THINKING CREATIVELY AND CRITICALLY ABOUT SPACE IN COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION RESEARCH

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1 INTRODUCTION THINKING CREATIVELY AND CRITICALLY ABOUT SPACE IN COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION RESEARCH PRECIS FOR THE RICE SYMPOSIUM, April 15 th, 2011 Written by Marianne A. Larsen and Jason Beech DO NOT QUOTE While not necessarily a new phenomenon, many now argue that these are spatial times that we live in and that space matters. Recognition of the spatiality of the world in which we live provokes us to engage in thinking that explores place, space and spatiality. And with this, we can begin (as we do in this précis) to explore the complex relationship between place, space and spatiality, and educational theories and practices. We welcome your feedback on this draft, especially as these ideas might relate to research in comparative and international education. There are many reasons for the contemporary interest in spatial thinking. Global transformations provoke us to consider wider and more complex concepts of space and spatiality for our research. These include the changing nature and effects of the mass media and new information technologies, the predominance of free-market relations, migration within and across national borders, and increasing evidence blatantly so of cross-national environmental threats, including natural disasters. In the first section of this paper, we outline some of the conditions that have made possible the spatial turn in the social sciences, including globalization in its multiple forms, changes in new information technologies, environmental disasters that cross national boundaries, and local, counterhegemonic responses to globalizing forces. In the second section, we review some of the key ideas associated with new conceptualizations of place, space and spatiality. We start with an overview of pre-modern and modern conceptualizations of place, space and time, and the relationship between them. Then, drawing upon the work of a range of social theorists from various disciplines including geography, philosophy and political science, we examine key concepts and ideas associated with the post-modern spatial turn. The third section of this paper shifts to an analysis of the significance of these new conceptualizations of space for comparative and international education..the main argument that we advance is that it is essential for comparative and international education researchers to think critically and carefully about concepts such as place, space and time; the relations between them; and effects on our work. As Harvey (1996) writes: Concepts of space and time affect the way we understand the world to be. And they also provide a reference system by means of which we located ourselves with respect to the world (p. 208). How we view place, space and time, will have wide-ranging effects on how we see the world and how we theorize about it.

2 PART I. WHY SPATIAL THINKING NOW? Over the past 20 years or so, increasing numbers of scholars in the social sciences and humanities have shifted their attention to space as an interpretive framework to understand social phenomena. Space has entered into a variety of fields of study, including economics; anthropology and archaeology; sociology and psychology; political science, and specifically international relations; history, including art history; and literary, film, cultural and religious studies. In such a way, space has now invaded the space of a wide spectrum of domains of knowledge, previously unconcerned with spatial thinking. This shift in thinking has been characterized as the spatial turn (Warf and Arias, 2009) across the human sciences. What unites scholars within these fields is a keen sense that space matters and that spatial thinking is now essential to the production of knowledge. Recognition of the spatial dimension of our contemporary world has been the result of a number of inter-connected shifts, which are generally considered a part of the process of globalization. Indeed, globalization implies a recognition of the spatiality of the world. HERE IN THE PAPER WE REVIEW THE DIFFERENT FORMS OF GLOBALIZATION: ECONOMIC, POLITICAL, CULTURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL In the above discussion we have focused on contemporary processes associated with globalization and their impact on spatial thinking. However, we can also consider the discourses that have developed in and around globalization and their effects on spatial thinking. Globalization, as a discourse, has become a mantra, evoking powerful images of an immense unstructured, free unbounded space and of a glorious, complex mixity (Massey, 2005, p. 81). What globalization discourses have done is accentuate the spatiality of the world, and the importance of attending to place and location. Globalization discourses challenges the classic story of modernization, so that it is no longer seen in Eurocentric terms. The story of capitalist modernity is therefore retold to focus on the global peripheries. Post-colonial discourses of globalization have exposed modernity s preconditions in and effects of violence, racism and oppression (Massey, 1999, p. 30). Globalization must, according to Massey (1999) be viewed in terms of what she calls the power-geometries of space-time. PART II. NEW CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF PLACE, SPACE AND SPATIALITY Space and spatial thinking have a history, and it is impossible to understand this history without a consideration of the relationship between place, space and time. Every society, at different times, has had different conceptions of space and time. How space and time are represented in theory matters because it affects how the world is interpreted and the way in which decisions are made to act upon the world. As Harvey (1989) says, The history of social change is in part captured by the history of the conceptions of space and time, and the ideological uses to which those conceptions might be put. Furthermore, any project to transform society must grasp the complex nettle of the transformation of spatial and temporal conceptions and practices (p. 218).

3 Thus, if different conceptions of time, place and space have emerged with different forms of social life, the shift from traditional to modern societies is probably marked by the modification of concepts of place, space and time. In order to understand contemporary notions of time and space, we begin with a discussion of pre-modern ideas. However, we caution the reader into not assuming a purely linear model where space, in the shift to modernity, becomes increasingly more significant at the expense of time, and place becomes separated completely from space. There are far more disruptions and discontinuities in this narrative than might appear at first glance. a) Pre-modern conceptualizations: Interconnections of place, space and time In pre-modern times, place, space and time were interconnected, and viewed in relation to one another. In the early medieval period, for example, space and time were understood as mysterious and powerful forces, governing all things (Gurevich, 1985 quoted in Harvey, 1996, p. 213). Even though most pre-modern cultures had modes for the calculation of time, time was a loose notion in traditional societies. Some major events became time markers around which daily life went on without precise timing. Most of the people could not tell the time of the day without reference to socio-spatial markers: when was either connected to where or to regular natural occurrences. Thus, time was attached to space (Castells 2000; Giddens 1990). In addition, place assumed a definite social meaning in traditional, pre-modern societies. Social relations were by and large circumscribed to a community inside given territorial boundaries. External space was weakly grasped, and was normally understood as a mysterious place dominated by external authorities or mythological figures. Thus in pre-modern societies, space generally coincided with place (Harvey, 1989, p. 240). Place in this instance refers to the physical setting of social activity as situated geographically, and space, the material support of time-sharing social practices, simultaneously brought together across space (Castells, 2000; Giddens, 1990). b) Modern conceptualizations: Subordinating Space A number of shifts occurred with the shift to modernity; most importantly the dislocation of space from place and time. We summarize some of these changes, keeping in mind that modernity and the processes associated with modernization occurred unevenly across time and space and therefore had very different effects across different sites, both physical, social and intellectual. The shift from feudalism to modern capitalism involved a redefinition of concepts of space and time. The discovery of new regions of the world by the European travellers and the charting of the globe set the basis for the notion of space as independent of any particular place. The related separation of space from time was also made possible by the invention of the hour in the 13 th century, the development of the minute and second as common measures of time in the 17 th century. By the 18 th century the mechanical clock had been invented and diffused to the population, and calendars and time standardized across most regions. The clock expressed a linear and uniform dimension of time that was seen as having qualities analogous to those that attached time to space. Yet time was still connected to space until the uniformity of time measurement was matched by uniformity in the social organisation of time (Giddens, 1990; Harvey, 1989).

4 These early changes and the latter (nineteenth century) rise of historicism, and related developments of industrial capitalism, western Marxism and the social sciences, hearken the subordination of space to time. As Foucault (1967) maintains: The great obsession of the nineteenth century was, as we know, history: with its themes of development and of suspension, of crisis, and cycle, themes of the ever-accumulating past, with its great preponderance of dead men and the menacing glaciation of the world (p. 1). By the last decades of the nineteenth century, the spatial was (re)conceived as being fixed, immobile a closed system. Space, as Foucault (1980) writes, was treated as the dead, the fixed, the undialectical, the immobile. Time on the contrary was richness, fecundity, life, dialectic (p. 70). Thus, space became sub-ordinate to time in critical social thought. c) Post-Modern Conceptualizations: Re-theorizing relations between place, space and time i) The reassertion of space over time One of the most significant shifts over the past fifty years or so has been the re-assertion of space into critical social science. Foucault (1972, 1980) and Lefebvre (1974, 1991) initiated the epistemological and ontological rethinking of the relations between space and time. They rejected the privileging of time over space, and suggested that the organization of space was central to the structure and function of globalized capitalism. Space, according to Lefebvre (1976), needs to be understood not only as a concrete, material object, but also as an ideological, lived, and subjective one. Marxist geographers, Castells and Harvey, followed Lefebvre s line of reasoning, with respect to the organization of space as a material product. Harvey s discussion of spatialization and Marxism centers on the deep structure of commodity production and the conversion of commodities into money, generating a model of production and the labour process that reveal its transformation of space and time. Over time, capitalists are compelled to speed up the turnover time of capital, which, according to Harvey (1989) is the time of production together with the time of circulation of exchange (p. 229). Capitalism has survived because it has occupied and produced a space conducive to economic growth. Furthermore, Soja (1993) argues that the spatial turn in the social sciences has involved the end of historicism, which privileged time over space, and the reassertion of space in social theory. Similarly, Massey (2005) argues for an abandonment of the dichotomization between space and time which posits space as being the opposite of time: immobile, fixed, coherent and representational. This returns much contemporary spatial theorizing to Kant who advocated for putting space on par with time in terms of intellectual significance. ii) Space of Flows; Space of Places Castells (2000), in his analysis of the network society, suggests that capitalism is characterized by three fundamental features: it is informational, global and networked. The spatiality of his theories

5 about the network society is expressed in the distinction between a space of flows and a space of places (Castells, 2000a). As noted above, in pre-modern times, space was attached to place., but now the notions of space and place are now generally used as being more or less synonymous. In current times, social interaction does not need territorial contiguity and, consequently, space is dislocated from place a process linked to modernity and steadily intensified by technological developments (Giddens 1990). In this context, the space of flows can be defined as the material arrangements that allow for simultaneity of social practices without territorial contiguity (Castells 2000b, 19). Meanwhile, the space of places is the site of social interaction that is overall attached to a given territory. From Castell s perspective one of the main challenges for the social sciences is to understand the relation between the space of flows and the space of places. Function and power in society are organized in the space of flows, altering the meaning and dynamics of places (Castells, 1996, 458). Place, as Harvey (1996) explains, has an extraordinary range of metaphorical meanings... *and it] has to be one of the most multi-layered and multipurpose keywords in our language (p.208). Place is a confusing (and contested) concept that can signify both an object (physical setting) and experience, meaning and belonging (Creswell, 2009, p. 15, Tuan ). This second understanding of place has been mainly developed by humanistic geographers. Tuan, for example, argues that places are not only constituted by territory and buildings, but also by the ways in which humans experience their link with these locations. Thus, places can be defined by the capacity of symbolization of humans and by the process of attaching meaning to a physical setting. From this point of view, a place can be as small as the corner of a room or as large as the earth itself (Tuan cited in Creswell, p. 20). Hence, we can speak about place in terms of our homes, community, city or town, region, nation or planet. Tuan has coined the concept of Topophilia to refer to the bond between people and place, which is based on experience, the attachment of meaning and the sense of belonging. In addition, metaphorical notions of place include such ideas as the place of women (or men) in society, the place of art and culture in social life, and our place in the universe (Harvey, 2005). Places are understood as locations that are made meaningful by people who become attached to them. In a circular relation, people feel that they belong to a place and they also feel that certain places belong to them (my house, my town). This strong link between places and senses of belonging suggests that place should be an important part in the analysis of processes of identity building and its effects. Harvey, among others, stresses a problematic aspect of the link between place and belonging. He suggests that places are threatened by global flows of capital and people (among others). The tension between mobile capital and fixed places generates a competition between places to attract this capital and can also be the source of crisis: Old places have to be devalued, destroyed, and redeveloped while new places are created. The cathedral city becomes a heritage center, the mining community becomes a ghost town, the old industrial center is deindustralised, speculative boom towns or gentrified neighbourhoods arise on the frontier of capitalist development or out of the ashes of deindustralised communities (Harvey 1996, p. 296). Thus, similar to Castells, Harvey emphasises how places are influenced by global flows.

6 The distinction between notions of space and place, and the changing relationship between the two that is fundamental to Castells and Giddens spatial theories has been subject to critique for creating false dichotomies between space and place, between the local and the global. Massey (2005) refuses the distinction between space and place. She questions the claim that space became dislocated/separated from place with modernity. Massey s (and others) critique emphasises the need for more complex theorisations of the concept of place and space. Over simplified distinctions between space and place can be based on binary categories in which space is viewed as the unlimited, absolute and universal, while place is the particular, the local, the lived and real, limited and bound (Escobar, cited in Carswell, p. 19, 21; Massey, 2005). She promotes a progressive sense of place that links places to other places. In her view, places constantly change, producing and receiving changes through their interactions with one another. iii) Relational notion of space space is the product of (inter)relations This points to one of the key ideas put forward by a number of contemporary social theorists: the relational notion of space. Space and place not only exist in substantial, concrete forms, but as sets of relations between individuals and groups. Foucault in his discussion about heterotopias, spaces characteristic of the modern world, suggests that space is heterogeneous and relational. He writes that space in the modern era takes the form of relations among sites (2) Sites are defined as relations of proximity between points or elements, and these relations as series, trees or grids. He reviews many such sites including the cemetery and the church, the theatre and the garden, the museum and library, and the fairground and vacation villages, and the prison. These are, as Lefebvre wrote, lived spaces, simultaneously concrete and abstract. Others have written about the relational aspect of space (Massey, 2005; Soja, 1989). Space is viewed as the product of interrelations of embedded social practices. Identities, as many post-modern thinkers have pointed out, are (co)constructed in relation to others. This directs us to a more relational understanding of the world (and of space itself). Relational space is seen as an undulating landscape in which the linkages established in networks draw some locations together while at the same time pushing others further apart (Murdoch quoted in Warf, 2009, p. 75). iv) Space and Place: Performative, Processes We argue then that both place and space need to be viewed as processes, that are never finished and always becoming (Creswell, p. 35). Space, conceived as an open system, is always in process and under construction. The view of s/places as processes, never finished and always becoming is taken up by Soja (1989) who stresses the performative aspect of places that are produced and at the same time are producing social activity. Places are performed as individuals inhabit them, but we do not perform our everyday practices in a vacuum. We are surrounded by the material form of places and their contingent meanings There is nothing natural or immutable about them they are social products, but they do provide the context for our practices (Creswell, p. 38) The idea of place as open and not-essentialized, as performed and defined by practices as much as it structures practices. In this framework, Massey opposes Harvey s view about place and identity. She suggests that conditions of time-space compression not necessarily produce insecurity and a reading of place as reactionary and exclusionary. From her perspective, attention should be paid to the

7 complexity involved in the processes of time-space compression and the power-geometry that underlies them. In other words, the ways in which individuals and groups are placed within the compression of time-space is complicated and varied (ibid). For example, fast trains connect some people in new ways while at the same time they bypass certain places keeping them disconnected in new ways and contributing to a redefinition of those places and the experiences of those who inhabit them. Focusing on the relational aspect of space leads us to understand the productive function of space. This shift to conceptualizing space as open, multiple and relational always becoming, as well as grounded, lived and real, is a prerequisite for the possibility of politics, the last topic of our discussion here. vi) Political Effects of New Spatial Thinking There are political effects associated with these recent shifts in conceptions of space and place. People have reacted to changes wrought by global capitalism by seeking a safe and authentic sense of place as a form of resistance. This can take two forms: reactionary politics or progressive militant particularisms (Harvey, 1996). A reactionary response to globalization in which the particularity of a certain place is rooted in an imagined history, feeds bigotry, nationalism, racism and xenophobia by defining the imagined essential characteristics of a community and establishing symbolic borders between those that belong and the others. Here we see, for example, recent xeonphobic French responses to the other (e.g. Roma, Muslims). However, progressive militant particularisms, a term that Harvey uses draws our attention to counter-hegemonic responses to capitalist globalization. Social movements, confronting the negative effects of globalization (economic, environmental, etc.) are rooted in specific places. Thus recent protests in the Middle East and northern Africa, sit-ins at universities in the U.K. by students opposed to tuition hikes, and activists protesting the destruction of the Amazonian rain forest, are specific to their place and signify attacks on an existing social order. There are also disputes and power struggles over the meaning of a given place, the definition of its borders, and over who belongs and who does not. The meanings that are attached to places are not necessarily unique and coherent. So, for example, a forest could have a very different meaning for an indigenous group, for environmentalists, and for agricultural developers that might be attached to the place in very different ways and for different reasons. These struggles represent responses to changing ideas of space and place, and through their actions construct new spatio-temporal understandings. These social movements are conceptualized then as geographies of resistance. In addition, Castells (2000c) discussion of grass-rooting focuses on social change in and through networking. The attempt by capital, media, and power to escape into the abstraction of the space of flows, bypassing democracy and experience by confining them in the space of places, is being challenged from many sources by the grassrooting of the space of flows p. 27). We have seen this quite recently with the impact of social networking on the protests in the Middle East. In this way, we can conceive of the spatial as political, and the political needs to be understood in terms of the spatial. Thinking about space/the spatial in particular ways can shake up the manner in which certain political questions are formulated, can contribute to political arguments already under way, and most deeply can be an essential element in the imaginative structure which enables in the first place an opening up to the very sphere of the political (Massey, 2005, p. 9).

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