The Tyranny of Initial Conditions.

Part IB Open Book Examination 2003

The Tyranny of Initial Conditions

THE TYRANNY OF INITIAL CONDITIONS

‘Any commitment to social change is underlain by the belief that existing conditions are, for whatever reason, unsatisfactory. For those geographers content with the contemporary world order, the message of critical geography will be irrelevant. However, for those unhappy with the conditions that permit people to die of famine in eastern Africa, to live in cardboard boxes on the streets of London, to be subjected to racial violence in the United States… then the message of committed practice is one that cannot go unheeded.

It is a message of social action.’

-Unwin (1992)

‘I do sometimes wonder at all the masses of stuff we produce, and question what really drives it… [I] believe that your next article, or project, should derive from some passion greater than simply adding another item to your CV or to the Departmental Output Count.’

Massey (2001)

INTRODUCTION

An inherent, dualistic and tyrannical tension currently faces professional geographers, on e which seeks to confront the injustices of society and an institutional basis and system which seeks to maintain the realities of the present. The new ‘critical’ geographies that have emerged during the late 1990s draw upon a long history of interaction between geographical knowledge and political ideas and activism. Within a discipline where the Left has achieved an almost hegemonic status, questions of inequality, oppression, and exclusion form a range of initial conditions that are often considered unjustified and tyrannical by the academy (Tickell, 1995). For many, the tyrant has been identified as a neo-liberalist version of capitalism that challenges local democracy and independence via its globalising and techno-centric imagery and rhetoric. Yet, the tyranny of initial conditions can also be applied in a very different but related way for many professional geographers, exemplified by writing of Massey (2001) quoted above. Initial conditions of employment within the academy have changed drastically over the past 50 years, imposing discourses of the ‘utility’ of the knowledge produced, accountability, increased financial constraint, increased flexibilization of the labour process and . The whole project of academia has been questione, the myth of value free science eradicated and through poststructuralist and postmodern insights, the social and ingherently poltical nature of our geographical knowledge revealed. This essay will argue that the tyranny of initial conditions is forcing academics to reconsider the link between theory and practice and to engage in new forms of dialogue with civil society to enable an emancipatory and pluralistic vision of the future. Political options in terms of how this may be achieved and the disciplinary, ethical and moral barriers which stand in its way will be debated. The drive for new ‘critical’ critical geographies will be contextualised in the disciplinary context of the history of radical geography and contemporary social, economic and political dynamics. Examples from the sub-discipline of economic geography will be used to back up my arguments. Lastly, the synergistic relationship between theory and practice will be shown to have a vital importance for the successful future of the discipline of geography. Linking the theory and practice of geographical imaginations raises a host of questions that should be addressed.. what is the role of the academic within society? Do geographers have unique and valid contribution to make? To society? Whay and according to whom?

It is necessary to state from the outset, that I am aware that this piece of writing . As an undergraduate enmeshed in academic power relations in tersm of knwoeldge, . A a person who cannot understand the importance of the radical gegroahry from the 1970s from first hand experience… white… knowledge is siruate din a particular nexus of social relations.

THE POLITICAL CONSTRUCTION OF ALL KNOWLEDGE

The historical relationship between western geographical endeavour and political projects do not make easy reading for those associated with the discipline.

The origins of the ‘geographical tradition’ and its links with imperialism and colonialism have been discussed at length (for example, see ). The ‘scietntific’ rationale of environemtnal determinism espoused by Semple in , was used on a number of occasions to justifiy the supremacy of white tempereate, (for example, see Frenkels 1992 work on the construction of the Paname Canal ). The use of Ratzels’ concept of Lensraum, room to breath for the organic state, by Hettner to support the Nazi ideology of expansion. These illustrations serve to provide only a brief glimpse of the way that geographical claims to knowledge and truth can have significant impacts upon peoples’ lives. A critical, and importantly, political take on geographical understanding is crucial for geographical imaginations that serve to emancipate and illuminate inequalities within and exclusions from society. In calling for a new critical geography, it is essential that we are clear about the political intentions of related academic research.

All knowledge is political, a claim to truth and power.

‘Written words, even those of economic geographers, can have serious material effects, and thereby require critical scrutiny… texts are not innocent –merely words – or without consequence. They don’t just describe the world, but re-make it. As people who live in the world we have a right and responsibility to criticise, applaud, challenge, or support them.’ (Barnes, 2001)

Peet (1998) identifies five levels of abstraction for academic work and knowledge, metaphilosophy, philosophy, social theory, theory and practice. All divorced from real geography of physical and material practices by mental processes of simplification, generalization and essentializing. Inherently political process immersed in power relations through processes of practice, research, theory, critique, teaching, publication. Relations of domination and control, In academia, status reigns and power informs every sentence and gesture.

Academics link with practice in several ways.. through teaching, shape ideas being transmitted, research reveals inadequacies and potentialities… react to broader context of societal crises, urgencies and pragmatic requirements while disciplines contend for position. Intensely political reaction for it involves utility or critique, accountability or opposition to the existing social order.

There is no such thing as a neutral assessment either of the structure of social existence in the sense of ontologies or of the truth or even adequacy of theories in the sense of epistemologies – there are only political ontologies and political epistemologies. (Peet)

Knowledge ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Knowledge is inherently political, it reflects the social and historical context of the author and theorown motivations.

Spatial character of the production of knowledge, situatedness, locatedness etc, multiple presectives on one reality, one history – multiple histories, multiple trajectories..

THE TYRANNY OF INITIAL CONDITIONS – WHAT ARE WE AGAINST?

Plural of causes and methods…

The tyranny of intial conditions is obvious Mc Doweeell –0 female emploeyemtn, world poverty…

The State We’re In

Globalisation: hegemonising dialogue

Sept 11th

Terrorism

Tyranny – 2 meanings – exercise of power over subjects and others with a rigor not authorised by law or justice

Or cruel government or discipline

Severity, rigor, inclemency (harshness)

Why does this represent Tyranny?

It is my belief that geograhers have a valuable contribution to make to these issues and that they should enage with civil society to profuse this knowledge disseminate)…

A HISTORY OF THEORY AND PRACTICE

To fully understand the dynamics of the new ‘critical’ geography it is first necessary to trace its intellectual roots. The pursuit of a politically radical geography, which challenges the social, economic and cultural present and makes suggestions for an alternative future, originates in the specific geo-historical context of 1960s North America.

‘Where are our statements on the geopolitics of the Vietnam War, the South African subjugation of the states of southern Africa, or the Israeli conquest and colonization of even more Arab land? In an unbearable world we have managed to find comfortable academic holes out of which we occasionally peek for a tut-tut here and a pitying glance there.’

- R. Peet (1969:3)

Radical geography – the study of radical changes that may occur in the way societies are organized. The objective is to foster change in current society and therefore its social geography. Some radical geographers advocate revolutionary change. (Holt-Jensen)

Credits it with one paragraph in his book.

Peet devotes a chapter – history re-made - we see it with what we want to get out of it (meining, )… preserve what we need for our future. Summarised, short and injustice as any reductionism of history must be. My own positionality and access to books, journals, teachings etc…influence..

Peet (1998)

Fist intimation could be poltically radical geography acme in the middle 1960s as part of an oppositional politics – coalesced around domestic issues like inequality, racism, sexism, opposition to the Vietnam war. Late 1960s, student-wokre uprisings, anti-war protests, reformation of generally more radical culture – made concerns of traditional discuipline, for all its quantitiative update and even its humanistic concern, seem socially and politically irrelevant.

Socially relevant article sbegan appearing – 1969 – antipode clark university Worcester, amssachusetts. Urban and regional poverty, discrimination against women and minority groups, unequal access to social services, advocacy planning, third world underdevelopment and sim political topics. Only gradually and with reluctance did socially relevant radical geog turn into Marxist geography.

Early work – accepted geog was science of scpace and env but argued for change in the topics of concern in the direction of urgent social issues. Language confrontational, optimistic, anarchistic – phrased informally as drawings, cartoons and posters.

1960s – new kinds of intellectual – class and political commitment – also as agents practising their daily lives. Earlier scholars had enetered for diff reasons than new generation of radicals who though hard and taught well to transform society uncomfortable with usual trapping of intellectual power. Against academic conventioneers who packed prestigious hotels for annual AAG ‘staus driven activity’ gods, disciples hover grad students occasional crumbs of condescending attention. Within a decade – they were the new gods of the geographic intellect, invited all over th eworld to give talks on revolution..

late 60s/70s unique in terms of political involvement and intellectual excitement… diff to realize how dramtic a shift took place between the kinds of interest and the level of dialogue mid 60s – 70s…’social relevance’ was conceibed not in a vague way as ‘feeling sorry for ones fellow human beings’ but as taking the side of the oppressed, advocating their causes, pressing for fundamental social change.

Even more liberal quant rich morrill (1969-70) maintained trhe academics role was ‘to help bring about a more just, equal and peaceful society’ and ‘search for more radical ways and means to achieve change’

Result.. work more relevant but still connected to a philosophy of science, set of theories and a methodology compatible with existing academic and disciplinary power structures.

Eg women and environment piece…

Link to anarchism..

2 similarities – human character – essentially cooperative.. spatial form as decentralized version of an alternative society..

kropotkin, leading anarchist of late nineteenth and early 20th centuries – geographer by incl8ination, training and practice..

responded to the political events of the 1960s and early 1970s in ways which transformed the discipline. Growing intolerance ot he topical coverage of academic geography, feeling it was either a gentelemnly pastime concerned with esoterica like tourism, wine, regions, or barn types, or it was an equally ireelevant ‘science’ using quantitative methods to analyse aptial trivia like shopping patterns or telephone calls, when geography should be a working interest I ghettos, poverty, global capitalism and imperialism. Radical geog – characterised by social relevance and intense political activism thus attempted to change the arens of topical coverage. But v success proved contradictory – revealed weaknesses in theory and technique – further metamorphis into Marxist geog in mid 870s – peiod of re-education, painstaking exegnsis and the gradual emergence of a creative scince of env space. End 70s Marxism hegemonic position

Bunge – geographical expeditions!

Before geography – regional synthesis – spatial science – explanation…

But could also be about change! Radical!

Intellectual context, postradicalism , poststructuralism.. adeny – structure.

Castree (2000) transition from radical geography to critical geog.

Professionalisation.. but then and now there is only the common difficult and halting task of offereing social critique, of making use of different vocualbularies to see if theyproduce scaes of ‘socail hope’ Rorty (1999).

Current debates – critical geography

McDoweel & Sharp (1999) – critical theory used to refer to the study of the relationsips between social structures and human agency today it has come to function as:

‘ a broad catch-all category for the diverse theoretical arguments emanating form feminist, Marxist, anti-racist, post-colonial and queer theory. What unites these heterogenous theoretical productions is precisely theor CRITICAL stance VIS A VIS comtemporary cultural, eoncomic and political relations and their resulting commitment to changing relations for the better’

Johnston (2000) et al.

‘A diverse and rapidly changing set if ideas and practices within human geography linked by a shared commitment to emancipatory politics within and beyond the discipline, to the promotion of progressive social change and to the development of a broad range of critical theories and their application in geographical research and political practice.’

Within recent academic journals there has been a growing concern over the gulf between theory and practice, with debates raging over ‘activism and the academy’ and the question of ‘policy relevance’. Entries in dictionaries.

A widespread concern with the politics of geographical knowledge has developed new ‘critical’ morphologies in the last few years (Prog in Human Review). This is strongly apparent in the Dictionary of Human Geography in new entries such as ‘activism and the academy’ and ‘critical geography’ - concerns with placing geographical knowledge within broader social and political contexts, and making geography relevant to issues of ethics, justice and social transformation. Recent writing seeks to rekindle and reorient ‘radical’ geographical agendas… continue to be marked with ambitious and important attempts to ‘change both the discipline of geography and the world ‘ (Blunt & Wills, 2000). A major concern with mapping ‘critical geographies’ – the change in terminology marking an important shift in emphasis and style – eg Antipode editorial board championing ‘dissident geographies’ and a new relationship between academic practice and political practice’ (Peck, & Wills, 2000) that encourages new kinds of knowledge making and political activity, such as direct action. But influence beyond academy of radical and Marxist limited eg Harvey (2000) spaces of hope – Castree (2000) forces critical geographies to think more deeply about the production and consumption f their work. New political climate challenges geographers to foster broader engagements with public policy and to renegotiate the ways in which they practice political relevance in their work and lives.

Within economic geography (Samers, ) (Martin ) (Markhusen )

Possibilities for action

ARENAS:

Activism

How should this be achieved?

Within the academy – new forums of discussion and information – ACME – An International E-journal For Critical Geographies. (2001)

Aim ‘to provide a forum for the publication of critical and radical work in the social sciences – including anarchist, anti-racist, environmentalist, feminist, Marxist, postcolonial, poststructuralist, queer, situationalist and socialist perspectives.

The Inaugural International Conference of Critical Geographers (IICCG) – August 1997 Vancouver, BC

Concerned to develop a broad range of critical theories.. conceptual pluralism that facilitates an understanding of peoples identities and subjectivities as complex rather than made up of different and distinct components.

Importance of plural approaches in critical geography…l

‘One of the lesions learnt from the yard-for-yard battles that have gone in economic geography is that there is no single road to the truth’

Rewards of plural and open-minded perspective very evident within current economic geography , diff kinds of critical approaches sit side by side –

McDowell (1997) performativity to illucodate taken for granted worlds of female merchant bankers.. Schoenberger (2001) – literary biography to reveal the basis of corporate decision making.

Kris & Olds (1996) – polycentric economic geography ‘ set of narrative communities’, ‘celebrate a qualitative mutilplicty of ‘economic’ times and spaces’

Critical theory does not have a single source, or possess only one form, or hold an exclusive truth, gbut is much messier and sprawling with no final, empirical means of proof’

But should be anticipatory –utopian not explanatory-diagnostic – Losch (1q954) the task of economic geographers is ‘not to explain our sorry reality, but to improve it’ - critique should be directed to sense of what a better world would look like.. eg Gibson-Graham (1996) – vision of world where ravages of globalisation expunged – local communities with ability to control their own fate, and to organize exchange systems in accordance with their own principles of fairness. Communities that have dropped out of the global system eg Latrobe Valley in Australia

Of course could dispute the utopic nature of such a utopia. But the fact that it is there gives their writing a strwngth and critical edge that it would not otherwise not have. It also directs the strategies of resitance they propose and the research in which they engage.

Geographical Education –

Through teching geographers have their greatest impact upon society – relatively few people other than professional geographers ever read publications containing the results of geographical research and there is little coverage of work in the media. Growing political involvement at all levels of education.. designed to increase the amount of ‘useful’ knowledge students are provided with. Schools, departments – increasingly subject to ‘academic auditing’, at a time when ‘utility’ is largely being defined in termsdesigned to sustain present social, political and economic relations. Teachers advocating a critical stance to learning, designed to transform these very relations are therefore likely to find themselves increasingly in conflict with the requirements for institutional survival.

Habermas critical theory – 3 implications. 1. need to enable students to develop their own critical approach, social construction of facts – not about inculcation of accepted approach. 2. About emancipation not conformity – opportunity to discover their own truths and own ways of changing social and economic conditions. Learning m,ust become an all-embracing quest for emancipatory knowledge, not a tedium of imposed reading lists, essays. Lectures and practicals. 3. curricula – need to mould from good practice to geog education by breathing life into it – critrical interpretation of human experience of the earth.

Context of economic geography

The choice of research

Critical theory – no such thing as value-free, objective science. All research reflects an interaction between observer and observedand between theory and practice. It also reflects the social, economic and political context in which it is practicsed. Research can never be politically neutral. The responsibility for the research that is undertaken lies ultimatrely with those who do it. Particualrly at times of increasingly stringent financial controls on scientific practice there is great pressure on individuals and institutions to apply for research grants and contracts in field that’s are supported by government agencies or industrial companies. Howver, the aims of such research are not always consonenat with the ethical and moral positions of particular scientists. Habermas (1978) cautions that empirical-analytical science has a technical interest. – implication – will tend to support the social, economic and political system of which it is part. Eg explosion of gis, applied physical geography. The ‘knowledge’ contained within such systems has great utility, providing those who possess it with considerable ‘power’. Choice of research, it can either be used by those in power to retain their control or it can be used to change the power relations in a aparticualr society. Critical geog, would focus on contradicdtions and inequalities within societies, in order to provide knowledge that would enable them to be resolved. Resolutions of contradictions, howver, can take a variety of forms, and usually reflect the balances of power between different social groups. Involves again, question of the the poele about and for whom research is undertaken. Calls for a commitment to research which seeks to revealto people the conditions of their existence, so they can change them if they wish. I npratice this is not easy – preogression along ht einsitutional career ladder requires that geogs write books and publish papers in referreed journals rthat the vast maj of people never read. In contrast research designed to change the conditions which igve rise to exploitation and deprication requires communication with the agencies responsible for such conditions. Eg government ageincies, relief agencies, ofiicaials, charities. It involves writing in publication that most geogs would never look at, but which might be read by those in positions to implement change. Above all it is suffused with a commitiment to practical change.

Context of economic geography!

Samers (2001)

Economic geography should seek to expose injustices, and to eliminate oppressions of all kinds )Samers, 2001). – neglect issues of URGENT appeal – need to ask if urgent? We should not be seeking some ‘explanatory diagniostic’ of the woprld but we should ‘seek to change it’ Smaers (2001).

‘Economic or environmental justice, real wage increases for low-income workers or… alternative economic forms of organisation’ are sidelined in favour of such issues as ‘regional economic development and competitiveness, business networks, property markets and investment’ Smers (2001: )

Geogrpahers in society

Exisitng conditions iunsatisfactor – social change…

Central tension between institutional constraints seeking to limit social change and the aspirations of geogrphers concerned with the implementation of change. Conflicts of financial interest most common. Need for ‘useful’ graduates. Public image of geography is fundamentally important – widely regarded as capitals – capes and bays etc.. solution – be more actively involved in the media and in non-academic types of writing. Furthermore – much more active role in political action, ata a rnage of scales from those of local governemetn ot het international forum fo debate. Aacdemics need to change the public image of their discipline, and consider this a worthwhile exercise. Requires a belie that gegorpahy is important and has a future as an academic discipline.

Conetxt of economic geography!

The Peopl’s Geography Project - website disseminates information allowing the possibility of networking and action.

Hreod’s Guerilla Geogrpahy Pamphlet – “Just in time: the geography of workers’ power” shows how gegroahy can be useful 1998 GM strike at Flint, Michigan – strategic value of a geographical appreciation in countering felexible production systems. Economic gegroaphical knowledge outside the academy and into the union hall.

Policy Relevance

EXAMPLES

Routledge

PRACTICAL ISSUES: The Tyranny of Initial Conditions: Contracts and RAE

REFLEXIVITY & SPEAKING FOR OTHERS: The tyranny of initial conditions…

NOTE OF CAUTION:

Ethics, Who Why ?

Why is it important for geographiy to be part of a critical movement – what insights does it bring?

The new critical geographies and their relevance? What is critical? Associated with Marxism… vs professionalism and research grants…?

New oppoertunities for radical activity – new media wwindymedia, znet

Chomsky

Need to come up with alternative visions – alternative economic geographies…

Within academia –

Relationship with undergraduates…

Within popular geographies –

And using what methods and what should it be….

Massey (2001)

Meets political adviser to new labour – academics no relevance ‘accused academics of being, politically, a waste of time. They never came up with anything of real use to those involved in ‘real politics’’

‘ I do sometimes wonder at all the masses of stuff we produce, and question what really drives it… I do… believe that your next article, or project, should derive from some passion greater than simply adding another item to your CV or to the Departmental Output Count. Perhaps especially if we no longer believe in our production of an absolute truth, then there is a need to engage outwards, with a world which lies beyond our own internalized conversations.

To embed what we are doing in wider debates, rather than only to talk to each other.

I was aghast at other implications of what was being said. For the assumption was that the only way to be politically or socially relevant was to come up with advice or answers on government policy.

Maybe one of the ways we might see our own task is as contributors to the construction of popular and political geographical imaginations’

Hegemonic geographical imagination – global space as open – powerful rhetoric – used buy giverment – needs to be firmly challenged – this is not a borderless world, nor is this a matter of uncompleted business – that the remaining boundaries will soon fall – new borders are being constructed in the middle of and as a part of a consequence of economic globalization. Economic migrants, security vborders – capital glorified for seeking economic advantage – economic migranst vilified for same thing

50% 5 GCSES – yet 50% university – diff type of university course – what is their positions in leanging clusters, innovation regions – r & d and the knowledge economy – call centres? Advocated by staffs university, academics – new industrial districts…

Flexibility disourse?

‘political positionality is neither a result of nor simply demonstrable by scientific practice. Rather, while there is constant interplay, the specificity of the political is fully recognized.’

WHY IS THIS ALSO IMPORTANT FOR ACADEMICS

Yet the relationship between the contribution of geographers to society in attempts to overturn initial conditions is not a one way process, an altruistic mission to ‘make a difference’. By engaging more actively with civil society of policy makers, geographers can improve the quality of their research, reinforce the justification and accountability of geography in the views of the opublic and research grants givers. By getting over an unwillingness to speak for others.. need to make their voices heard. Abicate posts and let them take over? Unite a vernacular and academic understanding of geography

Asheim (1990) discipline should develop along lines of its purely academic definition – copnat change and development in conjunction with research problems, philosophies and methds that academic researchers currently regard as interesting and rewarding. Holt Jensen…have to regard the vernacular – public expectations, history and traditions as impt reason for its existence – can be compared to political parties – compete for research funds and commissions tag will attract increasing numbers of students

Perhaps it is a selfish quest for self-importance, but maybe not.

Poltiical engagement…

‘If accomplished effectively and well, and above all, with critical political awareness, it is, surely, a mark of an effective and intellectually worthwhile field of study’ (Lee (2002)

So what are you going to be? A teacher?

I’ve always thought of geography as a secondary school subject – not really something that you do at university….

Colouring pencils, capes and bays, capital cities

Why is geographic academic knowledge threatened –what are the challenges?

Problems of current critical geography,,,,,,,,,,,

Closley related to the flourishing interest ion critical geographies is the interst in moral philosophy and tethics – eg Smith .. ethics and social justice – socae preclusdes a discussion here yet these ingiths

CONCLUSION

The tyranny of initial conditions is a relevant motivating factor for all geographers. Everyone has something they think is wrong with the world… verypone want s to make a difference.