1- Spatial Epistemology: Heterotopia, Lived Space, and Thirdspace
As Foucault ([1967] 1984) points out, human beings are obsessed more with the notion of time (pondered as dynamic and diverse) than space (considered as homogenous and empty), whereas, the new epoch, which in Foucault’s sense is the modern time after the nineteenth century, especially requires attention on the knowledge of the space, because now human beings experience the world “less that of a long life developing through time, than that of a network that connects points and intersects with its own skein”. Yet this argument does not “entail the denial of time”, but acknowledge the “fatal intersection of time with space”. Space in Foucault’s mind is by no means void, but inhabits
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either the physical or the imagined, into a “both/and logic” and the ontological trialectic of “Spatiality-Historicality-Sociality”. Similar to the perceived space in Lefebvre’s term, the Firstspace refers to the real, and physical space, as the geographical site shown in the map, while the Secondspace regards the space as symbolic and poetic. The imagined geography, like utopia, tends to become the “real geography”, with the image or representation coming to define and order the reality. Arguing even while the two ways of thinking are at odds, they also “embody and nourish” each other, Soja protests against the binary between the First- and Secondspace, and puts forward the idea of the Thirdspace, as the mergence of the two. Favouring the trialectic ontology of Historicality-Socialcality-Spatiality, Thirdspace denotes the belief that the historical, social and spatial are interviewing with each other. On the other hand, the significance of Thirdspace lies on its defences against “totalling closure and all permanent constructions” and the tendency of always opening up for more dynamics and possibilities. The notion of Thirdspace makes more sense in the modern context of globalisation, although Homi Bhabha’s employment of this term slightly deviates from Soja’s definition: the former
Blij has clearly put this book into historical significance by mentioning the idea of geography and how it plays a role in societies all over the world. However, the five themes of culture regions, cultural diffusion, cultural interaction, cultural ecology, and cultural landscapes are all clearly defined within a specific context to a particular nation. Through reading this intriguing piece of literature I received the underlying notion that Blij firmly believes that landscapes of the world realm are not going to change. De Blij worldview of regions, diffusion, interaction, ecology, and landscapes has allowed him to simultaneously link issues together from the United States all the way to Southeast Asia.
in the equally codified language of space (marking territories with graffiti in the city, the
...lves the confirmation of the boundaries of the social world through the sorting of things into good and bad categories. They enter the unconscious through the process of socialisation.’ Then, “the articulation of space and its conception is a reminder that time boundaries are inextricably connected to exclusionary practises which are defined in refusing to adhere to the separation of black experience.”
The ways in which people are placed within “time space compression” as highly complicated and extremely varied. For instance, in the book Nickel and Dimed, Barbara said, “ Something is wrong, very wrong, when a single person in good health, a person who in addition possesses a working car, can barely support herself by the sweat of her brow. You do not need a degree in economics to see that wages are too low and rents too high”(127). Barbara has a car so that she can drive to her workplace and save the time from waiting public transportation, and she also can go to different cities whenever she is free. Therefore, she has more control of her mobility. The social relations would change when she went to another city. Different social groups have distinct relationships to this anyway differentiated mobility: some people are more in charge of it than others, like Barbara; some initiate flows and movement, others do not; some are more more on the receiving-end of it than others. Instead of thinking of places as areas with boundaries around, they can be imaged as articulated moments in networks of social relations and understandings, but where a large proportion of those relations, experiences and understandings are structed ona far larger scale than what we happen to define for that moment as the place itself, whether that be a street, or a region or even a continent. We can see that from her different work experiences in different places. And this in turn allows a sense of place which is extroverted, which includes a consciousness of its links with the wider world, which integrates ina apositive way the global and the
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) was an Argentine short-story writer and essayist best known for his fiction that focused on the interconnected themes of labyrinths, dreams, religion, and time. Specifically, the idea that time can bifurcate, and that all time is occurring simultaneously are pivotal to a large portion of his writing. This essay will focus on this ideas, along with other temporal themes, providing an in-depth analysis of time throughout the body of his works, with a specific focus on The Garden of Forking Paths. Further, this essay will endeavor to answer the question of whether or not Yu Tsen’s and Stephen Albert’s views on time are in accordance with the conclusions pertaining to Borges’ time.
The main ideas presented in “Why Geography Matters…More Than Ever!” revolve around what exactly geography is, and the implications of the subject. Geography is the study of the physical world and human actions, it also covers the affects of human actions. Geography influences a plethora of topics and geographers do research on numerous subjects. “Geographers do research on glaciations and coastlines, on desert dunes and limestone caves, on weather and climate, even on plants and animals”(7). The author stresses how underrated geography is the present times, and how the introduction of social studies have doomed the subject of geography for future generations. In a section detailing the teaching of geography
Summer Assignment In the book “Why Geography Matters More Than Ever”, the author, Harm de Blij, discusses the importance of geography, how it can affect us in any place or any time, and why it matters. But most importantly, he succeeds to advance our perception of the world’s geography. Throughout the book de Blij highlights the many benefits of being educated about geography. He explains that it is important that we are informed about this topic so we can be more prepared for the events happening around the world.
Space is something everyone experiences. However Eliade points out that different people have different reactions to the spatial aspect of the world. A profane man may experience space/spaces homogenously, “ no break qualitatively differentiates the various parts of its mass.” (pg. 22). For an example a profane man might classify a mall and church in the same way because he sees no religious value within them, but he then could regard a hospital sacred because that may be the place of his birth (in page 24 Eliade such sacredness is worthless). A religious man, on the other hand, could look at that same space, a mall and a church, and differentiate the sacred space, also known as the cosmos, from the profane space, also known as the chaos. In this case the religious man would classify the church as sacred place because it has some holy value and the mall as the profane space because it has no holy value at all. In clearer terms the the profane space is h...
‘I feel that I had been at the frontier of existence, close to the place where they lose their names, their definition, the place where time stops, almost outside History’ (E Ionesco).
The aspect of ordered space versus uniform space is the first comparison drawn between the Sacred and Profane experience of life. Space has a sense of order for religious men because holy places gave the universe a fixed center and sacred territories were distinctly separated from the profane territories. Furthermore, the foundation on which religious men built their entire reality were heirophanies. This is because of their desire to connect to the transcendent being. Heirophanies revealed the glory of god’s power and each action that a religious man carried out in life was symbolically surmounted on this base, thereby ...
‘Through identifying places and organizing them, we make sense of the world we inhibit’ (Unwin,
Everyday experience tells us that different actions need different environments to take place in a satisfactory way. This fact is of course taken into consideration by current theory of planning and architecture, but so far the problem has been treated in a too abstract way. ‘Taking place’ is usually understood in a quantitative, functional sense with implications such as spatial distribution and dimensioning. But inter-human functions are not similar everywhere, they take place in very different ways and demand places with different properties, in accordance with different cultural traditions and different environmental conditions.
“It was a new discovery to find that these stories were, after all, about our own lives, were not distant, that there was no past or future that all time is now-time, centred in the being.” (Pp39.)
To counter balance Cartesianism Hirsch puts forward Vico’s argument of ‘sensory topics’ which places imagery of shared identities and interactions at the heart of the landscape. The relationship between the physical and the metaphorical whilst very separate can be united. Only when the physical place or subject oriented (‘indexical’) place can be examined then the metaphorical space, non-subject orientated (‘non-indexical’) can begin to be understood (Gell, 1985). Thus the development of the indexical (e.g. maps) can lead to the understanding of the non-dexical (e.g. images). Mutually related.
De, Blij Harm J., and Peter O. Muller. Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts. New York: J. Wiley, 1997. 340. Print.