Essentialism
From Geography
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Definition of essentialism
The essentialism is an approach in the Human Geography that means that every entity has his own characteristics. These characteristics makes the entity to what it in essence means. All objects like a car, a house, a human being, a spoon or an train have characteristics that make the objects to what they are. Without these essential characteristics the object has not the definition that makes the object to what is should be. It makes it possible to distinguish between the essential and non-essential aspects of objects or phenomena (Gregory et al., 2009). To give an other clear definition we quote fuss' (1989), who defines it as 'a belief in the real, true essences of things, the invariable and fixed properties which define the whatness of a given entity'.
In human geography there are characteristics that make the difference between different people, spaces and time. The difference between people is determined by biology. All bodies are different, this means that each body has different characteristics. But some things are essential to everybody, like organs for a human being, without organs there is no human being. There are also essentials for objects, for a car an engine is essential, without this engine there is no car.
So, essentialism is the philosophy that for every entity there is a bundle of characteristics for him. These characteristics are given to an entity by nature, it is not that this entity adopted some characteristics, they are given to him. This vision is exactly the opposite from existentialism, which says entities only can become by adopting.
Essentialism says that everything an object needs must be present. If this isn't, it loses its identity, like a heart in the human body. Without a heart you can't call yourself human being.
Critique
Essentialism came under scrutiny and criticism in the mid to late 20th century by Richard Rorty. Since then the viewpoint that human nature is eternal and unchangeable has been critized by Karl Marx and Martin Heidegger. Who both were known for their existentialistic thinking, which opposes essentialism.
Essentialism is also criticized by post-structuralists (Johnsten, Gregory, Pratt, & Watts, 2000, p. 230). According to them, essentialism doesn’t recognize the definitions and explanatory theories of social practices that reflect contingent conditions and complicated relations of social interest and power.
Essentialism has three main points of critique:
1. Epistemological essentialism tries to discover the true nature or essence of things. The underlying assumption is that all things have a single essence and that it is possible to gain knowledge of all these essences. Richard Rorty "repudiates this sense of essentialism, arguing that it depends on a correspondence theory of truth that offsets reality and representation" (Gregory et al., 2009, p. 210)
2. Social sciences are fallibilistic, and should not try to claim absolute truth. Social sciences take their alleged objectivity not from the reliability of their anchorage in experience, but from the critical method they persue. It is the falsifiability of scientific statements that constitutes the criteria of objectivity (Bartels, 1987).
3. Essentialism assumes that identities, whether it be sexual, national, political or otherwise, are premised on unifying, shared dimensions of experience, embodiment or social position. The critique is that these identities are constructed socially and spatially and are relational and historically contingent.
Geographical example
With the principles of the essentialism could be looked to a process such as the cultural globalization as a geographical example. The globalization creates a global western culture. Every where in the world you find more and more the same shops, restaurants, dressing styles, TV series and so on... At the same time traditional culture habits and values lose their inlfuence. The essentialism sees this cultural globalization or Mcdonaldization of the world as a development that eventually will stop. According to essentialism every human being has his own characteristics, that make them to what they are. Without these essential characteristics they have no definition to what they should be: humans with their own characteristics. So they will always preserve their own (traditional)culture, that makes and define who we/they are.
References
Bartels, J.J.A. (1987). "Kennis, geschiedenis, objectiviteit: een filosofische reflectie op enkele ontwikkelingen in de wetenschapstheorie". University of Groningen, Groningen.
Fuss, D. 1989. Essentially speaking: feminism, nature and difference. London: Routledge.
Gregory, D., Johnston, R., Pratt, G., Watts, M., & Whatmore, S. (2009). The dictionary of human geography. Wiley-Blackwell
Johnsten, R.J., Gregory, D., Pratt, G., & Watts, M. (2000). The dictionary of human geography. Blackwell Publishing. Founded at 31 October, 2011 at [1]
Pollmann, T. (1999). De letteren als wetenschap. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. [2]
Zierhofer, W. (2002). Speech acts and space(s): Language pragmatics and the discursive constitution of the social. Environment and Planning, 34, 1355-1372.
Contributors
Published by Sonny Joziasse & Benny Jansen & Robbert Vossers
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