Social space

From Geography

Latest revision as of 13:09, 14 October 2012

Social space is a vital term in Bourdieu's theory of practice. It's not a geographical space or territory, but it's seen as a relation space. Durkheim (in Bourdieu, 1989, p. 16) used the term ‘social reality’ by which he meant that space, in this case, is the whole of invisible relations. These relations create a space of social positions external to each other. These positions are defined by distance from, proximity to or neighbourhood with each other. When we compare the social and geographic space, we can compare them in the way in which regions are divided. In general can be said that the closer groups, institutions or agents are in the space, the more properties in common they have. The more distance between them, the fewer properties are in common. Often, this means that people close together in social space are close together in geographic space too. Sometimes this is caused by choice and sometimes by necessity. However, people who have a lot of distance between them in social space can also encounter and interact in the physical space when the physical distance between them is small. Our social reality has, according to Lippuner and Werlen (2009), multiple dimensions that represent which positions in social space are defined and allocated. These dimensions are reflected by means of different forms of capital:

1. Economic Capital: the possession of, for example, money, income or property;

2. Social Capital: an authoritative resource in Giddens’ sense of social relations, for example employment or contracts;

3. Cultural Capital: all sorts of competences in dealing with signs and semantics, for example education or skills;

4. Symbolic Capital: the economic and cultural capital when it is known and recognized, existing of power relations/monopoly positions which determine the structure of social space and the hierarchy of it. There are also universally recognized and guaranteed examples of symbolic capital, such as educational diplomas.

The forms of capital named above constitute "the main coordinate axis of social space, that is, the determinants by means of which positions in social space are defined and allocated." (Lippuner & Werlen, 2009, p. 46). This means that social space becomes visible in the physical space through certain positioning of actors and properties. One could say that the cultural and economic capitals become visible in, for instance, the geography of cities. In cities are goods (rare and treasured) and people positioned in certain places (separated from other goods and other groups of people) what makes the developments in the social space visible in the physical. When a social actor occupies a place, it can turn into a ‘space profit’. In this case there is a certain control over space that keeps unwanted persons, things or situations at a distance. Besides that can proximity to rare facilities or goods lead to space profit (Lippuner & Werlen, 2009).

References:

Bourdieu, P. (1989). Social space and symbolic power [Electronic version]. Sociological theory, 7, p. 14-25. Accessed on 12 october 2012.

Lippuner, R. & Werlen, B. (2009). Structuration Theory [Electronic version]. Accessed on 10 october 2012.

Published by Paul Leemans & Luuk Robers

Improved by Rosalie Koen on 13 october 2012