The Scale Politics of Spaliality
The Scale Politics of Spaliality
复制标题
空间性的尺度政治
DOI：
10.1068/d120257
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发表时间：
1994
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Andrew E. G. Jonas
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Andrew E. G. Jonas
空间性的尺度政治 在最近的一篇论文中，Dorccn Massey（1992）表达了对批判理论家最近处理和挪用空间概念的方式的一些担忧。她认为批判理论中出现的空间语法更多的是关于固定性、惯性和静态，而不是关于空间和人类空间关系的动态品质。最近在批判理论中重新主张空间的尝试似乎并没有取代历史主义和现代主义的严格范畴，而是产生了一组平行的有问题的空间思想和隐喻。梅西提出，批判理论朝着一种牢固植根于社会和物质活动的空间性的综合方法迈进：“主导思想不是‘时间切片’，而是社会关系的同时共存，不能被概念化为动态……空间本质上充满了权力和象征意义，是一个复杂的统治和从属关系网络……一种‘权力几何’”（第80-81页）。如果批判理论中早就该对空间性采取综合方法，那么人文地理学中的尺度理论也同样如此。规模问题即使不是一个成熟的理论，也潜伏在最近的地理学争论背后，并且在某些情况下它一直处于讨论的中心。人们从这些辩论中感受到了比例尺的重要性，但同时最重要的印象是地理学家缺乏能够捕捉比例尺各种细微差别的概念。正如尼尔·史密斯（Neil Smith，1992）最近指出的那样，地理学家常常将不同但又相互关联的尺度含义混为一谈。有时，尺度描绘了物质景观差异的地理。在其他情况下，规模是一组抽象概念，通过它我们可以理解创造和重塑这些物质景观的社会过程。使问题进一步复杂化的是，尺度经常被隐喻地使用，因为尺度差异是隐含的，但并不是所提出的想法的基础。安东尼·吉登斯（Anthony Giddens）对人类行为和社会互动的“区域化”符合这种描述，因为它可以应用于许多时空尺度（1985，第281页）。空间隐喻的使用是地理学中公认的实践（Agnew，1982；Barnes 和 Duncan，1991）；规模隐喻则不然。规模的语言太强大了，不能简单地视为空间的“维度”。然而，如果我们要接受梅西的论点，任何研究尺度和差异的新方法都必须纳入空间政治。我想建议我们实际上可以讨论空间性的尺度政治。我将参考地理和社会生活中规模的呈现来讨论这种政治的各个方面。
The scale politics of spaliality In a recent paper, Dorccn Massey (1992) expressed some concerns about the way critical theorists have recently engaged with, and appropriated, spatial concepts. She felt that the kind of spatial grammar emerging in critical theory is more about fixity, inertia, and stasis than it is about the dynamic qualities of space and human spatial relations. Instead of replacing the rigid categories of historicism and modernism, recent attempts to reassert space in critical theory seem merely to have generated a parallel set of problematical spatial ideas and metaphor. Massey proposed that critical theory move towards an integrative approach to spatiality that is firmly rooted in social and material activity: "It is not the 'slice through time' that should be the dominant thought but the simultaneous coexistence of social relations that cannot be conceptualized as other than dynamic ... space is by its nature full of power and symbolism, a complex web of relations of domination and subordination ... a kind of 'power-geometry'" (pages 80-81). If an integrative approach to spatiality is overdue in critical theory, the same can be argued for a theory of scale in human geography. The issue, if not a full-blown theory, of scale has lurked behind recent debates in geography, and on a few occasions it has been at the very center of discussion. One gets from these debates a sense of the importance of scale, but at the same time the overriding impression is that geographers arc lacking in concepts capable of capturing the various nuances of scale. As Neil Smith (1992) has recently argued, geographers often conflate different, yet interrelated, meanings of scale. Sometimes scale depicts a geography of difference in material landscapes. On other occasions, scale is a set of abstractions through which we make sense of social processes making and remaking these material landscapes. To complicate matters further, scale is often used metaphorically in the sense that scale differences are implicit but are not fundamental to the idea being presented. Anthony Giddens's 'regionalization' of human behavior and social interactions would fit this description because it can be applied to many time-space scales (1985, page 281). The use of spatial metaphor is a well-recognized practice in geography (Agnew, 1982; Barnes and Duncan, 1991); less so is scale metaphor. The language of scale is too powerful to be treated simply as a 'dimension' of spatiality. Nevertheless, if we are to accept Massey's arguments, any new approach to scale and difference must incorporate the politics of spatiality. I want to suggest that we can in fact talk of the scale politics of spatiality. I will discuss aspects of this politics in reference to the presentation of scale both in geography and in social life more generally.