Time geography
From Geography
The time geography is a approach in the social geography introduced by the Swedish geographer Torsten Hägerstrand. A behavioural approximation in which decisions about behaviour and time are the central points.
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The model of Hägerstrand
Every living person, or even every living organism deploys certain activities in a certain sequence. A person for example goes in general on a specific time of the day to his or her work where they stay for an ‘x’ hours a day before they go home, do the shoppings cook a meal, relax and then go to bed. In general we can see a clear pattern in the activities that humans deploy. This is called a life path. There are different kind of paths. For example life path, weekly path, daily path which show the sequence of activities for a specific time period. Very often the paths of people are visually represented as prisms in which the activity and the time are shown. Changes in for example the mode of transport influences the prism because an actor can travel faster. When the individual paths of persons come together, you get a path bundle. In situations like this it’s possible that spread effects appear. Spread effects are changes of your destination through these path bundles. For example you meet unexpectedly a friend in the train, Hereby you choose to get a drink in the local pub with your friend, instead of going to the university. Hägerstrand came up with this idea of a space and time path to illustrate how a person finds and navigates his way in spatial environments. "The physical area around a given individual is reduced to a two-dimensional plane, on which his or her location and destination are represented as zero-dimensional points." (Pred, 1981).
In his model and prisms of time-geography Hagerstrand used the follow assumptions:
- All physical entities have a limited life
- Physical entities cannot be in more than one place at the same time (exception: the internet)
- Physical entities are limited in the task they can do
- All tasks demands time
- Movement uses time
- No more than two objects can occupy the same place and the same time
- Every object or space has a biography
Constraints
Hägerstrand noted that individuals were not completely free to create their paths. They had to stick to certain constraints like Häagerstrand noted: “An individual can never free himself from … constraints” (Hägerstrand, 1970). Hägerstrand therefore described three different types of constrains that influence the paths of people in their life. The three constraints are:
1. Capability constraints: In daily life humans are committed to different things like eating and sleeping to function well.
2. Coupling constraints: People are dependent from other persons, machines etc. to fulfill an activity. They are also dependent from possibilities within spaces. This is the result of human interactions.Examples of coupling constraints are for example cars.
3. Authority constraints: People are dependent from limited opening hours, laws and other ‘rules’ to fulfill their activities. For example; people aren't able to shop at 3 pm.
Criticism on time-geography
The criticism on Time-geography exist of two main streams. The first one points out the importance of the physical in Time-geography and thereby the absence of human thought-and-action and the social understanding of time and space. The other main criticism of Time-geography focuses on the assumption that time and space are objective and transparent. Besides that, also the absence of race, gender, sexuality etc. is criticized. Time geography links space and time into a coherent framework and is suitable for detailed comparison of access levels of different population groups. Ofcourse there are also some criticisms about this approach but in general it is a very clear tool in human geography.
References
- Hägerstrand, T. (1970). What about people in regional science. Lund: Gleerup.
- Pred, A.(1981). Space and time in geography: Essays dedicated to Torsten Hagerstrand. Lund: Gleerup.
Editors
- Published by Bas Boselie (s0813141) & Chriss van Pul (s0801364)
- Edited by Fenki Evers & Anton de Hoogh
- Edited by Jan-Peter Hoste s4026349
- Edited by Malou van Woerkum
- Edited by Lars Paardekooper 21-10-2012
