Critical realism has attracted substantial interest and following within social geography for a number of years. A principal reason for this popularity lies with the critical realist method of abstraction. This method seeks to abstract the underlying causal powers of an object for social analysis at different levels of abstraction. The theoretical movement from the underlying reality of an object to its contingent and everyday appearance therefore enables geographers to explore different spatial scales of the same concrete object of analysis. This ability to take seriously an ‘underlying reality’ also enables geographers to spatialize, and embed themselves within, a radical heritage beginning with Marx. In this paper I wish to question the methodological power of critical realism for social geographical thought. By recourse to Hegel, Marx and Lefebvre, I want to show that critical realists and critical realist geographers in fact pursue different methodological projects to that of Marxism. Whereas Marxists seek to explore the self-movement of a contradictory essence, critical realists and critical realist geographers seek to explore the external and relational connection between causal powers. I argue that within this critical realist exploration there is a tendency to present a rather static account of essence, or causal powers, because of the non-dialectical and dualist assumptions about the world that such an account encourages. It is an account, moreover, which can lead to a somewhat impoverished radical social theory.
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