Geographic Thought a Praxis Perspective
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GEOGRAPHIC THOUGHT Without social movements and wider struggles for progressive social change, the field of Geography would lack much of its contemporary relevance and vibrancy. Moreover, these struggles and the geographical scholarship that engages with them have changed the philosophical underpinnings of the discipline and have inflected the quest for geographical knowledge with a sense not only of urgency but also hope. This reader, intended for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate courses in Geographic Thought, is at once an analysis of Geography’s theoretical and practical concerns and an encounter with grounded political struggles. This reader offers a fresh approach to learning about Geographic Thought by showing, through concrete examples and detailed editorial essays, how the discipline has been forever altered by the rise of progressive social struggles. Structured to aid student understanding, the anthology presents substantive main and part introductory essays and features more than two dozen unabridged published works by leading scholars that emphatically articulate geographic thought to progressive social change. Each section is introduced with an explanation of how the following pieces fit into the broader context of geographic work amidst the socially progressive struggles that have altered social relations in various parts of the world over the last half-century or so. Doubly, it places this work in the context of the larger goals of social struggles to frame or reframe rights, justice, and ethics. Geographic Thought provides readers with insights into the encounters between scholarship and practice and aims to prompt debates over how social and geographical knowledges arise from the context of social struggles and how these knowledges might be redirected at those contexts in constructive, evaluative ways. The reader is unique not only in knowing Geographic Thought through its progressive political attachments, instead of through a series of abstract “isms,” but in gathering together salient works by geographers as well as scholars in cognate fields, such as Nancy Fraser, Chantal Mouffe, Iris Marion Young, and Jack Kloppenburg, whose own engagements have proved lasting and influential. For researchers and students interested in the connections between theoretically informed work and the possibilities for bettering people’s everyday lives, this book provides an innovative and compelling argument for why Geographic Thought is valuable and necessary. George Henderson is a human geographer who teaches and writes about the political economy of American capitalism. He is the author of the book California and the Fictions of Capital (Temple University Press paperback, 2003) and is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Minnesota. Marv Waterstone is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Arizona. He was also the Director of the University of Arizona’s Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Comparative Cultural and Literary Studies. His current teaching includes History of Geographic Thought, Risk and Society, Radical Geography, Geography and Social Justice, Environmental and Resource Geography, and Governing Science and Technology. Geographic Thought A praxis perspective Edited by George Henderson and Marvin Waterstone First published 2009 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2009 Selection and Editorial matter: George Henderson and Marvin Waterstone; individual chapters the contributors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Geographic thought: a praxis perspective/[edited by] George Henderson and Marvin Waterstone. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Geography—Philosophy. I. Henderson, George L., 1958– II. Waterstone, Marvin. G70.G4346 2008 910.01—dc22 2008004335 ISBN 0-203-89307-7 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 10: 0–415–47169–9 (hbk) ISBN 10: 0–415–47170–2 (pbk) ISBN 10: 0–203–89307–7 (ebk) ISBN 13: 978–0–415–47169–5 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978–0–415–47170–1 (pbk) ISBN 13: 978–0–203–89307–4 (ebk) “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.” Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach (1845) Contents Acknowledgements xi Preface xiii SECTION 1: THE POLITICS OF GEOGRAPHIC THOUGHT 1 Introduction: why is geographic thought always political? 3 1 Revolutionary and counter-revolutionary theory in geography and the problem of ghetto formation 13 David Harvey 2 Geographic models of imperialism 23 James M. Blaut 3 On not excluding half of the human in human geography 35 Janice Monk and Susan Hanson SECTION 2: STAKING CLAIMS 47 Introduction: moral knowledge/geographical knowledge – what does it mean to claim moral ground, or how is oppression to be recognized? 49 Part 1: Characterizing oppressions and recognizing injustice 51 Introduction 51 4 Five faces of oppression 55 Iris Marion Young 5 Social justice in the age of identity politics: redistribution, recognition, and participation 72 Nancy Fraser Part 2: Making justice spatial 91 Introduction 91 6 Moral progress in human geography: transcending the place of good fortune 95 David M. Smith viii CONTENTS 7 Dissecting the autonomous self: hybrid cartographies for a relational ethics 109 Sarah Whatmore Part 3: Practicing politicized geographic thought 123 Introduction 123 8 Maps, knowledge, and power 129 J. Brian Harley 9 Collaboration across borders: moving beyond positionality 149 Richa Nagar, with Farah Ali et al. 10 Research, pedagogy, and instrumental geography 162 Rich Heyman 11 Situated knowledge through exploration: reflections on Bunge’s ‘Geographical Expeditions’ 173 Andy Merrifield SECTION 3: GOALS AND ARENAS OF STRUGGLE: WHAT IS TO BE GAINED AND HOW? 187 Introduction: the embeddedness of intentions, tactics, and strategies in rights-, justice-, and ethics-based worldviews 189 Part 1: Rights-based goals 193 Introduction 193 12 Mobility, empowerment and the rights revolution 201 Nicholas K. Blomley 13 Human rights and development in Africa: moral intrusion or empowering opportunity? 215 Giles Mohan and Jeremy Holland 14 New world warriors: ‘nation’ and ‘state’ in the politics of Zapatista and US Patriot Movements 231 Carolyn Gallaher and Oliver Froehling 15 Social theory and the de/reconstruction of agricultural science: local knowledge for an alternative agriculture 248 Jack Kloppenburg, Jr. Part 2: Justice-based goals 267 Introduction 267 16 Restructuring and the contraction and expansion of environmental rights in the United States 274 Laura Pulido CONTENTS ix 17 Environmental justice and American Indian tribal sovereignty: case study of a land-use conflict in Skull Valley, Utah 293 Noriko Ishiyama 18 Structural power, agency, and national liberation: the case of East Timor 307 James F. Glassman Part 3: Ethics-based goals 325 Introduction 325 19 Post-Marxism: democracy and identity 332 Chantal Mouffe 20 U.S. third world feminism: the theory and method of oppositional consciousness in the postmodern world 338 Chela Sandoval 21 An ethics of the local 355 J. K. Gibson-Graham Bibliography 371 Index 375 Acknowledgements In putting together this book we have incurred numerous debts. We wish to thank, first, colleagues far and wide who read the early drafts of our proposal to put together a new book on geographic thought. Everyone seemed to feel that an approach reflecting the interweaving of modern Geography with the recent history of actually existing social–spatial struggles and their drive to understand and change the world was warranted. We benefited enormously from the support, friendly criticisms, and suggestions we received. Among this crew we count Stuart Aitken, Bruce Braun, Michael Brown, Susan Craddock, Jody Emel, Vinay Gidwani, Matt Hannah, J. P. Jones, Sallie Marston, Don Mitchell, Eric Sheppard, David M. Smith, Matt Sparke, Barney Warf, and Penny Waterstone. The anonymous reviewers of this book also helped us to sharpen our focus and our resolve that this project was worth undertaking. Marv Waterstone also thanks two separate cohorts of students in the history of geographic thought course at the University of Arizona, with whom he tried out several of the ideas that have culminated in this book. George Henderson apologizes to the students in his geographic thought courses for waiting too long. Scanning and converting to Word files the articles and book chapters that we have reprinted here was a labor-intensive process. We owe especially large debts of gratitude to John McEwen, Ellen Frick, and Jodi Larson, at the University of Minnesota, and Linda Koski at the University of Arizona. Mark Lindberg, also at Minnesota, saved the day in preparing illustrations. We must thank David McBride, our original editor at Routledge,