Sonntag, 4. Februar 2007

Knowing Space

“‘L’espace’ does not mean just ‘space’. By contrast, English-language theorists have often limited their appreciation of space to a quantitative definition with reference to distance and to time (and vice versa, e.g. graphically on a calendar)”

Knowledges of ‘space’ are part of social and cultural processes. Yet social space is not just a cognitive mapping. It cannot be derived entirely from forms of social solidarity. This would render space entirely cultural and thus epiphenomenal. Space could be discarded as inconsequential. How might one understand conflicts over social space or the production of ‘counter-spaces’ of resistance? How might one understand the juxtapositions within social space and its nested spaces within spaces in which very different rules apply?

“We need to know space as not just about relations and distance between elements but as a social produced order of difference that can be heterogeneous in and of itself. ‘Knowing space’ is not enough – trigonometric formulae, engineering structures, shaping the land and dwelling on it. We need to know about ‘spacing’ and the spatializations that are accomplished through everyday activities, representations and rituals.”

[Rob Shields: Knowing Space, in: Theory, Culture & Society 23 (2-3), S. 147-149]

Keine Kommentare: