lUes.
_L
coherent entity en.
_ . ~L uses in no way detracts from ute
adictory
Vts-it-vts
omer
.
uses may be contr
,
h
of (he money concept.
"
overard1mg co erenGe
ngth b roblem ofhow the "permmences
3, Whitehead discusses at greatl~ved t e Pd how spatiality is crucial to rhe
.
re ever afIl
at an
h '
of th e orgamsm a
'" ; th duration of its exi~{ence. But e lS
bounding of each permanence or e f d' 1 tion that can take even
f the process 0 ISSO U
I
alwavs acuteIY aware 0
CI aWlS needle and ultimate y
> h'
in~lv permanent a,<;
eop
somet mg so seem 0';
d ft h ld that it Vi.'2.S his focus. on processes
" Ive It.
' 1nee.
d d, Whitehea
wssO
. ed.0 hien fre many other process philosoph ers
tat
of dissolution thatdiffercnt ,
em o~kinO" sentences -whitehead (1985:
dedhirn
An
d ma;ewsrn 0
Is .L
that h ad prece
.
, . f, rures of what I have e ewnere
165-7) unpacks some of th~ ~!relatlve ea
called "time-space compresslOn :
i

_
_ . es of rimates are apt ro go to pieces under
it is posstble that certam spea
('('"P
h
of space-time systems ...
-.
1 'ch lead them to errect c angcs
. ,
condiuons W 11

1 ad.l
to rapid changes In Its
'gly
unf vorable em'Ironment e n g . I
accordm .' an
a
.1. _
environment jolting I::: into v10 em
. esvstem matlstosay,an
1 '
I' h
proper space-nm
'_.L.
. ces and disso ye mto 19 (accderations, causes me curp~cw; to go to pe
waves of the same period of vIbration.
J

. -whitehead's contribution? The argument

So how, then, can we summLear~zbe,
Cassiret (1943) points out, really
.
Newton by 1 ml. was.
hical
mounted agrunst
dicallv dilfererrt philosop
urposes between two f a ,
f
'b'
an argument at cross-p,
kills d
h sical attachments 0 Lei lllZ
traditions. It was the logIcal 5
an merap! ed bv Newton. Whitehead's
. 1 h 'Iosophy of nature pracUs
J.
h d
versus the pracoca P 1
.t1' h Ney;,'tonian tradition itself, T ey 0
.- .
. h wever 1rom Wi un t e
fLei'b '
critiCISmS artse, 0
,

f
,'11
Ids in the fashion 0
mZ,
i ' at pyoloratJon 0 pOSSl) e wor
,
not reIv on t he ogle - T
. ..'
f actUal rocesses at work rn nature,
but 0'; the ,rudy of relational posslbdJtles d d
them ~"'h.ile ~7hirehead .
beings can experience an escfl
.
.
b
in so at as human
'ali
t tradition of natural sCIence Y
l
does diverge from the ~bstrafct mate: S L: cts and values mind and ma::rer,
. ~L b,rtl no naturetntO la
>
. ' '.
iuslstmg that we irur~ 0
. ~.1
h keeps firmly wirhin the empUlCl:t
'aIi
d
norlOUsness IS tw.se, e
b
"y
maten ty an co ~
til / h
"of human oct.
orbit by hinging his arguments always on e Vi; It ness
I

.t,

The Currency o[Space-Time 261

experience. The effect is to convert the multiplicity of possible spatio-temporal

worlds proposed by Leibniz into an empirical problem of how to unravel the
multiple spatia-temporalities at work within a variegated worJd of intersecting: processes. To the degree that the materials assembled in chapter 9 by
historians, anthropologists, geographers~ social scientists, and the like, do each
in their own way unravel part of the general problematic that Whitehead sets
out, then it seems reasonable to conclude that some sort of theoretical basis
can be forged for all of that diverse information through the relational theory
of space and time that Whirehead proposed,

IV: Towards a Relational Theory of Space, Place, and

Environment
Can the relational theory ofspace and rime be used to understand thedia/eerics
of space and place? If so, can it be extended in some way to construct a
diaieccical understanding of the sptlce-place-environmcnttriad? There are strong
grounds for answering "yes" to both questions.
Leibniz (1968: 220-3) considers how we arrive at concepts of space and
place. We typically observe entities changing locations and speak of one entity
"taking the place" of another. From this we inter that (here are absolu(e qualities
of places through and across which entities move. Space then appears as all
places taken together. But leibniz's aim is to show how such an inference is
misleading and that place, like space, ha.<> no "absolute reality." It is he inSIsts,
only a relation, Whitehead goes further, "An entity merely known as spatially
rdated to some discerned entity is what we mean by the bare idea of'placc',"
,he writes. So place is a site of rdations of one entity to another and it: therefore
.<ontains "'the other" precisely because no entity can exist in isolation. But
relatiorls are not all equally present because "'the concept of place marks the
piscie'sure i,nsense-awa.reness of entities in nature known merely by their spatiaJ
r;;,;,:c",relati'Jnsto discerned entities" (Whitehead, 1920: 52),
hit~he",l's doctrine of "permanences'" firms up the idea. A "permanence"
as a system of "extensive connection" out of processes. Entities achieve
"'",,rc," srabilio/ in their hounding and their internal ordering of processes
., ",<cacmg space, for a time. Such permanences come to occupy a piece of a space
exc;IUSlve 'way (fot a rime) and thereby define a place - theit place - (fur
The process of place formation is a process of carving out "permanfrom the flow of processes creating spaces. But the "permanences" - no
hOVii solid they may seem - are not eternal: they arc always subject to
as "'pe...rpctual perishing." They are contingent on the processes tharcreate,
and di.ssolve them .
Whitenea(l's viev.rs on this matter roughly correspond; interestingly, to the
formulation given by de Cerreau (1984: 117) in which place is

The Currency o[Space-Time 263

262 Space, Time, and Piace
" implying an
..
,
d
"..... instantaneous configuration 0 f POSitlO~
unuerstoo as ~..u
indication of stahilitl':
,
h"n one ti~es into ronsideraoon vectors of directi~n. velocities
A space extsts w ~
.
_..1
f' terseccions of mobile clements.
d '
. bi - Thus space 15 composeu 0 III
.
.
an tlme varia es.
rod ced' ill peratinns mat orient it, situate It,
Space occurs as the emct p . U. ,D1 .e tho b.
it has thus none of the
raliz'
I contradistmCtlon to e P ce,
th
ten:po. e It. ":. n
[0
.'" In snort. space is a practised place. Thus
e
or s~ility J0!c:~ bperurban ...Janning is transformed into a space by
stTeet geometIlcally UUV~
y
r

U!lIvoctty

walker:>. ..

.
t h of the inert bodv, reducible to the "being there" of
Place 15, then, e SIte
th.'
bilities of motions creating space.
t in contrast co e ms(a
something per<nanen ,
eIa . hi arises "when a subject 0 f WI'11
. "calculus of force-r _
nons. ps a scientllic institmion) can be
But a strategIc.

and povrer (a propfle.tor, an en!ei~lse';'i~::nent of pennanences alters the

isolated from
e~VlfOnmen~ b:~me subjects of will and power.

:n

,
f
lao'ona! theory ofspace, time,
calculus of actIon ill so far as ey
fall thi ; interpretation 0 are
The i.m~ort 0 ,
s or
.decl of course) we are prepared to accept the~
and place 15 consIderable> proVl
"
.1 de Cert~u's "sub)'ects ot
Whi eh . d)s "permanences anu.......
~
homology between
t e a . h > r - - u extends the idea ot
.
d
Th difference 1S t at ue \....elL.......
0<'will an po~'
e
of a dialectic of space and place with subjects ot
permanences mto the realm
.
~'re) capable of elaborating external
'II d
r" (such as thc nanon ,~
L
L
WI an powe
.
C 1 di surveillance structures) tnat
Have
strategies and internal or~enngs lnc ~ thn~
permanences (their boundmuch to do with the maIntenance 0
etC own

aries and internal integrity).

h
bee carved oul as entities historicConsider a simple example, Sta~8;~eand ~925) from the flow of multiple
ee
be ded and isolated as entities from
ally (for most of the world betw n
.
atial processes T hev are un
ilia
intersecung sp
:".
anence through institutions t
ems
their environm
and a~ue ~~~ ~ey can be ronstrued. as a "victOry
assure their character and ~tem mt~ty'b formulated. within their confules
. " enablino- strategIes (Q e
oIi .
o f space over t1ffie~. . . b
. rna
while ursuing external geop tl~
to assure internal diSCipline and legm
cy r' ~ straregies (including. for
cal strategies. But they also erei!:n geo~~ologies of surveillance and
example, the development 0 m Itary
. effect of the strategies
as
communication over space) that pr~uce space
an dermined by the very
hi! imultaneously bemg perperuallY un
.
they pursue , w e 5 . that enabled them to be constituted as pennanences
processes 0 f space creauon .
.
of mone of c..apital. of irrunigran~)
in the first place (flows of informatJo~
Y,. . " remarks de Certeau;
of cultural habirs, of ideologies, etc.). In our sOClenes, 0
fixed
1984: xx). "as local stabiliries break down, It IS as if, n
(
.
.
tactics wander our of orbit ...
circumscribed comm~ty~
~Th changm'g status of the state,
Brownian movement Into the systvffi.
e

undermining of seemingly powerful permanences (such as the Soviet Union)

then become much more readily understood as the inevitahle outcome of a
pJace-space djalecric mat not only undermines the supposed "rationality'"' of
politics, economics. and science, but also pits the strategic world of places
against the wayward trajectories of multiple spatialities defined by often
divergent processes, It is for this reason thatwe can reasonably speak of "spaces
of liberation and "oppositional" spaces, even give practical meaning to
Foucault's idea of a "'heterotopia'> (a space beyond and outside of the instrumentalities of surveillance).
This then leaves the whole question of emironmenla! qualities and processes
to be resolved. Since spaces, times and places are rolationally defined by
processes, they are contingent upon the attributes of processes that simultaneously define and shape what is customarily referred to as environment.' We
cannot talk about the world of nature" or of "'environment" without
simultaneously revealing how space and time are being constituted within such
processes:
The things which are grasped into a realised unity, here and now. are not the
cascle, the cloud, and the planet simply in themselves; but they are the castle..
the cloud, and the planet from the standpoint. in space and time, of the
prehensive unification. ...

The bringing together (or "prehcnsivc unification") of diverse processes

(physical, bjological~ social, culturai) defines space, place. and environment.
-No part of that can be constTued without the other.
It is not the substance which is in lipace. but the attributes. "W'hat we find in
space are the red of the rose and the l>mell of the jasmine and the noise of the
cannon. We have all told our dentists where our toothache is. Thus space is not
a relation between substances, bur between attributes. (Whitehead, 1920: 21)

me

is defined as the site of relations between attr.ibutes. If so, then

argument fur any kind of independent spatial science, in Whitehead's case
'.lloonletryand in my case geography, falls away entirely. Whitehead regarded
''''e,,",,", a branch of physics in much the same way that I regard the land
~Qm,etrid",d spatial science that has evolved in geography as a general
of the study of socio-envi:ronmental processes. Certainly~ the idea that
,tlc'-t<mlpOIrality can be examined independently of those processes evoked
and ecological work cannot be sustained. From this
the traditional dichotomies to be found within rhe geographical
between spatial science and environmental issues, between systemregional (place-bound) geographies appear totany f.dse precisely
space-time, place, and environment are
embedded in substantial

an

The Currency ofSpace-Time 265

264

Space, Time, and plm:e

processes whose attributes cannot be ex~ned i~dep:nd.~ntly of the di~erse

spatio-temporalities such processes contain, The ImplIcations for the philosophy of geographical thought are immen",,' but I do not here have the space
or time to make a place to explore them in any detaIl.

V. Individuation, Identity, and Difference

Why, exacdy, are such considerations of importance? The answer is as startling

as i~ is profound,
'
To begin with, space and time~ once they are, set, are a pnmary means to
individuate and identifY objects, people, relations, processes, and e':'nts,
Location and bounding are important if not vital attributes for the defirutlon
of the objects, events, and relationships existing in the world around ':'" To
choose one ordering principle rather than another IS to ch~os~ a partIcular
.
al fratnework for describing the world. The chOIce IS not neutral
spano-tempor
f
d .
with respect to what we can describe. The absolute theory 0 space an nme
always forces us into a framevlork of mec~anistic descriptions, for example,
that conceal from ,~ew important propettles of the world (such as those of
living organisms) that stand only to be revealed b~ a relatignal view. To choose
the wrong fuunework is to misidentifY elements m th~ w~rld aroun~ u~ ..
Space and time appear, however, not to be of equal slgruficance to mdmduation. Many individuals can occupy the satUe moment In most SOCIal (as
opposed to personalized) accounts of time, but none of .us c,:U occupy ,~accly
th same space at that moment of time without becommg the other. If the
di~ence ofhoriwl15 and perspectives b"JY"~"" MQ,~Q!l.kj~.@I)ihilated, notes
Balthdn (1990: 23), then those two people would have "to
into ~ne, t~
become one and the same person." The relations be-rn:een self an~ other
from which a certain kind of cognition of social affiUrs emanates IS always,
therefore, a s~tio-temporal ~nstruction. This is a crucial issue f~r un~r~
standing hoW'i~(pelsonal and political) get /Drmed. Cbanges In spanotemporal frame affect sdf-other relations (~y, for example, either ~Iss?IVlng
the self-other distinction entirely ot redefinmg who are or are not SIgnificant

?'etg;

others in assigning value to tbe self).

.
.
The power to individuate within a given spano-temporal frame 15
associated v,.-ithin the power to name; and naming is a form of power ov.er ,
people and things. Cronon (1983: 65) notes, for ex",;"ple, how the mohile
Indian communities of New England named the land In such a way as to ,
"where planrs could be gathered, shellfish collected, mammals bunted
caught." Furthermore the same places could have different natlleS del~erLdi!tg
on the time of year. The purpose of such names "was to t~rr:- the b.mdscape .
into a map which, if studied carefully, literally gave a villages inhabItants
infonnation they needed to sustain themselves." But the Indtan practice

naming is much more tban that: by attaching stories to the land through
nammg, Natlve-Amencms embed their history in the landscape. "Geographical features: notes Basso (1984: 44):
have s~rved the [WestemApache] for centuries as indispensable mnemonic pegs
~n which to hang the moral teachings of their history.... The Apache landscape
IS full of named locations where time and space have ~ed and where, through
the agency of hlStoncal tales, thelt Intersectlon 15 made visible for human
contemplations," It is also apparent that such locations, charged as they are with
personal and social significance, work in important ways to shape the images
that Apaches have - or should have - of themselves.
This Indian practice contrasted radically with that of the settlers who in
stealing the l~d also stole Indian identity. In New England, the colonists had
a C~eSlan VISlOn .of fixed property rights, of boundaries in abstract space, and
they created arbItrary place-natnes which either recalled localities in their
hon;eland or gave a place the name of its owner." To the Indians the English
spano-temporal system and the placenames it generated were essentially useless
and to the English the Indian placenarnes were equally so. The dash between
these two social and ecological systems was a dash OYer naming as well as over
the relevant conceptions of space and time to he deployed in the definition of
, value (see also Mignolo, 1994j.
. Politic~ str~les over the meaning and manner of such representations of
~ace and Identity abound, most particularly over the way in which places, their
mhabltants and their soci~ functions get located, named and discursively
represented: As Ed~ard SaId (1978) so brilliandy demonstrares in his srudy
of Onentafism,Jb.e Identity of:~..:ed e;oI~~canJ;SP}I!!p,s.:=d, shaped, and
m~ulated _thr~ugh ili~ connotations and ass.ociacions 1m .os~o;;"'""~~
in
l nammg . too strongly as a purely westem imposition (not giving sufficient
. rec~gn.ltIon to the practices of resIstance, complicity, and cooptation practiced
by Indigenous peoplesj, but he was surely right to draw attention to the power
, . .
as a power oyer others as well as over things. To this day, terms like
"VHUUle and Far East indicate a view from Buckingham Palace (or, more
d!r'eCl"ely, from the Greenwich m:"idian) that centers power literally as well as
.'<hgunlti,dy wIthm a one-dImensIOnal spatial grid.
assignment of place within some socia-spatial structure indicates
',:d!~tiJ"c[ive roles, capaciti"" fur action and access to power. Locating things (both
Pfi.ys;<:ally and metaphOrIcally) IS fundamental to activities of valuing as well
Ide.ntll'IcatioJn .. .Phcmg, and th~makmg 0Lt~::.~<:::,:<;nti~!Ll~~2Si;U
},lopm<TIt, soclalconrr~powerment in any social order. The proces_~ace const:uCtlon ther~tore lfllerrelate (in ways to be taken up in chapter
_~Ith the SOCIal constructIOn of space and time.

'inams~aIlji$QPk~';;,ay have'~;;:~d "pT~;~~'ili~:;';;ci~es';

266

Space, Time, and pldce

All furms of explanation and theorizing are dependent upon (a) the
individuation of phenomena and events and (b) on the establishment of some
mode of connection across space and. time between phenomena and events.

Yet very little critical attention has been paid to how such relations should be
constructed. By def.mlt, they become a matter of convention. Within the
Marxian tradition, for example, the tendency to prioritize time over space has

been very strong, still largely undented by the critical interventions ofLelebvre
and, more recendy, by geographers in the English-speaking world. E.!'.
Thompson (1967: 21), for example, rightly holds that under the social relations
of capitalism "time is now currency: it is not passed but spent, but errs in
ignoring Marx's (1973: 534) insistence that the product only becomes a
commodity through IDeational movement and that the value-form only
becomes meaningful when exchange between communities and across space

becomes "a normal social act" (Marx, 1967: 91). Indeed, a plausible argument
can be constructed (see below) that the value system built into any social
formation is indissolubly linked to the specific character of its spatio-temporal
ordering of both social relations and working relations to the physical world.
The hidden political significance of all this needs highlighting. Academic
disciplines constitute their distinctive objects of enquity through a particular
spatio-temporal framing of the world. This framing is political precisely because
it defines a certain and restricted set of "sdf~other'> relations for examination
(if only between the investigator and the investigated): the choice of spatiotemporality is not innocent with respect to the social relations (including those
of domination and of power) that are highlighted or, just as significantly,
rendered invisible (such as tbe spatio-temporality of many women's lives, of
sexuality, of colonized subjects and the like). Acceptance of a conventional
spano-temporal frame then amounts to acceptance of existing patterns of social
relations, without even necessarily- knowing it. Put another way, a certain mode

of social construction of space and. time arising out of certain social processes
of domination and oppression can become in turn embedded in the way
academic disciplines constitute their objects of enquiry: the effect is to make
those disciplines complicitous with the perpetuation of those processes of
domination.

The Currency ofSpace-- Time 267

embedded in the very fuundations fur all thinkj
th ..
.
research. Williams (1977: 39) spotted this p b(S' ~or1Z1hng, and p:act1cal
the wa the s a 'a1 fixi
.
to em w en e camplamed of
y.
p n
ty of the Signs we use to communicate rivil d a
synchroruc form of analysis that reduced real
. p. ~
"a se
clary
'd
processes occurnng m tIme to
con ,or acCl ental character. Gupta and Ferguson (I 992: 7), likewise
complain of the way that space "disappears from anal"";cal
'
hi!
fun
ti .
J.....
pUrvIew Vi" e
c on~ng ~ a central organizing principle ~n the soqal ~e
.
vety statiO~'ty of spatially determ10ed cati;;i;';i];-~~;~;;rr~:;',It IS the
movement ill time to be highlighted in the way it is Space rna b /udy of
aI . aI
.
y e lOrgotten
as an "'.' ytldc category open to questioning, but it is omnipresent as an
unquesnone categoty 10 everything we do.
My P?int is not (see chapter 2) that the spatialized Cartesian-Kantian
furmnlanons that dominate our thinking are wrong. For certain ur ses th
are per/ecdy reasonable approximations. But they are apprnxi:'ti!: and :
some very important arenas of research and thinking potentiall misleadin,
Y
The purpose of formulatmg an alternative relational metaphYSI
d'al g
of
I'
d'
cr,aloonc
space, p ace~ lime, an enVIronment, is to argue ror an alte'
f
th gh th gh h'
" m a t i v e wav 0
Oil. t . rou
W lch to question the limits of Cartesian-Kantian thinkin
And If I gIve the last word to Whitehead (1969' 241)
thi b
g.
thi k h h
ck
.
on s, .tls ecause r
efln e as stru upon the most klicitous formulation of the problem H
r eets on the open1og l10es of a famous hymn thus:
. e

Abide with me;

Fast fulls the eventide
Here the first line expresses the pennanences .. b'd
dde

. ~

' ale,

,, me'" and the .Bemg

."

e~; an the second line sets these pennanences amid the inescapable flux.

~ at ~ngth ~ find fO"':'Wated the complete problem of metaphysics. Those

.- ~sub=:.!? W dO :arr ~~th the firs~ line have given us the metaphysics of

c:;e

. ~ an
w ~ start WIth the second line have develo ed the
metaphySICS of flux. But, 1fl truth, the two Hnes cannot be tom apa.r~ . this

way; and we find a wavering balance between the

-great er number 0 fph'l

1 osophers....

- ,- -

two

IS'

cha

"

ractenstlc

m th
0

But there is one sense in which the conventional prioritization of time over

space in social theory and research is badly formulated. The whole argument
could profitably be cast the other way round. Bergson argned that the human
intellect "spatializes the universe" and it does so, Whitehead (1969: 242) ~
suggests, because "spatializadon is the shortest route to a clear cut philosophy

expressed in a reasonably familiar language." Descarres, who "gave an almost'

perlect example of such a system of thought" efkctively hid the potential
fluidity of spatialization behind a fiction of static categories, entities and things
between which temporal-causal relations could be examined. Spatiality is not
ignored, but particular and unchanging assumptions of spatiality are

VI. Relational Space in Social and Literary Theory

"waVering" of which Whitehead speaks can be fuund rhro gh
th
d
UOute
an SOCl~ SCIences as well as within literary theory. It can be found in
ofI?ern~ Foucault, and Haraway, or in the work of the humblest
)osiijvi.st sOClologISt who wonders Out loud at the end of an extended but
j

~.

i
The Currency
268

Space, Time, and Place

routine statistical enquir;{ whether or not her categories of enquiry were right
or if there might be disruptive feedback effects which make the entities that
seemed meaningful at the beginning of a process seem far less so at the end.
The ""wavering often comes down more heavily un one or other side of the
divide, leavi.ng the positi,;st urban sociologist or urban economist bemused
when confronted with, say; the writings of de Certeau or Lefebvre on the
production of spaces in the city.
--.While I have concentrated on the theories of Leibni7. and Whitehead as
foundational arguments, the ease with which it is possible to cite other writers,
such as de Certeau, suggests that the relational view has a strong though often
subterranean presence. Consider. for example, how Simmd (1994) in a brilliant
and perceptive essay on "Bridge and Door" sets up the problem:
The image of external things possesses for us the ambiguous dimension (hat in
external tla[ure everything can be considered to be connected, but also as
separated, The uninterrupted transformations of rnaterds as well as energies
brings every4ing inm rdarionship with everything dse and make one cosmos

out of all the individual dements. On the other hand, however, the objects
remain banished in the merciless separation of space; no particle of marter can
share its space with another and a real unity of diversity does not exist in. spatial
terms, And by v1nue of this equal demand on se1f-excludi.ng concepts, natural
existence seems to resist any application of them at all,

Simmel goes on to discuss how human activities of bridge-building (connecting and bringing phenomena into a "prehensive unity" to use Whitehead's
terms) and house and dooI construction (cutting out a portion of "the continuity and. in~ity of space" and arranging this .into a particular unity in
accordance with a single meaning" such that <'a piece of space was thereby
brought together and separated from the whole remaining world") reach across
the divide in such a way as to operate as contradictory determinations of social
life. "Viewed in tennS of the opposing emphases that prevail in their impression," he concludes, "the bridge indicates how humankind unifies the
separatedness of merely natural being, and the door how it separates the uniform, continuous unity of natural being." This is W'hitellead's theory in actio:L
Interestingly, Heidcgger (1971: 154-5) reflects on an almost identical theme.
Spaces receive their being from locations and not from "space," he argues:

For this reason, he argues, thc activity of "building: is doser to the nature of

269

spaces and to the origin of the na+ure f'

'1
mathematics." Heidegger here ,'n _IT e a s?ace ~nan any geometry and
.
cueect nunGates his ow
. 1
.
of a. relatIonal theorv of space and t".
eking
n parneu ar verSIOn
change to that of p~manences.
tme, se
to rdate the world of Rux and

Similar. relational
"1ewS have in fact b een artlCu
. 1ared bv a rOd . '
'nk
.
f
rh 1 ers m dIverse traditions _ religious. ecological and ~ ': l. e vanety 0
trve, as well as radical and HeP:elian-Ma .....; Thi: d. so~etlmes conserva,.

b
".A.J.SL
S lVerslty should
b
surprISing SInce any recourse to a philosophy cd' al"
not e
leads, either expli~itly or impIicitlv: to a .rel o~ lal ec,tlCS or mternal relations
o

Furthermore, the fact that the two ;;ron st

are Leibniz and Whitehead (both of wfom

:X(J~n ."lew on space .and ti-:ne.

h~dorat10ns of the relatIOnal Vlew

conservativisrn~:~:t:~o~;;~ :;~rests

tinged with considetable political

means necessanly connected with r d'l cal r'
y no
to a dialectical philosophy of int.er:al
fseechapte
3\ But t he r datlOnai
'
,
,
r
VIew has radical
ial" c sm. In Its wa e
condition for theorizi
I
. potent Ity; it IS a necessary
to what exacrly that mng"gbany arge-scalbeeemanapatory changes. Some hints as
r mean can
gleaned fi
b . f1 k
internal relations and an associated relat" al ' rom
a
00 at the way
. th
on Vlew 0 f spatto-t
al'
1
In
e work of a variety of writers in the H egel'tan-M atxlEt
' tradition.
~~or It)' pay

re~o:~C;;ri~gsY :odirealit~ :n~chmeknt

)<

~le

1. Bakhtin
!n7~n, i~ his ea:ty text on Art and Answerability, articulares a theory of value
~~rtl~e~~p.en~nt upon th.e space-time rdariorub~tWeen the
and uniqueness
1 till accep~ the pnmacy of individual sense experience
insists that this c~ei' e em<;n~, th~gs, and bodies already have existence) but
. ).
. I ~ ~o way ~prlson us in subjectivism. As Holqutit (1990'
xxv: POInts out lfi lIS llltroducnon:
.

C:'

a firsl implication of (ecognizing that we are aU

.
. he
that we are therefore fated to need. the outer
_L
'f urnque IS t paradoxical result
1 we an: (0 consummate
Iv
..
ourse es.
Far f rom cd ebraring the solipsist! 'T' Bak:..h.'
preci.sely that condition in which ~'
.(m POSlts umqueness of
self as
e necesSIty of the othe~ is born.

me

>,OJ''lf',,,di,~'alo:c and, relational .conception of the self (the necessarv dialectic of

o

t~

8~)

emess) operates In space and time And

Balch' ('
.
d as h
,:981.:
I.n
I d.
es ear, t ere is an Intr,nSlC
. Ii tempera an spanal rdatioH..<;:hip" sucn tha.t the two are
In
teratGre as~ they are III
. 1'
lie. H 0 1quist swnmar!z{:s BakhtIt"as

. Jater writings on the "'chronotope" mak'

.fhe location is not already the.re before the bridge is. Before the bridge stands,
there are of course many spots along the stream mal:: ;:an be occupied by
something. One of them proves to be a lOCltlon, and does so be::ause of the
bridge. Thus t..1.e bridge does not first come to a location to stand in it; ruther
a location cvrnes into existence only by v'irrue of the bridge,

ofSpace-Time

eCI,edne,,, of

.~
o

rh

a body that.was born into the world at a particular time and pI ce d tha
away 10 a..c. equally specific tjme and place, I literally emboadya
, Vumque
l,
t

I.

270

I.
'I'

Space, Time, and Place

The Currency ofSpace-Time 271
sought. " Like Marx, Bakhtin also insists on the
.ar
f
arguing that what separates him from th Kan ~aten lty ~ these processes
time is that he does not regard th
e
tIan conceptton of space and
f,
em as ill any sense tran nd al "b ut
otms of the most immediate reality" (Bakhtin 1981' 85)sce ~nt., a1 as
&!thtin with Whitehead rather th Le'b'
'
' . ' Th IS VIew IgnS

slice of time/space. As me means, therefore. of particularizing the otherwise

infinitdy general aspects of time/space, I become me instrument for assigning
specific value to abstract time and space. In themselves~ space and time have
neither meaning nor value, for value is always for someone: Strictly speaking,
geography knows no far or near, here and there.... And history> likewise, knows
no Pas4 present~ and future.... The time of history is itself nonreversible, of
course, but within it all relations are fortuitous and relative {and reversible}, for
there IS no absolute center of value (of the kind provided by the situatedness of
the individual subject)."

C":ndi:io:~~;~~::t!:~::g::;,phasi~e

individuality and the space-time

the
moves towards a relational view of s ~
d'
In so omg
profOundly his understanding of
~:e b~t willdul~mately shape
representation (particularlv those s t ' ' I' e 0 y, an.
systems of
, e up In IteratUIe) HiS th
f h
hr
C onotope, resting as it does on the ins
arabili
f'
. eo~? t e
ty 0 space and Ume In literary
texts, derives entirely from a relatI' al ep
on VIew.

I;:::

Individuals necessarily produce their own valuation of space and time by \~rtue
of their situatedness in the world. From this Bakhtin derives the purely
"perspectival" angle that Leibniz earlier identified. Bakhtin writes:
When I contemplate a whole human being who is situated outside and over
against me, our concrete, acrually experienced. horizons do not coincide, For at
each moment, regardless of the position and the proximity to me of this other
human being whom I am contemplating, I shall always see and know something
that he, from his place outside and over against me, cannot see himself; parts
of his body mat are inaccessible to his own gaze (his head, his face, his
expression)j the world behind his back, and a whole series of objects and
relations, which in any of our mutual relations a,re accessible to roe but not to
him. As we gaze at each other, two different worlds are reflected in the pupils
of our eyes .. , but in order to annihilate this difference comple(dy. it would be
necessary to merge into one, to become one and (he same person. (1981: 22-3)

2. aUman

~":;:f~:~~~~:o::i:~nst the ~ackground, of the tradition which

rendition of a philosophy

of'inrernal~la~ see~~arx~ work as a materialist

fi II
All
OilS.
man s argument ptoceeds
yas a ows.
of Marx's categories - such as ca ital lab

rough!

state~ commoduy; and mon _ are Tela '

p.~
OT. nature) the
each factor (they are omol;cal relatio:)~~ !:~:~latIOns ,are internal to
alters the factor' ts If aI
. b
'
en an =portant one
b
'.
.I e
ters; It ecomes something else: (1976: 15) I h
ecomes lffiposslble to understand a cat

::7

11k"

ingthe way it internalizes all so:!s of othe~~ine

, gender, status, memorv
capita't, and thestate. gs
J~

:n.

,t

t en

WIthOut. examins commodity, labor,

But value is not only conditional on the relation between the "I" and the
"other: in space and time; it also changes according to social practices and
socialJpower relations. The perspectival view then merges into a more general
relational ~ew of space and time by virtue of the continuous shifts of social
practices that put value upon both the "I" and the "otbers" by creating a
particular space-time nexus between them. There is a similarity here to MUMS
arguments (see chapter 9) concerning the production of value through spatiotemporal practices "nich open a new time/space of self-other relations through
hospitality and kula shell exchanges. Bakhtin also explores the complexities of
"value," "exchange," "otherness): and various forms of alienation mat so
preoccupied Marx. But he does so in a way that brings the social construction
of space and time to the fOrefront of understanding value in ways that ate only
tangentially alluded to in Marx. "Everything of value, everything that is
valorized positively, must achieve its full potential in temporal and spatial
terms" (Balthtin, 1981: 167). Both Marx and Bakhtin agree that the human
being "is about the production of meaning" and that meaniug is "the
articulation of values" (Holquist, 1990: xii). They also agree that "it is at the.
level of social relations that the true meaning of value and exchange must be

. . In the two appendices to Alienation Ollman'd

.
.
,insights into how objections to a philoso~hy of inte~~~V1re~~ti:.:e ':"terestlng
He recognizes the force, for example of Straw ' b' .
tha might work.
. -ill 'd
.
, s o n s 0 jecuons
t
ti ul
In Vl uaIs, etc. are lffipossible to identifY-'
th ei '
par c ars,
,that Strawson's work "both b",ins l gt~n . he rthauonal theory, but notes
bel" th
ld
-,,- an en WIt
e assettIon that p
1
.leve
e war is composed of panicular thin (' b' .
eap.e
that he conceives it his task 6 d
gs a Jecnve paniculars) and
]
d'
S
.
to n reasons to support thi,,~ew" (pp. 256-7)
_n so omg, trawson IS open to the accusation of"
'.
.
which presumes that the world has
b
(
an a prton anthropology"
any other way than th t '
never een nor ever can be) conceived in.
lVen
';'mF>Ofitantly, Oil
_La gul
tn contemporary COmmor;. sense More
-"~
. man rerorm ates his views
th hil
.
.relati"m; with"
.aI
on e p osophy of internal
.... .
speci str""s on the dialectical conception of identity" as follows:
:thinkmg ~aJ::~s a.:co~m equally of identity and difference, their order in his
15 1 entity ISf and then difference. As pan of his wa
f' ,
Marx took idemiry for granted.. It is th ~L'
b Y 0 vlewmg the
if:" ~'ep<",dlent
f
~
e rcratlOn etween mutuall
'-"
aspects 0 a whole belore differences are ted. Th
Y

'~'.. wnn,un"d be

"rdlati"ns

.c:

.fled

'

no

e aspects yet

. cause unspecJ
, are identical in COntaining through (heir internal
wl[h each other the same whole. (p. 266)

272

Space, Time, and Place

In the Aristotelian YieVil~ identity and difference are mutually exclusive, but the
philosophy of internal rdatioDs allows us not only a radically differem
conception of totality from that set om in atomistic or formalist readings (see
chapter 2), but it also permits us "to see identity where [there are) differences
and vice versa'" and to escape from the "eitherfor'" logic of the Strawson variety.
Difference is given in this scheme of things by the perspective on the totality
not by supposing some clearly defined, isolared entity that is a totality in itself
This ontological shift has. of course" huge implications for the contemporary
debate on identity and difference. But a strong case can, I think, be made that
it is only by way of such an ontological shift that we can begin to establish a
truly dialectical way of understanding how capitalism (or any other social
sy~em) works.
OHman recognizes that his mvn work is itself relational, constructed from
a particular perspective, and that it cannot therefore he construed as a full
representation of any totaliry. If the relational view "admits as many toralities
(structured wholes) as there are rake-off points for analysis" (p, 266). all theories
must then he seen "as so many one-sided {in the sense of uni-dimensional and
therefore incomplete) versions of the same system," We must then learn to
"interpret each theory in a manner that is compatible with the others." The
multiple '\vi ndaws" through which we can look upon the world, generate
mulciple theoretical perspectives (as Lcibniz well knew) which are not
necessarily mutually exclusive. Standpoint theory, of the sort which Haraway
(1991) and Hartsock (1983) advance, has some of the same qualities
it, as
I shall later show.
But Ollm'lIl neglects to consider the relational qualities of space and time.
This is odd given the key role the conceptions of space and time play in
Strawson's account of particulars and Strawson's explanation as to why the
relational view (and he treats Leibniz's views as a convenient fuil) must faiL
We are therefore in danger of reading Oilman's account as a matter of internal
relations operatin~ within a Kantian framework of space and time ~},.ilen it
seems to me that the true spirit of any dialectical account lies with a relational
view of space and time. For this reason it appears useful to parallel consideradon of Oilman's account wirh an examination of Lefebvre's Productum ofSpilCe.

The CUrrenS' ofSpace- Time 273

duo fashion of rh~... Hege.UaIlS,a iiI'eand strength of its own quaconce t-withoCl
In ot.1.er words, according an autonomous realitv to 1m I d
P
~

.',

Lefehvre makes plain his objcnions to the "Cart-sian model (

, ,
things in their extension as the 'object' of though;) h'ch _ c~nceIbvmg of
h ruff f'
1 O\> er tL'ne ecame
tl e s
0
common sense' anC 'culture' ., Th
. W
th __ c
'
h
h
uld h
'
ere 15, e,clOre, Imle doubt as
to ow e wo
ave responded to Strawson's invocarion of common
And Lefebvre explicittf embraces the Leibnizian line:
sense.
Space conceived of in its ""purin,-" '" as Leibniz de 1 sh ed'
'
c'
ar y ow ,Has nen"ryer
_?onenr parts nor ~orm. fts parts are indiscernible in whi h
' I [
bl"
., -de .
'
c respec~ it c oSt': y
resem es pure J" nmy-irse1f empty becau....--e of its "'purelv"fo malch' "
Before any dete
.
, h
..
r
aracter.
rnUnar::on can exIst e:e some content must
'
,
~ d 1..-'
, >
come illto P,,-y
... a tU<tl content IS the act which recognizes pans 21ld ..-L _L
' .'
Wl~ln Ulose recogmzeti
'
parts. an order - and hence a time O-L
'diIT
.
.
tHelWlSe
llerences could not be th i
-ontythought about; (1991: 297)
.oug,'Jt
com

In his consideration of capitalism' LeDe'-'re

0;;
suggests th at:
-- The commodity world brings in its wak

Tn the Production ofSpace Lefebvre situates himself firmly in the tradition of

thought "ve have here been examining:
A new concept, that of the production of space, appears at the start; it must
"operate'" or work" in snch a way as 0 shed tight on processes trom which it
cannot separa:e itsdfbt:cause it is a product of them. OUf task, therefore, is to
employ thi.." concept by giving it free rein without for all that according ir, after

'd

. '
e certaIn :ltntu es towards space, certain
aco.ons ~pon space, even a certain concept of space, Indeed all th
d'
chams afcuhro
d
J
e commo ltv

_~ _
ry sy;->tems an networks, connected on high bv Gold _L
d'
of exu"'nge do ha
di'
b
'
, we go
., f '
. :"e a. st1nct omogeneity. Yet each location, eac.':t link ir. a
enam 0 commoditles lS occupied b
chi
Th
-

'0

3, Leftbvre

owe ge.

'J

ma'l thus be de6

d'

!a

ng....

e space of the commodity

ne as a homogeneIty made up of specificities

S ace tb
und~stood IS both abstract and concrete in character; abstract ina~~:~l as i us
no eXistence save by virtue of the exchanPT-<lb't'
fall'
.
r has
.
,
h'
, b - l 1ry 0
Its component parts and
_concr~ete masmuc as it is socially real and as suer. localized Thi. :
'
therefore, that is /wmOf.T!'nLn
he
.

, I i ,s a space,
"'. 341-2\
ousyetatt. J'amettme broken UPintoji-agmems.. 0991:

'~ur it is here th t Lefi b

ak
__ di'
a
e VIe m es his most explicit gesture concerni
~~tra _ctlOllS . On ~he ~ne hand "space as actually experienced" prohibits ~
:~resslOn 0 f confllcts_ But on the other:
Socio-polirica! contradictions are realizoo sp.tiall), The
ill'
f

.
conra mons 0 ~-pace
u.:' m'ake te h
cuntradlcrions ofsocia! relations operative. I rh

J(;ontradictions "
"fl'
.
n 0 er wonu, spaual
1'- .
express con ICts betwee.'1 soaD-political inrerests and forces' :t
.':, on.Y m ~pace that such conflicts come efiectivelv into play and '
d.'
DeaJm
di'
J'
; ,
10 so oing
e COntra ctlOllS OJ space, (I991: 365)

rh

way, Lefebvre acknowledges on the one hand th ~,I_'

fo
f th
bl"
e r'-5~nng Tee and
at
Ie t1n:,e and spa,;, which Leibr.:.iz saw as necessarily arising
can lion of mutual re:atedness and connectedness " and
th
m"'.I,o>"Stru I
thi

,on e
gg es WI n space get transformed into struggles to change space
o

r:;:,

274

Space, Time, and Place

its&' Put another way, as social rdatiollS, behaviors and "acts') change within
space, so they may entrain radical shifts in the meaning and metric of space.
Conflictual social processes are registered as conflictual forms of spatiotemporality.

VII. Conceptions of the Body in Space-Time

So where does this leave us with respect to that "withness" of the body to which
Whitehead appealed at the outset to his analyses? Note, first of alL that the
physical conception of the body in Leibniz is fundamentally at vatiance with
that of the atomists as well as with that of the Cartesians and this is a necessary
rorollary of his rdational views on space and time. Leclerc (1986: 32-3)
describes Leibniz's views as fullows:
All the features which are ascribed as attributes of body - extension~ solid.ity.
hardness or impenetrability - are not strictly attributes at all but must be analyzed
as relatiom. Thus there can be no simple body, as the atomists conceived of it;
a body is noc=arily a plurality, and the features of body are rbe relations between

the physical existents which are the constituents. Again we see the fundamental
status of rel4tWns. (Leclerc, 1986: 32-3)
The dear distinction often now supposed between "body" used in this physical
sense and the human body was not by any means apparent or acceptable to
Leibniz who, Martin (1964: 174) suggests, based much of his philosophy,
particularly as expressed in The Mondadology, on the simple predicate that "r
experience mysdf as something real and in the last resort, therefore reality
means being like me." Leibniz is here using a classical figure that understood
the human body not as a bundle of enclosed and bounded subjectivities and
desires, or of libido and ids aod egos, but as a harmonic whose health was
measured. entirdy in terms of irs ability to achieve within its microcosm some
refracted version of the underlying harmonies of the universe. Not only did
Leibniz use the physical body as the leading metaphor in pursuing his scientific
aims, but he also accepted the medieval proposition that the macrocosm of
the universe IS always copresent vvithin the microcosm of the self even though
the self is wntlned in its vision of the macrocosm by virtue of its posirionality
within it. It is no accident, therefore, that the language of early physics paid
so much attention to the idea of "bodies" (heavenly, stationary; or otherwise).
But we cannot go much further without simultaneously conceding the .:.
significance of what Whitehead called the "sense-presentation of the body." ,.:
This is also a historical and social construct, subject to all manner of changes~,
Rabelais, for example, is generally credited wich defining as a fundamental .
transitional moment in how the human body is to emerge from its intertwi,.ing

The Ctmency 0/SplUe- Time

275

with the natural world to assert its independent identity in space and time:
the. predominance ... of a "somatic fundament" ofp tube

d'

which
eel' 1 ,. .
TO
ranees an orifices
can
Its oca lsatton and limitation and link . .th th
exaggeration of the anal--e'
d
.
1~ WI
e rest of nature:
roue an gastrIC functlons
has'
rb
metamorphosis of birth and death agm'g d '
. ~ emp IS on
e
fertili th
d
, a n reJuyenanon, and on aspects of
0/, e pro uctive forces of nature. All of thi
tb clem .
J fu -- --1 'd
5 meant e
otlon of what
was 0 y alli.l 1 eal to what was earthy and mater.ial Th

~~r=:h~J:n~:f,v~dutzed, in~mphe and ~ns"':fr~:~:~t=

gt

1ft

and swallows It up .gam. (Gurevich, 1985: 53)

This grotesque body COntrasts radicall

th th
I'
R .
'.
y WI
e pure mes and clarity of
~n~sancetersp.ectlve and with its associated noble figure of a man (such
as
t amous, depIcted by Leonardo cia Vinci) But here we be .
of conflict between different social processes'
di
gmd to se~ a story
.
f th
surroun ng an defirung th
meamng 0
e body. Bakhtin (1984) connects both the figure ofth
e
body and the lang
fRabe"
e gro[esque
. fu d
tal . ",,:,ge.o . 1m with the emergence of the market place as
a n amen
Ins-r:tutlOn In some ways "outside of" other forms of social
control (often phYSIcally outside of the wall of tb . . If) Th
tal . aI
th
e CIty Itse.
e profane
sca 0gIC, ear y, and materialist !an
f th
.k '
'
wn
.cul
Imdow
guage 0
e mat et begIns to Cast its
o part~ arfs h b 'over systems of representation and the consequent self
presentation 0 t e ody.
Norbert Elias (1978) b wa f
d'
tal
'Y
Y 0 contrast, proposes an evolutionary and
/vclOpmden
hVl"": of .:I'e human body in which the ci,~lizing process
ommate b v t e fIse of courtly beha .

- d th Uk h ed
VlOrs, manners, eriquette, dress codes
an
e
e: ~ ap
and redefined che human bodv from the Re'
'
.
EI"
J
naIssance
; onwards
;,. 'n . Shilling summanzes
lasS account of me "new human b d l'
J

_ ~o ows:

O}

as

f
der
. . enSl1c 0 rno n Western societies is highly
" .,- _ .
III
at 1t is strongly demarcated from irs social and natural
. , --enVIronments. The civilized body also has th ahil'
.. ' ali
: --_ high d
fl"
e
ICY to ,anon ze and exert a
/:-.:_ ~f th egree ~ co,mro o~er 15 emotions, to monitor its own actions and those

. .. ,:I1e civilized body characr "

::'. -individualized'

th

'_ ~;;-_-_ tUt: ers. an . to mtern~lze a. finely. demarcated set of rules about what consti.... _:- .'.'
appropnate behaVIour In varIOUS siruatiol15. The c' il" ed body
. GJntrasted with th"
"1' dn
tv 1Z
can be
, ,: "
e unCIV11ze body of early me&evai tim
h'm
nl
, weakly demarcated from its
'al d
~
es w 1 was 0 y
': .
sao an natural enVlronment. The uncivilized

',.: presswioas,n CQnstr~ed by few behavioural norms, gave immediate h icaI

'"
to emotIOns and so h
.oh. bodil'
P ys
0
h
Ie
'f h ug t to satI"'--ll
y desires without restraint Or
11 r t e we lare 0 ot ers.

np,uis,on of Bakhtin and Elias suggests that different kinds of bodies ate
lC"dfrepleXlt.,od. by. radicallydiffi:rent social processes and that dass
,~,- "c"uu dlstmctlons get written large llpon the human body by virtu~

276

Space, Time, and Plttce

of rhe different processes within whid-t bodies are implicated. In recent years
this general point has been made over and over again in a vast literamre dealing
with the history of the human body [see, for example, Stafford (1991) and the
zone series on Fragments for a History ofthe Human Body]. And this, of course,
is the fundamental argwnent that Bourdieu pursues, primarily in Distinction
where he strives to document how class distinctions become internalized as
different fuum; of physical and cultural capital within the individual hody, The
notion of civilized behavior, and its contrast with supposed lower dass incivility
is an incredibly powerful mocifin contemporary discourses about the degraded
qualities of"underdass" urban life. But even though the human body may be
the measure of all things, it is ai-ways an unfinished project open to transformation according to the force of the physical and social processes inter!lalized
within it and the transformative powers with which it is endowed.
The production of space-time is inextricably connected with the prodlU.:cion of the body, "With the advent of Cartesian logic," Lefebvre (1991, 1)
complains, "space had entered the realm of the absolute .. , space came to
dominate, by comaining them, all senses and all bodies." l.efi:bvre and Foucault
(particularly in Discipline and Punish) here make common cause: thr liberation
of the senses and the human body from the absolutism of that produced world
of space and time becomes central to their emancipatory straregies. And that
means challenging the mechanistic and absqlute view through which the
"withness'~ of the human body" is contained and encha.ined under
contemporary conditions. This is not an entirely new project; it was, as
Eagleton (1990) poims out, one aspect of the whole ideology of the esthetic
from its very inception.
But here we hit a peculiar conundrum. On the one hand, to return to the
human body as the fount of all experience (including that ot'space and time)
becomes a means (increasingly privileged in these rimes) to challenge the whole
network of abstractions (scientific, social, polirical-economic) through which
social relations, power relations, institutions, and material practices get defined,
represented. and regulated. Bur on the other hand, no human body is outside
of the social processes of determination of space-time. To return to it maywell
be to instanciate the space and time of the very SOCIal processes being
purportedly rebelled against. I( for example. workers are uansformed {as Marx
suggests in Gi,piral) into appendages of capital in both the workplace and the
consumption sphere (or, as roucault prefers it, bodies are made OYer into docile
bodies by the rise of a powerful disciplinary apparatUS from the eighteenth
century on) then how can their bodies be a measure of anything outside of
the circulation of capital or of the various mechanisms that discipline them?
Or, to take a more contemporary version of the same argument, if we are all
now cyborg; (as Haraway in her celebrated manifesto on the topic suggests) then
hov,, can we measure anything omside of that deadly embrace of L:"e machine
as extension of our own body and body as extension of the machine?

The Currency ofSp"a-Time

277

The contemporary fascination wirh the bo

.
rhe site of all fundamental
'
'
,dy, and wlm the return to it as
expenence. can tn part be und
d
f
seareh fOT a more authentic au d' ' f th
erstoo as part 0 the

for too long ruled purely as~bstran l~g 0 (' e thleor:tica! abstractions t.~at have

ctlOns In p annmu theory , I

caies, ror example). "Ob'ect" "H..,
--.:,
as {mp emented
J
IVltv,
araway(J991'190' lai
to be about particular and srv-rifi .'
bodim'
.
} c ms, "turns out
',
r-- C em
ent and definit I
b
th
fa! se '\'1SlOn
promising transcenden
fall lim'
d - ey not a out c
dBi
.
ceo
ltsan rep
'bT

I culty IS that it is onlva certain ki d f

.all
S onSI 1 tty. But the
SOCl
retumed to, Whose bo":, is it that' n bth
y produced body that is being
'-'-I
isto e emeasureofallth
~And
ctl
how and wh at can it measure?
lOgs.
exa y
In

Gmsider, for example, a recent furmulation b Elizab h

goes Some way to confronting bu aIs el'di
Y
et Grosz (1992) that
ng some of these difficulties. Her
aim is to explore the consu't t' t d I tualI
UIVean mu
ydefi'
j'
corporeality and rhe metropolis Sh deli
bodry as: nlllg re a!lons between
.
e
nes
indeterminate amnrpho
'f
.
.
.'
us, a serIes 0 uncoo!dinated pot .a1' .
h' :h
.
~aJ mggenng, ordering, and long-term "adrninistra . en~ toes W Ie reqUJre
ffilcmtechnologies of power" Th,. b dy be
non, regulated [by] "the
coincides "A"ith the "shape" ~d .. Of
cchrnes a human body, a body -which
a psy e a h~A.'wh
'd'
bounds a psychical unitv ab dspaceb'0 h"
eb' LOVUJ th oseepl
ernllcsurt:ace
','
0 yw Ie Ulet ydeii
r .
and subjectivity in ru:)'choanaivri
h'
nes e Iffi[ts of expenence
..1.
'r
I~'C tenus, t rough the .
-'
(mJOUler, and ilium;;. ~..ly the Orb
5 . bo '
Ill. terventloti of the
<-" , '
et or VIll llc order (1
d
governed social order). Among th k
'
.
"
anguage an ruJe"
.
e
ey
structuring
pnoclples
f
th
rod
ced
bodYIS its mscripr.ion and coding b (furniliall
d
.
-0
IS P
U
of the other) ' . (and) its ins . Y.. b
yor erea) sexual desires (:he desire
significances.
...
cnptJon y a set of socially coded meanings and
u

,'this definition (which I have abbreViated) arallels

'
Ped '
the relatlonal and process. based concepcions of self alread
-- .
y encounter j f i Gu . h M
Ffld-even ll1 the deep ecology ofN
WI
th
revicr ~.L U1lll, Strathern~
'_CL
f
aess, Ilat e body -meas ures cxtenlall Y IS
'
. cuect 0 what it internali......... G
_
.......,. msz exp ores:
the ways in which the body is physicaU sociall
'.
representationallyproduced dth'
y, .
y~ sexually, and discurSivdy or
~L
' an
e ways, 1fl turn bodi
.
'b
d
'
ulemselves onm their sociocult r a l :
'
es remsen e an nroJect
u envlronmenr so that this'
.. b
prod_Uces and reflects the form d'
enVlIonment oth
an lOtercsrs of the boJy.

is an .unexceptionablt: version of Marx's argument on the dial .

and enVIronmemal chanc-e Th . " .
de'
ectIeg
b'
e C1ty IS un 1"stoOO as:

~a:,,,;~>pl:,, andint,,,",otivc nctwmk which linb togeth

L'
fuctowau a number 0+ J'.
'al .. cr, OHen m an uruntegrated
J'
... UlSparare soa
3c.tlVities
d
a number of imagir.ary
d
J
} processes, an rehtions,
'.se<'g"'pllic, '.;
Q'i_C

d
.
~ real, projected or actual arcl:i:e-ctural
an pubLc relauons. The city brinc-s tQ:e~I. '
~"b
eUler economIc and
L

z
278

Space, Time, ami Place

informational flows. power networks~ forms of displacement~ management~ and

political organization, interpersonal, familiar, and extra-familial social
relations. and an aesthetideconomic organization of space and place to create
a semipermanent but ever-changing built environment or milieu.

The city is also a product of processes: it is a "fundamentally disUDjfied series

of systems and interconnections, a series of disparate Hows. energies, events or
entities, and spaces, brought together or drawn apart in more or less temporary
alignments." But it is at this point that a slippage suddenly occurs in her
argument. Grosz considers the telationship between bodies and cities as a
relation between two compatible kinds of permanences (entities). No attempt
is made to ""tablish the conditions of cogredience (or compossibility) among
distinctive processes opetating at diffi:tent scales (if iodeed such conditions can
be established at all). The city "provides the order and organization that
automatically links otherwise unrelated bodies." It "links the affluent lifestyle
of the banker professional to the squalor of the vagrant." It is "the condition
and milieu io which corporeality is socially, sexually, and discursively produced." This unfortunate slippage in language converts the intertwiniog of bodily
and environmental processes and their distinctive spatio-tempotalities and value
schemas operating at different scales into a straight rdation between two
radically diHerent kinds of entities. It maire, no ,euse to talk about the city as
the same kind of "thing" as a body (its boundaries are, fur example, far more
diffuse and while it typically has institutions it has no psyche or even agency
of the sort that human beiogs possess). There is a confusion of scale and of
how to understand perrnanen= thar mars a potentially iotetesting analysis of
the "coproduction of human bodies and their environments." What this thc;ory
of relational mproduction of cities/bodies produ= is the extraordinary claim
that "if bodies are not culturally pregiven, built environments cannot alienate
the vety bodies they produce" even if rapid environmental transformations may
prove stressful and some built environments prove unconducive to bodily health
and well-being. This, I would argue, is a typical situation in which the relational .
view gets out of hand. There is a prior question, for example, of whose bodies
produce the city versus whose bodies iohabit it. If coalitions of landowners,
developers, financiers, contractors, architects, planners~ and governments have
the power to produce the built environment of the city that the rest of us live
io, then it is perfectly feasible for them to build cityscapes from which the mass
of the population are alienated in an unrecuperable way. The internalization
of relations does nor imply a nonalienated furm of such relations, though it
does throw into question any theory of alienation that presupposes som~
preformed essence of self that gets violated and which needs to be returned
(cf chapter 8). While the body may internalize the effects of such proC"-'iS it
not by itself able to measure, as"",s, and understand the dynamics of its OWl)
production through urbanization precisely because of its alienation.
.

The Currency o/Space-Time 279

Contempor:rry (postmodetn) views of th b d

difference" and of "an internallzat

fh
e 0 y as a Site of a play of
.
.
IOn 0
eterogenelty" be
SImIlar way of thinking and
1 d
ar Some marks of a
pose SImi at angers (see h
12)
does have to be understood is th t th l b . c apter
. But what
which and around which th~ r a
e IUlTIan .ody IS a battleground within
tOrces 0 f prod ucno
f'
.
perpetually at play. This fur exam I . h .. n 0 spano-temporalIty are
.
.
,
p e, IS t e Idea that G Idb
(19
pursues In his relational aoalVSI f
a11
k
0
erg
91: 188)
. so rael y mar ed bodi
iaI
spaces. The body that is to b th
f . es ill rae Ized urban
e e measure 0 all th .".. I
.
contestation for the verv forr~ th
.
mg~ IS nse f a SUe of
-.I
~
at create It.
:I..

VIII. The Body in Cyberspace

TIlls contestation is strongly

.
Leib1lIZ:

evt

en

ced th
In

e VIrtUal world of"

cybers-pace.

is one of the essential philosophicalJ

th.
Iogtc~
' hlS
. metaphysics and L_ gw es tof e mner structureof cyberspace.
H is
'
'
1m: not]on 0 representati
at
b Is h
the hldden
underpinnings of cyher
A the
,on ,sym 0 S ow us
:nnbetapabbysiC; alertS us to the paradox:!'~:; Iike:=y
toee~gm.::rcyh'~ msonad,olfuogical

ar:

ltan(S,

ocr pace s

tare

Monads, Heim (1991: 67-73) goes on to remark

0ha
.
they do have terminals" and th
th b bl' may
ve no wmdows, but
eyate ere ya etoCQ tru th
pond:nce principles, brealting free from a bodil . . os cr eIr OWn corresbullenn boards d al
. .
} exIstence to buIld networks,
:'
an VITtu communrtles as:
;: :compmer antidotes to th
.
f
~: '-functi
.
eat~mlsmo society. They assemble the monads Th
.. th on as SOCIal nodes fur tostetiog those fluid and multiple d . .,;. ..""
. ract,
c
<cove aHlllUes
_- at evetyday rnh an ill.e seldom. In
supports.

. Tlie boundaty between bodies d ach

_ :
an m
IDes becomes even more blurred:
Penetrating the screen involves a state chan fr
rh
'
.
ofthe embodied VIewer to th
b Ii
ge om e phYSIcal, bIOlOgical space
f hers
e sym 0 c, ffiet:lphoncal "consensual hall . .
o ~all, ::~ space that 1S a locus of intense desire fur ;eJigured em~~r::~
Ar Ibollrge"is my, bow:ded, safdy warranted body constitured within L L ..
,~
moderrutv 1S
d
.
tuc lrdllle
'diigUlred
' . -/
un ergomg a gradual process of translario
th
'7~
and remscnbed embodiments of the cybe
. n to e
"'clisQ,un,e f . .
,
rspace commumty
Th
.
0 VISIOnary vioual world builders is rife with .
. . ... . e
""OOltoln the constraints that flesh imposes Cyb
.~ of Im"u"11lal bodies,
n
. erspace
opets foresee a time
thev will be bl
"
a e to orget about the body. (Stone, 1991: 107-13)

oe"'pa(:e holds our the Uto

.. .

plan v lSlon 0

fb .
elOg able to live the "I.eb
..
j
mZlan

,/'

'r'
280

!) ,
".'

Space, Time, and Place

concelt" free of material constraints. The "dematerialization of space" - the

ultimate annihilation by capitalist technology of space and time - itself
becomes the medium tbrough which the ultimate God-trick can be played.
\Ve can each voyage furth to tbe frontiers of cyberspace as mini-deities. We
can assume a variety of personas. "The boundaries between the social and the
narural and between biology and technology" take on a "generous permeability"
and social spaces begin to appear "tbat are simultaneously natural, artificial,
and constituted by inscription.}) But) Stone goes on to ask: who decides what
sort of bodies become inscribed in cyberspace?

In

The computer-generated multiracial vision featured on the cover of TIme is an

exemplar of such dreams given real representational form. Bur behind all of
tbese virtual bodies lurk real bodies, albeit a.tached to tbeir consoles. 'life is
lived through bodies" comments Stone, and virtual community "-originates in,

and must return to, the physical>; We may aspire to live out the Leibnizian
conceit in a consciousness jacked into
machine, but there is more than a
hint tbat the irreducible physicality of tbe human body will bring us back to
Whitehead's materialist--empiticist furmularions. Wtlliam Gibson who is generally credited with coining tbe term cyberspace in his dystopian novel Neuromaneer (1984: 256) invents an extraordinary moment towards tbe end of tbe
novel in which tbe hero Case sees himself through someone else's eyes. He:

me

found himself staring down, tbrough Molly's one good eye, at a whire-fuced,
wasted figure~ afloat in a loose feral crouch. a cyberspace deck beMeen his thigh.s,
a band of silver troaes above dosed., shadowed eyes. The man's cheeks were
hollowed with a day's gro'h'th of dark beard> his face slick with sweat. He was
looking at himself.

It will uke a ,~rong injection of historical,-geographical materialism to undetstand where all this refashioning of space-time might be taking us,
The processes at work on the human body are changing and tbe differen- ~
tiation of human bodies is as marked as its homogenization. & a consequence; our "measure of all things" is itself unstable and conflictual, It has always been

embod.ed and situated 1mowe

I dges:

Feminist embodiment ". is not abOut fixed 1

"
.
otherwise. but about nodes in ndds :_.0_ ?cat?n tn. a reIned body. female or
bir C d'
, ll.1.1l<;;C[Ions 1n orle uti
d
lty ror Ifference in material-serru . Ii Id f
-, n ons~ an .responsi.
otc
e
5 0 mearun
r
'
poI1t1cs and epistemologies f l '
'"
g. ". am arguing for
paniality and not universality : t:eC::~iriPOsl~~ru.ng, hand situating, where
knowledge daims These ' I '
on 0 elng eard to make rational
'
are c alll1S on people' Ii
he'
always a complex) contradictory: struet'
s Yes; t VIew from the body,
view from above, from nowhere ~fr
~r1flli~ ~nd structured body, versus the
, om SImp City.

,
in the process of articulating a cyberspace system~ engineers must model cognition and community. and because communities are inhabited by bodies~ they
must model bodies as weil. '" In doing so, they are articulating their own
assumptions about bodies and sodality and projecting them onto the codes that
define cyberspace systems.... Many of the engineers currently debating the form
and nature of cyberspace are the young turks of computer engineering, men in
their late teens and twenties, and they are preoccupied. with the things with
which postpubescent men have always been preoccupied, This rather steamy
group will generate the codes and descriptors by which bodies in cyberspace are
represented.

The Currency ofSpace- Time 28 I

h
searc to ground ob;ecciviry
)
.

~. For as .Haraway (1991: 195) comments in her

"

!\1;min (1992) provides a fascinatin cas

d fh
of tbe body has been chan
e~tu y ~ ow our sense presentation
She suggests that we are now gmg t. o~ drthe I,?pacrs of medical science.
WItnesSing a.
atnatlc t
..
. bo
' and practice, trom bodies "uit d r d .
. ranSltlon In dy percept
,') e ror an conceIVed In t
fth
mass production to bodies su't d c.
d
.
~ms 0
e era ofFordisr
'bJ
I e lOr an conceIved In th
f
of /Iext e accumulation" (p 121) Sh
e terms a the era
'
.
enotestbatth
h
und erstand the body have ,hfred Iithe
. e metap ors used to
. , .. structured control system of 'cell
central.zed and hierarchically
..
depIctIOns of an immune syst
.
hi hgytb(a Fordist-sryle conception) to
,
'.
emillw c
ebodyi
"
.
-',_.--- commumcatlonssystem,orderedb fl'd dd'
sseenas anengmeered
intelligence network" to whi h bY a , ill an tspersed command-control_
... "response are attributed (a c h,ecuves of specificity, flexibility, and rapid
'bl
metap or growlded In th
Ii . aI
~, Iiexl e accumulation) But th
e po TIc -economy of
,
M ., ,.
ere are two other telling bt f' r
.
artm elICitS m the course f h eth
, I S 0 lflmrmatlOn
. " ...
view of the cells in tbe b ~ er
nographic work. First, is the self.
0 yas!fth ev are separate fr
.
l.a~'P'tra.te spatial
worlds theme caprared b '
om consCIOusness
:' ---"there's no connection betw;
Y oflbe ~pondent's statement in her
'. - 11 h ,. .
een me emg a consa
h
be
;--:;'_"ce.tarsmsldeme").Secondl,afeeli
~us .uman mg
".. . . ummaginably large coalesced ~ th ng of tbe ummagrnably small
~. . the person becoming an b .
f ~same Image, agency residing in
herself" captured by
. or server 0
e agency of otbers inside him
one Inmrmant who exp
ed all .
Leibniz would surely have ree nized:"
ress, It . .n language
of your body I think b
og
\\?hen ,ou think abour tbe
..
a our outer space It' lik ili
that look like this you 1m
tb
. s
e ose are the onlv
,
ow, ey are tbat far aw Ii
I'
"
OUter space is like wayo tth
d
ay rornyou. tsweud
'
u
ere,
an your bodyi
.
h
h
tbe same, its the same thO "(. d .
S lUSt ng t ere, but
g
view seems alive and weU h,m
cltde ill Martin, 1992: 125), The
.rromsiti't)flS '
ert; an It is perhap
.
"_.
ill the definitions of spae
d . ' tb
s, Wise to ConsId.er
ffi
e an time rough chang
.a1
are ~ cering changing conceptions of ili bod
mg soc.
.
particularities, and whore tb h
be
y :;nd consequently of
,
e ,uman ody reSICIes in the scale of

bi:::

The Currencyo/Space-Timc 283

282

Space, Time, and place

orms

IX. Cartographies
.
.
edited collection on Third World }\50men and the
In her mtroductlon to an
1 d l
the idea of a relational cartogPolitics ofFeminiJm, Mohanty (19~ th) eve ~r e occupy in the 1990s." The
h to describe the "contours ot e wor w.
.
rap y
hi f
o..l " that ,he d'1'icts describe a world.
('cartograp es 0 stfllo,s'-e
.
. lines of ower and resistaru:e, a world which can be
traversed with mu::rsecung
. d~truccive divisions of gender, rolor, class.
understood ody ~n terms ~~ Its , h
t be transformed through a necessary
h

sexaaliry, ~ ~tlon, :l wor W file th-::sumed center (Europe and the United
process of piVOttng me center ." or
States) will no longer hold.

.
dons of how this world IS to be mapped:
Mohanty goes on to raISe qlles
.
hart this map of third wor1d women's
Which/whose history do we drawWhonto c _ J
kn--_J~..t,.,.., about colonized

[.

jl.
0 pruuuces
UWl<...Uf>""

engagement WIth em1nJsm~Il'" . ;> ~'h t are the politics of he produc(!on

peoples and ~rom what spac ?~:l. are ~e discipliI1alY parameters of rh~
of this particular knov;.1edge.
_~.l I
d chart third world ~'Omen s
A~' Wh
k,lowleUf,.....
at are the methods
. u.scu to .ocate
. and context overlap; in fact, as
__ 1
d
.~ Clearly questloru; of defimnon a n .
ch la hi
!it:ll an
agency.
d modes of aSkino- questIons and as s 0 rs p
we develop more complex, nuance.
.1.1_ t>
h"
. of rolonialism,
1
,.. dds hegins to aUllles5 lStones
in a number of re evant h
.
.. . cabl interrelated, our very c.onceptual
l
capitalism, race, aIu.I gender ~ m:r H Y e conceive of definitions and
maps are redrawn and uar:Morffi d
0V; w """'-'-" over others, and howwe
wh bas'
fj rcgroun certaIn c on ~ .....
contexts, on at
we ~ _ .
tual cartographies ~ these are all
understand the ongomg shifts m our concep
questions of great imponance. ."

<

:s

W<lflt to

reflect on it in terms of a

sen~m~nt. .;;: question of "'positionality" and of

theory of s~acc an . ~;~: ~pt r 3 throuoh examination of the

I agree entirely With thiS

relational
location" was first r.used expho ~lfl c . e)
d Ra;mond "Williams ("'on
of Bell Hooks Ca ~pace on ~ margm f t : world made explicit but it
the border"). In neIther Inst~ce was .a maP Williams a huge and almost
h rd
nstruct Its contours. Fo r 1 .
.
is not a to reco
th
ki -class world of South Wales mmerS
'd
eable
chasm
separates
c
wor
ng
hi--'
chasm
unbn g
d
d Camb . dgeJ That geograp Cil
aod that of the metropolis (Lon on;. d th ;"illhms struggled with all his
is redolent of ": ~dam~ ~~~ 'v, :oma:he eolonived world, this chasm ..
life. For hIS cntIcs, parti ar y o:e 1
f . erial and
1 oks like a minor wrinkle on the high p ateau 0 unp
. .'

< ,

Be~ :r

~uPt~~~:r::;:o~:litanized

ooks
' "thsitnilar
center,
American commlUlltleS 0 f e sou an
de and
. marked by muiriple fractures of class, race, gen. lr, b .
h er map IS
d
d th
;lO in pnnClp e ut it
identity. Williarm; might have un erstoO
at ffi-r
~

;omination. For

not the map

expcrienrial world. Bell Hooks might understand WiUiams'
map but not its inner meaning. They produce two different maps of the world,
situate themselves in particular ways in relation to those maps, and seek modes
of political action and alliance formation defined out of that particular
situatedness.
The intuitive recognition ofthis point has in recent years been most strongly
articulated in feminist theory. "Posicionality," situaredness,: and "standpoint"
have become familiar words as means to locate perspectives and power positions
in forms of argument (discourses) as well as in the identification of objecrs of
enquity and the construal of the subject-object relation. But what kind of map
of the world IS being talked about? No sooner do white North American
fernirlli"'ts produce a map of the world which permits them a place from which
to challenge white male patriarchy and oppression, than women of color or
in postcolonial settings produce entirely different cartographies of oppression
in which the white middle-dass feminists of North --<i\merica appear on that
same high piateau of imperial power that Williams' critics see. What we are
then confronted with are innumerable seemingly incompatible maps of the
world drawn from the standpoint of the with ness" of particular bodie'i in
-spaCe-rime. And different projections {to invoke dte term I use in the introduction} create quite different relational constructs. The famOllS cartoon of "the
New Yorker's Map of the World" is everywhere replicated to produce a
fragmentation of cartographies. a multiplicity of projections, a hreak up of the
unified map of the world that the mathematicians, geographers, and
cartographers strove so hard to create &om the Renaissance onwards. So what
are we to make of this?
'-~"Let me first establish the intimate connection between the "'retUrn to the
as the measure of all things" described in the preceding section and tbe
Fn,d"ction of all manner of cartographies of STruggle. Here, I th ink Leibniz
;i'IJarI:icuJar.ly helpful. There are two possibilities to be considered. Different
j>en'peccives on the same world can be constructed from different positions in
the same way "as one and the same town viewed from different sides
fi.uod;amelltalJly different.: This is in part what feminist "standpoint"
achieves. Marx sougllt to achieve the same mect in his com.:trucrion of
from a proletarian rather than a bourgeois perspective. Under this
pn'tation aU cartographies of the world are representations of the same
but each monad (body) neCe5sar.ily has its own perspective depending
position in that world. Different things dominate, loom large or look
and irrdevarJt according to the perspective embedded. in a particular
(consider, once again, the difference between Williams and Hooks).
we IOllOWLeibniz to the letter. some monads (bodies) """1.11 see and feel
a hazy blurry way, while the others will become morediscriminatI sltarper in their determinations. But the multiple windows on a same
the multiple theorizations available to us, can constitute a way of

284

Space, Time, and PMce

,
The Currency ofSpace- Time 285
Cronons aCCOUnt of colonial setrlement in Ne Eng!
,
of spatio-remporal ordering
h
wand, the supenmposition
upon anot er SOCIety destroy th
di '
reprod uction of that society (se als M'
I
s e con trons of
raphies of resistance each 'he 0
Igno 0: 1994), Innumerable cartogWit Its own peculIar positionali
h
construed as struggling again t h '
ty, can t en be
s a egemoruc map of th
ld (th
'11
by, for example, the World Bank and the IMF as weI e wor ,
at Stl held
,
I as by malor governments
and corporations) but then each ap
, 'th h h
pears as Incompatrble with th th
h
IS WI t e egemonic map (in spite of Mohan '
,
eo er as eae
The parallel here would be with th
tys assertlon to the contraty),

triangulating in on this same reality from multiple perspectives, Learning to

see the world from multiple positions - if such an exercise is possible - then
becomes a means to better understand how the world as a rotality works,
Multiple projections (mathematical and psychological) are in principle transformable into each other, Thar is how Haraway (1991: 193) visualizes it,
Rejecting both relativism and rotalization as "god tricks promising vision from
everywhere and nowhere equally, she argues that:
the topography of subjectivity is multidimensional; so, therefore, is vision. The
knowing self is partial in all its guises, never finished, whole, simply there and
original; it is always constructed and stitched together imperfeccly, and therefore
able to join with another, to see together without claiming to be another. Here
is the promise of objectivity; a scientific knower seeks the subject position not

of Wittgenstein's

""

theoty of 1"..........

games to Imply a fra

ed
ld
of both
gment wor of
of particular kinds of knowlecig I
P
I'
producers and consumers
, uI
e expenence Iffi:::lc:nnanes op t'
'th'
partIe ar institutional context a partI' I di .'?~~
) era lng Wi III a
'a1 I
'
cu ar VISion of labo
d
f
SOCI re adons, and within particular I
'
r an pattern 0

cability benveen these int

[he principles of map transformation and projection.

But Leibniz also indicated a more radical possibility, The relational theory
of spatio-temporality indicates how different processes can define completely
different spatio-temporalities, and so set up radically different identifications
of entities, places and relations, For Leibniz this was simply a theoretical
exploration of possible worlds and therefore solely confined to the imaginary,
But for 'Whitehead (and Bakhtin as well as Lefebvre), these radically different
spatio-temporalities and their associated cartographies are construed as real,
dependent upon the nature of the process being examined, Under <his
interpretation we seem to be confronted with innumerable radically different
and rotally incommensurate cartographies of the world. We cannot rransfurm
one projection (or map) into another. To produce one dominant cartographic

e contem~rary postmodern extension

lDterpretlve communities" made u

of identity bur of objectivity; that is of partial connectIon.

This technique of conjoining information from different positionalities is a
basic principle of all cartographic construcrion: to make an accurate map
(representation) of the world we require at the very nlirumum a procedure of
triangulation that moves across multiple points. We also need to understand

~'5uage

.
p ace~ ~t partIcular rimes. lncommuni_
erpretIVe communitles becomes a

of a fragmented postmodern sensibT '

'h
permanent earure
fragmented mappings and incomm llty, In illduC the same way as multiple
,
ensurate (an untransformabl)
, ,
,
~lSe out of the unique positionaliti
fbodi .
e proJecuons
B
h
es 0
es In the world
. ut w at Whitehead's tbeory also tells us is tha
... .strued as totally disconnected If th ,"
di t processes cannot be con~L
ere IS cogre ence" betw
h
mere must be "cogredience" (compo 'b'\j' ) b
een processes t en
'
SSt I ties
etween
the
diffi
'
,temporali ties and cartographies prod dOth
erent spatlo. cli/li
uce, n e one hand th
di all
:-.'-'''-. e:ent car,tographies have to be respected since the have
~ era c. y
: '., ... In hIghly dIfferentiated socio-ecolo 'Cal
roc
y
a real fuunda,"on
P esses, but on the other It is
'.... erroneous to regard them as t gall dis
,
,ot Y
connected S 'ai'
h
,'

. _'

SImultaneously unifies

and separates

ow;

ki~atl lty, however

UC<Jnf!eC1tiol1S (h" redi

"
, wor ng our w at the
of ill' t e cog ~ces) are, is as crucial politically (ir grounds an
m tant partlculansm for exam I )
",
y
i.~~!eFafY. theorv Th' ,
bl ' th
peas It IS to soclal.....cientific and
-J'
lSlsapro em aterupts
.
d
.
' ... in her search for a new definicio
_ ~n ~ agam, Haraway (1991:
: _ . ~ituaIedness argues, for example: n or 0 1ectlvity based on embodiment

image out of all this multiplicity is a power-laden act of domination, It is to

force a singular discursive representational exercise upon multiple cartographies, to suppress difference and to establish homogeneity of representa~
tion. To engage in this is a typical discursive strategy of hegemonic power, mat

has the intended effect of curbing the imaginary and shaping material practices
and social relations as well as institutions to a dominant mode of production .
or, as Foucault (1977) prefers it, ro a dominant disciplinaty power,
....
Renaissance mapping of the globe was exactly such an exercise in we:"cc.u"
domination. The "imperial gaze" mapped the world according to its own needs~
wants and desires, imposing a map of the world in such a way as to sU]JpresS.
difference, As Shohat (1991) argues, rhe effect was to disposess "the SUIJalteffi,
of authority over knowledge and identity," And as we have already

have also to be in tension with theproducrwestru

'
tha
exc
anges
materta!
and
semiotic
_
within
ther
andWebs
h can have the property
.
ctunngs
power.
f
. .
structured global systems with d
fil
0 systematIClty. even

r:~:~~~~;~~~J~

time, space and consciousness h

, r e

so, then

We

ill eep. amen(S and tenacious tendrils

mensIOns of world rusOry.

need '\vays to discover and

ill

' ..

Situated knowledge 'thi th

map ose systematlCltleS, to
,
s WI n e map and find th
d'
to any Sort of political allian f,
,
e cogre lences that are

'''.

ce ormatlon. But we cannot do

reIymg upon differenrly situared knowledges to r aI th

sOf
i'processe, that de ' wh
eve
e nature 0
un rpin
atever S}'stematicity exists.

286

Space, Time, and Place

x. Latitudes of Money/Power and Llngtitudes of Resistance

Traces of systematicity are not hard to identity. Flows of money, commodities,
information, cultural artefacts, technologies, symbolic systems, all are part of
daily life, have their e!!ecrs upon the sense presentation of the body, play their
role in defining value relations and provide some sort of common glue of
cogredience across a global space and time within which multiple cartographies
(embodied understandings) get defined. Money is also a concentrated form of
social power that has ramifications for the definition of selfhood, the production of hegemonic discourses, the running ofinstituoons as well as the material
practices of production and social relating.
In these times the accumulation of capital pro"ldes a set of master-narratives
in relation to which innumerable other narratives get defined. Individual, ego,
family, community, nation, civil society; and state would have entirely different
meanings in the absence of monetization~ commodification~ and. the exchange
relations embedded in the circulation of capital. We fail to pay attention to
these master narratives at our peril for to ignore them is to ignore a vital set
of social processes through which situatedness gets defined. It is salutary to
remembet, as Simmel (1978: 437-48) long ago pointed out, that the very
existence of a class of independent intellectuals engaging in teaching, writing,
and conferencing (about different cartographies, for example) as a professional
activity depends upon a power-laden system of extraction and mobilization of
money surpluses and occurs under the aegis of a highly sophisticated system
of exchange of ideas and inrnrmation through "print capitalism" (the phrase
is Benedict Anderson's).
The social processes that define a hegemonic form of spatio.temporality under
conditions of continuous capital accumulation therefore provide one common
frame -lilse that of the Mercator map - within and through which other carto
graphic perspectives get represented~ communicated, and contested.. But it is
vital to appreciate certain characteristics of this framing. To begin with, the
spatio-temporal nming is far from homogeneous but exhibits a considerable
degree of internalized heterogeneity and sometimes conflictual fragmentation
of the sort described in chapter 9. It is for this reason that I prefer the phrase
a set" or "ensemble" of master narratives rather than the singular term "master
narrative." The spatio.temporality built into financial markets and international ,:
currency coordination is very different from the spatio-temporalities of
capital investment in plant and equipment and is radically different from
long-term and massive projects of environmental transformation that
constituted, for example, the settlement of the US west. The problem WI111lrl,;'
capitalism is to establish mechanisms of "cogredience" or "compossibility"
between such radically different processes. But, as Munn's careful analysis of
the case of Gawa showed, it is pertectly possible to embed different
temporalities existing at different levels (scales) in relation to different "",.~nt'

The Currency ofSpace-Time 2B7

the SOCIal process in such a way as to ach

h
rhi
leve some overall strucrur Ex tl
ow s OCCurs under capitalism is infin' d
.
e.
ac y
conflictua1, but the ensemble f
I t Ymore com!"licated and potentially
o spano-temporalmes created
'th
diSCOnnected nor chaotic though it
.
IS nel er
n ffi ua1
The ensemble is not L:--d b
Isthco ct
and dynamic.
uxe
ecause e praces-es f
.1
deeply implicated in the contin
.
. ' 0 caprtataccumulation are
.
ilQUS alteratIon and s o '
'd
onnatJon of spatio-temp al th
metlffies rapl transor mes
rough Dhases f
'd
compression (0 chapter 9) N rrh I
.' ,
0
rapl time-space
It IS prc . ! b
. eve e
transc~nding possibilities of such a alobal frami
ClSe y ecaUSe of the
ng that we can even register
other forms of di!!erence. $om th "
into a hegemonic map of th: ~:~l;:: b~ ;St in such a gesture - integrating
cartography of dominatio
d f
r ~r to. demonstrate a particular
to learn and. use the opp~e:r'~ G;:wer :e~~lOns 18 no di~erent than having
chapter 5). But something is also g~ _ thrde~ to resist ~ppression (cE
uncommunicated and ruth
gaJ
. e brmglllg to ufe of hitherto
sh uld
erro uncornmumcable differe
Th' d .
o
not be surprising: money aft all h th
.
nees.
IS
ua1lty
with all manner of part,cular:. er '. as ee capacity to unity universality
Ines varymg nom th
.
egocentric individualism to th
'al.
e purity of bourgeois
f.uni". d
.
e SOCI practices of, for ex
I
'
'J' an nation predicated, as I at
d h
amp e, communIty,
of uses to which money power
b gue ;n c apter 9, on the great diversity
.
spatio.temporalities simultan canI e pur. ilndlrke manner socially constructed
.
eous y unIte a divide
.
ConSider, for example how the human self/bo . .
.
rnternalIzcs money values
and how the produced human self/body.
capital) into the schema of money "al ' Inserts 'dts f (as phYSIcal and symbolic
- .... d
' , uanons an capital
ul
h
di
ch
accum anon. I aVe
argue throughout this and th
e prece flu
arter th t val'
.
'-,
spatio-temporal relation. But :he m
rna
ue ~ a sO~lalIy
.
b dim
oney tID - a thing - rs If
~
0
ent of that spatio-temporal social relation
1.e

fettshistic powers thereby

ell
and acqwres
ts
,q~re'trer systematicity and p'ower th
mgch,
on the self/body with even
._'- : -: ; l'
an WIt Cran ever did on Gawa
': s aves, Indentured servants or the low:l"
.
.
. .
Whatever mOne th
'..
ICSt agnculrural laborers
.. , ..
y ey can acqUIre lUto wealth then th
fi
. ....
a genealogy, symbols that USe the 0
'
ey procure or
time to sustain identinr from
P .wers of money to preserve value
c- ,- -~
one generatlOn to the next Th . bl
e
"to part with "the &mil il'"
, e Ina I lty or
seessi';e" h
h
Y s Ver even In the face of the direst of
of ;e~':'~';!~ :t:i.~ a rductanceo t~ c~nvert valued wealth as
, ..
I POint 0 f ongm ill the eph
ral
f
, as a means of circulation \Vb
d"
erne Ity 0
.
<~for the m
.,.
. all en rean y arnved Immigrants from
, ,:onev 1fl tot y unregulated
sh
.
average less tha~ $2 an hour for a 12.ho sweat ops lD New York
years old {laws against child labor notw:~t::;;Jtg)h~ywobrkeJ"s
to a grueling bod "Iv
.
h
. m, ey su mIt
all
. 1, regime ( ar produces not onlv dail - exh
sorts of speCIal ailmenrs such
"
,
,/
Y
ausback
(Iii, 1995). W'hen Third World w:m:~,;;er~ th
anI.d explosive
"
n
erose ves caught tn

'!r

;' __

e:n.

=. .

Sf

288

Space, Time, and Place

the ugly tension of using whatever scarce resources they command to produce
for market or to preserve traditional practices) ecosystems and their associated
social relations, then here, too) the cartographies of money and power are
fundamentally drawn up in resistance to a hegemonic map of capital
accumulation driving to be sustained in space and time against all odds, When
stressed-out bankers, srate department and treasury officials, and innumerable
CEOs find rhemselves in the midst of massive fund switches (of the son that
almost destroyed the economy of Mexico in 1995) then they, too, find
themselves in the midst of a social process outside of their individual control
Recall Simmers (1978: 101) argument

to

T~e proletarians
Will,

have nothing to lose but th .

.
WORKI"iG ME."1 OF ALL COD~'T elr chams, They have a world
'" ruES, UNITE!

to

they Were precisely trying to identifY

al
.
alternative politics of age '
d
,an ternatlve foon of valuation an
ne; an action and a radi all diffi
'
temporal world defined by a radi all diff.
c y
erent spatiois, of course, part of the almost fOl~ y ,,,:~nt fOrm of the social process, It
that such statements send hudd onfc !lmi ,ty of these (post)mociern times
s
er, 0 negal!
'f
f
'
circles preoccupied with lit
and
'
on 1 not 0 revulsion through
at'
erary
SOCIal theory y, t th I
'
ternatIve form of cogredience/c
'hi!'
,e
e ongmg for some
not lie in the shadow of The G omp~S1 Ity (th~ugh preferably one that does

society is a structure that transcends the individual, but mat is not abstract.
Historical life thus escapes the alternative of taking place either in individuals
or in abstract generalities. Society is the universal which, at the same rime, is
concretely alive. From this arises- the unique significance that exchange. as an
economic-historical realization of the rdativity of th.ings~ has for society;
exchange raises the specific object and its significance for the individual above
its singularity. not into the sphere of abstraction, but into that of lively
interaction which is the substance of economic value. (p. lOl}

The critical investigation of money as a relation, with its particular constructions of valuing through spatio-temporal practices, provides one key starting
point for any attempt to understand the contemporary body, identities, and
politics, The social power of money forces the body into postures of laboring
and work under a particular condition of valuation that only holds out the
possibility of realizing desire through money earned and spent. But here, too,
the doctrine of rational consumption (rational that is from the standpoint of
capital accumulation) constrains desires within a box from which there is no
fundamental exit, no matter how hard desires, lust, energy, and the imaginary
seek to escape from a bodily prison inw a unification with that other which,
in the last instance, can never be attained. Yet bodies/selves insert themselves
purposively and imaginatively inw social life (as we saw in the ClSe ofSaccarc!'s .
vision explored in chapter 6) and thereby have the power, however minute, to
change it, Agency, I argued in chapter 5, resides everywhere and the transformarive works with which bodies/selves necessarily engage can be managed,
orchestrated and pressured but never totally dominated,
1v1oney, spatio-temporality, values and. the body are inextricably internvined within the overall dynamics of capital accumulation, An understanding of
each informs the other at the same time as it sheds light on how situaIedne.s_~
and posirionality is itsdf a product of the hegemonic processes of spaO'.
creation. While this is nor the only set of social processes to which we
refer, a thorough understanding of it is a necessary condition for any l"'JY""l,
accounting of how distinctive situations, positions and cartographies arise.

The Currency ifSpace-Time 289

But there are other possibilities of cogredi
Wh
end The Communist Man;, 'h h ';,"ce.
en Marx and Engels chose
~J~S~O Wlt [e lamOUS cal! to arms;

Mamfesto) neve dis

I
the ecoIogical movement for ommumst
I
d J
r appears. t sufu.se5

, ,
'
examp e, an again and aga'
ch
'al
ment m Its turn finds itself
r
'
th
1fl ea
SOCl move, ,
confrontmg e p bl
fh
'
objectIves through a sufficiently b d
to em 0
ow to secure lis own
. r
roa network of all'
c~.
momc IOrms of power, \Vhat Derrida calls
Wlces to confront hegeaway,
The Specter ifMarx, will not go
Interestingly, in the early years f th I
'
"
bef,ore the split betw
0
lanon,
Me' nternatlonal Wo rking.lM'
ens Assoceen

anasts and anarch'

,
I
women and men did'
ISis, syndicalists and
.p.to'etarians,
.
,
,
Its ugly work the
'
f h'
I'.r.o)ect umting Irish English F
h
B I'
'
meaflIng 0 t IS socialist
~
~ renc~
eglanG
d'
~omen workers within the E
~ erman> an SWISS men and
pr{)letari'lil unity and nati
space, of capital traversed the terrain of
: ,
on
luerence Wlth a COmm
.
that many later internationalist
0(bn-sen5e apprecIation
..
have lacked. Conceptualizi th'
movements oth proletarian and
ng lS
crucial to defirung' what some kind -al whole problematic right is, clearly
. d f
ot ternatIve
'
f'
'
an
values might look like,
mappmg 0 SOCIal relations
.

:dor;an

d
for example, how this theme echoe
1) work. "Feminist embod'
"cal! s an reverberates in Haraway's
tment re

rsnotabout L.ed I
' ,
,
UK
ocauon ill a reified body ce al
thefWlse,
' b bo
mlields,ill
'fl ect!OflS
- in orientatioru d ,Hm
L
. eoro
'.
ut a Ut noues
semiotic fidds of meaning
The' an. respo.nslb1hty for difference in marerial_
. ...
re IS no slngl fi "
.
maps require too many dim '
C
th e emlfllst standpOInt because
enslOns lor e metaph
195-6)
or to ground our visions.

theoretical and practical struggl

'U
-UOffilnanOn oc
.~'~::;J~-~:;~:;i~::::~~h~::.callye not.
agamSt Uilltv thro gh ~
, ,
~~Y undermines the justifications
nIsm, POSItiVIsm, essentialism, scientism. and
.

290

Space, Time, and Place

-isros~

other unlamented
but all claims for an organic or natural standpoint. I
think that our radical and socialist/Ma..r:xist feminisms have also undermined
thetrlour own epistemological strategies. and this is a crucially valuable step in

11

imagining possible unities. (p. 157)

So what kind of possible worlds do these unities define and to what should
such alliances and effective affinities be addressed and through what kinds of
"conversations" and "translations" {to use two of Haraway's favored terms}?

From Space

to

Place and Back Again

I do not know of any other rime in history when there was greater need for
political unity
confront effectively the dominations of "race", "gender",
sexuality", and "class". I also do not know of any other time when the kind of
unity we might hdp build could have been possible. (p. 157)

'0

1. The Issue
Capitalist accumulation may define a hegemonic system of spatio-temporal
practices and valuations and do untold work upon the body, the imagination,
and the sel But it dnes not exhaust all alternative possibilities. Uncovering
cartographic affinities and unities within a world of highly expressive difference
appears more and more as the key problematic of the times. This is the political
mission that any dialectical theory of historical-geographical marerialism must
address. But it is a mission that depends, as does capital, on the construction
of an ensemble of cogredientf compoS sible spatia-temporalities in active relation
to the world of soci-al and material practices, institutions, and power relations.
A materialist relational theory of space and time has a key political as well
as scientific role to play. Not only does it permit us to challenge outright the
absolutist presumptions and pretensions - the totalizing vision (the view from
nowhere) if you will _ of the a-historical treatment of space and ,ime
incorporated in conventional analyses and narratives, but it also allows us to
ces
resist "the view from everywhere" and ask how rdations (cogredien
and
compossibilities) get established between, for example, monetary, heavenly, and
other bodies. The relational view allows for diversity in ,he social construction
of space-time while insisting that different social processes may relate and that,
therefore, the space-time orderings and ,he cartographies of resistance they
produce are in some way or other also interrelated. Discovering the nature of
such connections and learning to translate politically between them is a
problem fur detailed research. Theoretically, the cogency and potential power
of the materialist version of the relational view appears as remarkable and as
exhaustive as it is dialectically consistent.

-,. lust
north of the Johns Hopkins University Homewo
.
lies theafRuent and prestigious neighb h d _ .od Campus

In Bal,imore
-situated on pleasant rolling terrain
Guilford. The 296-acre area,
Ithe famous "fall line" on th
e PIedmont meets the coastal plain
. ch
e water courses draini
.
h
.
ng mto t e Atlantlc that
stret es from Georgia ro New England and "
Ii,.",; > ." attraction point for siting sevetall
whIcdh, a mIle to the west, became
'elliury) was purchased in 1907 b
arge
h .
.v
d' eotton- . uck m'lIs'
1
In t e runeteenth
",peculati'.e
a S)'l'the
lcate
"
tract development. Iny1911
. of neh Baltimoream to preclude
Company (a land devel p
ffsh SIte was turned over to the Roland
r. d
0 ment 0
oot of surplu B" sh
tal
or evelopment accordincr to the "b
d
S flU
capi on US
'. . ......
available." Thi,
in
modern methods of city
tra<lltlonofFrederick Law 01ms toad (wh ose son'
asttuctures,landscapmg
hi
al
s arc tectill firm did
and plainlv took to heart th I'd th th
. . .
e ea at e ruralizati
fth
to reIlovmg ,he stress of urb r' g)
on 0
e oty was
_c, o',n
archi
an Will and, eventually an e I . mish
,,
tectures scattered around th 841. .: '
c ectlC
" ,
are open plan, largely devoid f r e
dmdlVldual building lots.
.
rvil'meat streets amid
- s all 0 kslences
an walls
d'
d
eu
B
an SItuate on
. . and <xci ill
par . ut the neighborh 00d Iots were
,,~'''\Sl)~:ld.th
WI
restnctIve
'
USlOnaty covenants p . fi all
cl
.,... and Jews. From the 1920s onwards
cal yex udingnonIts west and Homeland to its north (all de
ong Wlth Roland
became a secluded residential
f _: oped by the ,ame land
centre 0 dluuent whit An I S
protestant power in the cin.e
g 0- axon

whe~~ ~o :,t

resul~ed soph:~:te::;r

G~'Iec~

't,

.of all the trials and tribui~rions that have b

.
smee the mid-1960s G "If< d h
ese, the Baltlmore
cha",ct<" (even after rhe :_l~r as managed to retain much of its
'- slOnary covenants w r
kd
ambience has mellowed . th
.
. e e struc own).
tQ"which man Bal'
WI
age and It remams a peaceful silvan
y
nmoreans repair particularly in
.'
.
dogwoods and azaleas. The neighb orh oDdspnngtune
to admi.'e
ill part retaIned Its

~.""'
.......
{_:-:

'.'"

292

Space, Tim!!, and Place

character through strict isolation from the less afEuent and racially differer:.t
communities that formed on its eastern edge. & physical mark and symbol
of that separation, a solid wall prevems access fium the east for much of the
neighborhood; the only road to the east is one way heading out.
On Slillday August 14, 1994 a brutal double murder occurred in Guilfurd,
An dderly white couple, both distinguished physici.HlS but now retired in their
80s, were found in their bed bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat, Murder
is no stranger to Baltimore (the rate for the city is close to one a day). But in
the eyes of the media the Guilford killings were special, The main local
newspaper - the Baltimore Sun - devoted full-page coverage to them when
most other murders receive nominal attention. The media dwelt at length on
how this was the third such incident in Guilford in recent months and that
something plainly had to be done to protect the community if it was to survive.
The solution that had long been pressed by the Guilford Community
Association was to turn Guilford into a gated community with restricted access.
In commenting on this proposal. the Sun turned to the expert advice of
Oscar Newman, whose 1972 book on Difensible Space had long been regarded
as fundamental to L~e security problems of cities. Newman, the Sun reported:

' .
From Space to Place and Back Again 293
prollllnent Afncan-Americans in th . . I din
"IeI'levcu
-"" (some even s~~.l "I .d") ChCIty,h Ule u <:>0- the m ayor, were CIred
.
as
"h
<uu e ate
t at tester typ'cal
'.
( r e drug dealers proscitute~
eo 1 assm.'1atlOn of crime
.
'
;s~ muggers and othe
"a1 "
deplcted
in the Sun's earli""r re
.
r cnmm s 50 bizarrelv
blackness had been found w port asOwandenng the meer, of Guilford) with
lace
antlng. scar Newman
h
.
rep _ dasexpenbyPatriciaFernandez_KelI a
was. no~ ert ated. and
protessor at the Johns Hopkins u"
. )E,S'l research SCl.entlst
and socioloov
lllversity. fie was quo
J
'
'"
LqL as saymg:
M

What's happened is The word crime" h b

-concerns we CiUtlot mention th
as. ero",]ce a receptacle for a series of
b
l
e unmentlona b es' class and
[l
ecome a euphemism. It is easier to speak abo:
race.... tj has
and burglary ar:d murder than to evoke th . ut (mne; to speak about larceny
vcry, v:r-r telling. This is tru../y Om'dHan e Im~ges of class and race. That is
alternatrvc langu:.liVf> we ha: t __ ,
th' a kind of douhlespeak. It is an
~ve 0 J.l;ltr to e problem
.
cannot Use the old languac-p of ra .
W
~ we see ill society. We
0ClSm.
e come up WIth all
correct terms to refer to the
b]
sons of politically

SaJUe pro ems \When w

" . " -_,
saytng we arc afraid of lower-class bl -k ']
e say C!lme we re really
a.... peop e.

Editorializing, the Sun, while mainly bl ' the'

,
,
than !ts own coverage and selection' of ~ t; ,police and CIty offiCJais rather
su/;g",;red that all of "us" oughtto thinexpekbOhr the, unfurtunate associations,
.
a Out OW we""
.. I
'des and alarm
: Circumstances'. "while barnca
I IDStmctlve .v react in
oommunity; -'hey can't keep evil at bay."
s can a ter the ambience of a
So what kmd ofplace is Guilford' It h
--,-, d h
' ch'as ad
name abound
Suctal an p vskal quali"'cs It h
'
ary, andd'"
lstlncnve
a.'iaIeveactkid~"
It!: the midst of
fluxes and Hows of urban liD per run. n ot permanence"
:h~s_ become a political-economi
.
e. fotectIon of this permanence
for a wide range of insriruti:!r<:,le~n~: ~(i fOr Guilford residents but

said yesterday that he believes Guilford might be a goud candidate for such a
dlange.... "1 think we're headed to a point w.q.ere sections of cities vulnerable
to crime will adopt this philosophy. ". Criminals ace finding Guilford a great
pl<ice to pick up change. You -can burglarize a car or house, get out of there and

use the money to buy drugs." In Dayton, Ohio, a conversion of one

neighborhood.. Five Oaks, to defensible mini-neighborhoods, each with only one
combined entrance mdeat, led to a 67 pen..'em drop in traffic and half as many
violent crimes, 2.ccordlng to a recent ceport. "Drug dealers, prostitutes, muggers
and other criminals are reluctant to eruer a neighborhood ."yith limited points

. '

of retreat, Mr Newman said.

But, the Sun continued, the proposal "raises issues of racial and class divisions,
because the proposed barriers. all on the east, would s_~parate Guilford even
further from neighborhoods where residents were predominantly black and
lower income while the borders with wealthier and whiter neighborhoods on
the west and north remained untouched. The whole tenor of the Sun's report
implied, however, that crime was an Mrk:an-American and underclass" habit
and. that rherefore the construction of barriers against people of color and
low incomeJ however regrettable, might be justifiable as a means to secure
defenSible space ofcommunity" for an afHuent white middle-class popWl.tion, 'l
that might omenvise flee the city. Place had to be secured against the un,:on,tro\;,.
led. vectors of spatiality.
Five days later it was announced that a grandson - not a random inrrue(",
- had confessed to the killings. This conEe.-sion again rated front page
coverage in the Sun. But this time the tone was completely differen:.

.I

me

" ,_ -' particular). And it has a d::ursiv:~vm~v~~nment,. the media, and

of, mere location> so that events that ~
0 l~ m~g well beyond
__
as signified bvthe res 0
th OCCUr t ere
ave a particular
se

l>

,- -

plainly firs into" cart P hn. m e press and media to the murders.
,
ograp les 0 f struggle power
d di
CIty in very special wa= B t difli
'
, an' diccScourse in
.
,-' U
erent maps I
contrasting reports in the Sun cl 1 . di
d ocate It uerentl}'; as

.what Ii II
I
o OWS, want alwa}"S
'
d

ear

YIn

Care

and L
'
'd
""ar m mm exam I lik
III or er to ensure some sort of grounded 6 1':6
P es
e
might mean
.
b ckg
ee Ing or what a. word
JP,<\cecUlIie and em~ronmag.:unst a <i round of a general rdationallheon, of
ent.
~J
to try

'

II. Some Theoretical CoItsiderations on Place

"eprc)Positiong~ise,
is 1i~e space and rioe, a sodal constrUct Th' . th
~ifom whICh I starr The ly .
.
, I S IS
e
.

on

rnteres-tmg question [hat Can

From Space ta Place and Back Again

294

Space, Time, and Place

295

interesting is how it internalizes and combin(:s effects from all moments

simultaneously.

( )'.. lace constructed? There are rwo

then he asked is: by what so~;al P~~essfi:t {; :;, recapitulate whal the relat:onal
ways to get a fix on that pm em.
e
vi~w of space-time tells us:
, ' ' b h th bounding and their interr.al
abIlity tn ot
err

entities achieve IeIatlve s

.
Su ch permanence; wme to
.
ace. for a ume.
ordering of processes creatmg sPcl '
Ie r a time) and thereby define a
of
"n an ex USlYe -v.rav 10
f
occupy a pIece
space 1.
Th
'of place formation is a process 0
place - their place - (for ~>tfrlme) . L ellProcesfpSrocesses creating spatio-tempomnces omUle owo
carvlOg out pennane
__
h
lid mf'V roay seem - ace not
no matter ow so
-J

ences
.
iry. But the perman
e tual erishlng." They are oontmgent
eternal but always su~ject co ~e as pnd~ssol~tion. (Above, p. 261)

III, The Political Economy of Place Construction

Under Capitalism

<

<

"

'"

on procrsse5 of creation, sustenance a

'
place as (a) a mere position or
.
herefure be gIven to a
'
A double meanIDg can, t
,
.
~. ~_.J within some social process
'th'
f space-t1.me <.:OllItOtUU:U
location WI ill a map 0
"

'thin and transformative of e

.
'" manenee occurrmg WI
or (B; an entIty or per.
I
ument includes the environmental
construction of space-ume. The atter arg (laces) get built. The difference
transformation through which permanenc"'., P ucb as 30,03S and 51.10W

. L ......... ,~
uttmg down a IDaIKer s

in meanmgs IS l,}(:;L ween p

.
h " f Porto A.legre in the state of Rio
gl
be
r
nammO"
t e crt}' 0
.<on a map of e o ?
b
the named entity indicates some
' B II In me l anercase,
Grand e d 0 Su I in raz.
( h th
.t be of government. soctal
rrnanwce weer'
.
Th
d
sort 0 f bounde pe
I 'cal
tu e etc) at a oivPn locatIOn.
e
, '
b il f.
ecoogt
~-rruC r ,
b"'organIzatiOn: u t orm.
ork within tha[ and other places may change
socio-ecologtcal Proce:'scs
W ch
as to undermine, enhance or erode
spatio-temporal onienngs In su a ;:~o Alegre has achieved. ~1any different
me particular permanences that, sayI'
b
varied and as multiple as the
,
b
ld b ut places P ace can e a s e l Th
storIes c~n e to a ~
Bakhtin (1981: 84) attributes to the nOV.
e
various dlconotopCs that
al
I ee) is shaped by a fusion of
f
th
vel
(an
ogoUS
to p a
h I 0
"concrete woe
e no
th. '
as ,'t were thickens. takes onal' ill t so at tlme,
,
"spatial and temp~r. In ~ .or:" while "'s aces become charged and responP
flesh , becomes arusucallyf VlS,bl
that places
'
I tand h15tory," This is the w~
-,
sive to the movements 0 tJIDe, p 0
h
' human historical geograp Y,
th
ial
are constructed ill
.
to the cognitive map of e soc
The second broad strategy is to rektuffipl
the locus of
'
"
, d ' chapter 4 and 100 at aces as
uti
.
L "SOeI-a! rclarions,'" as
Process 0 me -ill .
,.
nfimlrntlOnS
01
as "institutional IzatIons) ,; co "o-"d
dements in ""discourse." A

of power, an as
,
practices. as orms
['th
_,.,lo would require a hook unto
,
f l ' all 0
ese rcOd.<-.......
accountIng 0 p ace In
how all of these
what follows I shall attempt ~erely trulI l~tr~e laces as inrernallv
.
~ combine The effect IS to u erstan p . ,
'
ryplcally . ..'
dynamic configurations of rdatIve .
geneous~ dialecucal an~
al dvnamics. of socio-ecologrcal
,
within the overall spano-tempo~
.
1
be undenrood
Guilford, to retUrn to my openmg ~thP e, ccall"al process but what M
oment meso
'
standpoint of fach separate m

:t

>

,.

-r

Consider, first, capitalism's historical trajectory of geographical expansion

through the construction of actual places as rdatively permanent physical and
social structures on the land. Or, put another way, consider how places get
erected as permanences within the flux and flow of capital circulation. Since
J have wriTten eA1:el1Sively on this topic elsewhere (Harvey, 1982, 1985a, b) I
shall offer only a very abbre'l';ated account here.
Capitalism is necessarily growth oriented, technologically dynamic, and crisis
prone. One of tbe ways it can temporarily and in parr surmount crises of
overaccumulation of capital (idle productive cap-deity plus unemployed labor
power) is through geographical expans'on, This is what I call the "spatial fix"
.; to capitalisnis contradictions. There are two facets to this process. F.x;xss capital
can he expcrted from one place (city, region, nation) to build another place
within an existing set of space relations (e.g., the export of British surplus
capital to fiaod land development in Baltimore at me end of the nineteenth
century or the export of production capital from the United States overseas
aftet World War II). Space relations may also be revolutionized, as descri.bed
9, through technological and organizational shifts, Such revolutions
,dter R~a,iolls between places and affect interna.lized processes ofplace construcsustenance, and dissolution (as has happened through the recent history
~<"f."~:A deindustrialization in many cities of the advanced capitalist world).
case, new networks of places arise, constituted as fixed capital
,""bedded in the land and configurations of organized social rdations, institUetc. on the land. New territorial divisions of labor and concentrations
and labor power, new resource extraction activities and markets form.
,graphicallan<hcape which results is not evenly developed but strongly
<cDifference" and "otherness" are produced in space through the
of uneven capital investment, a proliferating geographical division
an increasing segmentation of reproductive activities and the rise of
ordered (ohen segregated) social distinctions (such as those thar
Guilford from its surroun<h),
are tensions within this process. To begin with, it is marked by class
and through the production of space. Furthermore, the speculative
(like all forms of capitalist development) is very strong, often pitting
of capital against another. Place construction ventures often go
become mired dovm. in specularive swindles. Charles Dickens used
of a mythical New Eden In Martin Chuz:zleulit as a witty
o

From Space to Place and Back Again

296 Space, Time, and PUu:e

,
,h
.
t this day' as pensIoners head down
- - n c
cess whlC contlnues 0
denuncIauo o. a pro _
., PI 'd.
find it is in the middle of a swamp.
to their retirement plo~ In sunnytha;~ea:~ole settlement pattern of the United
Thorsten Veblen (196 /) arglled
. real estate speculation, This
de
ad as onc vast venture m
Srares should be un rsto
. th
k f Mike Davis (1990) on Los
,
d
peared m ewor 0
f
thesis has recen Y reap
that lace construction is giV"....ll "in ~e logIC 0
Angdes. To say, therefore,
P
" e that the geograplucal pattern
capitalism's productlon of space IS not to ~1
of speculative investments is
, d . dv ~e The success or an ure
me
1S determ
In a an"_. . _thr
gh ~ ri 1 competition between places.
L
I
ked Ollt a posteno N ou .pa a
.
ecuI
.talge Ywor
d' ffi I
. out of t..he inevitable tensIOn between sp
aThe second I CIl ty anses
d th
graphical mobility of other
rive investment in place deve~opment an
e geared through the activities of
, aI Th
rune system construe
forms of caplt.
e spaceI 'cl1afactcrized by much faster
.tal for examp e, IS
. '
contemporary fi nance capl '.
oducers who have ne~arily to tie
movement aCross space relatIVclto pr .
nd investors in physical infra. la for at east a time, a
themselves d0"'"'11 10 P ce
' t s are even longer lasting. The
'-'
. whose commltmerr
structures and propertles
,.st~ms i~ often problematic (see
.
f h different space-orne sy,
th
integratIon 0 t ese
d )' Those who have invested m e
'~dd 'Q93 [. an excellent case stu Y .
de
h'
11ernh , L
,<:r
th t rivities arise which ren rt etr
physical qualities otplace have to.ensuhre ~..:ncnce of place. Coalirions of
,
fitable by ensUring t e p~
mvestmerrts pro
h ' '0' in places for rhis purpose. Hence
'vel' try to s ape aeuvi es
d
_L
h'" l't'lcs of the sort that Logan an
entrepreneurs act!)
"c
fl cal "grow", mac me po 1
.
the signmcance 0 o.
d f I cal 1 alliances to promote and Hlstam
Molon:l: (1988) descnb.e an ...: ~ut s:;scondirions cannot always succeed,
eConom1C devdopment In pla----,_.J ' .
and losers. The differences
ners
Competition between places pruuuces wm
. '_
d ee become antagomsU.....
between pl~ces to some egr-b
d fixitv and spatial mobility ofcap.ital erupts ,:
The tensiOn between place oun h th' I <!scape shaped in relation to a
. "zed . ~. however w en e an
.
into generau
C[l~lS,
'ai'
italist) becomes a barner to
,
L. _
fd I
ent{caplt ISr or pre-cap
be
certatn pna::;e 0 eve opm
h' cal onfiguratio ll of places must then
further accumulation. The geograp 1 c
. ' ns systems and physical
d
port and conunurucano
reshaped aroun new trallS d tyI
f production and consumption. n~'
centers an s es 0
. cl eli
infrastructures, new
d'fi d
'aI infrastructureS (ill u ng,h
.
flab
wer and rno 1 e SOCi
agglomerations 0
or po,
d
ul'
fplaces). Old places (sue '.
f
ernallce an reg anon 0
d .
for =ple, systems 0 gov
, h
b L ..a1ued d05"o'---' an ... ,'
'b d' ch ter 1) ave to e <.Ie\'
}
)'t.-u,
as Cowley desert e III
ap
ed Th thedral city becomes a
...
redeveloped .....-hile neW places are creat . he ca . the old industrial center
. '
. .
. b umes a g ost town.
center, the mmmg commun~ty bee
or gentrified neighborhoods anse,"
isdeindustrializoo,speculatlve oom towns
[.Leashesof
"
:
.
f
. tar development or out 0 m
orr the fronners 0 capl 1St
of>
.tali
. then punctuated by
.
ed communities. The hi:i.tory
capl sm IS,
J
argtlf'

pha.<;:es of spatial reorganiz.a~~on.

f such reorgani7.ation since around 1970~ ,
There has been a ~wer .sur~~.
d between places. The effect has
creating considerable lfisecuntywl 1il an

297

been, as some theorists contend, to eliminate the significance of place altogether

in the contemporary world (see Me}Towitls Nll Sense ofP/.tce for an excellent
example of this genre of writ:ng). But it does mean that the meaning of place
has changed in social life and in certain respects the ctlect has been m rr-Ake
place more rather than Jess imponam. This probably aCCOluns foc the vast
outpouring of works over the past ten years or so in which "phce'" .figures
prominently in the title, While tbe::-e are all sorts of reasom behind this (and
these w.iU become dearer as we proceed) there are four reasons internal to
the political ITonomy of a;,.piral accumulation that deserve immediate
consideration:
1. Space-time relations have been radically restructured since around 1970
and this has altered the relative locations of places within the global
patterning of capital accumulation. Urban places that once had a secure
starus find themselves vulnerable (think of Detroit, Sheffield, Liverpool, and
LilIe) and residents find themselves forced to ask what kind of place can
he remade that will :> urvive within the new macrix of space relations and
capital accumulation in the past (like Cowley) have been abandoned to their
fates today. We worry about the meaning of place in general and of our
place In particular when the security of actual places becomes generally
threatened_
; 2. When transport costs were iigh and communication difficult, places v.rere
protected from competition by the frictions of distance. Places could
depend upon a relativdy high degree of monopoly power. But diminished
, transport costs have made production, merchancing, marketing, and pardo: cularly finance capital much more geographkaUy mobile than heretofore.
~. ,The monopoly power inherent in place is much reduced. This allows much
'" ,-..,frter choice oflocation which in tum permits capitalists to Gu(e more rather
,than less advantage of small direrenccs in resource qualities~ quantities, costs
-and amenities beGVeen places. Multinational capital, for example. has
become much more sensitive to the qualities of places in its search for more
, profitable accumuIarfon.
. -"Th-osc who reside in a place (or who hold the fixed assets in place) become
aware that they are in competition with other places for highly
.," :II,ob,ile capital. The particular mix of physical and social infrastructures, of
c; ;c;Jlabor qualities, of social and political regulation, of cultural and social life
oficr (aU ofwhich are open to construction) can be more or less attractive
, exam:ple~ external capital. Residents worry about what package they
offer which will bring devdopment while satisfYing their own wants
needs. People in places therefore try to differentiate their place from
and become more competitive (and perhaps antagonistic and
'~~,clusionary 'wilh respeCI to each other) in order to capture or retain capital
!llVe,-rment. Within this process, the selling of place, using ail the artifices

F'<>m Space to Pidee and Back Again 299

298

Space, Ttme, and Pid",

. ilia
be mustered, has become
of advertising and image construcUon
t can
of considerable importance,

, al h

b orb excess captt

4, ProfitabIe projects
to a s ,
tWO

decades ;nd a considerable prop~rtIThn0

ulati e place

been hard to find these las'

I capital bas found its
~urJ:r '\visdom in much of

ave

ea.
.
. d taul"- of savings and loan institutions In
this became dear m e massrve e
ch as [he combined Third
the United Sates ($300 billion" al mo,; as mu f the world's latgest banks
y
World debt) and the shalty pOSlUo~_ 0 mhan ~investment in real-estate
'
the
Japanese)
UUOlig
ove
, I
(includlUg even,
d th h' ghlighting ofcheir patUcu ar
development, The ,dlmg of places an
e ~ties .-ith new lifestyles, etc.)

Vi-oay mto spec

~v th

constructIOn.
L

qualities (rerirerIlent or tounst resorts, comID

becomes even more frenetic.

'power of comne:tition
between
b
to render t h e coerC1ve
r--.
The upshot h as een
th th less emphatic and so prOVIde
'
"_.1'
d dopmenr.morera er an
places lOr caPJGI.llSt ev
. th t lie outside of capitalist norms.
r
'
fplace constructIOn a
h'
less leeway ror projectS 0
I
"
en to plac"- development by Igh
,
' ds th
nopa y protectlon gtV
"In earlier peno , e rno
ch
di rsity in me way places got
all ed for mU greater ve
' :
transport costs
ow
cod business environment lor
re
N
the
concern
to presen a g
,
constrUcted. ow,
.' k
fit from speculative developmem
'~hh,
hi!
'talortoreah;ocaqulC
pro
d
'
hly ....} rno e capl
..,
. -1 ahollt attracting pro uetJon,
competltIon IS not Simp y
.ill
'
donates. I nter-place
.
r (particularly the aIHuentJ
'a1s
b ut attractmg consume S
L __
however. It IS
0 a ~
. ,
h
It-~I center a pleasing UIU<ill
.
.
f anlerutlCS sue as a cu urAl

through the creaUon 0

th I'k I
t 'm consmnption spectacles, the
, all . L
and e J e. nvescmen
d
or regJ-on anu.scape.
. .
the ddinirion of cultural an
places
competltIon
over
I
'
f
selling a f 1mages 0
.'
f
ul
diuons associated with p aces as
.tal the revival 0 vema..c ar tra
.
I
.
'
symb0 IlC capl
orne conflated in inter-place comperiuon. note .
n
a consumer attracllo , all bee
rod"
for example the realms
f stmodem p ucnon m.
l
in passing, that m uch 0 po,
,
' I b ut the seWou of place as par'
b
d
gn
lS
precIse
y
a
0
...."
of architecture and ur an
di
It e The result is that places
deepening commo ty eu ill .
.
and. parce! 0 f an everketable entities end up creatmg a '
c
' t
themselves
as
mar
that seek tu di Herentla e
,
Bo . 1988)
kind of serial replication of ho~ogenelty ( h yet, I c'cede to the construe: ,
d' e1
. as [0 W Y peop e a
;
The question irrune lchat y anses 'The sh~rt ansWer, of course. is that they ,
tion of their places by su - a process.
. . full
ft n don't, The historical geography of place constructiOn~lS'mmunity neeo>!:;
o e
gh fi
ciall' t reinvestment (to meet u
,"
of struggles fou t orfs~
YJUs. " pressive of ,,~alues other than those
, th d dopment 0 communIty ex
'
".
tor e ev
.
d' dustdaHzation the despoIianon
.:.
exchange or against ell
'
h
be
' .<
d
money an
).
d the like The upper classes ave en ;',,';
an
'
las' t h ' ;
th rough highway constructlon, ffi
. ) the
lower c ses tn IS
'.
as active (and of coun;e more e ectI~e ash'
'b'lity thatnas an,en , ...,"
' u e bourryeolS est etiC seOS1 1
Appealing to t h at eli stmc Y
~ . ' hen t to desi and protect
he eighteenth century, the bourgeOiSIe 0
ry
. gn both na~
t
"
" " , ' (Iii< G ilfurd) in terms of relatIOns to
.
..
of dlsnnctlve qU<illues
e u

es:'

to culture. These qualities are powerfully protected as part of their own

particular patrimony.. And one of the forces that has to be protected against is
crass capital accumulation on the land.
Lefebvre (1991) is quite right, therefure, to insist that class struggle is
everywhere inscribed in space through the uneven development ofthe qualities
of places. Yet it is also the case that such resistances have not checked the overall
process ofplace construction through capital accumulation (speculative capital
when denied the option to build or despoil one city or neighborhood has the
habit of quickly finding somewhere else to go), But instances of popular
complicity with speculative activities are also plentiful, These typically arise
out of a mixrure of coercion and cooptation. Cooptation is largely organized
around (a) dispersed. property ownership which provides a mass base for
speculative activity {no one wants to see the value of their house tumbling},
(b) the benefits supposedly to be had from expansion (btinging new
employment and economic activities into a place), and (c) the sheer power of
pro-capitalist techniques of persuasion (growth js inevitable as well as good for
you). For these reasons labor organizations otten join rather than oppose local
groWth coalitions. Coercion arises either through inter-place competition for
capital invest..'Uent and employment (accede to the ca-pitalist's demands or go
out of business, creare a "good business climate" or lose jobs) or. more simply.
through the direct political repression and oppression of dissident voices (Om
.. cutting off media access to the more violent tactics of the construction mafias
. - such as the Yakuza in Japan or the i\4:aiia in the Cnircd State~).
But the purchase of place" over our thinking, our politics and our social
practices cannot simply be attributed to these trends, powerful and persuasive
may be in many instances. The generalization of civic bOO-sterism, of
'gnoWlth-Jmacbine politics, of cultural homogenization through divetsificaiion,
provides a full accounting for place-hound identities. Nor can it account
strength of political attachments which people manifest in relation to
pmicuIat place... So where can we look fur oilier explanations?

IY. Heidcgger and Place as the Locus of Being

said Heidegger, "is the locale of the tn!.th of Being." Many writersthosewitrun the phenomenological tradition - have drawn heaviJy
him and it is useful to iiee how his argument unfol(Js. He begins with a

rustan.ce., in rime and space arc shrlnkiug. '" Yet the frantic abolition of all
hrir:gs no ne--c.rness; for nearness does :lot consist in shortuess of
w.'!:u is least remote from us in point of distance~ by virtue of its picture
or j(S sound on radio, can remain.fur from us. W'hat 15 incalculably far

From Space to Pfilce and Back Again 301

300

Space, Time, and pfilce

,
cthinu gets lumpeu
.
f di
can he near to us. ... E very
/;)
from us in pomt 0
s~cecel
What is it that unsettles and thus
.
:c fro distan
es-sness. ...
~L:_

together mto unllO

. If' th
. n which P'l1Pn'llll1-1g presences,
, elfandhidesttse in ewaYl
~'-I
_L:
terrifies? It shows I t s .
f di tafices the nearness of uungs
. the fact that despIte all conquest 0 s
nameIy, In
6 )

remains absent. (Heidegger, 1971: 1 5

time--s ace compression." the fear of a loss. of

Notice the sense of tercor of
. p .th I ) as the space-time coonhn.
d
d
identdicatlon WI p ace
all
identity (un erstOO as
bl This terror is omnipresent because
ates of social life become unsta e:
f th taV among things" and are
"
. h
h cebvVlrtue o elrs ,
.
mortals persist t roug spa
,
h'
ace relations among thmgs.
therefore perpetually threatenedd by c angmgars,1y bring with it understanding
'caI
ess oes not nece5S
Furthermore, PhYSl nearn
.
"thing" (or for fhat matter
or an ability to appreciate or even approptlat';:atfhe achieved shifts in space
another person) properly. Heldeggderifire~gn!Z<Sd ~orket exchange and invokes
mmO catlon an
relations are a produet 0 f co
an argument close to Ma.rx's:
,Uo.u.

. .

ea J -

itself over the earth. ever

ech I ica1 domlDlon ~'Pr u.s

.
.
the object-character 0 f (
no og 1 el' N t only does it establish all thmgs
more quickly. ruthlessly, and comp ~ Yo, ~ 't also deliyers the products of
'bl . th rocess of prouuctlon , 1
h
as produCl e m e P f th
k I self-assertive production, the uman~
production by means ~ ~:;rh~: s~ssoive into the calculated market value
ness of
and the thiugn
g wh I
th as a world market, but also,
of a market which not only spans the
e ,ear d thus subjects all beings to
as the will to will. trades in th~ na~ure 0
estmgten~ciouslv in those areas where
hat uom.mates mo
1
cal l '

thetradeofa

tB

cuatlOn[

there is no need of nwnbers.

(H'd
el

egger,

1971: 114-15)
'

. Iar way. He ",-imdraws

\l this in a very partlCU
Heidegger, however, reacts to a
d eks
., to uncover fhe rruths of
way.
. th
h . Id market an se
attention from t e wor
' . Th
neept which he focuses on IS at
human e:.asrence phenomen~loglcallY'd e.co. on of a Black Forest farmhouse:
of "dwdling." He illustrares It wlfh a escnpt!
1 earth and heaven, divinities and
Her"" the self-sufficiency of the powe~ to et d ed th house It places the farm

. ~~m~
e
.
mortals enter in simple onene~ mto I ki'
th among the meadows close
d
tam slope 00 ng sou ,
I
on the wind-shd tere moun .
ha'
hingle roof whose proper s ope
.
1
.t the Wlde over nglng S
h' 1'to the spnng. t gave 1
d h' ch reaching deep down. s Ie ill>
bears up under the burden of snow, an w 1. ~ n;"'h. .... It did not forget the
.
n ,vlnter -'-5'"~~'"
the chambers agamst the stormS ~f theblo. ~
de room in its chamber for the .
ha th .
h onunUnltl'ta le, it rna
altar corner behin d tee
th'"
f h dead" _ for that is w t ey'Idhed d e tree 0 t e
ch
f
hallowed places 0
1
an
d . h
it designed for the different
th T otenbaum - an m t IS way
craft:
call a coffin there; e
h
f th.'r JOumf'V through rime. A
.
der
of the c aracter 0
~
-J
" b ilt
7

generatlons un
one ro d II'
"U uses its tools and frames as thmgs. u
which, itself sprung from we lflgo st1 '1
the farmhouse. (Heidegger, 1971: 160,

Dwelling is the capacity

to

.. at

achieve a sptntu

un

ity between humans

fhings. From this it foHows that "only if we are capable of dwelling, only then
am we build." Indeed, buildings "may even deny dwelling its own nature ,,-hen
fhey are pursued and acquired purely for their own sake" (Heidegger, 1971:
156). Although there is a narrow sense of homelessness which can perhaps be
alleviated simply by building shelter, fhere is a much deeper crisis ofhomelessness to be found in the modern world; many people have lost their roots, their
connection to homeland. Even those who physicaHy stay in place may become
homeless (rootless) through the inroads of modem means of communicarion
(such as radio and television). "The rootedness, me autochthony, of man is
fhreatened today at its core." If we lose the capacity to dwell then we lose our
roots and find ourselves cut off from all sources of spiritual nourishment. The
impoverishment of existence is incalculable (c the citations from Birringer.
above, p. 243). The flourishing of any genuine work of art, Heidegger (1966:
47-8) insists, depends upon its roots in a native soil. "We are plants which whether we like to admit it to ourselves or not - must with our roots rise out
of the earth in order to bloom in fhe ether and bear fruit. Deprived of such
roots, art is reduced. to a meaningless caricature of its fonner self The problem,
therefore, is to recover a viable homdand in which meaningful roots can be
established. Place consrruction should be about the recovery of roots, the
recovery of the art of dwelling.
Heidegger's "ontological excavations" have inspired a particular approach to
understanding the social processes of place construction. He focuses our
attention on the way in which places "are constructed in our memories and
.aJfeccions fhrough repeated encounters and complex associations" (Relph, 1989:
'26-9). He emphasizes how "place experiences are necessarily time-deepened and
mem,"y-qlWjified." He creates "a new way to speak. about and care for our
.nun:lan nature and environment," so that "love of place and the earth are
:s~atcidyserltirnefltal extras ro be indulged only when all technical and material
:probllerrlS have been resolved. They are part of being in me world and prior,
therefore, to all technical matters. This poses the whole question of the relation
nature. Place and environmental meanings and politics are inseparable
place is the locale of the truth of being in nature (see Budl, 1995).
nere rue<, however, some difficulties wim rhe Heideggerian argument. Like
philosophers, he remained extraordinarily vague in his presctiptions
luscornm.entarors have had a 5e1d day elaborating on what all this might
For example, whar might the conditions of "dwelling" be in a highly
CWUlLCU, modernist, and capitalist world? We cannor rum back to the
farmhouse, but what is it mat we might turn to? The issue of
(rootedness) of the experience of place (and nature in place) is,
..
a difficult one. To begin with, as Dovey (1989: 43) observes, the
of aumenticity is itself peculiarly modern. Only as modern industrial.
us from the process of production and we encounter the
lfOllment as a finished commodity does it emerge. Being roored in place,

From Space to Place and Back Again

'"

302

il\'
!!

Space, Time, and Place

.
. different kind of experience from havmg and
Tuan (1977: 198) argues, is a u l d
unity may have shrines and
.
f I
"A tr y roote comm
cultivating a sense 0 p a~e"
h
and societies for the preserva.. uI kely to ave museums
monuments, but it is U i
k
f place and of the past is now
)' Th ff; t to evo e a sense 0
tion of the past.
e e or
" .
dan er The uest for authenoften deliberate and ~nsciousd' But herem h"esa!i~d h~ri;age e~ture. The final
..'
d tr diuons an a commerc
.
<tClty, lllvente
~
cCanneli (1976: 8) suggests, is not the dIsappearance
VICtory of moderlllty, 1v1a b '
"fi .al preservation and reconstruction.
of the non-modern world ut ~ts art~dcl
d acceprance ofHeideggeis claim
Nevertheless, there seems to. e a WI esprea dness is being destroyed by the
that the authenticity of dwellmg and of roodte.
and mass values. Place is
I
. altsm mass pro ucnon,
spread of t echn0 ogy, ration
6, rendered '~inailthentic" or even placeless"
being destroyed, says Relph (197 ~d depth of penetration of the market. The
r
by the sh:er orgamzanonal
of lace which is then held up as the political
res",mse IS to construct a polm
Ph'
'.
Kirkpatrick Sale
r. ed 1 d of an aut entiC ~tence.
way furward to the prorrus. ':" a! The Nation: "The ouly political vision
e based on an understanding of, a
(1990) writes in a left-leamng Journ

through an intimate sensuous interaction in place. It is, Buell (1995) remarks,

almost impossible to consider environmental issues vviiliout at some point

confronting the idea of place. There is also a rather touching and abiding f.Uth
in much of the literature that "by reviving a sense of place we may he able to
reactivate the care of the environment" and that "a reawakened sense of beauty

of IDea! places may fuel a deeply spiritual concern for the preservation of the
ecological diversity and uniqueness of each place" (Liihurne, 1989: 30, 110).
This f.Uth can be found not only in the theologicallitetatute (Lilburne, 1989:
Brueggemann> 1977 but is also strongly evident in bioregionalist, communitarian, and anarcho-socialist forms of ecological politics (see chapter 3). It also
plays a key role in environmental justice movements (chapter 13). Place is the
preferred terrain of much environmental politics. Some of the fiercest
movements of opposition to the po1iticaI--economy of capitalistic place
construction are Vt'aged over the issue of the preservation or upsetting of valued
env;ronmental qualiries in particular places.

PO:

Much of this rests on die belief that deep experiential understanding of

~ature" cannot be had on the run ttom one place

that offers any hope of S:::~t 1: o:nd a resacralization of, place."

0
rootedness in, a deep com
h. 'lace is becoming more rather than less
This permits a second cut at w y p Wh H'd
holds out and what
world
at el egger
,
. th

::~:;~lat~:~~ntol:ci~ lifeh(or in~th0w~at mapnaYeT:~~:p'::s~~~~a~:~::;

"th li
ld") toget er Wi tlme-s
e e war,
. 1 fc
alternative constructions of place
resistances that mcreasmg Y oeusfa:'
rd) The search for an authentic

call

~e broadest sens~:n~c r~:~on ~o nature among many radical

U:U .

sense of commumty and ofan

ed e of exactly such a sensibility, Even .
and ecological movements IS e cuttmg I g
re than "just the site of-an
Raymond Williams (1979 a: 276) saw p ace as ;:th' ft n uite extensively
event ... but the materializatihon of a hi~toryh Wpte~ 1 I:;pl;re ~he political and
me a
,
d "H"is noveIs, as '\\re ave. seen
retracte.
f b th mplicitv with and resistance [0
.
.
f lace as a sIte 0 0 co
~
.
affeCtive meamng 0 P
.
'u1 enough credibility in the Heideggenan
capital accumulation. Thete is certal y
'd'
.f as I shall show,
make it worthy of careful consl er~tI~n, ev~n

another. Some of the

nature as a key component to social life. The evocation of the particular

.qualiries of place becomes a means to explore an alternative esthetic to that
'nIt.",.., through the restless spatial flows of commodities and money. This
re<luilred a deep and often contemplative familiarity with local fauna and flora,
soillcqualiti'~, geologies, and the like, as well as the intricate histoty of human

ill"

t to

(Q

classics of natural history - such as Gilbert 'W'lllte's A Natural History of

_ Selbourne - testilY to the importance of such deep local knowledge. A whole
1genre of ecologically sensitive writing about particular places - some of it
peculiarly beautiful and powerful- has sprung up since the Enlightenment in
: parr through the estheticization of a particular place-hound relation to

important m e contemporaryd
Ii'
h'un;c the possibility of some kind
"t sha.ve rawn rom
"........
'manysubsequentW;i e:
f
. I capItalist (or modernist) logicotplace
on
of resistance to or reJecn 0 ~Yll SImp
the th
creasing penetration of tech.
I
uldthenroow at e
.
construction. t wo
d'fi'
d market values and capital
. al
. nal'
f commo 1 catton an
'

(understood in

303

-.

~~::; strong grounds for rejecting it in its origmal gwse.

V. Place as the Locus of Environmental Qualities

. .
~ of presencino- things in in1:irr..t<' dOS<:I!ess,
Heidegger, in conJuting up a process _ f
n~ienated relation to
cultivates immediately an ImagInary 0 an u

",,:u,>ancy, environmental modification and the embedding of human labor

in,th"land. particularly in the huilt environment.
.Thecolon.xtion between ecological sentiments and place deserves, however,
critical probing. The intimacy of many place-based accounts - Thoreau's
and influential exploration of Walden being an exemplary case - yields
. natural knowledge embedded in ecological processes operating at
Scale. Such knowledge is insufficient to understand broader sociaogiicall P"OCesS", occurring at scales that cannot be directly experienced and
therefore outside of phenomenological reach. Furthermore, the
for regarding place as a privileged if not exclusive locus of ecological
rests on the human body as "the measure of all things" in an
and very direct way. Sensuous interaction between the body and
can certainly carry with it a wide range of psychic as well as social
The difliculty is that our relations as organisms embedded in natUre
further into a chain of commodity production and exchange that
every corner of the globe. In so

far as "alienation from nature" is

Space, Time, and Place

,
,
, L d roblem in oontemporary society; then place comes illto
a wlddy acknowl~e P
'all
al'
t d direct sensuoUS mteractIon
,
I
f me potenu Y un lena e
,.
rts own as a oeus o. so
h'd'
'thin the fetishism of commoditles
with environs, But it does so by ';:;'~ W'th S 1 and the realms of human
and ends up fetishizing the human
y, e e ,
,
th
I
f
all
being
in
the
world.
sensa(lon as e oeus 0
. .
. ul '
to be found Wi'th'In
"mIlitant
parnc
arlsm
h
.
f the intimacy
Nevertheless, mueh 0 f t e
.
.
al movements rests on a certam sense 0
.
ecologlcal-envuonment
,
\To la'
f the integri'" of such relattons
'cal
relanons
10 non a
'J
of place-b ased eco1ogr
, ,
f
am Ie) often provokes
ecological politics
(by capitalist
local protests t at can u
ou
(see chapter 13),

From Space to Pke and Back Again

304

dhevelopmben~:r st:.;~::~n:e;~;e :~~ersJ

VI. Place as the Locus of Collective Memory

1 n in the extensive lirerature on place without
It is hard to probe very 0 g
, ti ns between place memory, and
encountering the idea of some strong assocla 0
J
identity:

. 'cal meani s where some L~ings have happened

Place is space whlCh has hisro: vihlch ;~v.ide continuity and identity across
d
which are nOW ren:-embere:t- h'ch'm ~rtant words have been spoken which
15 space In W I
1. P d "
d destiny Place is space
generations. Place
'd . d fi d vocaUon an enVlSiOne
,.
have established 1 entity, e ne
d
J.
h e been made and demands
in which vows have been exchange p~ml~es av
.
'
'
d (B eggemann , cited In Lilburne, 1989,26)
have been Issue. ru

,
which Bachelard insisted in his Poetics
This was one of the strong pOlh':ts upon
b 'eRy since it provides a powerful
I'
rill followlng IS argument n
,
oifSpace, tis wo
,
d
di
th significance of place m
phenomenological baselme to un erstan ng e
relation

to

memory.

.
.tuted bv memory, the stage setting
In the theater of the past that 15 co-?-Stl
I ' At times we think we know
in
their
dorrunwt
ro es.
f
maintains th e characters
1m'
ce of fucttions in the spaces {}
'
-hen
aU
we
ow
IS a sequen
ourse1yes m tune, Vv

h d
t want (0 mdt a'\vay, and who, even
,
bility a belllg w 0 oes no

end"
h b elllg s sta
(e
.
ch f th
ast wants time to susp
in the past, when he sets out In sear 0
mgs p ,

its flight.

rOki~:ogm;~}H~~ m=:~

f me notion
all really inhabited space bears the essednce 0ch
.' n
. associate ea
one ViO
and imagmatlO remam
'
,
.
f memory
dee erun . In the order of ",-.alues, they both constitute a commUllity the thread
p
g Thus the house is not experienced from day to day only, Oil
'<
ill
and Image.
.
_
Through dreams the varlO
of a narrative, or in the celling of our owndsto~. the treasures of forme! days.
dweliing places in our lives co-penetrate an retam
~

305

,.. The house is one of the greatest powers of integration for the thoughts,
memories and dreams ofmankind.... Witham it) man '\\-uuld be a dispersed being.

But is this sense of place confined only to the house as home? Or does it extend
to a broader sense of place as homeland, what the Germans refer to as HeimiUf
The latter word, says Edgar Reitz, director of the 1984 film of that name
(arguably one of the most important cultural productions of the 1980,), "is
always linked to strong feelings, mostly remembrances and longing," It is,
comment Morley and Robins (1993: 8), "about conserving the 'fundamenrals'
of culture and identiry" and "sustaining cultural boundaries and boundedness,
& such, ir appears to point solely to an exclusionary politics of nationalism
and communitarianism (see below) precisely because memories built around
places cannot easily be shared with outsiders,
To put it in those terIllS is to cast something rather more fundamental in
a purely negative lighr, Basso's (1984) study of the Western Apache shows,
for example, how "geographical features have served the people for centuries
as indispensable mnemonic pegs on which to hang the moral teachings of
their history," The permanence of places in the landscape coupled with stories
told that invoke them provides a means to perpetuate a cultural identiry,
Appealing to Bakhtins concepr of the chronotope (see chapter 10), Basso
writes:
One forms the impression that Apaches view the Jandscape as the repository of
distilled wisdom) a stern but benevolent keeper of tradition, an ever-vigilant ally
in the efforts of individuals and whole communities to put into pcactice a set
'-:ofstandards for social living that are uniquely and distinctively their own. In
the world that the Western Apache have constituted for themsdves~ features of
~the landscape have become symbols of and for this way of living, the symbols
a culture and the enduring moral character of its people.
~W,here encounter, in the symbolic dimension, a particular version of that
,'(ilial.ectic between the social and environmental that instanciates one within the
thinking and comprehending their relationships to the physical world
,n,;rrlicl.bn"",, native-Americans engage In a moral act ofimagination that
li;onstitutes an understanding of the physical world at the same time as it
;ci\nsltitu,tes an understanding of themselves, From this it follows thar losing
is equivalent to losing identity and that processes of modernization~
lal,ac.curnullation and spatial integration will be profoundly disruptive of
pat~ic:lilitr markers of cuI rural identity.
t'lr.errlOry of the past is also about hope for the furure, As Mary Gordon
47) puts it:

a link between hope and memo:y. Remembering noching one can:tot

anything. And so time means nothing.

306

Space, Time, and Place

The preservation or construction of a sense of place is then an active moment

in the passage from memory to hope, from past to future. And the reconstruction of places can rev'eal hidden memories that hold out the prospects fu~
different fmures. "Critical regiona1ism" as it is called in architecture, invoking
as it so often does vernacular traditions and icons of place, is considered a basis
for a politics of resistance to commodity flo\vs and monetization. "'l'"filitant
particularism" seizes upon the qualities of place, reanimates the bond between
the environmental and the social, and seeks to bend the social processes
constructing space-time to a radically different purpose. Some memories Can

From Space to Place and Bac.t Aga.in 307

people and places, accompanies them from birth to death
dd
.
.
character or essence.... The m>nj rh' d
h a ' > ~ etermmes thelf
b"
.
b~'~US us enoresw tadUngrs,orwhati
to e .... [AnoeDr man] recom>,' ... ~.~ tha -, f '
t wants
-e'~ "'-u
t It lb 0 great exIstential .
COrne to Lerms with the m>nius of the I cal' ' h
h"
1Illporrance to
- I
b-"
0
tty w ere is life rakes f __ 1 h

past, SurVlVa depended. on a"

d'" l ' h'
well as a psychic sense.
goo re atlOllS lp

to

. PIaCC. n t ethe place 1n a phy-sical as

In elaborating upon this idea Norh

Sch' _
of "dwelling" directly:
,
ergu zmvokes Heldegger's conception

ge suppressed. and others rescued from the shadows as identities shift and
polirical trajectories into the future get redefined. "Imagination, says Bachelard (1964: xxx) "separates us from the past as well as from reality: it faces the

future." Imagined places, the Utopian thoughts and desires of countless

peoples, have consequently played a vital role in animating politics.
Time takes on its spatial meaning- through the praclices. of place construccion in the imagination, in discourse, as wdl as in materia!, social,. and
institutional forms. But are there principles of place construction that tie
together rime past with time future while acknowledging the importance of
memory, the experience of environment and the cav.acity for dwdlir~g in the
lalld~ This is the thesis that is explored through the idea of
genius inci.

me

When man dwells, he is simultaneousIv .located i

environmental dtaracter The

'ch __ caIns~aceandexposedtoacertain

tw

.
0 PSY olOgl- l u n ' 0ns .
called "orientacioll" and "idencifi Gtti "T
.
cu.
l~volved, may be
has (0 be able to orientate himself on. 0 gam an exlsrentl-al foothold man
to identiJY himself with rhe enviro:!ee: :;:
he is. But he also has
certain place.
>
at 1:0, e as to know how he is in a

~o~ ~beTe

_Dwelling consequently entails ahoy all "-d 'fi --_. -d'Er

th
e
I en!l catlonwuh the en .
"
an, ,om 15 It fOllows ..h ... t th 'a1
'_'--1.<1
e t:XlStentl purp
" f b 'Jdi V1rorunent
ture, and urban design is "to un _ th
.ose 0 w ng, archi(ec.
" c o v e r e meanIngs
.al!
the gIVen environment." To rhi k thi
.
pOlenti y present lfl
- - -_ .
aI
n
s way IS not to concede
ythi
to envlIon ment
_' -'

determinism n . .
..
an
ng
' or IS It to inSIst upon a static concepcion of

VII. The Search for Genius Loci

Kitkpatrick Sale's call lOr the "resacralization of place" hint> at how places exist
in relation to a completely different space-rime world to that given in capital
accumulation_ The worlds of myth, of religion, of roUective memoty, and of
national or regional identity are space-rime constructs that constitute and are
constituted by the formation of distinctive places (shrines, places of worship,
icons in stories., etc.). Places expressive of distinctive bdiefs, values~ imaginac
ries, and social-institutional practices have-long been constructed both materially and discursively: The search to perpetuate such processes of
construction continues to this day. !\fany traditional institutions. such as
of church and nation, depend crucially upon me existence of a whole neltw(>tI< c,
of symbolic places to secure their poo'er and. express their social meaning.
as permanences~ become symbolic and redolent of those values (such as
authority, identity, and power) constructed through spatio-temporal p"lcri,~,
Many architects appr<Ydch this process through Heidegge-rian channels.
have sought co capture something of the mythic qualities of places
the concept of ,he genius loci. Writes NorbergcSchulz (1980: 18):

Genius kci is a Roman concept. According ro ancient Roman belief

"independent" being has its geniw, its guardian spiri.t. This spirit gives life

The strUc:ure of a place is nor a fix d,

,
.
e eternal stare k a rul 1
L __ _
Sometlmes rnpld.Iy. This does IlOt mean ho
th -th
e paces c_aange,
, wever at e genius 10 .
'I
or gets lOSt First of aU we
ct necessan y
"capacin/' f
. d
~ pomt out that a.J.y place ought to
"./ 0 receIVIng ijferent contents" llaturall
. hi
.

A place which IS only fitted for one

.cuI

Y wu n certam

Secondly it'
d
pam ar purpose Vi-"Ould soun become
IS ev:t em that a place may be "mrerp ..eted'" diff.
and conserve the gemus loa In fa
.
In
erenr ways
new historical contexts W.
. b ct means to concretize iu essence

e
to be its "self-reahzatlon'" WhIrug ;: ,alsth say tha;: ~~ history of a place
.
at n..-:
\\'a.,
ere as pOSSIbilities at the OUlser.
,i",Jll"ov"",d
through h
.
'
uman actJon.... ~-,-",orberg-Schu1z) 19MO: 18)

in, o~ the exploration of possibilities of a place is a familiar theme

_,
work (seechaprer 1)_ The invucation of"sel-real n- "
alert us to cemun !Ural! I
th ,<,
lza on
>rb'''gcSchulz aI
r- es to e <leep ecology" position (see chapter
( Ii d':' appeals to process--hased philosophy and dialectical
t ne mchapter 2). His examination ofth.---f.,
.
f I
POInts explicit:
e ufI1an1ICS 0 paces

,o:r

economic,
h ave
;'fe'::~:~,;;;~:- athat
",- h social, poli[ical and cultuc......... :ntenoons
way w
represents the geniUs loci. If
th 1 1
1

lil

... Thuswe.i

lC

earn

ha"
;:

no, epace oses

Clues aye to be treated as individULd places,

308

Space, Time, and Plaee

rather than abstract spaces where the "blind" forces of economy and policics may

ha,,'e freeplay. To respect the genius loci does not mean to copy old models.
It means to determine the identity of
place and to interpret it' in ever
new ways. Only rhen we may talk abollt a living tradition which makes
change meanrn.,cful by rdating it to a set of locally founded parameters. We may

me

again remind OUISer{e5 ofAlfred North Whitehead', dicrum: "The art of progress
is to preserve order amid change, and change amid order". A living tradition serves

life because it satisfies these words. It does not understand "freedom" as an

arbirrary play, bur as creanve participation, (Norberg-Schulz, 1980: 182)

Norberg-Schulz's interpretation of the genius loci makes reference to a number

of themes already examined. Buildings "internalize relations to environment,
gathering together social, symbolic, psychological, biological, and physical
relations in place so as to offer some sort ofidentity. The "meanings which are
gathered by a place constitute its genius loci'" he avers. Creative interventions
in the construction of places as "permanences" are integral to a process of "selfrealization," as understood in Whitehead's philosophy of process and change,
The dissolution of place amounts, then~ to a loss of identity. It suggesrs a
fundamyntal spiritual alienation from environment and self that demands
remedial measures> be it constraints on "freedom" as arbitrary play, or constraints on action through fear of offending the genius loci, While such noble
and high-sounding sentiments are directed in Norberg-Schulz's work to the
.Acropolis or St Peter's Square, they can be seen at work in far more ordinary
circumstances such as those of Guilford in Baltimore.
.
There is, ar first sight, much to be said in favor of Norberg-Schuh's argu
ment. It has widespread appeal among groups as diverse as deep ecologists,
architects, and urban designers. The diaiocticallanguage couple4 with a strong
penchant for internalizing relations indicates a potential consistency virith the
theses I have been advancing. But the dangers of what I earlier termed "the
Leibnizian conceit" are everywhere apparent. Consider, for example) some of
the controversies within architecture itself Rossi (1982: 103-7) complains with
respect to the locus concept that:
we continue to grasp at oudines which only evaporate and disappear. These
outlines delineate the singularity of monuments, of the city, and of buildings,
and thus the concept of singularity itself and its limits, where it begins and ends.
They trace the rdation of architecture to its location - the place of art - and
thereby its connections to, and the precise articulation of, the locus itself as a
singular artifact determined by its space and time, by its topographical

dimensions and its form, by its being the seat of a succession of ancient and
recent events~ by its memory. All these problems are in large measure of a,
collective nature; they force us [0 pause for a moment on the relationship'
between place and man, and hence to look at the relationship between ecology
and psychology.

Rossi, at least, is willing to see the genius foC in terms of collective id,:m(ty"

. .

From Space to Place and Back Again

309

resIding at the intersection of si

I'
d
.
fluidity of meaning that Norberg~f'ch:;ty an u~lversaiity. Furthermore, the

,
Z necess.n y admits, Istaken ;,v Ro "'
III a more COnstructlVlst vein to mean th bil"
~l
S~l
fur more open &shion Ro' 1 th e a Ity to explore possibilities in a

S8! rep aces

e 0ppressIy"'" d h
. .
af"man" by "collectivity" while
'. th ' : h omogernzlIlgconcepr
artefacts is always the hisrorv of~cogru~~g at fe istory of "built urban
"
"
~
e arc Itecture 0 rulmg classes" and tha
monuments (key elements of identity'
rb
'
,r
svrnbolicall
d 11'
,
ill U an contextS) are constituted
,
. yan CO octIVely; as sites of memory: But Ro ' till' .
SS1 S
lllSlSts on some
underlymg notion of permanence:
Myths come and go, passing slowly ITom On
recounts L~em differently and

th

I e p ace to ano er; every generation

auw; new e ements to the patr'
' d c...
the past; but behind this changrng' al;
h'
lffiOny receive uum
Ie .ty, t ere IS a permanent reali th '
some \\'ay manages to dude the acri
f'
WT
ty at ill
" d'
f
on 0 tIme. we must recognize th
,.oun aftOn 0 this reality in religious tradition
I bel'
th th'
e true
' al' .
. ...
teve at e wp rt
'(}f ntu In Its colIecrive narure and its
"a1
ch
0 Wee
D
preserving myth constitutes a key to d =encli tharacr:er.as an element for
d
un erstan ng e meanmg of
an , moreover, the Implications of the Ii
d'
f th . monuments
transmission of ideas in an urban COntext I O~btng 0
e CIty and of the
monuments although the' . .Ii
.. attn ute an especial importance to
,
'.
1r S!gru cance III the urban dynamic may at run'
h
_tIllSlve.. ,. For if the ritual is the P d '
es e
then so too is the m
.
e,rmanent an COnservIng element of myth,
,
de'
OnUllletlt, Since, m the very- mOalent that it testifies
vth
I.e cen rs ntual fonns possible. (Rossi, 1982:' 24)
to ffi,
~
J' _

Rossi's fonnnlations open up

,:,- _

.1.

11' .

a wuo e senes 0 questions. Whose identity

CO ectmry, fur example? And if collective memory acq.. ;'
,,",nciiation ID pI
d .f tha
I
~ ,s a cerraID
ace, ,an 1
t co leccive memory is vital to the
etpetu(atio.,n of some s~a1 order (or to the visualization of some ho ed-fur
" .... .
m the future), then all essentialist formulations of th
p,.
',.'
to be replaced b
d'
e gemus wet
".
y a conteste terram of competing delinit'
Th'
the move that L ukaki (1967)
IOns,
IS
,
. .
0
makes in her study of competin
and VlSIOns of the Acropolis over time D'
.'
.g

hI'

'

lSCUr5lve

controversIes

'Clo
' ~eiwhC<e""re'ctfaSd'~e~:o~tspo'~~":'t hisroriansuggl0ver how, to understand the

a1 power str
e coursmg through G ek
tLo: : : : genius gets to define the qualities of which loci. And ~~at

shows, IS not slffiplyabo t th

.
authenticity f thO
tha
II . II
e proper lllterpretation of the
.;! Its or .t co ective memory, but it is also about all
fu nne. lore ease'" dlff.",
'.
,
different im 'n
r~r:t.l~~ary concermng the past is to
>gl ary as to posSlbdmes ill the future The ".' I ,.
,
b ill cit
'
.
",emus lOCI is
de
a
eoretlcally (as to its meaning) and concretelv (
un :and a particular place), The absence of active politic~
can Whenbe taken only as a sign of the domination of some
. . power.
at makes the sit f th >'\c
I'
is th
nl
e 0
e ~ ~ropo IS so interesting. for
, .
at not 0 y are there competing claims based
I
: _,
and 1 I b
on c ass, nallan",
DCa e, ut also competing claims of outside powers {such as
<l-

.....

From Space to Place and Back Again

310

Space, Time, and Place

those of Germany, Britain, and the United States} who appropriate the
Acropolis as a symbol of the origins of western civilization rather than respect
it as a living monument embedded in the history of Greek geopolitical and
political--economic struggles. The burden that the Acropolis bears is tha< it
simultaneously "belongs" to radicilly divergent imagined communities. And
the question as to whom it "truly" belongs has no direct theoretical answer: .it

311

Insof.rr as our constitutive self-unders di

the individual alone whether fam'lytan ~bcomprehend a wider subject than
,
a
I
or a tn e or a Clty
cl
.
people. to this extent they d-"--. .ill th
or a. .
ass or natIon or
elme a commuruty
what makes such a co
..
e constrmtlve sense. And
mmurnry lS not merely a s i ' f b I
vrevalence of commun' .
-;li
P fIt 0 enevo ence. or the

ltanan v ues, or even certain shared final ds" aI

'
one,
_ J ofdiscourse and a backgr
d f' I"en
but a common vocabuhrv
and understandings within which th
.
Dun ~ Imp !Cit praaices
finally dissolved.
e Opacity of persons IS reduced if never

is determined through political contestation and struggle and, hence, is a

rdatively unstable determination.

VIII. Place as the Locus of Community

The invocation of Benedict Anderson's phrase "imagined community"
links ro yet another dimension of what the idea and practice of place might
be about. The history of the word "comrilunity" is just as fraught and
ambivalent as that of the concept of place. The intertwining of the twO terms
makes for even more complicated layers of meaning. But something has to be
said, for places acquire much of their permanence as well as much of their
distinctive character from the collective activities of people who dwell there>
who shape the land through their activities, and who build dil;tinctive
institutions, forms of organization. and social relations within, around or
focused on a bounded domain. The collective memory that attaches ro places
connects to the imaginary of belonging. "Imagined communities" acquire a
certain reality through practices that derive as much from imaginary and
discursive links between individuals (mediated in our own times through the
activities of "print and image capitalism") as- from face-to-face contact (see, for
example, the <.arlier discussion of Zizek's analysis of eastern European
nationalism in chapter 5). The practical and discursive practices of
"bounding" space and creating the permanences of particular places is likewise
a collective affair within which all sorts of contested administrative, military,
and social practices occur. And this isas true of hounded communities like
Guilford as it is of the nation state.
Such bounding activities are nearly always partial in their effects (where does
a city or a neighborhood begin and end?) and the socio-ecological PDocesses
ilia< constitute space ensure that all places (even those with strictly contr."Il,e4.
terrirotial borders) are to some degree open. This was precisely Wllireh<,td's'
point about any kind of permanence, and in contemporary so,cia-ecologic
life the multiple flows and heterogeneity of processes at work ensw:e
places are in a permanent state of flux (with the usual proviso of
geographical development thar some places are more in flux than orners all'
some more permanent and securely bounded than others).
bo n
So how, then, should territorially hounded community be co:nsi,dered ,
empirically and normatively? Here is how Sandel (1982: 172-3) sees it:

."
.
The emphasis on "'common discourse and im licit
distinctive point of entry to the'
f
p . pracnces proVIdes a quite
.
issue 0 commuruty d
'
. that gIven by Zizek (see chapter 5). It defi
th
an nation compared to
realm within which notions of civi . nes belicomrnonal.ty of some public
," can be defin d B th
c VIrtue, pu c responsibility; and the like
'Enl'gh
e . . ut ere are plenty of ctitics of what is in effea a
tenment VIew of p bli'
d ..
very
'. .
is critical of both~e cre;;:~::
CIVIC l!fe. Young (1990a), for
.. entails as well as the way th t "d . e f,0mo~enClty that such a universal<sue or umty or wh I
. d'
a
. ..
bordets dich
.
d'
0 eness In !Scourse
". . _'.:~.e'I.c<,;r(lenunci,'t'iorlS f, otomles~
th fr an excluslOfls." Indeed' Young reserves h er
. "....fo:.lmmlmirariaru'sm thrt eo henldnarrow, place-based, and intimate versions
.
a now 0 center stage Such
"often implies a denial of time and space
condcept ofcommunY.ICC.-to-fa,ce int
.
an an InSIstence on
etaCtlOn
among
members
within
I
ali
are she"
"
a p ur ty of conteXtS." But
;:;~~u~~n~cnscocialep.tua1elag~unds fur considering face-to-face
.
.
distan
Th' .
" r nons than relau'ons mediated across
ceo
IS IS a CruCial Issue for an und
t d'
f I
it may be true that in modern
" th
. ers an mg 0 p ace. For
as well
fali'
SOCiety
e pnmary structures of value
as 0
enauon and domination are defined b tate
circulation, it does not follow that all medi d Y s!a power
alienatrng' and th t th . .
ate ce tions are
a
e mnmacy of Ia . th
nI
socio-ecolo'cal I .
..
ce IS
e 0 y locus of
e1'
. gI re anons. By pOSltmg a society ofimmediat fa
allons as.ldeal, community theorists generate a dichotom'" bee ce-

a;:

dis~cing:

:nOte

:!~:

Ii::~

IUd"cb:nar"ic'ac:'r:!
future and the 'inauthentic' society :e
.. .
fth
'. yalienanon, bureaucratization and degradati "
.CtltiClSmoe Heideggerian tradition is strong "Racism th . chon.
ass devaluation
,.-l.....
' . ) e me
au... grow P~~l from the deme for comm"~;tv"
cl
tatest
y,
h
.
d
th
~U'r
S sitiada.,j s e ~es (an
"the
e Guilford example well illustrates
tb po ve I entmcauon of some groups is otten achieved b fi
er groups as. the other, the devalued semihum
y rst
an."
~ppress1Veness, moreover, gets mirrored in int
al
.
pomt of Yo'
I' .
ern represSIons.
.
ungs arg~ent res m her own experience of the
. .
of many radical groups And . .
th
:\l~lthoughtth
"h'
.
It IS war remembering
'th.
. at ystena was linked to place" (cited in Kristev 1986
e
IS much b ad
. a quite different d fin'., .
ro er: th ere IS
f.
.thasad k
d
e mono
. . th
ar an repugnant presence. Foucault (1977), for
T

.....

From Space to Place and Back Again

312

\!\
i '" '

Space, Time, and Pidee

unities put under the strIctest

t onlv those sealed comm
e
' ghl' ht
examp1e, h I Ig S n o ,
' h e hospital the school, the lactory
'II
th
ison the panoptlcan, r
,
ed
'
survel anee .e p r ,I that prod uce doCI'Ie bodies totally enclos anu
- but wne~ 01 contro,
ch'
of disciplinary powers, This IS the
imprisoned lfl the repressIve;: 1J~~},';n The Uses o[Disorder, so brilliantly
kind of community that Sen
"
d inhibitory feature of much of
fundamentallv repressive an
,
f
'a!
dissects as a
I
h
fu ti ns as a dosed teCfaffi 0 SOC1
b
life P ace ere nc a
, chi
contemporary ur an
'e1 hard to break (or break out of) once It a eves
control that becomes extreID Yd th
'InterestS involved in building and
,
'lar
ce An
ere are
, I
Its parncu
permanen, "th U ' ed States. for example, severallSo ated
, ..
such places. In e nIt
,
I gal
mamta1Ilmg
..
. Ian ua e access to the rest of soClety, e status,
ethoie comII';unltles (lackin~ h~ ~ovide docile bodies for the in!1umerable
civil integratlon, and Civil ng thoPcall distinct capitalist class, Community
sweatshops run by the same ~ I Yng1 upported by ideologies of ethnic
t
solidarities promoted by that ass, sd ":' hiclYsfor capiral a~wnulation !Dunded
,'
ol'da
'ty are an assure yC
e
h .
and re IIglOus s i n ,
, '
Th"
for example , e Import
on some of the worst forms of explOltatlon.
IS IS: d
tured ~r effecti,,-dy
f sweatshops run on III en
of several recent accountS 0
I [ L" (1 Q95) and Kwong's
1 b ' N York and Los Ange es see u /
imprison ed a or In l ew h
lab
loitation is organized through
(1987) intimate study, of, ,ow Tor y,e.'<Pk' Chinatown],
,
f eth' olIdantles m New or s
promonon 0
~I~ S
dual' ill within the communitarian argument,
The effect of thIS IS to create d ':al
I p ~- 'uce docile bodies in closed
'
a
n
soC! contro rou
On the one IIand , represslOlli f
I"
and at the other extreme the
all manner 0 exp oitation
I '
places open to
".
be the basis of a revO utlonary
"'
f mmunltanan po,,"'"e!S can
I '
mo billZanon 0 co
hak th
Id Young's idealist so unon [Q
. ul'
that can s
e eWor.
.
militant partie amID"
I th dealofJace-tofacecommunitywlth
.
d Cles 15 to rep ace e 1
}) Whil
these oppOSing ten e n . <
e
. ." defi d openness to unassl'm!"lated. otherness.
an "unoppresSlve City
. ne ,ilS I '
to the actual dynamics of urhani1a,
'e1 peCified
In re anon
'
d
.
.
.
th celebration of difference an
this term 15 nalV y s
"
wb
h It pomts e
n
Ie .
"
" f interest. It seeks to build upon
tion, the d treeno to
'th
overarchmg unity - IS 0
,
diverSity WI some,
' l ic '
hich differences of all sorts are
,'
ences of c,ty re In W
'bi!'
those pOS1t1ve expen
d i d It presupposes, in effect, the pOSS1 tty
'ed
egot,ated
an
to
erate
'
'th'

emb0 d 1 ,n , . ~
.an and Heideggerian conceptions Wi In a m\
of somehow brtdg~ the ~ b 'dge might look like will be taken up
kind of radical polincs, What
t n
n discourses and imlplicit.'
"
phaslS upon commo
The communltanan e r n
,
' ,
d places
h
f demortstratlllg that communlrtes an
practices has t e Vlttue 0
f d'
"b their falsitv!genumeness,
be distinguished in the realms 0 !Scourse Yed" (And~rson 1983).
hich
[only] by t?efustydle in wall tth1dsa::;;~~nidea of some ~i1y
I Slon IS n ament v a 0
..
cone u

th " l > d "'inauthentic" communltles or

distinction between au entle an.
.'
d representation
Marx (1967: 177 -8) is right and ,magmatlon.::'
fS d I
oduction then Heidegger's ,~ew (like ose 0 ,an ,en'aciJaed
precede pr IE."
wboever) becomes just one pOSSible II
Prince Char es~ !ZIOnI, or
i

313

of place awaiting a material embodiment. Heidegger may have invoked a long

deep past and the seemingly deep permanence of a pristine language, but he
also recognized ,hat it was impossible to gu back ro a world made up of Black
Forest farmsteaas and that it was necessary to press fonvard, in ways which
national socialism then seemed. to promise, to construct anew kind of "authen-

tic" community appropriate to that time and place, Yet it is, paradoxically, the
very conditions against which Heidegger revolts thar permit the search for an
imagined auther:tic community to become a political possibility, thus open
ing up the definition of "the authentic" to social construction as a manifestation of power relations and social struggle.

IX. Heidegger Contra Marx: Splitting Differences

NorbergSchulz (1980: 168) argues that Marxism fails in its refusal to deal with
the: mythic qualities of places. Marxism) he says~ does not arrive at a full
. undemanding of 'dwelling', and fujls in its attempt" to recover from that
hl.ullim alienation which arises from "man's loss of identification with the
. "arLU41 and man-made things which constitute his environment." Since this
also "at the root of our actua1loss of place," it follows that the insensiof Marxism to the diverse qualities of place and the rieb range of
.~;, rn,,aninl;S that can be derived therefrom {including intimate relations with the
is one of its most serious political liabilities. There are dear
iffi,:en,oes, therefore, between the Marxian and Heideggerian traditions with
"""'Ce'TO the understanding of place. But are the diffurences so irreconcilable
in:p'riincipl,'? Or is there a certain unity within the difference?
Marx, analysis of the world of material social practices, of money circulacommodity production, and e.'!Ccbange defines a spatio-temporal world
social relations and univetsal valuations, within which places necessarily
'th,:idleilll'; ,as constitutive elements within the histotical geography of capital
mulariion, But this spatio-temporal world also defines an equally universal
of moral, economic, and political tesponsibiliry for our "species being"
~; tholllgl:t cl,anJ.ct,orized by alienation and exploitation, has to be rescued by
pol~tic:al-ecc.nomi'c strategy of class struggle. This does not imply that
ixperi,:ntiial world which lies immediately at hand is irrelevant, But what we
sensuous interaction with the things we touch and the processes we
!Y1::nc:ount<or is different from what we need to know to understand the
commodity production and exchange that put our global breakfast
tables. This was the distinction that Marx sought to capture
"the ii:tishism ofcommodities," What we immediately experience
act,:qu,ate to understand the political-economic realities of our
pn:cise\y Marx's poinr that immediate experience is so authentic
rmam:ntly tempt us to regard it as all there is and so ground our sense of

From Space to Place and Back Again 315

314

Space, Time, and place

..,

"cal co,=~
~~;trnents entlfelv, wIthin Its
bir. d 0 f poIIt!
being, of mocal respOllSi lry, anb
d d tty as he puts it in his early work,
myopic frame. Marx seeks to go eyo~b an Ii'n'cs which individuals realize
.
f"
'esbemg yapO
to construct a sense
spOCi
"--_
. n' with others across the surface
. di .d ar
oIy through l l = assOCIa on
their full In V> U. Ity a .
and uncertain rhetoric, but it suggests that
of the em:h. This IS notorlously,-ague.
th
rld of sociability which has been
back, that we = o t reject e wo
bal
and
'we cannot goth.
linkin fall peoples and places into a glo eronomy,
achieved by e illter
go
thi chi eIDent and seek to transform it
that we should $Om.ehoW build upon or~;f I~ constrUcted through the logic
in socially constructIve ways. The netw I ~ to be transfurmed and used fur
pe
of apitalist development, for exam ,
L
yed. But place construction is
.
rather than reJ"cted or <=tr0
f
progressIve purposes .
. ndirecd) ,'lith the universalisms 0 money,
now complicitous (directly or I .th Y.
ay cballengingthe alienation.
'cal dexchangewl outmanyw
tal
di
commO ty, capl , an
.
thr ugh specific forms of environmen
The instan~rion of social. relal1~llS to ~ th, production of place. a moment
In'

transformauon here comes ~to. P.Y . d

of social relations, lflStlrutIOns

in the consolidation of a caPlta!lst-mSprre regune

and political--economic p~~.
ki
lass politics otten abstracted from
nonallSt wor ng-c
f

UnforrunateIy, mterna
.
.
. I places. It lost some 0 its
.al
rld of expetlence In partlCU at
dr
the maten wo
th
. of universal considerations ove
credibility and appeal bec~lLSule ... promft1~~ nment milieu, collective mem. . .
the partIe antIeS 0 envt 0 ,
.. ~_1
out senslUVlty to
,vn..;1 . .
thing to articulate a cnUl:al

yth
huilt
forms.
w w e ItIS one
.
ory; corn.mumty, m.'
_j onlv on all of these, it is qUlte another - as
line agamst a politics h~ I '
d
fashion a politics that treats the
"~~ond Wil\iams so effectIve y argue - to .

~J'"
th more than a nurnbmg funtasy.
politics of place as no mg
tall'ects any sense of moral responsIHeidegger, at the other =retne: to Y reJ and conternplarive experience.
d th
rld of immedi ate sensuous
I
aru:l
bility beyon
e wo
. th
Id f comrooditv; money, techno ogy,
He rejects any dealings WI~ aledi,;~r 0 flab r He 'contracts his field of vision

.
non
ViSion 0
0 .
___ oj
production VJa any mterna . 'al
ld t ask questions about the innare anu
r
expenent!
wor
0
d
.
bili'
to a mnch narrowe
.
f things He I'nsists upon the irre uCl ty
"
f
nence 0
.
immanent qu al ltIes 0 expe
d
'fi ..
f place and environment. In so

f d dling an specI otIes 0

.
of the experIence 0 W
th t ut breakfast on his
doing he denies the relevance. of those p,?ce:~~ !d of dwelling in mc,dern
and evokes the loss of authenn~;m.~~tyrhe latter strikes a potent chord

life. The for;:e!;,~:,ss~~~ph (~~6: 96), "places

indeed a
many peop;:
. the world if they are sources of secunty aru:l iClen'ti')'
aspect of manS exIStence m
f ' I then it is important that the
for individuals and for groupS 0 . peepe, . ificant places are not lost."
.'
fina and malJ1tammg Sign
of expenenang, crea~",
.
il I nd themselves to an UlteJll,,:{:!t
The prohlem is that such sentm~ents eas Yd e
chialist contemplative
li' that' both exclUSIOnarY an paro
,
and a ~
IS...f
t intensely nationalist (hence
than aCtlVISt, cornmuru~an 1 '::~_
mediated social rdati(}llShips.
respect for Nazism). Hetdegger """,,05 to see

?CS

the market or any other medium) with others (things or people) as in anyway
expressive ofany kind of authenticity. Indeed, mediated relationships ofthis sort
are fctt as threatening to identi1y and any true sense of self, while anything which
contributes to or smacks of rootlessness is rejected outright (does this explain his
antagonism ro the historical diaspora and rootlessness of the Jews?). Experience,
furthermore, becomes incommunicable beyond cenain bounds because authentic art and genuine esthetic sense can spring only out of strong rootedness in
place. This, as we saw, was the case with the Western Apache (see ahove). This
exclusionary vision becomes even more emphatic, however, given his views on
the power oflanguage oyer social life. Places become the sites of incommunicable
othernesses. There can be no interlinkage in the world of esthetics or of
communicable meanings of the son that modernism often sought, even in a
context of strong interlinkage in the material world of production and exchange.
From this standpoint, it is not han:! to see how Heidegger figures so ofren in
postmodern thinking as a precursor of ideas concerning the creation of
"interpretive communities," fragmented language games, and the like. And it is
not hard to see how the crass and commercial side ofpostrnodernism could play
upon these sentiments and market the vernacular, simulate the authentic and
invent heritage, tradition, and even commercialized roots. Yet, oddly, there
persists another commonality with Marx. Heidegger persists in seeing authentic
communities as materially and physically rooted in particular places through
.
rather than as being constructed solely, as so frequently happens in
pilstmc.dernist rhetoric, in the realros of discourse. Heidegger is, in the first
amu:ys.", just as oommitred to the vital moment of production as a privil'Cged
m')ffi'ent of sensual engagement with the world as is Marx.
ifl am corteCI, and modernism (as it is now generally interpteted) and
.p.";unodt",,,ism are dialectically organized oppositions within the long history
emity (Harvey, 1989a: 339), then we should sran: to think of these
not as mutually exdusive but as oppositions which contain the
For Marx the potential repressions, rnisronceptions, and exploitation are
.
as an outcome of a purely place-based politics in a spatially
calJiralist world. For Heidegger, the phenomenological realism of a
,lace-b,ase,d experience of dwelling is the only respite from that world. Marx
ds'exp",riem::e within the fetishism as authentic enough but surficial and
Heidegger views that same world of commodity exchange
xilno,logical rationality as at the root of an inauthenticity in daily life
co h.",,, berepudiiated. This common definition of the root of the problem
h'spe.::i1i"d as peculiarly capitalist by Marx and modernist - i.e., both
socialist - by Heidegger) provides a common base from which
a betrer understanding of place. What happens, then, when we
ditrere:l1o," as dialectical oppositions?
answer~ is that we live in a world of universal tension between
interpersonal social relations (including those of domination and

316

Space, Time, and P/oc,

repression) in place (with intense awareness of the environmental qualities of

that place) and another dimension of a",meness in which we more or less
recognize the material and social connection between us and the millions of
other people who have, for example, a direct and indirect role in putting our
breakfast on rhe table. Put more' formally, what goes on in a place cannot be
understood outside of the space relations which support that place any more
than the space relations can be understood independently of what goes on in
particular places. This is, in any case, exactly what the abstract theery of place
outlined at the beginning of this chapter tells us. While that may sound banal
or trivially true, the manner of its conception has major ramifications for
political thinking and practice.

X. The Construction of Places Through Socio-spatial Practices

Places are constructed and experienced as material ecological artefacts
and intricate networks of social relations. They are the focus of the imaginary,
of beliefs, longings, and desires (most particularly with respect to the psychological pull and push of the idea of "home"). They are an intense focus
of discursive activity, IiIled wirh symbolic and representational meanings,
and they are a distinctive product of institutionalized social and politicaleconomic power. The dialectical interplay across these different moments of
the social process (see figure 4.1) is intricate and confusing. But it is precisdy
the way in -w-hich all of these moments are caught up in the common flow of
rhe socia! process that in the end determines the conJlictual (and oftentimes
internally contradictory) processes of place construction~ sustenance, and
deconstruction. This may all seem rather daunting, but ir is the only way to
attack the rich complexiry of social processes of place construction in a coherent
way. Let me illustrate.
Times Square in New York city was built up as a pure piece of real-estate and
business speculation around the creation of a new entertainment district in the
1890s. In the early 1900s the name was pushed through by the New York
which had just relocated in the Square (after a!1, the New York Herald, its
rival, was located in Herald Square further downtown). The Times orl;anjze,,,,
the grand new year's eve celebration of lireworks and, u1timatdy, the cel:eOl..,;
tory lowering of the ball, as a promotional gimmick. Thousands came not olll;(;
on that day but throughout the year to sample the entenainmem:s, watch
eat out, survey the latest fashions, and pick up gossip or information on
from business and reai-estate deals to latest trends in entertainment,
and rhe private lives of eminent people. And the Square soon became
of an advertising spoctacle which in itself drew in the crowds. Times
in short, created as a representation of everything that could be COJlnfller<
gaudy, promotiona!, and speculative in the political--economy of

From Space to P/oce and Back Again 317

srrucnon. It Was a far cry from the " th ."

.t au entlc dwdlin . th Bia k
and on t h e surface at least it ought
I
.
g III e
c Forest
uI aI "
Sure y to qualJ/y as rh
~,~r crItles might preler to call it, "p;eudo-place" " e mlacst ~;satz, or as
ICt It soon became the symb Ii h
_
or flonp e on earth
(largely under the impact orOei c eart) ~t New York ciry and, until its declin~
evlSlOn UUID th e 19"'0$
of a sense of togetherness and
. C
)
onwards, was the lOcus
c
commulllty
ror many N v k
d
hil lor many Ameticans T
awe,
S
ow lOr ers an even, for
. Illes quare became rh
b I' I
everyone congregated to celebr t
e sym 0 Ie p ace where
L.. P
a e, mourn or express th'
II
'
or lear. roduced and doml'n ted' rh'
elI co ectlve anger, J'Qv.
a r n e mode f
r'caI
"
appropriated by the populace
. I ." po Itl
economy it was
I
ill an enttte y different fushi
I
b
.
au til entle p ace of representati
'rh di"
on. t ecame an
on WI a Stlnctlve hold
rh'
.
h
even tough
as a space of mat 'a!
'a1'
on e lmagmation
en SOCI practices' h d all th
'
purely speculative and comm- J'r d
I
It a
e character of a
ourne spectac e How u1d hi h
Times Square rose to proml'
h'
co
t s appen?
nence as t e moder
Ii
,o~ Iive boroughs and sprawling suburbs b an
n merropo t~ Ne.w York
wrth an extraordinary boom i
at
eg. to take shape. Its nse comcided
,
n re -estate speculari
h
.
, transIt systems which changed th -h I
on, t e comIng of mass. people within rhe city (rhe b e WOe nature of space-relations between

./
SU way carne to Times Sq
.
. matunng of new sysrems ofint
. a! d
uare m 1901), the
ernatlon an national
'.
' .
rad10 In particular) oEinco-man'
d
}
11 ....
onanmon H
f commurucatIon (the
the marketing of fashion and
.
ey ow, 0 commercialism and
entertamment as mass
.
was a phase of rapid "time-space com
'"
consumption goods. This
many New Yorkers seemed to 10 thPress,on as Kern (1983) records and even
se

eIr sense of Identitv. Th

growth kept New Yorkers "on th

"
..
e stresses 0 rapid
. fragile immigrant and neighbo h d . e run, perpetually undermining the
,
.r 00 InstltutIons which ii
.
.
,
Sense of security and perm
. th.
om t1me to tune gave
.
ha b
anence In e mIdst of r .d ch
Wh
~ve cen so special about Times Squar ' .
apl
ange.
ar
a public space in which all class f . e III lis halcyon days was that
es 0 society could .
. gI
(or rather a muhidass, multlethnic and
l~te~n e and as a
.. the. possibility to be the focus f
f even m~tIracJal) place it held
C<11Itenen(:e b
hi
0 a sense 0 communltv which
. d
; '.
ut w ch also celebrared u' Th dem'
~
recogmze
aristocracy, imm;arants of allmry.
e
h,-monde rubbed shoulders
-0
sorts co uld s are the
I
d th
,.
appeared to be in ch
sp~ctac e an
e
shaped by face-to-face interacti arg\ But commufilty m this instance
presence in the face of th
~n. t Was achIeved by the act of a
.... ;. .
of money '::~P:ta e, a sPdioctade which Was shamelessly
S
e commo IicatIon of eve--k ;
quare certainly represented the c
'
.L, LL.ung. N ew
'.
.
.
ommumty of mon b . al
representatJon of a quite differ t
'f
ey ut It so
, _
'
en notmn 0 community in the minds
Yorkers who to thi d
.
;'9 rranslwln and red'e1
h"
. J
say, contmue to contest
'" op t IS partIcul
bl'
symbolic meaning and pia .ar
Icspac~ precisely because
lps,;rathet too s dIy
boli
ce In e collectIve memory It is
its Disn:yfi~~:. c to note that the rebirth of Times Sq~are i;
o

r;;:

From Space to Place and Back Again 3 [9

Space, Time, and Plaa
,
'
c
exactly opposite directIOn. The
f story can be toIe!, Itom a n ,
,
hi h
This same sort"
.
d . arti ular a form of community w c
search for authentic comrnumty, an III P, _~ und in "- "onitalist materialist:
'd of those tVp"cauy 10
......is expressive of values outsl e
f"
tl 1 d into direct attempts at
and highly monetized culture,. has req~:g:o ~ternative visions. Yet all of
community and place constrUctl?n aCCOD all roportionl have almost without
,
, d (and matls a very Sill P
.
them that have surYlve
da .
the pawer of money, to com'd
by an accommo non to
'Th
'
ul'
d
odern technologies,
e sumel{ceptlon one so
d pital accum anon an to m
, L '"
'

318

modiIi cation an ca

.'

d. reinsert themselves mto cnangIng

vats have also exhibited a capacity to ffiS ert ~

pheavals as the fundamentalist
' ,
for such massIve u
space rdacions. This IS as true..
a1king the tightrope of how to reinsert
W
Islamic revolution in Iran (which IS nOW
th ut appearing too overtly to
'talist
economy
Wi 0
itsdf into the wo rid cap'
th '
ble communitarian movements
1.
)
'twas for emnumera
,
accommouate to satan as 1

n1 .

y instances to become the cuttmg

.
..
,

which hived off from capitalism 0 Y III mchan the French lcarians that settled
c._L
'tali tdevelopment-'ll as
_I
edge of nuw.er capl s
4) th
rraordinarv wave of coffiffiUnatin the United States (see JOMson, 197 , e ex th shak';" the early feminists)
'ldi (' duA;~crthe M onnons,e,
til
ism and place b til ng ill ~'6 v rk
. . S'
New 10 state .m the first half of the nineteen
that had its onglll ill western d'ca!'
ts which spawned dispersed
his
dwn 1 1st movemen
century, the anarc t an -, .
dS'b'
d which even inspired the new
fur
raragorua an I erla an
b'
settlements as apan as
and Ebenezer Ho;\'ard (echoes of which can e
towns movement of Geddes wh I his
f place building suggests that a
found even i~ Guilford). The
~ bee:o;~e root of the inspiration of ~lace
cultural politics has Just as, frequen Ii
d s eculative gain. Yet the intertWlJlll1g
construction as simple des1!e fl:r pro t ~ P the cultural politics seems more,. ;.
.
.
t and ill some rnstance5

of the two is omrupresen

' d than an end in itself. .
.
linca!-econollllc en
, . . ...
like a means to a po
,.
'Il, rovides a fascinanng picture
Fiu.gerald (1986) in Clues on a HI fPth United States. The studies ....
. .
. ' the context 0
e
,'.
precisely thIS mtersecno n ill"
d bsequent domination of the CastrO
.,
ropnanon an su
the gay commurutys app
Falwell's rdigious empire in Lynchburg . '
district of San FranCISCO, ofJerry
, ' Fl 'da all illustrate the
'
of Sun City, a retirementulcommumtydi"f1ineren~n
By far the oddest
'ra1 c;u.In atlOn In
1'
politics 0 f capl
aC
th
f Ra'
hpuram. Founded in 198 III
di'
however
at
0
JnteS
'
Pitzgeraid s sru es IS,
. '.
chi area of Oregon as a
.
sparsely populated:nd :em~~~'!;:n S~ee Rajneesh, it had all the
commune of the disclP es 0
th standpoint of lifesrvle, but
"N Ag " conunumty lrom e
'
d
of a
ew e
rfu1 e f n high technology,
an a
was characterized by powe
us 0 mo
f disciples that Raj neesh
.
,l:~
f,
ded on the networ 0
thi
jnternatlOn~m oun
ch
$1 5 million and wi n twO
th years The ran cost.,
by'
. ..
cultivate d over e
'
th $60 million in Oregon,
' eeshis had spent more an b i1di a whole new settlenletltrep!<j
t h e Rajn
'.
O
account, and had gone a long way tt stUatio:gitrigated fields, housing.
'
. !aN reservOIr p o w e ,
000
wit h arrsrnp,
'h' ch
ld support more than 3,
COli
whole range ot taalitles W 1

w.:ys,

eyk

"v:".

permanently and offer temporary accommodation for many thousands more.

Rajneesh looked down upon Ghandi and Mother Teresa because of their
interest in the poor, Money became the means to the good life, "Religion is a
luxury of the rich" he argued and had 21 Rolls-Royces to prove it, Yet the
commune demanded at least 12 houn; hard labor a day from its residents and
pulled together some highly educated and ofren technically talented people
who set to work in an overt atmosphere of nonhicrardlica! social relations and
with seeming joy and relish to create a place within which the human potential
for personal growth might be realizable, The exclusionary politics of the
commune were, however~ very strong. Internally it '"'dB represented and
imagined as an island of virtue and authenticity in a sea of spiritual and material
decay. Outsiders saw it as a cancerous foreign body inserted into the heart of
rural United States, The dissolution of the commune, the deportation of
Rajneesh, and the arrest of some of the leading lumim.ries who, within a few
years had turned the commune from a me= of personal liberation and human
growth into an armed camp (engaging in all kinds of violem acts such as
poisomng various officials, the introduction of salmonella into a neighboring
wmmunity's water supply), dettacted little, according to Fitzgerald, from the
intense feelings of affection that many who had passed through the commune
felt for it. It had provided a place, a home, however temporary, and a range
of personal experiences for which people felt grateful, Ir had met a need, fu1fiIled desires, allowed fantasies to be lived out in ways that were unforgettable,
also exhibited all of the intolerance of internal dilkrence, all the
hierarchy and exclusionary policics which Young correctly fears is the
,ineviulble end-product of commurlitarian politics. And fur the brief moment
success, it had all the attributes of a low-wage work camp sustained out
fervor and delivering Rolls-Royces by the score to the guru of the
tablisbur",nt, This was not the first, nor will it be the last time that a cultural
striving to produce an authenticity of place and of social identity was
coopted and used for narrow financial gain,
>fl'Oe5son is simple enough, Everyone who moves to establish difference
contemporary world has to do so through social practices that engage
mediating power of money. The latter is, after all, global and universal
c:jal.\l<>wel thar can be appropriated by individual persons (hence it grounds
individualism as well as a host of collective movements) and any
or "political" community which seeks to forge a distinctive
place has to accommodate to it, Indeed, in many instances (such
Fitzgerald investigated) possession of sufficient money power is
condition for exploring difference through place construction,
'sColIlffi,ent that "religion is a luxury ofthe rich" is in this regard rather
comfort. It is, in short, precisely the universality and sociality of
that allows all kinds of othernesses to rake on an independent
to survive, There is nothing in itself particularly wrong with that

4C

From Space to Piace and Back Again

320

Space, Time, and place

be as eclectic as Jencks or Lyutar suggest

(if we have the resources why not
;d th I tion buween the production
. d C
ustOCODSl er erea
..
we should). But it oes IOrco
world and the organ,zatiOn
in
the
contemporary
h
of difference and orherness
.
The exaTIlples illustrate ow
.
f r' al-econoffilC power.
. .
and distribution 0 po Inc
d d
ch for affective commulllty ill
..'
ral (an
1e sear
f
tural
po
loes
In
gene
.
' 'n the social processes 0
1
cul
..cal
. power Illtertwme 1
particular) and pohn . -:econo,:,~~
examine one without the other.
place construcrion. It is ImposSl e to

XI. Place and Power

if Ia (localities regions, neighbothoods,

To write of "the power of place, as p ces. the gr~ssest of fetishisms; unless,
usa! powers IS to engage m
.al
states, etc.) possess ca
.
1 to the definition of place as a soct
that is, we confine oursdves rrgorous y b
ed can be rendered more explicit:
case
the
quesUOtlS
to e pos
. ' all
d
I
process. In the atter
'.
d ' aI beings indiVldu Y an ,more
wh
d 1fl what sense 0 soC!
.
why. by at mean~. an .
laces (localities, regions, states, comm~mnes) ?f
importantly, collectIVely mvest p
b
e a locus of institutionalized social
.til suffi .
rmanence to ecom
whatever) WI
Clent pe
es is that power then used?
power and how and for what Pill!?'" f
differentiations is central to the
The production and reproduction 0 powaler
there is not onlv that great
.
f
nomv: \Vlthin caplt 15m
operations 0 any eco
:.
. led as "human resources as If they are more
divide between the proletanat (ret
d)
d th r,nitalist class. bur there are
bl b iI or firewoo an
e --r
. . ' bly "

oriesssu bsntuta e yo uancedh' r ch'caldivisionswhlChmevlta arbe

le
also d,e multiple and more n
. 'al di:".. 1
flabor (between, for example.
'l
'a1 and (ernton
VlstonS 0
)
ell
'\\..J.thin the d eta!) soct ,
.
'orkers desio-ners, etc. as w as
anagers servIce w
~
'"b
1 d
line workers~ overseers, m
) , . fd'f; rent interests in finance, an ,
those that factionalize the bourgeolSte \ ~ ~ science and military and police
,
hantinv. admmistratlon, w,
}
d
f
producnon, merc
0'
h
ded the capitalist or er - 0 race,
t
powers}, Differences
may, .::: :;e re_capitalist forms of social dasslanguage, gender, ethmctry, religr , d P
ted by a social system that
d transformed an reconstruc
of
b
have been a b sor e ,
. ' , al th gh the domination nature,
uI
non
of
cap"
roU
al
d
seeks to assure t he accum a
h' . ted system of Ideolo~c an
.
f
1 bor and a sop lStlea
.
the exploitatIon 0 wage a ' .
F
Ie the bourgeois tactlC
d st te regulatlon. or examp ,

social centroIs an
a
, ( men or "'the natives) as a part
t
of
humafi1tv
wo
b
depicttng some segmen
rr
. ,>
d therefore disposed to e
th repoSItory of allect1V1ty an
b
ed
nature,
e
all
d th
segments to be su sum as
"irrational," and ~nruIY'th.
os~ capitalistic project. The effect
requiring dommanon WI ,n e gener.
(' well as resistances) inrot<)fl
r
d and ractal oppreSSlOns ""
,
to tranSlorm ge n er
Idbe'
d
of
"Rdcist Culture is a case m
rgs
not hitherto experienced (Go d
st~ Yf p'ttalrsm ensures that
l ' , n ; ynamlC 0 ca
Furthermore, the revo UtlOll - , all
ts but continuous and often
.
t
ce and fo r
even >
d.evolojpnlen;'
fOrmanons are no o~ . th h' torical geography of capitalISt
dietary movements WIthIn e IS
)J'

n:a:

0:

321

\VJllle apartheid may make serue for a while it is not hard to see how corporate
capitalism might turn against it at a certain stage of development. Explicit
struggle on the part of the oppressed or active engagement in the politics of
place construction by otherwise disempowered social groups has played a role
in that development. The long histoty of decolonization and struggles for
national self-liberation have dominated the international stage but these
struggles have many local manifestations as do the atrempts by racially marked
minorities and women (see Hayden, 1981) to construct alternative kinds of
places for living and working.
In all of these instances, the mnstruction of a secure place has been. fundamental moment in the struggle to acquire or resist political power. Anderson's
(1983) account of the transformation of linguistic diversity through "print
capitalism" into the "imagined communities" of nations th.t ground the modern
scate, is a useful example. But there is another way to put this. Those who live
in any place (be it Guilford or Guatemala), who have pretensioru to create an
institutionalized locus of social and political power, have to find or invent an
imaginaty sufficient to achieve some leveI of social cohesion, solidarity, and
irtstirutionalized order. There are many places in the world (think of many of
theAfrican states) that were arbitrarily carved out (by colonizing powers) as loci
"of political and social power but where the imagined community to supporr
the entity has yet to be properly forged. We h.ve therefOre to interpret the
changing meaning of the production of place amongst all realms of the social
. order across all moments of the social process. We need to understand not
how places acquire material qualities (as constellations of productive
open to capitalistic use or as bundles of use values available to sustain
)cCI,art.icullat cultural ways and qualities of life). The evaluation and hierarchical
)\irankingc,f p,la(:es occurs, for elWllple, largely through activities of discourse and
,resent.tiem that connect to deeply held beliefS, values, and desires. Popular
of places are organized through the elaboration of otten
'gefle<)US mental maps of the world each of which can be invested with
finer "f f)en,an.al or collective hopes and
The wrong side of the tracks
row are hardly parallel places in our mind to the gold coasts of Miami
Psychoanalytic theory teaches that the field of representation is not
all that it seems: that there are all manner of (mis)-representations
places are prone. If individual identity is constituted by fantasy, then
the identity human beings give to places be far behind?
'present,.tiems of places have material consequences in so far as fantasies>
lears, ,ana longings are expressed in actual behavior. Evaluative schemata
for example, become grist for all sorts of policy-makers' tnills. Places
.
red-lined for mortgage finance, the people who live in them get
as worthless, in the same way that much of Africa gets depicted as
The material activities of place coflsrrucrion may then fulfill the
of degradation and dereliction. Similarly, places in the city are

rears.

From Space tv Place and Back Again

322

Space, Time, and Place

323

Less dramaticaUy, the fact that a category like "New Yorkers" can make sense

'
-"
((
rous
. leading to patterns ofbehavlOr, both
to the polyglot millions who occupy that place testifies precisely to the political
dubbed as dubious or dange
~ eality Other places are depicted as
ublic and private, that tum ~tasy.lllro r
. -rofhuman bein'" to shape
"
power that can be mobilized and exercised through activities of place
P
"b tiful" estilllorues to the powc
,'..,..
,
construction in the mind as well as on the ground.
"authentic" and eali .) t
.
ch way as to instanciate powerful
:.
f envIronments 10 su a
I" . _I
-:
There is, then, a politics to place construction ranging dialectically across
permanences out 0
','
th
rid around them. The po lt1=-.,
d moral meamngs In e wo
.
h
marerial,
representational, and symbolic activities which find their hallmark
aI
I
cu tuI an
.
'bi!' .
f lace (re)construction are, In sort,
, ",
.
d ",mbolic pOSS! ,ues 0 p
in
the
way
in which individuals invest in places and thereby empower
econOID1C an - J
al' manner of place representation.
: _:'-:.
highly colored by the ev uauve
,
as a consequence, as fiercely
.
themselves collectively by virtue of that investment. The investment can be of
.
gg1es over representatIon are~
b 'ck
blood, sweat, tears, and labor (the kind of building of affection through
Discursive stru
th
. .. of place construction as II S
d'
fundamenral to e acTIV1Ues
h
Th
working
to build the tangible product of place). Or it can be the disaw;ive
fo ught an Just as
.
ch tha '
tive as well as positive ere.
e
and morrar. And there is mu
'd t IS nega sert the viability and incipient
constrUction of affective loyalties through preservation of particular imageries
. . of th ' places prov1 es a way to as. 'Cl0"M\ and counter-Images
.
f
of place, of environment, and ofvernacular traditions, or through new works
demgratlOn 0 ers
0
'
The fierce contest over lffi",,_
I' . __ I
of art and architecture to celebrate and become symbolic of some special place.
f
power 0 ones own.. . hich the cultural politics of places, the po 1tlL<U'
It is dangerous to romantici-re this process. Places constructed in the imagety
places is an arena of acTIon ill w d th
Iation of a sense of social power
economy of their development an
e haCCUffiabl U
,
. of homogeneity ofbelieJS, values, ideals, and persuasions coupled with a strong
f
1 fuse in indisung<llS
e ways.
th
, sense of collective memoty and spatially exclusionary righrs can be extrain pIace requent y
'f
bolic places is not given in e stars
ordinarily powerful players upon the world stage. The effect is to convert the
By the same token, the =dtlfoll 0 sym precisely because of the hold that , '
ught over
. . .
. _L:_ I nurtured an
dialectic of community solidarity and repression into a quagmire of violence
.
Th
,,_, frelioionasamajormstltutlon
,
b utpamstaluugy
the imaglnorv.
e SUfVlV'dl 0
,,fuI'
h
and
oppression. And if, as is so often argued, a place divided against itself will
ave over
-./ .
through the success creatIon,
Place -can uI
. , h been m part won
full,
then the maintenance of that permanence that grounds politics becomes
within sec at sOCletlCs. as '"<,........h Ii 1
But imaginations are not easily
end
in itself, however self-destructive the ultimare outcome miJlht he. And
protection, and nurturlng of ~ji=or ~!Iaces. nomic purposes. people om and .,
manipulated or tamed to speel c Prel1tl -eCD . own' ex~rience an,d tradition
self-destructive it surely must be, for, as Eric Wolf (1982: 17) so cogently puts
.
s that ate to theIr
r-.Uartempts to construct places and build imagined communities must "take
do define monuments m way
fell (like the Mut-des-Federees in
,::.c'>g1liz
an<:e of processes that transcend separable cases, moving through and
(as Rossi insists). The places where m:uty~ th imagination of working-class
Pere Lachaise cemetery) have long grflPPlie . e erno"" then social identity
them and transforming them as they proceed.
If 1 es are the locus 0 co ecnve m
- J'
f li' al
production
of places of di/krence continues in a world in which the
movements. pac
b'li that identitv into configurations 0 po nc
of'"
accurnutlation
for accumulation's sake" continues unabated, no matter
and the capacity to rno 1 -re
'cesses of place construction and
solidarity are highly dependent upon pro ument construction (the atrapolitical, social, or ecological consequences. While the decentralization
v:
nt of fOrmal mon
fo
political power to places proceeds a-pace (and even more massive decentralisustenance. Let no arno~, th Ce
cu had corutructed in Bucharest, r
ordinary monumental palace at au~e
.
are threatened by innumerable autonomy rnovement<;), there is a powerful
e)
can
make
a
hared
dictator
beloved.
Ids
There
'
nllJluulooms
movement towards reconcenrrattons of economic and discursive
exampi
.
d' !lo1nation are not separate wor '
Materiality, representatIon, an flm..,,___ 1_ o~er the other, even ifit
particularly in multinational corporations, financial institutions, and the
. uI
'vii' fig 0 anyone ,,,,,,,,H'
The exercise of this latter power has meant the destruction, invasion, and
om be no part1c ar ~n ~'I life that the ultimate significance of all
,
Ilcrmrlg
of socially constituted places on an unprecedented scale. The
only 1U the ~OC1a1PtacTIC~ ab:::' cha tet 4). Political mobilization thro,""n
actual
places (like Cowley or even whole nation states) has been
of actlVlty IS registered ( ' .
'
p
ch to the representational
processes of place construction .o:v~s as rnu
1991) ButdisjU11ctiorlSanC1.
threatened through changing material practices of production,
aim ro material aCtlVlUes (Lefebvre,
f
\,Wnpci011" information flow, and communication coupled with the radical
symb0 Iiere
s as
be
the different moments 0
"
.
fi
ently
occur
tween
of space relations and of time horizons within capitalist
conrrarn.ctlons requ
erlu-1 rtical meaning eVf,n '''''
.
Lo-_Ity to place can have a pow
po 1
. '
uprn",,,.
The
contemporary necessity for place reconstruction has created
construct1on. . J~
1 . tha lace show lime commonality
t p
the daily pracuces of peop e ill
l1m~ t<)r spatial practices as well as for the way places get represented and
'gh
l'tical contradiction. Though the forces that carne ''{taO rmr
representations, It is in such a context that the febrile attempt to
outrl t po 1
.
71 fo
pie were t:J
th
,. of the Paris Commune m 18 , r exam,
aI
, places in terms of imagined communities, replete, even, with the
e Upt1S1fig
all bound togetner bv a common loy ty to
of places of representation (the new monumentalities of spectacle and
heterogeneous, they were
d th th I'ber~tion of Paris was a
they caUed Paris and all agree
at e 1
,0

&

From Space TO Pi4ce and Back Again 325

324

Space, Time, and Place

r'
f' ,c,ned communities as adefense
.
fo
pIe) or the rorglllg 0 lm~. b
consumefl.sm~ r exam
-al'
f capitalist accumulanon ecomes
. th
material and SOCI practlces 0
walls (such as those
ag:unst e new
th b rildin f exclusionary
But
e
more readily understandabl ..
;;, l ew ;o:munitari~ politics, although it
roposed fur Guilford) impliCIt In e n .
excl>ange and reproP
. el'
f production consumptlon"
may intervene m r atlons?th
th' uru'versalizing po~ver of money. At
.
. al
us WI respect to e
b
ductlon, is ways poro
d
d ore exdusion'''' so they ecome
.
laces are rna e more an ill
. -J
al
same rune as p
.
11'
city to even influence let one
less and less capable of developing a co ectl,:,e capa
fI
d pital accumulatlon.
contrnlmon~ awan ca d Ii 'cal' Iications.Anti-capitalistmovement<;,
This condiuon has profuun po tl :
enerally better at organizing in
as I have argued elsewhere (Harvey, 19 a are dig
The "othernesS' and
. . "th" I
than at cornman ng space.
.
and dammatlng elr p aces
d'
I' u'cs emphasize can indeed flourish
" . ai'
" that postmO errust po 1
.
regIOn reslStances
B
hil
h movements form a potential
. d f
.cul places utW eSUC
in a multltu eo partl ar.
.. "th can acqw' re global ambitions, lefr to
.
~' ___ :1:
amculansm
at
.
basIS for that I1lllltant ~
. red b' the power of capital to coordinate
ma
themselves they are easily dom
ce The potentiaIityfor militant
) d
.
. rsal but fr agmente spa .
. .
th . sic f sliding back into a parochlallS<
accumulation acrosS umve
. ul .
b dded m place runs en 0
th "d I'
partle arlSffietfi e
nfr
B U(1995:261) remarks, e eteate

-=
d
always
to co
ont,
as ue
than I ft
poI mcs. we nee
.
em be ke t alert and sensitive rather
e to
issue of how the sense of place.
P ethnocentric alcove." Place-bound
.
d
tic slumber m some cozy
.
mili'tant ..
lapse mtO ogma
I ed d
t necessarily give me to
norticularisms, it should be ackn",iIyv edgb th' 0 no of political passivity or of .
t'~:-.
h can' USI as eas
e e 1oellS
polttlcs . T ey
J Ii'
ith a dominant social order.
collahoration and romp City W bl
hat Raymond Wrlliarns wrestled wilh
This was, recall, the central pro em ~ th haracters in Tbe Fight for Mannd
for much of his politlcallrfe. Says one 0
ec

me

(1979b: 181)

'M

.
.
.
attempt to reconstitute a culture, a soO
The whole of publtc policy ... 15 an . C
. _Led their end, reached theil
. order that h ave m lact reacll.
.
. .
th
system, an economIC
>. h
d I k at this double inevitability: at

limits ofviability. And ,hen I Sl~_;re_~_. aDding and that all its residual social
. .

:_1

(F

and diVIUCU OIUCJ. is en

thlS Imper~ exp~~o

.
. I fight to the end to reconstrucr It, to, reforces, all Its polmcal formations, .wi1 th
gh "s after crisis in an impOSSIble
.'
. de
all the time rou criSt
ill

establis.h It, mo,:ng

~~

Id So then a double inevitability: that theyw -

artempt to regatn a fumiliar wor. '

fail and that they will try nothmg else.

' th
no way to break out of that inevitabiliry?
Is there, en~

XII.

Conclusion
d have

Places. like space and time. are social

c~ndstructs afiiali

to

be read

th:o<A,,,,,tttllS lll

ch Th are waYS to provI e a mater s

ill1derstoo d as sU.
ere"
d' .
d to do it so as
and metaphorical geography of the human con lUon an
. .

light on the production of historical-geographical difference. An understanding of that process makes it possible to ground a cririque of both the chimerical
ideals of an isolationist communitarian politic> and the inevitable insensitivities
of any kind of universal emancipatory politics.
The political--eronomic possibilities of place (re)construction are highly
colored by the evaluative manner of place representation. One of the most
powerful strands of independent politics within what Daniel Bell (1976: 20) calls
"the cultural mass" ("rhose working in higher education, publishing, magazines,
broadcast media, theater, and museums, who process and influence the reception
of serious cultural products"), fur example, is to focus rather strongly on the
meaning and qualities of community, nation, and place. The shaping of place
identity and local tradition is very much within the purview of such workers
(&om the writers of novels and makers of movies to the writers of tourist

brochures) and there are strong institutional forms which that shaping takes
(everything from universities which keep local languages and the sense of local
history alive to museums, cultural events, and the like). As the cultural mass has
dnoPIJedl arlY strong association with proletarian movements and sought to avoid
subservient position to capitalist culture it has become more closely
," iderltiJiied V'lth a cultural politics of place. Hence the Olltpouring of books on
precisely that topic over the past 20 years (see, for example, recent works by
:, Agnew and Duncan, 1989: Davis et aI., 1990; Lilburne, 1989; Pred, 1990;
1990; Tindall, 1991) and the rise of a whole set of supportive political
l'"tcti'"iti,,, within the cultmal m"" fur place-bound cultural movements. The more
:>lhecultUla! Imass explores its own interior values, the more it tends to align itself
a political-economy and cultural politics of place even though it is
tijndarnetltalUy subservient as a paid agent for the globalizing culture of capital
citrnulati,>n. The effect is to produce a contradiction that can only partly be
by the selling of geographically embedded and place-specific difference
commodity fur international tourism. Deeper contradictions arise when

iStitl"tio,nal arrangements like GAIT, NAFrA, and the European Union,

to fucilirate capital accumulation, spark their own regional resistances
in the very hean of capitalism. Political parties split and curious concorof interest arise between, say, the left of the British Lahour Party and Le
fs I""t:ist movement in France.
reawakening of place-bound politics dearly h", its ugly side. The
of other places is one of the more viscious furms of bloodletting
(one only has to read a London tabloid newspaper like The
descriptiolIS of the French to get the point). Defining the "other" in an
and stereotypical way is the first step towards self-definition. The
as the case of Heidegger shows, poses as many dangers as
rturiiti'es fur the construction of any kind of progressive politics. Deconand the postmodern impulse, as Said (1978) demonstrates in his
pf Orientalism, certainiy provide a means to atrack the appalling

326

Space, Time, and Piace

stereotyping of other places, but there is a huge problem of public perspectives, representation, and politics within the overall work of the cultural mass
in this regard that desperatdy needs to be confronted.
The politics of place and of turf, of local identity and nation, of regions and
cities, has long been with us. It has also been of great importance within the uneven geographical devdopment of capitalism. The redisoovery of place as an object
of discourse within the rhetoric of the cultural mass and, through that, within
the rhetoric of polirics is what is here significant rather than the fact that the world
has changed in some way to make the political,..economyor cultural politics of
place more important now than in the past. Yet there is indeed a sense in wbich
the latter proposition is also true. In the face of a fierce bout of time-space
compression and of all the restructurings to which we have been exposed these
last few yeatS, the security ofplaces has been threatened and the map of the world
rejigged as part of a desperate speculative gamble to keep the accumulation of
capital on track. Such loss of serurity promotes a search for alternarives, one of
which lies in the creation of both imagined and tangible communities in place.
The issue of how to create what sort of place becomes imperative fur economic
as weU as political survival. Talk to the mayors of Baltimore, Sheflidd, and LilIe
and you will find that is exactly what they have been preoccupied with these last
few years. And it is here, too, that the politics of the cultural mass can take on
considerable importance. For if, as Marx: insisted, we get at the end of every labor
process a result which is the product of our imaginations at the beginning, then
how we imagine communities and places of the future and how we talk abom
them becomes part of the jigsaw of what our future can be. Rajneesh existed in
someone's imagination and captured the imaginations of many of those caught
up in the human potential movement who worked so hard to make it the
temporaty place it was. And even if, as in this case, there is many a slip b",ween :,,'
imagination and realhation and a whole host of unintended consequences to
countered and discounred on the path, the question ofhow we imagine the furore ,
of places and with wbat seriousness we invesr in it is always on the agenda.
Our future places are for us to make. But we cannot make them without

inscribing our struggles in space, place and environment in multiple ways.

process is on-going and every single one of us has agency with respect
The places - material, representational, and symbolic - handed down to
by furmer generations were also built up through social struggles and strivinj\,-.
to create material, symbolic, and imaginary places to fit their own
and contested aspirations. A better appreciation of such processesand political dialectics of space, place, and environment - has much to
us about how to construct alternative futures. A renewed
.
the production ofhistoricaJ...geographical difli:rence is a crucial p",unlm..' "
towards emancipating the possibilities for future place CO[lSUUCtiOJo.
liberating places - materially, symbolically, and metaphorically - is anlUcn,'
part of any progressive socio-ecological politics.

PART IV

Justice, Difference, and Politics

Part IV Prologue

The struggle fur emancipation and self-realization, fur personal liberty. &eedom. and justice coupled with socio-political str~ogIes to emancipate spaces
and ro free up time, to liberate places (most paradigmatica..!ly in struggles for
national self-liberation) and even, in the rhetoric of an ecological group like
.Eaith First, to emancipate nature from the oppressive qualities of human
_control, have all played a critical role in the evolution of humar:. historical

geography most particularly since the movement of the Enlightenment

crysta..llized 50 many human emotions and desires around those beliefs and
discursive themes. Ouc hisrocical geography is, as Eagleton (1990: 363) pOlS
it; "awash with the desire for justice and wdl-heing, clamoring fur judgement
day: Bur what is this quality called justice? And how many past attempts to
create._ a just society have crumbled into tyranny or dis.solved into violence,
.C<)[fllptiol', and injustice? Is it possihle ever to talk about justice as anything
than a contested effect of power wi min a particular- place at a given time?
'. Consider the follmving excerpt from Tony HiHerman's novel Sacred Clowns
set in Navajo country. Says the tribal policeman Chee:

.. ht -,

Copyrlg

}.~a(:onal
l'l.

I O'''ice Librarv, Bracknell.

Iv1crcoroioglca.d

"We're dealing with justice. Just retribution. That's a rdigious concept, really.
We'll say the tribal cop is sort of rdigious. He honors his people's traditional
"ways; He has been taught another notion ofjusticc. He .vas a big boy before he
~blId about 'make the punishment fit the crime> or 'an eye for an eye, a tooth
fot.a tooth.' Insteac of chat he was hearing of retribution in anomer way. ]f you
somebody you sit d{)wn v;:ith their family and bgu-,e Out how mum
,~(I;ur<ag(,acld make it good. That wayyou restore how. You've gut harmonyug"'..ll
the tvm families. Not too much difference from the standard American
nut nr,w" gets d.if-rerenc Ifsornebodyharms you out of meanness ... then
one who's out of hoz-JJo. Y:>u aren't taught he should be punished. He

cured. Gotten back in balan('e wit.~ what's around him.Ivfade beautiful

. on the inside, ofcourse. Badin harmony. So this hypometical cop, that's
he's been :-aised. Not to pur value on punishmcut, but to pet a lot of
curing. So now what are you going to do if you're this cop?" __ .

Part IV Prologue 331

330

justice, Dijforence, and Politics

____ 1 citv--street law-school solutions when you are

"It's hard. to appiy norrrIa1

-,

looking at this," Janet sai~

th
"Cheesaid, "Maybe it makes the
"Maybe the landscape IS part of e answer,
an.,:.wer a little different.

functions as a mnemonic, alive with particular

The landscape (cf. chapter 10)
,
' __ II.. hang their sense of collec,
wh'ch native-AmerIcans typl<.llJ
'f' ,
1
.L:~

... ___ L-~ for a certain nonon 0 JUStice

meanmgs, upon
,
dates'
and
ill uu> case It s1"'TO'
tive idennty an v u ,
,..' ,
d meanings, '.wo
qmte
'
,
ualmes mtegrmes, an
that has its own di suncuve q
'b"
'_L' Does this mean that there
.
f . .ce and retIl uoon ClaS.lL
different notions? Just!,
f' tice to which we can appeal?
can never be a urutary no~on 0 . : ,
est> an unequivocal answer to that
The historical"1l"ographical evt
ce !~gg, "is a socially constituted set of
.
'ke
t' e and nature, Jusuce
.'
d
1m '. . aI"
PYnressive of social rdanons an
q uestion. .Ll space, d'
Utuoon lzaOOns -~~r
gu1a
,
beliefS, discourses, an illS
th ha
____ L;_g to do with re
tmg
. ns f power at ve everyu~
.
Ii
contested con guratlo 0
.
"th' Ia s for a time. Once constItut.
' a l ' a! practices WI m P ce
and ordermg maten s o a . .
.
fJ' ustice acroSS all moments
. I discurSIve conception 0
<thi
ed 1 the trace 0 f a parnell ar
b"
L_ ... that embraces everyone Wi
n
'al
becomes an 0 Jecnve raC...
"
of the sOCl proce,:,
.
'd
ofJ' ustice becomes a "permanence
.
"''-, Once mstutlonalize ,a system
d
Its COIDr --. al
h ve to conten .
with which all facets of the SOCl ~rocessf asoo'al J' ustice has always implied,
C
cular d di nltlon 0
"
f 'a!
To argue ror a pam
dctltetl.
' ' " t 0 define which theoty 0 SOC!
high r 0 r er
al
however, appe to some
the (th"
Chee's question), An infinite regress
.'
.
than ano er
IS IS
f
justice IS mote Just
d ' h thet direction, the relative ease 0
of argument then looms:" fes, malt uCsnoce as meaning whatever individoals
,
f
notion 0 sOC! J
. "--'-d.econsUUCtlon 0 any
"de' '
d functions at some paruCtuaI
,
th
ultlp!e I ntlUes an
" . all
or groups, gtven elr m 'call'
tally emotionally, politic y, or
moment find it pragrna.U
y, mstrurnen
)
>

<

ideologically useful to mean.. th th

ent The first is to look at how the"
There ate two way~ to. go WI
~~ ~age and this leads to theories
multiple concepts ofJusuce are ern
. advan ed'
of meaning of the sort that Wirtgenstem
c.
.,

There are countless kinds: cound~s

"b' I"
ds" "sentences". And thiS
.. L
call srm
os, wor ,
f
fferent
kinds
of
use
to
w,rnt
we
.
_
~
L
all' but new h~.< 0
di
.1..:_ fixed Vlvell once anu . l U r .
"/r-multiplicitv is not someullug
) b'nw existence and others ;
'I
es as we may say, come 1
language, new anguage gam )
H re the term "language-game'" .is meant
become obsolete and get forgotten. th'" e
k 'no oflanguage is part of an
.
the fact at the spea 1 '6
"" oaJ"
to bring into prorrun.ence
did we learn the meaning of this word ( g - . _
activity, or a furm oflife. ,.. How
I 'In hat language games? Then It "
are there?

How many kinds ot sentence

rt

for instance)? From what sth

will be easier for us to see

at

';[.

exaIIlJ ::"r h:ve a family of meanings

is embedded in a particular language game, But note two things about \VIttgenstein's furmulation, Fitst, the appeal to a "family" of meanings suggests some
kind of interrelatedness and we should presumably pay mention to what those
relations might be, Secondly, each language game attaches to the particular
socia!, communicative, experiential, and perceptual world of the speaker. The
upshot is to bring us to a point of cultural, linguistic or discourse rdativism,
albeit based upon the material cirrummmces of the subject. We should also,
then, pay careful attention to those material circumstances.
The second path is to admit the relativism of discourses abour justice, bur
to insist that discourses are expressions of social power and that the "family"
of meanings derives its interrelatedness from the power relations pertaining
within and between different social formations. The simplest version of this
idea is to interpret social justice as embedded in the hegemonic discourses of
any ruling class or ruling faction. This is an idea which goes back to Plato who,
in the Republic (1965) has Thrasymachus argue that

Each ruling class makes laws that are in its own interest. a democracy democratic
laws, a tyranny tyrannical ones and so on; and in making these laws they define
. as aright" for their subjects what is in the interest of themselves.. the rulers. and
if anyone breaks their laws he is punished as a "wrong-doer". lbat is what I
mean when I say that "right is the same in all sta:tes~ namely the mrerestofthe
established ruling class. ".
Plato advanced the ru:gument in oroer to refute it, but Marx and Engels, not
tikenwith Plato's idealism, resurrected it as having deep historical force, Engels,
example, wrote;
The stick used to measure what is right and what is not is the most ahstract
expression of right itself, namely justice. ,.. The development of right for the
" JUrists . ' is nothing more than a striving to bring human conditions. so far as

they are expressed in legal terms, evefcloser to the ideal of justice, eterndijusnce.
And always this justice is but the ideologized, glorified expressioo ofthe existing
economic relations, now from their conservative and now from the revolutionary angle, The justice of the Greeks and Romans held slavery to be just; 1:."e
of the bourgeois of I 789 demanded the abolition of feudalism on the
,);"'","U"

W~ unjust. The conception of eternal justice. thererore, varies not only

t~me

and place, but also with the persons concerned, ... While in everyday
expressions like right~ wrong, justice, and sense of right are accepted
misunderstanding even with reference to social matters, they create ...
hopeless confusion in any scientific investigation of economic relations
be creared, fur instance, in modern chemistry if the terminology of
phlogiston theory were to be retained. (Marx and Engels, ! 95 I; 562--4)

e wo

.
.al . ' has no universal agreed upon meaning
From this perspectIve, SOClh.chJUStlce be understood only through the way
a "family' of mearungs w I can

it follows that the "siruatedness or "standpoint" of whoever makes

'.aJ;:gmnellf is relevant if not determinant to understanding the particular

.Li
332

Justice, Difference, and Politics

meaning put upon the concept. Sentiments of this sort have been taken muc..~

further, as we shall see, in the postmodern literature, But rhere is a double

message within Engels' formulation. While conceptions of justice may vary
according to time, place, and the individuals concerned, the acceprance of a
particular conception "without misunderstanding" can provide a powerful
mobilizing discourse for political action (as, for example, in the French
revolution).
Furthermore, projection of particular meanings across the space of the world
as if they have universal meaning has been of major significance in shaping
global historical geography: Here we find a form of militant parricularism gone
universal ,,~th all sorts of remarkable effecrs. The United Nations charter, for
example, enshrines a declaration of universal human rights, Amnesty International pursues a universalistic politics and the international observance of

market contracts imposes the rough justice of the market place wherever
capitalism and commodity exchange does business. Notions of rightness,
fairness> justice are so firmly entrenched in our vocabularies, that we seem

powerless to make any political decision without appealing to them.

The question of justice falls squarely into the middle of the tension between
parriculariry and universalism and does it in such a way as to make it impossible
(politically as well as theoretically and empirically) to remain securely lodged
at eirher end of rhat polarity. The effect is, ,to put it mildly, deeply curious.
Justice appears to be a foundational concept that is quite indispensable in the
regulation of human affairs (in translating, for example, the "natural laws" of
competition, adaptation, cooperation, and environmental rransformation into
collective forms of human endeavor, to use rhe language of chapter 8). Yet the

foundational concept is held to have no foundation save as an arbitrary effect

of arbitrary power in patticular places and times. \Vhile, like space, time, place,
and environment, justice is open to being socially constituted and produced,

there seems no easy way to bridge the gulf berween universalism!particularity,

ben.-veen systematicity/arbitrariness and between necessity/contingency..

But to talk of an alternative kind of social order is to explore a possible world

in which alternative ways of construing and institutionalizing justice are

also

possible. We owe the idea of possible worlds to Leibniz how, as was shown in
chapter 10, used it to establish the relational theory of space-time. There is a
useful parallel here for understanding how a relational theory of justice might
work. A Utopianism of spatial form (often taken as the marker ofa just society) .
is just as absolUte (and authoritarian) as anything that "'ewton came up
(and it is interesting to note the parallel languages of Sir Thomas More
Newton with respect to the absolute qualities of space). By the same
discursive absolutism concerning the nature of justice is lik~-ise aUchc)fit,
ian. So what kind of Utopianism is possible or, put more directly, how
human imaginary concerning a just society playa creative role in an'Cl-caplta
politics? This is the crucial question that Maler (1995) so btilliantly brings

. .

Part IV Prologue 333

as a cenual monf III lvfarx:'s search for an a '

'.
..
capitalist rhetoric.
ntI-capitalIst poItucs and an anti-

In the case-studies that follow I offer th

.
ngh
be negotiated in a manner consistent .th Its .on how thIS problem might
a re atlOnai and dial 'cal'
the SOCI'a! process. The effect I'S I h aWI
ke'
em VIew of
, ope, to m
It pes 'bI
h
powers of the quest for J' ustice not
51 e to me t e mobilizing
.
b
' a s a mere matter ofpra
.
Ism, ut as a principled w'y inwhl' h t a1k b
gmansm or opportun hi
4
C
ot a out the need
gut
reIatIorn ps and our coliecciv
dea
to re ate human
e en YOurs so as to achie
. uI
go al s under a given set of ecological hi'cal
ve a partlc ar ser of
But understanding the embeddedn ' {ston. ,and geographical conditions.
ess 0 parttcnlar.deals f' . .
processes is critical to the endeavo Wh'1 th fu
.' 0 jUStlce m particnlar
r.
I e.
ere re nosoc'
d'
a worki ng and workable concept f' .
" l e r y can 0 WIthout
0 JUSllce any more than
dis
, bl
wOrKa e concepts of space tim
I
d
It can
pense with
.
'
e, p ace, an na[Ufe th
h
get constItuted through socia! pract' has be th ' e way t esc concepts
to
ep'
[,
,
.
.
. .
lees
I ' nmary ocus 01 attenllon.
The ImplicatIon, as I hope to sh
. ow most c earlv In the fi a1
.
Uroplan.sm of process looks r.dicall ' di i I
~
n essay; IS that a
l' .
Y Herem from a Ut lan
'.
fC
The .mp
lcatlon of the dialecrical! 1 . al"
Op lSm 0 rorm.
Ie allon VIew 15 th t th
d
t.o be pursued with all the int II tual
a
e fOrmer eServes
.
e ec
pOwers at our CO
d h'l th
must needs be rejected as self-negating.
ffiman w 1 e e latter

L,.':

Cbm RelatWns, SocialJustice, and the Political Geography ofDifference 335

12
Class Relations, Social Justice, and the
Political Geography of Difference

..
f'd . , multirulruralism, "otherness," and
It is hard to discuss the pohtlcs 0 I e?altlt}.,
,.nCCS and ofpolitical project,
. from maten ClrcumSU1L-'
". b
"difference III a stracnon
d'
. in the context 0 f a partI'cular problemI shall, therefore, situate my "lSCu~O': " social order _ within the patticular
atic - that.of the search f~~~;~~ : '::'united Stares today,
matenal CIrcumstances pnov......"o

I. Hamlet, North Carolina

rth C lin (opulation approximately
In the smaIl tOWn of Hamlet, No
I ar; th:t ~as run in the 1980s by
6,000), there is a chic ken-p rocessJI1!;pPo:'ction basis under low-cost condi- .
f
Imperial Foods. Orgaruzed on a mass b '1 chl'cken production bas now .
,
' d 'alized
agernenr, rOi er
, .
tlons of rn ustn
man f the US's poor (hit by declining JI1comes these,
becomebigbUSllless.Formanyo
.
uroe of pro rein and health !
cad ) ch' eke bas become a major so
last twO de
es
I n . ch . dulg their taSte for all manner of chicken
concerns have led even then to m
~ doubled in the 1980s to equal and
dishes. Chicken consumptlon. consequen ~pidly and consolidated even
then surpass that of beef. Busrnesses .~w b
e a vast agribusiness almost
fum!ly farm ""aIT ecam
so; what was o.nee a
0 m ames ended up controlling more
-,
overnight in which a mere 2 c~ dP
than $20 biUion a year, The
.' ..
ut now v.uue at more
quarters 0 fth e outp ~
.
. from Maryland's eastern _ ,
chicken industry stretches In a vastthar~~h into the Texas Panhandle.
through the Carolmas.~d acrOSS e. P
incomes are dominated :__ ;.
this "Broiler Belt," as It 18 known, agnc~tural ,
I the
....
,
rates Arkansas bemg a pnme examp e,
f .
industry and m some s ,
f a1th With economic dout 0
d'
player and producer 0 we
.
th
the Iea mg em
b &r behind. In the state ofArkansas, e
sort political influence cannot e
.
.d I
I because hen.(' """"
Governor Clinton lost his first re-e1ectton bl arge Y

ized Tyson Foods, the biggest chicken producer in the world, His re-election
as governor and, some say, his eventual transition to the White House,
depended heavily upon compromising if not currying considerable favor with
Don Tyson, the self-made king of the broiler business, whose main claim to
fume, apart from organizing the slaughter of29 million chickens a week (twice
. as many as second-ranked ConAgra) and having a company that ranks 100 in
the Furtune 500 (Frantz, 1994), is to have provided suspicious support and
advioe to various influential figures within the Clinton administration.
The conditions prevailing within the chicken broiler industry are less than
salubrious. Salmonella contamination is an endemic danger, pollution
problems are rife, and descriptions of producrion conditions are liable to stir
the ire of those only mildly sensitive to animal rights, Ancillary to broilerchicken production, is a chicken-processing industry employing 150,000
workers in 250 or so plants, mosrly located in very small towns or rural settings
throughour the "Broiler Belt. And while some attempts have been made to
make the production process more humane for the chickens, the industry has
llliUlaged to do much fur its workers,
.: On Tuesday September 3, 1991, the day after the United Srates celebrated
its "labor day," the Imperial Foods plant in Hamlet caught fire, Many of the
exit doors were locked. Twenty-five of the 200 workers employed in the planr
. died and a further 56 were seriously injured.
It was a cataclysmic indusrrial accidenr, at leasr by the srandards of any
'~ad.vanced industrial country; but it also revealed, as Struck (1991), one of the
journalists to investigate discovered, some very harsh truths about the
industry of toil to reign in the [L'S) South." Those employed in the
start off at minimum wage ($4.25 an hour) and larer progress to $5.60
which translates into take-home pay oHess than $200 per week which
the poverty line for a single-headed household with children. But there
or no alternative employment in Hamlet, and fur rhis particular town,
'jjS\!nr rrianv others throughout the "Broiler Belt: the plant is a viral economic
. precisely because "fur a lot of people, any kind of job is better than no
" Those living in relatively geographicaUy isolated rural towns of this
consequently, easy prey fur an industry seeking a cheap, unorganized,
disciplined laborfuroe (see Toth, 1993), Struck continues his account

)Vorkers at the Imperial Foods plant describe demeaning conditions with

oW!jen,,fi,, and no job security. They were .routinely cursed by bosses, the
say. They were allowed only one roilet breakfrom the processing line.
day off required a doctor's permission. Any infraction was noted as an

xoui<.nc<:" and .five occurrences would get a worker fired. "The supervisors
you like nothing, and all they want you to do is get their chicken out,"
MacDouga/d, 36, wt,o had been at the plant two years. 'They

L
-F't,,'Y,

336

JUJtice~ Difference, and Politics

.'_

Peggy his wite of 2!

ike d
" said a bitter Alfonso And< r s o n .
,
created people l
ogs,
ked th ,.. r 11 vears despite her complamts.
'
hfieShehadwor
erero
,
'b"he
years, died In r e r.
.1-uff and nwow it TO keep a)o ,
~Around here. you have to talU' some st
J

said. fighting back tearS.

h 1

had the habit ofopenlytouttnglow"vages,

North Carolm.as astate ali dO~gh

k" leuislacion which keeps the

clImate an n t-tO-wor
ca friendl y b usmess
.
d more manufactunng employment
unions at ba}.r as the baH to pull :ore anas a whole 1S estimated to add more

u:

of exactly th,1SS0rt. T:".r%~~~~oliru"s economy, In North Cacolina,

than $1.5 billion ann Y
"
I t into not enforcmg laws O~
"1' , dl b mess climate. rraDS a es
.
the nen
us
th C
"has only 14 health mspectors
occupacional health and safety. Nor
ar~ mtha
. ' in proportion to the
r'
"rankingl1mvest m e natton
and 27 sarety mspectors ,
d d der 'cdcra! gwddJfies" Federal
,
[114] recommen e un
t'
number of mspectors
. al mandate to make up the
1
posed. under congresslOll
'
personne are sup
. d th lants in North Carolina in recent years.
difference but none have Vislte
e P d ' Its 11 years in
,
h d
h fOre been lnspecre III
Th Hamlet plant a not, r ere,
'nkl'
af ty
e"
fire extinguishers, no Sprl er S}stcm, no s e
operation. There were no
h
] ,- been inspected let alone cited
eXit doors." Other plants in the stabete ave rare Y and the oecupational injUry
. l'
h
h fires have en common
for v~ atlO~S, t ~ OU~
I three times the national average.

rate m the mdru.:try IS near y peIl

II'
hich tlllS incIdent provokes.
umber of com
!.!lg re ect10ns W
I
The re are a
n,
I
.bushed) indu,try whose emp oyFirst of all. this is a modem ~l.eb} re~ent yedesE
description mta Kad lvhrx's
J' '
uld easily e jllsefl as a

Capltal (published in 1867) withom any

I _ bodes ill for the "free market
. .
ch of a difference (sure y
.. .1. th
one notICIng mll
. tl
sed v;hen lookinv toWJ...."'U,):
e
"
"
chich
we
are
curren
y
expo
C>
be
triump halIsm to"
.
iIy be made in the west lween
i ~crable equation can so eas
di
ea."t t Ilat sueh a ill .:.
I -'
B 'ta'm and emplovment con th
I I f exp oitatiOn 10 n
.
~inete~n -century eve s 0. hed indust . In the most powerful adVaI1Ced
tlOnS 1fi a recendy establis. h
Idry k for the incident itself. the
'd
III t e wor .
. C
III ustrla! capl ral. I:it country
,
ed
S
" t h the Triangle ShlftWalst
amp. the Unlt
tates 18 Wl
I
on
obvious compans In
1
di
d.
This
led
over
100,000
peop
e
s
any fire of 191 1 in whiCh 146 emp oyee e b I T became the emu
B d
.n protest and it su s.equent J
to march down roa. way I
fi
r letter workplace protection.
'b [. th I bo ovement to ght lOr )
,
dte re or e a -: m
"d'"
dizzyingmarrixoflaw:-:, regulanons
as DavIdson (199lJ notes, ...spite a
f the Imperial workers died
codes tnacted to protect workers, .mos~ 0
t Iv on locked or blocked
women in New York h<ld: poundi ng espe ra e ,

ment con mons c o .

".

chapter on "The Working ~~y m J

_11
_
ill t
should pay dose atrention to the The second rcnectlOn IS a we
th U ' d
. . ural and small-town settings in e mLe
structures d eV el opmg III r
(
nothi,n2",of

doors."

it is here where the decline of agricultural employment ,[0 s': left

rash of farming bankruptcies) over the past decade or so as

-r.'-

f-

Class Rel.atums, Social justice, and the PQiitical Geography ofDifforenre 337
rdatively isolated industrial reserve army (again, of the sort which Marx:
described so wei! in Capital- see chapter 25 section 5~ for example) -which is
far more vulnerable to exploitation than its urban counterpart. US industry
has long used spatial dispersal and the geographical isolation of employees as
one of it" prime mechanisms of labor control (in industries like chicken
processing and meat packing the equation is obvlous but this principle is also
deployed in dectronics and other supposedly ultra-modern industries), But
recent transformations in industrial organization, flexible Iocational choices,
and deregulacion have here been turned into a totally unsubtle form of coercive
exploitation which is pre- rather than post-Fordist in its organizational form.
The effect in North Carolina, for example, is to produce a dramatic contrast
between the much routed and much researched "Research Triangle Park" of
high-tech iniUrmation-based companies and the radically dilkrent md largely
ignored worJd of scattered rura! endaves of the chicken-processing plants an
hour or so away.
This leads to a third refleccion concerning the dismantling, through
, deindusrrialization and industrial reorganization over the last two decades, of
many of the forces a.c.d institutions of "traditional" (i.e., blue-coHar and
unionized) working dass forms of power. The dispersal and creation of many
new jobs in rural settings has facilitated capitalist control over labor by
searching out non unionized and pliable work forces. The manufacturing
sectors of central cities, which have always been more vulnerable to expressions
of organized discontent or political regulation. have been reduced to zones of
either high unemployment (cities like Chicago, Xew York, Los Angeles, and
Hl'"WOlOre have seen their traditional hlue-collar manufacturing employment
hafin the last 20 years) or of unorganized sweatshop-style industries.
. nonfinancial zones of inner cities, which have quite righcly been the focus
much attention In the past, have increasingly kcome, therefore, centers
'UllCfllploYlment and oppression (oftfie sort which led to the recent explosion
Ar"",les 1 rat..~er than creatures of labor exploitation and working-class
organizarion of the da<;sic sort.
t the immediate matter I wish to concentrate attention upon here, is the
lack of political response to this cataclysmic event. For while the
Shirtwaist Company fire provoked a massive protest demonstration
b"l~innill~ of the twentieth cenULry in New York cit)';. the fire in Hamlet,
ytrol'imtat the end of the twentieth century received hardly any media
attention, even though some labor groups and political organiza<1.<; Jackson's Rainbow Coalition) did try to focus attention upon it
m,m,nlfethica.l and moral urgency. The interesting contrast in September
with the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination hearings
a ill<ljor focus for a great deal of political agitation and action
as of media debate. These hearjngs, it should be notoo, focused 0:1
questions over race and gender relations in a professional raL~er than

Cum Relations, SocUlI Justice, and the Political Geography ofDiffirew:e 339

338 Justice, Difference, awl Poiitics

'North

I think it important to recognize the conditions which led the Democratic

Pmy, a political party which from the New Deal onwards soughr to absorb but

I . also useful to contrasr events in Hamlet,

working-class conrext. t IS
I ' :vh"ch ollpression as expressed in the

.
th
th
se
in
Los Ange es, m' I
r. .
th
Ii
('..aroI rna, WI
o.
h h
d the failure to convict e po ce
bearing of Rodney King on a .JIg wahy :nprising of the underprivileged, while
. I d, sparked a Virtu ur an
.
k d
o fli cers mVO ve
gil 10' . . rural factorv settmg
provo e
the deaths of25 people throu exp ttatwn ill a
,
+

a1most no reaction at all.

. 'fi t when it is realized that of the
. me even~ more slgru can
J\ ~_.
Those contrasts beeo
d 12 were Ji.lllCanL
di d . h Hamlet fire 18 were women an
25 people WIlO e m t e
t1'
on profile of employment

'T'L:'
t apparen y, an uncomID
. all
Amencan. !. wS 15 no,
il Bel though Hispanics would typlC y
.L
ghout the Bw er
t,
.
._ ,
~'truc:ure ulroll.
,
.. 15 in the Texas Panhandle sector III p~CU1:U-,
subst1tuce for Afncan-Amertau
d
derlines in this instance IS quite
, h
t
cross race an gen
The commonai tty t at ell s. a .
h d
the immediate implication that
. I ~L. fclass and" IS not ar to see
th
Ob,~OllS Yw= 0
cl
I' .
uld have protected e mterests
1
d"":tal form of ass po lUes co
.
a simp e. ua 1U~1 . '
well as those of white males. And this in turn raIses
ofwomen and ~lllOntleS ascd what kind of politics. what definition of s~al
important questlons of exa Y aI
'hi}" is adequate to che proteL110n
th cal and mor respons1 ltv,
Th th .
jusrice~ an d 0 f e i
.'
.
f their race and gender. e eslS
- d pl' d pulanons Itrespe<:ove 0
.
L 'ch
ot Sll 1 ex OIte ~.
, class'
lines ofan exploitatlve sort Wlll
I shall explore here 15 that Jt was raw
po(Ii e) could have the effects it did.
~_.l

m which an acCld ent a r

crealXU a situation.
"__ ,
N rth Carolina, Struck snrmi..sed, wa. . an
For what happened III HallUet, 0
0

accident waiting to happen,".

f
kplace safe'" and of regulatory
d 6
h eneral hlStory 0 w o r ,
Const er, 1St, t e g
. ed S
Labor struggles around events
practices and ~nforce~ents ~n the ~n~ fi~at:~ occupational safety and healrh
such as the Ttlangle Shirtwatst Co P Y d P ,
the 1920s and it was a
th
Ii . aI agenda unng
very much upon
e po :'dt's New Deal coolition. which included the
fundamental feature of Roo~
.
uirements on hiS score
.
arisfv some mlIumUID. req
ard
labor unlOns, to try t~ So
Th N tiona! Labor Relations Bo
.th
ali ting busIness interestS.
e a
I di
.
WI out ena
uI cl
fl' ct in Lite workplace (inc u . ng
acquired powers to reg ate as~~~ conditions under which unions
over safety) as well as to SPCU:I:d ~afe issues direcdy) oould be set up
would often take on heal
';':11 conrrolledcongresscoJ1S<l,hdatoutIl,
was nor until 1970 that a Deroocrau hadY ,,~u1aled from New Deal

f 1 'slanon tha.t
acc.....u
u .._I.h.,
bits and PIeces 0 egt
.
f th Occupational Safety and
organIZatIOn
e to regulate busllles
. s
o~cis. into
. the
'osHA)
with real 0powers
Admtnlst ratlon \
uld b
ed part of
.
workplace. This legislation was, It sho
. e n0Agt,
(EPA) the Co=~'1!
th E . ronmental proteCtlon ency
whIch set up e flYl.
the National Traffic Safety Com.Dlission,
Product Safety CommlSslOn , ..
.
all of which signaled a much
Mine and Safery Health. Adm lrustratlOn,
.
I 19705 to
of a Democrat-conuoUed congress In the ear y
cs
preparedn (,
.
f Republican president) mat would extend state
legislatIOn In spIte 0 a
to in tervene in the economy.
0

';::l:;;t;7::;'r:;
1

never to represent. let alone become an active instrument of, working-d ass
interests, to enact legislation of such an interventionist character. The .legislation
was not, in fact, an outcome of the dass and sectional alliance policies 'which
had created the New Deal, but aune at the tail-end of a decade in which politic>
had shifi:ed fiom wliversal programs (like social security) to specially targeted
programs to help regenerate the inner cities (e.g., Model Cities and federally
funded housing programs), rake care of the elderly or the particularly
impoverished (e.g., Medicare and Medicaid), and target particular dis3dvantagcd groups in the population (Headstan and Affirmative action). This shili- from
universalism to targeting ofparticular groups inevitably created tensions between
groups and helped fragment rather than consolidate any broader sense of a
progressive class alliance. Each piece of legislation which emerged in che early
1970s appealed to a different group (unions. environmentalists, consumer
, advocaq groups, and the like). Nevertheless, the ner effi:ct was to create a f.Urly
universal threat of intervention in the economy from many special interest groups
aDd in eertaln instances - OSHA...in particular - in the redlm of production.
The latter is, of course, very dangerous terrirory upon which to venture. For
it is accepted, even by the most recalcitrant capitalist interests, that the
s""e. om"" has a fundamental role in ensuring the proper functionlng of the
and respect for priY'.lte property rlghts, interventions in that "hidden
ofproduction in which the secret profit making resides, is always deeply
as Marx (1967) long ago pointed out, by capitalisr-class interests. This
on the hallowed ground of the prerogatives of business provoked an
political response. Edsall (1984) early on spotted irs direction:
the 1970s, business refined irs ability (0 act as a class, submerging
~:;~::inst:incts in favor ofjoint, cooperaTIve action in the legislative arena,

individual companies seeking only special favors ... the dominant

. >theme in the political strategy ofbusioes5 became a shared lmercst in the defeat
such.as consumer protection and lahor law reform, and it: the enaament
of favorable tax, regulatory and antitrusllegislation.

as a class, husiness increasingly used its financial power and

(oa,ti,;uhu:lv through political action committees) duting the 1970,
to effectiyely capture the Republican Party as its class instrument
a coalition against all forms of government intervention (save those
~tal?,eo,US to itself) as well as against the welf.ue state (as represented by
spending and taxari.on). This cuhninated .in the Reagan adminipolicy initiatives which centered on an:
ro."'lloe-iJoard ,dri-ve to reduce the scope and contenl of the federal regulation
"""UStry, the environment, the workplace, he<ilth care, and the relationship

340 Justice, Difference, and Politics

between buyer and seller. The Reagan administration's drive roward deregul-

ation was accomplished through sharp budg(:t cuts reducing enfo:rcement

capabilities; through the appointment of anti-regulatory, industry-~riented

agency personnel; and, finally, through the empowering of me Office QfManagement and Budget with unprecedented authority to delay major regulatiorui, to
force major revisions in regulatory proposals, and through prolonged cost-benefit
analyses, to effectively kill a wide range of regulatory initiatives. (Edsall, 1984:
217)

This willingness of me Republican Parcy to become the representative of "its

dominant class constituency" during this period contrasted wim me "ideologically ambivalent" attitude of the Democrats which grew out of "the fact that
its ties to various groups in society are diffuse, and none of these groups _
women, blacks, labor, the elderly; Hispanics, urban political organizations _
stands clearly larger than the others (Edsal~ 1984: 235), The dependency of
Democrats, furthermore, upon big money" contributions rendered many of
them also highly vulnerable to direct influence from business interests,
The outcome was predictable enough. When a rdatively coherent class force
encounters a fragmented opposition which cannot even conceive of its interests
in class terms, then the result is hardly in doubt, Institutions like the National
Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and OSHA were crippled or turned around
to fit business rather than labor agendas, Moody (1988: 120 and chapter 6)
notes, for example, that by 1983 it took on average 627 days for the NLRB
to issue a decision on an unfair labor practice which is an impossible time to
wait if the unfair labor practice involves dismissal and the person dismissed
has nothing to live on in the meantime. It was this political and
administrative climate of total disregard for laws governing labor rights and
occupational health and safety which set the stage for that "accident waiting
to happen" at Hamlet, North Carolina,
The failure to register political anger ofthe sort which followed the Triangle
Shirtwaist Company fire in 1911 in New York city also deserves some
comment. A similar event in a relatively remote rural setting posed immedMte'
logistical problems fur massive on-the-spot political responses (such ",the
protest demonstration on Broadway), illustrating the effectiveness of capitalis(_,
strategies of geographical dispersal away from politicized central city iocaci()ns.
as a means of labor control. The only other path to a generalized politi,aI.
response lay in widespread media attention and public debate modern communications technology, a very real possibility. But here
elements to ,he situation prevailing in 1991 came into play, First, the
tions of media dissemination of political issues has changed, ren,de:nnil.
graphic video of the beating of Rodney King and the soap-operatic
Thomas hearings far more powerful as political icons than the static
of the aftermath of the North Carolina fire (we will encounter this'
in chapter 13), Secondly, not only were the working-class institutions

Class Rela'
< ' JUStice and the P
ttons} >Joczal

'

~
. 0.'I',,'cat ueograplry
ufDiffirence

341
might ha:e taken up the caUSe great! weakene
.
.
..
as well as In their access to me di Y m
d, both In theu- abIlIty to react
I
"
,
,
me a, b ut e verv Idea of- kind f
'
c ass pOlItJes was likewise on the d [. ,
"
any
0 working_
certain "radical" circles), even thoug~ enSl:~f
downright discredited in
ingly captive Republican Party h db capl , t-c ass mterests and an increasme-board class
against
teen grng a no-holds-barred and acrossthe previous two decades,
east prm eged sectors of the population for

nt

War

Wt

the

'
This weakening of working-class politics in th
1970s on can be tracked b ck
e Umted States from the mid'I h
a to many causes whi h
b
. detaJ ere, But one contributo r
h b
c ,cannot e examined in
' I iragmentauon
'
. " politics aroundry 'eattire
of progressIve
'al . as cen the IncreasIng
'al
speC! ISsues and the'
f h
SOC!
movements focusing on
dec
.. fIse 0 t e so-called. new
,
gen , race, ethlll nty ecol
al'
cuItu raJ rsm, communicy, and the like Th
'
ogy, sexu ,ty multi, . working and practical alternative cIa . ;s.e movements often become a
"some instances have exhibited d
, ; p~ tJ~ of the traditional sort and in
I think it instructive here t:::: tht ostJhr to such class politics,
"':institllti(}fls
:;
asSOCIated wirb such n e at'a1as lar as I know, none 0 f t h e
:.
th
ew SOC! movements
Ii
WI
what happened in Hamle N h
,saw t to engage
t, -'- ort CaroJma. ~
,
.
example, were hea\-;! reo
. d .
omens orgaru_
, .
and mobilizin
,} P cruple WIth the question of sexual
,
g agamst the Clarence Tho
'
" It was mainly women who died in the North mas ,appOIntment, even
i,,'hocoIlrUlUe to bear an enormous burd
f
,Carol tna fire and women
en ~ explOItation in the "Broiler Belt "
apart from the Rainbow Coal"
Hispanic) organizations also re~:n '::' Jesse Jackson, Mrican-American
ne ~tr~ly silent on me marrer, while
ecologists (particularly th
m
for the chickens than for ~ am
nghts wing) exhibited more
e War'ke rs The general t
'm
.
~ to sensationalize the horror of
one ill e media,
Into Its orioins and cert ' I
.
e aCCIdent, but not to probe
.0'
am y not to 1 d'
. al'
Party, the failur
f th
n 1[e cap" Ist-dass interests the
.
es 0
e state of N h C l'
'
"
to a murderously negligent event.
ort
am ma or OSHA as

;0

th (,.

"

II, The Postmodern Death of Justice

to most common-sense mean!
f th
the condition~ under W,L' h ngs 0
e word, many of us wouJd
"
'Jue men Worne
d ' ..
plant are Socially' UilJ'ust v
'ak
n. an mlnontles work in
. ~ettom esuchastat
are Some universallyagre d
ement presupposes
th
e Upon norms as to wh t e d
e concept of social justice and that
boa:v 0 or ought
aUlbi,guiti',OS d fu .
no arner exISts, other than
zzmess, to applying the full force of
to the Circumstances of North C
l'
.
such a
which conjures up doubt and
"
d arc ma, But unIVersality"
SUSpICIOn ownnght h iii
Y()strnOdeI:n" times; the belief that wllyerS~
ths
ost ,ty even, in
tru
are both dIscoverable

ar:

_0

342

justice, Difference, and Politics

and applicable as guidelines for poiitical-economic action is nowadays often

held to he the chief sin of "the Enlightenment project" and of the "totalizing"
and "homogenizing'" modernism it supposedly generated_
The effect of the postInodern critique of universalism has been to render
any application of the concept of social justice problematic.. J\nd there is an
obvious sense in which this questioning of the concept is not only proper but
imperative - too many colonial peoples have suffered at the hands of western
imperialism's particular justice, too many African-Americans have suffered at
the hands of the white mans justice, too many women from the justice imposed
by a patriarchal order and too many workers from the justice imposed by
capitalists, to make the conoop' an}'thing other than problematic. But does this
imply that the concept is useless or that to dub events at HamJet. North
Carolina as "unjust" has no more force than some localized and contingent
complaint?
The difficulty of working with the concept is compounded furt.h.or by the
variety ofidealist and philosophical interpretations put upon the term throughout the long history of western thought on dlC matter. There are multiple

competing theories of social justice and each has its flaws and strengths.
Egalitarian views, fur example. immediately run into the problem that "thcre
is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequals" (the modification of doctrines of equality of opportUnity in the United States by
requirements fOr affirmative action, for example, have recognized the historical
force of that problem). Positive law theories {whatever the law says is just},
utilitarian views (the greatest good of the greatest number)~ social contract,.
and natural right views, rogedler with the various intuitionist, relative
deprivation and other interpretations of jusrice, all compete for our attention,
leaving us v.rith the conundrum: which theory of social justice is the most socially
just?
Social justice, tor all ofthe universalism to which proponents of a particular:
version of it might aspir~ has long turned out to be a rather
.
set of concepts. Furthermore, situatedness," "otherness," and "pelSitioulalilty
(ll!lually understood in the first instance in terms of class, gender, race, ethlmctty;'
sexual preference, and community. though in some formulations
categories are viewed with suspicion) also become crucial elements in ,:~~~
how particular differentiated discourses (be they ahour social justice or
else) arise and how such discourses are put to use as part of the
There can be no universal conception of justice to which we
normative concept to evaluare sume event, such as the Imperial
lire. There arc ouly particular, competing, fragmented, and hellerc>gen<
conceptions of and discourses about justice which arise out of the
situations of those involved.
The task of deconstruction and of postmodern criticism is to reveal
discourses about social justice hide power relalions. The effect

CUts! Rdatiom; Social justice, and the Politi I G.

hy
.
.
ca eograp ofDiffinmce 343
modern extensIon of Engels' line of reaso '
well described by White (J 991: 1l5-6) ;ng (see til: Prologue to Part IV) is
,
, ostmode.rmsts argue:
that we are far too re.aav to attach the n~ d ". "
Ii 'cal
'
T,,,,,-C
Just to
' .
po n
arrangements that are better d
od
cognruve, ethical, and
oppress, neglect, m:i nnnatize and ..J~_ -~l- erst as phenomena of power and
..
---~.
UJ.SClp me 0 en In unmaski
cl:
about Justice, posunodem chlnkers im I rha th "
"fig su . claims
bue unspecified notion ofJ'usn
opy tn:eI~workservessomemorevalid
"'11.___'
ce. ne sees this In Derrida' ..L _L .
L'U-vnstructlon lsJ'usrice " but .1"0 'In L:
'.
s ueuarauon that
direccl
J
<US
illS camr.onmg that
-_L _
yabout nor experience justice. In
.
one can netUler speak
otherness, one serves justlce but one do answ-cr~~g the sense of responsibility to
ended character of the task,
es so Wi a sense of the infinite, open_
J

.The effect, however is t p d

" th .
th
>
0
TO liCe a fa er Simple bipolar world- d
o er po.'Otmoderns who srruggl f; , .
. econstruc_
political theorists who are th 'd I e Oqfustl~J and traditional ethical
el eo agues 0 unjust ord .. And tho .
mril prod uces a serious dilemma for all furms of
ers.
IS In
postmodern argumentation:
. .

On the one hand, its epistemolo -cal

. ,
isric effurrs to theorize abOut )usti~ Pdrthlect lSodtol~ate all totalistic, universal_

_.1
an
ego lllea..,d_ro _L th han
Its pract1Lal project is to generat
IX:
_

'
J ~
n Ute 0 er
d,
'
e errccttvc reStst~'l.ce to rh
dan
to cali
_ zmg. universalizing rati .1 ,

e present
gets of
.. ,
On<illbatton processes In
I h
~_ C!f much lljustIce in conremporary
'.
soaety. n s ott, the source
:'_
h
ba
' SOCIety- 1S Scen as general andsvstemati . th
: _
owever, [S Itself from norm ti 1
n&
.
C;
e
':, _ '
level hy emnl 'n a
a y~ y ~o onting the problem on a
,- ,
. . I
1 oyt g
theory of JUStl.;:e offering universall . valid
,
prm<':lp es. Postmodem reRection thus
y,
;.of normative armament ClfY.lble f
,1 __ ,
seems to deny itself just the
~

r--

0 con<..;U(;{lng a successful -fighL

see precisely this difficulty erner'

, b .
in Hamlet, North au li
~g In t e CIrcumstances that led up
. 0 na.
bUSIness organized itselfas a class
gov<:rnm"llC
. regulanem and the welf.u-e state (with it do .
rationalIty and .ll5
di'b'
S
mtnant
.
J t re SO-I utlons) it did so in th
f
an d un f:aIr regul n'
f'
e name 0
a em 0 pnvate property rights and th
.
the prope~ fruits of entrepreneurial endeavor in fi ly -fu e .u~r
..
deserts, It has long been argued by th 'de I
tee
ncttontng
(from Adam Smith
ds)
e I 0 ogues of tree-marker
onWar are best arrived
th gh
rganized price-fixi
k"
at rou
com>
ng mar ets III which ente
to the profir t":nlTPndered b ~L ,.,
de.
rpreneurs are enrirled
-:o-~
} Uleu en
Vors Ther . th
th'eorctical
al'
.
e IS en no need
, 'aI'
poIit:l''c
, or social ;;>rollment
h'
.
-bover w at is or is not
Cl
pr'x\IICtiioSOn
Justlce IS whatever IS delivered by the market Each
,
f
(land, labor, and capital), for example will
'. .
,_
0
return, its just reward, accordi
"'.'
. rcc:JVc Its
to
, __ The role of government sho~ld b
ed Its co~tnbutlon to
Ulllction free! (
b
.
e con n to malting snre that
y e.g., y curbmg monopoly powers) and that they are
r

.L.L

ctas,. Relations, S.ciaiJustice, and the Po/,ticai Geography ifDijfirellce

344 Justice, Difference,

flP..d

Politics

ensating for clear cases of

. ecl" r~wh-ch
ay atend to comp
"properly orgamz
1 m . ed
rnalities such as environmental
market failure in the case of unpnc exte
alth h;rzards see chapter 13,
tb'
dh
h i ' dcation to deconstruct lIS
POllution an e
- take that roue sop lIS
I" _.
f
It does not, 0 coun;e,
.r'
f particular kind ot po tttGil-,
f' a mannestatlon 0 a
.
'd , . ,
conceptiOn 0 JUStIce as
1 C 1
1992). Yet there IS W1 esPl..c:<ill,
for examp e, anson,
"
[ch
dpoint as the numerous .tax
econoI1llC power se~,
acceptance
0 Sll
a
stan
'
h
'
.
ll1C
h i d des have shown. from ( IS
perhaps even h egemo
U"S
overte asteca ,
revolts" in the mtea tates rth C Ii can be interpreted as an unforstandpoint, the incident in No nd;~ naanagerial error, in a basically just
tunate accident, perhaps compou
Yhffi there oth~i.se would be none
system which (a) provides emplOyPldent "d' ere 1" conditions prevailing in the
'' d b the deman an sUPPY
, '"
)
at wages ucterrrune
Y
51
( trast the furmer SOVIet
Lillion
local labor market, and (b) fills the ';P~ con people can for the most part
with a vast supply of cheap protem. 1 fP""trdeserts in the market place is
f:
his doctnne 0 JtL"
afford to buy. In so ar as r
' t h North Caroline case would be
'ally h egemonic, protest m
e . ' t o who it was t hick
ideolOgIC
at 0 ed the
minimized and confined simply to an enqlliry '~ the Imperial Foods case, in
,

..

po

doors and who should compensate thEme VICCUllRoS. ~ook the blame and admitted
,

l b ' the oWner,

mett e,
all ' ' ,
a "surpnse P ea argam,
sI ugh rer In
, ~.~ for dropping cnmmaJ

f. I
. man a
to 25 counts 0 !nyO untary
f th lant _one of whom was his son. Roe,
charges against
tWO managers 0
eP
,
expected to be released after . ,"
65 years old, nominally sentenced to 20 years, was
"that the person who',
.
-,
fid t" said one of the prosecutors,
all
three years. "1 m con en,
l i ' . prison" The defense was equ y
fLL<-LI..H

me

responsible for that locked door po ~ IS lfi great ~ains to praise the way the
k
ddighted with the plea agreement. ail too
h' family" INewYork Times.
had "
ificed hllllself to save IS
'
"

dderly owner
sacr
~ ~. If
forced into bankruptcy by a h::te ~ :
September 15, 1992). The company iltse . "'~he question of compensation fo.r .'
I 'ed bv the state eavmg
di I
of over $800~ 000 eVl,
I N
rober 1992. imme are Y
;
, ' h
f;
ore than a year. n Dve
. - -.-:
v.ictU\1S 1fi c aos or m
.
h'
ance companies that
,"-,
wake of Clinton's electoral V1ctOry, t e mBur
b d tlutthe bankrupt
-. ,:
~
ds h t c nditions were so a
.pay-outS on the gr.Olln taO
'-0 aT $16.1 million
- :'
should be solely liable. finallYha"l"= 'lei; cut) .mong the 80 or so 'aITIlllC':,
be divided (after the lawyer, d
n

bereaved. or injured.

. .

nse to the H<1.IIl1.et case.

The tempered and entirely lc~ahstlc te5 PO n indi~acion of precisely

. h dli
~an be I nterprete d as a . . . .
S
manner 0 f lts an ng, '.
f . . _ . in the United. tateS
dominant the market-l~d concep~wn,~ lU~::sl:.re mecliared through
That this is the pred.omm~t ~y III "\\ C v a arallel case in Sh'M:hai
tality and market JUStice 15 suggested b, p zh
tile
m.en

T: .
b lsinessman v,rho ran the Fu Oli [e~
,,'
Zlwen, ~e ~",--an l k
locked in the building died III a fire,
Shanghai ill ,vhlch 61 wor edrs
renee ostensibly because he had
. " two-yea rsuspen e d sen
a lenient
th .. th fire" But It
" J" op~rated in the afterma ot e
.
repentance an co '"
1

345

acknowledged that China. seeking to encourage foreign investment (even from

Taiwan) under something like free-market conditions of wage labor. was most
a.rucious not to send the wrong signals to foreign investors by any harsh reprisals
{Sommer, 1994). The point here 15: not to cavil at the leniency of trearmeD[
to guilty parties (though there are plenty of grounds for concern on this score
too), hut to marvel at the way in which a condition of systematic violence
toWards workers is translated into a question of individual culpability and
negligence before being thrown into a calculus of extenuating circumstances.
The obvious discourse with which to confront this market jusrice is that of
workers' rights deploying the whole rhetoric of class struggle against
exploitation. profit making, and worker disempowerment. Neither Marx nor
Engels would here eschew ail talk of rights and justice, While they- clearl)'
recogniz.e that these concepts take on different meanings across space and time
and according to persons, the exigencies of class relations inevitably produce,
",Marx (1967: 235) argues in the case of the fighr between capital and labor
over the proper length of the working day, "an antinomy. right against right.
both equally bearing the seal of the law of exchanges," Between such equal
rights (that of the capitalisr and that of the worker) "force decides." What is
at stake here, is not the arbjtration between competing claims according to
}rome unhrersal principle of justice. but class struggle over the particular
.Cl)fiOeption of justice and rights which shall be applied to a given situation,In
Carolina
had the rights of workers to be rreated with dignity
nrutions of reasonable economic security and safety and with adequate
relJ)lun,eraJtion been properly respected, then the incident almost certainly
not have happened, And if all workers (together with the unemployed)
,en' :coord"J the same rights and if the exorbitam rates of profit in broiler
processing (as "\\reU as in other industries) had been curhed, then the
of the .relatively low-price of thi-s source of protein for the poor
h"", been signiJicandr diminished,
problem, however, is thar such working-class rhetoric on rights and
is as open to criticism and deconstruction as its capitalistic equivalent.
,ncenlIarion on class alone is seen to hide, marginalize. disempower, repress,
even oppress aU kinds of"omers" precisely because it cannot and
acknowledge explicitly the existence ofheterogcneitie; and differences
n, -tor example, race, gender~ sexuali ty, age, ability, culture, Jocalit;r,
~rel1j(lO.n, communit'f, consumer preferences, group affiliation, and
Open-ended responsib.iHty to all of these multiple othernesses makes
if not impossible to respo.:1d to events in ).forth Carolina with a
institutionalized discourst: which might he maximally effective in
t~e rough justice of capitalism's political economy at work in the

=.

encounter a situation with res~'"Cr to discourses about social justice

matches the political paralysis exhibited in dle failure to respond

nrlf'll1lf
,. ,\"','"'I'
.'1

,"li~ \.

11
, I

'.

Cf4ss Relations, SocialJustice, and the Political Geography ofDiffirence 347

346 Justice, Diffirmce, and Politics
.
P liries and discourses both seem to have become
to the North Carolina fire. 0
, . hbt., The upshot appears to be
j
h t response IS m 1 I <Xl.
so mutually fr agmenteu t a
...1.: and African-Americans
,.'
Iy do men and women, wmtes
.
a double mJillmce: not on
. ul
usIy deprived of any normal1Ve
.. LI
b t we are Slm taneo
die in a prevem:au e event, U
b
h' ch to condemn or indite the
principles of j~stice whatsoever y w 1
responsible parttes.

III. The Resurrection of Social Justice

.
of disoontent with the impasse into which post
There are abundant SignS rali'
ch to the question of social justice
, d poststructu sms approa
der
mo illSmS an
diet".
.es have emerged to try to resunect
has &Ilen, And a number of .rn;rent strat~ . '
which either permit
.. '
farguments about Justice m ways.
'
the mobIlizing pow~r 0
'b j b
ertheless general, prinoples or which,
efuliy
CltCUOlSCfl 00, ut nov
.,
.
",
appeal to ~
uild a brid between the suppOS<Xl umversansms
mote ambmously, try to b
articularities lefr behind by postof modernism and th~ fragmI ente c p
pie Walzer's (1983) attempt to .'
nsuuct10ns note. rOf exam ,
ral'
strucrucalist d eco
.
___ \:
to respect the cultu creatlons
f' ti as equaaty so as
pluralize the cdo;~~:({~90)e attempt to construct principles of social justice
of others, an
" a l th ory and as an antIdote to that wmg
'ch
. t twithMaIXlstsoCl ' e
..
whi are conslS en
all .. 11. f' . and of rights as a perruclous
'
wh' ch ~..A<
tall< 0
JUStIce
of M arxISm
1
.elY"":' 1 di .
th n there emerges a strong concern
.
F m multtp e rectlom, e,
. takes
.
bourgeOIS trap. to
ocial . ' and to re-elaborate upon what It
to.
to reinstate concern for s
jusuce
.'
'
h values and institutions of a reasonably Just s~cIety,
f the
.
create t e
th
t to concede the seriousness 0
-_ .
I think it important at e outse "
rid f' fi 't
u.r.ili
do' UStlce: 1n a wo
0 In ill e
intent of poststruct
sm to
J fo refusing to apply universal pri'1Cil,jes,
and open-endedness. TheIr reasons r
.
"Ol"s;,:\erabl.e
. .d1 acroSS heterogeneous situations are not WIthout~' .
ngI y . ,
Derrida (1992a: 35) for one correctly InsISts, the founding
To begm With, as, . . al' zed .....,ime of justioe rests on an ext:ra-leg;lf
moment of any InStitutton 1
--0--moment of violence:
discourses. on the left or on the

ituati ns all revo1utlonary

.
All revolutionary s
0
~.
b aile the founding, in pr-ogress or
'gh
.usti/Y the recourse to VIOlence y gm!l,
1 . imat retro-.
n t ... j
As this law to come WIll In return egtt
e,
.,'
to come, of a n~ law'
off, nd the sense of justice. its future anterIO~'
-vel:' the ViOlence that may e
.
.
th t
Speerl .}>.
.
h fo dation of all states occurs in a srtuatIon . a
already Justifies It. T e un
, .,
d
sO m ,"o,leneei'

It 'n~ml"urates a new law, It alWays oes

,
thus call revOIuuonary. ~

. ch .
Marxhas it, always "the midwife
The trace of that force whi IS, as.
d it is artIy Derrida's
I
't stain upon the soetal order an
P
, Thi
ever eaves 1 S .
h
that it can never be erasea.
S
insist that the trace IS always WIt u~~ h' ch many social movements_
alerts us to tbe unfortunate ways III w I

twentieth century have foundered on the belief that because their cause is just
they cannot possibly themselves behave unjustly. The warning goes even
deeper: the application of any universal principle of social justice entails an
injusrice to someone, somewhere, But, on the other hand, at the ond of a road
of infinite regret for any founding act of violence, of questioning the superimposition of singular rules in a situation of infinite heterogeneity, and insisting
upon open-endedness about what justice migh( mean, there lies ar best a void
or at worst a rather ugly world in which the needs of the exploiters or
. oppressors (like Imperial Foods) can be regarded as "just" on equivalent terms
with those of their victims (those who died). We shrink from any fuunding
act of justice in which "the expropriators are expropriated" precisely because
. it is a moment of violence that will fOrever leave its trace (until expunged by
some further act of violence). We refuse the institutionalized arbitrariness of
.. ',Iaw because it forms as a recalcitrant "permanence" in the face of the fluidity
',"I,rs,ocial change. And, reducing everything to Hows, we refuse to contemplate
construction of those "permanences" that can give order to social being
direction to social becoming, Affirming the importance ofinlinite heteto:'!oerr''''Y and open-endedness in a world of unstructured processes and infinitely
:::':t"rn'pj,:x Bows, direoly connects to the charge against posrstrucruralism that
"anything goes" way of thinking within which no particular moral or
principles can carry any partiooar weight over any other. "At some
White (1991: 133), "one musr have a way of arguing that not all
estatil)tlS of otherness should be fostered; some ought to be constrainthis presumes some general principles of right or justice.
is, White goes on to assert, otten a tacit ad.mission of such a problem
of the poststrucruralism's founding texts. Foucault (1980: 107-8),
strenuously that we can never disentangle "mechanisms of
from principles of right, ends up raising the possibility of "a new
right, one which must be anti-disciplinarian, but at the same time
trom the principle of sovereignty. Lyotard likewise argues explicitly
creation of a "pristine but "nonconsensual" notion of justice in The
Condition. And Derrida (1992a) is deeply concerned about ethics.
are we told much about what, for example, a "new form of right
have oonsequenrly emerged to try to resurrect some general
social justice while attending to poststructuralist criticisms of
theory which marginalizes "others." There are four particular
deserve scrutiny.

1. Breaking Out ofthe Local

;tstruc.tw-alist critical interventions tend to confine their radicalizing
interactions occurring "below the threshold where the systemic

348

justice, Difforence, and Politics

Class Relations Social just'

'

tee, an

d h
t

e Political Geography ofDifference

349

imperatives ~f power and money become so dominant" (White, 1991: 107).

The polities of resistance which they indicate are typically attached to small-

fro~ ~hose who are different, whose social

.
,
affilIations are different. '"
perspectIves~ expenence and

scale communities of resistance> marginalized groups, abnormal discourses~ or

The ideal to which she appeals' "

entails the celebration of th di .IS openness to unassimilated omerness. This

simply to that zone of personal lite sometimes termed "the life world" which

tion of contemporary capitalism. It is hard to read this literature without

statement of norms of social justice.

Young (1990a: 312) complains that the attempt to counter "the alienation
and individualism we find hegemonic in capitalist patriarchal society," has led
feminist groups "impdled by a desire for closeness and mutual identification,"
to construct an ideal of community "which generates borders, dichotomies,
and exclusions" at the same time asjt homogenizes and represses difference

'
en we eat C Ie en \Ne rel
ke
see 0 f the son: that died in H I
N h "
ate to wor rs we never

di
'duals
am et, r Ort Carolrna Rei tI'
hi
b
. m VI
get mediated mrou h market ~
.
.
a ons ps etween
[,ave to define conceptions ofJ' g .
bUI ncrlOnS and state powers. And we
ilStlce capa e of operati
d
these multiple mediations Bur.L' ' . !
al
ng across an through

.
culS IS me re m of polit
hich
1SlU and comruunitarianism typl' all'ds
lCS W
postmodern,
c yav01
Young therefOre proposes "a famil ( . h
amcepts and conditions" reI
y note t e echo of Wittgenstein) "of
.
eVant to a contemp
.
" Justice. She identifies "five aces of 0
."
orary conceptIOn of social
'. fruits of the labor from one gr
ppressthlon ; explmtatzon (me transfer of me
. .' rk
"
oup [0 ana er, as for exam I . th
'. wo ers gIvmg up surplus value t
. al'
'
. p e, m e cases of
__ 1 '
0 capit lSrs or women 1 th d
'
...traw>lerrmg the fruits of meir l b . n e omes"c sphere
a or to men) mar<nnat ti (h

..
','
' ,

to be listened to with respect)

1 I' e . ':' I wou d permit
' .m
fc
f ' cu
I fura lmneri-"-""" _m (s t ereotypmg

:~elOaVi'10rs
,-'
as we11 as in van

: ----

necessary to pose alternative conceptualizations" ramer than to rest content-

accessible public spaces and forums, one should expect to encounter

from useful participatio

ial 'I:c 6-~ tza on t e expulsion
n lfl soc
rre so that th
"
.
to severe marerial depriv tI'
d
ey are potennally
Ia k
a on an even extermi tI' ")
c of that "authori... sta
d
f
na on ; powerlessLJl
[Us, an sense 0 S lf~ h'ch
I

: ",

within me group. She rums the tools of deconstruction against such ideals of
community in order to show their oppressive qualities (cl~ above, chapter 11).'
But she distances herself from Derrida because she thinks it "both possible and .'
with me idea that "deconstruction is justice." The first step to her argument
is to insist that individuals be understood as "heterogeneous and decentered"
(see chapter 10 and below). No social group can be truly unitary in me
of having members who hold to a singular identity. Young strives on rhis
to construct some norms of behavior in the public realm. Our conceptib
social justice "requires nor the melting away of differences, bUll insril:u.ti:onstb.a1
promote reproduction of and respect for group differences without oppre'sSH'i(
(p. 47). We must reject "tl1e concept of universality as embodied in rqoublican
versions of Enlightenment reason" because it sought to ((suppress the
and linguistic hererogeneity of me urban public" (p. 108). "In

. .

groups and of tl1e diverse <>coup id ..

h'ch
aractensues of different
.
eentities w I are themsel
bemg
constructed and deconstru ted
f.L
Ves perpetually
out 0 Ule flows and him f
ial'
c
B ut we h ere enCOUnter a maJ'or pr
hi
I
de
s
0 soc
life.
'
l
'
0
em.
nmo
mmass
b
.
m ul!!p e-mediated relations wll' h '
-ur an sDClety, the
'.
IC constItute mat socien,
.
d
are Just as lffiportant and as" th
."
,~, across time an space
. .
au entrc as unmediated :
c
I t IS Just as important for a p I" all
.
ace-tO-race relations.
1m
bo
o ItIc v responSible per
son to ow a ut and
respond politically [0 all those peo I~ who daily
P
even though market exchang hid fr
' put breakfast upon our table
e
es omusm
di'
,
producers (see chapter 8) Wh
h' k
e con tlOns of life of me

concluding that the objective of reform or revolutionary transformation of

contemporary capitalism as a whole has been given up Oil, even as a topic for
discussion, let alone as a fOeus for political organization. This "opting out" from

consideration of a whole range of questions is perhaps best signaled by the

marked silence of most postmodern and poststructuralist tl1inkers when it
comes to critical discussion of any kind of political economy [save~ of course,
to deconstruct it, as Derrida (1992b) does in his examination of money and
exchangel. The best that can be hoped for, as someone like Foucault seems to
suggest, is that innumeIable localized struggles might have some sort of
collective effect on how capitalism works in general.
Dissatisfaction with such a politics has led some socialist feminists in particular (see Fraser, 1989; Young, 1990a, b) to seek ""'ys to broaden me terrain
of struggle beyond the world of face-to-face communalism and into battles over
such matters as welfare stare policy, public 'affairs, political organization via,
in Fraser's case~ "an ethic of solidarity and, in Young's case, through explicit

stlncttve cultures and ch

can be idenrified as distinct from and potentially resistant to penetration by

the rationalizing, commodified, technocratic, and hence alienating organiza-

own

... '.
',--,'

'

0u:

orms

eu tural expression

that the 0

""penence and Interpretation of social life fi ds

the dominant cuJture hil tha
n
_

grou i t s '

Itt

pptesse
e expreSSion

'. w e t same culture imposes on the

p._ I . ""penence and mterpretation of social life") d . len

kd
ks
~ an vw ce

an actua.my of random unp

to

j"

damage humiJiat

"

tOVthD e atmc ,which have "no motive

.:
.
e~ or aestroy
e person").
.
mrundlmenslOnal conception of social . .
of a mere extension of traditi al l"beral JustIce IS usef,,1 even if it
, - spectrum of social affairs rh on uaI' I a1notIons of tolera..'ion across a
a

.
__ "_-,'

anus. t ertsustoth'
f
e eJastence 0 a
and political frontier" O f r' al
.... . It also emphasizes the h po !tie. action to. roll back multiple
unjustly treated 'n th
kpelaterogenClty of ""penence of injustice "
e wor
ce can act opp
. I . .L
the victim of that m ' .
resslve y In tile domestic
m
'ghb h'
ay, In turn, resort to cultural imperialism
.
e nel
or ood Yer th
agamst
c r
ere are many situations,. such as those in

aro lna~ Were these multiple forms of oppression coalesce.

of

frill>:e, Difference, and politicr

Unfortunately, Young leaves in abeyance the question of how and why these
different dimensions of injustice intersect in the ways they do in particularplaces and times. She also avoids the questions of how one discourse on justice
can be used politically and discursivdy to erase and frustrate concerns about
another. 'While it is not~ plainly. Young's intent to bury question of exploitation
that were so transparent in the Imperial Foods fire under a Illorass of questions
.bout gend 4 raa:, and culture of the sort that dominated the Anita Hal or
e
Rodney King cases, the political effect with respect to the North Carolina fire

350

was, as we have seen, to do exactly that.

But there are chinks in the armor of Young's idealist concept.ion of a just
society:

The danger in a:ffirming difference is thar the implementation of group-conscioU5

ous
policies will reinstate sdg,ma and o."dusion. In the past, group.-consci
policies
were used to seyaratt those defined as ;:lifferent and exclude them from access
to the rig.'>rs and privileg<:5 enjoyed by dominant groups .... Group-conscious
policies carulOt be used. to justifY v:clusion of or discrimination against members
of a group in the exercise of a general political and civil rights. A democratic
cultural pluralism thus requires a dual system of rights: a more general system
of rights which are the same for all, and a more specific s),steI:1 of g.roup~

conscious policies and rights. (p. 174)

The double meaning of univasality then be<:<>mes plain: "universality in the senre
of the participation :md indusion of everyone in moral and social life does not
imply universality in the sense of adoption of a general point of view that leaves
behind particular afIiliations, feelings, commitm=ts, and desires" (p. 105). But
nota bene: universality is no longet rejected out of hand. It is reinserted (pethaps
"smuggled back ill' would be a more appropriatnvay of putting it) in a dialectical
es
relation to particularity, positionality, and grOUp difference. But what co.nstitrnt
this universality; who is to determine how it is to be specified and in what wa}'S
is it really so different from what liberal theory and the EPJightenrrlent alhlong

ID,mtained? Young provides no answer to these questions

question of social justice a.'aits exactly such a clarification.

2. On Not Romancing the Geographical Stone

These questions ha'.re been posed in another way in the contested and
testy debates on the "politics of recogni(io'{ and on "multiculturalism."
here with Walzer's (1983: 314) formulation of a "radically particularist"
in which "every substantive account of distriburlve justice is a local
We are "all of

us he says:

culture-producing creatures; we make and inhabit meaningful worlds.

(here is no way to rank and order these wodds widl regard to their

Class Relations,oc
ialjust,,:e,
. and tbe Political Geogrnhl... o'"Diffi
.a1 oJ
7"/ 1 : mmee 351

s~ go 5, we do justice to actual men and

pamcu1ar creation;;;. And the; L : . .
women by respecting their
th
YWMmJw,1:1ce andr .
e meaning of 50cial goods amon th
es:st ~y> by insisting on
understandin~ of _I.' h
. gb cdn:- Yes. Justice is rooted in the distinct

_-p"
1"'-""ces' onors,jo s, ungs ofall sons
.
way of life. To override thme understand"mgs IS
. ( al......'<iys)
that
consut"ute a shared
to act unjustly.

sei

'This, it seems to me, is Raymond W.t11iam,, t .

seen through the other end of the tdesco hesM of mihtMt. parricularism"
umversaltty is infinite respect r. (th
. ~The only penrusslble form of
geographically) produced W::ed at paw . . ty founded on historically (and
structure of feeling." Since s h ways of lIfe, each with its own distinctive
. pli ted.
ue structures are often (th gh
1m ca
III processes of place c '
ou not uniquely)
. .
.
onstrucnon we find
el
th
m1llmmm Invited to a veritabl feas f
' . y ours Yes at e very
jus.tice thar frcquentlv take one:cr t 0a/geographicall fragmented notions';f
."'
ntor! expressIOn thro gh th .
o state~ cousntutionaiity and I
d h .'
uo"
e mstJl1ltions
,; f _ .
aWl an t e nruals of ell t
B th
. nOW ensts to respect equally allforms of cultu
. s om. lit e demand
5)pomrs out, however that "thi
. ral adllevcmen~ Gutman [1994:
ul al
.cui.'
s rcqwrement of pot tical
..
c cur part! anty _ extended to all' d d a l '
recogmtlOll of
f
. rsa\"
m IV! U S - IS com at'hl
th .
:{} _ unlVe
tsm that counts th
ul
P 1 e WI a arm
. diVI.dualS as among their bas' .
e c"
tare and cultural context \~ued bv
)n
_ The

. Ie mterests.
'
nm" "",II rehea.rsed~~esented. In favor of recogn}zing cultural particulari are
"the
f 1my would now accept laylor's (1994: 60-1) .udgty
o equal respect as enshrined .

t~

libe

ment

illi,toi:icalJy proven "inhospitable difli .

m a
ral.ism of rights" has
.'ppii(:ation of the rules defining these ~;e, b:cause (a) it u:sists on uniform
.,.;sll>picious of collective goals." It cannot ':h:!out
re exceptIon, and (b) it is
(0 supporr collective goal",
)'va! f , respond to reasonable
.....
". sumd h 0 Iii<cultures} p reservation
.
of
',-.~Ql;,gic,j h a b.ltats of special sip-nifican
<;>
ce, an tl e e Nor can't be
..
. .
I
senSitIve
disparate notions ofJ"~;ce and 0 f'Just rctrlb
h/J,fradica1ly different rultural ~..
. ,. tha t can arise
:.,..,
tradir,'
ut]on

lItir tt,ere

IS,

OilS.

as fall
I argued. in

ch,,,t
. to this. To begin .th
,. er II ,a downs,de

o
poSSIble standards of evaluation" u d
.
.
WI,
worth as much as ,t u d
.
. d
n ernunes Judgments
n ermmt:s JG gm ts f' c:
destructive to the
al h
en 0 JDlerlOr worth. It IS
very go stat arguments of r

.
to support (Wolfe, 1994.7)
Ie
espect orpartlcular u. ,werakeWal
tho
asunjust to try to override the cultural ach.
zer at lS word,
fascism, or a caste socie'
lcvements of ,;;lavery;
f
of narive-Arneric.-ms tyra:/ - would be to deny the rights: to selfo v letnamese peasants Th AFL CIO
be accused of in'usti
.' - e
,for
to reclaim regulatory au~or~ ;:~~;leritio~ed the fed.erai
the Imperial Foods fire . . N rth
Carolina employers in
j"
Slllee
0
Carolin . d
b
Iterature, is proud of its partlc
. u!at anU-UnIon
. . a. JUway
gmg
Y its
of doing

352 Justice, Difference, and Politics

Recognizing this difficulty, leads Taylor (with Walzer's concurrence) to
reformulate the idea into a presumption of equality of achievement of cultures
that: mayor may not be sustained on further inspection. But this presumes two
thing:;. First there is some universal standard of judgment as to when a particular
cultural condition is unacceptable. Secondly, it presumes there are valid entities
called "cultures" in places that have distinctive "achievements" to be evaluated.
This /lies in the face ofhistorical-geographical processes of place and community
construction and ignores the mct that cultures are just as relationally (and
"dialogically") constructed as individuals and a good deal more porous. Nor to
acknowledge these processes of cultural construction/dissolution and to build a
"particularist theory of justice" with respect to cultures as embodied things is to
advocate a politics that would effectively freeze geographical structures of place
for evermore. The effect would be as dysfunctional as it might be oppressive.
There is a third objection; the substantive demand to protect a cultural form (or
practice) on the basis of a presumption of its worth can be oppressive and unjust
to those who do not share its values. Individuals and subgroups might not want
their cultural specificity recognized. because that specificity is precisely the social
prison from which they desire to escape. Women, fur example, do not lack
recognition ofv-aluation in our society; the problem lies) rather, in the particular
way they are recognized and valued. Here the deconstructionist demand to
dissolve rather than respect the categories (particularly those of race, ethnicity,
and gender that have "essentialist" overtones) makes sense. Unfortunately, the
absence of any cultural or social categories (permanences) upon which respect
and recognition might be bestowed (even for a time) is just as damaging as
assuming a historical geography of cultural achievelnent that is set in stone.
The problem with this idealist political argument, is that it fails to understand
how places and cultures are constructed, sustained, and dissolved. The
fundamental dialectical question of how processes and cultural entities relate
in place is averted. The political struggle to protect supposed cultural "perman~
ences" as highpoinrs of human cultural achievement may be understandableat
a historical conjuncture when /lows and processes are rapidly shifting through;
cime-space compression, threatening the achieved qualities of all places. But
all societies, as Taylor (1994, 63) observes, "are becoming more mlllti,culumtl, :::
while at the same time becoming more porous and if, as Wolf (1982; 17)
it (see chapter ll), all attempts to construct places and build imagined
munities must ';'take cognizance of processes that transcend ~parable
moving through and beyond them and transforming them as tbey ____ ~A,'
then considerations of social justice cannot be particularized in the radical
that Walzer initially imagined.
.

3. The Politics of Scale

There is another dimension to this that goes back to the production or ImUIUp

Class R/ations, Social TUSh

J'

d th

Ce, an

e PO/Ttica! Geo","""hy ,I"Diffi

0. ~r
'?t z erence 353

spatto-temporalities and val

chapter I), there is a perpe:~ StfUbctutalees. If, to echo Raymond Williams (see
am
we beIong to, or if we take a
h 1V nee as to
. wh a tki n d 0 f"permanence"
fiue more ecologtcal view f b .
(as Leopold do es - see chapter
7) h
,0
IOtlc communitv
chical'
1 t
en we mUSt pert
.
~J
ar .
organIzation of places (permanences) withi o~ce recogruze the hierNerghborhood, city, rem on nation th
b e n which we have our being.
f
'
I
,,',
,eglo ererert
diir
o SOCIO-ecO ogical interaction
.
. o,qUIte uerent processes
t
scales. Individuals have member;CC~a1lg fathqlllte different spatio-temporal
!pIn
0
emCo
'.
dli
to e ne a scale at which t b
d h .
.
mmunltanans are forced
are drawn makes all the d'; onn pt elr concerns and where the boundaries
merence or examPI th C
Governance (1995) pursues a politics .
hich e: e ommission on Global
th
wth f"'
lfl W
a world comm . "1:
on e geo
0
mternational civil so'"

uruty lounded
of international norms" exp
" f" Clety seeks to weave a tighter fabric
f
reSSIve 0 certarn com
aJ '
sense 0 common responsibility.}) The m T .
mon y . ues Informed by "a
on the other hand, regards thIS as a'
.~lt!a movement In the United States
'.
'
. b ' of betrayal 0 f the pnnclples
of the lOUO d"mg constltution fth mamrestatJon
.
E'
.
0
e
nation
ut
lS equall .
'
.
rhetone. tZIOn! (1993) in la di th
.Y commurutanan in its
political solutions ("without
ng. e new com:nunltarianism as a basis for
!taillsm or represswn") t
.
pro blems, bounds his arOliTn
'thin.
0 economIC and social
WI
the nes of th {; d
ed
Blit confIi. ctual loyalties"~,,ent
and val
(. cI din
e e erat Unired States.
C
dire
ues mUg those of
'a1' . )
Hom
uerem scales, as th
I' _,I.
SoC! Jusnce deriye
jenlOn~tr.ate, (
e eco oglW1-e nVlfonme tal .
see chapters 8 and 13) Th
n
ISSUe So dearly
. . . e. contempor.r"
' on the local
,~'nue 11 e nb"flees certain kinds of
.
- J emPhasIS
'"truncate.!
.
L '"sensltlVltIes, totallv erase th
d h
'
,':
ratner tHau emancipates the fi Id f I'"
so ers an t ereby
e
0
po
meal
enga""
d
'
we all may h aYe some "place" ( "I
") ,
o~ment an actlOfl.
'.,,','"'''' ever be'purely "local" b'
or p ""es In the order of things, we
"tlnb''''siillp .
emgs, no matter how hard
A_
':'
In one Sort of "perffianen "d"
d
.
we try. n.ud while
ce
enne
at
a
give
cal
L
to each of us than others
h'd .C
n s e may ue more
. I
,suc I entIHcatIons
d
so Slflgu ar as to create flO conflictl'n I a1'
as we 0 acquire are
;'!loOIIl11itUnication fro
g oy tIes.
.
.
m one spatio-temporal scale to anothe
"",.c'"b-~,lhlagmed conununities, nation states I a1
'. r, or across spaces,
This is a condition that has p I ' . egdHentltles and systems, etc.
.. f
eoccupJe
abermas b r_ th
crtnc 0 postmodern and
. ' Y lac e mOSt
pn>p(>n,:nt of universalist argu!e~~str~r~t particularisms and a
illl!Ve:rsafprmcip/es, he does insist on'
e b abermas never seeks to
a process- ased metan
fr
.
communication occurring in th
bli
orm 0 ee
IS (0 democratize comm
'.
. e pu c sphere of civil society.
owerfill tho aI UflICatIve
actIon to the p'
'
'
.
Omt W h
P
e Ie prInciples such as th
. . ere It can be
: 422) considers his arun '
ose pertalmng [0 justice.
-b~ment as:

p:r.

'

<C

of the most drastic of OUf florIDati 1 cal. _

'e[opmelll of a revitalized democratic r _ve.o "zatlOnS, promoting the
into political theory and
ttlcallife; Jt puts back a normative
,
OI:e
t reaches our beyond the bounds of

lO

Class Relations, SocialJustice, and the Political Geography ofDiffirence 355

354 Justice, Dijfrrence, and Polirics
'cul 'nterestS and svecific social contexts. It
the comm~ry~ ~ond patU ar,1 rinciple. is ~endable historically and
recovers a uruversahs~ that, a, ieast ~ ~
f nnst-moo.em political ethics, and
call It avotds both the relatlYlSlll 0 r .. . 1
hi
geograp
y..
. . ~litical philosophy; nor IS It SlIDp Y
the closely allied localism of commurutanan ran absuact contraCWian normanve theory....

lieves the "universalism is

. ul h
.
th the way Haberm as be
The diflic ry ere IS W1
hicall "F all of his occasional references
extendable historically and geograp f thY' orhlem of communicative action
'a! .
he treats a
e pro
to matert crrcumstances,
cl
vides a ~,...,.
weak under. . di
.
hlem and consequen Y pro
._;
as a lingmstIC SCursI:" pro."
"( recuperate the language of chapter
standing of how the discursIVe moment to ial practices of imaginaries, of
at
ffi ts of power 0 f mater
'
di
'f.,
4) ~te~
e ec .
. ",; all 0
ring in a world of rapidly. vcrs!.r
institutiOns, and of SOCIa! relano '.
pet"
H
II (1994: 423) IS rtght to
d valuatron systems. owe
.
ing spatio-temporallUes an
h.ink
th
h the realities of differentiated
,n'
biliry to t
raug
object to H ab ern1a5 rna
tal< th . .. far enough: Habermas has, in
political space" hur does not
e. e cnUClraliSffi
d "places" ate produced
.
f how sparta-tempo ues an
short, no conception 0
al th
of communicative action and
IDa
. integr to e process
and how
t process IS
d
h Id out is the ideal of a process-based
of valuation. What Habermas oes vale
f J'mtice might hetter become
f how norms. anf d .ues 0 erful "militant particulansms.
.
"
understandi ng 0
.
alized
even
on
the
basIS
0 certaill" pow
unlvers
>

4. Situating Sitwtted Krwwledges"

.
to sa that all knowledges (including
The fourth debate concerns what;t 7ean~a1 ne:ds) are "situated" in a hereto-,
SOCl
conceptions of social j usuce ~ edn n
be oonstru~d in different ways.
'
"y
"Slrnat
ess
can
.
f' dw Us almost entirely on- th
_e
geneous wor:Id 0 f (llllerence.
th "vutg conceptiOn 0 It
e
.
What I shall ter;" e . at hi . I see interpret, reptesent, and understand
' . cul .. of mv life history. The
relevance of mdiVldual blOgrap es.
the world the way I do because the pam antles has~d and
...
I
age games and dISCOUrses IS emp
,
0')(1" ill)';.
f
separateness 0 'angu hi'call and somet'mes
-ren institutionally, ,.
.
1
is treated as blOgrap
. Yall d
. ed It proceeds as if none of
. all
d geographIC y etermm .
ali
h
h istonc y, an
h ckI
f ersona! history or inrern ze w at
throw off even some of the s a es 0 P
.
es we caIme,t t;~
. .
. h
th) is all about. In a wa.y it assum
- ,,""v

condloon ofbemg teo~.

abl

ociated w.ith an exclusionary

learn another's lan,,<>WJ.gC' Ir l~m:~ it~~equendy used as a rhetorical

of the sort tbat Young feJeG ed'
h"
and moral autbority of
ha
the suppos aut entlClry
,

eitb er to en nee
t h ' ty of other accounts
accounts of the world or to deny e vernel
'bl h . anything
black and female of rural origins she can~ottOSSI y. a: New York
to sa about conditions oflife of the W~lte ourgeolsle
heterosext1'Jl
Y
nl. "'because he is a whIte, male, western~

more commo y,
.' .
f how the world works ).
bound to be tied to a certain vISIOn 0
-

- . .:

biographies do, of amrse, matter and all sorts of problems arise when someone
privileged (like myself) purports to speak for or even about others. This is a
difficult issue for conremporary social science and philosophy to contront, as
Spivak (l988) shows, But a relarivist, essentialist, and nondialectical view of
situatedness generares immense political difficulties. I would not be perrnitted
to speak about the experiential horror of the North Carolina fire, for example,
because I am not working class, nor a woman, nor an African-American (nor,
for that matter, was I killed in it). Economically secure pw/essional white
feminists could not, likewise, speak for any woman whose situation is different.
No one in fact could assume the right or obligation to speak for "others let
alone against the oppression of anyone whose identiry- is construed as "other."

There is, however, a fur profounder and more dialectical sense of "situatedness to which we can appeal. Its firsr, and I think weaker version occurs in
Hegel's parable of the master and rhe slave. Situatedness is not seen as separate
and unrelated difference, but as a dialectical power ",dation between oppressor
and oppressed. Botb need tbe other and both internalize a relation to the other
in .their ovm identiry. Marx appropriated, radically transformed, and strengthened this Hegelian dialectic in his examination of the relation between capital
and labor. His long and critical engagement with bourgeois philosophy and
\JlOliticai economy then became the means to defioe an alternative subaltern
;jJ}(l"JlYo'en;ive science situated from the perspecrive of tbe prolerariat. Feminist
>writers such as Haraway (1990) and Hartsock (1987) examine geoder difler"'_<~._ ground their feminist theoty in a sinlllat way.
a dialectical conception pervades DeniMs view of the individual
$ub,jectas someone who has no solid identiry, but who is a bundle of heteroand not necessarily coherent impulses and desires. Multiple forms of
.~ii\,iJ;;j{:rion with the world construct individuals as "a play of difference that
mpletely he comprehended" (young, 1990b: 232). "Otbernesses" are
and inevitably internalized wirltin the self in a dialogical mode
32). "Situatedness" is then taken out ofits wooden attachment
iUentiJoab,1e individuals and their biographies and is itself situated as a play
diffe,,:nce. When I eat Kentucky fried chicken, I am situated at one point
of commodiry production that leads righr back to Hamlet, North
When I interact with my daughter, I am inevitably caught in a game
::C()ru:tnlct',on of gender identities that have meaning only in terms of
PD""':SSt:s of gendering that also bear their burden of historicalconstruction. When I refrain trom using bait to desrroy the slugs
eaten every lower I have nurtured, then

r situate mysdf in

an

of existence thar bas a quite different spatio-temporality to

as I tty to economize on energy use out of a feat of global
are heterogeneously constructed subjects internalizing "other-

virtue of their intricate relations to a highly diversified world. If

2EA
356

justice, Dijforence, and Politics

individuals are, as we have already argued, relationally (or as Taylor, 1994: 32,
prefers it "dialogically") construcred entities, then the definition of individml
is vacuous without understanding what relations are being internalized. This
leads to Spivak's (1988: 294, 308) answer to the whole dilemma of political
representation of the other which rests on invoking Derrida's call to render
"delirious that interior voice that is the voice of the other in us.);
Unfurtunately, this does not exhaust the problem for two reasons that derive
directly from considerations on the dialectics of spatio-temporality and identity
(individuation) laid out in chapter 10, First, we &ce the danger of the
"Leibnizian conceit" with all ofitN associated hubris (see above, chapters 3 and
10). Even if we, as individuals, can in some sense be construed .as monadic
entities internalizing everything there is~ there is no way in which we can
internalize everything equally or sharpen our perceptions so as to be able to
speak for all, If we are not monadic entities, but dialogically constructed
individuals produced and "individuated" by and therefore sensitive to certain
dominant processes of socio-ecological interaction into which we insert
ourselves as trans formative beings, then what we say on behalf of others
depends crucially upon (a) who or what we are primarily in sensual contact
and communication with and (b) how and why we engage in certain
ttansformative activities rather than others. "Rendering delirious that interior
voice of the other within us" is, surel),; a vital political rooment. But what we
say still depends on the sensory, material and communicative world in whith
our imaginaries, Ollr desires, our discourses and our practices get formed.
Secondly, as Ricoeur (991) notes, our own sense of self-hood andofidentity
in part gets constructed through the narrative d.evices which we use to descrioe
our temporal relation to the world, and so a5sumes, relatively durable
configurations. While identity does not rest upon sameness or essence, it does
acquire durability and permanence according to the stories we teli ourselves
and others about our history and our geography, about, in short, our plm:e in '
the order of things. Although identity internalizes othernesses, it n""erl:heliess.:
delimitN and renders relatively durable both the (often spatial)
"omernesses" brought into play and the relation of those others to a PaJ:ticular
sense of sdf-hood. Whites may construct their identity through historiql ,
development of a particular relation to blacks, for example; indeed, both
may use the other to construct themselves, This intertwining of black
identities in US histoty was, as Gates (1992) has recently shown, furldamen",l\,
to James Baldwin's conception of race relations, But it is precisely within ,
a process of internalization that much of the racial problematic of '
temporary culture resides, To break with racism therefore requires thall",'f"bre
w.irh that process rather than with the discursive categories it produ.ce5.
Nevertheless, we can, ftom this dialectical perspective, better
Hartsock's (1987) claim that "attention to the epistemologies of
knowledges," can "expose and clarifY the theoretical bases for political

Class Relations, Socia! justice, and the Political Geo~a"b ,/'Diffi

' '"
0' 't' Y oJ. 1 erenee
357
and sohdanty at the same n"
,
,
as It proVIdes "i
a
i
'
me
dead-end oppositions set u b o d ' ~ mp.or~nt ternauves to the
" W7
P Y posrm errusms re,<cno
f the En!"ightenment, we must pay close a t t '
th
n 0
'.
enuon to e similari'
th
.
nes
bas,s fot differing groups to under
d ch th
at can prov,de the
Refusing the postmodern L
I" stan ea a er and form alliances"
wrmu atIOn 0 f the p bl
H
.
'
we engage with dominant discour
"el L" to em, artsoek fisists that
ses preCIS Y LX::Ca
the complex play ofpower relation Th
.
use we cannot abstract from
to the "vulgar" version of situate~'
at wmg of pos~odernism which hol.ds
"cal
ess, cannot engage w,th th d '
I
of poIITI -economic power at w k d
'.
e OffilIlant ines
,
at'
or un er caP'tal,sm
d th b
'
margm 'zes itself. But that"'
f
" ' an
ere y typ,cally
rt'"'
wmg 0 postmoderrusm th t d
'
to un di uerennated multipliel'n'
d infi' Il
a re uces everythmg
es an
fl1te OWs als
d'
be.cause the capacity for d're ted
'
b
a encounters IRieulties
"
1 C
acoon ecomes bl ok d b th
confoslOn of Identities, Kaminer (1995)
0
e y e sheer
recounts how:
The children of identity Ii'
ed red
po tiCS routmelv deconstruct th
uea , marned, monogomous fi .:
c. _ ems-e1yes. As an
mother. I suffer from an aCUte case> f er::;.~l~. ~nst1an~ Africa-American
explains. Sometimes th .. expl
. 0 m QdP CIty. Sonja D. Cuny-Johnson
.
~
manOns are sa . r
.
_'- _~ ~~can-American," Cheryl Green writes'u am not Just a wom_a..~ o~ }ust
disabIlity, and I have also b
haped b " I am also a person w,th VISible
'._ -experiences confLict ,"vith
sof h' y my a:vareness that my beliefs and
Mri:an-Americans and many worn:: lte'd nondlsa~led ~on:c:n: nondisabled.
p<lftially wirh all these rou s '
. an men "WIth disabilities. I identifV
-each of them."
g p , fet at tunes I fed conterr..pt and exclusion tro~

th:

[~m;:where between the vul=

'al"
0
essenu Isr VIew and th
...: _II '
f multiple and shifting id n'!i'
h
e potenu", y mlinite
'rm'a,nen(::e established (however co en' cattons t"
ere
'
";
. has t 0 be a sufli Clenr
to political action And m::nngent) to .gt~e" direction (for a time and
This parallels m~ cond : me~ ?zontlzln~.which identities are
,. 117);
USlOn ill
e Condttwn of Postmodernity
[postmodernism] opens up a radical

"

, prospect

L_

UJ

acknowledging the

postnIn?.ermst thmking unmediatel shuts off th

.,
access to more UnIVersal Sources f
b Y
ose
opaque otherness th
6'
[th"
0 power y ghettoizing them
, especl aryo Isorthat1m a
I '
those voices {of women h'
d . gu.ge game. t taereby
et nIe an raCIal rru
..
I
the unemplo d
h
\.
norInes, co onized
ye ,yout ~ etc.; III a world of lop-sided
el .
game of a cabal of inrernacional bankers
~ower r arIOns.
does not pla it on a ar -with th
. ma:y be Impenetrable to
blacks fLOrn the Sf d P ,
[
e equally Impenetrable 1an,,"Uage of
an point 0 power relaaoru.

voices from'

.
upon mutually exclusionary d'
f
or multiple definitio
f'
d
''':Ours~s 0 the
~

SOrt

to

which

ns 0 SItuate ness gIves nse, We would fOreclose

iJE.L

C/dSs Relations, Social justice, and the Political Geography ofDifforence 359
furrice, Difforence, and Politics
.
.
.
. .
f th North Carolina fire: that pursUit of
us unplicanon 0
e
. al'
upon t he most 0 hv. l~.
teet rather than oppress and margm lze,
working-class politics mlgh~ pro
, if thitt working-class politics makes no
interests based on gender an ra,:" even
f ace and .ender. The wute of
.' kn w1ed
t of the unportance 0 r
o'
.
. d
expliCit ac 0
gillen
. Ian ed .thi the professions ill the Urnte
a feminist movement strongly unp rtht
while mobilizing around the
Stares to respond ro events III No
.th
""'""" that natrowly construed
. .
f
urt Judge, el er su",,~nommatlon 0 a supreme co
.cal olitical purchase than many
views of siruatedness have rather more practl . P L ' uch a w= that
.
ds' cit! orders Slruateuness ill s
.. _,
would care to admit or e It ':. Y orth Carolina was viewed as somehow
what happened to those othen: ill N
ecourtJ'u"~ofhighlydubious
.
than the mrnaoon 0 f a suprem
uo....
less unporrant
no
ily wrong in this for as Haraway (1990:
,,- Th were not neeessar
,,'"
mOral stanUlUg.
,:y.
J:n:-.., hich matters, but signijicant<lluerence:
202-3) points out: it 15 not lUJJ.... _ew

358

C':W:

.
risk la i into boundless difference
In the consciousness of our failur",~ wef aki PSp~, real connection. Some
. .
th contusmg t = 0 m ng
fd .
and grvmg: up on e
of wodd historical systems 0 omtnadifferences are playful, some are p<>les dirr.... b
kn~nv the
UQ=ce.
tion. Episterno10gy 15 a out ...... ~"::>

. .".
I which permits us to knowthedifference? How
But what IS this eplSteIDO ogy
. .
. >
'.0 And to what politics does It gtve fISe.
should we pursue I"
.

IV: Class ReIatIons,

.

Social Justice' and the Politics of

D~erence

.
th ds to be drawn together in the guise of
There are a numher of disparate h
fi d a line of argument about social
a general conclusion. On the one ":' ,;e n d poststructuralis m to
. . th ~~""_< through posrrnouetmsm an
n~'p,,'rv'
Jusnce ar r---: .
some kind of (unspecified) universals are
a point of recogmtion tluu
I
(unspecified) is needed to establish
and that some sort of epISrerno ogy
.
. 'fi t. On the nttoer:ruu'U,
how and where difference d hetet;'genel~:=ize~y the North Ourolil',
litical-economlc SItuauon, as
.' . th
we h ave a po . .
.
a1ysis of progressive polmcs III e
eemmg
deaths, which llldicates a sth
par
link the two ends of this th,:o",nci~"
of class oppression. How, en, are we to

"':t

ar:

and political tension:

.
I
f the Imperial Foods plant lire:.
Co .d
first the obVIOUS esson 0
'gh
USl er, . '
Ii .
uld have betler protected the n ts
effective working-class POAfrucs
cans in a situation where those .
whites and
leall-.n.men
.
':gnificar,ce.
and women,
cl
t f prunatY ..
id.entities, rather than those of ass, were no 0
,:

':0_ .

conclusion merits embellishment."

ki -class politics" since
e
I first need to delioe the pluas war'll To go back to basics,
contains is by no means urllversall yaccept e.

that class is not a thing, an entity, or a "permanence" (though under given

conditions it can indeed assume such a form) but fundamentally a process. But
what kind of process? Marx appears to deline class relationally as command
(or noncommand) over the means of production. I prefer to define class as
situatedness or posmonality in relation to processes ofcapital accumulation. All of
us who live under capitalism live out our lives under conditions of
embeddedness in such processes. But those processes are often disparate and
chaotic, also operating at radically different spatio-temporal scales, so that our
individual positionality in relationship to those processes can also be as
complicated as it is confused. When I think of my pension fund and insLIrance
I situate myselfvery differently from how r think about the selling of my lalmt
power or my role as purchaser of commodities. But the fuct that each of us
has multiple roles in relation to different circuits of capital does not mean that
coherent class politics is impossible or undesirable. What it does indicate, is
that the funnation of those "permanences" required fut class politics to function

(institutions, social

relarions~

discourses,

imaginaries~

material practices, and

:power relations) is itself a process that takes time, persuasion, and a good deal
of hard work and cunning. And processes of dissolution are always at work,
bringing into question the particular "permanences" shaped to bring political
pressure to bear upon capital accumulation. This is what the process of class
is all about. Certain "permanences" (such as trade unions) form in a given place
and rime and ace more or less effective in relation to processes of capital
~ulation across a certain space for a time. But the question that each
j(eiler"ticm has to answer fur itself, given its own situatedness in relation to
accumulation is: why does it: make sense to struggle to form certain
rather than others as necessary way-stations en route to
(or revolutionizing) the socia-ecological processes of capital
ttnulation?
,er lme no>w put t!tis definition to work in relation to ferruMt politics. Lynn
991) has recently noted that "despite the existence of the largest, most
and vociferous feminist movement in the world, it is US women
seen the least overall change in the relative disadvantages of their sex,
to other Western democracies" over the past 20 yeats. The huge gains
United States by women within "the most prestigious and lucrative
have been offset entirely by a life of increasing frustration,
\\1l>,{Crishrnellt, and powerlessness fur the rest. The feminization of poverty
Hamlet, North Carolina) has been, for example, one of the most
shifts in the United States over the past twO decades, a direct
the Republican Patty class-war against the welfare state and
rights and interests. "In colIntries where there have been longer
f social-democratic government and stronger trade unions," Segal
"there is far less pay-differential and occupational segregation (both
horizontal) between women and men, and fur gteater expansion

Class Relations, Soci,", Justice, and the Political Geography ofDiffirence 361

. DiJfrrence, and Politics

.
3 6 0 Justzce,
. 'aI conditions oflife achieved
"G
the fur supenor matetl
. all h
of wdfare services. lyen
. (. dIal 0 note parenthetic y t e
s
h
.
h
. aI democraCIes an
for women In sue soct
, 'gh . e 1989 in what was once t e
.'
. n .
anv womens n ts slllC
h
d' ' .. '
savage dimmutlO III ill I

r . ' sts to ignore tetra l:JOllill

.
IDS strange lor lewIll
"
)
Communist bloc,
It see
. ' and or=nised labour, even
. ,.
ial democratiC partles
,,~h'c!
obJ' ectives of SOClallst or soc - .
akn
and limitations as ve 1 des
.
h
bVl0liS we ,- esses
though su.ch institutions ave ~
pie Fraser's (1989) comp e . . , bJecnves [see, tor exam ,
le
for pursuit 0 f lenl1lllSrns 0
d
b"
.
licit in manY, we lare-state
.
the gen er las Imp
ad
ling argument concernmg
.

when the advances m e

s
at
conttnues, at a ume
.
hI
POlicies]. Nevert e ess, eg learly overshadowed by the increasmgh povertyf
bv some women are so C
al
'J th unemployment of t e men 0

e~perienced so acutdy by others (

ongsl e

women's specific interests

\ .
perverse to pose
their c!ass and grouPI' It seems
di . nal ialist goals." Unless, of course,
auainstrather than alongside more tra d':o sotyc narrow professional and c1ass",
"th
nstrue ill aye
d
"women's interests- are el er co
dl
of self_exploration playe out
art of "an en ess game
biased sense or seen as p . (Segal 1991: 90-1).
on the great board ofIdentlry
' c th "bases for political alliances
allel H t ck's concern lOf e
.d
Segal here par
s ~ so
.de 'fy "the similarities that can pravl e
and solidarity." This reqmfes that wedI ntl d ch other and form alliances."
.
ps to un erstan ea
th . '1
the basis for difermg grou
.
. ' h deploys to the idea at sUnJ ar. . th niversahty cntena s e d h r

Young likewlse tIes e U

-b characterize , t erelore> as
" Difference can never, e
d
'b

ity is never sameness.

f rei ' ship or share attn utes,
lere absence 0
atlon
.
absolute otherness, a comp
diffi
and otherness requires, then, JUSt

ere:;;,as

The similarirydeployed to measu~l I

politically) as does the producw
as dose an examinatlon,< theoren. YlfasN ther can be established without the
difference itse. e1
) IS
tion 0 f 0 therness and
. . . (m than to presume sameness
To discover the basis of similaiity fa er
. ugly disparate . .
o ther.
.
all' ce formation between seeIIU
: .:
to uncover the b,asls for
tan I . Iar Iv resides in that realm of
. . '..
But in todays world, Slmi anty. ged' ~
turalist aCCOunts, for it .....
.'
Ii: mar~;nallze m poststruc
ul .
. .. .
n
econOIDlC aCOo so 0 en
tr
k
L,-ge capital accum atlon,
",.'

ill'

in terms of commo tles,

money mar et excnan

1
Id of similarity increasmg Y

har'

- _;

the like that we find oursdves s mg a wOn' diea! poststrUcturaiist

'ty and sameness. era
-characterized by homogenel
.
.
in some forms of
..
irs
mmor
Image
b
and
against that sameness (
d b
but the effect has oen to
litics) has set the tone of recent ethate~. Il'darl'ties and similarities .....
PO
f r'cal and e leal so
.
out the living baby 0 po 1t1
of _ iralist-imposed
....
differences, with the cold bathO";"tefthro:rgh critical re_engagement
.
aI'
and sameness.
n ydness in relation to capt!
. aI i:t-e<:urnulan'
umvers lty
.
.
... _1
Y With our situate
.
_L:_g
poliucat-econom ,
.
f social usoce as someUUll
tablish a conceptlOn 0
.
buil
can we h ope to re-es
. hi
thics of political solidantyt
J"

fought for as a

key value

Wit

n an e

different places.
.
f' tice varies "not only with
th cl
the conceptlOn 0 JUS
.)
Alth 0 ugh, er ore,
d" (as Engels has It , we
place, but also with the persons concerne ,

recognize the political force of the /act that a particular conception of it can
be "accepted without misunderstanding" in everyday lire. Thougb "hopelessly
confused" when examined in abstraction, ideals of social justice can still
function (as Engel's example of the French revolution allows) as a powerful
mobilizing discourse for political action. 'We can certainly find plenty of room
to deploy ir in relation to our situatedness within the dynarrucs of ""Pital
accumulation.
But two decades of postmodernism and poststructuralism have left us with
little basis to accept any particular norm of social justice "without misunderstanding," while in everyday life a titanic effort unfolds to convince all
and sundry that any kind of regulation of market freedoms or any level of
raxation is unjust and that "class" politics is an anachronism. Empowerment
is then conceived of (as conservative politicians like John Major and Newt
Gingrich avow) as leaving as much money as possible in the wage earners' as
wdl as in the capitalists' pockets; freedom and justice are attacbed to
maximizing market choice; and rights are intetpreted as a matter of consumer
sovereignty free of any government dictates. Perhaps the mosr important thing
miSsing from the postmodern debate these last two decades is the way in which
. this right wing and reactionary definition of market justice and of rights has
played such a revolutionary role in creating the kind of political economy
which produced the effeets of the North Carolina fire. And 1 think it is
particularly instructive in this regard to note that as market capitalism has reentered into the hitherto protected space of China, so it has brought with it
both the employment conditions and discursive attitudes that surrounded
events in Hamlet.
_under such circumstances, reclaiming the terrain of justice and of rights fur
~.ptOgte~,ive political purposes appears as an urgent theoretical and political task.
order to do this we have to come back to that "epistemology" which
us tell the difkrence between significant and nonsignificant others,
jffereI1LCCs and situatedness, and which wiII help promote alliance formation
the basis of similarity rather than sameness. My own epistemology for this
rests on a modernized version of hisrorical and geographical
.trulterialism. which forms a meta-theoretical framework for examining not only
JlOw,Jillhenoes understood as power relations are produced rhrough social
but also how they acquire the particular significance they do in certain
situations. From this standpoint it is perfi:ctly reasonable to hold
one hand, that the philosophical, linguistic, and logical critiques of
propositions about social justice are correct, while acknow1edging on
band rhe putative power of appeals to social j usrice in certain simas the contemporary United States, as a basis for political action.
to bring a particular kind of discourse about justice into a hegemonic
have then to be seen as part of a broader struggle over ideological
between conflicting groups in society.

LLSH

Class Relations, Social justice, and the Political Geography ofDifforence 363
362 Justice, Difference, and Politics

V. Conclusions
Th

analytical theoretical and

'
h' ch can be summarized as follows:

tall effect is to leave us with some unpottant

~ ave . _L
politIcal t=, w

,'d d and those who seek to do so (as is

1. The universality can never b e aVdo e,
cturalist fOnnulations) only end
.
tmodern an poststrU
b
. ' . the condition. But universality must e
the case ill many pos
up hiding rather than elimlnatIng .th
.culari tv Each defines the other
d dialectical tdauo n WI pam
-r
.
constrUe til
_,_
h
.
ality criterion always open to negonch
as to m ....e t e uruvers
.
c .. _L
.
ill su
a way
ular' .
f diff< rence Universallty must, UllWeration through the pattic. ltIes 0 ed e stru~on embedded in processes
ed as a differenuat con
.
nab
more, be constru
.
aI scales It therefore illter zes

. t different spano-tempor
b
operaung at qUI e
seal h
suring that there can never e
. __ " : '
between these
es t us en
. . th
conU'"(iUlCtlons
.
Le
t< n and Levins put It ill
elf
ted 'bl
'nctple (or as
won 1
ch
some If uel e?rl . th'.
\..._~ ment" for enquiry - see apter
'de'
f dialecncs
ere IS no OT~e
b
hich
conSl fauon 0
~
th
Ii .cal conomic processes v w

ful h re to examine e po U -e
pi ,
2). Ius use
e.
chadialectical unity. Money, fOr exam e, possessociety actually acllleves su
f value and medium of exchange at
sed universal properties as a measured 0 ~n"" of highly decentralized and
.
as it petmlts a Wi e .--nTh feed
the same urne .'
,.kin. th eabn of market behaviors.
ese
particularistic deCl5Ion m . g mal' e: f ';'oney is all about. Money is also,
back 10 define what the utUvers ~j6 d 286) a highly fragmented fOrm
as we have seen (see above, pp. '''T_ an
ti _t~noral processes. It is
tha 1 te to qUIte (l}llt:rent spa 0 ~~-"""l;'
:...i.
with uses
t re a
of
which gives such strength to r'5"tp~ecisely ~s dialectic~ po:~vid~n7reedoms and just d~erts. through
wrng cbimsrdi:on,:"r~ile the injustice that derives IS plam - the
market coo nau~n,,:
ulation of the social power wh,ch
individual appropnatdlOn and a':".w:'nd ever widening social inequality -' ...
nts pro uces masSIVe <LL"
rk .
,.
money represe
. rsaI' _ articularity dialectiC at wo ill
the subtle power of the uruve . 'tyd ~e task of progressive politics is . :
has to be appreCIate .
- d ' th
case 0 f money
..L 1 d ynanuc,
. and persuasive way ot ___
r aung
.. e ..
WellW.
,_1 .
po
all
find an equ Y
, .
cal' the drive to define ''''''''' Jusnce
. -a1 and particular at different s d es ill
..
umv,""
.
th
d oint of the oppresse .
th'
.
from e~s~ P .
d "otherness" must be tempered by e
2. Respect or I enUty an
b orb s "some are more omer than .. ,
that though all 0tI:ers may. e .
'I of exclusion have to operate. .
.
oClety cettam pnnctp es
.
and tha t m any s
uged .
b dded in the first instance
this exclusion shall be ga
IS em e
fr
.
'
wh'ch p~~ts groupS am
tsality cand lUon
1
... ~"
th
:rISe of liret,dom
Ulllve
h i freedom (m e s<
..
oppressively on othcrs. T s negauve
be . osed
.
the resuaints of othOls) cannot, however,. unp. dybecause
.
.
b
to constant negonatIon, preas
above: It must e open .
b framed [for example, when .;
in which disparate chums may e
..

e:

demand that the oppressive sight (ro them) ofhomdessness be cleared from
their vision by expelling the homeless from public spaces). More serious
difficulties arise when we try to speak ofme "positive freedoms" (of emancipation, education, realization of human potential, pursuit of cultural
achievements, etc.) mat might be acceptable as collective projects and how
we select those that are desirable and those that are not. If, fOr example, we
reduce ethics to a matter of evolutionary biology (see Wilson's statement
cited in chapter 7) then what is to prevent rapists from clainting me freedom
to perpetuate their genetic heritage as a matter of right? We typically refute
such a daim on the grounds that it involves coercion, but since, as Derrida
insists, all legal systems ate founded in violence we are left with a principled
arbitrariness that excludes that particular otherness from inclusion in our
conception of a civilized society.
3. All propositions for social action {or conceptions of social justice} must be
critically evaluated in terms of the situatedness or positionality of the argument and the arguer. But it is equally important to recognize that the
.. individuals developing such situated knowledge are not themselves homo-geneous entities but bundles of heterogeneous impulses, many of
which derive froro an internalization of "multiple othernesses" within the
seI Sucb a conception of the subject, renders situatedness (their place) itself
heterogeneous and differentiated, highly dependent upon social processes
operating at quite different spatio-temporal scales. In the last instance, it
is the social construction of situatedness (places) at different scales which
matters and in that social construction the agency of personal political
. . choice and commitment, of loyalties, brooks large. however embedded
individuals may be in macro--processes ofcapiral accumulation on the world
.. stage.
The "epistemology that can tdl the difference" between significant and
insigoificant differences or omernesses" is one which can understand the
- sOcial processes of construction of situatedness, places. otherness, difference,
political identity, and me like. And we here arrive at what seems to me to
be the most important epistemological point: the rdation between social
. processes of construction ofidentities on the one hand and the conditions
identity politics 0'; the other. Ifrespecr for the condition of the homdess
the racially or sexually oppressed) does not imply respect for the social
>prooess("creatinghomeiessness (or racial or sexual oppression). then idenrmust operate at a dua/leYd. A politics which seeks to e1intinate
pr<lCe<ses which give tise to a problem looks vety different from a politics
1tI"ch me:rely sed" (0 give full play to differentiated identities once these

of

het.ehp~ exists a peculiar and difficult tension that we have already

>!UlteJN in chapter 1. The identity of the homdess person, the racially

364 justice, Difference, and Politics

Class lie' .

oppressed, the economically deprived, the woman beset by violence, the

worker, the colonial subject, is forged out of certain conditions (material,
discursive, psychological, etc.) embedded in the sac; aI process. Perpetuation
of that sense of self and of identity, I argued in chapter 1, may depend on
perpema::ion of the processes which gave rise to it. This is a pervasive problem.
Poor people rehoused after clearance of even
most appalling slums
frequently find themselves "grieving for a lost home" (Fried, 1963). Even
working-class movements may seek to perpetuate or return to the cohditions
of oppression that spawned them, in much the same way that those women
who have acquired their sense of self under conditions of male violence may
return again and again [0 living with violent men. It may be, a<; many feminists
have argued and many women have shown, possible to break the pattern, to
come out of the dependency. But the fin.1- step down that path is to recognize
rather than deny the problem. Working-class movements can similarly hope
to retain their revolutionary iIDpulsc while taking on new political identities
under transfOrmed conditions of -working- and living. But it is a long hard
proce<>s that needs a lot of careful work. A political program which successfully combats any form of oppression has to face up to tne real difficulty of a
loss of identity on the part of those who have been victims of that oppression.
And rhere are subtle ways in which identity, once acquired, can, precisely by
virtue of its relative durability. seek out the social conditions {including the
oppressions} necessary for its own sustenance. It then follows that the mere
purmit of id.entity politics as an end in itself (rather than as a fundamental
struggle to break with an identity which internalizes oppression) may llcrVI; to
perpetuate rather than to challenge the persistence of those processes which
gave rise to those identities in the firSt place. The same lssue arises even within
the ideological debates swiding around. identity politics in acadcmia. Recall
Spivak's (1988: 280) commentary on the French poststructuraltsrs:

me

[they] mrgee at their peril mat [their] whole overdetermined exerdse v,'<lS in rhe
interesr of a dynamic economic situation requiring that interests, motive~
(desires), and power (of knowiedge) be ruthlessly dislocated. To invoke mat
dislocation now as a radial discovery that should make us diagnose the
(Xonomics ,., as a piece of dated analytic .machinery may well be to mnonue
the work of that dislocation :md tmwicringly to help in securing" a new balance

of hegemor..ic relations."
Perhaps this is the best of all possible lessons we can learn from the
failure to respond to events in Hamlet, North Carolina and from the
a convincing discourse about 'social justice with which to confront it,
the historical and geographical process of class-war waged by the
Party and the capitalist class t.~ese last few years in the United StateS
feminized poverty~ accelerated racial oppression, and further degra~

latIons, Social}ustice. andt/-eP "t' EGe

"
Q
on Uil
ograph 'PDijfi
ecological conditions f1' th .
:v (1; 1 -et'ence 365
R Ole, en it see-ms iliat f
ow trom a determination to ch ck h
a ar more unikd politics can
identity politics which I
Iv He ".ilt process than will likely How fr
argeL, re ects Its fragmented results.
om an

...
The Environment r!Justice 367
transport costs of solid waste are SO high prevent wurid welfare-enhancing
trade in air pollution and waste.
3, The de=d fur a clean environment fur esthetic and health reasons is likely
to have a very high income elasticity. The concern over an agent that causes

13
The Environment of Justice

one in a million change in the odds of pmsGU:e cancer is obviously going to

be much higher in a country where people survive to get p.rostate cancer than
in a country where under-5 monality is 200 per tIlOusand. }\Jso,. much. of
the concern over industrial atmosphere discharge is about visibility of
particulates, These discharges may have little direct health impact, Clearly
trade in goods that embody esthetic poll urion concetns could be welfue
enhancing. While producti on is mobile the consumption of pretty air is a
non-tradable.

.
. Dution roblems: it moves them around.
The bourgeoiJie has only one soluuon to ,IS P~aying !:Japted from Frederick Engels

I. The Movement for Environmental Justice

rted on a leaked World Bank internal
The Economist (Seprember 8,~~~
f~m the pen ofLawrence Sununers,
memorandum (dated Oeoern 'd b'l
tation (nephew of Paul Samuelson
'st of const era e repu
' )
a Harvard oconOIDl
both Nobel prrz.e..winners .
ill economICS .
and son-in-law of Kenneth AIrow,
"dential candidates, then
ft
d dvisor to Democratic preS!
fS
Summers, an 0 _quote a Id Bank and subsequendy Undersecretary 0 tate
,
ch'lef eoonOmlst of the Wor"_:,.
wrote''
'
th
Clinton
aillllliustratlon
fur 11rad eln e

;:'0

h uld ' t the World Bank be encomaging more

Just between you and, me, s ,0 nth LDGs [less-developed countries?] 1 can
.
. 0 f the clirnr
mlgratlOn
-J mdusUles to e
think of three "",sons:

f h alth-'mn>inng' pollution depends on

f the costs 0 e
1 r1. The measurement 0
.
d
orb di tv and mortal'Ity. From
.
from mcrease m 1 J
sh Id b
the fo~egone .ear~s
Qum of health-impairing pollution Oll . e ._.
this pomt of VIew a gIven am
h' ch will be the country WIth _
:
done in he country v.ith the lowest o:st~1 W, I b-L'-d dumping a load of _
think h
onom1C ogle eJll.ll
the lowest wages, 1
t e ec
"e=ble and we should face up .
toxic waste in the lowest-wage CDUUtry IS Imp

to that.
.'
be non-linear as the initial incren"erlts(>l;~f
The costs of pollutlOn are lIkely to
1"
alw'ays thought that under- ,
2.
bl ha ~~ low cost, ve
I "]'
proha
y
ve"
-,
_~1
L _
II ted' their [air po lunoo
ollution
P
. . AfrIca are V.lliUV urnu:r- po u ,
C
populated countrIes III

d Lo Angeles or Mexico lty.

is probably vastly inefficien-cl~ow comr: p~~uci:n is generated by
Only the lamentable factS at so m~
cion} and that the
tradable industries (transport, electncal genera

The Washington office of Greenpeace faxed copies of the memo around the
world. Environmental groups had, and continue to have (see, for example,
Bullard, 1993; Pepper, 1993) a field day. The World Bank, already a strong
fOcus for criticism for its lack of environmental concerns, was put very much
on the defensive at the very moment it was seeking to influence the Rio
Summit on the Environment through publication of its 1992 report on
"Development and the Environment." Bncil's Secretary of the Environment
described Summers' reasoning as "perfecrly logical but totally insane," Summers
was featured in People Magazine in its special "Earth Day" issue as one of the
. top eight "enemies of the earth" and even the Fimmcial Ttmerthought it time
to "save planet earth from economists' (Rich, 1993: 246-50), TheEconomis~
. however, editorialized that his economic logic was indeeA "impeccable."
-The Summers memo appears to endorse "toxic colonialism" or "toxic
Ill.peIJaIlSIlJ," The final paragraph of the memo points out, however, that the
problem with all of these arguments is that they "could be turned around and
more or less effectively against every Bank proposal." This suggests that
,'!illlUt1.erswas not himself endorsing such ideas but trying to point out to his
.:,x,lleag"I"S, steeped in neoclassical economic theory, the logical consequences
rit.thp,"own mode of thought, While this may exculpate Summers somewhat,
:"Elbro~d.ens the questions the memo raises to a whole mode of discourse about
~it1litclnnlenltal and economic issues.
what objections can be raised? To begin with, the class sitlliltedness of
':aJrgum,:nt is transparent, Affluent groups, including most professional
)nomiBts [median weekly earnings of $889 in the United States in 1994,
. to Uchitelle (1995)] do not have to accept toxic wastes on their own
to survive whereas child care workers ($158 pet week), janitors and
($293 per w-eek), and sewing machine operators ($316 per week) do
have the same range of choice, The logic also pays scant attention to
of distr.ibutive justice, except in the narrowest sense that trade in
meant to be "welfare-enkncing" for all. This presumes that one way
.
of the poor is to pay them to absorb toxins (largely generated

zZtH

, D :If:-~'e and Politics

fum ee , tJJOWW ,
ed '11
,
' health impacts it should be not ,WI
on behalf of the rich), Any negative d- ,I "h th
Since most of the poor
1 tableta "",wit
e,
, ' '
th
then be visited on ose eas
1 f I .L e impact is racially discrumna'
e
.....
op
e
0
CD
or,
U
l
,
'd"
and the ill,empowered ar ,,' a l l th
'IS a wmbolic ImenSIOn , a
nk bout it
at ,ere
.,
thi
tory, And ifwe care to, "~
ded n:,the whole proposal- are we not
kind of "cultural impena!tsm embed
ch trash? The question of
h people can stoma
'all
!
resumin<' that on y tras y
h,.L"
nee association of raci y
--0
"
th ~> th
in ullS lnsta
P
stigmatization of the 0 er
roug"
'.-v and degradation becomes
, 11' defilement,lmp'lfl,l'
II
marked others wit po UtlO~,
1 (1984: 3) claims, "some po u'
a part of the political equation, If, as ?"ug as raI view of the social order,"
' for expresSlog a gene
1'
tions are used as anal Ogles
.
d' al
of claims and counter-c aIms
d '["pollution bdiefs can be used III a I ogue
fpl" cannot be separaan 1
.
about oIlution as "maner out 0
ace
"
to srams," then claims
P
" and dan ers of people out of place,
ted from claims about the unputlne5 '"
g era! and hazardous wastes in
d wh "wastes III gen
,
d
~uesrions 0 f h ow an
Y
f urse never even roenuone
""
d ed' h fi t place are, 0 co
,
particular are pro uc ill t e ,rs
Yo
Commoner (1990) has, among
,
'
f h Summers sort, et, as
' 1 h uld
in diSCUSSIOns 0 t e .
.
d
th
h lU
e ques 0'0 n of preventJOn sure y S 0
others, ,<'ain and agam emp as d'
f
s'lde.effects, But posing that
-v
di sal an cure 0 any
,
take precedence over spo
hifi: to the far more politically charged terraIn
question reqUIres a d,scurSive s
"
f the ruode of production and
"
f the general charactensncs 0
o f CrItIque 0
.
.
consumption in whIch we hve,
' I ' " dWnced by Summers is not hard
Though the "impec<:able econo~lC, ogld': a
f a particular kind of
ch actenstlC ISCOurse 0
I
to deconstruct as th e a r . d' ' , tory practices, it unfortunate y
.c
and lts lscrtmlna
ch
Politica!-econoffil I.power
,
"
f wh at usuall Y happens, The marKet me ,an'
approximates as a Qe:"ictlptlon 0
aI
are lower close to noXIOUS
"
ks th
av Property v ues
dI
ism "naturally wor
at w r
d'th disadvantaged' are by an arge,
,
'
'
that'
'h
the
poor
an
e
,
' _
faCilities and
ere
.
l'
The insertIOn of a noXlOUS
. . 15 w ish
d Circumstances
to lye.
_L_,
forced by thel! lIDpover e
val in low income areas so Ulat
hellirv causes less diswrbanee
property r ues 'noxious facility points to
~J
1 tIon strategy ror an}
.
an optimal" lowest cost oca
all
C
payment to cover neganve _ '
,
F h
e a sm tran"ef
th
where the poor hve, urt ermo:~ and therefore more easily accepted by e
efleets may be very Significant
,
I ill to what I long ago referred to
or but L~elv irrelevant to the nch, eada n~,
I 'ch "the rich are unlihh,:
.L<Lt6.
<c"
par ox m w 11
PO ,
th
or who are least able", "
(Harvey, 1973: 81) as" the liltngu,m~
v pnce whereas e po
.
up
an
amerutY
at
an~
'fl'
've
gl
to
,
'fi 'ratnmgs um"
' If, as IS
" ','
, th loss are likely to sacrl celt a
, alized
" ':'
SUSWll
e
.
d'
owered~ and matglll
- - -'
case~ areas where loW-lficome) IS~P .
d weak political resistance,
.. ,:',
Iitica! orgalllzatlOn, an
" .
are also wnes 0 f more po
. I . C r the location of noXiOUS
: .
,
Ii 'cal d economIC OglC TO
',the symhoIIe, po tl ,an
th Summers' memo envisages.
_ ,- .;
t
works in e.xactly the way tha he b
d'ictors of the location ofo te est pre
.
f
& a consequence~ one f
h'cal con'centnltlOn 0
.
'edS
'ageograp I
'
waste dumps in the IUlll~h ~t:plSing of toxic wastes on indigenous
low-income and cO or.
e U
_

368

n:

:0

1\

The Environment o[Justice 369

reservations or in communities of color (Mrica-American or Hispanic) across
much of the south and west of the United States is now well documented
(Bryant and Mohai, 1992; Bullard, 1990, 1993, 1994; Hoffiichter, 1993),
Even more remarkable, are the bidding wars between, for example, different
nauve-j\.merican groups or less-developed countries to accommodate the waste
in return for money incomes. ~!h.ile that practice might be bener understood
in the case of dictators or military regimes who receive all the benefits while
visiting the costs on their own populations, it is not unknown for .reasonably
democratic debate to generate a political consensus in favor of accepting
toxic waste facilities on the grounds that this generates otherwise unav-ailable
income and employment, In Alabama's "Blackbelt," for example, the question
of hazardous land fills in Sumter County is politically contested! those
who have mosr to lose from denying the facility, in terms ofjobs and incomes
(the poor and people of color), are in this instance at odd, with the middle
class and often white environmentalists who seek to close such facilities down
(see Bailey et ai" 1993), The same conflict holds in Mississippi (Schneider,
1993), The political economy of waste crearion and circulation under
capitalism incorporates Summers' logic, including some of its inherent social
contradictions,
The practice of that logic has, however, sparked militant resistance, In the
. -United Srares the movement for environmental justice and against environmental racism has beoome a significant political force, It is a political movement
4ut has been long in gestation, owing its most recent reincarnation to t'NO
'p'lfti,eular incidents, First, the celebrated case of Love Canal in 1977, when
built on top of an infilled-canal in Buffalo, New York, found their
b.,;errLents full of noxious liquids with serious health effects on resident Q\ildre.'l
1982; Levine, 1982; Szasz, 1994), This led to the formation of a
Cleariog House for Hazardous Waste which, according to Taylor
now works with over 7~OOO community and grass roots groups
,'nati(mv,;',de, The second arose out of the 1982 protests in Warren County,
Carolina, when a mostly Mrican-American community was selected as
"e'itte tor burial of soil contaminated with PCBs, The vigor of the protests
arrests of wellknown civll rights figures) and the involvement of
range of organizations fucused attention on what soon came to be
as "environmental racism," In 1991, a very dispersed and highly
!"",Ji,,:d movement came together around the First National People of Color
lvif()nnlental Leadership Summit held in Washington, DC. There it adopted
narllfesto defining environmenr:rl justice in no less than 17 ditrerent clauses
,eGwSi,man, 1994),1 select just a few:
5

Uti"""

the sacredness of Mother Earth. ecological unirf and the interdepenof all species. and the right to he free from eco1ogicd destruction

370 justice, Difforence, and Politics

The Environment rf r. .
The Sierra Gub th E .
VJ Justu:e 371

.
'
e nv,ronmental Defense F d
as the B'g Ten"). The division here ell
un ,etc. - usually referred to
relle:ts an intense politics of place (efr chects class, race, and gender. It also
politics of the mainstream env,'
. ' tal apter 11) versus the more abstract
ronmen
mo
n
ki
wor ng-class women kve b
. .vement. reople of Color" and
ul
een m""t active m th
parae ar places ,,,-here the Big T.en
d'
e grass roots movement in
cu.l 1 .
are ommated .
b'
parti ar y m organization, by whit
'ddl I ' m mem ershlp but more
concentrated in the cemers of r'
llli
e-c ass professional men, largely
Gibbs, organizer of the origiJ;:'~: c!,;er (such as Washingson , DC). Lois
these groups together:
protest, recalls her atrempt to bring

mandates the right ro ethical, balanced and responsible uses of land and
renewable resources in the interest of a sustainable planet for human and other
living things
demands the cessation of the production of all (Oxins.) hazardQUS wastes,
and radioactive materials, and that all past and current producers be held
strictly accountable to the people for detoxification and the containment at
the point of production

affirms the need for urban and rural ecological policies

to

clean up and

ca7

rebuild our cities and rural areas in balance with nature, honoring the cultural
integrity of all our communities, and providing fair access for all to the full
range of resources

opposes the destructive operations of multi-national oorporations ...

military occupation, repression -and exploitation oflands, peoples and cultures,

It was hilarious. ,,' PcopIe .com

the
dr'nki
grassroOts. were at one end of the rOOm
I ng Budweiser and smoking, whil th
d fth
e eenVlf
,.
,
en 0
_e room earing yoghurt w,
d onmentwsts were at the other
.
Thev wanted to talk _L _ . we want-"" t 0 talk ahout VIctim
.
non.
compen
"
<UJOut ten parts
billi
sa-

and other life forms

requires that we, as individuals, make personal and consumer choices to
consume as lime of Mother Earth's resources and to produce as little waste
as possible; and make the conscious decision to challenge and reprioritize our

UIlcemlinty. A coup1e oftimes it was almo per'WI' on benzene and SCientific

th= Io cal [,0
Iks, the people from the B' stwar.
we were ho' th by - .
T
pmg at, seemg
the grassroots position but it didn'
kIg en would be more apt co support
T

'
[wor
OUt
that
way
Th
. ,
the5.atus quo posman. The B' T
. ' eywentngntonwith

lifestyles to insure the health of the namral "'WOrld for present and future
generations.

I shall return to these principles later) though it is not hard to see how many
professionals might regard them as just as "insane" as Summer's memo, while
lacking the virtue of elementary let alone "impeccable" logic. The militant local
Struggles for environmental justice that coalesced to advance these theses
created sufficient national political ferment, however, to force the EPA, even
in its most recalcitrant Reagan-Bush years, to take up the issues of environ,.
mental equity. The EPA's 1992 report on that issue conceded that there were
problems of unequal exposure of minority and low-income populations to
environmental risks, but asserts that there was not enough hard infOrmation- .
to substantiate elkctive discrimination (except in the case oflead poisoning).
In February 1994, however, the Gimon administration - responding to its
constituencies of environmentalists, minorities, and the poor - issued
executive order to all federal agencies to ensure t, that programs would
Wlfairly inflict environmental harm on the poor and minorities. This
that the environmental needs of low-income and minority communities
be fairly addressed and that environmental issues can be adjudicated in
of civil rights.
That move did not pacify many in the environmental justice movement
part because they recognized that cooptation into such a
quagmire would be the kiss of death. The reason that hardly any new
waste sites have been opened these last ten yeatS has to do precisely
fact that movements against such sites have been organized outside of
nels,>: For this reason too, the environmental justice movement has
been at odds with the main em~ronmental groups (such as Friends of the

__L'
1"
o <iU!leve a egtsIatrve vicro...ri

19 enapproachlStoask:Wh
0
.
at can we suppOrt
ur approach IS to ask: Wh'
ally
~ ~ r sUPport something in order to "Win j
.
~t ~ mor
correct?
(C,ted In GreIder, 1993: 214)
f we think Jt IS morally wrong.
t

W.

'

',.

This SOrt of distinction' all .

,ctlara:cteriz"d as fOllows: III eglance and membership has been playfully
:-

Citizen's Clearinghouse _ . 'cal

.
. d
typi member' qUIt th ch h
toXiC ump protest," Natural R
.
e ure choir to organize
Andov ' 6 - '
esources Defense Council

" , " er 3, Yale 67, Harvard Law '70 P

: - typIcal member:
;0. Environmental Defense Fund ,/ ~~~~gon antI-war marches '68, '69

typI<.a.< m
b I
'
. conSCIence and a red l\4iata
"(G'J
em er: awyer with a green
.
. ...
rei ct, 1993: 214)

does not imply that all forms r

.
01 COOperatlOn a
Id
exampIe, helped the Con=n d e '
re ru e out - Greenpeace
t~ani,,,d
.
e
Itlzens of South CalLos An
'
"
pnmarily by women) to figh
If th
emr
geles
:m'''".:or(designed to serve 1.4 million
t
th e LANCER mass-burn
'. located in a poor and h 'Iy peap e roughout the city) that was
eaVl mInOrIty co
. (
1989: chapter 6). Nevert!.. I
h
. mffiunlty Blumberg and
. Ii
I
e ess, t e envIronmental . .
Its erce y independent" ii'
.
JUStice movement
m Itant part.cu.l . "(
government and broadl"b
.
aIlSm see chapter 1).
.
y Ourgeo15 attern ts
.
lOto a middle-d ass and
fes' aI b
p at COOptation and
eC(jnc'mi:c I .
pro Slon - ased resman
th
ogIe of environmental h
d th th . ce to at llnpec_
azar s at e CIrculation of capita!

a
The Environment ofJustice 373

372 just1e; Difforence, and Politics

.
II. Discourses of Complicity and Dl:;sent
.
"L.
I '=ledin chapters 7 ane. 8,
" " mentallssue l>illi, as "'-'-b~
. ill
In recent years t he env Hon
. d
tually excluslVe scourses.
.
f
atltagonIStlC an mu
f
di
. . g.. 1Yfost _ apart, 0 course,
generated a vast yeIsley 0 common un d erpHlntn
.'
th'
There are, to be sure, some
th .h Ie .dea _ accepr that ere exISts
L
nlvtoscoffat eVi 0 J
tal" d
from those WHO enter 0 ,
bl b lubhecl "environmen
an
c 'cb ~wht reasona Y e u
.
a class of problems Wlll ""'b
'al ". Most.!so -argue that L'l~
ctual
or
potentI
crtst;:;.
i
_ .1
f
d te to something external to
many use a \angllage 0- _La
cular v.ra.y we r a
difficulties arise out ot Ule parn
\_."
r in some instances revolu.
" J th t some arne loratlve 0
. bl"
US called "nature anu
a
some more "sustama e or
t b taken to put US on
ul' \..
f
tionary measures rollS e
B
d that~ the m tip lCIty 0
"
.
. of development. eyon
_L
d
"harmonious traJecrory
ch
8) d I now want to t;u<.C a mer
discourses becomes confusing (see ahPrer
cus'mg particularly upon t:'le
might be t e case, 0 .
bo"
th
h
d
look at how an w Y IS
..'
d in discourses a ut envlron..
.
al VISIon incorporate
fr
k
poliucal an~ envIronment. 1 I shall ffi-akc active use of ~c . ~ew?r
mental ]usnce. In so dOlI g.
j rh.
di ....ses do not e:Jsr In (Solanon
4 th
I argo-eo at seQ .......
constructed in chapter :. ere,. . . na1 structures, material practices, or
from beliefs, social relatlons, mstltutlO IT
t
all of these domains while
.
D"
~ internalize euects rom
th
power relatIOns. lSCOurse
mirror images, to all of the 0 er
reciprocally enterin~ in, th~ugh never as pure

7.

moments of the sOCIal proce~. tID ~ thus is that it allows me to look o~ a

The advantage of consttumg .og> . 1 sa philosophical and educal
.
ntal JustiCe not SImp y a
..
(bd'_c
d ;scourse about envuonrne
th'"
nmcntal" condittons
lelS,
.
I'
of e envlro
. ' __1
debate} but rat lef ill te~ms
.
d relations. forms of polit1~"al
tenal pracnces, an
. ____ 1' d
institutions, soC! I D a , .
h d' .-r..uiSe and become mte:Illall1.e
.
) th
e fiSC to sue a IS...,....

econotnlC power) at gtv

~1-., ., f h
a discourse about enVIron,:" .'
_1_
'ts a closer all<ujSlS 0
ow
'al
withm It. It ~o per~
k"' b'
ther moments of the SOCi process
.
'gh "d war . WIt
mo.
._" t!J,
mental justice mt t o ,
"
racrices, power rdatlO11S, auu c:
(affecting beliefs, imaginarIes, mstt(UUOllS, P
.

..
'cal ar~ments, I showed in chapter 8,
..-:\11 em'1ronmentai-...co1ogt {" Co
1 refractions of ill sorts r ... __1..
'and. theretore, comp ex:
1
ments abo ut SOCiety
,
Ald Leo olas land ethic. for ezamp e, .
beingw.aged in orber realms.
0.
alPd' " (the roie of the frontler
,
f cfu ourse on natIon 1 entity
.
.)
of a fuSIOn 0 a;oc
.
J,." ...:
national tdenuty ,
'"
ng
encounter with wilderness tn su",-y1f
ntain lion <iying from
into the eyes 0 a mou
.
epiphany ~ f .100ki ~g
Hardin's "tragedy of me co~mon~ 1~
1
and DaI\-\''lDfdJ selena::. Garrett
Darwinian thinking,;.
"1
til gh fusion of contemporary
. cal
lessly DUI ~ up :ou f diminishing returns, and a polin
:
mathematical. logtc ~.
. '. .
roperty-owning democracy.
un
an individualized, utlUcy.maxIDU g, P bout individual rights
.
1 liberal rb etonc a
b'
rights theonsrs ~ccept ~ Ie
as R
refers to cJI them "'su )ccts
extend it to sentlen~ be.mgs Of, ,f ~
forges a unity between
:
Ecological [ftodamza.t1on theory t see e ow

of efficiency in production and the efficient as welJ as equitable workings of

ecological aggregates. Ecofemiriism builds a powerful link between traditional
liberal humanism and a vision of women's role as dose to nature through
nurturing and caring. Each. one of these composite discourses shapes a unique
blend of complicity and dissent wirh respect to existing belidS, instirutions,
material social practices, social relations, and dominanr systems of organizing
political-economi-c powcc. This is meir specific virtue: they pose problems of
defining relations across different moments in the social process and reveal
much about the pattern of social eonflict in all realms of social action.
Consider, for example, the general cuntent in which Summers' version of
what to do with toxicwasres becomes possible, It is not sufficient here to argue
that it is a typical manifestation of neodassical economic logic - itself an
engaging set of particular metaphors - in which welfare-enhancing trade in
waste can be envisaged under conditions of resource-se;uc.ity. Par there is a prior
:questIon to be answered: why is it that neoclassical economics is such a weUaccepted discourse in relation to the dominant forms of political--economic
. power.in capi~list society? And what effects does the privileging of neoclassical
6:ollomic discourse have on beliefs, the fiuK--tlOning of instirutions. social
ielations, material pracDces. and the like? r shall not attempt to answer these
questions directly here, though I believe a strong case could be made for rhe
--~"deep penetration of neoclassical '\\-'ays of economic thought into all of these
-realms, Instead., I shall took more closely at some dominant forIDS of
; <rwil'onm"ntal--ecol()gi,:ai discourse in an at[empr to gain some insights as to
'wow doev hold the particular positions they do and how, given their characrer
;h,',\,p;' extensive grip upon the public imagination and public institutions,
nave created a Set of environmental cond.it1on~ in which the movement
justice has been furced to articulate its oppositional
(and to some d.egree shape its practices) in very particular ways.
in mind, let me begin by outlining what seem to be the dominant
insofdi,>cc,ur.se about th.e environmenrin the late nventieth ccnrury..

like)..

us

1)

.. III. The Standard View" of Environmental Management

ha" frequently encountered environmental problems, Over the last
or so institutions, scientific understandings, public policies, and

y p,racl[ic<~ have been evolved to deal with them. These practices have
over time into something mat I will call the standard view" of
management.in advanced capitalist societies.
standard view, the general approach to environmental problems is to
"after the event." This strategy in part stems from the belief cltat
envir,on'm"nnal concerns should stand in the way of'progress" {more
accumulation) and that any <~after the event" envirOIh'llemal

,
"

374 Justice. Diffirence. and Politics

difficulties can be effectively cleaned up if need be. This implies no irreversibility problems of the SOft mat arise with species extinction or hahitat destruction
and that a "remedial science" exists to cope with any difficulties that do arise.

of lakes hundreds f

This "after-the-event" emphasis means that environmental issues are

essentially regarded as "incidents" - the result of "errors" and "mistakes" (often
based on ignorance) - that should be dealt with on a case-by-case (and often
place-by-place) basis. The preference is, furthermore, for environmental cleanups of particular sites and "end-of-pipe" solutions (e.g., soil remediation, the
installation of scrubbers on smokestacks, catalytic converters in cars, etc.) rather
than for pre-emptive or proactive interventions.
The only general problem sometimes admitted under the standard view is

so-called "market failure" which occurs because firms (or other economic

theory of the fum developed in neoclassical economics effectively describes why

it might be economically rational fur individual fums to plunder commo~
resources like fisheries (the famous "tragedy of the commons" argument
advanced by Hardin), to pollute, to expose workers to toxic hazards and con-

.N'

es awav.

etween economic growth (ca ital

th~ Iatt7 is to forgo unnecessarfly t:'; ~:n:~;ve1~01~citous with res~ct

. maIn 0 monetIzed COst-benefit anal'

s ~
e wrmer. This is the
unport:m t role in shaping envirorunen
ySlS. whIch now plays such an
Getung to the heart f h
tal polmcs under the standard .
. 'call
.
0 w at the trade- ffs
'h
VIew.
empm y) requires a particular
b' 0
mIg t be (theoretically and
expertise coupled with scientifi codm lllatlOn of engineering and econo~;
f
c un erstanclin
fl'
.... c

transIaUon 0 the envirorun ._.

bI .
gs 0 eeo oglcal process Th
. th
en"" pro em Int th d
es.
e
permits e internalization o f '
0
e omain of expert disco
largely within the embrace f them1roumental politics and regu1atorv ::~es
'nf!
f o e state appatat
' ac lty
1
uenee 0 corporate d
L_.
us or, more looselv
d th
"I
an state -'.L'1aI1Ce of
ch
I' un er
e
~ntaJ s an application of bureaucratic-tech resear and development. This
mHuence of the state d
.
noeratIc rationality und th d al
Ii' .
an corporations Th
gh
er e u
po tICS IS generally viewed as uettin .
e rou and tumble of demoerati
regulatory activities. The pre&rred ;~n e way ofproper, rational, and sensibI~

ili

sumers to environmental degradation under conditions of market fatlure. It

then becomes the task of the stare to evolve a regulatory framework that either

with respect to resource management, occupational safety and health,

environmental impacts, and the like, It also becomes the task of the state to
pro,~de those public goods and public inftasuucrures coJlducive to environmentally sound conditions of public health and sanitation. Periodically, as was'
the case in the progressive era (see Hays, 1959) and in the early stages of the
New Deal, this leads to the idea of considerable state intervention to ensure"1~1
the proper conservation and. efficient management of national resources, th\1S;'
challengiog the rights of private property in the interest of a state-managed "
class strategy fot capital accumulation. Against this, neoclassical economics has,
also evolved a de&nse of private property solutions under the aegis of
"
called Coase (1960) tb.eorern which holds that both the polluter and
injured party can equally be regarded as wroogdoers since the pn:serlcco/
latter limits the properry rights of the former to emit pollutants.
All state interventions, the logical tool of environmental morugellilC1nt,"ru
typically limited under the standard view by CWO important COllSicler'ttl01
First, intervention should occur only when there is clear evidence of
damage through market failure and preferably when that damage
quantified (e.g., in money terms). This requires sttong scientific
connections between, fur example, exposure to asbestoS in the wo>rklllac
cancers developing 20 years later or power plant emissions and acidibl"'"

'I

fit

accumulatIon) and environmental uali

;:,

entities such as governments and households) can "externalize" costs by free

use of the environment for procuring resources or for waste disposal. The

forces firms to internalize the external costs (generate a more perfect market
that factors in all real costs including those attributable to environmental
degradation) or to mandate standards that firms (or other entities) must IDeet

The Environ

ment OJ J"''tlce 375

And it aI
COSts ~f pollution and resource d~ letion so requires careful measurement of
there IS thought to be a zero-sum t.de_o;~cause the second constraint is that
o

state strategtzin~ is to
.
ategy, except In those periods f
h'
negotIate Out solutions b
0 eup one
sector 0 fte n on an ad h
d
etween the State and th
'

U d th
oc an case-by-case bas'
e pnvate
n or e standand vi"", the b . 'gh
!S.
'mization are not fun J '
tal""IIC n ts of private property and f
fi
(if
uaIDen y challen d C
0 pro t
they exist at all) are kept stricd sub;:: oneerns for environmental
lent
eI,ncie.'lCY; ~ntmuous growth> and capi~ acc'::'
. to concerns for economic
CUlJUlllan()fl (economic growth) is fund
ulatlon, The view that capital
:r chaJ!lerlge.d The right of humanity to:ental to human development is
ilic:ations IS taCItly accepted as
gage ill extenSIVe environmental
.
sacrOSaItct (tur'
h
compIiCUous with the h h"
. rung t e standard view jnt
The n 1 '
u nstlc verSIon of the do ' .
0
o y seHous question is h
bes
mmatIOn of nature
ace u1a'
ow
t to man
th
.

=.

. urn

Uon, economic efficien

age

e envIrOnment

. negatIve externality effects (includi:' and growth. From this standto be COuntered (provided
. g those on health and welfare)
,
d.'
no senous barriers
an senous attention sh Id b '
are created to further
of resources. Given the fr ou
ricegtven to proper conservation
.
amewo e I 'cal'
lew are generally viewed
' co Ogl ISSUes within the
I nstances d
I'
as a concern of th
.
:

evo Vlng powers to lower leVi

e natIon state) in

cultural traditions (for

I
.els of gnvernment. National
... or the furest) then typicall p ~~ wlth. respect to the importance
the standard .
y p y an Important role in aff. .
.
. '
d
.
VIew gets worked Out and
' . ecang
an even ill diflerent Iocal'tI' p ,
presented In different
s iall b
1 es.
ut ill th
'1'
oc y ased and often locall
i6
e preva! illg terms of
qwIliti.es can be factored
c.
y
spec
c
proferen
c.
into the
...
ces !Of environ_
preference.

.argument as a particular manifestation

-b-~

~JH

. D''''-ence and Politics

376 Justtce,
,

.,,
,
,
,
,

'Ii'

' .
bedded (sometimes
.
r of discourses are em
.
A powerful and . persuas,ve
arrbis
"'f stalldard.
.) .th,n
'~ew and its associated
. practices,
al
without even knOWIng 1t WI
E'
"ntal economics, enVIronment
C
d
wers
nVlronm"
1
1
'
,
institutions, belters, an po
.
.
d olicy analysis, as we as a WICe
an
engineering, environmental law, plann 'bngadl in support of it. Such discourses
.oJ::
de. are ranged ro y
.
range of scienUllC en a\iors
.

ms of political--econorruc power
bl
the dorrunant lOr
h
are perfecdv accepta e to
. l' d w,thin them to the egemony
'
th
challenge Imp Ie

Precisely beause
ere IS no
.
d 1 . . al support therefore flows rom
O
1
F
anclal an OglStlc
d'
f capital accumu anon, In
.
h environmental lScourses,
.
h tate and corporations
to those promotmg sue
tm e s
. . . di
es of power.
.
aking them dlSttnCtlve scours
. v.--ithin the srandard VIew,
th th
.s no contestatlon
.
This is not to say at e~e 1
h
. tl'fic evidence of connectlon
dis ute over t e SClen
f
There is abundant room or p
'al _fL
he extent and measure 0
betwee
al han and SOCI ea<Cfs, t
.
n environment c f ligebT
benveen econoflllC
wbereth etrade-oCCs
ill
damage, the designation 0 a I ,ty, or e uity) should lie, how divergent
g
rowth and enVIronmental q~allty ( al q ali' mirrht be measured and
consumer preferences ,or envlfonment qu. 'ties"
mental concerns sh 0 uld be
.
th long run enVIron
.)
d time-preferences is extenSIve,
expressed, how at mto e.
,.
on discount rates
an
.
f
deba
Pro)' ected (th e literature
.
h Id be The intenSity 0
te
.
gulatlon s ou
.
d
and how comprehensive state re Ii:
cl des general discussion of broa _
all di
. e frame 0 en pre u
.
within this overdicall scurSlV
.
But _the debates have somenmes
d iff. nt alternatives.
~
.
hift.
er let alone ra
y
ere
the w::w fovdiscurslve s S Into
di
that do prepare
_,.
.
generated contra etlons
..
While for example, the apparent mtent
radically different ways of thinking.
'f his colleagues to a stronger sense
'
.
ake up some 0
k C
of Summers' menlO was to W
.
tal equity and mar et IOICeS
.
.
of
envltonmen
of how (0 negonate lSSUes
d. became an icon whose shock ,
d d
. t subsequen y
..
al
within the stan ar Vlew, I
al ernative discourse of enVlfonment .
value could be used to press Or an t
.

Iv. Ecological Modernization

"

..

>,

.~
,

.
_

..
.

.
Begr. nning. wirh the
extensive':
).usdce
Th'
dard view has a considerable hIStory.
d following;
e stan
..
h- enrury urban settmgs an
public health measures In ntneteent c . ;nd water quality in many areas: ...
p
through to present-day efforts to lffi r01i"'. aIr t of the standard view has nor .:
f th
tal
ld the wo rki ng ou
.
advanced capl 1st wor ,
.
dit Were this nor ___ _
o
e
. 1 cord of successes to its cre.
.
.
been "ithout a
re
abandoned. At its best, even some of its
.
case, it would long ago h., e been .
sl'de' for example, the ad hoc ,.. '.
. eatures have a VIrtuoUS.
ingly negative
. ed a degree oflocal an d . .". ,
fragmented approach has sometim~ per:~rr and considerable
, ...........
larlsr sensitivity to consumer prtheeren
lainly serious limitations t<;':_ '
ntions But ere are, p
,
al "'.
environment lflterve
.
h
d in recent years some
effectiveness of the standard approac an d the sear~h for some
. g internal contradictions
_,
g1arm
tal. h.ave spawne
way to look at environmen issues.

substant1~

The Environment ofJustice 377

'. '.

The thesis of "ecological modernization" (see Hajer, 1995) has periodically

emerged as one way to structure thinking abour the dialectics of social and
ecological change. In the United States it became popular during the progress!>" era (when the name of Pinchot dominated discussions) and remerged
during the 1930s in the soil conservation movement and within institutions
like the National Resources Planning Board (Hays, 1987). In recent years There
are signs of its adoption/cooptation by both environmental pressure groups
and certain institutionalized configurations of political-economic power.
Ecological modernization depends upon and promotes a belief that eCOnomic activity systematically produces environmental harm (disruptions of
"nature") and that society should therefore adopt a proactive stance with respect
to environmental regulation and ecological COntrols. Prevention is regarded as
preferable to cure. This means that the ad hoc, fragmented and bureaucratic
approach to state regulation should be replaced by a far more systematic Set
of politics, institutional arrangements, and regulatoty practices. The future, it
is argued, cannot be expected to look after itself and Some SOrts of calculations
are necessary to configure what would be a good strategy for sustainable
economic growth and economic development in the long run. The key word
in this furmulation is "SUstallability." And even though there are multiple
,definitions ofwbat rbis might mean (and all sorts ofthetorical devices deployed
by opponents to make the term meaningless or render it harmless since no one
can POssibly be in favor of "unsustainabiliry'), the concept nevertheless lies at
,the heart of the politics of ecological modernization. The rights of Oture
,'g"11"tal:IOJas and the question of appropriate temporality therefore move to the
discussion rather than being assumed away within market forces as
Occurs within the standard 'iew (see chapter 7).
shilt in emphasis is justified in a variety of ways. The irreversibility
in the standard view, becomes, for example, mllch more prominent,
with respect to biodiversity but also with respect to the elimination
habitats, permanent resource depletion, desertification, deforestation,
like. High orders of environmental risk are emphasiZed coupled with
recognition that unintended ecological consequences of human activity
fur-reaching, long-lasting, and potentially damaging. Beck's (1992)
of the idea that we now live in a "risk society" (largely a COn"<,'ce or an accelerating pace of seemingly uncontrollable te<:hnological
has proven a USeful and influential adjunct to the discursive thrust to
risk-minimizing politic.s of ecological modernization. There has also
. recognition that ad hoc and after-the-fact practices can produce
and ineffective results.

l:llu1a~lon

of scientists in promoting the discursive shift from the standard

modernization W<!S important [see Litfin 0994l .n..J /-T,;..

.tQeC()JOI;IC:U

Hi,

378

Justice, Difforence, and Politics

(
,
- st dies1 It was sClence
t h at revealed global
" problems
hI) demanding wlde-rangmg
1995) for recent case- u ,
,
al
'n
and ozone ,0 es
'1_1
(acid ram, glob wanl11 ,g,
b d
thereby posing a challenge ( '5~'
'
'bey dnanonstate or ers,
fth
'
collecttve actIon
on
th d d bureaucratic rationality 0 e natlOn
institutionaL and cultural) to ,e ose
h d the knowledge of ecological
' div'd al sCientists pus e
state. Anddsome m
1 U
th
'wh re the unintended consequences
el redness to e POllt
e
'bl
d
'
<:;vstems an mter! a
e, an
~Jof

ld be seen to be far more widespread, irreversl
th "b
'
human actlvltles cou
'I b
ized, This made e USI'
th h d prevlOUS v cen recogn

'ch f th tandard view appear mOTe

potentially senous an a
ual d" aft r the fact appro. 0
es
ness as us, an
e , kind of science provided crucial support r~ many
and more inadequate. This
f hom initially viewed SCientific
al
groups many 0 W
d '
environment
pres~
d
'di
The
thesis of ecological rna ern""",
nat
'th
ptlClSm an
strust,
f th
ratio 1ty Wl see
h d ithin ffian}T segments 0
e
be
deeply entrenc e W
h
come nt The ellects,
_a:
somew at
as we shaIl see, have been
.

cion. has now

tal

envlronmen moveme , d ecolo .cal modernization provldes a common

II' h
t between them and dommant
contradictory. On the one han ,
then ther it presumes a certain kind
discursive basis for a contested rapPBroc em
' al
' power ULon eo ,
fOrms of polinc c-economlC
'f
ely moral arguments (cf the
th I
the force 0 more pur
aI
of rationality a: <ssens 'ed bo ) d exposes much of the environment

comments ofLoms GIbbs at

ve an

h d
ers of political cooptatlOn,
'h
movement to t e ang
f the ecol 'cal modernization theSiS rests, owThe general persuaslveness 0 ,
L 'J:.<>g!This
fuses to'see the supposed uade
th
dical discurSIVe Snlle
re
ever on one 0 er ra
d'
wth in zero-sum terms.

'

tal concerns an econOrnlC gro

. gl
I
f
1 cical control are increasrn y

off between envrronmen

'n-win' examp es 0 eco 00"

I 'cd
\Vhat are
wn as Wi
f
' 't is vital to show that eco 019'
emphasized. Given the power 0 mOlle}, 1 tal care it is ,,,,,,,ed, often contrib.
"
b
fitable EnVIronmen
,-,,~
I
moderruzanon can e pro
, effi '
fuel use for example) and ong-term
II '
(through more
Cient,
furth
utes to e1llClency
fru ' al accumulation. I)
ermore,'
preservation of the resourceedhase d Ifr
capit air to water to land) under standard
.
I being mov aroun , om
'f. '
pollution IS mere y
. , bei 'mpaired in the long-run " as IS
' t hen aggt"O~te effiCiency
1
, " 'nks"
'thin which," ' '
pracnces,
few15
dngfewer
empty
Sl
Wi
'gl th
there are
er an
f
"
increasm y e case,
absorbed. And if, to take the parallel case 0
, " ,'"
pollutants can costlessly be "
'too fut to allow for smooth
""
"natural" resources, depletion iShnCC[Uf?"calg changge, then costly disruptions
d'
d measured tee 0 <>g1
ch r.
a JUSlment an
b ' th ' d To some degree the sear
or
' growrh may e ill eted
Will
"
,
environment
hv environmental Iitlganon,
,
econoIlllc
solutions has also been promp
,
lik th se direc1:ly assocIared
I '['
d, m some secrors,
eo,
'h
impact egts anon an
a
d health by extraordinanly hlg
,:
occupational and consumer:
'I with the =e of asbestos
d parnes (as, mr examp e,
"'
ds f, "
tion awar or UlJure,
up of celebrated "names
, ,
gro
thac drove firms and some illsurers - a
_ f recent dean-up effOrts ",
.
hankr pt=) The c ostlmess 0
.
London - lnto
u~", d
d
up hazardous waste
"~~..h'~d"
tience in the Urute States to ean
""n""venl
su}"",~,the best
expeexampIe - has also pIIShed maay to take a new
, ' "
perhaps
kno

err:r:'

,
,

','

The Environment rif'Justice 379

Environmental equity (distributive jUstice) has a stronger role to play in
ecological modernization arguments, This is in part due to rhe inroads made
by rhe environmenral justice movement and various other movemenrs arolmd
the world expressive of what Martinez-Allier (/990) calls "rhe environ_
mentalism of the poor." But leaving these aside, COOperation is required to gain
support for proactive environmental initiatives so that the question of
environmental justice has to be integrated into the search for long-term
sustainability, partly as a pragmatic adaptation to the internationalism ofseveral
key contemporary ecological issues: sovereign nation states, including those that
are poor, have to agree to a certain regulatory environment on, for example,
carbon emissions and CFC use, and, furthermore, enforce its provisions.
Negotiating with China and India is politically quite different from
negotiating the location of a hazardous waste site in MissiSSippi, So some SOrt
of configuration has to be envisaged in which ecological modernization
contributes both to growth and global distributive justice simultaneouslv. This
was a central proposition in rhe Brundtland RepOrt [World Commission on
Environment and Development (WCED), 1987] for example, How; and if,
that can be done is at the heart of deeply contentious debates, There are also
signs of a discursive shift, perhaps fuhioned as a response to the Contentious_
'
of the distributive justice issue, in which economic development
. (improvement in human capacities and conditions) is seen as quire distinctive
economic growth (the increase in outpUt of goods and services), If
can be persuaded to take the former path then the competitive
to the hegemony of the advanced capitalist pOwers with respect to
ltalaa:unlu!:lticlO through economic growth will be lessened,
Side-consequence of these shifts is that environmental maoagement is
seen to be the exclusive provenance of governments or the nation

nation state, while dearly still important, should be supplemented

international organizations as well as local governments, The general
tbe Rio conference, for example, Was to give fur greater powers to
'nat:ioncal organizations (like the World Bank and the United Nations
Program) and to Set up local government mandates for
omnel,tal quality, Many layers of government operating at many different
be implicated as partners in the search fur berter paths of enviro n
.rnnarl'l':enletlt. This move to construct some sort of hierarchy of powers

~oJunental

r:o"nize> the diverse spatial scales at which environmental issues can

very little of this has acrually been worked Out in practice, a
away from the nation state towards some Sort of recognition
scalar layering of environmental issues can certainly be detected

7 and 8 for further considerations on spatial scaling), A wide range

civil society (nongovernmental organizations, pressure groups,
can then become involved, The public debate over "values"
pilseql1enLtlv become much more explicir, preparing the ground for 0

"",-"'.

3S0

justice, Difforence, and Politics

veritable industry of philosophical reflection devoted to "environmental ethics."

And much more open and democratic as well as wide-ranging discussions of
environmental issues become possible. It is precisely at this interface that the
fine line between incorporation and open contestation again and again gets
crossed and recrossed~ with legal, scientific and economic discourses, institu-

tions and practices becoming a deeply implicated and contested terrain.

In portraying the general characteristics of the ecological modernization
thesis in this systematic way, I am exaggerating both its coherence and its

difference from the standard view. The raggedness of the enwonmental_

ecological debate the last 20 years defies any such simple characterization, But
the debate in the public realm has been much more open to ecological
modernization arguments than was previously the case, And as often happens
with a public discourse in formation. all sorts of interventions and openings

have occurred, through which quite a bit of radicalization has been achieved,
Some radical environmental groups have been partially drawn to the ecologi,
cal modernization thesis, sometimes as a tactic because it provides convenient
and more generally persuasive public arguments with which to pursue other
objectives, but sometimes as a matter of deeper conviction, viewing it as the
only way to move a deeply entrenched capitalism towards ecological saniry and
a modicum of global justice, And there is some evidence that the nascent
European bureaucracy in Brussels saw ecological mod.ernization as a means of
empowerment against narrower national and corporate interests. Socialists, for
their part, could take to the argument as a way of combining traditional
commitments to growth a...'l.d equity wirh rational planning under socialized.
control. Commoner's Making Peace with the Planet Earth (1990) and Lelf',
Green Production: Toward an Environmental Rationality (1995) can be read, for
example, as left-wing versions ohhis thesis, I shall come back to this particular

line of thinking by way of conclusion.

,
But ,he discourse would not have the purchase it evidently has had with,,",
a significant tranch of support ftom the hearcland of contemporary politicaleconomic power. The rising tide of affluence in the advanced ca],i"uis'.'; ,;
countries after World War II increased middle-class interest in en',it()fi[nerl~ .::,'
qualities and amenities, "nature" tourism. and deepened concerns-

environmencal dangers to health. 'Xl\llle this lent an indeiible bourgeois estlletl:, ","
and politics to much of the environmenraJ movement, it nevertheless
environmental issues to the political agenda where they could not

be controlled as a mere adjunct of bourgeois fashion. The health oo'illect\()l'~i

as Hays (1987) points out, became particularly salient and peculiarly
ended in relation to environmental concerns in
United States

me

or so. Systematic environmental concern for everything from

despoliation, heritage, and wilderness preservation, control of air
quality, exposure to toxics) waste disposal, regulation of consumer

and the like became much easier to voice given middle-class acceptance.

. .
The Environment ofjustice 381
Its own qualltles oHfi Th'
.
en strongly emphasized by Beck (1992 'e,
IS aspect to the problem
:
contemporary form of a high-en '
all ~o argues that the costs of the
._
J'
Vlronment fJ k
.
c ass spectrum therebv turning th
.
S SOCIety are spread across the
'
e enVlfOnmencal '
,
(even t h e bourgeois can
,
get skin can
and I ke l~sue Into a populist issue
(Meado
al ) b .
cer
eu mla) Th L' ,
,
_ ws et . pu lished in 1972, which in m
'
e tmtts to Growth
, warrung ,hot to say that the st d d '
. any respect, was a powerful
th Cl b f
an ar VIew was Inadoq
e U 0 Rome (an influential
fbmke' uate, was supported bv
Brundtland Report (WCED) fgrlo9uSP 0 h' rs and industrialists) and th~
' ,
0
7, w ,ch consoI'd
d
: modemlzanon discourse in .
1 ate rhe ecologicru

'bil'
Importanr ways b"
th
SUstama Ity" to the tore '"
_lr
'
tlngmg
e question of
fli ." .
, "as an CHon supp
db
o C1aJ.S, Industrialists nnancie
d"
OIte
y many government
., ld' ' .
'
rs, an SCIentIsts And'
h
.
wor illStltutIons such as the ~ Id B
.
S1flce t at orne m::<lor
'
or
aok
which
pre
.
]
'd
'..,
whatsoever to environmental i
'
VIOUS YpaI no attention
. Monsanto), and powerful esta~~~~' SOme corporations (like IBM and even
and AI Gore, have been converted t ment politlclans, like Margaret Thatcher
tion thesis, Even The Econom ' t (J 0 so;,e vefSlon of the ecological moderniza
budding romance between gr~:ns:~ b' 1?95:,;;7) now sees fit to celebrate ,,;
Maire Lots of Mone,- and Say th PI USlness ill an article entitled "How to
'Th'
"'.
e e anetTQo"
ere IS a mor
.
e SIrusrer aspect to th
,r,,,e.;>icm of 1973-5, the subsequent slow I~ ar~ent, however. The severe
'Vi,despn:ad
al
-<lOwn In economi
"'
strUctur unemployment
d
c growth and'
rise
limits to gro'\\'tb more attr . S' rna e ~ appeal to some notion of
actlve. capegoanng
al r .
,n" mlter'naJ contradictions ofcapital"
I I ' natur lIlUts rather than
said Marx of Ricardo h !~:1S a w~ -tr~ed tactic. When faced with
e
\cige In organic chemistry" (see
1974). This Particula~ ;a/
p<>pulati()fl growth, again and aga'
.~
,hn ng puts particular blame on
In raISIng t <speete fMaith
reducing much of the
l'cal
' r0
us (see chapter
ogt -enVlTonm cal
bl
Popula,ticlfl problem. But this eco
essen';all
.
en
pro em to a
; p,trallel,x/ .
u
y reactlonarv r' cal
In. he Limits to Growth and the Brundd
po m approach
l,mits to capital aceu ul .
d and Report by concerns
.
m atton (an henc [,
I
an d nsing standards of a1lI
' I . e, or emp oyment
frsl>Lin,tble development" could th buenee :or dWlde), The rhetoric of
attac ed to the ideal of a growth
had to respect natIrrailen, e D
>iij. ''Conolnic
muts. emands for hi h
.C
growth in poorer parts of th
Id
g er wages or more
llmnlutabl!e]
Were count db
aws of nature th di e war
'
ere yappeal
laws of entrenched class and ,us ,;,mg ~ttention from the fur more
inability of the planet to sup~:;;";o;;:pnvl~e: The supposed sheer
standard of SWeden or Switzerland ber::!.e :ons WIth aspirations
.
even trying to spread the ben Ii
_ ImpOrtant political
eVIdent failures of capical,' t od . e. ts ofcapItal15t growth around
d
S ill
erruzatron d
eveloping countries also made the h
an fresource management
.
r etonc 0 ecolo.ncal
d '
att
r""tlVe, In many developin
. th'
o mo ermzag COUntries 1S meant a Darti~ I
,

issues as fundamental to .

has be

tu:

j>Pt"JT ......

382 Ju>tice, Difference, and Politics

to traditional methods as more ecologically sensitiye and hence more dlicient.
The World Bank, for example, took to blaming the governments ofAfrica for
the failure of its own development projects there and then sought to
decentralize the process of development to see if indigenous methods led by

indigenous peoples, with women cast in a much more cenrral role, could work

so as to payoff the accumulating debts built up precisely through World Bankimposed western-style development.
Finally, many corporations, like IBM, saw a great deal of profit to be had
from superior environmental technologies and stricter global errvironmenral
regulation. For the advanced capitalist nations, struggling to remain comperi-

me

tive,
imposition of strong environmental regulations demanding high-tech
solutions promised not only a competitive advantage to (heir own industries

but also a strong export market fur the more environmentally ftiendlv
technology they had developed (the environmental dean-up in eastern Europ~
has proven particularly lucrative). If only a small fragment of corporate capital
thought this way, it was neverthdess a significant dissident voice arguing for
ecological mod.erniz-ation from within a powerful segment of the bourgeoisie.
Global environmental management "for the good of the planet" and to
maintain "the health" of planet earth could also be convenienrly used to make
claims on behalf of major governments and corporations for their exclusive and
technologically advanced management of ~ the world's resources. So while a
good deal of corporate captute of the ecological modernization rhetoric
(particularly via "green consumerism') could be found, there are also positive
reasons for some segments of corporate capital to align themsdves with a
movement that emphasized certain kinds of technological change coupled with .
highly centralized global environmental management practices. The dean-up
industry alone now has a value of some $200 billion within the OEeD and,
being heavily dependent upon proper regulation, fotms a significant pressute
group fur regulatory action and ecological modernization (TheEc<momi.r~ Jun~
3, 1995: 57).
As a discourse, ecological modernization internalizes conflict, It has a
populist edge, paying serious attention to environmental-ecological issues
most particularly to the accumularion of scientific evidence ofen'viooIi.ne'"taI,c
impacts on human populations, without challenging the capitalist ecc'Qo."ic
system head on. It does imply strict regulation of private property
however, and in so far as it leads to action it can de facto, through regw.,!,,'"
action, curb the possibilities for uncontrolled capital accumulation.
also a discourse that can rather too easily be corrupted into
discursive representation of d.ominant forms of economic
appropriated by multinational corporations to legitimize
manage all of the world's resources. Indeed, it is not impossllDle
world in which big industry (certain segments), big governments
the World Bank) and establislunem, high-tech big science can get t9

The Environment 01') .

the world even more th th
1. ustzce 383
ecol .cal
d
an ey currenrly do in th
f"
ogI
mo ernizatio n and
.
e name 0 sustainabiJiry;
supposedly fragile health of planeta~:r:;;r~~~ .global management of rhe
(1993: xv) fears:
.
IS IS preCIsely the shift that Sachs
>}

As governments b'
d.
1
' USlOess an mternational
.
.
ec~ ogy, emrironmentalism chan es its
agenCIes faISe the banner of global
e
philosophy ofa social mOVement~ '_ c:c , In part, ecoJogy - understood as the

opposition to a knowledge of do~a~t to transfunn itselffrom a 1mowled e

Ism .. , becomes sanitized of its radical on, .,. b rhe process, environment~_
knowledge> until it can he wedded to thCO~ten: an~ reshaped as expert neutral
e onunatJDg world view,

?f

Class forces resolutely opposed to

h
.
of the political SPectrum. Let us IO:ku~,: :~haPIng can be found at both ends
e reacnon of the libertarian right.

V. "WJSe Use"

an

d th D
e

efense of Private Property

. Ecologtcal modernization is anath

.
, .
ema to certaIn
..mg Important segments of the trad"
al
segments of capital (indud
deske t 0 'mother it (together with ltwnhi petit bourgemsle
. . ). There is a strongof the standard view) ;M
anyr ngotherthan themiM;-~"-.
.
-di
~. many quarters WIllI
'="'USt verslOfl
spos.ed towards it, most are not. By f~r the ~:me corporations are favorably
rom Its unpacts upon the rights f '
t powerful opposition derives
of raw materials and "natural"
0
pnvate properrv (particularlv own
,ers
. .
resources) Th h I 'd'
erl11zauon, and the planned
.
e woe I ea of emlogical mod...
government-led or coll . .
IS anathema to the libert"
eCUve Interventions it
tlmDUj';h the "wise use" movement
~lan wmg of conservative policics. And
:
a libertarian equivalent f 'thPartJcu!arly focused in the US west, it has
t
ck
0
e enVIronmental'
.
.
0 atta
not only
I ' al
JUSlJce movement wi h
p1inirnal!ist
eeo OgIC modernizatio b
.
t
The" . app~~ to the standard view.
n Ut anytbmg except
WIse use movement d
'
raws m .ract on a 10
ad' .
.
- though, as We shall
f
ng tr lIJon ofenVIronmental
term'"
see~ 0 a very speaal SOft Th
- WIse Use is not merely an oppor~ . h .
e appropriation of
.
form ofgovernmental interv t~tlC r etorical device with which
.
I
en lOn or regu1 t
Th
- Its
m c assical libe".l th eonesp'ull
.
a IOn. e tradition
to Locke, and their translation int' artlc ar y those generally
. o.pohtrcal-economic practices
part.lcularly in the United S
Th
tates With It tr eli .
e argument is in part based o~ a :lOn of Jeffersonian
to mIX their labor with the land'
the mallenable right of
.. and to multiply." But it is also stron~1 su~h a w yas to ~'make the earth
ased
ets have every incentive in th "y ld
on the Vlew that private
'l;1':aJconditi<}fls'
-e Wor to maintai
d
'
of productivity that fu . h th
. n an sustaIn the
fillS
em \VIlli a Jiving- and th:lt_
L

own.

384

Justice, Di/firence, and Politics

left to their own devices, they will more likely pass on the land to their offipring
in an improved rather than deteriorated condition. Arthur Yonng, an influential

commentator on agricultural affairs in late eighteenth-century England, put

it rhis way: .on an annual rental a man will turn a garden into a desen: but
give a man a fourteen year lease arul he ,,';[1 tum a desert into a garden.
This was, of course, exacdy the sentiment that led Wtlllam lloyd to propose
"the tragedy of the commons" thesis in 1833. And some commentators on
Hardin's (1968) influential restatement of that idea have treated it as a plea

for private property arrangements as the best protection against those abuses
of the commons which governments by their very nature are powerless to
prevent. Even if Hardin does not himself follow that line of reasoning, it has
not been hard for legal scholars and for theoreticians to argue that the taking
away of private property rights without fUll compensation for environmental
reasons is unjustified and that the wisest and best organizational form for
ensuring proper use of the land is a highly decentralized property-owning
democracy. Von Hayeck, Nozick, and a ,""hole host of comemporary
economists and legal scholars (such as Epstein, 1985) would agree.

The "wise use~' movement in the United States has its roots in a long
tradition of opposition to the powers of the federal government to regulate
private property. The so-called "sage-brush rebellion" of western cattle-ranching
interests against federal control over extensive tracts of land in the US west
was just one incident in that history. It appeals to popular common sense and
makes effective use of powerful anecdotes of personal injustice on the part of
individuals caught in the regulatory thickets of government action. In t=earing
the rights of private property as sacrosanct (and the spread of "privatization"

and "deregulation" as social goods)~ the wise use doctrine gathers many'
powerful adherents from the corporate sector which,'- when coupled with
a populist base, makes fur a potent political force (see Echeverria and Eby,.
1995). It became dominant in the congress of the United States with
the Republican victory of 1 ')')4, for example, though there is abundant

evidence that it was gathering momentum in the courts as well as within .

various levels of government in the United States from Reagan's decrion in :.,

1979 onwards.
The "wise use" movement has two other arguments which it adds to its Str<lfl!",i<.
defense of private properry against governmental, constraints. The first
the right to jobs {and hence economic development and capital aa:;unlul2ltiOl
must take precedence over the "rights of nature" (however the latter
construed, if at all). The "'wise use" movement thrives on zero-swn
of the sort that pitred the fate of the SpOtted owl in the US no:rth'west "l
employment opporrunities in logging. And the second is that u""c.=
use rules necessarily do an injustice to local and private determinations:
the most sophisticated science allied vrith big government cannot come, _.
regulations sufficiently sensitive to cover all contingencies in all
.

.
The Environme t ,/"f; .
PnYate
property own
. d
'.
. n oJ _ USttce 385
abo th
.
en are IU gee! III pnnci I
ch
ut elr own particulars than t
b
p e mu
more knowledgeable
resp ts th
.
sate ureaucrats and . .

ec) e \VlSe Use movement h

SCIentIsts. In all of these
Schn .d '
as some stron
el er __ Echeverria andEby, 1995. rl)
gargumenrs on irs side. Keith
repute, considers it as (,
an enVIronmental joutnalist f

be

.),

mOVem ts
'.
may one of the most imPOttan
d' 0 some
. " t an Interesting
.
. . en to anse In environmentalism jn a 1
Its ability to question much of t h .
ong tune precisely because of

e enVIrOnmental orthodoxy that has aDs .

e mOVement has bee
en ill
n e by cotporare, industrial, and. erh
n Pc:verfully coopted and
commerclalloggmg, ranch'
d : p. aps mOst illlportant of all b
democratic and populist e.lgeng't and agnhusmess interests, it has sufficient 'of Y
Th
0
eserve senons
d
.
a
e case against the , '
COTISl eratlOn,
.
WIse use movements .
.
pretenslOns. Even presumi
th.
15 strong If not tatal t .
bo
'.
ng at pnvate prop ty
0 Its
_ ~eOlS VIrtUe and that the sta _ i
er owners are paragons of
tamil,ar with their local ecolo~calY n
long enough to become deeplv
that hardly applies to most land d coni hom of prodUction (a presumptio~
lato) h
.
eve ope" resource
.fS" t ere lS no ground to bdi . '
~.
extractors, and specuknowledgeable than the collective ~lfl P:lflClple that each O,"'11er is more
that the territorial purview f h
~re IS even less ground for believing
what
th
' 0 t e prrvate OWner b
h s,:","er to e spatio-tempora! scale of
I.
ears any relationship
t e ml~Ocosm of the field through re' eco <>gIcal processes varying from
~e~Itles, resource allocations, Water g~n:u que~t~ons concerning land use,
bIOdIversity, climate warming and than
qualities, to global questions of
. ownership is emlogically chaotic and e ..;:. mce. the pattern of property
n,) graU[l(j" fu,rheiieving that appeal t SOC! Y 0p-slded, there are absolutely
tor any .tisd{Jm
0 lts commensensica.l
. do
at all with respect to em'ir
al .
WIS ms can allow
,
development even in it
o~rr:_en.' Justice let alone ecologically
s most .I.J..d...KtXl capitalistic form.
..
recent years. So although th

fa d d

taCo

Illr

VI. Environmental Justice and th D

e

r
erense of the

Poor

environmenral justice movem"'nt d

rJ:e standard view and ecolo i~

avances a. discoUIse radically at odds

.'~lth the wise use moveme!t ~:ode~fl1zatt?n. ~t IS also profoundly at

ISCourses considered h

. h
gh or qUIte different reasons. Of all
ere> It as proven far less
b

COOptation. Five issues stand our:

.

ill

amena Ie to corporate Or

protection against environmental ha

.... tangIble ways in enou h .

zards have been felt in
Ott'pens,lti{)fl Ii
. . g mstances, such as Love Can I
.
or and eltmmation of such
al. .
a, to make
health) issue for many P .
th '~"'lU Ities a pressiuo- material
. UttInO"
e In
tal>
.,
'~LV!r,onrnerltal agenda directly chall ::,
eqt. mes at the top of the
en
the standard, ecological modern' g the ~ommant dismurses (be they
lzanon) or WIse use vartety
. ).

386

Justice, Diffirence, and Politics

2, "Expert" and "professional" discourses have frequently been mobilized by

The Environment ofJustice 387

.
JustI~e goal.' lfl quite unique ways. In s;~~ce twms ecological with social
to distinctive positionalities from wh' h ng, the movement opens itself
measured, As Krauss (1994: 270) obs~es: lflJUStice can differentially be

that the movement ["

dominant forms of politica1--economic power to either deny, question, or

diminish ",-hat were either known or strongly felt to be serious health effects
deriving from unequal exposure, The resultant climate of suspicion towards
expert and professional discourses (and the form of rationality they
frequently espouse) underlies the search for an alternative rationality (even,
if necessary, "irrationality") with which to approach environmental
hazards. While science, medicine, economics, and the law may remain
important ingredients within the discourse of environmental justice, they
are not therefore ever permitted to frame the arguments in toto, In this
regard there is a similarity of sorts between the "wise use" and. the environmental justice movements.
3, The adoption of biocentric discourses that focus on the fute of "nature"
rather than of humans on the part of many environmental groups (albeit
modified by incorporation of theses of ecological modernization) has
prompted its own reaction, As Taylor (1992) notes:
The more established environmental orga..'1izations'do fight issues of sun-ivaL
and they use the survival theme to get the support of their members, but these
are survival issues- as they pertain to endangered species, national parks and
preserves, threatened landscapes .... These survival debates are not linked to
rural and urban poverty and quality ofliJe is;ues. If it is discovered that birds
have lost their nesting sites, then environmentalists go to great expense and
lengths to erect nesting boxes and find alxernative breedirtg sites for them;
when whales are stranded, enormous swns are spent to provide them food
and shelter, when furests are threatened large numbers of people are mobilized
to prevent damage; bur we have yet to see an environmental group champion
the cause ofhomdessness in hu.mans or joblessness as lssues on which it will
spend vast resources. It is a strange paradox that a movement which ex..':torts
-cite harmonious coexistence of people and nature, and worries about the
continued survival of nature (patticularly loss of habitat problems),
somehow furgets about the survival of humans (especially those who have lost
their "habitats" and "food sources").
The environmental justice movement therefore puts the survival of P""o,o.'.'

in general, and of the poor and marginalized in particular, at the center

its concerns.
4. The marginalized, disempowered, and racially marked positions of
of those most affected, together with the strong involvement of

dominant carers for the children who have suffered most from, fur
the consequences of lead-paint poisoning or leukemia, have for
wise disempowered individuals to seek empowerment outside of
institutions, The coupling of the search for empowerment and pelW.13r"
respect on the one hand with environmentalist goals on the other

'.

or eUV1Tonmental"

wo.z:nen>s prot~sts have different be'

enVIronmental Justice are mediared b gl~ places, and their analyses of

coll~ Women, the critique ofthe co y es ofcIass and race. For White blue~

genume democracy are centra! to :~~tte stare ~d the realization of a more

women of color, it is the link between :n of envIronmental justice. ' .. For
between class and "'nv'
and environment rath th
'
"" uonment that cace
h

er an
mental Justice. African Amer"
aractenzes definitions of
.
'
lean
women>'
enVIron_
men tal Justice to other
'a!"
s narratIves strongly link
.
,
E'
SOCI
JUSUce concer
h' .
envtron_
crune. mnrorunental J' ,
us, sue as JObS hallS'
d
'at '
usace comes to me th
mg, ar.:
~Cl mequities of race. For Native Am . an e need to r::solve the broad
1S bound up
'th h
encan women en '
.
WI
t e sovereignty of th . di
,vrfonmenra.! Justice
.
e lfl genous peoples.
1

Such different positional'ti

'th' th
1 es create as We shall
'
In
e environmental justice ~em
see, Interpretive tensjons
nder
. and national identity. Bullard (J;;,c~s; the themes of class, race,
ow, or example, that people of c J

summanzes evidence to
enVIronmental hazards even when co 0 or, are
more vulnerable to
. concludes that ,the injustice is fundarn::,llmg for soc.al Status and class and
.. DOing battle With the lack of If.
tally a race and not a class problem
, with trash" lends a very emot:e ~resr;:c:, that comes from "being
lights the racial and discriminato ym 0 IC angle to the discourse and high_
, pushes discussion far beyond the ::;;~~: to the problem, This ultimately
effects, COst-benefit schedules"
""'dence on, lOr example health
,. ' and
charged terrain ofsymor boPartsll' perl billio:," to the thorny, :olatile
c VIO ence ul al '
..
,
'.
' c tur Imperialism and
revolt against the
f
d iii
assoc.atIon of "p 11 ' ",
. ....
.0
e croent and -l~-ada ' .
0 unan In its symb I'
"'PIX};:ed aCJal
..
\.il,..01
non WIth dang
'.
0 Ie
WI

. !b

mucJ:

associated

-;

lmpurities of certai

n groups

In

eIOUS

SOCIal

dIsorder and

the population,

conditions of producti
f
'
S
on 0 an env.lro
aJ .
:ates account for some of its
:::tent Justice movement in
ntr
particular kinds of pollu.:on
<:atures, To begin with the
'
u
- tOXic.s and d
'
dis
CUSSlon tmvards symb I'
.
angerous contaminants _
about" I .
0 Ie questions, makincr I
th
'
c arms and counter cl .
b C ear
at the ISsue is
II '
- aims to status" ( D
I
po unon per se. This is hat .
c , oug as, 1984: 3) as
ca . - f.
W gtves the movement
h'
'
panty or moral Outrage. But the cor II _ so muc of its moral
t the movement relies heavily u n o aty, as Szasz (1994) points
ofpollution incidents'" : po symboliC polItics and powerful
'b
New York is a much m . .!OXlcs In someo
<
,nes asementatLoveCanal
'
I
ore powerful.ssu fr
th'
lnvo Yes a very small numb
f
e om IS perspective, eYen
er 0 people, than the diffuse d""A ~+

c:

--~~--_!!!II!I!!!_!!!!E!I!!!I!!!!!,Slli,II$I'II;s:.tC~

The Em'ironment o~ T

388

justice, Difforence, and Politics

ozone concentrations in major Cltles that effectS millions every summer

throughout much of the United StateS. In tue case of Love Canal, there Waii an
identifiable enemy (a negligent cotporation ), a direct and unmistakable effect
(nasty liquids in the basement, sick children, and worried suburban mothers),
a cleat threat to public trUSt in government (the Board of Education was clearly
negligent), a legal capacity to demand personal compensation, an undefinable
n
fear of the unknown, and an excellent opportunity for dranaatizatio that the
media could and did use with telish. In the case of owne concentration, the
enemy is everyone wbo drives, govetnments have vety little mandate to intervene
in people's driving habits, the effects are diffuse, demands for compensation hatd
w mount, and the capacity fur dramatization limited making fot very little
media coverage. The resultant bills in choice of targets permits critics to charge
that the empha5es of the environmental justice movement are misplaced, that
its politics are based on an iconography and politics of fear, and that the
movement has more to do with moral outrage than the science ofimpacts. Such
criticisms _ which are frequently made of Greenpeace as well - are orren
justifiable by certain standards (such as those espoused by mainstream
environmenralists), but precisely for that reason are largely beside the point.
The refusal to cast discussion in monetary terms, to rake another example,
reflects an inmitive or experiential understanding of how it is that seemingly
fUr market exchange always leads to the least privileged falling tmder the
disciplinary sway of the more privileged and that costs are always visited on
those who have to bow to money discipline while benefits always go to those
who enjoy the personal authority conferred by wealth. There is an acute
recognition within the environmental justice movement that the garoe is lost
for the poor and marginalized as soon as any problem is cast in terms of the
asymmetry of money exchange (and particularly in terms of cost-benefit
an2lysis). Money is always a form of social power and an instrument
discipline in social relations rather than a neutral universal equivalent widr
which to calculate "welfare-enhancing benefits."
urlts .
This active denial of tfte neutrality of the monetary calculus perhaps acoo vv
for the somewhat medieval tone of the declaration on environmental ,w,u
,
adopted at the 1991 conference (though, of course, cast in termS ofco,otempqrary technologies and possibilities). The affirmation of "tl1e sacredness
Earth, ecological unity and the interdependence of all species, and the
to be free from ecological destruction" parallels in interesting waY' ",lfe'1C!
(1985: 274) characterization of medieval justice as:
at one and the same time a moral and a cosmic principle, to which all
en
activity must be subordinated. llny departure from this principle is eq,Jiv,u ,l
to transgression of the divine order of things and of natural law ...

[is] that by which the harmony of the whole issustained, and which denies
theIr due desserts.

do not present th'

all I '
" Jusnce 389
th I h
IS par
e In order to und
'
b
principles of environmental justice,
lit rather to suggest
lar mold to manv of us w uld b
..
"5" cast In a somewha
(1993) calls
f",:,illat to those upon whom
IllUSIOn takes the fullowing form:
as} etto do Its insidious work. This

u~ile

Ben~on

"the~liber.iil;:ion" ~

~:.~~

wha~

In societies
.. ofpolifcal
'a!
digoverned by de'
epmequaliaes
stan' ng and cultural aceo J"sh
I
power, economic wealth

SOCl

ddusory with the consequence th:t:,; thment the promise of equal rights i;
formal entitlements with !itt!
do .c,e maJonty, rights are merely abstract,
r:e. I n so far- as social lite is regula
e or noed be ~(acto
th purch.as e on .the realities of social
:" the promise is mistaken for its ~fiIl: ese
t abstract pnnciples and in so far
Jusac: is an ideology, a form of mystificati: , then the discourse of rights and
mdIVlduals to the very
di '
whIch has a causal rol~ in b' d'
h'ch'
'
con Mns of depende
d.
In mg
W I l t purports to offer emancipation.
nee an Impoverishment from

,. The environmental justice movement has

111
state of affairs. But th."
th', by and large, seen through this
b means
at it also h
d b
....
and its pervasive effects
ell
as to 0 attle with the
In so d'
asw beas with dir
omg. some have indeed
. cot fu nus 0 f ecological
for the medieval world (a mythical Id: led mto backward-looking
human SOCIeties trod
ligh I
go
age of mtegratlon with nat
,humans
so
t
y
on
the
ure
,
and nature) and sidewards lookin a :th t hat all was wdl between
'.;pe6"les who have not yet been full
lrar:on for those marginalized
of technologically
WithIn the global political
,pitalism.
ureaucranca11y rationalized

~<C'H

b~u
advan~ ant~

,_ :a:i~marion of the "sacredness of Mother Ear ,.,

sort lO, I want to suggest both
bl
.
th and other rhetoric of
. I
'
pro ematlC and
.
preCISe y because it permits .
b . empowermg, It is emf
d
ISSUes to e Judged .
, m terms of moral
o goo and evil, right and
g
dehk:m"llt violation or even "ra "wrfon . By pOSIng matters in terms of
. . .
'
pe
asacredM th E
JustIce movement adopts a nonne nah
o.
arth, the enviIonuntouchable bv legal
. 'fi go
Ie posmon of intense moral
.. ~
,SCIent[ c, or other rati __ I' . di
e assertIon ill quasi-r I"
scourses . Ir
.
,
e Igl0US Ianguage f h OUaIjstic
th
approach is to ask in Lo;o G'bb '
, 0 t e WIdespread view that
(,
)
h>Iswords"h'
what is legally, scientificall
d
' w at IS morally correcr?"
pemuts, through the m d' y, an pragmaucally possible?"
._
e lUID 0 f SOCIal pr
th
.
_
a moral economy of coli'
. . orest, e arncuiation of
ectlve provlSlon d 1l .
to a set of distributive edat'
.th~ co ectlve responsibi-v
the ;(moral econo "b' Ions WI In the political econom
my emg pr
d' d
J
peasant, the very ~ounding ofJ:::>S~i IS efinitely not that of
_ :'. and moral absolutes creates a
. hscourse In a language of
ov<:r ,ex;)OSure to environmental h azar
cedsrt~n
omology
between.
sav.
In urban
ar
. .
~,
to nature and peasant
eas, natlVIst beliefS
movements throughout the d evd QDmp"
'

",
.

~r

390 Justice, Difference, and Politics

world such as that of ,he Chipko (cf. Guha, 1989: 100) or the Amazon rubber
tappers (Hecht and Cockburn, 1990). It is therefore not surprisiog to find that
"the fundamental right to political, economic, cultural and environmental selfdetermination of all peoples" is asserted as one of the principles of environmental justice.
It is precisely through this discursive strategy that links can then be found
between the environmental jU5tice movement as shaped within the specific
conditions of the United States, and the broader movements that MartinezAllier (1990) refers to as "the environmentalism of the poor. These movements
fundamentally concern either the defense of livelihoods and of communal
access to natural'> resources threatened by commodification, stare takeovers,
and private property arrangements, or more dynamic movements (both in situ
and migratory) arising as a response to ecological scarcities, threats to survival
and destruction of long-standing ways of life (see Ghai and Vivian, 1995:
Sachs, 1993). But, as with the environmental justice movement, the symbolic
dimension, the struggle for empowerment, for recognition and respect, and
above all for emancipation from the oppressions of material want and
domination by others, inevitably has a powerful role to play, making the
environmentalism of the poor focus upon survivability in all of its senses.
From this standpoint, it is not hard to understand the fierce critique of
sustainable development'~ and "ecologkal modernization" (in its corrupted
form) launched by Sachs (1993):
The eeo-cratie view likes universalist ecological rules, just as the developmentalist liked universalist economic rules. Both pass over me rights of local communities to be in charge of their resources and to build a meaningful society. The
conservation of nature {should bel intimately rdated to rights of communal
ownership, traditional ways of knowing. cultural autonomy. religious rituals, arid- .

freedom from state-centered development.

Doctrines of cultural autonomy and dispersion, of tradition and difference (in

short, of place-bound politics with all of its limitations - see chapter 1I)
nevertheless carry with them a more universal message which permits a loosealliance OffOICes around alternative strategies of development (or even, 'm some,',"
instances, growth) that focus as much upon diversity of places and ge')grapl11; ..
cal difference as upon the necessary homogeneities of global market lO"::gr', .
nons. What seems to be at work here is the conversion of ideals learned
intense ecologically based militant particularism into some universal
pies of environmental justice. The environmental justice movement, like
"militant particularist" movements (see chapter 1):
has tried to connect panicuiar struggles to a general struggle in one quite
"ray. It has set out~ :as a movement, to make real what is at first

The Environment 0-1' 1.

extraordinary claim that th det;

') JUStJce 391
interests
ly b
e
ence and advancement of
.
, ~roper
rought together, are in fact th
__ 1 cenam partirular
1989.: 11).
e genem Interest. (William
s,

This connection is
.h
baA~- -d"
, . no"" ere more apparent than io the shifr [,
"
.
'-'Ald.!'
politICS to not-in-anyone's_b ky d"
. . rom not-Jn-mv_

States:

ac

ar

pnncIples in rhe Unit~d

~n~ronmental philosophy and decision makin

.
JustIce question of who gets hdp and who d ghas.often failed to address the
who canna" ' .. why industry po'
oes not, who can afford help and
lOOns some com..m ..
some contaminated comm '.
umnes and not others' why
unmes get cleaned up b t th d
'
some communities are protected d h
U 0
ers 0 not; and why
.
al justice movementan ot
envlronment
__ LerS.are .not protecred. ... Th e grassroots
thar OverI
' racism and class ...I's=<>
to stliP .away the 1'deoIogt'cal blinders
ook
'.
From this critical vantage poe~PtO<thtatlon lill ~nvJronmentaI decision making.
.
.
ill J
e so linon to
ual

proteCtion IS seen to lie in the s ggl .6 ,uneq

envIronmental
e
r
community, rich or poor black tru
h JUStlce for all Americans. No
h
e I 'al'"
'
orWIre,souldbeall
d
b
co ogre
sacrdice ZOne. S'
'~TO"
Owe to ecome an
..
.ymg"
to the conon ed . .
commumtles of color is the first st . th"
m
also'
. ep In IS stn,~l_ y: t U Ip01Sonmg of our
usr
mdude inscituti nal' .
:-~. e our ong-range "ision
.
th
0
rung sustarnable
d'
practices at meet human needs with
. ,an Just environnlental
ut
mtegrity. If we are to succeed
be ~~nficmg the land's ecologicii
~ we must
VlSlOnarv
II
.,.
very fu ture depends on ir. (Bullard, 1993: 206)
, as We as ffitiltanr. Our
. . This is not, however the oul I
th
, is prepared to make. The envir~ eap .at ~e environmental justice movement
:.toindude "the totality oflik nmdie~t lts" gets to be redefined (cf chapter 7)
.. afe . b r

con nons In our comm ..

.
S
JO S ror all at decent wage
h
.
UIllttes - atr and Water
.
. . .
s, OUsIng, education health
h
'
eqUlty, Justice" (Southern Organizi Co.'
care, utnane
.
Justice, 1992; cited io Szasz 1994. Ing
mmItt~e for Economic and
the connection between
.'
, 5 And thIS leads straight back
'.
enVIronmental and social' .
cons;de"ation of urban settings since thi. h
justlce. It also leads to a
.amran.eed capitalist warld.
s lS Were most people now live io the

VII. Environmental Justice and the City

10rIg-"taJlding hostiliry of what now

VltonmentU movement to the very existen~ass;

1:' the public eye for

the
stardin" proportions. Usuallv depicted :~ ~tl~ h~ created a blindspot
pllInd!ering of planet ear.h citi ( : e rg -POInt of the pollution
!p~~atiorlS now lives) are either' igno;~ or ;e .nearly ~alf of the world's
erugrated m the deep ecology
as well as in that wing o f '
enVIronmentalIsm that focuses primarily

The Environment ofJustice 393

at th
..
the problems associated with
. e begmnmg of this century and
known by the 1920,) Yet the u
f I faints In residential areas were well
1970. (particularly lead-based ad~:ve ea con~nued to expand well into the
banned only in 19"78 aft
d s to gasoline) and lead-bas-d pam' ts

Alice H ' l

391

Justice, Difference, and Politics

on "nature" as wilderness, species, and habitat preservation. Theoretically,
ecologists may claim that everything is related to everything else, but they then
marginalize or ignore a large segment of tne practical ecosystem. If biocentic
thinking is correct and the boundary between human activity and ecosystemic
activities must be collapsed, then this means not only that ecological processes
have to be incorporated into our understanding of social life: it also means that
/lov,s of money and of commodities and the transfurmarive actions of human
beings (in the building of urban systems, for example) have ro be understood
as fundamentally ecological processes (see chapter 5).
The environmental justice movement, with its emphasis upon marginalized
and impoverished populations exposed to hazardous ecological circumstances,
freely acknowledges these connections. Many of the issues with which it is
confronted are specifically urban in character. Consequendy, the principles it
has enunciated include the mandate to address environmental justice in the
ciry by the cleaning up and rebuilding of urban environments.
In so doing, the environmental justice movement connectS back into a
much-neglected facet of environmental politics. Gottlieb (1993: 7) puts it this
way:

pollution issues are not just a recent concern; people have recognized, thought
about and struggled with mese problems for more than a century in significant
and varied ways. A history that separateS resource development and its regulation

from the urban and industrial en:vironment disguises a crnciallink that cOnnects
both pollution and the loss of wilderness. If environmentalism is seen as rooted
primarily or exclusively in the struggle to preserve or rrumage extra-urban Nauue,
it becomes difficult to link the changes inmareriallife after World War II - the
rise of petrochemicals, the ,",wning of the nude;u age, the tend.encies towards
overproduction and mass consumption - with the rise of new social movements

.,.

lead-bas~

am.t ton on Inausmal toxicoIo

er .repeate:and

I'

'-

\vere

re~tion between them and serious brain ~:c uSlve studies had shown a strong
!,

paInts almost universally clepl ed' h

age 1Il children. But the lead-based
..
oy In ouses befo 1950 h
hazard S..
re
ave remained. as
.
. mce Its effects were Jar I
a
~f hou~mg
dilapidation and oor main
ge yconcentrated in areas
mcreasmgly seen (incorrectly)':.s an exd~~~a;ce, the I.ead-paint problem was
that reason, the problem did not
~e mner-clty problem. Largely for
e sort of urgency of action that
lead-based additives in gasoline com~
class and race lines. So 0
cornman ed through their impacts across all
epidemiology was dear' ~:n Issue where, as early as the 1960s "th
'd
' Its VICtims could b
di ed .
'
e
kn e pre cr , Its health effects could
I entified, and its treatment
be th.
own to th
edical
was
or no mgwas do."e (Gotrlieb, 1993: 244-50. Ph: m
profession," little
Sen, 1994; Flonm et al., 1990).
'
erux, 1993; Colpoturaand
serIOUS environmental

In BaltImore ciry, for exam 1

children under six ~~ned in i;92~~ than 5 percent of the 15,000 or so
m
had elevated lead levels in their blood ( eredbfo pOisonmg while 12 percent
see
of. all African-American inn
.
h'ldr ta e 13.1). Nationwide nearlyhalf
Iead, compared to 16 percenter-ctty
c I en ar
d
'
of whit .
.e expose to dangerous levels of
And the discriminatory I'mpa
e mner-clty children (Phoenix, 1993' 78)
[;
CIS are even m
artli
.
.
are actored together (see table 132).
ore st
ngwhen race and income
The reason for the lack of .
,. 'infen,,'] economic logic that S action over near!}' '0 years goes back to that
.. lead-removal would either d . ummers so brilliantly encapsulated: the COstS of
L

th
.

rend er ~nner-city landlordism for

:urea y sertous problems 0 f'llousmg.

rIve rents up or

e poor so unprofitable as to exacerb

te I

focused on quality oflife issues.

Gotdieb correctly seeks to interpret environmentalism as part of a complex
of social moyements that arose in response to rapid urbanization and
ization, accelerating strongly alter World War II. He rcinscribes in environmental
history (and its hegemonic discourses) a whole set of urban environmen",l.
concerns that conventional accounts conveniendy misplace. In so
.
Gottlieb suggests a way to take the supposed "holism" of the en'vir<,nrnerltal
movement at its word and to overcome a long-standing ideological predll':Oc,.,
don to oppose city and country in ways that denigrate the former

industrial~

romanticize the latter (see Williams, 1973).

Consider, for example, the case of lead-paint poisoning, an issue t""dla!;
been of major concern for environmental justice advocates. Lead has
known to be a highly toxic substance for hundreds of years (the KOIH,,!"!
understood rhe problem well, lead featured large in the pioneering

13.1 Numbers of children screened di

.
.
'''''Hevelstn then blood contrasting Balt.
~ose(d with lead pOlsoning or devated
d
Bal
.
unore
City predom'
d
an
umore county (white aiR
want- y poor and African.
,
uenr, and suburban) in 1992
Children

Percenrage

under 6

Poisoning
cases

Elevated

Percentage
of units built

screened

oftow
children

levds

before 1950

25,503

37.5

1,295 (5%)

2,794 (11%)

49

7,600

13.5

143 (1.8%)

19

Baltimore Sun, February 27, 1994.

69 (0.9%)

.~-c-

_____

The Environmmt oflustice 395

394

, D;n;
Justue, IJJerenee,

and Politics

ld '0 US cities oyer

of children 0.5-5.0 years 0 i
,
Table 13,2 Estimated percentages
than 15 ,,~Idl, by r.ceand in=me in 1988
, .
'th lea.d blood levds greater
"'"
1 mIllIOn, WI

Income
Race
African-American

White

$6,000--15,000

Less than $6,000

54%

68%

23%

36%

Greater than $15,000

38%
12%

Source: Bullard (1994: 20).

.'
.
In either case one consequ.e~ce is. greater
andonment
m
umer-crty
a:e""ch'
. fu the poor between hvmg WIth lead
ab
.
al Olce r
Id Ii bili
nomelessness, implymg a SOCi
is is now added another wrin e - . a . t:j
.
alnt or being on the street. To th
f children to lead pOlsomng
~uits against landlords after proven expo~':"ghe :, $500 000) nave led insurers
,
ards have gone as l
'
ho .
(some compensation aw.
.
,
as That leads to even more usmg
to deny coverage in many mner-Clt:jjare . building vacant rather than have
'--dI rds prefer
to eave a
fr
th
't.
abandonment as >au 0
. . .f an occupant suffers om
e paIn
.
it occupied and face persohna! ltbahlklIt:j lome sort of compromise but again and
has
t to ro er s
fa
f th "twin
State government
saug
d I . slation falters in the ce 0
e
again agreements break down an ,egt d the disappearance of affordable
,
. childhood lead POlSOrung an
,
tragedi esT
4)
io_
n using" (Wheeler, 199 .
"
f
'ta!istn) has been 10ngstanWug.
o
. ali ( charactensuc 0 cap'
f"to
.
But this irranon ty SO
d S
s affirmed the right 0 everyone
n 1947 housing act in the UnIte .tare
Th Report of the National.
T e
, bl ring enVItonment.
e
1968)
a decent house in a SUlta e IV
bliJilied in 1968 (US Government, , ..
Commission on Urban problems:~artin Luther King, not only lamente~ th.e
in me wake of the assassmatIOn 0
a1 b t focused particularly on me fuil~
failure to progress tawarih ~uch a go nm~n( might mean. In seeking to rectIfy.
to define what a "suitable li~d ealnV1~ mmission not only focused on
.'
tbe PreSl
enU
that OIDlSSlon,
,
di . . 0 u'on poor sOCl'.1'nfr
1
as trUctures -' - " f' b
a! SCrImma
,
' ) b t
environment o. )0 s,
ssibility (particularly tratlsportau~n . u ,
cularlv educa.tlon ), an acce
ntional environmentallSSues.
'ed
chapter on more conve
.
Insert a strong
,
nl
. becin to have
.
uild a ad urban SOClety u ess we -rr
America will surely fail to b
go
a word _ for the natUfaI
-- -:
enee is not tOO strong
new respect - rever
f
afF rd to De ignorant or 51'\ent ,1"",twll>J;,
_ ,.:
that surrounds us .. ,' None 0 us can. 0 en! We must respond to
. g to our em-1ronm .
..
the despoilers are dotn
.
II'
alertS conununttles
choked cines, aIr po utton

lak
:
reports of smog. . ror lack of water supply,
os
industries fleeing, people th:"'~soning, and all life jeopardized by
species threatened by chernl
po ~

'7

waste hazards.

, -

In seeking solutions
that:

to

housing questions, the Commission went on to argue

it is imposslbJe to conceive of good housing downwind from a factory spe<mng

ashes and noxious gases, in neighbothoods so poorly served by Jocal government
[hat trash and filth dominate the scene, in sections where open sewers or seepage
from septic tanks spread disease, or a<ljacent to rivers or ponds that would poison
or infect anyone who used the water fur swimming, (US Government, 1968:
487---8)

But rhis was a rare historical conjuncture. The dominant forms of power
were forced to take a closer look at the wide ranging environmental conditions
underlying the political unrest in the inner cities of the United States at the
same time as a whole range of esthetic, health, and environmental quality
questions were being placed upon the political agenda by the middle class aided
and abetted by a restless student movement which, from Paris to Mexico City
and from Santa Barbara to Tokyo, was raising profound questions including
that of a supposedly "alienated" relation to nature. At that time, therefure, it
was a matter of almost common consensus~ that social and environmental
justice concerns were inseparable from each other in urban settings (see Harvey,
1973: chapter 2). Only since then, has the environmental issue been weaned
away from its urban basis (Gottlieb, 1993).
It has, however, taken the multiple and diversified efforts of the environmental justice movement to revive and keep alive SL."'Ch long-standing concerns.
. Consider~ for example, the case of Chicago's notorious southeast side. Home
to 150,000 people, mostly African-American or Hispanic, it as "50 active
, .orclosed commercial hazardous waste landJills, 100 factories (including
',seven chemical plants and five steel mills), and 103 abandoned toxic waste
dumps, A1tgeld Gardens, a segregated Mrican-American community in
.. area, "is surrounded on all four sides with the most toxic facilities in all
,Chicago, and, no surprise, has one of the highest cancer rates in the
'.'Jill":U States" (Bullard, 1994: 14--15,279--80). The seriousness of such urban
S,:nvirontrlentalhazards has long been obvious. Various workers associated with
Hull House Settlement organized by Jane Addams in the 1890, recognized
that much of Chicago was nothing short of an urban-environmental
'ta.s;,rc'phe that demanded immediate and swift remedies if public health
(0 be protected and a modicwn of social justice achieved. They also
as the contemporary environmental justice movement has rethat the o:1ly path to improvement was empowerment of the poor
working classes in the face of a recalcittant, obdllrate, and often corrupt
power structure (Gottlieb, 1993: 59-67). Sara Paretsky's novel
set in cOntempof",), Chicag<', captures the nature of rhis struggle
graphically,

'"W"~~'

396

Justice, Difference, and Politics

But the whole question of the link between environmental and social justice
differentially impacted by exposure to environmental hazards. Urbanizing
processes are much more multilayered than that as are the environmental a..'1d
social justice issues with which they are associated. Changing patterns of urban
organization, for example, simultaneously produce configurations of uneven
social and economic development at different scales coupled with multiple
displacements of environmental isslles ro different scales. Highly localized
urban slnogs are reduced -at the expense of a regionalized acid deposition
problem. Middle-doss commuttrs escape toxic wnes and urban heat islands
only to contribute to global warming and high metropolitan-wide concentrations of ozone in summer. The health and quality of urban food provision is
much improved by resort to packaging practices (an extraordinary growth
industry since 1945) that cteate an immense plastics and paper waste-disposal
problem. Battery-driven cars are advocated. as a solution to o-zone-producing
automobiles but there is lead in those batteries, Electrical power contributes
to ,he cleanliness and health of urban environments only at the expense of
massive carbon dioxide, nitrous oxides~ and sulfur emissions that give rise to
acid deposition and global warming. Refrigeration cuts down on food
contamination, dysente'Y~ and disease but the CFCs deplete the ozone layer.
In all of these issues, the activities of urbanization pose a distinctive set of
environmental problems and foment a wide range of environmental consequences that have uneven social impacts at quite different spatial scales,
Furthermore. the immense concentrations of population now occurring
throughout the world create their own milieus in which distinctive and ofi:en
new hazards can all too easily flourish. New diseases emerge and old ones rerurn
(see Levins et al., 1994). Measles epidemics occur fur the most part only in
urban concentrations of more than 250,000 people and outbreaks of plague
- such as the pneumonic plague that shattered Surat in India in 1994 and the
Ebola virus that hit urban concentrations in Zaire in 1995 - take the course
they do in part because of the form that contemporary urbanization takes. Yet
only recendy has the link between urbanization and environmental questions
begun to be explored in any systematic way (Girardet, 1992: and see.
McCarney, 1995 for a thorough review). How ro do that in ways that are
sensitive to social justice questions, in the midst of the complex scalar lw.",",,,,
of environmental and developmental issues (local, metropolitan,
global), has hardly begun to be integrated into any environmental disooulrse,.,
let alone that of environmental justice. Certainly, the complexity of the
witi make for an abundance of confusion and argument.
But amidst all of the disagreements, both actual and potential, as to
environmental justice might be established, the one solid foundational
ment to wbich all proponents again and again return, is the primacy of
relations and of the justice of those relations. Commoner (cited in Sachs,

The Environment ofJustice 397

224) swnmarizes it this way:

in a rapidly urbanizing world does not stop at the borders of communities

When any environmental robl

:s.

able truth _ that the real p

em probed to its origin it reveal
.
each th
root cause IS to be round .
'
s an mescaper
0, b ; that the debt to nature
cann bIn h~w [people] interact with
reCite1cu omes 0
l'caI
...
Ot e paJd per
b
. ..
' r eeo ogt 1y sound habit b '
son y person. in
) ust1ce.
5,
lit In the ancient
. f'
corn

But of wbat metal

IS

social

b
t at ancient coin?

VIII. Principles of Justice and E

.
nVlronments of DiHier

ence
comparIson of environmental d"
sugg:sts a c~ude set of pairings. J:ur~es and p~inciples of social justice,
assOCIated with the standard'
T ~anan theones of)' ustice are str
. th d
VIew he lilt
. gt.
onglv
m ~ a vanced capitalist societi"; is faid :~~m lilg of both these discours~
. ptev .ent and hegemonic mode of Y . ent making this by far the most
behaVIOrs, pohtlcal action, and materialthinking for regulating institutional
partlcuiarly in terms of its concerns f.
pra~tlces. Ecological modernization
. _;ore compatible with SOme SOrt of s::i~e nghts of,future generations,
h ~t that several atrempts to adapt the ~~tract V1~W and I think it is signi_
-. '. a,e ~merged lfl recent years (see We
Ian verswn of the social contract
',' doctrme appeals directly to libertariannz,. 1988; de-Sbalir, 1995). "Wise use"
pteClsely from that association. The V1~s and dra,,:s much of its s!ten h
contrast, frequently invokes egalitarianenv~ro~mental Justice movement ~
ore frequently communit . ). pnncrples (sometimes individual: Y
'd'stnb'
f
Wan lil Its de
ds
IStlc
.- ;-'."
litton 0 environmental ad
man
or a more equit bl
,. Each of these broad!
tbr van~ and burdens.
a e
, .
Th'
yan pocentnc theotetcal
..
..
e lIbertarian vi~ for exam Ie I poSltiOns has its biocentric
nghts when e."tended Onto th
p ,f l.roduces strong doctrines of
(Regan, 1983). The utilitari:;,er~am 0 nghts accorded to all "subjects
. .as maZJpecies as possible in term~:~ ~n be :.ended to accord rigbts
teal egalitarianism across aU
. elr a lty ro flourish and ro
ecc,lo.", movement while the
speCies :md habitats characterizes th
f h
contractanan VIew
e
. suggests a strong apprecio t e less well-off (endmg d
to habitat transfurmation Gus:~~
~ weJ} as a COtlSerfacive
<uvar1t;.'J,ed species).
n y If lt IS to the benefit of the

seem:

'. .:n

:P;X:es?

on thIS son of terrain that we nmv find

proper form of environmental ethi
';?I~.sentially irresolvable debate
for example, concern fur wh los un 0 Ing. And the arguments Can
. _ of individual organisms is
e ecosystems and habitats as against
In Benton 1993' 3) Wl
th
tamOUnt to fascism in Regan's .
VIew
. . we are en left w"th
J
a case of determining which

ra:

en;
awl Politics
,
398 Justice, D'llerenee,
, ,
In the case of lead-paInt
.
heo of sOCIal JustIce,
.
and
is the most socially Just. t fi ry xample, the conflict is not betweenJust.

poisoning in Baltlm::ty,

u~
~-visconsumers

The Environmmt afJustice 399

pluralistic discourse on environmental justice being perverted by acts of power
to the material advantage of the already elite and powerful! Trade in toxies, as
Summers argued, can indeed be welfare enhancing for all given certain
suppositions about how to theorize JUSt Outcomes from trade, Class struggle
is then OVer exacdy which principles of jUstice shall prevail (c chapter 12).
So while philosophers can operate as sophisticated underlaborers, clearing
away much of the underbrush that clutters the way to defining more pristine
principles of environmental jUstice, there is no way to define a philosophical
and discursive answer to intense questions of social relations, power, beliefS,
and institutions in relation to environmental practices. "Between equal rights,
force decides," Marx argued, And so it is with the diversity of currencies to
measure that most ancient of all coin, that of social justice. It is therefore vital
to move from "a predisposition to regard social justice as a matter of eternal
ju.stice and morality, to regard it as something contingent upon the social
processes operating in society as whole." The practice of the environmental
justice movement has its origins in the inequalities of power and the way those
inequalities have distinctive environmental Consequences for the marginalized
and impoverished, fur those who may be freely denigrated as "others" or as
"people out of place," The principles of justice it enunciates are embedded in
a particular experiential world and environmental objectives are coupled with
a struggle for recognition, respect, and empowerment.

;~ent ronceptions ofjustice. Liualbenar~~ VIe;;:

un'ustsolucions but
een
s (and their contract
poSl on
the rights of private proper:r OViller mium and what happens between
of housing
trear the problem as a pubhc
th
.
I', a private matter. Unhtan
.
__ '1" l't imposes intolerable
e partles
b cl
d up m so 1:liLl
~
,
heal
th nuisance that ought to e eane al'
aI'rmem for life (while leavmg
I
nof
pthe
. greatest numb
' ht
burdens of long-term asses fro m ment
ha u
iness
er mIg
th
Achilles'
heel
that
the
greatest
pP.
.
particularly
when
the
COst
open e
. , . damage on a mmonry,
.
f
.
.
th
Inf11Ct1ng
.
.
)
Co
tractanans
a
af
bef consIstent
WI
.
b
d
me
for
the
ma)onty
,
n
,
al'
do
ing otherwise 1S ur enso .
question of an Inequ uy 0
oRawlsian persuasion wo uld take dIt most
morecettainly
as a
. 'I eged If
not the least prtvl
exposure that benefits no one, an
"il of ignorance as essential to. e
(
d RaW Is presumes
a 'Ie or position III
'1''
none of us knew
an
cation
1 e nught
. be (1 .eld"
I
fh
h
'
th
ry)
w
at
our
a
)
all
partIes
derivation 0 IS eo u1d be in a lead-paint
uldwaUl
treat
whether or not we wo. ,
hazard altogether. EgalItanans w~
ma
-=Ont to their prinCiples.
presu bly choose to ehmmate
I d ' the
t hazards as an am
.
h But
differential exposure to ea -pam h I ful when it mmes to allocaung t e COSt
th egalitarian principle IS not so e p th cl
up of their own rather dirty
f e mediation. Should the poor pay for .the thean rich who live in cleanlier
ore
alf.ungwi
e,
I
d
environments on anfu
f, d"';al mandates with respecr to e ean water anus
circumstances? Non n
e
States for example, will impose.
sewa e treatment in the Ufi![
, the less aflIuem live. making this an
finan:ial l hurdens on older
ustice if the raw equality principle IS
.
ab
roblem for envlronmen J
mtract Ie p
'h'l
adhered to rigorously,
. al
,. s Each can be subjected to p 1 0These are all valid theorene rosman "d
deep and trenchant analysts
hical critique. Benton (1993) thus proVl es :'Shalit (1995) subjects the
'al' 'e theones, ue,
th
sop
f
imal rights and SOCI )ustle,
.,
and Wenz (1988) exarmnes, e
o an
' t heory to a sympathetic
cntlque
" n0 ly to deCide
contracranan
'f
environmental )urue<
.th
whole spectrum of possible t=e~ ~ If" We are therefore confronted WI,
th

ch theory failed when

yItse 'Ia 'ble and all equally lacking III ,
a rlu
at ea
..
allequallyp USI
. 'e',
ralitv of theories of JUStIce,
ttracted to using one theory III on "
'
~em notes
a
.
'",
one way or other. We
h ' in a different kind of Situation, ' . ' ,
'
.
d a different t eery
.,
diffi rent
,
kind of sltuatlon an
d' lead-paint pOlsomng,
e
" :,'
in a conflict, such as that surroun, lll? t bolster their position (the
" "
di cc
ncepts 0 f Justlce 0
bud
will resorr to nerent co
'nd
the defenders of c
ren
, ,;
th l"b rtarian rhetonc a
..
. t
owners use e I e ) ""
' nswer to this Situation 1s 0 uI
' rhetoric . wenLS a a1' udgments and fro
' gar,
a contractartan
a SIn

serv;~e:l a~:::ould

d,

environmen~.

2~

~mes wh~e,

enotI~o

are~

cohe~ency

mO~e~tal

search for
among.
issues arising ar different scales,
applicable to a dlversiry of enVIr:~dent: why one particular ble~d of
, , '.
th vaunted fleXIbIliry
diIlicultvwith such a solutIOn 18 ,
,
rather than
another.'And what IS to prevent e

But as a movement embedded in multiple "militant particularisms: it has

((} find a way to cross that problematic divide between action that is deeply
embedded in place, in local experience, power conditions and Social relations
toa much more general movement. And like the working-class movement, it
'!cis proven, in Williams (1989a: 115) words, "always insufficiently aware of
the.quote systematic obstacles which stood in the way." The move from tangible
isplid,rrities felt as patterns of social bonding in aflCctive and knowable
.r;i;;mnlU11iries to a more abstract set of conceptions with universal meaning
involvces a move from one level of abstraction _ attached to place _ to quite
:differ,mt levels of abstraerion capable of reaching across a space in which
Ci>'llflIUflities could not be known in the same unmediated Ways. Furthermore,
Prirlci,.1es developed out of the experience of Lave Canal or the fight in Warren
do not necessarily travel to places where environmental and social
are radically difkrent. And in that mOVe from the particular to the
something was bound to be lost. In comes, Williams notes, "the politics
the politics of differentiation, the politics of abstract analysis. And
we liked them or not, Were now necessary even to understand
happening." And in the case of the environmental justice movement
search fur media attention and an iconography of events around
to build a symbolic politics carries its own negative freight.
exactly here that some of the empowering rhetoric of environmental
irs"lfl,eoomes a liability, Appealing to "the sacredness ofMother Earth."

400

Justice, Difference, and Politics

for example, does not help arbitrate complex conflicts over how to orgaruze
material production and distribution in a world grown dependent upon
sophisticated market interrelations and commodity production through capital
accumulation, The demand to cease the production of all toxins, hazardous
wastes~ and radioactive materials, if taken licerally, would prove disastrous to
the public health and well-being of large segments of the population, including
the poor (Greenpeace's para1lel campaign to ban the use of chlorine is an
excellent example of the conrradictions in such a politics), And the right to be
free of ecological destruction is posed so strongly as a negative right that it
appears to preclude the positive right to transform the earth in ways conducive
to the well-being of the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed, To be sure,
the environmental justice movement does incorporate positive rights
particularly with respect to the rights of all people to "political, cultural, and
environmental self-determination" but here the internal contradictions within
the movement become blatant.
At this conjuncture, therefore, all of those militant particularist movements
around the world that loosely come together under the umbrella of environmental justice and the environmentalism of the poor are faced Virith a critical
choice, They can either ignore the conrradictions, remain with rhe confines
of their own particularist militancies - fighting an incinerator here, a toxic
waste dump there, a World Bank dam project somewhere else, and commercial logging in yet another place - or they can treat the contradictions as a
fecund nexus to create a more transcendent and universal politics. If they take
the latter path, they have to find a discourse of universality and generality that
unites the emancipatory quest for social justice with a strong recognition chat
social justice is impossible without environmental justice (and vice versa). But
any such discourse has to transcend the narrow solidarities and particular
affinities shaped in particular places - the preferred milieu of most grass roots
environmental activism - and adopt a politics of abstraction capable of reaching
out across space, across the multiple environmental and social conditions that
constitute the geography of difference in a contemporary world that capitalism has intensely shaped to its own purposes, And it has to do this withour
abandoning its militant particularist base.
The abstractions cannot rest solely upon a moral politics dedicated to
protecting the sanctity of Mother Earth, It has to deal in the marerial and
institutional issues of how to organize production and distribution in general,
how to confront the tealities of global power politics and how to displace
hegemonic powers of capitalism not simply with dispersed, aUIOlIOlnO'Lis" Ci,
localized, and essentially communitarian solutions (apologists for wfdcl,,,,,rr"
be found on both right and leEr ends of the political spectrum), but
rather more oomplex politics that recognizes how environmental and 'U\C.""c.''',
justice must be sought by a rational ordering of activities at different ',",'~.',.
The reinsertion of the idea of "rational ordering" indicates that

,
The Environment ofJustice 401
movement will have no option as I't br d
b
b
, o a ensoutfr
'
'U
ase, Ut to reclaim for irselfa
d
om Its illI rant particularist
h
noncoopte
d
t eses of ecological modernizari
0 th an nonperverted versior. of the
,
the hi~ly geographically diffe:dat~d ;e~ne hand that means subsuming
disperSIon, for the proliferation oftt eli '
Ire for cultural autonomy and
por'
lUes, but on the other hand akia tlon
th and elifference WI'!hin a more globa!
ng e quest for environmental and socia!
,m I
justice central rather th
an penph era concerns
For tilatto happ
'
'
en, th
e envtronmental
J'
,
the ecological moderniz t'
dis
ustlce movement has ro radicalize
a IOn
COurse, And th
'
fund arnental underlyinv process
(_ d h '
at reqUIres confronting the
1""
~'"b
es an t elr asSOCIated
re wons) Institutional confi
.
eli
power structures~ social
gnratIons, scourses
d b Ii f
. generate environmental and
'a!'"
' an
e e systems) that
. th
SOCI ffiJusnces Here I
k
;
~n. ~ argument advanced in SocialJustice
th G~" revert to a ey moment
1t IS Vital, when encountering a '
b
e ,t:Y(Harvey, 1973: 136--7)'
bl
'
seIlOUS pro lem n t
1
'
pro em In itself but to confront d c ' 0 mere y to try to solve the
the prohiem m
' the first place Th an translOrm the processes that gave fIse
' to
f
I '
' en, as no"" the fu dam al
b
d th'
n
ent pro lem is that
o UnIe efltlng capital accumul'
anon an
e ext
d"
money and political power that are
h dd d ,raor lllary asymmetries of
modes f od '
em e e III that pro
AI
o pr UCOOll> consumption
d di 'b "
cess. ternative
modes- of environmental transfor ;. an
stn unon as well as alternative
h
'
rna
d 'f h discursive
spaces 0 f t he envIronmental"
. Ion ave to be expl
~ ore I t e
od ' ,
JustIce movement and th th
f
erruzanon are to be conjoined in a
. e eses 0 ecological
'. IS fundamentally a class proJ'ect wh th p~ogram of radical political action. This
b
'
, e eIltls
exacdy call d th
ecause It entail, a direct chall
h'
e
at or not, precisely
'tal h'ch
enge to t e cltculad
d
-;: capl W 1 currentlv dictates w h '
on an accumulation of
why.
at envlronmental transformations OCCur and

and

'.- _.. :n

There are signs of such a transition

.
h
occurnng Here for ~......... I '
argulment , B.tro~, t e Citizen's Clearing House for ~d --~~ e, '; ~ recent
i. ,~ve.ryo.ne; ac~yard
ous waste S Journal
Environmental justice is a pe 1
'
, th
op e-onented way f ddr '
- Ism
at adds a vital social
"
0 a e85lng environmental
.
economIC and p r t"cal el
root<; EnVIronmental Jusrice 11 '
0 11
emenr ... the new Grassd . .
ovement seeks comma
d'
,
an mmonry communities with
'zed
n grolin WIth low-mcome
1
others who stand for freedo'm dorganal "
workers, -w--ith churches and with all
"
an equ Ity
Wh
figh
:. JustIce we fight for our homes and f i l l ' ""d en we
t for environmental
. "and political domination by the t am esd.an struggle to end economic, social
.

s rong an greedy. (Cited in Szasz, 1994: 153)

. Szasz (1994) concludes his thorough history of th

,_ .',

Mo
. " .,. vem
ents
'

e movement as follows:

_L

histon'cal'
'Ii
SlgflI cance wh
th
'.:0 the unjversaJ when th
d
en ey move from the
'd
'
ey expan our fro th'
r
-, ' ..
an embrace a more global
"al ch
m elr specmc ISSues of
, iii
SOCI
auge agenda. Th _L.
Slgn canee when they not 0 I,
b'l'
..
ey t2K.!:: on greater
taKe on greater

n } mo

JZe partiCIpants to fight for thelr

402 Justice, Difference, and Politics

'Th
d1'ca!"l1.mg expenence
ovide
a
broader
ra
. . ':'
Ie
own interests but also pr.
_L:
li it gestures in this dIrectIOn. t
ment IS marung exp c
..
f
hazardous wastes move
..
. tenns of a lareer crmque 0
.
. nmental mISsiOn ill
0
1
increasingly defines ItS envlro
'th th
ovements and says that. ultimate y,
'ak
n cause ViI 0 er ill
. _-1.. 'ch
society; It m es commo
~,.,..1 I even envisions a future m w.iLl grassalI' . ed' the same mu_e. t
d cia!' usn
they are . Jom m.
earheads the reamstitution of a broa so
J ce
roots enVironmentalism sp
movement.

.
h
red of rather traditional foundaThose of us who are still wmew akt enan;:o
" to that But there is a long
'al'
ill I thill say amen
.
b _~
tiona! "alues 0 f SOCl iSm w,
th'.
eyouu
ental J' ustice movement
__ .J
1
to
take
e
enVlronm
.'
.
and arduous roau to trave .
di
es and symbolic politics, mtO
.
. al fI unshes me a success ,
0
: . cal
.. and practical revolutionary
the phase of rhetonc
a world of strong coherent polm
organlZing
action.

14
Possible Urban Worlds

I. The Historical Geography of Urbanization

At the beginning of this century, there were just 16 cides in the world with
more than a million people. Most were in the advanced capitalist countries
and London, by far the largest of them all, had just under seven million. At
the beginning of this cenrury, too, no more than 7 percent of the world's
population could reasonably be dassified as "urban" (Berry, 1990). By the year
2000 there may well be as many as 500 cities with more than a million
inhabitanrs while the largest of them, Tokyo, Silo Paulo, Bombay, and possibly
Shanghai (although the list is perpetually being revised both upwards and
downwards), "ill perhaps boast populations of more than 20 million trailed
,by a score of cities, mostly in the so-called developing countries, with upwards
of ten million. Sometime early next century~ .if present trends continue, more
than half ofthe world's pnpulation will be classified as urban rather than rural.
, The twentieth century has been, then, the century of urbanization. Before
. 1800 the size and numbers of urban concentrations in all social formations
to have been strictly limited. The nineteeoth century saw the breach of
those barriers in a few advanced capitalist countries, but the latter half of the
twentieth century has seen that localized breach turned into a universal flood
'of massive urbanization. The future of the most of humanity now lies, for the
; tiJrstltim,e in history, fundamencally in urbanizing areas. The qualities of urban
"
in the twenty-first century wi!! define the qualities of civilizadon itsel
:,: But judging superficially by the present state of rhe world's cities, future
;g~ne,ratiorlS wi!! not find that civilization particularly congenial. Every city
has its share (often increasing and in some instances predominant) of
i;d:,ntenl'ralted impoverishment and human hopelessness, of malnourishment
chronic diseases, of crumbling or stressed out infrastructures, of senseless
wasteful consumerism, of ecologica.l degradation and excessive pollution,
of seemingly stymied economic and human development,
sometimes bitter social strife, varying from individualized violence on

4 04 Justice, Dijfirence, and Politics

. ronn
r
.
ft an alternative
0 f U rban governance).

the streets to organized cnme{o en .al control ro occasional massive CIVIC

through police-state exerCIses In socr
) d anding political-economIc
.
pontaneous em
.
P rotest movements (sometImes
5
f th 'ty of the twenty-first century IS
th
to talk 0
eCI
. h
change, For many, en,.
.
h' h all that is judged worst III t e
to
'
' filghtrnarem W
Ie t gether tn
. some heII _hi
conjure
up a d
vstoplan
II
0 e 0f
'
fatally flawed character
0 f hwnan irv
'J co ects 0

Passible Urban Wory,. 405

But is this a universal tale of urban Woe I tell? Or is it something rather more
confined to the specific legacies of old-style capitalist indusrrialization and the
cultural predilections of the anti-urban Anglo-Saxon way of life? Central cities
throughout continental Europe are, for example, undergOing a singular revival,
And such a trend is not merely confined to a tew centers, like Paris with its
long-standing process of embourgeoisement accelerated by all of the grands
despair.
..
untries that dystopian vision has been
projets fur which the French are justiy famous. From Barcelona to Haraburg
In some of the advanced capltallStulc~, ed habit on the part of those with
.
' d WI.th the long-c
to Turin to Lille, the flow ofpopularion and afiluence back into the city Centers
strongly asSOCIate
f tnat
fi
h Cl'ty centers as POSS1'ble. FlieIed
,
. .
f
' a s ar rom t e
h ak
is marked, But, on inspection, all this really signifies is that the sarae
money and get out as t en
power and pnvrlege 0 runnlllg
problematic divisions get geographically reversed. It is the periphery that is
by a permissive car c~ture, the. nrg;~obge:;'~;cent between 1961 and 1991,
hurting
and the soulless banlieuofParis and Lyon that have become the centers
command, Liverpool's popul~t1?~ell frO: c1!e to a million to under 700,000
of
riot
and disaffection, of racial discrimination and harassment, of
for example, and Baltimore CltyS u shot has been not only to create endless
deindustrialization,
and social decay, And if we look more closely at what has
in the same three decades, ~ut the . p" d sprawling megalopoli, but also to
ecltles
been
happening
in
the
Anglo-Saxon world, the evidence suggests a dissolution
sub urbanization, so-called edgral
, an the advanced capitalist world part
il
d
ry ru retreat In
,.
f
of
that
simple
"doughnur"
urban form of inner-city decay surrounded by
make every v Iage an eve. .
that defies any simple categomatlOn 0
aflluence
(made
so
much of in the late 1960s), and its replacement
suburban
of a complex
of
in that serue which once upon a time
Populations lflto urban an
of
segregated and protected wealth in an urban
by
a
complex
checkerboard
th
The hemorrhagmg of wealth,
.
b
ded
to
ose
terms,
I
~.;o~'
soup
of
equally
segregated
impoverishment
and decay, The unjustly famous
could reasonably e accor
al " has left many of them anb~.lng
d
"outer
estates"
of
Glasgow
are interspersed with afillrent commmer suburbs
fi
om
centr
cmes
d'
II
'al
h
been left belling as the rich an :n uen".
population, an power
aod the now emerging socio-economic problems of the inner suburbs in maay
in limbo. Needy populations, a:;: devastaring loss of jobs (pamcrrlarly 1n
~
US
cities have furced the wealthy seeking security either further Out (the
have moved out, Add to th,S e h
I
tate of the older cities becomes
.
. arsandt eparouss
ch
.
.
urbaniz"tion
of the remotest COuntryside then follam) or into segregated and
nufacruring jobs were lost in Mao ester m
.
manufacturing) In recent ye
often
highly
protected
zones wherever they can best be set up.
all tOO dear, Nearly 250,000 rna
d
Sheffield's steel industry alone m
But
is
there
anything
radically new in all of this? Or have we, when we look
o decades while 40,000 disappeare hroffid 1980s .Baltimore likewise lost ~ ~ .
1W
h'
Sill t e illi _
, . .
at
the
parallel
conditions
of late-nineteenth_century urbanization been here
just three short catastrop IC ye~ bs from the late 1960s onwards and ther~ IS
.
.
before?
The
answer
is,
I
fear,
both yes and no, Many of the dy>topian elements
nearly 200,000 manufactunng JO
h ha not been the scene of SImIlar
' 1e CIty
. ill
; the United
States t ar s
..,
. ~
hardly a SIng
- the concenrrated impoverishment and hwnan hopelessness, the malnourish_
ment and chronic diseases, the ecological degradation and excessive pollution,
devastation through
tragic for many. Communities billI'.:
the
seemingly stymied hwnan and economic development, and the more than
The subsequent tram 0 e>,:ts , 'ndustries have been left high aod dry,
occasional
bitter social strife - Were all too familiar to our nineteenth-century
to service now defunct man ctunn~ unemployment, Disench~tment, . ' , .
forebears.
Any
reading of Mayhew's London Labour and tbe London Poor
wracked with long-term structur .~, ~ L
ds meet follow, Those III power .. .
d
,. d )
' I gal means to BlaKe en
(l861), Booth's Lifo and Labour of tbe People of Landon (1902-3), Mearn's
dropping out, an
_ :_. _:.:.
th quasl. 'mse the poI'lee powers move in (otten insenSltlV Y
.. J
Cry rif'OUftast London (1883), Jack London's People ofthe Abyss (1903),
rush to blame e VICt1 , I ha field day stigmatizing and
. . ' .'.
th
~j'.~,u
Riis's How the Other HalfLives (1890) will immediately disabuse us
e politician-media comp ex s a
'bI' gle parents and fecldess
., ....
d
'esponsl
e
SIll
f
__
:
that social conditions are now dramatically Worse, And in the United
underclass of idle wlong- oers, In If
' ki
and much worse. I .
'Iy cal
we are Jun es,
" . . ..
the
speed
and heterogeneity of urban social chaage, that took Chicago
debasement of farol v ues, h' r racially marked minonty; as IS ... : .
a
trading
post
to a polyglot multicultural emporium of 1.5 million people
marginalized happen to be
et
amounts to barely concealed ..::.
generations,
was
something quite extraordinary at the time and probably
often the case, then the stIgmar
on the art of those left
.:
bit
as
stressful
as
anything
that has happened since. Indeed, the
bigotry, The only available ralesponse f social ;nd even more
.
aki the actu state 0
)
is
that
COntemporary
urban
ills in at least the advanced capitalist world
urban
ill
ng campus rh
' on political correctness
;
rage,
(Cor
all the
etone
re IaOons
11
ad
in comparison with What our forebears saw; even allOWing for the
than it has been for several dec es,
m"':unes exaggerated horror aod feigned OUTrage of the muckrakers aod
of the day,

we~

u;~aru;~:;:;al"

dein1u~rnall:;~:n

:n

~~~i:n

impres~

Possible Urban Warlds 407

;iT.

Justice, DtJierffle~ a

ml Politics

h
th reaction of a new)y
'/x
t- t
en was e
have been dlrrcre:n~
charted waters
But what does seem to
. in the hitherto un
.
. '
it began to SWIm
t h " t s power
empowered bourgeoiSIe as d disaffection that seemed. (0 reaten ~ . eti~

406

oflarge-scale urban sloth an,

ll-being as well as Its new-fOWl esth
.
.d economiC we
)
th
thinkers and
its health, samty, at
.
.
d
def N"ineteen -century
th
, 'I"' - cleanliness an o r .
. I ' de d far more so an

senslbl lues lUf

oblemacic VeIY seflOUS Y1ll e.'
- h ghtful
politicians took
urban pr 1
not only <ill outpOLumg of t Oll
d
. evident today. And the resu t. \~as
. . n to urban development an
IS
n "gened propOSitIOns pelT.Iflli g
oflife" (Lees, 1991:
commentary 0
d minall.ts "0 a new way
, __ 1" Uk
society" and on key urban erer
f urban refonn that took mOralJ.Sts e
heart of urban darkness and bore
154) but also a massive movement ~

me

Ocr~via Bill and Jane Addams i~tO(h~::' and commentators .of all political

d -'-itects planners, sooal,

d
__ ". iindingratIonal and even
of orgy dIrecte tOW"'-""
th
da
ersuasions on a ,,'ast wave en
blerns of the great cities of ose ~ys.
~, b a"';ful" solurions to the ptO
H
__" Daniel Burnham. Carrullo
CIty e ~
, _"d Ebenzer owaru,
' f th
es,
d U' '"n all rode-forth as saVIOrs 0
e
Olms-<~.. d , Baussmann, Gt:U
,
!<aymon
m..,
th eeds of
'
Otto W>aner, Ganuer.
_l
't nug'In mean to e n
Sltte,
. "
. l,\.J.th ideas as to wuat I
eeds Ane. while
modern CIty, burstIng:
.
e respects, to human n
'
.rr:' or de:mline5S,and,atleastlllSOmr '
like Edward Bellaroy (whose
emClen I'
h> dreaIllS 0 wrIters
tkin er
the Utopian and anarc 1St
litica! movement) and Kropo
W e
Backwandsp"-wned a whole P'; ._,
.
they aJded to tbe fennent
L00ki llg
alized
an - lueIaL sense,
.;
.
never destined to be re
_/n ~~L:_ aheadyb~'ofprogressive bou.rgeOls
c," greuJent WIUl,l.H
aod became a POWeITlli m
, L th '
,
f
;ho armed wttn elI
reformlS ffi .
critics 0 course, v..
k back
There are plenty of contempor;:f Fouc~uldian analysis, mighr lo~
f deconstructIOn an
f rr.o-t"<".<.sive relorrrusm
tech.mques 0
.'
diced eyt: as a dassic case 0 p~Vb""~- u1 - land
n
upon this period. With Jall _
0tal accumulation and spec atlve
'ai' plans .or capl
al'
CIal contr""
disguising caplt 1St for concealing bourgeOIS ~t, patern Him. s~ mar iruilizdevelopment, a ~~ manipulation, deliberate disernpowerro~erent ~ But it
surveillance, polin
d the exdusion of anyone who \~
k ~r. to
ed but restive masses, an
n: ct w~ to n:1:aia: cineS wer
th
the
aggregate
ene
b
s, to ~c~cany, ,
is undemahie at
f b d teS but also of ur an masse
improvt: the lot not only 0 ur ~ ~ as water and energy supply> ho-uslng","

.orwaT arCH'

improve basic jnfIa.~tr~ctu!esH:: to liberate urhan spaces for ~t twen,ddtl

e
sewage~ and air qualJry a~l w. . -w--avs that lasted. for much 0 e
"
1 ccumu anon m
1
ipal soci:ilJsrn
e best of the "gas -and water muntc
~ "'1,""",,
organized caplraI a
century. Compared. :d.~avc to say that the cont_emporary bl:~eIful
those days~ ont: wo..
l's concernIng one ot the most
ties
me
life) towards the degeneratlon ot our Cl
borrow a. phrase ot 51m
attributes of modern urb an
much to be desired.
b
then and now comes more
~
But here, the differen~ ePi\''eethfl mry the ideal of some sort ot
d. f me mneteen cen
- fo";u:CUiJll,ulal
For at the en 0
h driv'en by the capitalist passIOn r
h1lffian progress, thoti
0

accumulation's sake and productIon for production's sake" (to use i\1arx's
felicitous phrase), seemed to ha\'e at least some semblance of a hopeful future
attached to it as capitalist industry hecame more organized and. as the political
economy of urbanization became seemingly more manageable by reorgaru7.ations in urban governance (the London County Council was set up in 1888
and Greater New York in J898). As the fate of whole merropoIftan regions
became more closely attached. to t.~e fate of sllccessful capital accumulation,
so bourgeois refoImism in City Hall became integrated into hegemonic
strategies for capitalisr development, "The large urban centers," Lees (1991;
153) co,rectlyobserves, "emhodied modernity and the future" and "stood for
industry, centralization, and fur rationality." For all the popuJist-anrt often antiurban rhetoric to the contrary, the coevolution (often dialectical and oppositional) of industriaJization and urban politics seemed set fair to dictate a.
happier future for city dwellers,
Compared to that the contemporary d.ivorce, manifest mosr dramatically in
the dismal histpry of massive deindustriaHzation, berw-een highly mobile and
"_ rompulsivdy "downsizing corporate manufacturing interests and urban life>
. would. therefure, have looked most unusual to our forebears. The corporate
enemy has largdy moved oue of town and corporations dont seem to need. cities
or particular communities any more. The upshot is to leave the fate of the cities
almost entirely at the mercy of real-esrate developers and. speculators, office
;b,uiI,ier.s, and finance capital, And the bourgeoisie, though still monally afr:lld
drugs, and all the orher ills that plague the cities, is now seemingly
'o>nrent to seal itself olf from all of that in urban or (more likely) suburban
ex-urban gated communities .suitably immunized (or so it believes} from
long-term threats, secure in the knowledge that urban protests can be
by main force and. $0 neyer become real revolutions. Having Jost the
of imminent revulution that so preoccupied. the nineteenth-century
bourgeois, all that is lefr is an occasional shiver of media-instilled fear as the
place on the other side of town play live on television screens in
tn,i~;;;;~i; comfortable living rooms. In recent years, t..~e affiuent also seem
shed much of their guilty conscience. The extraordinary impact of
nn!;t0lls The Other Ammca; Poverty in the USA when ir was published in
the subsequent war on poverty." and massive attempts to confront
crisis" in the United States) would flOC be possible in coday's world
tendentious biological explanations of ra;::ial differences in IQ and
in,~itv nw", front-page news and total disillusionment with anything that
redistributive welfarlsm reigns. The re-emecgence of market
here couples "rith a rcviva1 of the Malthusi2.ll tradition to deadly
chapter 6), So what if an uroao "underdass" (that dreadful term
as reincarnation of what our forbe-ars often referred to by the much
'tl1reateumg name of "dangerous classes") kills itself off through crime
and AIDS and all the rest? And just TO pile indignity upon

, D;n;. nee om!. Politics

" ('
Justu:e, 'l1,re ,
,,
'ntains that CitIes In
nowthe
malcivilization to W h'Ieh
' dilrerence a largish segment 0 f t h e b.0 urgeolSle
I
t that
in w ,
' _ case me evan ,
the traditional sense) are many
. one "without cities. "The "death
408

twenty-~,st centu~~

b~comes

we can aspire in the

author and the subject")
of the city" (like the sUPPos,ed death o!rarv discourse to be a signal"o,t a" shift
a significant enough trope In conte.m~ rit~tions and politics. The CIty and
' the human imaginary as well as in tnS , 'cal discourse burying those caught
in
,
,. di
ar from polliries
1t1
"the urban questton'
s'PPC,
of contempt an d negIect, Wben
,
in the madsuom of urban decay in a po is hardly surprising that innovattve
attitudes of that sort become cu,:rent, It how best to escape the consequence;
t:hinIciug on urban issues focuses eIther ~n
or "that will always be WIth us,
f h I
Iv urban concentratIons of t ose po,
o t e harge
d
bourgeOls lflteres ts from the infecttous
W
(1972') who coined theII term
or on 0 '[O immunize an illsecure
0 car Newman,
plague of surrounding urban s, s ban crime (see chapter 11), maywe
"defensible space" ":' the
abour urban design in the Untted
of the most influent} 0
be
one
,
II
on nineteenrh-cenrury urbanizanons Th
States,
we
Some astute urban co:nmentators .s reformism could ever be about.
e
d st
ood the limits ot what bourgeol,
'economic problems, Eugels
un er
, 'h
confiontlts SOCID,
"bl
the bourgeolSle
as to around and (b) render them as mVl,l e as
o nly wav
1
( )
them
observed, is to a move
ard recalling the two key quotes:
- 'ble It is worth in thlS reg
PO,st ,
,
lion
I eal
thod of solving the bousmg quos ,
'ty the bourgeoisie has only onel~e
. In
. such a wav, that thedisolution
nr 1
f ovmg It
afr
. its fashion - that is to say. ,0 s
,
The scandalous alIe'!, ,appear
or
... the bourgeoiSIe
. . on aeco unt of
ntinually
repro duces th e q uesnon anev;.
. from
co the accompaniment of lavish self-praIse . .
somewhere else and
to
h
peat agam 1m"
'th
this tremendous success, but.tgh% at d l The breeding places of d,s<:as\ e
& l
'n the immediate nel
or 00.
'~.1: t mode ofproducrion con
nes
o en
,
h-ch the caP'llillS
shilied
ot abolished; they are ffi,:,rdy
I
infamous holes and cellars III W I
our workers night afrer mght, are n which roduced them in t.'Ie first pace.
elsewhere! The same economlC n~S1k long! the capitalist mode of h'0ducproduces them in the
to
for an isolated
tion continues to exIst, it 15 "al
'affecting the fine of l i l t wor
.
!her SOCI qUestlOll
od '
question
or
of
any
0
..
f
h
apicalist
mode
of
pr
uctIOn.
_
..
solution lies in the abolition a t e c

~ow

an~~e7~~;hinkers

m~diatelv

=. ~fr

h~pe

soluti~~of dt~~~'

And:
'al district, all Manchester
,
'
f [the] commerct
With the exceptIOn
0
mixed v."rking people's quarters ",,,,,d'll;gJf'""
,
Salford and Hume .. ' are all;: half in breadth around the commercthlal
. dIe averagrng a mile an
d .ddle bourgeolSle,
e
aOutside
gu, beyond thoIS gu
- dle, lives the upper an
IDt
the vicinity
ot'rki
wo ng nuart""",;,
, III
. regularly'
' ...
.m ;re e
bourgeoisie
. laid out street<>
illasIIIwith gardens
the upper bou rgeoisle m remoter v
<

<

WllOlt"q!,,~

Possible Urban Worklr 409

country air, in fine comfortable homes, passed eVery half or quarter hour by
omnibuses going into rhe city, And the finest part of the arrangement is this,
that the members of the money .ristocracy can rake the shortest road through
the middle of all the laboring disrricrs without ever seeing that they are in the
midst of the grimy misery that lurks ro the left and right For the thorough&r
es
", suffice to conceal from the eyes of the wealthy men and WOmen of strong
stomachs
and
weak
nerves
the
misery
and
grime
which
furm
the
complement
of their wealth, .. ,

While rhe rechnological. social, political, and institutional context has

changed quite radically since Engels' time, the aggregare effective condition
has in many respects worsened, The barricades and walls, the segregations and
separations, that now mark the living conditions of many advanced capitalist
cities hardly deny the trurhs that Engels depicted, Here is how David Widgery
(1991: 219) describes the devastating effects of the urban apartheid recently
created by rhe construction of rhat fantastic monument to fillled financial
capital, Canary Wharf in London's east end:
The furtified wall which had once circled the docks was nor so much tom down
as rearranged as a series of fences, barriers, security gares and lreep-out signs

which seek to keep the working class away from the new proletarian_free yuppie
Zones, .. , Mts Thatcher's chosen monument may be the commercial majesty of
Canaty Wharf topped OUt only two weeks before her resignation in
1990, but I see the social COst which has been paid for ir in the streets of the
Easr End: the schizophrenic dementing in public, the young mother bathing
the newborn in the sink of a B-and-B, the pensioner dying pinched and cold
in a decrepir council flat, the bright young kids who can get dope much easier
than education, wasted on smack

~ovember

And if rhis urban apartheid seems an oddity just reflect on rhis: "over 32
million
in the United States currently live in a residential community
and "more than half of the housing currently on the market in
the fifty largest metropoliran areas in the Unired States and nearly all new
.
development in California, Florida, New York, Texas, and sub ur
W'asllirtgton, DC is governed by a common-interest community, a form
re,:id,emdal community aSSociation in which membership is mandatory," It
sounds innocent enough umil the regulatory and exclusionary practices of
community associations are brought under the microscope, When that
is hard not to conclude with Knox (I994: 170) that rhes associations
e
"a web of servitude regimes that regulate land use and mediate
rs
'!TInnily aff.ll in what olten amounts to a form of contracted fascism,"
seems to have changed. then, in the particular manner, institu!aJi:<ation, and location of that moving arollfld that Engels SpOtted and rhe
strategies of confinement and concealment. The irony here, as Mike

----

J . D ifforence and Politics

410 IIStze<, 1 ,
.
th t "as the 'walls have come
Quartz
Davis (1990: 224) remarks in Gty
over [our ciries]." And
E
th""
are emg
ete ting, and the construction
. 0f
down in Eastern urope,_
J
el
mo
I f
illance
t
ecommu
,
,
dern techno ogtes 0 surve
)
"al"
WI" thin the urban orm ls
iI help Soc. Justice
.
cyberspace do not necess.ar y
.
f( r those who still have the rememy
'd ntlv as elusIve as ever, even 0
.
prO\~ng, eYl e J'

'"

b1.

:;"d:U

Possible Urban WorM 411

be concerned about It.

the dv
d ""nitalist world pale mto IllSlgruth
bl ms of
a anee --y
.
. th
But all of ese pro e
di
dil mmas of developing wuntnes, WI
Ileance compared to the extraor l1at)i' .e . Sa'0 Paulo Mexico City, Cairo,
m
,
the wildly unwntroIIed pace 0 f urbamzatton
d
Shanghai
aod Beijing.
On the surface
Lagos, Bombay, Calcuna, .Seoite:'::;ing on here, even more than just that
there seems to be sometlung.
e uaotitative rapidity and mass of urban
qualitative shift that
expetiencing in just one generation
growth that has MeXICO Ity ?r n and Chicago in three. Air pollutton ",,:d
what London Virent through lfi te ,
1 assume a far more chrome
tal roblems or examp e,
th
localized environmen p
'.. thao they ever did even at e most
I
ntry
CIties
. . 0f
character in deve opmg cou
. health in the nineteenth-centuty c.ties

.co~s WI~: P~ulo

eri~nces as antimodels -that

non of historical experience IS to. conSider !'~ rna~ter of sinIple inversion or
absolutely right, of course,

t? mamtal.n

ex

. '"

..

surpas.:~~

can be strrpassed." But

':e complex passages from the fum:s, .
antid(}te. It is a matter of.d~. g d so make the city as always, a figur~of '
that construct future poss.billties an
tlffi'e as we understand the dysto.p_
.
d'
tatthesame
Utopian desire an excitemen
ealth f ew POSSI'bil"ltles rbat such social processes create,
.
these quesrio.ns by returmng to .
complement to the w o n f tch
_opo
.~.
We can best get SOfie
s ,
did or did not grow
h' al,ssue
of h
ow"
ClUes
k III me ....... '
the historical--geograp lC
nstraints to. urban grm;w that
. .,
What, for exarople, were the co
d what happened sometime
...
d' . and. number In the past an
. ';l
limite m SIze
el ed urbanization from those
__ _.': ,
aod after 1800, that r eas
. el . l ' its basics. Up until the .... ,
The answer is, I think, relanv y. su,:,p e m
limited bv a vety

_=

lill11tatl~IlS!

cis
d their producrive hinterlan

urbanizatIOn was

e~t

./

or seventeent centunes,.,
metabolic relation hetween c;1tl,:".an
unded in specific class rel"lli>nS),
the surplus extraction posSlb.lItles (gro
d cities were centers ....
.
th
N
tter that certalfl towns an
.
.
sustaIned
em.
0 ma
. ':'
distance trade
in luxurIes
or that even some basic goods, Ilke graUlS,

arId timber could be moved over long distances, the basic provisioning (feeding,

to

appalling states of threats to publi~ts fur hetter informed thao I believe that
Europe and North AmerIca.. ~ ld I
cities is quite different from the
"tbe present situation in Third or barge . 'n Europe and the United
. th
of fast ur aruzatlon 1
d
one experienced In e course am inclined to boW to that opinion, But I ,0
States" (Sachs, 1988: 341) an~ I. .tal c us to understand how, why, and 1ll
.
vear' It is VI
lor
.
ch
so with an Important c a .
.
C'"
I bdieve only m su terms
diffe
have ansen ror it IS"
what ways these
rences
f bao living in the twenty-Iirst
that we will better understand the Ptalro~pects: ~ developing world. Sachs is
b h th dvanced capl ISt an
..
ta
centuty in ot
e a . . that "the only progreSSIve tnterpre _

--.~----'- -

watering, and energy supply) of the city was always limited by the restricted
prodUctive capacity of a relatively confined hinterland. Cities were forced to
be "SUStainable" to use a currently much favored word, because they had to
be. The recycling of city nightsoils and other urban Wastes into the hinterland
Wa.<; a major element in that sustainable pattern of urbanization, making medieval cities seem somewhat of a virtuous biotegionalist form of organization for
many COntemporary ecologists [though what now looks virtuous mUSt have
smeiled putrid at the time - "the worse a city smelled, , notes Guillermo (1988:
171), "the richer it was"]. From time to time the hinterlands of cities got
exrended by fotced trade and conquest (one thinks of north Mrican wheat
supply to imperial Rome) and of course localized productivity gains in
agriculture or forestry (sometimes a short-run phenomena thaI lasted until such
time as soil exhaustion 'set in) and the variable social capacity to squeeze
surpluses from a reluctant rural population typically made the constraints on
urban growth elastic rather than rigid, Bur the security of the dty economy
depended crucially upon the qualities of its localized metabolic support system,
in which local environmental qualities (the breeding grounds of pestilences,
plagues, and diseases ofall sons that periodically decimated urban populations)
as well as food, water, and energy supply _ particularly firewood _ figured large.
It is worth remembering in this regard that in 1830 mo't of the supply offresh
. daity products and vegetables ro a city like Paris carne from within a relatively
. restricted suburbao zone if not from within the city confines itself. Before 1800,
the "lOotprint" (again to Use a currently favored term) of urbanization On the
surface of the earth Was relatively light (for all the significance cities may have
had in the history of politics, sdence, and civilization): cities trod relatively
lighdy on the ecosysrems that SUstained them and Were bioregionall defined.
y
. What changed all this, of course, Was the wave of new tecbnologies
as both hardware and the software of organizational limns)
generated by the military-industrial complex of early capitalism. Capitalism
a mode ofproduction has necessarily targeted the breaking down of spatial
and the acceleration of turnover time as fundamental to its agenda of
capital accumulation (Harvey, 1982, 1989a, b, See also chapter 9).
1 systemic capitalist rationale behind this distinctive historical geography
'l1J !'<>rtant to appreciate along with its contradictions:
capitalism is under the impulsion to accelerate turnover time, to speed
the circulation of capital arId consequendy to revollltionize the time
of development. But it can do so only through long-term invest.
(in, fur example, the built environment as well as in elaborate and
infrastructures for production, consumption, exchange, communi_
and the like). A major stratagem of crisis avoidance, furthermore,

in absorbing excess capital in lonQ--term

nt'r.;p.rt-" / <-1,.

412

iffi

fumee, D, <renee,

and Politics

' I e ) and das

"

of depreSSIOn, for examp

launched bv the state m times 'a1 Th re is consequently, an

war",
.
' f caplt
e,
f th
slows down the turnover u~e ,0 that ~llect around. the issue 0
e
'
, aIs function
raI") within which different caplt
, h (the
th
extraordinary
array of contradlCtlons
time-horizon (the tempo m?"a1
pie is hard to match WIt
e
f fi
capl< lor exam ,
I
)
.;" and environmental deve apment, ,
time-horizon a nance
all spatial barners,
' ments oflong-term
reqUire
" d urb
the impulslon to el'l
1m'ate
n
'raI'
Second: capitalIsm IS un er the roduction of a fixed space, Capl lS,m
but it can do so only
aI
e (of space relations, of terntoflal
thereby produces a geographiC laces
in a "global" division ,of labor
anization and of systems of p .
d
ic of accumulanon at a
,
to lts ownh ynamdestroy and re b U1'Id that
orgd f functions) appropnate
an a
'hi
nlyto a v e t o ,
da
. ular moment of Its story. 0mod ate accum ulauon at a later
teo
parne
L"

throu~ ~ds
~ed

t~e,:;,

ru~

eographical landscape to accom movement over space theretore

up
Lductions in the cost and
frastructures to facilitate the aCflVlfles
' t the building of /ixed p YSI , i n d
mption, More and more
di butlon an consu
' I d,
agams
of production, excha.nge, strl
ded Ca ital, as capital fixed in the an
ace
capital is embedded m
as Ian ra hi~lIv organized resource structure
"second
nature
and
a geog
P 0 f' caplt
. alist development III the
.
h'b"
th
trajectory
creatmg a
that more and more in l 1ts e
Thi tension becomes even more
'dst of greater facility of movembent'tr
songly articulated and loyalties
ITll
,
fplace ecome s " . leant factor in poIi lie
' aI
h tic as the institutions
0
emp a
ifi
a1ities) become a Slgil!
fl cal d
to places (and their spec c q~,
, tion (the formation 0 0 an
'
The
production
of
terntocial
orgaruza
aCflon,
for exampI)
e understood as ,a process
,
metropolitan government syste~s "ali .on and re-territoriahzanon a
"ai"'
de terntor! zan ,
makes territon lzatlon, hi - 'cal eographv of capitalism.
'
g
,
contInuous
11reature in the start

St

,
'that have shaped the world
f mnovatiOn
d
wtves ~uilt
around revolutions in transport

Many if not all of the major

since the sixteenth century have

eo:

aIl

and turnpikes of the early runeteen ,

th
communications - the
of the mid-nineteenth
,
century; the ratlroad, stearnf the late-nineteenth century; ,the auto;;o d tele- .
the mass transIt systems a
tieth century; the Jet :mcra an
"
radio
telephone of
most recenrly the
m'
vision ot the 1950s an
dI f' ovations has allowed a r
>'"'cCO,.ee,>
telecommunications, Each bun, edo
therefore opened up radically ...
th
IS orgaruze
an
th
in the way at space
Breaking with
e
...... .
c, the urban process,
' f ,
' il"
posslb lUes rur
d up totally new Vlstas 0
, ..
relatively confined bioregions oPf~~eexample, how the rapid, ' ,
urban growth, C:ronon shows, , realized these new possibilmes so ,
Chicago in the mneteenth centllI}h I f the US mid-west and west
'
f that city across the woe 0
d d as It
footprmt 0 ,
b lic-ecological relations change an
'thin
as
l.ts
meta
Of
th
lar
est
cities
in
the
world.
And
Wl
__ _._
ever
larger
' a t'ew years mto one 0
e g
In

can:'::'~;legraph

an~

th~ ~~~~,:e:d

u:

:;uZ~'

rev~:;n..

~'._:

Possible Urban WorY, 413

as Platt (l991) so brilliantly shows in his Chicago-based study of The Electric
City, the progress of electrification allowed the construction of radically new
and dispersed urban forms,
Each round of innovation breaking the barriers of space and time has
provided new possibilities, The steam engine, to take just one highly significant
historical example, liberated the energy supply of dties from relatively
inefficiem and highly localized constraints, at the same time as it freed local
hinterlands Tom a chronic conflict OVer whether to use the land for food or
firewood (contemporary students now find it very odd, for example, that one
of the closer rings ofproduction with which von Thunen surrounded his city
in The Isolated State of the early nineteenth century is given OVer to forestry),
But the steam engine could only accomplish its revolutionary role to the degree
tlUt it Was in turn applied to the field of transport and communications: the
coal had to be shunted around, It was and is, therefore, the total bundie of
innovations and the synergism that binds them together that is really crucial
in opening up flew possibilities.
And in this, seemingly quite small things can figure large in what created
possibilities for city growth, The military engineers and mathematicians of the
eighteenth century, for example, in using Water flow as a funn of fortification
learned that networks Were far more eflicieur in moving water than direct pipes
and channels: this recognition (and the study of the mathematics of networks
that went with it) had immense significance once it was applied to cities in
the nineteenth century: a given head of water flOWing down one pipe can
provision no more than 5,000 people but that same head ofWater when Rowed
. around a nerwork can provision 20 times that. This is a useful general meta. phor for urban growth possibilities: the deVelopment of an interrelated and
ultimately global network of cities draWing upon a variety of hinterlands
pel'mits
an aggregate urban growth process radically greater than that achievable
.~. -~.,u in isolation.
Since the mid-l 960s, to take another example ofa phase in which innumerable innovations (including the necessary mathematical knowledges) have
bundled together to Create a new synergism of urbanizing possibilities, We have
"WJ,tn(:Sse:d a reorganization in spatial configurarions and urban forms under
':"c'nd'iti,ons of yet another intense round in the reduction of spatia! bartiers and
in turnover time. The "global village" of which Marshall McCluhan
JeCulaLtiv'elv wrote in the 1960s has become, at least in some ,enses, a realiry,
'c<::lut,an thought that television would be the vehide but in truth it Was
the launching of the sputnik that presaged the break, ushering as it
anew age of satellite communication, But, as in other eras, it is less a single
16,'ation than the toral bundle that counts, Containerizario , jet-cargo sys_
roll-o;n-l"OlI_off ferri,es, truck design, and, JUSt as important,nhighway design
"U}'PCu l"C'~, weights, have all helped to reduce the COst and time of moving
OVer space, while automatic information processing, optimiz;;tion, ,nrl

Possible Urban Worlds 415

and Politics
h
..
ellu1ar hones, and computer tee . 'on collation, and
e!lite commUIUcatJOn, c
P
control systems. sat
. nstatltaneous coIllmurncatl , ,
11"'
st
lmYies ,ul facilitate the ,umo Ith
hin
as
important
as
the
sate
Ite m
no ~tr
aking e rolcro-c r
analysis of informatIon, m
h e urban life.
J
din the forces that nOW sap. . ,u ossibilicies have all been
unuersrall g
l 'c:U and orgamzatIon P d n with its
These new techno ogt .
italist mode of pro uctIo
.
.
.0
der the impulsIons of a cap
F chis reason I believe It
prod uccu un
] a l !inanCl.J. mrerests . or
th
are all
. ilitary .
muUSU1 recognize at we
hegemonIc ill
- think f but also important to
. temporal
is not onlY useful to
0
. al" t urbanization or uneven pattobroiled. in a global process ofcap't ,;: h yo nominally adeastsought a nonedeffi L menteven in thosecounmes at a 'talisticurbanform. The manner
vewp
1
ndanoncapl
~;how
italistic path of deve opmen'.'"
.
rearl of course, depenwug on
ca~
.cular style of urbanization vanes g
~ and ultimately realized. But
:es~:it:tiist possibilities ",e prop:t:.~'Z~ ca~italist production. And the
e context of possibilities IS
1e ~
u ives rise to that modermst
thense of neW possibilities cont!nuallL:'p~g :ul~functionopoli:z.es, and the
:tVle of Utopian thinking abo~t te~ ~~~ eabout the city which. I began by
rke that parallels that dystoplan 1m
.
1
.
.
f
which noW to View
invoking.
twO basic perspeCtives rom
Flrstly we
There ;)Ie, it see~ t~:h such possibilities are being tak,:" up. d dest~uc;.{{;

414 Justice, D'.llerence,

v:ry

the

':~:~:~:l:zation (and the lur::~~~o~o(~';"Z;~e;;l. Capital

can .

f the forces of capital ac

I . 's sake, production
tioo) 1n terms 0
f "accumulation for accUffili atlon '.1 ssibUities
.
re,uizes its own agenda 0
L -_I.Mound of the technologIc;u po.
\'
. , ak" "amst
a oa.......",.
d ' alist countries,1
or

the advance cap.t

'
or prodUCtions s J e U'"t>b OlzatlO
n
b
.
s
eco
""'m
. has' If createu. r a
bo
raining loreglOn,
~q:_ -.
it
ltse
in recent history been a .U: sUS
ulation of capital
=mple, has not ything other than sustalIun the accUIII tal accumulation.. . ',.
c:U complexes, or an
ak th aradigroat'c case, capl
. ed
In the United States, ro t eill ~ chis entailed (from the vast asSOC1~t '. .
h gh suburbanization and
. at
roB the construction comp e:x:- ,

:';e~ projects of the US west, theO~:fh';: :~:d ~ubber industries'thetc:!~..

thin of the autom e~

T
ed States even
O~1es, to say nO
g
economic success of the Urnt
_j tra! cities. The
al to the postWar
fd Ii t and desetle<l cen
...
cenIT.
. d . the form 0 ere c
. 1 b t the awve, .
roducedlts netber Sl e ill
ch the tecbuolo!>,c", mIX u
P
t ___ :
here IS not so rou
__L ' n by way
tnil<. .'.<c,.
point to empfi.a!j.lze
D ill t Glpital accumwaUo
"u ---realization of opportunities 'C;:-r IecThe exhaustion of those possi~l
technological complex of poss] 11~;silie market for new a~tomobi es
~o~ple the relanve saturat10n 1
larue multinatlonal autO
.
C__,
.
difficu t as cvety,,ef
capital accumul~t1on ;~:eauto industry now look~: ther o:;:e
. "~, '
er noW recognu:es..
hill I illa Latin AroerIC<', and
.
ed
kets In C a, n ,
. rirnaty realIIl U '
unsaturat mar" rld f the former Soviet bloc as 1ts p
. th 50
"underurbanrzed Wo 0
ha in the urban process ill 0
accumulation. But that eans r""taIl~ frrendly (or even econom1cally

res . .

r:n

the not p3l'dcuiarly envlfonroen

system that for several decades supported economic growth in the United
Stares. While that prospect may send. shivers down every mildly ecologically
conscious spine, any inability to pursue it will produce even worse ftissom of
horror in the boardrooms of every transnational aum company if not the whole
capitalist class.
The particular dialectic of attraction and repulsion that capital accumulation exhibits for different sites within the web of urbanization varies spatiatemporarily as well as with the faction of capital concerned. Financi,u (money)
capital, merchant capital, industrial-manufacturing capital, property and
landed capital, statist capital, and agro-business capit:ti - to take the most
familiar factional breakdown of the capitalist class configuration (the other
being local, national, aod multinational capitals) - have radically different
needs as well as radically different ways in which to explore the possibilities of
exploiting the web of urbanization for purposes of capital accumularion. Tensions arise between the factions because they each have quite different
capabilities for and interest in geographic:U movement - varying from the
relatively fixed-in-space capital of property, landed and "local" small-scale
capital and the instantaneous c::tpacicies for movement of transnational finance.

Much of the creative destruction we are now witnessing within the urban
process ha, to be understood in terms of such intern:U contradictions within
the dynamics of overall capital accumulation. But the other part of it comes
from the increasingly ruinous competition between places (be they narion
states, regions, cities, or even smaller local jurisdictions) as they find themselves
forced to sell themselves at the lowest cost ro lure highly mobile capit:ti to earth
(Harvey, 198%).
But the other perspective from which to view the recent lristory of urbanization is in terms of popular (if not "popular") seizure of the possibilities that
Capitalist technologies have created. To some degree this is about the vast
historical migrations of labor in response to capit:ti, from one region to another
if not from one continent to another. That furmulation basically made most
"'lISe in the nineteenth and even the early twentieth oontuties (though there
were always exceptions such as the flood ofIrish overseas in the wake of the
famine that may have been prompted byconilltions of imposed agrarian
,"lpitalism but which was hardly a "normal" migration of rutal population in
of urban liberties and waged labor). But the flood ofpeople into developing cO'llfltry cities is not fundamentally tied to the pulls ofemployment attached
",u,~Y"~ accumulation or even to
pushes of a reorganizing agrarian
destructive of traditional peasantries (though there are many segments
where that process is very strongly in evidence). It is a far more
search to take advantage of capit:tiist-produced possibilities no matter
capital accumulation is going on or not, and otten in the face of
conditions that are just as, if not more appalling than those left
And while one of tbe effects may be to create vast "informal economies"

me

Urbanists l i k '
416 Justice, Difference, arid Politics
which operate borh as proto-capitalist sectors and as feeding grounds for more
convenrional furms of capitalist exploitation and accumulation (see Portes er
al., 1989), the explanation of the moVement in itself dn hardly be attributed
to the machinations of some organized ""pitalist cbs action.
The continuing flow of Asiaric and African populations into European
countries and rhe Asiatic ami Latino flows into North America exhibit similar
qualities producing some wonderfully instructive contrasts right in the heart
of capitalist cities. Within earshot of Bow Bells in London, fur example, one
finds the extraordinary power of international finance capiral moving funds
almost instaotaneously round rhe world cheek-by-jowl with a substantial
Bengali population (Iargdy unemployed in any conventional sense) that has
built a strong migratory bridge into the heart of capitalist society in search of
new possibilities in spite of rampant racism and increasingly low-wage,
informal, and temporary working possibiliries. Here, tOO, the industrial reserve
army that such migrarory movements create may become an active vehicle for
capital accumulation by lowering ",-ages but the migratory movement itself,
while it may indeed have been initiated by capital looking for labor reserves
(as with gIlest workers and migrant streamS from the European periphery), has
surely taken on a life of its own.
The massive forced and unforced migrations of people noW taking place in
the world, a movement that seems unstoppable no ,marter how hard countries
strive to enact stringent immigration controlS, will have as much if not greater
significao in shaping urbanization in the twenty-first century as the powerful
dynamic ce
of unresrrained capital mobility and accumulation. And the politics
that flaw from such migratory movements, while not necessarily antagonistic
to continued capital accumulation are not necessarily consistent with it either,
posing serious questions as to whether urbanization by capital accumulation
will be anywhere neat as hegemonic in me future as it has been in the past,
even in the absence of any major organizing furce, such as a powerful socialist
or pan-religious (fundamentalist) movement, that seeks to counteract the
manifest injusrices and marginalizations of the capitalist form of urbanization
by the construction of some alternative urban world.

n. Theoretical Reflections
But in all of this I am struck again and again by the difficulry of designingan
adequate language, an adequate conceprual apparatuS to grasp
s the
the problem we seem to be faced with. I worry rhat last yeal conceptual wu"",,"'
and goals will be used to fight next year's issues in a dynamic situation"",,,, i.,;:""
more and more reqnires proacti"" rather than remedial action. I am not
88 ~.",~, .... ,,,,,
in this worry. Nor is this an entirely new dilemma. As Sachs (19 : 34'H";'{/';")
observes of urban politics and policies in the past:

Possible Urban Worlds

417

, e economiSts and
raJ
... the sodal rhetoric of til ~e s, were ready for the last battle th
their E . .
,
e
er of Athens se .ed
ey won
asclflatlOn WIth new buildi
. -f\ more as a screen to hid
methods, and spatial and chi
ng matenals, industrialized
' e
look at the real person in thar tectural aesrhericism rarher than as constructIon
e streets.... In their concentio
f
' a pOlnter [0
needs most

}.
postwar urbanists demonstra, d 'th
T
ns 0 soaety and hrunan
ogmanSffi
th
'
and
1
a.::
k
a f'Interest in empirical e .d e san1e mIX
. of naivete
d
as e proragonists ofthe discussions held in rh eVI euce
people's fifestyle.:
eSoVlet Lmonin the early 1920s.

~out

Are we, then, in danger of r

. g
to when rhe remarked on h owepeahrrn
error that Keynes
long ago pom
. ~-"
we avethe
a SIT
h
u;u

~~

present. lves in accordance with th d liang pene ant for organizing 0

econoInlst?
e e unct VISion of so me Iong-uead
ur
r
n thinking through thoIS probIem I tho k' .
as a physical artefact the con
'
III It ImpOrtant first to recogru'ze th
. hall'
temporarv ciry h
at
mlg t c, a paltmpsest, a composit; I cis as many layers. It forms what
~rms sjupenmposed upon each other wi;nth cape made up of differenT built
are of truly'
.. ro
e pasSJng
time, In some cases,
whe ear .lest layers
.
anCIent ongm
d' of
L
ose unpnnts can be dis
d b ) ote 1fl tae oldest ci 11' .
of relativelv
cerne eneath today's urban [; b .
v lZaflDns
. ~ recent date comprise distincti
a nco But even cities
phases m the hurly burly- ofch . rb
ve layers accumulated at dilt
flon
aolle u an growth
d
erent
. ' ::0l'al
Oll!
conquest, neocolonial d
. engen ered by industrializa.ffilgrattofl. as well as of .real-estate specula .OmlnatlOn>
d
wave after wave of
exarup e, of how the migratory I
ill non an modernization. Think {.
I
shanty-towns
of cities in delayers at occupy even the rapidly exp di'. or
, . all
ev oprng co
..
an ng
ySJC
ayets of more and m
untrles qUickly spawn identifi bl
ph.In the last 200 years or so
perm,anenr and solid occupancy.
a e
rh~cker and futer in relati~n ;;a~:~ m most cities Iuve accumulated ever
vo untary and furced relocations f
geol11ng population growth mass'
of'
a populations
b
,lve
, srrong ut contradictory paths
lib economIC development, and the
erful
growth from ormer constramts
pow
chanu
_L ,
erated urban
.
B technological
..
",es wat
fi pornts out, one of the oddities of ., '. It is nevertheless, as Jencks
. xed WIth time, more and more s C1tte~ IS at mey
become more and
v
10crementallv
add
tru'
derallc,
precisei
because
~
ngs on rather th
tall'
a f the way
a!! over again. Planners. archite an tO y shedding their skins and
_ all tace one commo
'bl
cts, urban desigoers - "urbanist" .
I
. th
n pro em' how to pI
h
S 10
with.ma"y.ers III e urban palimDsest in'
h
an t e construction of the
...
h'
ways t at match futut e wants and needs
. doin
. g too mu c violence
to all tha h
IS
precisely because it is
gone before. What has gone
IdentIty and of ~werful symb I' e ocus of collective memorv of
b dl
0 1C mearun
th
-"
a un eofresourCeSCOllStitutin
.. gs.at e same time as it
enVl1'onment for creatrve
. SOCIal
. ch g posslbdltIeS
as well as b afners
. In
.
Th
upon which new urban forms can b fjang!e.
ere is rarely now a tabula
e fee y construc:ed.

~e

~e

r.

.'m~rtant

~ ~s

Possible Urban Worlds

.
JU$llCe,

Dtiffimmce and Politics

418
'

the past
hi g f, r a future while respectlllg
But the general charge of searc n o.
>encies in urban fonns into
.
ali= the sclerotlC tenu
:'
ed
all too frequently llltetn
thlnki I ' recisely here that we ne 10
even more sclerotic ways of
ng. t/~iS we are always in danger of
heed Maris warning that lfl moments 0
.
"'names~ battle cries and
. . f the past borrowlllg

con)' uring up the spmts 0
'
f world history" in a tunet the new scene 0
d .
costumes in order to presen
d I
,; If there is one ommant

d "borrowe anguage.
..
.cui I
honored dlsgwse, an a
s that are reshaping CInes partl ar Y
impression I have of ~e urb: Pr~;aulo, for example), it is sir:'Ply that of
in developing rountnes (Seo 0
ds the form - social processes
.
,- 'ch th content ttanscen
bee
an urban process ill Will
e
b
_ on a scale never
rore
aIDS of ur an orm
.
.
literally bursting at th e se
f r urban future in such a SItuation
encountered. How to cre~te the poetry 0 oll

is the fundamental questIon.

es of Maris Eightemth BTUmaire, it is
IfI go back to the famous passag.
this situation. When history
'cuI ly appropriate to
j

because they seem partt ar .

fi
agedy and the seconu tIme as
b
d It occurs rst as tr
th
repeats itsel M an 0 serve ,
d M >s metaphor somewhat, prevent e
farce. How, then, can we, to exten
a:rbanization being turned into a late
modernist tragi-comedy of mId-centU;
trnoderrust farce.
hieal
-'_1
twentietn-cenrury pos
.
f h'l~nrical-"eograp
matelLir
'cal
hPrspecnves
o'~"
k
Iive
.
. I t Le up and rewor
What can the theoret! > Fr -this
perspectIVe" :u<!
.'

tell

us in nus context. rom

di
temporary urbaruzatIOn.
'SSUes essential to understan ng con
tuall
concep

ism

1. Locating the Urban in Fields ofSocial Acti~~

.'

The difficulty with so-called "high modernism" and the city was not its
"totalizing" vision, but its persistent habit of privaeging things and spatial forms
over social processes. It presumed that social engineering could be
accomplished through the engineering of physical form. This is, as Marin
(1984) sham, the fimdamental posture of all classical forms of Utopianism
(beginning with Sir Thomas More): they in effect propose a fu:edspatial order
that ensures social stability by destroying the possibility of history and
containing all processes within a fu:ed spatial frame, Tne antidote to such
spatial determinism is not to abandon all talk of the city (or even of the
possibility of Utopia) as a whole, as is the penchant of postmodernist critique,
but to return to the level of urbanization processes as being fimdamental to
the construction of the things that contain them. A Utopianism of process
looks very different from a Utopianism of fixed spatial form.
This debate has interpretive and political significance. Do we attribute the
difficulties of contemporary life to the contradictions of capitalism, to modernity (or its chaotic nemesis postmodernity), to the traumas ofindustrializacion
(and postindustrialism), to the disenchantment of tne world that comes with
technological and bureaucratic rationality, to social anomie born of marginalization and alienation, to massive population growth, or to that undefinable
but nevertheless potent idea of a decline in religious bell of; and associated social
valuesl Or do we argue that tnete is something inherent in the city (a thing)
or urbanization (the process) that gives a distinctive coloration. form, and
content to the structuration of contemporary sociaL economic and political

processes, and pathologies? I have long argued and continue to argue that
n

" ocess" called urbaruza[lon.

.... ". the outcome 0 f a pr
The "thing" called a Clty IS
2 says that ta) processes are more
A dialectical approach (see chapter ) al
ediated through the things
b' processes are ways m
d d
fundamental than thi ngs, ( 'J I e and (c) the permanences pro uce
they produce, sustain and dis,,:, v .'
wer structures, and nerworks of
ns
tly function as the solid and
(including ways of thought, mstltutlo ,
social relations as well as material objects) equT~~ tyle of thought initiates a
>-:1
atenal eostenee. IUS s
.
h f
immoveable bases 0 f """ y m
h' king as well as with mUC 0
. h la
. e teenth-century t m
.
'
l break Wlt
te-nm
.'
h' h the dominant VIew, ill
radiea
d 'al denee m W lC
th
contemporary architecture an soc~ S~I_"
d processes, was and is at
hill' upon SOCIal ruaUons an
spite of all the emp <IS
.
d
cessfully in such a way as to
th
be en01 neere sue
th
the cit\! is a thing at can
0 - . al
In the nineteen
.'
dify or enhance SOCI processes.
. all-e,~u<:ed.~~:\,;;%\,?j
conram, mo,
d Burnham, Sitte, Wagner, Un,,~n, ':
Olmstead Geddes, Bowar ,
f finding the nght
roblem of
. '0)o-~~~nti.~~~_~~~I~!,:,~:~~df~~;
, intricate sOCia
. I pro.
cesses to ("
a matter
P
th
et the dommant UtOpIC
th
form. And inh IS. . ey S a:ch tourb anX1corm, as in the case of 1
either a me<: anIS';C appro h of Frank Uoyd Wright.
or the more organrc approac

419

understanding urbanization is integral to understanding political--economic,

social, and cultural processes and problems. But this is true only if we consider

urbanization as a process (or, more accurately, a multipliciry of processes)

producing a distinctive mix of spatialized permanences in rclation to each other.
The idea that a thing called the city has causal powers in relation to social Ii:
is untenable. Yet the material ernbeddedness of spatial structures created in the
course of urbanization are in persistent tension with the fluidity of social
pr,oa:s5t:S, such as capital accumulation and social reproduction. lrrstanciating
relations through the transformation of material environments, I argued

II, makes it particularly hard to change either. Thus do the inherently

sclet(.tic qualities of the things we call cities, coupled with the sclerosis that
reigns in planners' heads, effectively check the possibilities of evolving a
-<lilfeDent urbanization process. The dead weight of conventional spatiothinking and actual spatio-temporal forms weigns like a practical
on rhe tnoughts and material possibilities of the living,
G,a,ditilon,al thinking ahout cities is not entirely unaware of this problem.
and R<>bert Moses sougbt to liberate processes of capital
umul,ltic,n from the constraints of older spatio-temporal structures. The
of urbanization in the twenty-first century sirnibrhT hpor............ ~~ -~ - r

Possible Urban Worlds

.
d d . tn what
d lace will be pro uce WI
d.efining how space-time~ enV1ron1!lent,~
uous capital accumulation, for
social processes and with ,:hat effects. set:f :ban forms from ihose achieved
example will produce a qUIre different .
alitarian and ecologically
,
.
lci
an emanCipatory, eg
,
d
under some regune see ~g
.
. al' t possibilities are to some egree

d
I . "t matlve antl-caplt IS
sensitive po lUes .....'U e
th b' ct of acute contestation an
th
h theY are e su Je
Th
already present. even o u g ,
.
dically differenr interests.
e
struggle between factions and ~es pursumg ramisty ctystal ball or imposing

420

Justice, Difference, and Politics

whole surface of the globe" so that it "must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere,
establish connections everywhere." They cominue:

The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a

cosmopolitan character (0 production and consumption in eVeJ.Ycountry. , .. AU

old established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life
and death question for

issue is not one, therefore, of gazmg l~tO shi~~e 1 e a.d sp' atialirv is made to rule
.
heme mw wao
.
j
"
some classic form 0 f v toplan sc bl
. t enlist in the struggle to auvance

.
al
over history and process. Thepro emlS a .
mix of spano-tempor
.
d
litieallv emanclpatoty
.tal
a more socially Just an po
'. ce to those imposed by finance Capi ,
d' equalities internalized within
roduction processes rather than acqUles
P
. .._ d th
rall}' dass-bo un m
the World Bam;. an
e gene .
ul' Fortunately, the latter powers,
lIw capital accum atlOn.
.
. ' (I
any wstem 0 f unconuo
. 1v control urbanization et
,
-)
n
v be can never entire 1
h .
however hegemonic t eyma:,. '
. h 'hich thinking ahout t e my
.
.
d wmarY space Wit Vi
.
eI'
alone the dIScursIve an 1ffi-n"
1:'
within a rapldlv ace eratmg
. ~) In
.C"ing contrawctlOfiS
'
. ' .1
is always assQClateu. teIlShJ
t aU sortS ofinrersntl'alspaces
II
d rbanization process crea e
fl 0_L H
and often uncontrO e u
.
possibilities can OUfl.'ill. ow
in which all sorts ofliberatoty andeman. Clpahto~an process might be mobilized
th
0.' 'ementsWlmteuw
.
d
and where these sOCial mov . '
Ii"
then the crucial question - an
.
ral anti-caPItallst po tics IS
.Into a more gene

one that I shall take up shortly.

2. The Place of the City in a Globalizing World

.'

fu e of urball11.at10n
dil . these days to regard the mr
.
There is a strong pre eetlon
f 1 balization and of market campenas already determined by the powers 0 go
ntive)' ockeying ofindi.,.idual
'bil' .
limited to mere compo
b
tion. U [ban pOSS1 ltle:s are
b
There seems then to e no_
.
.
'w
a
global
ur
an
svstem.
"O-d
f
cities tor poslfiO n WI n
ft'
hich to launch any lUU 0
. th
b'
tion process om W
.
fo
d'
th drive for systemIC trans - rlace within e ut aUlza
P
. ul .
ble of groun mg e
al' . "h
militant partie aflsm capa.

. ular the rhetoric of "'glob natIon

as

matiorlS. In the last 20 years In partie

'. _ .
.thin _ments of radic.al
\.
nan'- even rep",cmg WI
~'"lY-d
cul
become par ri ar y l~p.O
.
of im erialism, colonialism, an nCO""'
thought tbe more polincIZed co~ceptsf this ~cursive shiEr has been extt"c,
colonwism. The ideologIcal e oct 0
all forms oBocal, urban, and<.'(en
ordinarily disempoweting with respect to
Certainlv from 1492 onward,;
national political action. . . '

IS not
new. system),'~~;:~~~~~;~:k,~m
Yet, rhe process 0 f f!l
,,0balizatIon
Hanseatic
league
the.
and even before [ef. the
.
th
h the production of a
elle point in The Comn,u~WI':;"'cr,
capitalism was well undet way Intspart h
d
of urban places. Marx and Enge emp asl th w'orld market, they wrote.
0_
d
not only creates e
..
l11ani{i?sto. Mocu;rfi m ustry
.
k " L --es the bourgeOISIe avec
.
I
anding mar et Cl""
the need for a constant Y exp
,

m:

421

all civliizcd nations, by industries that no longer work

up indigenous raw material, hut raw material drawn from the remotest zones;
industries whose products are- consumed~ not amy at home, but in every quarter
of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country,
we- find nev,r wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands
and climes. In place of the old local and national seclUSIon and self-sufficiency,
we have intercourse in every direction, universal interdependence of nations. And
as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of
individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and
narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numer-

ous national and localliteratuces, there arises a world urerarure....

If this is not a good description of globalization then wMt is? And from this
Marx and Engels derived the global imperative "working men of all nations
unite" as a necessary condition for an anti--capitalist and. socialist revolution.

The bourgeoisie's quest for class domination has alwaY' been and continues
ro be a very geographical affair. "Globalization" is a long-standingprocer, always
implicit in capita! accumulation rather than a political-economic condition
that has recently come into being. This does not preclude saying that the
. process has changed or worked itself out to a particular or even "final" state.
. . But a process-based definition makes us concentrate on how globalization has
occurred and is occurring. So what kind ofprocess is it and. more importantly,
.how has it changed in recent years: Some major shifts stand out. To describe
them is to describe some of the key forces at work that have changed within
the complex dynamic of urbanization, in particular the extraordinary growth
of urbanization in many developing countries.
(a) Financial deregulatum began in the United States in the early 1970s as
forcw respotlSe to stagflation and the breakdown of the Bretton Woods
of international trade and exclunge. Bretton Woods was a global system
this meant a shift from one global system (largely controI!ed politically by
United States) to another that was more decentralized, coordinated through
market and resting on fluxes and flows of money. The effect was to make

leJin:lfl(:i.i cc.ndliti,ons of capitalism far more temporally volatile and spatially

tins:ta',\e. The term "globaliz"tion" was, I note. largely promoted by the
UnaJ10'al press in the early 1970s as a necessary virtlle of this process of financial
cleregttlati")fi, as something progressive and. inevitable, opening un wh ..... l",

422 Justice Difference, and Politics

Posrible Urban WorUr 423

,
.
I as a tetm embedded in the language
new fields of opponunity for caPlhatal. tht w
tered into public and academic
d h
odity t t en en
"d
of money an t e comm
.th
ch attention bemg
pal to
. I d'
own) WI out too mu
.
di . .
It describes a spanal con non In
discourses (me u mg my . f u '
d .deologlcal n c t i o n s . . . .th
.
irs class ongllls
an
1
I
cal
d
.
b k
finance a 0
evelopment in Baltimore WI OUt
th
which a Smgapore an can
th I I of territorial control (such as e
- J'
. n from 0
er eve s
d fi
scarcely any ffiuuatlo
b . tion processes an
nance
) Th
ction
between
ill amza
-".
nation state.
e conne
ch more direct. It is unmeUlated by
be
nseq uence, mu
capital has come, as a co
1 d
h more prone to rapl'd and
of contro an muc
..
ak .
. . . al
other mstitutiOn rorms
th I be Ideologtcally, It m -es it
hical dispersal across ego .
.
ephemeral geograp
b .t to the discipline of free-floanng
appear as If all urban places must su ml

(d) The world proletariat has almost doubled in the last 30 years. This
occurred in part through rapid population growth but also through mobile
capital mobilizing more and more of the world's population (including women}
as wage laborers in, for example, South Korea, Taiwan, Africa, as well as most
recently in the former Sovier bloc. Much of this huge global proletariat is
working under conditions of gross exploitation and political oppression. But
it is geographically dispersed across a variety of massive urban concentrations.
It is consequently hard to organize even though its conditions would indicate
a favorable terrain for widespread anti-capitalist struggle.
(e) The territorialization of the world has changed. State operations have
become much more strongly disciplined by money capital and finance.
StrUctural adjustment and fiscal austerity have become the name of the game
and the state has to some degree been reduced to the role of finding Ways to
promote a &vorable business climate, which frequently means exercising strong
discipline OVer the labor force. The "globalization thesis" here functions as a
powerful capitalist ideology to bear upon socialists, welfu statists,
e
nationalists, etc. Welfue for the poor has largely been replaced, therefore, by
public subventions to capital (Mercedes-Benz recently received one-quarter
billion dollars of subventions in a package from the state ofAlabama in order
to persuade it to locate there).

finance.

mmodities, people, andparticularfJ informa-

(b) Thecottandttmeofmomngco Thi b

ht some significant changes
tion ratcheted downwards (cE above)d'
s rop~n as well as to the definition
. .
fproduction an consum
". th
.
to the organizatiOn 0
.
"<lema 'alizari n of space m e commum<Is Th ulumate
d
ten
0
I
.
f
of wants an nee.
e
hical djusunents in the ocation 0
cation field permitted all s~r::[l:Ft~ hmv;"er, easy to make too much of
industry, consumpnon, an
Th
of it all impresses, but then

volution
e newness
d
the so-called inlOrmanon re
th' I
h the automobile, the radio an
the newness of ,he railroad ar;rd e tedegrap
Th';e earlier examples are
. th
--
the telephone III
eIt day Impresse equ
did y. hange the way gl0 b-auzatlOn
Io
instructive, since each in the!:t ov.~ wayd con:umption could be organized,
worked, the ways in which pr ucn~nchan al rdarions between people could
d
d, d the ways ill Will SOCI
.
b
policics con ucte an
..
cale into social relations etween
become converted on an ever wlden~n? s f ban places through nerwork~
things. Urbanization and the conne~t1vlty 0 ur 'dl through the use of
ing across space is indeed changmg very rapt y
informational technology.

all

(j) While individual states lost rome oftheir power,; geopolitiCilI democmtizat_
ion created new opportunities. It became harder for any core power to exercise

>

I forms changed. The effect

was an ince
fragmentation of production syste~s,
reasing geographIcal dispe.
f ks albeit in the midst of an lllcreas~
. ..
f I bo pecralization 0 [as ,
k
J' omt
divISlOns 0 a r, S
th
h mergers ta eovers~ or
_
..
f
orate power
roug
'.
Th g! bal
centralizatiOn 0 corp
nded national boundanes.
ea.,.
production agreements that (fansce everyday aspect of political-econoffilc
..
h lobal car became an
"
f
.
televlSlon set, t e g
,/ obal cities." The dosing down 0
. .. . ..
life as did the so-called
f
duction somewhere else
.... ' .
in one place and the ~perun~ up r~~;~on operations have moved .. '
e
familiar story - some arge-sc C P
nons have more power to
_.
h I t 20 vears
orpora
. mh.;',msDu:t,.t
five times In teas
I
.
h
vulnerable to theIr
_, __ .
aki individual places muc more
'd hifu and
.'
space,
ng of urb"
. . , .
Vi-zhole mnetwork
aruzatton ill ore open to rapi s

(c) Production .and

ot;g'an:~tl:~

manufacturing capital.

discipline over others and easier for peripheral powers to insert themselves into
the capitalist competitive game. Money power is a "leveler and cynic" empowering whoever commands it wherever they are. Competitive states could
do well in global competition - and this meant low-wage stares with strong
. labor discipline often did better than others. Labor control became, therefore,
a vital ideolOgical issue within the globalization argument, again pushing
,- - socialist arguments onto the defensive.

'.

All of these quantitative changes taken together have been synergistic enough
. " to transform processes of urbanization. Bm there has been no revolution in
'the mode of production and its associated social relations. If there is any real
qualitative trend it is towards the reassertion of early nineteenth-ce:,tury
~italist laissez-faire and social Darwinian values coupled with twenty-first_
..
penchant for pulling everyone (and everything that can be
'.,eXc/lantged) into the orbit of capital. The effect is to render ever larger segments
the world's population permanently redundant in relation to capital
:.a(:cumUllatl0n while severing them from any alternative means of suppon.
the political objection to the globalization thesis, is that it denies the
U><'ssi'biliry for meaningful action within anyone of the places of capitalism

Possible Urban World,

. D'I1:
424. Justtce,
')Jere nee, and Politics
-

.'

b'1i

a olitical milieu fOr anti--GlP1IOlist rna 1

ll-

(be it the nation state or the CIty as Palled cwers of spatiJll processes of
,ion). It undialecticaIly presumes the un oy th~r~ are many who noW tty to
capital flow to dominate places. In response,
put the shoe on the other foot.

3. The Communitarian Response

bl
and threats that urban life poses, so:"e
Faced with the innumerable pro ems. h
hed for one simple solunon
bali 1 thesIS ave reac
I .
analystS, rejecting the g10
z ng.
.' .
seeminglY out of centro, Into
_ to trv and turn large and te~~lIung ClUes, so
relat~ in a civil fashion to
,
. . b Ii d evetyone can
d la
urban villages where, it IS e eve,
I
.
ent hi' this regar) te
.
b
and gent e enVlfo nm .
~ . fI
eve..vone else lfi an ur :me
..
.
n-.rticuIarly baleful m uence
-,
thO lei on Clnes exerClSe.s a r.
fth
nineteenth-century m ng .
Th Utopian social anarchism 0
at tIme
e
ditional bourgeois notions that
upon present thinking and pract1ces
for as do the more n:a
h .
has as much to answer
d Thomas Chalmers w 0, m an
derived as early as 1812 from th~ Reveren
d to mobilize "the spirit of
..
in Btlta1l1 propose
. I
influential set 0 f wnnngs
, f cl
andrevolutionary"~o ence
communiry" as an antidote to the threa~ 0 ~~: twO strains of thought in
in rapidly urbanizing areas. The mergtng ~ ard and its carrv over into the
the work of Patrick Geddes and Ebenezer oW en"'''' has 'meant a long
ch of the twenne th c "7'
d
.
f
planning practICes 0 .m~
"
that is extraordinarily har to exorClze
continuity in communltanan thinking rocesses
P b rt
from any and all thinking about urban H
studY on The Urban
,analysts post- er e
'.
f b
Many contemporary
..
. nl constituted as collecuons 0 ill an
Villagers (1962), believe that cltles are
:Ven Los Angeles can be dissolved
villages anyway .Jencks (l993)~;~hile admitting the whole idea so~ds a
into 28 townships and Peter
'_ d
tal truth that London IS mdeed
bit banal, can cheerfully.assert ~dun : : :Charles leads the way on this,
a collection of villages. In BtlW':, P
th
ban villa"" as the locus ot
. h hi
hasIs upon e ur
"'I
emotional charget Wit
s .em)l
d' this bv a whole host of peop e act");s
urban regeneration. And he IS fo owe III
' r t from marginalized ethmc
the political and social spectrUm, attrac:~l~~~r~ng_dass populations as well
populations and impovenshed :nd e~\hink of it all as a civilized form of reak _
as from the upper-class nosralgl ':" W d alk afe pedestrian precincts, and_
assmg 51 ew
C
s,
d
estate development encom P
f
where the big and irty
I'
never dear 0 course,
d"
h
LauraAshiey sops.
tiS
t h " washed and unwante
C
..l.-t
marrer
where
e
great
un
h
une1,pecte<!;U;
roighr go (.or, lor uw.
J
ak "toes so exciting - t e
reside). And all of those thing~ that m ~ Cl ~mes with exploring the ud.~.;)Bc;b-,)C
the conflicts, and the adrenalin surge at
.

Gans'

7hat

e ' ned

frOID

interviews

*Many of the insights on cins topIC we< gar fu BBC Radio 4

. thr radio proQtan1.S r
researching and narr:tmg ad ee. Oerobe; 1993.
Lights/City Shadows, bra

cast m

'

425

unknown - will be tightly controlled and screened out with the big signs thar
say "no deviant behavior acceptable here."
No matter; the idea of the urban viUage or of some kind of communitarian
solution to urban problems is both attractive and powerful (judging by the
innumerable books and artide.s devoted to the subject). And it is so not only
because of nostalgia for some long losr mythical world of intimate village life,
ignoring the fact that most of the populist migration Ollt of villages arose
precisely because they were so oppressive to the human spirit and so otiose as
a form of soeio-political organization. It also appeals because some mythical
social entiry called "community" can perhaps be re-creared in an urban village
and "community spirit" and "community solidarity" iS we are again and a.gain
urged to believe, what will rescue us from the deadening world of sociJll dissolution, grab-it-yourself materialism, and individualized seliith market-oriemed greed that lies at the root of all urban ills. The Christian-based community
concept, fOr example, vital brainchild of the now vastiy constrained theology
of liberation in Ladn -<-\merica, is even brought into Baltimore as the solution
to urban problems (McDougall, 1993).
This ideal would not have the purchase it does were there no truth at all to
it. My own guess is that the only things stopping riots or total social breakdown
in many cities are the intricate networks of social solidarities, the power and
dedication of community organizations, and the hundreds of voluntary groups
dock to restore some sense of decency and pride in an
working round
urbanizing world shell-shocked by rapid change, unemploymenr, massive
migrations, and all of the radical rravails inflicted by capitalist modernity
passing into the nihilistic downside of postmodernity.
But community has always meant different things to different people and
even when something that looks like it can be found, it often turns out to be
as much a P"'t of the problem as a panacea. Well-founded communities can
. exclude, define themselves againsr others, erect all sorts of keep-out signs (if
not tangible walls). As Young pointed out, "racism, ethnic chauvinism, and
class devaluation ... grow partly from the desire for community" such that "the
positive identifica[ion of some groups is often achieved by first defining other
groups as the other, the devalued semihuman." The politics of place, as I argued
in chapter I 1, is by no means irrelevant to the social process, but it cannot be
reduced to the simplicities that the communitarians typically espouse.
We encounter here a singular~ instructive and vcry- imponanr example of how
the a priori definition of some theoretical object, construed as a natural entity
absolute space, can mislead. The error arises oUt of the belief that
:t-cOrlllTllituty," otten undersrood as a naturally occurring entity. indeed exists
exist (there is a vast literature on how communities" get IDS! and found
the history of urbanization) and that this entity, endowed with causal salving
-,c'p()W(OfS. can be put to work as an agent for social change. Even when underas something socially constructed., commlUlitarianism incnmn:rv>-t="
5

me

426

fr

justice, Difference, and Politics

"called co.mmumty
. can b e created as some eedowed with causative and salving powers,
standing and autonom~us entIry e~ d'
manner thar
be isolated from
that this "thing" can be mternally d
e lain a lations of this thing with other
"
'd and tbat extern re
.
A
"others)' and outs! ers,
. aI th th integral and cOntmuous.
.
d occasIon ra er an
hil
. th
.. like communities, w e not
things are conungent an
'caI'
uld have It at entitles.
'a!
more dialecn VIew wo
J
d independent of the SOQ
. 'fi
not be unuerstoo
'_ _ "
.
without SIgn! cance, canall and also dissolve them and that It IS those SOClOProcesses that generare, sust ,
tal
'aI hange I do not mean to assert
th
fimdamen to SOCI C .
.
ed
spatial processes .at are
ain kind of spatio-temporal form
as
that the constructIOn of a cen.
So thing akin to communlry can
. "h
rei anee or mterest. me
.
as no ev f comfurt and sustenance in the face of
be put m place as a source 0
11
bounded space WIthin whIch
f li aI mpowerment, as we as a
d
rful
as a zone 0 po tic e
h'
1"'
exdusionism an powe
.
l ' t and et mco-re !glOllS
.
. f
to advance raCIst, c asSlS ~
.

B b bstract"mg from the dialectic 0

'
f'
naI explOItatIOn, ut y a
"
bee
mecharusms 0 inter
..
f the ssibilities for social acnon omes
thing-process relations, 0U: VISIOn 0
po frequendy to be self-nullifYing
"
ed (
, d b th hetonc of commurury as
so .restncte y e. r
. .. al aim however well mtentlon
as~ or
if not self-destructive to the lnIU
. S, rt the ideal of Christian-based
of trv> ng to Impo
, al' ,
. th
example, . m
e case a for th'"e con ditlons
.
.
0 f deprivarion and margm !zatlon
fa
commumues as panace
.
ulation in Baltimore). There are r
experienced by the African-Amendean ,pop between' "communiry" and sodal
h
d
dteratlons
I
better ways to un erstan
..
f the dialectics of space-p ace
la . the whole Issue mto one 0
.
, egraI
processes by trarts tmg th
all
duction of spatio-temporallry mt ,
relations as one aspect of .e over Jr~h t may sound unduly abstract and
to urbanization processes m thgen~ _.
"a mmunitas" or the medieval village
.
b th'd that e .N)man co
s~ p ul ppears little less than absur,d
complicated, ut e I ea
bull ' B bayor au a oa
can somehow be re
t In om
h
tticky problem of creating.
'
al
' for the mue more
th
This latter IS no ter~atlve
. n of ublicness that stretches across e
POlitics of heterogeneIty and a domal
p
baruze'd living. While the
-," .
f
ntemporary ur
diverse spatio-tempor.ul~es. 0 co
ode
ideoloo1caI antidote to the,.
.
.
ISm may proVl
an
0'b
rhetonc of
unallo.ed globalism, it too fails preclSdy ecause,
disempowermg effects of an
Y
d
d treats one SIde of the
th dial . of place an space an
it abstracts from e . ~CtlCS , endowed with causal powers.
'.'
antinomy as a self-sustaInmg ennty
_

mythic beliefs that a thmg.

am

desI~t

"comm~ry

advers~ry,

~mmunltanan

4. From Urban Ecology to the E'Coto:ro. 0"

'J Urbanization
erful anti-urbanism of much of the COIlteInp'JtaJo/
The pervasive and often pow
ft translates into the ";,-wth'lt'imp
0 en
environmental-ceological movement
h high
oint of plundering and polluti0f,1;\"
chapter 13), The pn,dGmi~1'1fP:~\
ought not to exist since they are t e
all that is good and holy on planet eart I see al dilemmas is a
L
f dical solutions proposed

nti'-'uri>anisrrll-\
LUrm
0 ta
. . ' for eco
Th'15OglC
predommant",
, d commumtananlSID.
form
0 f rur ai lze

t(

!-Possible Urban Wo,.u, 427

odd as it is pernicious, It is almost as if a fetishistic conception of "nature" as
something to be valued and worshipped separate from human action blinds a
whole political movement to the qualities of the actual living environments in
which the majoriry of humanir-! will soon live. It is, in any case, inconsistent
to hold that everything in the world relates to everything else, as ecologists tend
to do, and then decide that the built environment and the urban structures
tbat go with it are somehow outside of both theoretical and practical
consideration. The effect bas been to evade integrating understandings of the
urbanizing process into environmental-ccological analysis,
In this regard, it would at first blush seem as if OUr ninereenth_century
forebears have something to teach us ofgreat significance. Was it not, afrer all,
a centtal aim in the work of Olmstead and Howard, to try to bring rogether
the country and the ciry in a productive tension and to cultivate an esthetic
sensibiliry that could bridge the chronic ills of urbanized industrialism and the
supposedly healthier pursuits of country life? If would be churlish to deny real
achievements on this trOnt. The marks of What were done in those years _ the
park systems, the garden cities and suburbs, tree-lined Streets _ are now parr
of. living tradition that define certain qualities of uthan living that many (and
not only the bourgeoisie) can and do still appreciate, But it is aIsc undeniable
that this ecological vision, noble and innovative though it was at the time, was
predominanrlyesthetic (and very bonrgeois) in its otientation and Was easily
COOpted and rourinized into real-estate development practices for the middle
classes. And there is, to boot, more than hint that wh"t ought to have been
a productive tension between town and country was in fact dominated by
nostalgia for a rural and communitarian form of life that had never existed
except in the fertile imaginations of a bourgeoisie seeking to escape the esthetic
and social effects of its own capitalistic practices, The ecological tradition
within urban thought, even though it ranks such stenar thinkers as Mumford
and Geddes in its midst, bas litrle of deep significance to say about the
urbanizing dialectics of social and environmental change. While it certainly
paid attention to issues of public health and the living environment, it failed
to take on board that other thread of environmentalism that fOCused on
conditions ofwork. Its definition of the ecological was far too limited to match
todays concerns.

In recent years, however, some attention bas begun to be paid, particularly

by environmentalists of a more managerial persuasion, to the question of
"sustainable" cities and more environmentally friendly forms of urban gro"''th
change. But the separation of uthan from environmental analyses (and a
'c.'c/e'VitlO nostalgia for the rural and its Supposedly well-balanced sense of
:.[.CoJffirnunity) is still far too marked fur comfOrt. The best rhat the ecolOgists
.(as opposed to the environmental justice movement) seem to be able to ofli:r
either 'orne return to an urbanization regulated by the metabolic
,"':onsrr'llnts of a bioregional world as it supposedly existed in What were actuallv

428

Justice, Di{forence, and Pvlitics

pestiferous and polluted medieval or ancient cimes~ or a total dissolution of

cities into decentralized communes or municipal entities in _which, it is
believed, proximity to some fictional quality called "nature" will predispose us
to lines of conscious (as opposed to enforced) action that will respect the
qualities of the natural world around us (as if decanting everyone from large
cities into the countrysid.es will somehow guarantee the preservation of
biodiversiry, water and air qualities, and the like), And far too much of what
passes for ecologically sensitive in the fields of architecture, urban planning,
and urban theory amounts to little more than a concession to trendiness and
to that bourgeois esthetics that likes to enhance the urban with a bit of green,
a dash of water, and a glimpse of sky,
But there are a whole range of ecological issues central to how we should
be thinking about our rapidly urbanizing world, The difficulry is that
"environment" (see part II), means totally different things to different people,
depending not only on ideological and political allegiances, but also upon
situation, posjrionality, economic and political capacities~ and the like. When
the big ten environmental groups in the U niled States target global warming,
add rain (issues directly connected with urbanization through
automobilization), ozone holes, biodiversity, and the like, they point ro serious
issues that have relevance at a global scale. Responses to those issues have
profound implications for urbanization processes, But th<;se are hardly the most
important issues from the standpoint of the masses of people flooding into the

cities of developing countries, As a result complaints of bias in the

environmental agenda being imposed from the affluent nations are becoming
more strident
It is in some sense ironic that the immediate, household-level environmental
p.roblems of indoor air quality and sanirntion are often ignored or given slight
treatment by activist environmental groups concerned with the environment.
Most of the internationa1 attention over
past ten years has been focused on
issues of "the commons," or those that threaten global tragedy. But the adverse
effects of household airborne and water-carried diseases on child mortality and
female life expectancy are of no less global proportions than, say, the desrruccion
of tropical forests, and in immediate human terms they may be the most urgent
of all worldwide environmental problem-s. Certainly, the immediate threats to
the urban poor of hazardous indoor air quahry and inadequate sanitarion exceed.
the adverse effects of global warming, or even vehicular pollution. (Campbell,
1989: 173)

me

""'hile Campbell adds that "of course, the world needs action on
and other fronts" the assignment of priorities- and the potentially co:nflicting
consequences of striving to meet different environmental objectives ctenneaa\:;,,:j
radically different scales is perhaps one of the most singular and unth(>u~ht~;:
through problem,; associated with the rapid urbanizauon of the COlltemp0rl't:

era. Suffice it to say th th ' .

.
a( e IntegratIOn f

h~
t '-

Po!Sible Urban WorU

'

429

envlwnmentaJ--ecologicaJ
. _
,0
ur amzatio n question i t th
But we ha ;
questIOn 15 a sme qua non for rh
n 0 e
\e as yet only scraped th " l '
e twenty-first century
ac
th di
<>unace of ho - - ch'
.
ros~ e versity of geographical scales
. _ 1\' ~o a Ieve that integration
quesaons acquire the prom'
th
atwhILh dIfferent kinds of ecol u' ~1
menee ey do And hi]
blC<"
movement has the potent'al'
.
W 1 e tile environmental'
.
,
" I Ity to make political fi
"JUStIce
quesuons of SOCIal JUstice and ecolo ical
"re by rubbmg together
thceight of communitarianism and rei? , m0ytbderfilzatlOn, it carries so much
e b ' ,
!grOtiS m
0]
uc. aruzanon question somewhat
.
ogy as to make its take on
potenually backward looking (see chap":b~~~ent and even in Some respects

5. Urbanization as Uneven G

.
eographzeai Deveio>pment
conceptual Impas I
di
se OOms, Acceptan
f h
sempowering for all anti
' ai'
ce 0 t e globalization langua
A'

'
od
ge is
-eapn 1st and ev
movements. It denies any reiatl'
en m eratdy social democratic
uncle"
h
ve autonomy f,
b
rmmes t e capacity within indiy'd---' .. ' or ur an development
of urban living and;"ak "
1 uaJ CItIes to define new possibij" , '
t
. '
es It Impossible t
. .
lUes
ransgresslOn or disruptio
f th
.
0 enVISIOn the modificati
urb " n a
e trajectory f
'tal
on,
amzatlon in general, On the other h
0
capl iS,t globalization!
appears euher Utopic in the weak
tal. and. the commurutariaIl response
;se ~t proposes an illusory isolarion7~sloc~~~~nse ~~ looking [0 times past, or
eb UX and Bow of capitalist accumul t'
po IUCS, SUPposedly outside of
glo e. And while communI't . . a lOn operating across the face of th
.
anall1sm oft-en .
e
ensunng ecological balan
d'
mcorporates the dr
f
'
ce an Sustamable ecol ' a i '
e.un 0
capaCIty to face realistically th
I'
ogrc sanay, it undermine, th
at
. diffc
e comp ex ISSues of
.
e
qUite
erent geographical seal
cl eli
enVIronment as these arise
If the languages of com
. e~; In u ng that of urbanization
rejected, h
h
muruty and of "globali ' "
,
t en w ere is there to g 'W find
zatlon are both to be
v;.l1ere space-time place and
. o. e
ourselves stranded on a ten .
oth
'
environment cannot b
am
er nOI treated as mere abst
.
e separated each from th
hi t
d
racuons outside of the
e
. s ory an geography. The theo 'of h i '
concrete conditions of
therefore, ripe for application
s":cal-geographical materialism is
globalization or eommunitar;.u;,
IS
tes a shili: from a language ~
deveI
"
Ism to a Janguag f"
o.
opment Of, more simplv
e 0 uneven spatia-temporal
A'
,
r uneven geograph 'cal d I
" '- - t.l:S SImplest, this cone t fo
1
eve opment.~'
". condit!
'th'
,
ep
CUse, on the concrete L ,
'cal
OIlS WI III which
I
lUStofj
---"gr
h" I
. h' ch h
SOCIO-eCO ogical c t i '
,
,,-~ ap lea
:w 1
timan activity in turn transfor a ~n 15 pOSSIble and the way in
. concept of uneven geographical develo ms soelO-ecological conditions, The
hIStOrIcally sedimented
'
I ' pment captures
(a) the palimp
f
SOClO--eco oglcal k'
,
sest 0
".
hierarchically ordered mosai
f r,e tlOns m place, (b) the multilavered
th
c 0 SOClo-ecologlcal
fi
'
'
..
~t order space, and (c) the ofr
.con g~ra[jons, and
(parttcularlyundercont
e~ .chaotIc monon of socio: :.-.
emporary COnditIOns caoit::!' ~nA tro-;.-.~~ __ .__ '
T

ih'

rn:m

430 Justice, Diffirence, and Politics

th

. and dissolve geographical differences m . e

flows that produce, sustaIn,..
anifestation of uneven geographIcal
landscape over time. ~rbanlzanon IS a m
development at a certam scale.
d tand the world, But it has proven
. uI I; new ""'y to un ers
wh
This is not a paroc ar)
d I"
A ~;h and again, even
en
.
; f thought an po mcs.. '5='
hich
difficult to SUStaIn as a waJ 0
f
d tanding the critical ways in w .
analysts arrive at the moment 0 un ers. through the unfolding of SOCIOIa
d Vlronment conJoill
. . . lified
space-time, p ce, an en ft
d to slip away into a far more SImp
'ca1
th"" 0 en ten
d
aItenng
. an
ecologt
processes,. - ' .
sses occurring in space an
and simplistic rhetOrIC of SOCIal proce f this I tt r conception is frequenrly
Whil th "'!anny 0
a e
external nature.
e e -J
I th
. which theorists like Poulantzas
(
'de examp e ewaYIn
L
acknowledged cons! r, lor
,
. th retical statement on tue
or Gidd:ns dally with the
is t:t by Smith (1990). And
produruon of uneven geograp.
. ali movements must plan somethmg
while he makes it clear that antI-caplt st d, th
are all sorts of political
"
a hical~ if they are to succee
ere
very geogr p
.f this is to be effective,
problems to be overcome 1

the~~~:~~:p:;::

III. Political Perspectives

.
'taIi" agency (and, hence, potentiality
d amongst everyone. It transI suggested in chapter 5 that antI-capl h

I ).
be found everyw ere an
.
d
for amve strugg
e
IS to
.
.
th
ld
manifestatIons of anger an
th
.
t
egronm
ewor
n
I
'
Pires that ere IS no a r t be round In some paces anu. a1'
tern canno
It

d
discontent witb the caplt 1St sys
h than weakly implanted. Localize

ts e strongly ral er
. th
capitalist movemen ar
e
. ul' n e everywhere. ITom the militia movements In
. alis
"militant parne arlSms
. I d' ti-corporate and against the caplt tMieltigan woods (much of It VIO e~ yan)
the movements of Indian and
I
.
d ex:dUSlOnarv to
state as weI as racIst, an W. dd Bank development projects and the "";'t a:ray
Brazilian peasants fightmg o .
.
'ertv -oppression, explonanon)
of
urban social movements strugglmg agaInst pofth' " rId There is a verirable
'ninallpartso
ewo.
.
and environmental degradano. .
"till th . terstices of the uneven spatlof .
h T t
.talist 0ppoSJuon WI n e ill
ferment 0 ann-capl
. ali
But tbis opposition, tboug nu ltan,
temporal development of eapn ",:,.
I so) often unable to see
. u1' ( metlflles extreme y
,
_,
often remains paroe anst so f
n geographical development. To
...
d.
art' cular form 0 uneve
'al"
beyon Its own p l .
'talist is not to say they are pro-soC! 1St
...
such movements are ann-cap! ..
f CI'st) These
.' :,
th . .
ligtous or neo- as
.
.__ .
just as easily be au
Political moves and actions on one _ _.'
coherence and a mUlled r ch 'ck h
on another. malting it far
. . .'.. ',
may confound and sometimes e tdi~sed
d rule 'Anti-;:;apitalist' . "
. processes and interests
-VI e a n .
_L
for capItalISt
. . to rather
more sensitive approacu
to
. '

~'here

~y:

.ontardil:m~n

m" "\;""".
~
is irself unevenly developed, requlfln"~ramsci was able to devise,. ;'" T. ......:
of But
position
maneuverofthan
evengeograph'ICaI and historical developmen
whileand
conditions
lIneven
..... t. ;.,;;:'(:?i,. ;

Possible Urban Workis 431

may pose particular difficulties for any coherent and international anti-capitalist
struggle, they also offer abundant opportunities _ an extraordinarily varied and
unstable terrain - for political organizing and action. The socialist and anticapitalist movement has to conJigure how to make USe of such revolutionary
possibilities. It has to come to tenns with the extraordinarily powerful processes
of uneven spatia-temporal development, including those of urbanization, that
make organizing so precarious and So difficult. It h<15 to recognize that the
traditional objective of socialist movements - the conquest of state power _ is
insufficient for its purpose and that uniting different factions can never mean
suppressing socio-ecological difli:rence. 10 exactly the same wav that Marx saw
the necessity that workers of all countries should unite 'to combat tbe
globalization process at work in his time, so the socialist movement has to find
ways to be just as llerible - in its theory and its political practice _ OVer a space
of volalile uneven development as the capitalist class has now become.

In this regard, the Marxist movement has considerable historical and

geographical strength. Ar its best it has been able to synthesize diverse struggles
with divergent and multiple aims into a more universal anti-capitalist
movement witb a global aim through a theoretical understanding of its
potentialities. Tbe Marxist tradition has an immense contribution to make
towards suelt a work of synthesis in part because it has pioneered the tools with
which to find political commonality within multiple differences and to identify
primary/secondaryltertiary conditions of oppression and exploitation. I recall,
here, Raymond Williams' phrase as to how "the defense and advancement of
certain particular interests, properly brought together, are in hct the general
interest" and emphasize "properly broUght together" as the core task to be
addressed,
The work of synthesis has to be on-going since the fields and terrains of
struggle are perpetually e1tanging as the capitalist socio-ecological dynamic
changes. We need, in particular, to understand process ofproduction of uneven
spatio-temporal development and the intense contradictions that now exist
within that field nOt only for capitalism (entailing, as it does, a great deal of
self-destruction, devaluation, and bankruptcy) but also for populations
rendered increasingly vulnerable to the violence of dowosizing, unemployment,
collapse of services, degradation in work conditioflS and living standards,
destruction of resource complexes, and loss of environmental qualities, It is
vital to go beyond the particularities and to emphasize the pattern and the
systemic qualities of the cLunage being wrought. "Only connect" is still one of
. the moS( empowering and insightful of all political slogans, The analysis has,
lUrthermore, to he extended outwards to embrace a wide array of diverse and
,Se,emin'gly disparate questions. Issues like AIDS, glohal warming, local
.,erlvi;ror,memtal degradation, the destfllctions of local cultural traditions, are
,In,heJ"ently dass issues and it needs to he shown how building a community in
anti-,:apitaJlist class struggle can better alleviate the conctiti.... n~ .... ?" ___ _

Possible Urban Worldr

432

Justice, Difference, and Politics

.
. action Tnis is not, I empnas,ze, a plea for
across a broad spectrum of sOClall
. ~ er the raw class content of a mae
eclecticism and pluralism, but a p ea to unCOV

array of anti-capiral~, concernfs~gl b _" . for me anti-capitalist struggle

. .ficance 0
0 ;llizatlon
Iy .' d
The primary SigN
.
Ie . that me relative pnvuege
in me advanced capitalist rountne5, for examp , isd
d relative to conditions
-L
L.
classes has been much re u c e , . Ii
h
di .
fl,'re in ad.vance_d capIta sm ave
Position 0 f Ule worKIng
f n orld. Con tlO[150 ['
- . " ---'.:
onaber in the rest 0 t e w . '
aci for creative destr)J.cOon IUa.rung
st
P
reit me full brunt of tne cap,tali ca
tyd
. al economic prospects (this
k
'Ii . I al regIOnal an nanon
\
de ressed region). Tne free mat et
for exneme yoI aU ty m DC ,
year's boom toWn becomes next. yeard h Pd f me market will work to the
>
C
thi . that the hId en an 0
justification ror
S IS

rrI
. rerencdand it shouIdbe added
benefit of all, provided there IS as h estate lfl)ter
ible The dtect is to make
.,
nopoly power as poss
.
_ though it usualIy lSI1 t - mo
.
f
geographical development
. \.
. d srruct10n 0 uneven
the violence a.tl!d creatIve e .
' .
of productIon, Ju..~t as
c
1 geographiCal reorgan,zatlon
th
.ds
(through, iOr examp e:
ds of
italism as elsewhere, in e Illi t
widelv felt in the tradltIonai heartlaffiall
cap d
spicuous consumption that
,
din
hn logy of uenC< an con
. .
of an extraor ary tec o.
d
ldwid as one potential set of asp,raUons.
is instantaneously communlca:e w~~.
eganizing in advanced capitalism
The political terrain fur antl-caplt 1st or
appears more fertile th~ ever.
reroo t itself in the organic conditions
This work of synrheslS has, however, to . th bsmctions that Marx. and
ea
al .
d
tail aban.d onmg
of dailv life. T hlS oes not en
d
---"dating and rev umg
>
b
hed
but 1t oes mean rcvau
the Marxists have equeat
us,..
ul tru~..les some of which may

_L
ugh immersIOn m pop ar s w '
.
those abstractions DiCO

th
ense traditionally given to
rf:
to be proletanan m
e
s
b
not appear on t h e su ace
.
L'
clerotic tendencies to com at
thi
d Maousm "as its own s
dr'
that term. In s regar, . at f nce ptS institutions~ practices, an po rtICS
its own embedded fixed caplt 0 co
,
II t resource and on the other
.
h n hand asanexce en
d h .
which can functIon on teo e ,
d
di
what is useful an w at lS

tlOn We nee to seem

..
as a dogmatic b amerto a c :
d r ' And it would be surprISmg
not in this fixed capital of ouf IDteUectb.an POgult:~nt over what 1:0 jettison and
'fm were not from time to time, uter at
I
1
ere'
d b
t take pace.
what to hold Nevertheless, the ,e at~ m~e traditional memod of Marxist
I here take up just one strategiC pomt. Ii.' al ortv But difficulties have
. h b
via an avant-g:ude po nc p~-r.
.
. guinterventlon as. een
th Sll rimposition of a smgle anu, a sIn :_'
.
because this has often led to e pe.
.". .apnall
'--"st movements.
atlsen
'ai'
al u n diverse antl.-,
- .,
"
ective
an
abstract
SOCl 1st go
po
.
dt'fferent
histo riCal-":'
lar ob)
)
b' .
appropnate to
-_r
holding to a multiplicity of a )ectlVes
.L ust of Marxism here
.
The_.
emanClpatory
wr
d u,aym')Ii'H:
.. :',j
geographicaI con di nons;
h difficulty
that so twub1e"
"

"""non ThlS was t e

IT

danger 0 f ,ts own n-o--

l'
f a language of auecliVe
'.'
h
fleeted on me tranS anon 0
h p,roletarial:, . ,}
Williams as ere.
_
b
olicical projecr _"t e
..
_ ('our people" - Into tnat or an a s.t~act
e don and. abstraction
-_'_'
It was in this translation rhat the polmcs 0 n g a : :;', '.'" '
to be found (see chapter 1).

433

Emancipation should mean opening up the production of difference, even

opening up a terrain for contestation Vo'ithin and betv.,reen differences, ratfier
than suppressing them. The production of real ramer than commodified
cultural divergence should be integral to socialist struggle. One of the strong
objections to capitalism is that it has produced a relati'fely homogeneous
capitalist person. This reductionism of all beings and all cultural differences
to a common commodified hase is the focus of strong anti-capitalistic sentiments. The socialist cause must encompass and seek emancipation from that
bland commodified homogeneity. This is not a plea for an unchecked relativism or unconstrained postmodern eclecticism, but for a serious discussion of
the relations between commonalityidiffi:rence, the particularity of tne one and
the universalism of the other. Socialism has to be understood as a political
project, as an alternative: vision of how society wiH work, how socio-e-cologicai
relations will unfold, how human potentialities can be realized albeit within a
geography of difference.
We badly need a socialist avant-garde movement to express that politic.;. But
it cannot be an old-style avant-garde patt'f mat imposes a singular goaL Nor
can it function armed only with Derrida's "ultimate post-structuralist f.mtasy"
of a "New International without status, without tide and without name ...
without party, without country, without national community" (c above,
p. 8). It will take much more than thought and discourse {however important
rhese may be) to shape socio-ecological and political-economic change in
emmdpatory ways. That version of avant-gardism, flaw so entrenched in the
academy, in which immersion in me flows of thought and ideality is somehow
imagined to be radical and revolutionary in itself has no material purchase.
Organizations, institutions, doctrines, programs, formalized structures and
the like simply have to be created. And these political activities must be firmly
grounded in and transformative of the concrete historical and geographical
conditions through which human action unfolds. Between the traditional
avant-gardism of communist parties (the specter of Lenin) and an idealized
avant-gardism (the specter ofDerrida) there lies a terrain of political organization and struggle that desperately cries out for cultivation.
Tbat genetal terrain is not empry of possibilities. Many substantive movements claim our attention, some at the margin and some deeply embedded
within the structures of advanced capitalism. The difficulty is, as alwa),s, to find
both a rhetoric and tangible means to link together divergent oppositional furces
January 30,
engaged in anti-capitalist struggle. But consider, for example,
1996 call of the Zapatista Army fur National Uberation for "A World Gathering
""oainst Neoliberalism and for Humanity." They point out how the power of
money everywhere "humiliates dignities, insults honesties and assassinates
'.hopes." Renamed as neoliberalism (fthe histork crime in the concentration of
privileges, wealth and impunities democrarizes misery and hopelessness." The
"globalization" signifies, they suggest, the "modern war" of capital "which

me

Possible Urban Worlds

434

Justice, Differtnce, and Politics

n Ins
d fhumanity, this neoliberalism "offers us stoCk
assassmate! an~ forgets.. e~: o~ d.i i it offers us globalization of m~sery~
market valLie Indexes, mst
.
gn ty d flife it offers us tbe internauonal
tea
instead of hope it offers us emp~nesals, flUs
~ conclude
must raise the
,.,
A.......:; .... .,t this llternatlon 0 terror)
ey
,
o f terror.
international of hope."
.
f thi . J a: if only all those touched by
d the
rallmport a
s lac
Now COnsl er
gene
k
1
f globalization. could come
. th
l'b raI free mar et po lUes o .
th
rhe violence at e neD 1 e .
uld
e! be nLlmbered. While e
...
"
th
n Its days we
sur
y
I
r
together po\ meany,
e
.
f J
dcapitalism the StfLlgg e Jor
. _. "
Ii:
the marginS 0 auvance
'
.
Zapattstauw comes om
fB-' .
(part ofa movernent spreading
"b

'h me town 0 ;utlIDOre
I,o~
a livea Ie wage ill m} ~.
.
d eJ'ects the appalling wrec",,
..
)
lik
wtse
recogn'zes
an
r
acroSS many US cttles
e
.
ch
fthe neoliberal right in alliance
.
h b the Utoptan S emes 0
.

now beIng wroug t y . "brakeless train wreaking havoc wherever It goes

'w d (1995' 293) concludes from
with corporate power. This
And the first step, as w o o '
.
has to be stopped .
th b
1 sson from our current econom.c
.
.
to
draw
eo
vtOLlS e
.
bl
her trenchant analyslS, lS
, 'al' truly democratiC and eqwta e
and Iitical condition: "rhat a humane, SOC1, . "
po
al . ally topian rhan socIalism.
capitalism is more unre tSUC f u .
to ether rhe multiplicity of antiThe work of synthesis. and 0 b tlngmg cL ~errain of uneven geographical
. al
....,.l
occurnng on a varIegate
.
li aI
caplt 1St strU5b"es
Th . h t avallt-<r.lnie sociahst po tIc
d a-pace
at IS w a
bee
development must proc
:
L
t ann itself with concepts and
.'
1:
n But It neem; rous
.
orgMlzatlO n must JOClli o.
dam al derstandings and "epistemologtes
d als d . <>inanes fun
ent un
ideas, I e an lrna,,"
,,'.
fo L ' al b liefs and persuasive arguments,
difference
wlth
unuatton
e
f
h
that can teII the .
'
. I And iris t1 obligation of rhose 0 us W 0
ifit is to go about ItS task e~ec:='ve Y.
d
esentation to c1arifv rhe lessons
.,. ealm ot discourse an repr
work priman y ill t
S
''''
I
on poetrie, drawn from distant
.
.
I
h teaches . wecannotre
y
th
rhat histortGU geograp y
.
h "","er and meaning of oS<
.
I n to appreaate t e r as we e a r .
f'
\nuical change. We need
Places and times even
. thi
that trajectory 0 SOCio-em-.,,poetries in fomenong s or .
d i a d we need to learn how to put
. fo
;Wll urnes an P ces an
.
a poetics limng r out o.
.'
to shape rhrough collective aWon
this poetics to work In tang1ble St~tlOOS~
ge~raphical rransformation to
rhe socio-ecological processes of. LStOtl . with" the production of space1
socialist ends. This means co:
;:'~nditions of uneven ge~phical
time, place, and envtronmen
ordinarily divetgent and wIdespread
development that spawn sue .;::'"'
d multiple possibilities for rran~
oppositional ..movements, to capl t:-e :nditions is the extraordinary sociaong
formative aetlon. And chief ':"'b
Mrv processes of urb;mization.
..
ecological reordering delineu y contempo.-;

"we

L '-5d.UL>

< .

,y

:r:

::m

IV. Probing the Frontiers of Possible Urban Worlds

'caI ographical materialism
hi
So whar son of stance would aston
-i\e
.
d r:,~;~~rrriS?::
exploring and probing the possibilities of new urban processes an

',>

435

If the famed Utopias ofspatial form, those magnificent shining cines on ahill,
are judged as not merdy wa.."lting but as dangerous, as recipes for authoritarian oppress.ions in the name of law, stahility and Drde;, then how can we even
dare to think of future possible utban worl.h?
But not to think of them is to evade one of the most important soc.ioecological dilemmas that human society now faces. We have already paid a price
fur such evasions. For urbanization bas happe~ed and nobody much has either
cared or noticed in relation to the orher issues of the day judged more
important. It would be an egregious error, even for capitalt.."t interests and most
certainly for any socialist project, to enter in upon the twenty-first centLlty
making the same mistake. It is, furthermore, vital to understand that what half
worked for the 1890s in Britain or even for the 1950s in the United States and
Europe, will not be adequate lOr the qualitatively different issues to be fOughr
over the nature of a rapidly urbanizing civilization in the twenty-first century.
Coming to terms with what nrban living might be about requites a proacti~
absorption ofnew ways of thinking into radical politics. The fundamental lesson
that a dialectically grounded approach to hisrorical-geographical materialism
teaches is that interventions that ktishize processes are empty and that interventions that fi:tishize things are oppressively full. A politics detived from a
dialectical understanding of "process-rhing" relations looks fundamentally
different from its alternatives. The language of historical-geographical materialism has much to teach concerning the transfonnative possibilities embedded in
processes of production of space, time, place, and nature. And rhat teaching carries over direcdy into approaches to urbanization. So I dose with what I consider
to be the ten key problems to be wo&d upon and a parallel set of myths to be
exploded as we consider rhe future of civilization in a rapidly urbanizing world.
The first myth is that cities are anci-ecological ("unnatural/' "artificial, or
in some way "outside of nature"). Opposing this is the view rhat high-density
. urbanized living and inspired forms of urban design are rhe only paths to a
more ecologically sensitive fonn of civilization in the twenty-first century. We
must recognize that the distinction between environment as commonly understood and rhe built, social. and political-ecor,omic environment is artificial and
that the urban and everything that goes into it is as much a part of the solution
as it is a contributing factor to ecological difficulties. The tangible recognition
that rhe mass of humanity will be located in living environments designated
as urban says that environmental politics must pay as much if not more
, attention to the qualities of those environments as it now typicaHy does to a
fictitiously separated and imagined "narural" environment (see chapters 6 and
1). By the same token, urban politics has fundamentally to be about modes
of transformation of nature related dialectically to modes of se!frealiution of
,"particular form of human nature.
-. The second myth is that often chaotic and frequently problematic fOrms of
,~?cio-ecological change can be corrected and controlied by finding the right

436

jmtiee, Difference, and Politic5

spatial form, Opposed to this is the understanding that all spatializations of

Utopias. from Thomas More through Le Corbusier to the Utopic degeneration manifest in Disneyland (with its carry over into much contemporary urban
design in the advanced capitalist countries). cannot erase history and process.
Emancipatory politics calls for a living Utopianism of process as opposed to
rhe dead Utopianism of spatialized urban form,
The third myth is that a Utopianism of pure process, untrammeled by the
materiality of things and permanences, of spatial forms and material
constructs, can liberate the human spirit into a dematerialized-world - a virtual
reality - where self-realization is understood abstractly and ideally as a purely
mental act, Opposed to this is an understanding that the dialectics of the
imaginary and the material~ of spacial forms and temporal processes,
constitute the fundamental and inescapable metabolic state of all human being,
Becoming without being is empty idealism while being without becoming is
death. The dvnamic of urbanization and the construct of the citY exist in a
fundamental :reative tension that provides the nexus to ex:plore diff~rent modes
of species being" The production of different spatio-temporal orderings and
srructures are active moments within the social process. "What Vle understand
by the dialectical relation between urbanization (the process) and the city (the
thing) consrirutes a critical point of socio-ecological transformation and
consequently, a fundamental point of anti-capitalisr and pro-socialist struggle.
The fourth myth is that coming up with the resoutces and the requisi[e
means to confront urban problems depends on the prior solution of technological, economic development, and population-growth problems, Opposed
to this is the idea that cities have always been fundamentally about innovation.
wealth creation, and wealth consumption and that getting things right in ciries
(construed as places) is the only real path towards technological and economic
improvement for the mass of the population. ~~"lodern rechnologies produced
by the military-industrial complex of capitalism have again and again opened
up new and broadly capitalist-oriented possibilities for urbanization. These
possibilities and their potential appropriation by progressive forces must be
distinguished from the predominant forces (such as capital accumulation or
populist appropriation) that realize their own agendas by means of those
technologies, Fundamental redefini[ions of wealrh, well-being, and values
(including those that affect population growth and environmental qualities)
must be sought in ways that are more conducive to the development of th~
human potentialities of all segments of the population, Creative forms of socio~
ecological change for the many must be explored as opposed to mere capital
accumulation for the select few.
The sixth myth is that social problems are curable only to the degree that
rhe decentralized forces of the market are given freer play to produce space,,;
place, and nature in an urbanizing world, Opposed to this is [he idea
wealth creation (and redefinition) depends on a mix of social collaborationandoo
5

maV

Possible Urban Worlds 437

~ooperatlOn (between all economic entiti;

.
.
os, ,neluding busmesses), on adaptatlons, and on the shaping f "
0 envIronments (the pr d
'
f
) rather than sold
nature,
0 UctlOn 0 space, place and
,
y on some mdiVldualjz d D
"
'
eJastence (see chapter 8), Th
'f"
~
arwmlan struggle for
12 d 1 '
e pursUit 0 SOCIal Justice,
I d' h
an 3, IS therefore vital to achi ' b h'
' as e"p ore I" c apters
'
I
evlng
ot
Improved
e
' perrormance
E
d
an SOCIo-eeo ogical conditi
d .
conoill.lC
th ak d '
ons more con uave to feedi th h
I
e n 'e ) mlOistering to the sick
d e1 .
ng e ungry, c othing
The seventh myth is that Ear
' [ani bral~tlng openly with "others,"
,
H ceso ~o
lZauon(
'ali ' )
as to prcdude any relative autonom ~for local
spa.IT za~o.~ a:e so strong
or particular lIl1t1atlves to shili
the process of urbanization onto
th
a luerent tl'aJect
Onl g! b
so e myth has it, can chan e an hi
0
ory:
ya 0 al revolution,
space-place dialectic is ever; co:;'li ng, d ~~sed to this is the idea that the
process of uneven geographical d h~ate , al arr, that globalization is really a
h
an IStonc (spatio t
ral) d
'
t at creates- a variegated terrain of
.
'.
- empo . evdopment
synthesized in such a Wav as t
antl-capltallst struggles that need to be
'cul
~
0 respect the qual',
f .1""
pam arisms" (such as those to bEd'
bIles 0 UUIerent "militant
e
mun
In ur an soc"al
out the world) while ev I '
,
I movements through_
'
0 vrng strong spatial bonds
d I bal
of mtemationalism,
an ago
socialist politics
0

"

d'!

'

The eighth myth is that community solid '

"
the stability and power ne d d
lanty (oli:en local") can provide
e e to Contro man
d all '
pro &1ems and that "communinr"
b . '
age, an
eVlate urban
t th' , th
" can su SUtute for pubJ'
1"
0
o IS IS e recognition that"
. ".
Ie po ItICS. pposed
.
commumty;
Insofar
.
.
.
conIiguratlOn relative to the
fl' ual
as It eXIstS> IS an unstable
proce
h
con let
eventuaHy undermine it and h " c
. sses t at generate, sustain, and
'
t at lllso..ar as It does
.
Erequently an ex:clusion::lrv
and
.
.
acqUJre permanence it is
-,
oppressive
SOCIal
furm
tha
b
th e roOt 0 f urban conflict and b d
.
t can e as much at
'
'cal
ur
an
egeneratlon
as
't
b
po IItl -economic difficult"
1 can e a panacea for
Th '
les,
,
e nlllth myth is that strong order, authori'
d
'
state apparatus} - be it moral
Ii' al
ty, an centralIZed control (a
'I" ."
,po tIC comm urutaf1an, r'
h
ml ICaflStIC - mUSt be reasserted
di .
.
re 19lOUS, p ysjcal, or
'th
h
over OUI smtegrattng d 'C
WI OUt> O\YeVer interfering' th fi d
an strIre-prone cities
Opposed to this i; the understa '~ e, In amental liberty of the market,
g
stalinism" (and I think it vital n n that the contemporary furm of "market
learn to call " b '
'
we
COntrad lctorv and the recog , ,
h
rb
Y Its n'ght name) is sdf.
~
muon t at u anization h al
b
d
'.
as ways een abOut
creatIve forms of opposition te'
,
nSlOn,
an
conflict
(I
I
di
h
t h rough market exchange)" Th
'b
nc u ng t ose registered
'
e tenSions om of h
'
h uld
S 0
not be repressed. Thev mu t b~ l'b
d'
eterogenelty cannot and
'fth'
,
S
,leratemsoclall
"
! IS means more rather than 1
nfli'
.
y excItlng ways - even
ess co
ct, Including c
'
'
necessary socialization of ill ke
ontestatIon over socially
difti
h a r t processes for collecti
d D'
,
erence, eterogeneity of valu lif I
',
ve en s, Iversltv and
.
es, lesty e OppOSltlons d h .
. '.
are not to be feared as sour
fd'" d'
."
an c aouc mIgratIons
.
ces 0 bor er. CIties that Cannot
'
to rrugratory movements, to n liE 1
d
accommodare to
'digic)us,
d al
" e w resty es an to eam
'
r 'cal
an v ue hererogene;", wl'll die eit
' h er t h rono-h .....OlllC,
po 1t! ,
"
,<',h_~+: __ _
L!)

438

Justice, Diffirence, and Politics

sragnation or because they will

fall apart in violent conflict. Defining a politics

thar can bridge the multiple heterogeneities, including most emplutically tbose
of geography, witbout repressing difference is one of tbe biggest challenges of
twenty-first century urbanization.

The tenth myth is that any radical transformation in social relations in

urbanizing areas must await some sort of political revolution {communitarian,
religious. socialist, communist, authoritarian, fascist} that will then put our

Thoughts for an Epilogue

cities in sufficiently good order to allow new and preferred social relatiom to
flourish. Opposed to tbis is tbe idea tbat tbe transformation of socio-ecological
relations in urban settings has to be a continuous process of socio-environmental change. From a socialist perspective this means a long urban-based
revolution tbat should have the explorntion and construction of alternative
social processes and spatial forms as its long-term goal albeit through shortterm and often place-based movements and actions.
It will take imagination and political guts, a surge of revolutionary fervor

and revolutionary change (in thinking as well as in politia;) to construct a

requisite poetics of understanding for our urbanizing world. a charter for
civilization, a trajectory for our species being, out of tbe raw materials of this
present. We have mucb to learn from our predecessors, particularly tbose who
worked in the latter part of tbe last century, for tbeir political and intellectual
courage cannot be doubted. They mobilized tbeir imaginations and created
their own poetries to confront a

... it takes a Jot of things

t(}

change the world:

Anger ~d :~city. Science and indignation,

The qwck UUtlative, the long reflection

e cold patience and the infinite per':"'erance

ii:

e understanding of tbe particular case d

ensemble:
an
Only tbe lessons of realiry can teacb

rhe understanding
._
of the
r

us to ttansrorm reality

task in a certain way that h;;td material

consequences - both good and bad - under conditions tbat are now either
superceded or tbreatened witb dissolution. If tbe current rhetoric about
handing on a decent living environment to future generations is to have even
one iota of meaning, we owe it to subsequent generacion.s to invest now in a

collective and very public search for some way to understand tbe possibilities
of achieving a just and ecologically sensitive urbanization process under
contemporary conditions. That discussion cannot trust in dead dreams
resurrected from the past. It has to construct its own language - its own poetry
- witb whicb to discuss possible futures in a rapidly urbanizing world of uneven
geographical development. Only in tbat way can the possibilities for a civilizing
mode of urbanization be thought and imagined. How to translare from this
purely discursive moment in the social ptocess to the realms of power, material
practices. institutions, beliefs and social relations~ is, however, where practical
politia; begins and discursive reflection ends.

Bertol, Brecht Eil1verstandnis

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lruL"X 457

Index

I have always indexed my own books. but in this instance indexing proved peculiarly
difficult fo; reasons that me text itself sheds light on. Indexing entails representing a
relational flow of argument by reference to fixed meanings and terms. It is therefo~e
a very undialectical device that is somewhat destructive to ilie ~ntent of w~at. It
indexes. This does not mean, I hope, that the inde.'{ is useless. But it does restnct Its
appropriateness in ways that perceptive readers sh~uld surely appreci~e.
(Note: Only the names of individuals ",,-hose ideas are substannvely quoted or
considered in the text have been indexed.)

abstraction, 14,23-6,33-4,36-8,
42-4,49,53,55,57-62,65,110,
183,216-17,223,270,273,
276-7,288,389,399,429,
432-3
adaptation, 178, 185, 190--3, 332, 435
Adorno, Theodor, 59, 134-6, 138
agency, 48, 53, 55, 75, 92, 96-113,
138,170, 186, 192, 278, 288-90,
327, 363,430-5
Alberti, 227-8
alienation, 21, 25, 60--2, 103, 126-7,
130, 135, 167, 181, 197-201,
270-2,278,302-4,311,313,
348,395,403-4,419

Althusser Louis, 46-7

Anderson, Benedikt, 100,286,310,
312,321
animal rights, 341, 397
j

anti-capitalism~ 5. 23, 108. 178,324,

332-3,420,42},431-8
Aurelius, Marcus, 10
authenticity, 301-2, 309, 311,315,
317,319,322,355

authoritarianism, 177, 180,202,330,

432,435-6
avant'gardism, 433-7
Bachelard, Gasmn, 304
Bacon, Francis, 121, 137, 159
Balthtin, Mikhail 167, 269-71, 275,
284,294,305
Basso, Keith, 265, 305
Baumgarten, Alexander, 128-9
beliefS, 2-3, 29, 79-83, 89, 95,
98-100,121,133, 138,211,221,
306,316,321,323,330,372-3,
376,399,401
Bell Hooks, 102-4, 282-3
Bemon, Ted, 139, 140, 146-7, 179,
183,189,193,389,398
Bhaskar, Roy, 47, 57,69,75-6
biocentrism, 118, 120, 136-7, 140,
386,392
biology, 132, 141-6, 190--3,211,
274--8,280--1
bioregionalism, 170--2, 184,201-4,
303,411-12,427

biotic community, 168, 170-2, 353

Birringer, Johannes, 243, 301
bod~ 51,55, 72-3, 79,B6-~ 97, 102,
105,211,213,217,224, 227,
239,24&-50,256-7,261,269,
274--81,283,288,303-4
Bohm, David, 47-8, 50, 52, 5&-9,
73--4, 164
Bookchin, Murray, 56, 180, 188,313
bounding, 53, 223,264,278,292-4,
305,309-12,353--4,425-6
Bourdieu, Pierre, 210, 212, 217, 275
Bramwell, Anna, 171-2
Brecht, BertoIt, 28, 38, 43, 438
Brundtland, Gro, 148, 151, 182, 379
Bueil, Lawrence, 301, 303
built environment, Il9, 152,200,278,
418, 436
Bullard, Robert, 367, 387, 391, 395

calendar, 207, 212, 215, 240

Callicott, J. Baird, 123, 165-6
CalIon, Michel, 192
Cameron, D, 85-7
capital, 49-50, 59, 62-8, 73, 92, 106,
113,200, 262,271,290,291,
314
capital accumulation, 92, 110, 131,
142-3,145,154,174,179, 184,
187,195-7,203,228,238,
241-2,286-90,295-9,302,
305-6,313, 323, 325, 359-60,
363,373-83,378,401,414-16,
429
capital circuiation~ 63, 131, 196, 371
capitalism, 13,23,41-2,57,62-8,
93-4, 105, 11 0, 120, 126,
131-3,145,149, 150--7, 173,
190-7,201-4,224-6,232--47,
272-4,286-90,295-9,304,
312,316,318,332-41,348,
357,369,373-6,394,406-13,
430--8
Capra, Fritjof, 47, 61, 164
Cartesianism, 4, 47-8, 60-2, 64-6,
79,123, 135, 153, 166,224,
238,240,265,267,273-4

cartogtaphy, 4-5, 239--40, 282-8, 290,

293
Cassirer, Ernst, 121, 123. 127, 129,

260
causality, 7, 49, 54, 60-2, 81-2, 85,

92-5,97-8, 105, 190, 249,320,

426
chicken broiler indusrrv, 334-41
chronotope, 294, 305 .
cities, 49, 51-2, 55, 79, 87,111,117,
119, 155,200,208, 243,268,
275,277-9,291, 295-9, 317,
326,391-7,403-37
Clarke~l.eibniz correspondence,
249-52
class, 19,29,34-9,40-3,75,79-81,
85,98,100,103, 117, 122, 159,
171,180,225-6,236,255,275,
282,290,292-3,310,312,320,
371,381,393,401,431-3
class relations, 21-3, 43,127,143-9,
185,197-8,296,317,331-2,
339,343-4,358-9,404-6,410,
415,420,431-3
class struggle, 19-23, 30-2, 40--4, 57,
65, 106--9, 133, 138, 174--5,239,
288-90,336-41,343,399,364,
424,433-8
cogredience (compossibiliry), 254,
259-63,285,289-90
collective memory, 309, 318, 322
collectivity, 107, 122, 162, 192, 194,
310--]3,320,330,389,417
colonialism, 71, 89, 103, 124, 137,
223-4,240,255,256,266,
282-6,289,321,417
commodification, 138, 174, 179,
198-9,300,302,318,348,390,
433
commodities, 50, 62-8, 94, 100, 103,
120, 150, 187, 196,200,203,
219,223,233-4,266,273,303,
306,314,360,363
commonality (see also universality),
201,433
Commoner, Barry, 179, 195,200,
368,396

458

Index 459

Index

corrunun1rrn, 35,39, 125-6

communitarianism, 125--6~ 167,

169-72, 179, 184,202-3,222,

231,303,305,311-13,318-20,
349,353-4,397,400,424-6,
429,436-7
community, 21-2, 24-5, 29-32, 40-3,
101-4, HI, 125, 156-7, 161,
164,172,179,202-3,208,217,
234-7,243,247,262,279,282,
285-7,292,296-9,310-13,341,
344,348,354,370,390-1,399,
404,424-6,436-7
competition, 160-1, 190-3,296-9,
332,423,436
consciousness, 19. 30, 49, 74, 85, 88,
93,97, lIS, 125-31, ISS, 198,
200-2,260,281,285
conservation, 176, 178, 181, 390
conswnption, 62~, 73, 94, 120, 139,
143,183,215,219,242,245-6,
288,298,325,400-1,412,422
contradiction, 34, 52-3, 58, 65-6, 92,
94,105-7,122-3,130,134,174,
180, 185, 187,241,245,268,
273,316,368,394,400,411-12,
415, 419-20, 431

Darwin, Charles, 133, 160-1, 165-6,

190
Dauncey, Guy, 237-8
Davis, Mike, 286, 325
de Certeau, 261-2, 268
deconstruction, 1-3, 52, 56, 80, 87,
92,94,99,326,330,342-5,348,
406
deep ecology (see also Naess), 71, 89,
125,128,153-4,167-9,307,391

defensible space~ see Newmafi. Oscar

deindustrialization, 20-2, 241, 29~,
337,404-7
Deleuze, Gilles, 75, 104
democracy, 171, 177-8, 180, 199,
202,214,222,240,426
Derrida,]aques, 7, 8, 12-13,47,
71-2,80,92,103,222,267,289,
346-8,356,433-4
Descartes, Rene, 61, 70, 121, 123--4,
134,136,166,220,228,248,
251,266
desire, 2, 79~3, 86, 89, 95, 98-100,
102-3,112, 118, 132, 136, 147,
150-1, 155-6, 163,204,274,
288,306,316, 319, 321, 322,
329

cooperation, 160~1. 190-3. 332,

determination, 92-5,102-6,109-11,

435-6
corporations, 19-23, 30, 67, 177~,
193,195,244,375,382-5,388,
407,414,422,434
correspondence principle, 105-7,279
creative destruction, 241, 245, 432
critical theory, 2-3, 133--9, 174-5
Cronon, 26-7, 184-5, 187,203,
222-3,232-3,243-4,264,285
cultural politics, 318-20, 325-6

200, 268, 276

devaluation, 63,152,217-18,222,
296-9,431
dialectics, 6-10,12,24-6,29-31,44,
46-68,69-76,78-84,92-5,105,
107,110-13,119,131-2,134,
136,139,145, 147, 149, 162,
164,167,189-93,201-3,214,
217-22,250,262,269,271-2 ,

cultural studies, 24, 28

culture, 24, 29,34,42,44,67,79,

84-5, 108, 118, 122, 127-8, 147,
166,173,182,187-9,215-17,
219,225,236,244,246,298-9,
305,318,322,345,349,351-2,
375,419
cyberspace, 12-14,75,208-9,245-6,
279-80,410

277,290,294,305,307~,315,

327,333,355,377,407,415,
426-7,433-8
diJlerence, 5, 9, 44, 67, 76, 91, 103,
109,117,172-5,183-9,201-2,
209,264-74,279,284,287,
290,295,311-13,317-20 ,325,
334,348-53,358,360,363--4,
390,400-1,406,430,433,
436-7

disciplinary appararus, 224, 276, 284,

312
disco~,8,44,56, 77-95,100-3,
112-13, 118, 130, 137-8, 147,
150,158,166,167,169,172-5,
IB3, 216-17, 221, 228, 231, 235,
245,293,306,311-12,321-2,
330-3, 342, 345, 359, 361,367,
372-3,37~3,399,408,420,

436-8
distribution, 61~, 73--5, 400-1, 412
diversification, 161, 181, 190-3,
201-3,268,290
division ofiaoor, 88, 99, 105, 160-1,
211-12,285,195-6,314,422
Dobson, Andrew, 119, 177, 180,202
domination of nature, 121-39, 146,
149,189,193,226,320-1,375,
201
Douglas, Mary, 229, 387
dwelling, 214, 299-302, 307,314
Eagleton, Terry, 8, 24,128,249,276,
329
&ketsley, Robin, 52, 133, 136, 204
ecofeminism, 133, 137, 180-1,373
ecological conditions, 137, 195-9,
207,231,333,383,388,403
ecological modernization, 151, 174,
178,372,377-86,390,401,429
ecological movement, 117-19, 121,
135~, 157, 163, 174-83, 188-9,
195,289,302-4,353,420
ecoJogical transformations, 185-9,

197-204
ecology, 13, 22, 32, 40, 52-'-3, 59, 79,
118, 153, 180, 183--9,200-4,
223,265,303,308,316,341,
414,426-9,435-7
economic growth, 376, 378-83, 436
economics, 147, 151-7,229-30,
367~, 371-6, 393
econorny,52-3,62~, 166, 172
ecosocialism (see also environmental
justice), 193--204
Elias, Nocbet4 275-6
Eliot, George, 242

emancipation, 92,109,121-31,
138-9, 197-9,269, 276, 325,
327,329-33,363,390,400-1,
420,43H
embeddedness, 25, 29, 34, 44-5,
54-7, 118,211,359
Engels, 26, 57, 93. 160, 184, 193,
195, 197,289,331-2,360-1,
343,345,408-9,420-1
Enlightenment, 121-31, 150,239,
311,329,342,348,357
environment, 2, 5,7, 11, 25-7, 43, 45,
46-7, 51, 53,76,78,84,89, 91,
110,113, 117-204,213,261-4,
301, 313, 323, 326, 372, 420,
429-30
environmental ethics, 165-73, 179,
380,397
environmental history, 25-7, 34, 392
environmental issues, 44, 119, 155-7,
178-82,233,263,316,367,
377,381-3,394-5,426-9,
435-7
environmental justice. 11, 137. 155.
366-402,427
environmental management~ 181.230,
373-6,382,427-9
environmemal politics, 117-19, 120,
180-3,339,427-9,435-7
environmental transformations~ 47, 59,
131,137,194-5,229-30,314,
332,376,400,436-8
environmentalism, 180-3, 229-30,
353,369-70
epistemology, 47, 57-62, 69, 79, 193,
290,358, 361,434
qualiry, 5-6, 13, 199,217,240
essentialism, 193,355-6
esthetic, 118, 128-31, 135-6, 157,
178-9,189,198, 212, 227~,
244,247,249,276,298,301,
315,380, 395, 406, 427
ethics, 165, 172, 214, 338, 347-8,
353,370,372
edinicity, 108, 203, 246, 320, 345,
357,404
evolution, 190, 275

460

Index

exchange, 50, 62-S, 73-5, 198,

234-8,270,298,314-15,325,
412
exclusionary behavior, 162,209,246,
291-3,297,315,319,323-4,
362,405,426-30
experience, 79, 92-4, 98-9, 103, 105,
126, 128, 164, 199,232,248-9,
266,269,273,282,285,300-4,
309,313-14
expert discourses, 88, 375,386-7
exploitation, 37,335-41,349,431
fascism, 35, 134-5, 149, 171-2, 199,
202,315,397,430
feminism, 7, 24, 32, 40~ 85-6: 89> 97,
133, 137, 159, 187, 193,282-3,
289,290,348,358-62,364
Fernandez-Kelly, Patricia, 293
ferishism,7, 33,90,94,100, 197,209,
220-2,232-3,287,304,314,435
Feuerbach, Ludwig, 109, 252
finance, 66, 148,201,241-5,286,296,
323,407,412,415-16,420-4
Fitzgerald, Frances, 318-20
Fitzgerald, Janet, 256-7
flows (theory oJ) 7, 9, 26, 48-53, 73,
78,166-9,227,256-50,279,
286-90,293,303,306,310,
347-8,352,433,435-8
Forman, Frieda, 226--7
Foster, John Bellamy, 180, 194--6
Foucault, Michd, 46-7, BO, 83, 90,
95,96, 102, 108-9, 123, 130,
225, 230, 263, 267, 276, 284,
312, 347-S, 406
Frankfurt SchooL 133-9, 149
Fraser, Nancy, 97, 348, 360
Freud, Sigmund, 136, 155, 312
gender, 2, 11, 24, 35, 40, 43, 79-81,
85-7,97,99,102-4,108,124,
159--60,171, 180,203,209,212,
215-18,220,225-9,233,255--6,
255,266,275,282,290,320-1,
337-8,341,344,355,357,371,
387

Index 461
genius loci, 306-10
geography, 59, 87, lOS, 125) 127-8,

169,214,231-3,239,261,263,
266,270,283,335-41,390,
400-1,405,421-4
geopolitics, 110, 161,247,262,310
Gibbs, Lois, 369, 371, 378, 389
Glacken, Clarence, 127, 139
globalization, 1-2,4, 12,44,52,138,
186-90,204,237-8,239,246-7,
314,320,325,353,414,420-4,
426,428-9,432,436
Goldberg, David, 279, 321
Goldsmith, Edward, 180, 188, 202
Goodin, Robert, 154, 157, 170
Gottlieb, Robert, 186, 392, 395
governance, 127, 184, 186, 296-9, 404
Greider, William, 371
Grosz, Liz, 277-8
Grundmann, Reiner, 126, 143--6, 176,

183, 189, 194, 196-7, 200

Guha, Ramachandra, 187-9
Gurevich, Aron,210, 212-15, 218,
220,222,227,234,239,249,
254,275,277,388
Habermas, Jargen, 138,234,254,302,
353-4
Haila, Yrjo, 179-80, 187,203
Hajer, Maarten, 178, 377
Hamlet, North Carolina, 334-41,
344-5,349-50,358,361,364
Haraway, Donna, 65,136,159,193,
267,272,276-7,281,284-5,
289,290,355,358
Hardin, Garrett, 177~ 254
Hartsock, Nancy, 272, 355-6, 360
Haussmann, Baron George, 230-1
Hayden, Dolores, 229, 321
Hayter, Teresa~ 19-23.38,41-2

hazardous wastes, 199,201,366-9,

400-1
health, 118,316-18,376,380,390-6,
400,427
Hegel, G. W. F., 7, 47-9, 54, 56-7,
72,109,136,149,256,269,273,
355

hegemony, 80, 102-3

Heidegger, Marrin, 7, 47, 85, 98, 134,
168-9, 199,202,214,234,
268-9,299-302,306-7,311_16,
326
Heim, Michael, 75, 279
Heine, Heinrich, 242, 244
Heraclitus, 48, 61, 76
heterogeneity, 52, 58, 66, 77, 81,
88-91, 106, 172, 174, 191,
201-2,218,233-4, 246, 286,
294, 34~ 426,436-7
heterotopia, 45--6, 230, 263
Hillennan, Tony, 329-30
historical geography, 8, 98, 105, 119,
183-9, 192-3, 196, 207-9,
238-42, 294-9, 313, 321, 325,
329-30,332-3,351-2,354,364,
403-16,42),432
historical materialism, 26, 46, 64---8,
75, 86, 92, 105-13, 136, 139,
189, 193-204,231-4
historical-geographical ma[erialism~
5-6,8-9,14,27-8,46,69,88,
105-13,146, 183-9,201-4,209,
231-4,280,290,361,418,
429-30,432-8
homogeneiry, 273, 280, 284, 298, 433,
436
Horkheimer, Max, 134-5
Hugh-Jones, Christine, 210, 212, 217

human nature, 123, 129-30, 135-7,

138, 165-9,436-7
humanization of nature, 121,125, 146
Hwne, David, 51, 12}, 124, 165, 166
idealism, 8, 45, 69, 75--6, 80, 250-3,
256-9,312,323,433
identity, 7, 1:, 13,31,33,40-1,56,
91,102-3,108, 170-2, 189,209,
213,219,227-9,244,246-8,
264-75,281,284,287-8,300,
304,306-10,313,315,317,320,
322, 326, 330, 334, 356--7,
363-4,417
imaginary, 12, 26, 46, 79, 94, 100,
103, 105, 122, 130-1, 156,

163-4,174,200,213,284-5,
288,290,294,304-5,306,309,
322-4,326,327,354,359,372,
408,420,435-8
imaglned communities, 17L 310, 321,

324,352
imperialism, 178,223-4,284-5,381,
417
individual, 51, 60-2, 70-2, 75, 79,
112,167-8,219-20,223-4,239,
286, 315,322, 372
individualism, 9, 122, 156, 160, 170,
177,219,239,287,320
individuation, 72-3, 238-9, 257--60,
264-74
bgold, Tim, 37, 158, 161-2, 183, 198
institutions, 25, 79-80, 82, 85, 100,
105, 112, 130-1, 138, 147, 155,
J66-7, 174, 178, 184, 186, 196,
204,212,221,224,231,235,
262,276,284-5,293-4,306,
310,314,317,321,330,348,
359,372-3,376,380,399,400,
408, 418, 433

II

II
i

instrumental rationality, 118, 121,

124,135, 138, 155, 167, 199

internal relations, 52-3,74--5, 80-3,
92-5,96,122,134, '36, 138-9,
167,219-22,250-3,257,269,
271-2
internalization, 38, 52--68, 73-5,
88-91,92,105,164,190,208,
212-13,221-2,227,234,236,
254, 27'Hi, 278, 286, 294, 308,
355
intrinsic values, see values in nature
Jacks, Gordon, 181-2
Jay, Martin, 133-4
justice (see also environmemal justice.
social justice), 11,78,84, 108,
202,329-33,341-65
justice of the market, 342-5
Kanr, Immanuel, 249,267,270,272
Kern, Stephen, 244, 246, 317
Knorr-Cerina, Karin, 109

"

I
'

"

,
"

462

Intkx

knowledge system, 7-8, 23, 27-8. 34,

37,43,55-62,81,84-5,97,125,
163-4,181-2,195-6,198-9,
206,211,228,231,239,281-2,
284-5.303,354-8,385
Krauss, Cdene, 387
Kristeva, Julia, 86,97,226-7,312
labor, 23, 65, 105-6, 120, 131, 142,
220.225-6,231,238,241,271,
287-9,295-6,299,312,334-41,
423.432
Landes, David, 239-40
landscape, 79,87.118,128-30,178,
186.189,241,245,264-5,305,
417
language. 14,33,51-2.69,78,82,
83-8,94,97-8,102,113,118,
140, 146, 151, 156, 164, 166,
172-5, 189, 190,208,211,216,
221,274,275,285,315,320,
330-1,418,436-8
Le Goff, Jacques, 210, 239-40
lead paJnt poisoning, 370, 386, 392-4
Leeds, Tony, 62
Lefebvre, Henri, 53, 87, 234, 241,
266,268,272-4,276,284,299,
323
Leibniz, G. W., 4, 47, 69-76, 123,
128,249-56,259-61,270-4,
279,281,284,332
Leibnizian conceit, 69-76, 80, 103-4,
122,129,136. 167-9,213,
279-80,308,356
Leiss, William, 121, 132-4, 189
Leopold, Aldo, 120, 125, 157, 165-6,
171.372
LETSystem, 237-8,
Levins, Richard, 51-2, 54-5, 58,
60-1,179-80,187,203,362
Lewontin, Richard, 51-2, 54-5, 58.
60-1,66,185,192,362

Iibenarianism. 383-5, 397-8, 435

Lilburne, Gecrge, 303, 325
literary theory, 6, 46-7, 57-8, 76, 78.
82,96, 112-13,210,245,
267-74,285,289

Index 463
locality, 23, 32-4, 37, 202-4, 208,
216.237-8,246,285,320-1,
326.345,350-4
location, 72-3, 101, 103-4, 208, 257.
268,281,282-3,294
Locke, John, 51, 123-4, 131, 153,
220,383
Losch, August, 56. 58
Lo~.AI~,309

Lovejoy, Arthur, 117, 158, 174

Lovdock, James. 89, 148
Luther Standing Bear, 188-9
Malthus. Thomas, 127, 139-49, 160,
177, 193
managerialism (set' also environmental
management), 120, 176, 178, 195
maps, 4-5, 46, 78, 111-12,239-40,
264,282-6, 289, 321
marginaliry, 92, 100-4, 208, 230,
282-3,348-9,386-9,407,424.

426,433-6
market fuilure, 15k 229-31, 374-5
market system, 1'3, 79, 89, 124, 126,
128, 150-7, 160, 168, 195. 229,
234,235-7,300,302,314-15,
325,332,339,343-6,349.360,
368,388,400-1,436
Marsh. Gecrge Perkins, 119, 183-4
Manin,Einily, 159-60, 163,281
Mrux, 7. 9,13-14,26,47-9,56-8,
61, 62-8, 72-6, 90, 92-5, 96, 98,
105-9, 113, 120-1, 125-7, 130,
136,139-40, 143-7, 151, 155-7,
160, 168, 184, 189-204, 220-1,
225-6,232-6,249-50,266,
269-71,276-7,283,289,300,
313-16,326,331-3,336-7,339,
345,355,381,399,407,418,
420-1,431-2
Marxism, 3, 6, 9,11, 13-14,21,42,
47-9,69,73-5,133-9,146,157,
183, 193-204, 266, 290, 346,
432-8
masculinity, 136-7
material practices, 79,83-5,91-4,
103, 105, 112, 138, 147, 164,

183,204,221-2,231,233,238,
276.284,294,306,313,330,
354,359,372-3
materialism, 26, 45, 56-7, 61-8,207,
211, 218, 252, 260
materiality, 26, 48, SO-I, 130,207,
224,252-3,322-7,375
Mauss, Mued, 220-2
memory, 216, 221, 231, 234, 249,
304-9,314,318,322-3,417
Merchant, Caroline, 121, 159
me~bolism,51-3, 145-6,410-1,427
metaphors, 5, 9, 45-6, 89, 102-3,
109,132,159-64,207-9,274-5,
279,281,289,325,327.373,
418
metaphysics, 2-3. 5, 14, 69-70, 75,
89,158,208,224,250,254,260,
267,279
Meyer, Rudolph, 70-1
rrll~n~,262,415-16

militant particularism, 32-45, 101,

109, 172, 209, 285, 304, 306,
312, 324, 351, 354, 370-1,
390-1,399,420,430
Mitchell, Tim. 224
mode of production, 147,408,410,
414
modernism~ 224~ 233, 243~ 253, 259,
279,315,342,418-9
modernity, 178,301-2,305,381-2,
407,427
Mohanty, Chandra, 282, 285
moment. 55-8, 63-8, 73-5, 78-83,
139,164,174,294-5,372,438
rnonad,69-70, 73, 75,80,167,228,
251-5,274,279,283,356
money, 11,31,49-50,62-8,94,120,
130-1, 150-7, 163, 168, 187,
196,198,220-2,232-42,260,
262,271,286-90,298,303,306,
313,317,319,360,362,378,
388,392,422-3
monumentality, 112, 226, 302,
309-10,325
motal communiry, 169-72, 305
moraliry, 13.39,81,93, 101, 108,

151,156,158,165,173,179.
305,311-15, 322, 338, 371,
387-91,400
mulriculturalism, 334, 341
multinationals, 297, 323, 370, 414-15
Munn, Nancy, 21 0, 212, 215-22,
232-3,238,249,277,286
Naess, AIne, 47, 52,71, 153-4,
167-9,220,277
narnin~216,221,264

nation, 11,38,98-100, lll, 157, 161.

170-2,179,208-9,246,282,
286,295,315,325-6,372,433
natur.lilaw, 142, 145-7, 149, 159-63,
166, 176, 182, 190-2
naturailirrlllS, 139-49, 146-7,381
nature, 2. 7, 9, 12, 14, 39, 46-7,
54-5,71,76,78, 84, 89, 91,
ll7-204, 213, 271, 275, 298,
301.303,329-33,372.377,386,
389,390,427-8,434-7
needs, lIB, 122, 124, 130, 136, 143,
145,298,319,370,391
Newman, Oscar, 292-3, 408 '
Newton, Isaac, 4, 49, 70, 123, 135,
153-4,220,238,249,252,
256-7,260
Norberg Schuh, Chrisrian, 306-9, 313
novds (fiction), 24-45, 46, 87, 207,
251,253,255,302, 325

object of enqniry, 425-6

objectificarion, 231, 266, 281
objecrivity, 211-12, 277, 284-5
occupational safety and health, 179,
338,}40, 374
Oilman, Bmell, 48, 50, 52. 54, 58,
62,69,72-3,75,174.271-2
ontology, 47-8, 57-9, 60-2, 69. 79,
99,108.155,157,193,250,271,
272
organicism, 25, 47, 63
organism, philosophy of, 25, 47, 63,
123,167,256-60
otherness, 71, 100-4, 109, 135, 167,
172, 182,202-3,209,213,216.

464

Index 465

Index

otherness kmtJ'nucd), 233, 261, 264,

269-71, 277, 2~5, 3ll-12, 315,

320,322-4,324,326,334,345,

347,354-5,360,362-3,399,
436
oyeraccumulation, 106, 241-2, 295-9
overpopulation, 141-9
Palmer, Bryan, 85-7

particularity, ,}, 170,201-2,272,281,

287,324,333,350-2,362,
431-8
parts and wholes, 52-4, 60-2, I53
passions, 2, 131-3, 155-6
pe=mt, 124, ,28, 186-8, 235, 389,

415
Perelman, Nlichael, 140, 146
pennanences.8, 10, 50, 55, 74, 78,

81-2,99, 105, 108,260--2,

278,294,296,305-6,310,312,
322,330,347,352-3,359,
418-19
place, 2, 5, 11, 12, 14,25-7,29-34,

43,45,46-7,76,78,84,91,
102-4, 110, 112-13, 161,
169-70, 179,202, 20B-9, 227,
230,234-5,243,246-7,257,
261-5,270,284-5,291-327,
329-33,350--2,361,363,371,
390--1,399,412,415,420,426,
429-30,436-8
planet")' health, 195,204

posltionaliry, 2, 70, 77, :00--4, 105,

111.113,118.173,177.208,
214.250-1,254-5,270,272,
274.281-5,288,331,354-9,
361. 363, 387. 428
positivism, 3, 6, 9,47,49,65,135

posMbility, 12-15,23,25,28-9,44,
46,56-7,67,103-5,110-13,
130,145,192.201, 251-5, 290,
309,410,414-17,420.429-7,
433-7
possible worlds. 251-5, 259--60, 290,
332
poscmodernism, 1-2, 9, 14, 104, 182,
225,245,253,285, 28'J. 298,
315,326,341-6,348-9,354,
357,361-2,418-19,427,433
poststructuralism 1, 8-9, J-j, 317-8.
361-2.433
Powell, John Wesley, 184-5
power, 11,56-7,77,78,80,82-3,95.

97, 103, 112-13, 126, 130-1,

151,;64,168,221-2,228,
235-6,239,265-6,285,293-4,
306,376
power relations, 89, 100, 112, 173-5,
186-7,193,196,204,220,222,
231,249,270,276,282-4,313.
329-33,354-5,356-7,372-3,
376,377,382-4,418,435
prebensive unification, 258--60, 262--4,

268

political economy, 14, 62-8, 73-5, 94,

private property, 144, 153, 156-7.

121, 12H, 130--3, 150, 182,

209,235-7,244,281,317,322,
325,348,373,404,419
political power, 156, 177-80, 212.

197-8,238-9,339.374-5,
382-5,390,398
process pl:ilosophy, 7, 25, 47-68, 105,
139,256-60,307-8,421-3,
435-7
pro=s.,;, 25. 84, 278, 347-8, 351-},
359,418,435-7

220-~235,316,320-7,437

political struggle, 201, 265, 433-7

politics, 19-45,46,70-1, 75, 77. 79.

89,92,100120,122,172-3,
176-82,255,282-90,321-7,
332,362-5,400 .. 1, 106-9, 411,

430-7
pollution, 22, 1l7, 195, 366, 368,

378,392,403,410,428
populatIon, 141-9

production, 19-21,50,62-8,73-5,
82,94,120--1,125,144,146,
179-80,231,239,241,245.6,
296,300,314,324,400-1,412,
422
production of difference (see also
difference), lS}- 9

production of narure (fee aho nature),

127. 184-9, 190-}, 436

property rights, 154, 161. 1&4, 223,

299, 343. 372

resources, 117-] 8, 124, 138, 141-'50,

ISH, 161-2, 174, 177, 182,

219,229, 295,297,374---5, 377,

381,385,390,412,417

psychoar.aiysls.77, 98-100, 136,

321

revolt cf nature, 134-7

Ricoeur, Paul, 47, 356

quantum theory, 11, 5Q, 52, 58, 89,

risk, 146, 153-4,377-80.380--1

Roberrs, l'vfarian, 229

166
race, 2-3, 79-81, 89-90, 102-4,

108,117,124,127,159, In,
ISO, 190,209,275,279,290,
293,320-1,337-8,341,344,
356--7.368,371,387,392.404,
430
rationality, 2.61,98,123, 134-5, 149.
177--8,233,239,302,375.
380--2,389,400,407
Rawls,]ohn,397-8
r~on,70, 122-31, 135,250
reductionism, 25, 51---4, 58--9,87,
100.166,262
relational theory, 4, 6-7, 10, 12,73,
145,147,167,190-1,198-9,
208,220,227,255-61,264,
271-2,290,293,302,333
telatiom,7. 25,49,50,63-8,214-15,
218-22. 263. 284
ocIarivisrr 2, 84, 127, 331, 354,
355
relativity, 249-50, 251
religion, 2--6, 10. 12, 70, 79, 89, 92,

94, 108, 122, 156-8, 198,209,

213-14,225,239,246.252-3.
306,319-20,322,345,372,419
Relph, Ted, 301-2, 314
representation, 2, 5, 14, 37. 52, 78, 83,
152,158-9,189,212.228,240,
244,247,275,279,284,316,
318,321-3,325
Rescher, Nicholas, 251-3
residual. 96,106, 109
resistance, 7, 97, 102--4, 110, 138--9c,

168.224,228,265, 287-90,
298-9, 306, 320, 32.1, 348, 368,
370-1,389--90,404

Roman, Leslie, 24
romanticism, 157, 187
Ross, Kirsten, 109.165,210,231

Rossi, Aldo, 308-9, 322

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 124, 127-9,

162-3
Sac.!'s, Wolfg,mg, 383, 390
Said, Edward, 24, 265, 326
Saint-Si:non, Count, 131, 133
Saie, IGrkpatrick. 202, 302, 306,

311-13
Sayer, Andrew, 109, 252
scale, 41, 51-2. 53, 203-4, 218, 303,

352-4,359,362-3,379,396,
428-9
",,,city, 125, 131, 144-50
Schivelbosch, Wolfgang, 242
Schoenberger, Erica, 244
science, 10, 59, 60-2, 70. 79, 88-9,

93, liS, 122-4, 126, 130, 134,

146,157-69, 177-8.181-2,190,
196-8,250,257.276,281,283,
285, 289-90, 373-4, 378, 384,
386,411
Segal, Lynn, 359-61
self, 71, 213, 216-18, 219-22, 246,
248-9. 264, 266, 268-71, 284,
286,290,304,315,364
sdf--Qilier relation, 71. 216-18,220,
266,268-71
self-realization, 122-31, 136, 139,
167-9, 197-8, 201, 214,307,
329,436
semiotics, 97,110,230
sense perception, 255,315
senses, 135-7. 197-8, 248-9, 253-5,
259-60,269,274,286,300--5,
31>-14,355

466

Index 467

Index

separation, 258--<)0, 268

sexuality, 89, 132, 136, 226-9, 266,
282,290,341,344
Shiva, Vandam, 137, 180, 187
Simmel, Georg, 132, 155, 268, 286,
288,406
siruatedness, see posirionality
Smith, Adam, 124, 130, 157
Smith, Neil, 41, 46, 187, 194,
203-4
social change, 11,38, 54-5, 63, 66-7,
75,96-113,119,377,418,426
social conrract, 397-8
social control, 228-30, 235, 3!1-13,
404,406-10
social justice, 6,11,37,155,179-80,
298,334,338,395,397-402,
410,429
social process, 78-83, 85-7, 94,
96-113, 139, 152, 164, 174,209,
231, 247, 290, 294, 306, 320,
322,333,372
social relations, 27, 44, 79, 85-7,
92-5, 105, 112-13, 131, 138,
155,166,173-5,180-1,183-9,
198-200,212,215,220,228,
231,233-7,240,249,264,266,
270, 273-4, 276, 285-6, 289,
294,306,310-11,313-14,359,
372-3,399,418, 422
social theory, 6, 46-7, 51, 76, 78, 96,
110-13,190-3,207,210,259,
267-74,289
socialism, 19-23, 29-30, 33, 36,
39-40,57,67,75,101,107,120,
125, 157,167,180,186, 193-4,
303,316,360-4,402,423,
430-1,433-8
socio-ecoIogical processes, 6, 9, 14"
25-7,56,76,140,183-9,209,
263, 285, 294, 311, 327, 353,
359,429,433-8
Soper, Kate, 173
space~ 2, 5, 7-8, II. 14.25,27.
29-31,33,43,45,46-7,66,
72-3,81-2,84,87, 110, 112-13,
150,153-4,167,207-9,210-47,

293-5,325,326,329-33,
406-12,419,422,435-8
space, absolute, 4, 53, 123, 224, 249,
257,264,425
space, produaion of, 108-13,207-9,
210-47,272-4,435-7
space, relational, 53, 69,220-2
space relations, 240, 295-9, 315-17,
318
space-time, 2~ 4, 9, 13,46-7,76,78,

167,215-22,353-4,359,363,
415,420,429-30,435-8
species being, 194, 197-200,313-14,
434
spectacle, 317, 325
speculation, 123, 132-3,240,295-9,
316-17,326,406,417
Spinoza, Benedikt de, 71, 123, 168
Spivak, Gayatri, 7L 103, 110,355,
364
state, 66-7, 71, 79, 82, 86, 94, 123,
152, 161, 177-8, 185, 193,101,
204,208,212-14,235-6,239,
262,271,304,311,320-1,
338-41,347,349,374-84,390,
423,430,432
Strathern, Marilyn, 219-20, 277
Strawson, Peter, 72-3, 271-3
structures of feeling. 24-5, 34, 36,
38-40, 43, 84, 102, 245
struggle (see also class sttuggle), 282,
293,298-9,352.361,391
subject, 77, 96, 129, 186,363
subjectivity, 100, 122, 128-9, 212,
226-7,274
Summers, Lawrence, 366-9, 373,376,
393,399
surveillance, 225--31, 262-3
sustainabilitv, 144, 148, 151-2, 174,
176,178,182,186,196,229-30,
370,372,377,385,390,411, 427
symbolic order, 97-9, 112,277,286,
298
symbolic politics, 368, 387-91
symbolism, 79, 112,217,230,234,
306-9,316,322-3,327,417
S~,Andr~v,369,387,391,401-2

Taylor, Charles, 351-3, 355

Taylor, Dorcwa, 369,386
technological change, 13, 124, 149,
245,295-9,381-3,412-18,
436-7
technological rationality. 198-9,
302
technology, 126, 134,141,146,179,
195--9,200-1,243-5,257,280,
286,302,435-6
teleology, 56-7,226
territoriality, 112,161-2,191,208-9,
223,239,241,295-9,)10,320,
351-2,385,412,422-3
theory, 9-10, 24-5, 37, 44-7, 48-9,
53,55, 57-62, 66, 77, 98, 109,
208,211,272,283,416-30
things (entities), 48-56, 72-4, 78, 81,
84,153,202-3,219-22,233-7,
238,249,253,256--<)4,266,
271-4,278,294,300,321,352,
418-20,425--<)
Thompson, Edward, 225, 266
Thoreau, 128, 303
time, 2, 5, 7-9, 11, 14,66,72-3,
81-2,84,91,113,153-4,167,
207-9,210-47,293-5, 31l, 325,
329-33,422,435-7
time, absolute, 4, 53, 123, 224, 249,
257,264
time. production of, 207-9, 210-47
cime, relational, 53, 69, 220-2
time horizon, 41, 229-31, 377-83
time-space compression, 209, 242-7,
299-302,317,326
Tirnpanaro, Sebastian, 164, 193
Todes, Dan, 160
Toffier, Alvin, 12-13, 241
rotalities, 7, 56, 63-8, 107, 129,
271-2
trade unions, 19-20, 30, 42-3, 337
tragedy of the oommons, 154, 177,
372. 384
transfurmative action, 55,64, 105--13
truth, 37, 70, 95, 341-7
Tuan, Yl-fu, 210, 302
Turner, Frederick Jackson, 119, 171

turnover time of capital. 241-7,

411-12
underclass, 292, 404
uneven geographical development, 6,
42,65,187,201,295-9,310,
326,396,414,429-37
unintended consequences, 80. 147,

183-9,326,378
unities, 66-7, 198, 208, 258, 313,
317-20
universality, 32, 35, 70, 101, 123,
150-1, 157,203,288,290,304,
309,314,319-20,324,325,333,
339,345,351-3,358,360,362,
390-1,400-1,431,433-6
urbanization, 186-9,223-4,239,242,
276,307,312,389,391-7,
403-38
utilirarianism, 397-8
Utopianism, 12-14,56,81,125,127,
131, 133, 140,149,2]0,279,
306, 332-3, 406, 418-20,424,
429, 432, 434-8
value (economic), 50J 63-8, 73-5~

145,220-1,234-8,244,246,
248,266,270
value formation, 215-23, 237, 247,
288-9, 311, 354
value system, 244, 266
values, 4,10-12,29,44,56-7,79,81,
94,98-100,118,148,173-5,
199,288-9,302,304,306,321,
323,325,]29,350-4
values (environmental), 57--<)9,
150-75,178,211,320
Volosinov,. V. N. 88~ 91-2

VVruzer,MUch.cl, 346, 350-2

VVeber, Max, 9, 92, 127-8, 156
VVenz, Peter, 397-8
White, Stephen, 343, 347-8
Whitehead, Alfred North, 8, 47, 50,
52, 54-5, 58, 61, 72-4, 123, 138,
248-9,256-63,267-8,284-5,
308,310

468

Index

Whorf-Sapir hypothesis, 84-5

Widgel:)', David, 409
Wigley, Mark, 227-8
Williams, Raymond, 23--45, 46-7, 51,
57, 59, 88, 90, 96-7, 99, 101-2,
106, 109, 117, 119, 163-4,

171-3,176,189,193,102,255,
267, 282-3, 302, 314, 324, 307,
351,391,392,399,431-2
Wilson, Edmund, 0" 165-6
wise ll5e movement, 383-5, 386
Wittfogel, Karl, 184, 193
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 285, 330-1

working class, 19-23, 29, 35-6, 40,

58,100,102,120,124-5,194,
198-9,204,225-{),314,336-41,
344,358-64,399,423--4,432

World Bank, 124, 138, 148, 181-2,

285,366-7,379,381-2,400,
420,430
Worster, Donald, 184
Xenophon, 227

Young, Iris, 202-3,311-12,348-50,

354-5
Zelizer, Viviana, 236
Zerubavel, 230, 240
Zimmerman, Ivfichad, 52, 166

Zizek, Slavoj, 98--100. 310-11

Zola, Emile. 132-3.156, 159