Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Space is a concept that is central to geographical thinking. Yet, relatively little attention has been given to exploration of the concept of space as such, and this is so outside of geography no less than within it. Beginning with an examination of the ‘relational’ view of space that now seems dominant in geography as well as many other areas of the social sciences (and which is often presented as an elucidation of space itself), this paper explores the concept of space as it stands in connection with time and place, making particular use of the notions of boundedness, extendedness, and emergence while also shedding light on the idea of relationality. The aim is to outline a different mode of theorizing space than is to be found in much of contemporary geography and social theory—one that also draws geographical thinking into the domain of ‘philosophical topography’.

Keywords

boundary boundedness concepts emergence extendedness geography ontology philosophy place relationality space time topography topology void

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alexander

H G

, (Ed.), 1957 The Leibniz – Clarke Correspondence (Manchester University Press, Manchester).

Amin

, 2002, “Spatialities of globalisation” Environment and Planning A 34 385–399.

Amin

, 2004, “Regions unbound: Towards a new politics of place” Geografiska Annaler, Series B 86 33–44.

Casey

E S

, 1997 The Fate of Place (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA).

Castells

, 1989 The Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring, and the Urban Regional Process (Blackwell, Oxford).

Cornford

F M

, 1937 Plato's Cosmology: The Timaeus of Plato translated with a running commentary (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London).

Cresswell

, 2004 Place: An Introduction (Blackwell, London).

Escobar

, 2007, “The ontological turn in social theory. A commentary on ‘Human geography without scale’, by Sallie Marston, John Paul Jones II and Keith Woodward” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series 32 106–111.

Grant

, 1981 Much Ado About Nothing: Theories of Space and Vacuum from the Middle Ages to the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge).

10.

Harvey

, 1973 Social Justice and the City (Edward Arnold, London).

11.

Harvey

, 1996 Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference (Blackwell, Oxford).

12.

Heidegger

, 1971, “Building dwelling thinking”, in Poetry Language Thought translated by Hofstadter

, (Harper and Row, New York) pp 141–160.

13.

Heidegger

, 1998, “On the essence and concept of Physis in Aristotle's Physics B, I”, in Pathmarks Ed. McNeill

, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) pp 183–230.

14.

Hussey

, 1983 Aristotle's Physics—Books III and IV translated with introduction and notes by Hussey

, (Clarendon Press, Oxford).

15.

Jammer

, 1993 Concepts of Space: The History of Theories of Space in Physics foreword by A Einstein, 3rd enlarged edition (Dover Publications, New York).

16.

Jessop

Brenner

Jones

, 2008, “Theorizing sociospatial relations” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 26 389–401.

17.

Malpas

, 1999 Place and Experience (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge).

18.

Malpas

, 2006 Heidegger's Topology (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA).

19.

Massey

, 1994 Space, Place and Gender (Polity Press, Cambridge).

20.

Massey

, 2005 For Space (Sage, London).

21.

Reichert

, 1992, “On boundaries” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 10 87–98.

22.

Simmel

, 1997, “Bridge and door”, in Simmel on Culture Eds Frisby

Featherstone

, (Sage, London) pp 170–173.

23.

Smith

Katz

, 1993, “Grounding metaphor: Towards a spatialized politics”, in Place and the Politics of Identity Eds Keith

Pile

, (Routledge, New York) pp 67–83.

24.

Thrift

, 2006, “Space” Theory, Culture and Society 23 139–146.

Putting Space in Place: Philosophical Topography and Relational Geography

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References