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Taking the Pulse of the Dead: History and Philosophy of Geography, 2008

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Taking the Pulse of the Dead: History and Philosophy of Geography, 2008 Progress report Progress in Human Geography 34(5) 668–677 ª The Author(s) 2010 Taking the pulse of the dead: Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav History and philosophy of 10.1177/0309132509355352 geography, 2008–2009 phg.sagepub.com Trevor J. Barnes University of British Columbia, Canada Abstract The thread linking the history and philosophy of geography literature for 2008–2009 is the return of previously expired approaches, particularly quantification and Marxism. On the one hand, there has been a resurgence of quantitative techniques combined with a critical political sensibility, and, on the other, a renewed interest in Marxism but leavened by various strains of poststructuralism. Keywords archives, critical GISci, Foucault, Marxism, pragmatism, quantification I Introduction Stewart’s lecture notes accumulated as a thin layer of dust on my lap and on the sturdy writing Never having been trained in any aspect of table. Other patrons knew better. The man in archival research, I often feel like a bull in a front of me wore an apron, and the woman to china shop as I riffle through boxes of correspon- my side white gloves. dence and papers housed at special collections in Yes, I know. The physical manuscript is university libraries and public archives. My use sacred. One should never riffle through carbon- of the word ‘riffle’, of course, is an immediate copied, onion-skin paper letters, crinkled yel- giveaway about my bad habits. In May of this lowing mimeographed Departmental memos, year at the magnificent American Heritage and fading, badly typed graduate student essays Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, por- written 75 years ago. But that is what I wanted to ing over the Edward Ackerman collection, I was do (and ashamedly sometimes did, when no one gently chastised for being ‘too enthusiastic’ with was looking): to go through the archives quickly, the Xerox machine. And in July in the strangely following the thread of the narrative, discarding cramped Dickensian space of the Rare Books the boring bits, the grandstanding, the brown and Special Collections Division at Princeton nosing, the claustrophobic obligatory prose. University’s Firestone Library (I felt like Bob I wanted to take, in Ann Laura Stoler’s (2009: Cratchit) going through the John Q. Stewart Chapter 2) lovely phrase, the ‘pulse of the papers I was not-so-gently accused of creating too much ‘paper dust’. The torn sulphur- yellow sheets of paper on which Stewart wrote Corresponding author: went back to the 1930s. Now held together with Department of Geography, 1984 West Mall, University of rusty paper clips, they were fraying, turning to British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2, Canada powder on touch. The fine particle remains of Email: [email protected] 668 Barnes 669 archive’. Of course, most of the archival mate- defensive in their dismissal of non-quantitative rial I read was written by people no longer in this approaches. I am not clear why the ‘Legends’ are world. I was taking the pulse of the dead. But so touchy. The quantitative approach is part of even though there was no heartbeat, life the discipline’s furniture, and, buttressed by throbbed on the page. GISci, it is not going to disappear any time soon If there is a theme to this year’s writings in the (Barnes, 2010). Nonetheless, Robert Baker history and philosophy of geography (especially (2008: 216), in an otherwise persuasive intro- the philosophy), it is recognizing that what was duction to the collection, still feels the need to judged dead, in fact, still has a pulse. Ideas, call me one of the ‘‘‘barbarians’’ at the frontier’ concepts, words, and phrases that one might for a commentary on quantitative methods that I have thought had passed beyond life to the other wrote 15 years ago. Similarly, Berry et al. (2008: side – the quantitative revolution, the materialist 229) begin their paper with a gratuitous slur of dialectic, autocorrelation, the Grundrisse –are ‘Marxism, deconstruction, and postmodernism’ back, and vitally beating. for ‘deflect[ing] geography from the cusp of sci- entific respectability’. In the same vein, Richard 1 Morrill (2008: 326) implies that those in human II ‘Wherever you can, count’ geography associated with poststructuralism are Certainly, quantification is back, and reviewed like those who believe in ‘intelligent design’. by the self-described ‘Legends of quantitative More even-handed are personal retrospectives geography and Geographical Information by Robert Stimpson (2008), Ron Johnston Science’ in a special 40th anniversary issue of (2008), and Peter Haggett (2008a; 2008b). Geographical Analysis (2008). That journal was Haggett’s two pieces are delightful. ‘Delightful’, inaugurated in 1969 partly to solidify the made- I know, is not the kind of adjectival evaluation over Department of Geography at Ohio State usually used in these progress reports, and, when that had gone quantitative under Ned Taaffe’s it is, it is often as a back-handed compliment: chairmanship six years before, and partly to pro- pleasant but not serious. But Haggett is pleasant vide a formal outlet for quantitative work that and serious. There are the agreeable and familiar formerly had appeared only within informal Haggett writing tropes – self-deprecation, rye publications, most famously, in the MICMOG ironic asides, gentle ribbing of friends by (Michigan Inter-University Community of Math- anecdote – but they are intertwined with a set ematical Geographers) series, and now reissued of forcefully articulated arguments: how all online.2 Ohio State University Press published histories, including the history of quantitative Geographical Analysis on the condition that geography, are ‘fables’ (Haggett, 2008a: 226), MICMOG cease publication, with John Nystuen that we can never control the future course of handing over its mailing list of 700 names and ideas (‘Nor should we’ – Haggett, 2008a: 228), addresses.3 and that we should be suspicious of labels, includ- The essay reviews by the ‘Legends’ are clear, ing the label ‘Legend’ (Haggett, 2008b: 336). comprehensive, and adept, covering spatial and Special issues of The Professional Geographer geospatial analysis (Berry et al., 2008), beha- (Barnes, 2009; Ellis, 2009; Goetz et al., 2009; vioural geography (Golledge, 2008), migration Leszczynski, 2009a; Wyly, 2009; Zolnik, 2009) (Clark, 2008), autocorrelation (Getis, 2008) and and Environment and Planning A (Bergmann et GISci (Goodchild, 2008). Sometimes they al., 2009; Hamilton, 2009; Strauss, 2009) orga- seemed too much like de´ja` vu all over again. nized by Mei-Po Kwan and Tim Schwanen And on occasion, in spite of flashes of bravado (2009a; 2009b) on critical quantitative geogra- and triumphalism, they were unnecessarily phies illustrate the possibilities of quantitative 669 670 Progress in Human Geography 34(5) geography once it is thought about differently than within GISci. Here there seems less touchiness, the presentations of many of the ‘Legends’ (and a greater willingness to connect. This is apparent thereby perhaps fulfilling Haggett’s imperative in Nadine Schuurman’s (2009a; 2009b) (on the about letting go). For Kwan and Schwanen critical side of GISci) interview with Michael (2009a: 284), those possibilities turn on using Goodchild (one of the ‘Legends’). Goodchild ‘quantitative geography ... [as] a powerful even says at one point ‘Neil Smith was abso- tool for fostering progressive social and political lutely right’ (Schuurman, 2009b: 579). More of change’. That said, as several contributors as well a stretch but still in the realm of the possible, as the editors recognize, the original turn to formal Goodchild might say that Paul Kingsbury and theory and numbers in geography during the 1950s John Paul Jones’s (2009) Dionysian interpreta- was driven, at least for a few of its participants, by tion of Google Earth is ‘absolutely right’ too. exactly a critical political sensibility. (Perhaps the What they all recognize is the democratic poten- best exemplar is the University of Washington tial of new mapping technologies that allow ‘space cadet’ Bill Bunge; Heyman, 2007.) everyone to do their own cartographic represen- The case for the power of numbers as a strat- tation and analysis, and, if necessary, to contest egy against power is made especially well by ‘official’ maps and their interpretation, redraw- Mark Ellis (‘I cannot imagine how human geo- ing and reinterpreting them if necessary. In that graphy can be critical if it does not embrace light, there is Kevin Ramsey’s (2008) applied ... numbers’ – Ellis, 2009: 308), and in Elvin GISci study using Chantel Mouffe’s notion of Wyly’s (2009: 316) brilliantly seditious paper: ‘agonism’ (see also Barnes and Sheppard, ‘All statistics are social constructions, but when 2009); and for conspiracy lovers there are Chris critical geographers abandon statistics, we give Perkins and Martin Dodge’s (2009) spooky up the opportunity to shape and mobilize maps of the state’s (undemocratic) secret spaces. these constructions for progressive purposes.’ All this critical engagement does not mean love The larger point, contra some of the ‘Legends’, and harmony now infuse GISci. There are still is that one can be a Marxist, postmodernist or disputes, but they seem to be among people poststructural critic and make use of mathe- working broadly on the same project (Crampton, matics and formal theory. There is no contradic- 2009; Leszczynski, 2009b; 2009c), rather than tion; indeed, the combination may well be a between people aligned in opposition. necessity, producing papers that meet even the Finally, if there remains residual doubt about exacting scientific standards of Geographical the possibility of being both politically critical Analysis. Bergmann et al. (2009) have written and scientifically rigorous, read Alain Baidou, one (although it is published in that other journal one of the more exotic incarnations of of spatial theory launched a year before the contemporary French social theory. Vital to his inauguration of Geographical Analysis, Envi- ‘thinking the event’ is calculability, used not ronment and Planning A).
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