Space Flashcards
1
Q
How do we talk about space?
A
- Latin roots - ‘spatium’. Two meanings:
+ an expanse - e.g. a room/area
+ distance between two points. - often associated with a void/nothingness. Difficult concept to define as it isn’t thought of as a thing but instead as what is left behind when no other things exist. Therefore a significant lack of meaning.
- ‘absolute space’ - synonym of emptiness - nothing more than something which other things take place/exist in.
- place is a space with meaning - space is essentially meaningless.
2
Q
Defining space:
A
- tied historically to the idea of something without meaning.
- often the blank bits on a map.
- essentially, space is something which is abstract and without substantial meaning.
- Tuan: space is a ‘location which has no social connections to human being’
- geography has been described as a spatial science by an array of writers.
3
Q
Space and Richard Hartshorne:
A
- the ideas of space and place weren’t established to the same extent as they are now until the early 20th century.
- 1939: Richard Hartshorne wrote ‘The Nature of Geography’ - he argued that geography should take a chorographic discipline instead of a chronographical one.
4
Q
What is the difference between chorographical and chronographical?
A
- chorographical - fixated in differences across and between spaces.
- chronographical - interested in changes across time.
5
Q
What was Hartshorne’s objective?
A
- aimed to distinguish geography from history and geology. This was to give geography a clear academic remit and protect the disciplinary boundary preventing it from being subsumed into other areas.
- Hartshorne defined geography as ‘a science that interprets the realities of aerial differentiation of the world as they are found’.
- Hartshorne creates the idea of spatial differentiation.
- Still writing in 1964 - when there is a dispute between geographers in Europe and the USA.
- his work was interested in thinking about how things operated/were organised across space rather than what it is/what it does. However is a quite static definition.
6
Q
Support of Hartshorne:
A
- The Concept of Geography as a Space - Kant and Humboldt.
7
Q
Criticisms of Hartshorne’s work:
A
- Smith critiqued treating space as a concept. (1984)
- ‘unchanging box’ within which objects exist and events occur
8
Q
Space and the quantitative revolution:
A
- the QR can be described as one of the most significant changes of the time period.
- there were two big events which influenced the QR itself and the changes caused.
+ WW2
+ the significant development of technology. - there was a focus on trying to create generalisable principles about the organisation of phenomena within space - e.g., like the redevelopment of cities that are being bombed.
- as a result, geography entered a stage of becoming a spatial science where it tried to present itself as more scientific to justify why it was still relevant.
9
Q
Geography as a spatial science:
A
- 1960s: period of mapping, strict rules and analysis and generalisable principles.
- geography’s links to military and association with colonialism pushed out regional geography within this period - instead seen as a spatial science.
- geographers wanted to use space as a way to predict order and test hypotheses. However there was a very flat understanding of space and therefore drew critiques and didn’t allow people to experience space differently.
10
Q
Spatial science - Castree 2012:
A
- ‘geography as a social science was devoted to searching for geographical order, measuring numerically (people and things) and testing rigorously hypotheses and models to develop generally applicable laws, rules and theories’
- Castree was highlighting that geographers began to simplify experience which drew critiques - specifically from Doreen Massey and Marxist theorists.
11
Q
The work of Edward Soja - cultural geography and space:
A
- three ways to conceptualise space:
1) first space - ‘perceived space’
2) second space - ‘conceptual space’
3) third space - ‘hybrid space’
12
Q
What is first space?
A
- ‘perceived space’
- built environments, physically constructed things we can map and quantify.
- guided by politics and by land use.
13
Q
What is second space?
A
- ‘conceptual space’
- how we experience space itself/ how it exists in the mind.
- some similarities with idea of sense of place but they are treated very much separately.
- formed by social conventions, place and space marketing.
14
Q
What is third space?
A
- ‘hybrid space’
- how space actually takes shape.
- first and second space co-define one another.
- it isn’t possible to differentiate between how an environment is built and how that environment is used and interacted with.
15
Q
Space in action:
A
- space has developed as a concept throughout the 20th century. This has been due to political changes (WW2) but also theoretical influences (structuralism or the kind of feminist movement in late 90s/early 2000s).
- technologies have enabled mapping and numerical analysis.
- space is a more frequently mobilised concept.
- two main examples: cyberspace and atmospheres.
16
Q
What is cyberspace?
A
- 1983: most common date for the internet.
- general public internet: 1990s.
- mobile internet: approx. 10 years old.
- cyberspace triggered a bit of a crisis within geography as a discipline in the 90s.
- ‘cyber’ = cybernetic = Greek Kybernetes as the study of control and communication.
- discipline has disappeared and replaced by things like AI studies. About thinking how communication happens between people and technologies.
- Gibson presents a form of cyberspace (Matrix) - digital space in which people could interact.
17
Q
Cyberspace and Euclidean space:
A
- cyberspace was a way of thinking about the spatiality of networks that don’t exist across what we may call Euclidean spaces.
- in the 1990s geography was concerned that space was irrelevant as people thousands of miles away could still easily interact. Do cyberspaces render Euclidean/tangible spaces of the real world.
18
Q
How do geographers study cyberspace?
A
- digital communities: social media and how it intersects with things like political movements around the world.
- online identity: ‘is there an authentic self’. Knowing celebrities due to online presence.
- democracy: idea of cyberspace being a space for lobbying and campaigning and spreading misinformation. E.g., twitter/Facebook.
- how does cyberspace complicate the limits of sovereignty of a country?: how countries (UK/US) decide what is available to citizens when it’s on a global network. Therefore NK bans internet, social media restrictions in China and India.
19
Q
What are atmospheres?
A
- cyberspace is a virtual space where atmospheres are essentially an affective space or spatialised affect - way of feeling a lived experience. Despite being separate people with separate lives we may all feel the same thing in a given context.
- some areas/atmospheres that are inherently topophobic. Atmospheres are a way of talking about the fact that feeling is to do with the interactions between people and environments in a way that is hard to map out.
- it can be difficult to define atmosphere as space and affect are two constitutional parts which themselves are hard to define.
20
Q
McCormack and Bohme’s definitions of atmosphere:
A
- McCormack (2008) - “something distributed yet palpable.” exist within and beyond and between bodies.
- Bohme (1993) - a ‘haze’ - felt with intensity.
21
Q
Hygge and atmospheres:
A
- Danish concept used by Bille.
- ideas of comfort - e.g. using lighting to shape people’s experience of a space. E.g. there is a difference between lighting a room with lighting and lighting a room with candles as it changes how space is experienced in its entireity.
- “light makes things visible in a way that tinges the experience of a thing” (Bille 2015)
- we have different associations with certain colours of light.
+ blue light - most alert. e.g., police sirens/ambulances. Spot something in the darkness.
+ red light - easiest to adapt from red light to darkness. - atmospheres can also be created by language - by interactions we have with people in them.
22
Q
Future of atmospheres?
A
- one critique is that often we think about them from an anthropocentric focus.
- performances can take shape based on the context in which they are carried out. E.g., would a change in atmosphere which is constructed in a different way and more stressful/higher pressured change the way an essay is written.
