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Garima Aggarwal 1
Re-emergence of Concept of Space: A Post-Modernist ApproachBy Garima Aggarwal
1. Introduction
The concept of Geography as a science of space has been exceedinglyimportant in history of geographic thought. Since beginning of Geography as a scientific
subject, defining the concept of space has been identified as one of the important tasks
of Geographers. Hartshorne in 1939 stated that Geographers task is to describe and
analyze the interaction and integration of phenomena in terms of space. Jammer (1954)
came up with concept of two kinds of spaces- first, space as a positional quality of the
world of material objects or events that means space is a relative quality . Secondly,
space is containing all the material objects i.e. an absolute quality . Historical evolution
of scientific concepts of space is bound up with the progress of physical theory. Kant in
1963, gave a relative view of space, which consists of a system of relations among
substances and spatial magnitude. In 1970, Kant followed Newtonians notion 1 of
absolute space and described space as a framework of things and events instead of
thing or event. Peter Haggets Locational Analysis and Human Geography in 1965 is
one of the landmarks of the quantitative revolution. He discussed use of locational
thoeries, models, laws and quantitative methods (sampling, geometry etc.) in defining
space in absolute terms. In 1969, David Harvey, emphasized that concept of spacevary from cultural context to another and within broad cultural configuration smaller sub-
groups may develop a particular conceptual apparatus with respect to space geared to
the particular role which they perform in society. Any individual within the society may
likewise carry around with him a spatial scheme (Lee, 1963) or a cognitive or metal map
(Hollowell, 1955), which reflects that individuals cultural and physical experience and
which in turn, affects the individuals behaviour in space and perhaps, his visual
perception of spatial relationships 2.
Spatial concepts have changed very frequently. Cultural changes often involves
change in spatial concepts, but on occasion the sudden need to reappraise spatial
1 Newtons law of motion space- based on the euclidean geometry, which furnished definition on point,line and surface in 300 B.C. (David Harvey, 1969) 2 David Harvey, Explanation in Human Geography, 1969.
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concepts through scientific discoveries has delivered a powerful jolt to an existing set of
cultural values. In twenty-first century, the debate on spaces being replayed by
geographers consider the ways in which new image forms are again providing new
social cultural pathologies but also new opportunities, as we have seen in the case of
the sheer pervasiveness of the screen and the images supply by it, called as
postmodernism (Harvey, 1989).
2. Postmodernism:
The post on the beginning of the word postmodernism indicates that there was a
modern way of thinking that proceeds the postmodern way of thinking. Knox and
Marston(2004) defined modernity as a forward-looking view of world that emphasizesreason, scientific rationality, creativity, novelty and progress. This means that a scientist
should be able to withhold the truth and must, at all times, strive to discover new things.
The period of modernity started in the 16th
century, the time of the Renaissance
and the emergence of capitalism. The world of scientific discoveries and commerce
slowly took over the place of the world focused on the past. The philosophical
movement of modernism arose in the 18th
century where the belief in universal human
progress and the sovereignty of scientific reasoning became important. The
philosophers were rational and searching for universal laws. The modern way of
thinking developed through the industrial revolution. Great progress was being made
with the production that became more efficient and more structured. At the end of the
industrial revolution the modern way of thinking was widely accepted (Knox and
Marston, 2004).
Postmodernism is a set of ideas that emerged in academic studies in the mid-
80s of last century, but its not clear exactly when postmodernism begins. Its also hard
to define, because it is a term, which appears in many different disciplines, such as art,
architecture, literature, sociology, communications, and technology. Postmodernism
emphasizes the unclearness, the fragmented, the multiformity, the missing of real
conformity and of big ordering principles in society. There is not one universal truth, but
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there are multiple views or theories, which always are bounded to place and time.
Meanings are related to the given context.
3. Re-emergence of Concept of Space: Post Modernist Approach
The geographers learnt a lot from postmodern way of thinking. The most
important thing geographers learnt from it is that observations are steered and selected,
coloured and organized by the ideas and expectations of the observer. Postmodernism
lays the emphasis on the meaning of Geography, instead of the material aspects of
Geography (as modernism does).
The modern space was characterized through position separation, large-scale, a
concise rationality and spatial specialization and standardization. The post-modern
space is characterized through spatial variety over short distances, through feeling for
historical and scenic qualities on the spot through a local instead of regional
architecture, though revaluation of old business buildings and through the introduction
of playful or ironic elements in the physical surroundings.
Human Geographers encountered postmodern challenge in 1980s. Fredric
Jameson, in 1984, published an article focusing geographers attention on spatiality and
postmodernity. In his paper, he argued that postmodernism in Geography was partly a
consequence of the prominence afforded to space in an influential essay on
postmodern culture. One of his important finding was that existing time-space systems
of societal organization and perception have been fundamentally altered to
accommodate the emergent realms of a global capitalism, consequently, a new
postmodern hyperspace has emerged, the time-space coordinates of which we can so
far only dimly perceive (the spaces of postmodernity). 3 Postmodernism is contrary to
modernist thinking because it questions establishing truth claims and knowledgeaccumulation strategies. In essence, postmodernism is based upon the notion that there
is no universal theory .
3 Michael Dear, The Postmodern Turn, in Claudio Minca(Ed), Postmodern Geography: Theory and Praxis, 2001 pp 13.
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The challenge of Jameson was taken up by two of the earliest Geographers- M.
Dear (1986) and E.W. Soja (1986). The geographers published articles dealing
explicitly with postmodernism in Geography. They claimed that there is no absolute truth
and no truth outside the interpretation (Lyotard, 1984). It was stressed that none of the
theory is sufficient for explaining the occurrences of a phenomenon and therefore no
one should be privileged as better than anyone. Postmodern thinking is thus
concerned with developing an attitude towards knowledge, methods, theories
and communication. By 1988, Michael Dear argued for the relative coherence of what
he styled the postmodern challenge to human geography. His plea was premised on
the significance of space in postmodern thought and the potential of geographys
contribution to a rapidly evolving field of social inquiry. He advocated that no ones voice
should be excluded from dialogue.
The historical reasons for the absorption of postmodern thought into space
concept in geography can be seen in the resurgence period of Marxist social theory in
the late 1960s and 1970s. The growing connection between space geography and
social theory were given concrete expression in 1983, with appearance of the Journal
Society and Space as a part of Environmental and Planning series. The journal included
several influential publications on time and space (Thrift, 1983), gender division of urban
space (McDowell, 1983), social relations and spatial structures (Gregory and Urry,1985) and then essays by Dear and Soja in 1986. Though, these publications were not
so theoretical in nature but they advocated the central issue of postmodern spaces. 4
So, from above discussions, we can say that the postmodern approach
encourages analysis of socio-spatial relations within specific contexts without claming
universalities. Geographers, such as, Alan Scott, Michael Dear and Ed Soja, began to
confront that cities were enhancing in ways that could not be adequately explained by
modernist theories such as Marxism and humanism. E.W. Soja, 1989 in PostmodernGeographies: The Reassertion of Space in the Critical Social Theory attempted to
weave together threads of new critical theory by embracing a social-spatial dialectic
that brought human geography to the forefront. His observations on reconstruction of
4 Ibid , Michael J. Dear, 2001, pp 13-14.
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human geography incorporates Hennery Lefebvres theme of the social production of
space. Soja (1989) in his book confronted with an example of Los Angeles city and
revealed that a diverse and ever-changing landscape constantly being shaped in
innumerable ways through local politics, state, national policies and institutional
directives and the internationalization and globalization of trade and labour. These
processes often work in contradictory ways, which means that while modernist-framed
urban theory will detect trends similar to other cities, it will also be inadequate in other
ways, and will present a vision of the city which adds with the held by many of its
residents 5.
. A year later, Cookes Back to the Future: Modernity, Postmodernity and
Locality appeared- a perspective of the localities project in Great Britain that was
sympathetic to the claims of postmodernism. 6 The weightage to Postmodernism was
increased by 1991, when it was included in the textbooks of Geographical thought.
Some other important publications and english translation of Lefebvres La Production
de lEscape was especially important to further help in flourishing the subject. Between
1986 and 1994, over 50 articles and critical commentaries have published on the theme
of society and space in prominent journals such as American Annals of Geographers,
the Canadian Geographers and Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. A
critique of postmodernism was published in Harveys The Condition of Postmodernity: An Inquiry into the origins of Cultural Change which was an openly hostile critique of
postmodernism that attempted to subsume it with the explanatory rubric of Marxism 7
Zukin (1992) contended that the city changes as the consumption of the space is
abstracted from the logic of industrial production. Exploring the connections between
cultural and political economy in new ways, theorists namely Dear, Soja and Zukin
suggested that a sensitivity to place is essential if one wishes to do justice to the
complex interplay of capital and culture. Dear and Flusty (1998) similarly explored theconcept of postmodern urbanism, documenting that how cities are organized and run
5 Phil Gubbard, Rob Kitchin, Brendan Bartley & Duncan Fuller, Thinking Geographically: Space, Theory andContemporary Human Geography, 2002. pp. 75-76.6 Michael J. Dear and Steven Flusty, The Spaces of Postmodernity, 2002, p 9.7 Michael J. Dear, The Postmodern Turn, in Claudio Minca(Ed), Postmodern Geography: Theory and Praxis,2001. pp 13-14.
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today is very different from in the early part of the twentieth century. On the lines of Ed.
Soja, they suggested that there has been a radical break in the way cities are
developing. Again, exemplifying the case of Los Angeles, they detailed out that
how the ways of single-centered city with growth out from the centre as
represented in the models of Chicago school, including Burgesss concentric
ring theory or Hoyts Sector They have been replaced by a set of differentiated,
competing urbanism created by cities having to adapt economically to the force
of flexible accumulation and globalization. For them postmodern urbanism has
several fundamental characteristics including a complex interplay between global and
local, ubiquitous social polarization, continuous reorganization and the centre being
organized by the periphery. These characteristics produced centreless urban systems
that are subject to a new spatial logic that they term keno capitalism or beginning of anew era of postmodern urbanism. 8
Similarly, Chris Philo (1992) has argued for a postmodern approach to rural
issues. He suggested that, the rural had been theorized from the perspective of
while, middle-class men using modernist narrative that prioritized the values and
understandings of dominant group in society. He recognized that the plurality of
people who make up the rural (women, children, the elderly, gays, lesbians, racial
and ethnic minorities, the unemployed and poor, Gypsies, New Age travelers,alternative lifestyle) communities have varied understandings and experiences of
living in the countryside. It again meant that there could be no universal account of
the rural (Cloke and Little, 1997). The same has been advocated by an analysis done
by Halfacree in 1993 and Milbourne, 1997. 9 S. Kirsch (1995), in his article on time
and spaces stated that in recent decades with new technologies,
telecommunications, transportation and high-speed geographies, the world is
shrinking to a global village.
8 Phil Gubbard, Rob Kitchin, Brendan Bartley & Duncan Fuller, Thinking Geographically: Space, Theory andContemporary Human Geography, 2002. pp. 76-77 9 Ibid, pp. 78-79
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E.W. Soja, in 1996 10 , recommended views of Lefebvres writings in The
Production of Space, to fuse physical (objective) and mental (subjective) space into
social space. Lefebvre opens the concept of trialectics of spatiality, which insist upon
each mode of thinking about space, each field of human spatiality- the physical, the
mental and the social- be seen as simultaneously real and imagined, concrete and
abstract, material and metaphorical. Supporting the thoughts of Lefebvre, Soja,
introduced the conception of Third space (lived space) with perceived space (spatial
practice) and conceived space (representation of space. Soja defined spatiality as
socially produced space . Soja argued that Spatiality [i.e. socially produced space] is a
substantiated and recognizable social product, part of a 'second nature' [i.e. the
transformed and socially concretized spatiality (socially produced space)] arising from
the application of purposeful human labour] which incorporates as it [i.e. sociallyproduced space] socializes and transforms both physical and psychological spaces.
Ed. Soja introduced his epistemological approach to space. He unfolded three
concerns: first and foremost, Soja made the point that space is never given . It is not
an empty box to be filled and can never be only a stage or a mere background. On the
contrary, space is always a cultural constructed entity. It is a part of the general
cultural web, and like any cultural entity space is formed and changed, accepted
or rejected. For Soja, spatiality is an essential aspect of human life and descriptions of the world. He considers three modes of spatial thinking: perceived space, conceived
space, and lived space. N one of the space has distinct lines dividing them with
each other unlike then the modernists categorized space in perceived and
conceived space. 11
Edward Soja further identifies a third aspect to spatiality itself, one beyond
more physical form or mental construct, but an alternative that incorporates and
transcends both. Soja uses the concept of third space to capture a radical newway of thinking that always posits an alternative to binary conceptions of space.
Third spaces are created by the effects of a changing culture, and are spaces of
10 Edward W. Soja, Thirdspace: Journey to Los Angeles and other Rea and Imagined Places, 1996, pp 60-68.11 http://socgeo.ruhosting.nl/html/files/geoapp/Werkstukken/PostmodernSpace . pdf
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Fig: The Trailectics of Spatiality as given by EdSoja, 1996
transition; transition between localities and over time. They elude the reflection of a
single permanent power structure and are places of simultaneity and transience. They
relate to both poles of binary conceptions of cross-cultural space and yet at the same
time entirely transcend them. More than a mental place, third spaces hold the possibility
for socio-political transformation.
The trailectics of spatiality given by Ed. Soja is as follows 12:
(i) Perceived space (Soja's first space) consists mainly of concrete spatial forms,
things that can be empirically mapped, but are also socially produced, as mediums and
outcomes of human activity, behavior, and experience. This materialized, "physical-
socially produced, empirically measurable space, is space that can be directly sensed
and is open to relatively accurate measurement and description. Perceived space is
thus apparent in the concrete and mappable geographies of our life worlds ,
ranging from the emotional and behavioral space "bubbles" which invisibly surround our
bodies, to the complex spatial organization of the social practices that shape our "action
spaces" in such contexts as households, neighborhoods, villages, cities, regions, and
nations. (Soja, 1996)
(ii) Conceived space (Soja's Second
space) is that space that is constructed in
mental or cognitive forms (or, as Lefebvre
puts it, it is "imagined"). Conceived space
is expressed in systems of "intellectually
worked out" signs and symbols, that is, in
the written and spoken word. For
Lefebvre, this is the dominant space in
any society. Located in these
"dominating" mental spaces are the
representations of power and ideology.
(iii) Lived space (Soja's Third space)
consists of actual social and spatial practices, the immediate material world of
12 Op. sit pp 74-82.
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experience and realization. Lived space overlays physical space, making symbolic
use of its objects, and tends to be expressed in systems of nonverbal symbols
and signs. For Lefebvre lived space was both distinct from physical and mental space
and an all-encompassing mode of spatial thinking, as Soja puts it, a " transcending
composite of all spaces" Lived space embodies the real and imagined world of
experiences, emotions, events, and political choices. As Soja describes it, this space is
"directly lived," the space of "inhabitants" and "users," containing all other real and
imagined spaces simultaneously. Thus, Third space is a mode of thinking about space
that draws upon both the material and the mental spaces of perceived space and
conceived space, but extends well beyond them in scope, substance, and meaning. It is
simultaneously real and imagined and more.
Based on lessons drawn from Lefebvres The production of Space and Sojas
Third Space, in an article by M. Arentsen, R. Stam & R. Thuijs, represented the
Trailectics of Spatiality in a tabular format, as given below:
Perceived Conceived LivedSpatial Practice Representations of Space Spaces of
RepresentationsFirst Space Second Space Third Space
Physical Space Mental Space Social Space
Surfaces Transparency Active ExperienceMaterialism Idealism ImaginativeVisual Geometric Pahllic
The application of spaces in urban planning was well elaborated by Leonie
Sandercock, published in her Toward Cosmopolis: Planning for Multicultural Cities, in
1998. She came up with a vision of postmodern utopia and favoured an inclusive,
people-centered style of planning that emphasizes practical wisdom, multiculturalism
and community empowerment. 13
Nigel Thrift (2003), in his article on Space: The Fundamental Stuff of Human
Geography stated that in modern geography, through standardization of space, it has
been made possible that each and every object and activity taking place on the globe
13 Michael J. Dear, The Postmodern Turn, in Claudio Minca(Ed), Postmodern Geography: Theory and Praxis,2001. pp 23-24.
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will, at least in principle, be exactly located. He emphasized that, we live in the world of
perpetual contract, in which it will be possible to track and trace most objects and
activities on continuous basis, constantly, adjusting time and space in real time, so
producing what now a days called as micro or hyper-coordination. He stated that space
arises out of the hard and continuous work of building up and maintaining collectives by
bringing different things into alignment. All kinds of different spaces can and therefore
do exist which may or may not be related to each other. In 2009, Thrift identified four
spaces- empirical, flow, image and place. Empirical space refers to the process
whereby the mundane fabric of daily life is constructed. Flow space refers to the
process whereby routine pathways around which boundaries are often drawn. Image
space refers to the process whereby the proliferation of images has produced new
apprehensions of space. Fourth and final kind of space i.e. place space which refers tothe process whereby space are ordered in ways that open up affective and other
embodied potentials. 14
4. Conclusion
The re-emergence of concept to space was started in the period of 1980s due to
introduction of the postmodernism era in Geography. The postmodernist approach
altered the views made by Geographers like Hartshorne, David Harvey and Peter
Hagget, who brought concepts, theories, models and quantitative revolution in
Geography. Their contribution produced universal concepts and defined space as a
physical and cultural entity, which can be represented through point, lines and areal
diagrams. Several theories, models and quantitative techniques were evolved to
analyse space. The Geographers of postmodern era, like Lefebvre, E.W. Soja and
Michael Dear etc. argued that there is no universal truth, which can be applicable on
space. They advocated on socially produced spaces and inferred that spaces are not
14 Nichol J. Chifford, Sarah Holloway, Stephen P Rice, Gill Valentine (Eds.), Key Concepts in Geography ,(2009) .
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only real and conceived but are also influenced by third space, which is termed as lived
space. Lived space overlays both the real and imagined space and influenced by
ideologies, local politics and policies of the users. In 2003, Nigel Thrift, introduced
fourth space i.e. place space which is described by meanings place as location, the role
of place in individual and group identity and a setting and scale peoples daily actions
and interactions.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Soja, E.W. Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory .(1989), Verso Press, New York.
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Mazur, E. and Urbanek, J, Space in Geography in Geo Journal, (1983), Kluwer Academic Publishers , pp. 139-143.
Articles on Websites:
Arentsen, M., Stam, R., Thuijs,R., Postmodern Approaches to Space ,http://socgeo.ruhosting.nl/html/files/geoapp/Werkstukken/PostmodernSpace.pdf
Dear, M., Wassmansdorf, G., Postmodern Concequencies , in The Geographicalreview, Vol. 83, 1993, http://www.questia.com
Kirsch S, " The Incredible Shrinking world? Technology and the Production of Space " (1995), Environment and Planning D: Society and Space.http://www.envplan.com/D.html
Schumacher,P., Sojas Postmodern Geographies- a Political Reading , (1996), http://www.patrikschumacher.com/Texts/soja.htm
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