Hello Everyone
Not too surprisingly, just recently the discussion on this list has tended
to focus upon very real events around the world (Kosovo, East Timor etc).
If you don't mind I would like to ask a more abstract question.
The question is this:
Why does critical geography need an 'in your face' critical social
theory?
It seems to me that individuals writing on topics that might broadly be
conceived as critical geography in refereed journals or in PhD theses must
cite every other line of their work with Harvey, Habermas and bel hooks
for their work to be deemed acceptable to the community at large.
I can understand that this is very much necessary if the paper itself is
theoretical, but I am not convinced if the author has been out 'doing'
critical geography.
If a scholarly debate results from the publication of a study that perhaps
investigates issues of gender, ethnicity or some similar theme in a
particular location, the
criticism that often results seems to me to focus on the author's
conception and definition of such terms rather than the data
presented, quite often stating
that the original author was mistaken and used an inadequate definition.
If this was really the case would the paper have been published in a good
journal? Given how notoriously fickle the definitions of such terms can be
in the social sciences such a line of argument doesn't
seem to be to be particularly useful because the person criticising didn't
do the empirical work or observation and consequently, can't know
what definition is best for a particular circumstance. (I feel any realist
attempt to come up with a single, unilateral, spatially and temporally
invariant definition is doomed here).
Thus, the definitions of terms used with
respect to particular case-studies has to be open and as such isn't a
legitimate target for the slagging off type of criticism that one sees now
and again. Therefore, I am not sure to what extent theory helps
definitions, which seem to be in a state of flux anyway.
The interpretation you place on a theory will be the one that helps
you explain the events you observe when you do your fieldwork. But given
the way papers are written it often seems that people come back knowing
how they want to explain the events they have seen but then look in the
literature for a theory to couch it all in because this is what you are
meant to do. Wouldn't it be simpler for people to just write about the
things they see in a more open way, giving them greater freedom to put
their own opinions in, without every comment having to be justified with
reference to a grand-theorist (even if that grand-theorist is
oxymoronically anti-grand theory)?
Thus, while I willingly accept that theory is important for giving people
ideas and as such should be referenced. The theory seems to manifest
itself in different ways when different authors work on varying topics at
various places. The resulting terminology is also unique to individual
circumstance as discussed above. Thus, the theory or theories used become
divorced from the original author, metamorphose and then become attached
to the individual researcher. Thus, the use of references does
not accurately reflect the theory that the individual is using because it
has become their own personal version.
I hope that the point I am trying to make is understandable here. Just as
a closing remark it seems to me that many people on this list would say
that Mike Davis' book City of Quartz was one of the better things they had
read over the last few years. But this book makes very little reference to
social theory. Instead, the quality of the writing, the careful
observations and the overarching theoretical perspective are readily
apparent from the clear, crisp narrative rather than because they are
punctuated by loads of references. I think to demean this book as
non-academic because it doesn't contain the references is a meaningless
criticism because in practice it appears on alot of people's reading
lists. If the role of the critical geographer is to communicate the issues
they are engaged in, isn't this style of writing more appropriate?
Yours
Chris
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Chris Keylock
Department of Geography Trinity College
Downing Place Trinity Street
Cambridge Cambridge
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England England
Tel. + 44 (0) 1223 333399 (messages in office hours)
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'When Canada is dead and gone there'll be no more Celine Dion.'
Sheila Broflovski
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