I whole heartedly agree with just about all the sentiments expressed below.
Anyone else got any thoughts about the uses and abuses of theory?
Graham Gardner
Institute of Geography & Earth Sciences
University of Wales
Aberystwyth
>
>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
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------
>Chris Keylock
>
>Department of Geography Trinity College
>Downing Place Trinity Street
>Cambridge Cambridge
>CB2 3EN CB2 1TQ
>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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