Marxist Geographies & Critical Realism Flashcards
What does Marxism emphasize in understanding society?
The material relations of production and their societal impacts.
Marxism is rooted in political economy, focusing on how economic structures shape social relations.
Who developed critical realism?
Roy Bhaskar.
Bhaskar’s work provides a philosophical framework for understanding scientific knowledge and its relation to reality.
What is the economic base according to Marx?
The relations of production between owners (capitalists) and workers.
This economic base shapes the superstructure, which includes culture, politics, law, and ideology.
Define surplus labor in Marxist theory.
Workers produce more value than they are paid, generating profit for capitalists.
This exploitation is central to the functioning of capitalist society.
What methodological approach did Marx employ?
Dialectical materialism.
This approach analyzes social processes through contradictions and conflicts.
List the four components of Marx’s abstraction as identified by Bertell Ollman.
- Identity and difference
- Interpenetration of opposites
- Quantity and quality
- Contradiction
These components help analyze capitalism’s internal contradictions.
What is the ‘spatial fix’ in Marxist geography?
Capital shifts to new regions when profitable investment opportunities decline in one area.
This process creates cycles of urban growth and decline, leading to spatial inequalities.
What does David Harvey’s ‘temporal fix’ refer to?
Capitalists invest surplus capital in long-term projects to stave off economic crises.
This ties up capital outside the market.
What is ‘spatial differentiation’ as described by Neil Smith?
Different regions specialize in distinct economic activities.
For example, Detroit for automobiles and Silicon Valley for technology.
What are the three dimensions of science identified by Bhaskar?
- Intransitive Dimension
- Transitive Dimension
- Layered reality (Real, Actual, Empirical)
These dimensions help differentiate between the world being studied and the theories used to understand it.
Fill in the blank: Critical realism advocates for a cautious application of _______ methods to social phenomena.
natural science.
Bhaskar critiques models that either overly focus on individuals or abstract social concepts.
What is the Transformational Model of Social Activity?
Social structures pre-exist individual actions but are reproduced or transformed through those actions.
This model emphasizes that social structures are dependent on human activity and can change over time.
What research approach does critical realism involve?
- Abstraction
- Intensive Research
- Extensive Research
This approach allows for the identification of underlying structures and mechanisms.
What did Galt’s study on pesticide residues illustrate about critical realism?
It revealed hidden causal mechanisms behind observed patterns in global food chains.
Galt’s research combined extensive and intensive methods to analyze pesticide violations.
True or False: Critical realism has been widely adopted in human geography.
False.
Its application has been limited, often critiqued for being overly abstract.
What are some criticisms faced by critical realism?
- Overly abstract
- Detached from lived experiences
- Limited practical methodology in human geography
These criticisms have led to the rise of alternative approaches in the 1990s.
What is the legacy of Marxism and critical realism in geography?
They uncover hidden structures that shape social and spatial processes.
Marxism influences radical approaches to urban inequality and environmental justice, while critical realism offers a philosophical framework for understanding systems.
