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Durham Research Online Deposited in DRO: 24 January 2012 Version of attached le: Published Version Peer-review status of attached le: Peer-reviewed Citation for published item: Smith, S. J. and Pain, R. and Marston, S. and Jones, J. P. (2010) 'The SAGE handbook of social geographies.', London: Sage. Further information on publisher's website: http://www.sagepub.com/booksProdTOC.nav?prodId=Book230880currTree=Subjectslevel1=F00 Publisher's copyright statement: c SAGE Publications, Inc. Additional information: Sample chapter deposited: 'Introduction : situating social geographies', pp.1-39. Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Durham University Library, Stockton Road, Durham DH1 3LY, United Kingdom Tel : +44 (0)191 334 3042 | Fax : +44 (0)191 334 2971 https://dro.dur.ac.uk Introduction: Situating Social Geographies Susan J. Smith, Rachel Pain, Sallie A. Marston and John Paul Jones III The label ‘social geography’ is more than a and Panelli (2004) turns attention, theoreti- century old. As evidenced in correspondence, cally and empirically, to the many facets French geographer Élisée Reclus appears to of difference. Social geographies can be have coined the term around 1895 (Dunbar, specialized – as in Peach’s (1975) version of 1977). He wrote about it in the early drafts and ‘spatial sociology’; but they can also be so final versions of his six-volume work L’Homme wide-ranging as to subsume the whole of et la Terre (Man and the Earth), which was human geography, as evidenced in the several published posthumously in 1905 (see also edited collections that profile the eclecticism Kropotkin, 1902). Concerned with the way of the subject (see, for example, Eyles, 1986; space mediates the production and reproduc- Pacione, 1987; Hamnett, 1996). tion of key social divides – such as class, race, Like every other part of geography, social gender, age, sexuality and disability – social geographies have changed with the times: geography eventually became broadly estab- methodological signatures have shifted, and lished as ‘the study of social relations and intellectual fortunes have waxed and waned, the spatial structures that underpin those as topics that once seemed cutting-edge turn relations’ (Jackson, 2000b: 753). Within that out to be mundane. In recent years, moreover, broad rubric, different authors have the volatility of politics and economy has approached the subject in a variety of ways: unsettled existing intellectual traditions, Jackson and Smith (1984) set out its philo- demanding a radical overhaul of nearly every sophical underpinnings; Cater and Jones way of knowing and being; and social geog- (1989) opt for a focus on social problems; raphies are not exempt. Successive ‘turns’ to Valentine (2001) concentrates on the many culture, politics, environment and economy scales of inclusion, exclusion and identity; have, indeed, frequently eclipsed geographers’ Pain et al. (2001), like Ley (1983) and Knox identification with the social. During the (2000), explore the production of inequality; 1990s, for example, there was a sense that 55316-Smith-Intro.indd316-Smith-Intro.indd 1 99/18/2009/18/2009 99:57:48:57:48 PPMM 2 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF SOCIAL GEOGRAPHIES human geographers had become so caught up action research in social geography is gaining in the circulation of discourses and the insta- momentum in a bid to develop fully collabora- bility of representations that they were unable tive research, publication and intervention, in to recognize the material practices sustaining partnership with those who have traditionally social exclusion. In response, Smith (1993), been the ‘subjects’ of research. Gregson (1995) and Peach (2002) all – in There is, of course, no singular history or their different ways – expressed concern that unified trajectory for the subject: social geog- social geographers’ radical commitment to raphies, like all forms of knowledge and tackling oppression, inequality and poverty knowing, are diverse. Notably, there is a was weakening. More recently, in a world ‘geography of social geography’. The gener- where culture merges with nature, humanity alizations above, and indeed those which is wired to technology, genetics blur into follow, refer especially to the Anglo-American experience, and the human and non-human geographies about which this handbook has form complex material and affective assem- most to say. But it is important to recognize blages, even the idea of ‘the social’ seems that, beyond the Anglo-American realms and less persuasive than it once was. which seem still to marginalize the geogra- At the start of the twenty-first century, the phies that are produced elsewhere and other ‘social’ has certainly begun to be articulated in ways of approaching the subject are taking new (and renewed) ways. For example, along- centre stage. These are, as might be expected, side a resurgence of concern for social justice, highly diverse (Kitchin, 2007). Particularly ‘the social’ has been reframed to express more exciting are developments in the Antipodes, directly the materiality of social life (Gregson, where attempts to integrate various indige- 2003); social geographies have begun to build nous perspectives into geographical scholar- capacity for more moral, caring and politically ship present a fundamental challenge to ideas aware research (Cloke, 2002); and the subject rooted in the ‘global north’ (Kearns and has been reinvigorated by ideas, drawn from Panelli, 2007; Kindon and Latham, 2002; philosophers such as Deleuze, Guattari and Panelli, 2008). In some parts of Europe, in Latour, which have prompted geographers contrast, social geographies are barely visible: interested in non-representational theory to a poor relation to economic or cultural geog- interpret ‘the social’ in quite different ways. In raphies (see Garcia-Ramón et al., 2007, on short, understandings of the social have, on the Spain); And where they do thrive they often one hand, splintered (creating both tensions lack the critical edge that is so much their and complementarities in the subject), but on hallmark elsewhere (see, for example, Musterd the other hand, they have also become more and de Pater, 2007, on Holland; Timár, 2007, nuanced and (often) increasingly relevant on Hungary). These multiple social geogra- (Del Casino and Marston, 2006). phies reflect both national traditions and the Questions of relevance, in particular, have intellectual and political trajectories of indi- acquired a new urgency as critiques of glo- vidual authors. As Kitchin’s (2007) collection balization and neoliberalism have called for shows, they all contribute in valuable ways to practical action from inside as well as outside the patchwork of social geographies whose the academy. While combining research and whole – we will now argue – adds up to much activism has been a longstanding interest for more than the sum of its parts. Importantly, a minority of social geographers, an editorial while the Handbook that follows is mainly published in Area by Kitchin and Hubbard written by Anglo-American social geogra- (1999) marked a sea-change of interest in phers for an English-reading audience, it also this aspect of the subdiscipline (see also draws from wider traditions which are alter- Fuller and Kitchin, 2004; Pain, 2003; Kindon ing what social geographies are and redefin- et al., 2007). One result is that, across a wide ing who these geographies are for (see, for range of contexts, inclusive, participatory example, in this volume, Kobayashi 55316-Smith-Intro.indd316-Smith-Intro.indd 2 99/18/2009/18/2009 99:57:48:57:48 PPMM INTRODUCTION: SITUATING SOCIAL GEOGRAPHIES 3 and de Leeuw (Chapter 4), and Kindon and underlying aim will be to provide new inter- others (Section 23)). pretations of, say, residential segregation or the spaces of citizenship. Similarly, social geographers might know a lot about the interweaving of genetic, behavioural and MOTIVATIONS environmental precursors of disease, but in disentangling these factors, their aim is to Scholarship self-consciously labelled ‘social account for the enduring link between place geography’ may be radical or conservative, and health. One of the key achievements of life changing or mundane, engagingly relevant, social geography over the years has, indeed, comprehensively bland or uniquely quirky. It been to speak powerfully to the policies and is above all diverse, covering many topics, practices that have made experiencing different embracing a mix of methods, rooted in a kinds of spaces – at home, at work, in cities, in variety of places and practised in different, rural communities, in schools, hospitals and multiple, ways. Hence the title: a Handbook prisons – so divided and unequal. of Social Geographies. But why collect so The challenge for the 21st century is that many snippets of such a wide-ranging subject these issues – of exclusion, inequality and into a single volume? It is certainly not the welfare – not only persist but have tended to desire to revive, define or narrate a particular