Environment and Planning A 2012, volume 44, pages 2043 – 2048
doi:10.1068/a45437
Guest editorial
Critical space–time geographies Thinking the spatiotemporal
Over the past decades critical geography—the varieties of geographical scholarship that challenge different forms of oppression and exploitation, promote tolerance and difference, and seek to contribute to progressive social change—has become a vital field within human geography. Critical geographers have been successful in demonstrating that processes of social differentiation, marginalisation, and exclusion are inherently spatial: differences and inequalities along lines of gender, class, race/ethnicity, sexuality, age, religion, dis/ability, and so forth, and space are inextricably linked to, and constitutive of, each other. However, the extent to which such differentiations and inequalities are intrinsically spatiotemporal has attracted less attention. So, whilst leading critical theorists such as Lefebvre (1991; 2004), Harvey (1969; 1990; 2009), Massey (2005), and Thrift (Glennie and Thrift, 2009; May and Thrift, 2001; Parkes and Thrift, 1980; Thrift, 1996) have continually emphasised that time and space are inextricably entangled with each other, the temporal and spatiotemporal dimensions of marginalisation and exclusion have not always been foregrounded as often and analysed as explicitly or deeply in critical geography as their spatiality. There are of course exceptions to this statement, some of which have been published in this journal (see, for instance, Ansell et al, 2011; De Meester et al, 2011; Lim, 2010). The papers in this theme issue seek to complement and extend the geographical literature on the interconnections of space, time, and social differentiations. Perhaps there are good reasons for thinking primarily in spatial terms in relation to social differentiation and inequalities. Perhaps one of these lies in the observation that the temporal and spatiotemporal are multiple in at least three senses, which makes analysing social differentiation, space and time in conjunction with one another a substantial challenge. Time and the temporal are multiple in the sense that they comprise a range of dimensions, and the work of sociologist Barbara Adam is useful in this regard (2000; 2008). For her time is intricately linked to space and matter, embodied and contextual, as well as a multifaceted social construct. She identifies seven of what she calls structural features of time and the temporal (Adam, 2008). Time frame pertains to boundedness, beginning and end, and scale or unit (as in moment, year, life time, or epoch), whilst temporality is about process, change, ageing, irreversibility, and directionality. Thirdly, timing refers to synchronisation, coordination, and what the ancient Greeks called kairos—the ‘right’ time. Tempo refers directly to movement and thus to pace, rate of change, and velocity; duration to extent and distance in time as well as to instantaneity; and sequence to succession, priority, and simultaneity. Finally, the temporal modalities consist in past, present, and future and thus bring into focus memory, path dependency, expectations, and affects/emotions, such as hope and fear. Other temporal concepts can be derived from combining these structural features. Thus, the life-course—a notion of increasing interest to geographers (Hopkins and Pain, 2007; Jarvis et al, 2011)—is primarily about time frame and temporality but also ties these to the other dimensions. Rhythm and rhythmicity also tie together different structural features, but this example also shows the shortcoming of Adam’s approach: it privileges the temporal over the spatial (May and Thrift, 2001) and fails to highlight how rhythms unite time, space,
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energy/matter, and experience as authors as diverse as Lefebvre (2004), Deleuze and Guattari (1987), Buttimer (1976), and Hägerstrand (1982) have argued. The second sense of multiplicity, then, relates to the way time is related to space and the temporal to the spatial. With the move towards dominance of relational conceptions of space and time in geography [as documented in Merriman (2012)] it has become commonplace to argue that space and time cannot be separated and that we need to think in terms of space– time or spacetime. Yet the nature of relational spacetime is subject to debate, which has implications for how social differentiation is imagined and represented. Massey’s (2005) emphasis on relational spacetime as a swirl of trajectories and flows connecting nodes and moments differs from Harvey’s (2009, page 137) stress on relational spacetime as the internalisation of external influences, which is again different from Malpas’s (2012, pages 236–237) understanding of relational spacetime as extendedness that opens up as an emergence from within the boundedness of place. Each perspective enables a different understanding of the spatiotemporality of gender, class, race/ethnicity, etcetera, as well as their intersections. Furthermore, as Harvey (2009) insists and Rogaly and Thieme (2012) show with regard to class, it is important to think of space as both absolute and relative and relational. The feminist geography literature on the gendered coordination of everyday life also shows the importance of thinking in absolute, relative, and relational terms. Across Western societies employed mothers often experience greater space–time constraints binding them to particular sites in absolute space for greater chunks of absolute clock time than men and most other women; they are more likely to minimise the length of their commute and to prefer to commute by more flexible and quicker modes of transport (relative space– time); and they tend to experience commuting and the chauffeuring of children to childcare providers as stressful (relational spacetime) more frequently (Hanson and Pratt, 1995; Kwan, 2000; Schwanen, 2008). The third way in which time and spacetime are multiple is that rhythms, speeds, timings, and durations are lived and experienced differently in different situations and by different people. As May and Thrift (2001) and others (including Rogaly and Thieme, 2012) have argued, space–time compression neither is nor has been a universal process. It is and has been selective and the speeding up and spatial extension of the circulation of human bodies, artefacts, money, and ideas has benefited some people and often at the expense of others. We suggest that the multiplicity of lived rhythms, speeds, timings, and durations, and processes of social differentiation are imbricated and interrelated in complex ways that defy linear causation. At the aggregate level of groups or populations rhythms, speeds, timings, and durations may differ and be structured along lines of gender, class, race/ethnicity, and so on, but at the same time it is from such rhythms, speeds, etc that social differentiation comes into being. Consider, for instance, old age and dis/ability. At aggregate levels analysis is likely to show that in deep old age and/or when bodily competences have changed substantially, the tempo of everyday life is lower, everyday activities are sequenced and timed in different ways, or people are more likely to remain at home and experience fear of crime at night. But old age and dis/ability are also made and remade in everyday practices as an unstable product of relations between individuals, technologies, artefacts, ideas, and so forth (Schillmeier, 2008; Schwanen et al, 2012a). People may feel older and/or less able-bodied when encountering ageist remarks or representations; when facing complex road intersections, unwelcome building entrances or high steps and stairs that are difficult to negotiate; or when having to perform nonroutine operations on mobile phones or computers without the help of trusted others in specific places at particular moments. In some ways, then, old age and dis/ability are events produced and continually shifting within the flow of everyday life, as are gender, class, race/ethnicity, and sexuality. This is of course not to deny the importance of processes in other time frames or across spatial scales.
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For old age and inequalities rooted in ageing, the onset of chronic illness; loss of a spouse, friends or relatives; or losing one’s driver’s license can and often do have lasting impacts on lived experience and contribute to durable disadvantage. The same is true for changes to state pension systems, the health care system or national and local policy making and legislation. As Valentine and Sadgrove (2012) also argue, it is from the complex interactions between multiple processes across different time scales and geographical contexts that lived experiences of social differentiation and inequalities around age, dis/ability, gender, and so forth emerge. Towards the contributions
In light of the preceding discussion we wish to draw this guest editorial to a close with three points. When the multiplicity of the temporal and the spatiotemporal is considered, it becomes clear that critical geographers have actually examined time, space, and social differentiation quite frequently. For instance, time as Adam’s (2008) temporality—process— has been given considerable attention in critical geography, both through studies of more gradual transformations in processes of social differentiation (Hearn, 2006; McDowell, 2006) and through work on intersectionality (Hopkins and Pain, 2007; Valentine, 2007). The first of our points, therefore, is that our call for critical space–time geographies is best thought of as a plea for more, more comprehensive and more systematic analysis of how space, time, and social differentiation are mutually implicated. Secondly, given the multiplicity of the temporal and the spatiotemporal, we advocate a pluralistic approach in terms of theory and methodology. Different understandings and frameworks are useful and —as we see it—capable of articulating specific aspects and dimensions of the spatiotemporalities of social differentiation (whilst simultaneously backgrounding others). This implies among others that time-geography, in which space–time is understood primarily in terms of finitude, resource, and—especially in Hägerstrand’s later writings (eg, Hägerstrand, 1988)—as embedded in the situational permutations of matter in space and as culturally constructed continues to offer a useful analytical framework. But so are Parkes and Thrift’s (1980) chronogeography (see Schwanen et al, 2012b), Adam’s (2000; 2008) timescapes framework (see Bowlby, 2012); Harvey’s (2009) approach to space–time (see Rogaly and Thieme, 2012); Lefebvre’s (1991; 2004) writings; and nonrepresentational styles of analysis. Those styles include, but are not limited to, Deleuzian theory (as, for instance, in Lim, 2010), the work of Badiou (as in Saldanha, 2010) and Grosz’s thinking (as in Colls, 2012) as well as topological approaches such as that by Barad (2007, chapter 6). And as Valentine and Sadgrove (2012) show, even Bergsonian thought can—notwithstanding his problematic conceptualisation of space (Massey, 2005) and privileging of continuity over discontinuity (Bachelard, 2000)—be helpful in understanding the spatiotemporalities of social differentiation and marginalisation. What holds for theory and concepts spills over to the realm of method and methodology: any set of methodological practices—interview analysis, econometrics, ethnography, geovisualisation—can in principle be mobilised for producing critical spacetime geographies (Kwan and Schwanen, 2009). There is no reason to a priori privilege certain sets of methodological practices. In the papers that follow we thus see different methods being used. Schwanen et al (2012b), for instance, use a combination of structured and unstructured on-site observation, interviews, and statistical analysis, whilst Rogaly and Thieme (2012) and Valentine and Sadgrove (2012) rely on narrative and lifecourse analysis. Elsewhere one of us has repeatedly demonstrated the value of geovisualisation for capturing the spatiotemporalities of inequality and marginalisation (Kwan, 2002; 2008).
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Our theoretical and methodology agnosticism does not, of course, follow from a belief that all theories or methods are equivalent but from their complementarity; they afford different insights and reach out to different audiences within academia and beyond. As others have argued repeatedly (eg, Plummer and Sheppard, 2001; Wyly, 2009), the use of quantitatively oriented approaches not only allows a ‘bigger picture’ of the complexities of inequality and marginalisation to emerge; it also enables forms of ‘insider’ critique of thinking and (quantitative) analysis that ignores social differentiation and focuses merely on population averages or representative agents. By integrating time more explicitly into spatial analyses of social differentiation such quantitatively oriented approaches could offer even more effective critiques. Additionally, drawing more explicitly on nonrepresentational theorising of spacetime could reinvigorate social geographical analysis of inequality and marginalisation and offer new resources for reconceptualising categories related to gender, class, and so forth. To refer to the example of old age once more, drawing inspiration from the thinking of Deleuze, Grosz, or Barad allows critical geography to rethink old age as a continuous becoming and differentiation in which gender, class, race/ethnicity, etcetera are also implicated and produced. In this way it is possible to evade both biomedical determinism— according to which ageing is inevitably a process of declining bodily capacities—and forms of social constructionism whereby the corporeal body is merely a passive receptacle onto which discourses or societal processes can be inscribed. The third and final point is that critical spacetime geographies become more powerful when time, space, and social differentiation are coupled to the study of additional practices or phenomena. This at least is what the papers in this theme issue and previously published in Environment and Planning A indicate. Ansell et al (2011), for instance, highlight how space, time and social differentiation intersect with health. The powerfulness of connecting to other issues is demonstrated by Valentine and Sadgrove (2012) with regard to attitudes towards others, by Rogaly and Thieme (2012) with reference to money and labour migration, by Schwanen et al (2012b) in connection to consumption and the nighttime economy, and by Bowlby (2012) in relation with formal and informal care. We hope that the substantive papers in this theme issue as well as Crang’s commentary (2012) trigger others to consider more often and more systematically the spatiotemporalities of social differentiation, inequalities, and marginalisation. It is our firm belief that critical geography is at its best when the multiplicity of both the spatial and the temporal are placed on an equal footing. Tim Schwanen School of Geography and Environment, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK; e-mail:
[email protected] Mei-Po Kwan Department of Geography, University of California, 507 McCone Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-4740, USA; e-mail:
[email protected] Acknowledgement. The papers in this theme issue were originally presented in a paper session during the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers in Seattle and in which Mike Crang acted as discussant. We thank Nigel Thrift and Ros Whitehead for making possible this issue and for their support. References Adam B, 2000, “The temporal gaze: the challenge for social theory in the context of GM food” British Journal of Sociology 51 125–142 Adam B, 2008, “Of timespaces, futurescapes and timeprints”, presented at Lüneburg University, 17 June, http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/socsi/futures/conf_ba_lueneberg170608.pdf
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Ansell N, van Blerk L, Hajdu F, Robson E, 2011, “Spaces, times, and critical moments: a relational time–space analysis of the impacts of AIDS on rural youth in Malawi and Lesotho” Environment and Planning A 43 525–544 Bachelard G, 2000 Dialectic of Duration (Clinamen Press, Manchester) Barad K, 2007 Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning (Duke University Press, Durham, NC) Bowlby S, 2012, “Recognising the time–space dimensions of care: caringscapes and carescapes” Environment and Planning A 44 2101–2118 Buttimer A, 1976, “Grasping the dynamism of lifeworld” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 66 277–292 Colls R, 2012, “Feminism, bodily difference and non-representational geographies” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series 37 430–445 Crang M, 2012, “Commentary. Temporal ecologies: multiple times, multiple spaces, and complicating space times” Environment and Planning A 44 2119–2123 De Meester E, Zorlu A, Mulder C H, 2011, “The residential context and the division of household and childcare tasks” Environment and Planning A 43 666–682 Deleuze G, Guattari F, 1987 A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN) Glennie P, Thrift N, 2009 Shaping the Day: A History of Timekeeping in England and Wales 1300–1800 (Oxford University Press, Oxford) Hägerstrand T, 1982, “Diorama, path and project” Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 73 323–339 Hägerstrand T, 1988 “Time and culture”, in The Formulation of Time Preferences in a Multidisciplinary Perspective Eds G Kirsch, P Nijkamp, K Zimmermans (Gower, Aldershot, Hants) pp 33–42 Hanson S, Pratt G 1995 Gender, Work and Space (Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon) Harvey D, 1969 Explanation in Human Geography (Edward Arnold, London) Harvey D, 1990, “Between space and time: reflections on the geographical imagination” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 80 418–434 Harvey D, 2009 Cosmopolitanism and the Geographies of Freedom (Columbia University Press, New York) Hearn J, 2006, “The implications of information and communication technologies for sexualities and sexualised violences: contradictions of sexual citizenships” Political Geography 25 944–963 Hopkins P, Pain R, 2007, “Geographies of age: thinking relationally” Area 39 287–294 Jarvis H, Pain R, Pooley C, 2011, “Multiple scales of time–space and lifecourse” Environment and Planning A 43 519–524 Kwan M-P, 2000, “Gender differences in space–time constraints” Area 32 145–156 Kwan M-P, 2002, “Feminist visualization: re-envisioning GIS as a method in feminist geographic research” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 92 645–661 Kwan M-P, 2008, “From oral histories to visual narratives: re-presenting the post-September 11 experiences of the Muslim women in the USA” Social and Cultural Geography 9 653–669 Kwan M-P, Schwanen T, 2009, “Quantitative revolution 2: the critical (re)turn” The Professional Geographer 61 283–291 Lefebvre H, 1991 The Production of Space (Blackwell, Malden, MA) Lefebvre H, 2004 Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life (Continuum, London) Lim J, 2010, “Immanent politics: thinking race and ethnicity through affect and machinism” Environment and Planning A 42 2393–2409 McDowell L, 2006, “Reconfigurations of gender and class relations: class differences, class condescension and the changing place of class relations” Antipode 38 825–850 Malpas J, 2012, “Putting space in place: philosophical topography and relational geography” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 30 226–242 Massey D, 2005 For Space (Sage, London) May J, Thrift N, 2001 Timespace: Geographies of Temporalities (Routledge, London)
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Merriman P, 2012, “Human geography without time–space” Transactions of the Institute of Human Geographers 37 13–27 Parkes D, Thrift N, 1980 Times, Spaces and Places: A Chronogeographic Perspective (John Wiley, Chichester, Sussex) Plummer P, Sheppard E, 2001, “Must emancipatory economic geography be qualitative?” Antipode 33 194–199 Rogaly B, Thieme S, 2012, “Experiencing space–time: the stretched lifeworlds of migrant workers in India” Environment and Planning A 44 2086–2100 Saldanha A, 2010 “Politics and difference”, in Taking-place: Non-representational Theories and Geography eds B Anderson, P Harrison (Ashgate, Farnham, Surrey) pp 283–302 Schillmeier M, 2008, “Time–spaces of in/dependence and dis/abilty” Time and Society 17 215–231 Schwanen T, 2008, “Managing uncertain arrival times through sociomaterial associations” Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 35 997–1011 Schwanen T, Banister D, Bowling A, 2012a, “Independence and mobility in later life” Geoforum, in press Schwanen T, van Aalst I, Brands J, Timan T, 2012b, “Rhythms of the night: spatiotemporal inequalities in the nighttime economy” Environment and Planning A 44 2064–2085 Thrift N, 1996 Spatial Formations (Sage, London) Valentine G, 2007, “Theorizing and researching intersectionality: a challenge for feminist geography” The Professional Geographer 59 10–21 Valentine G, Sadgrove J, 2012, “Lived difference: a narrative account of spatiotemporal processes of social differentiation” Environment and Planning A 44 2049–2063 Wyly E, 2009, “Strategic positivism” The Professional Geographer 61 310–322
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