Michel Foucault's Geography
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== Background == | == Background == | ||
Michel Foucault's geographical thinking and attentiveness to spatial relations, though less acknowledged in geographical theory, is however seen by some (Edward Soja and Chris Philo, for instance) as a blueprint for [[postmodern]] geography (Philo, 2000). | Michel Foucault's geographical thinking and attentiveness to spatial relations, though less acknowledged in geographical theory, is however seen by some (Edward Soja and Chris Philo, for instance) as a blueprint for [[postmodern]] geography (Philo, 2000). | ||
| + | The following remark in his essay Heterotopia, indicates the significance of space in his analysis, | ||
| + | " ''The great obsession of the nineteenth century was, as we know, history: with its themes of development and is suspension, of crisis, and cycle, themes of the ever-accumulating past, with its preponderance of dead men.... the present epoch will perhaps be above all the epoch of space. We are in the epoch of simultaneity: we are in the epoch of juxtaposition, the epoch of the near and far, of the side-by-side, of the dispersed. We are at a moment, I believe, when our experience of the world is less that of a long life developing through time than that of a network that connects points and intersects with its own skin.'' "(Foucault, 1986, 22) | ||
== Foucault's geography in history == | == Foucault's geography in history == | ||
Revision as of 14:11, 15 September 2011
Contents |
Background
Michel Foucault's geographical thinking and attentiveness to spatial relations, though less acknowledged in geographical theory, is however seen by some (Edward Soja and Chris Philo, for instance) as a blueprint for postmodern geography (Philo, 2000). The following remark in his essay Heterotopia, indicates the significance of space in his analysis, " The great obsession of the nineteenth century was, as we know, history: with its themes of development and is suspension, of crisis, and cycle, themes of the ever-accumulating past, with its preponderance of dead men.... the present epoch will perhaps be above all the epoch of space. We are in the epoch of simultaneity: we are in the epoch of juxtaposition, the epoch of the near and far, of the side-by-side, of the dispersed. We are at a moment, I believe, when our experience of the world is less that of a long life developing through time than that of a network that connects points and intersects with its own skin. "(Foucault, 1986, 22)
Foucault's geography in history
Michel Foucault is highly sensitive of spatial relations in his analysis of discourse, knowledge and power relations in society. He asserts that historical enquiry should be conceptualised through spaces of dispersion rather than as a set of events stacked on top of each other across a linear time-line. Foucault reasserted the importance of space, place and geography to stories of history and social thought (Philo, 2000) and is known as one of the key figures in poststructuralist thinking. His concept of spaces of dispersion advocates a way of seeing the social world through space, if one might say so, as a space across which all events and phenomenon relevant for substantive inquiry is dispersed (Hubbard, Kitchin, Valentine,2004 pp.124.)
Geography in some of Foucault's works
- In Madness and Civilization he concludes about 'Geography of haunted places'.
- In The Birth of the Clinic he deals with three different forms of spatialisations.
- In Discipline and Punish he explores the notion that 'discipline proceeds from the distribution of individuals in space'.
- In his analysis of Jeremy Bentham's Panoptican, he looks at the physical and psychical control over individuals achieved through the manipulation of spatial relations.
(Philo, 2000, pp.221-222)
References
- Philo, Chris, 2000, Foucault's Geography, in Crang, Mike & Thrift, Nigel, (eds) Thinking Space, Routledge, London.
- Hubbard, Phil., Kitchin, Rob., Valentine, Gill (eds) (2004) Key Thinkers on Space and Place, Sage, London.
Contributors
- Page created by Kolar Aparna==Kolaraparna 21:23, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
