barnes human geography

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Fall, 2006

Geography 520 On Shaky Foundations: Seminar in Human Geography

Instructors

Karen Bakker Trevor BarnesRoom 142 Room 140C

E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

Tel. 822-6702 Tel. 822-5804

Discussion of the Course

The purposes of this seminar are numerous, and only some of them are about learning human

geography. We see this seminar as a chance for you: to get to know other students in your

entering class, both socially as well as academically; to meet some of the faculty who teach in

the department; to learn about some of the research carried out here; to hone your critical

skills in reading, presentation, and writing; and to read and think about human geography in

ways that we hope are new, stimulating, and useful.

This is not the definitive seminar in human geography, one that comprehensively reviews and

defines the field. But no such seminar exists. A theme in several of the course readings is

that there is no God’s eye view. Knowledge is situated and partial, and so is this seminar. Its

general theme, the particular topics we examine, the readings we assign, derive not from

some universal template that stamps human geography as Human Geography, but from who

we are and our respective places within the discipline in which we practice.

We intend to use the geographical metaphor, appropriate especially for this place, of “shaky

foundations” to organize and structure the different components of the seminar. We think

that over the last fifteen years or so, human geography experienced a massive jolt, tectonic in

nature, that is still being worked out, and which has influenced the kind of work geographers

do, how they do it, the types of books they read, and the substantive topics they investigate.

At the basis of this changed view is scepticism about the very idea of foundations, irrevocable

truths, essential ideas, and foolproof methods. As Richard Rorty, an American philosopher

who in his time has done a lot of shaking, puts it: “We are back to a Ptolemic universe, with

humans at the center.”

Our purpose in the seminar is to work through the implications for human geography of these

tremors. We do so by reading one whole book and then large chunks of three other books –

respectively, Foucault’s History of Sexuality, Timothy Mitchell’s Rule of Experts, Anna Tsing’s

Friction, and J. K. Gibson-Graham’s A Postcapitalist Politics. Second, we examine critically

some of the methodologies – from quantification to ethnography – which human geographers

deploy to deal with these shaky times. And third, we review the effects of the shaking in a

sample of human geography’s sub-areas. As we said, the seminar is no definitive review of

the field. We recognize that others have different interpretations of it, including probably you.As a result, we want to hear your opinions in seminars. We recognise that it is likely

intimidating to speak up, at least initially. But please try to overcome your shyness. No one

wants to be in a seminar where everyone is mute. In addition, we’ve invited three of our

colleagues to provide you with their interpretation of changes occurring in the discipline. In

these seminars, visitors will make short presentations, followed by a discussion of the

assigned readings.

In organizing these three elements – books, methodologies, and sub-areas – we tried to

interleave them rather than creating homogenous blocks. We thought inter-mixing would

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lighten things up, and allow for a better flow. If you found a theme boring one week, you

could be guaranteed of doing something different the following week.

Given the seminar’s partialness, that it is not all-encompassing and self-sufficient, we

recognize, that you may want to take other courses offered in the Department that deal more

fully with themes that you might have expected to find in this seminar but that are not here.

For example, those interested in a systematic treatment of the history and philosophy of geography might take Geography 345 or 445, or those wishing a general introduction to

proposal writing and research methodologies might consider Geography 371. And there are

also a slew of courses on various kinds of techniques, from GIS to multivariate statistics. In

addition, if you don’t own a copy already, we recommend that you buy the latest edition (the

4th) of The Dictionary of Human Geography edited by Ron Johnston, Derek Gregory, Geraldine

Pratt, and Michael Watts (Oxford, Blackwell, 2000). It is not a God’s eye view, but precisely

because it isn’t, it is very useful.

Please give us feedback on the seminar as we go along. If you don’t think the seminar is

working, tell us, so we are not stuck in a bad rut for the whole term. No one wants to be in a

dysfunctional seminar for thirteen weeks. Some aspects of the seminar we will not be able to

change, but there are lots of elements that are alterable provided there is consensus.

Now, for your responsibilities. Primarily you must do the reading, and be prepared to talk

about what you have read. The talking part is very important, difficult as that sometimes

might be. The other responsibility is to complete the written work we’ve assigned in a timely

fashion. We will both read all the assignments, and collectively decide the mark, although

only one of us will write comments on any given submitted piece of writing.



Course Outline

September 11 – Surveying lives

As a transition between summer and fall, holiday and work, we start the seminar with a novel,

José Saramago’s All the Names, albeit one that raises a series of issues about power, identity

and ordering that run throughout the course. Saramago’s novel turns on the obsessions of arecord clerk in an Orwellian world where the state knows and records within an archive

everything about everyone. Or does it? Along with this reading, we would like you, partly as

a means to introduce yourself and partly to reflect on the novel, to find a record about

yourself in an archive of your choice. That archive can be public or private, and it can be

either a record you have put into an archive or one you have taken out. In the past people

have used a variety of sources from passports to newspaper photos, from web site blogs to

MRI scans. This not meant as a heavy-duty exercise, but we would like you to say something

about the archival piece you bring to class.

Jose Saramago, All the Names (trans. M. J. Costa) (Harvest Book, San Diego, New York,

London, 1999)

September 18 Unsettling Book # 1: Foucault, Discourse and Power

M. Foucault. The History of Sexuality, vol. 1. (trans. R. Hurley) (Vintage Books, N.Y., 1990)

Geographers’ thinking about subjectivity and power is greatly influenced by the French social

theorist, Michel Foucault. Our first unsettling book is by Foucault; it is the one in which his

notion of power is most clearly articulated. This week we want you to understand what

Foucault is saying about sexuality, discourse, and power, and to anticipate how geographers

might work with this text, as well as hesitations that might surround it.

September 25 Unsettling Book #2: Mitchell on Calculability, Governmentality, and

Development

Mitchell, Timothy, 2002, The Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity, University of California Press.

Towards the end The History of Sexuality, Foucault introduces the idea of governmentality, the

notion that objects are defined and created so that they can be governed. Timothy Mitchell in

The Rule of Experts uses the same idea to understand the last hundred and fifty years of

Egypt’s history. But what a history involving humans and insects, statistics and maps, the CIA

and the World Bank, tanks and dams, and plagiarism and noble acts. We think Mitchell’s book

shakes social science’s foundations theoretically by its ability to assemble, integrate and

deploy disparate conceptual resources, and by bringing into clear vision an enormous range of

substantive material, from the animate to the inanimate. He tells powerful stories powerfully;

the specifics always resonating with larger theoretical and substantive arguments. The book is

never just about Egypt, but always gestures to wider debates, to broader issues about how

the world works and to which Mitchell begs us to pay attention.

October 2nd Methodology #1 : Situated Knowledges

Donna Haraway’s idea of situated knowledge that tries to disrupt and offer an alternative tothe either/or of objectivism and relativism has been a critical concept in recent discussionswithin the social sciences, including geography. Be warned, though, that Haraway’s originalarticle is a difficult read, but one we think very much worth the effort. Her paper hasprovoked an immense amount of commentary both direct and indirect. The essay by Gillian



Rose explicitly focuses on notions of situated knowledge found in geography, and the piece bythe anthropologist Ruth Behab is a (controversial) example of writing informed by situatedknowledge.

Haraway, D. 1991 "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilegeof Partial Perspective" in her Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature.Routledge: New York, pp. 183- 201.

Rose, G. 1997 Situating knowledges: positionality, reflexivities and other tactics. Progress inHuman Geography 21, 305-320.

Behab, R. 1995 “Writing in my father’s name: a diary of Translated Woman’s first year” In

Women Writing Culture, eds. R. Behab and D.R. Gordon. University of California Press:

Berkeley, 65-84.

October 9th Thanksgiving ~ no class

October 16th Unsettling Book #3: Anna Tsing’s F r i c t i o n

Tsing, A. (2004) Friction: An ethnography of global connection. Princeton: Princeton University

Press.

In many disciplines across the social sciences and humanities, concepts of subjectivity, power,

governmentality and situated knowledge raised by authors like Haraway and Foucault have

posed challenges to conventional ways of doing research. This week’s reading has been

chosen as an example of how these theories can be applied.

Anna Tsing, an anthropologist, has spent years working in Kalimantan (Indonesia). Rejecting

conventional binaries of local/global, and of culture/capital, Tsing has written an analysis in

which she presents an ‘ethnography of the global’, disrupting conventional storylines of

deforestation, ethnic strife and environmental protest that framed descriptions of Kalimantan’s

rainforests in the 1980s and 1990s. Challenging the widespread view that globalization

invariably signifies a "clash" of cultures, Tsing develops the metaphor of ‘friction’ as an

alternative ethnographic method for studying global interconnection, in contrast to

conventional analyses of globalization, capitalism, and culture. This book also speaks to topics

that will be discussed in subsequent weeks of the course: environmental history (White);

post-structuralist analyses of nature/culture (Braun); and the methods (and difficulties)

entailed in translating qualitative fieldwork into academic texts (to be explored next week

when Professor Gerry Pratt visits the class).

October 23rd Methodology #2 : Translations

Selections from Tickell, A., Sheppard, E., Peck, J., and Barnes, T. J. (forthcoming) Politics and

practices in economic geography (London: Sage)

To discuss some hands-on issues of methodology we draw upon four chapters in a forthcomingbook about methodology use in economic geography.

Jamie Peck will lead the discussion.



October 30th Unsettling Book #4 Gibson-Graham’s Postcapitalisms

J. K. Gibson-Graham (2006) A Postcapitalist Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota

Press.

J. K. Gibson-Graham (the pen name of Kathy Gibson and Julie Graham) have been carryingout some of the most creative work in economic geography and political economy over the last

decade and a half. Beginning as classical Marxists in the 1980s, they increasingly moved

during the 1990s towards what they called post-Marxism, and brilliantly unpacked in their

1996 book, The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It). Their argument was that as long as we

continue to see capitalism as a single monolithic system, which is how traditional Marxists

viewed it, it will be invincible. Its force will be presumed so strong that people won’t even try

to resist. Game, set and match to capitalism. In contrast, they argue that the way to resist

capitalism is bit by bit, one small victory at a time. And those small victories are all around us

if only we look beyond the blinkers of capitalism. That’s the purpose of this book, to find the

small victories, to locate post-capitalist capitalisms. Their point is that small victories over the

long run begin to add up into big victories, and slowly, but inexorably, the wider system

changes. Capitalism is not invincible after all.

November 6th Braun and Harris on Geographies of Colonialism

This week, we bring debates about governmentality, genealogy, and discourse ‘back home’ ina discussion of colonialism, forestry, and environmental politics in British Columbia. WilliamCronon’s assertion in the mid-1990s that there is no such thing as ‘wilderness’ sparked anongoing debate within academia. The question of ‘wild spaces’ is particularly fraught inlandscapes with a history of colonialism, such as British Columbia. Bruce Braun’s book buildson this debate, applying a post-structuralist framework to interpreting the cultural politics of BC’s ‘intemperate’ rainforest. Braun argues that colonialism was primarily a cultural exercise,dedicated to constructing an ‘empty’ landscape ripe for settlement. Cole Harris, who will bevisiting the class will respond to Braun’s book, and offer a critique of post-structuralism asapplied to the study of colonial encounters. The encounter between Harris and Braun links to

the next week’s discussion of Derek Gregory’s recent work on post-colonial geographies.

Braun, B. 2002 The Intemperate Rainforest: Nature, Culture, and Power on Canada’s West

Coast, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1-29 (Chapter 1) and 30 – 65 (Chapter

2).

Harris, C. 2004. ‘How did colonialism dispossess? Comments from an Edge of Empire’ Annalsof the Association of American Geographers. 94(1), 165 – 182.

November 13 Remembrance Day ~ no classes

November 20th Post-colonial geography

Our third visitor, Derek Gregory, is a geographer who is critically interested in putting socialtheory to use. Over the last decade, he has become interested in postcolonialism, and hissubstantive research focuses on military occupations and Arab cities. He has recentlypublished a book called The Colonial Present that focuses on the conflicts in Palestine,Afghanistan, and Iraq, and which addresses his interests in the relations between Orientalism,military violence, military occupation, and the ‘war on terrorism.’ We will explore some of these connections by reading his memorial on Edward Said, along with a chapter from Said’senormously influential book, Orientalism.



Gregory, D. 2004 “The Lightening of Possible Storms,” Antipode 36:5, 798-808.

Said, E. 1978 Orientalism. Vintage Books: New York, chapter 1.

November 27 Turning words into deeds

In this last week we are concerned with how academics present, or don’t present, themselvesto the world. It is easy to remain in hiding within our own closed intellectual community,treating our subjects of investigation as distant, quite separate from us, and of only “academic” interest. However, a number of intellectuals – public intellectuals – have tried tobreak free of this attitude, to bring themselves into the world, believing it our moral, politicaland social responsibility as privileged citizens.

Said, Edward, Representations of an Intellectual (1994), chapters 4 and 5.

Peck, J. 1999 Editorial: Grey geography? Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers24, 131 -135.

Chomsky, Noam, The Chomsky Reader (1987), Ed. J. Peck. New York: Pantheon.

Selected scenes from either Manufacturing Consent or Rebel with a Cause



Evaluation

Assignments will be assessed by both Karen and Trevor, although only one of us will write

comments on any given submitted piece of writing.

1. A Dictionary of Human Geography entry on a geographical term or concept that

you choose (1500 words) [20%]. Due October 16. This assignment will also allow usto think about writing, specifically how the ways that definition makes use of some of

the following elements:

o Historical narrative (Where does the term come from? How has it been used?

What has changed in its usage and why?)

o Ethnographic description (Who uses the term? To whom is it meant to be

intelligible or unintelligible? What audiences or communities are created or

shaped or assumed or interpellated by its usage, and why?)

o Differentiation (What terms are similar to this one, and how is it different?

What are the analytical or other bases of such discrimination?)

o Prescription (Why/how/by whom should it/should it not be used?)

2. A short essay addressing a methodological issue that is meaningful to you (1500

words) [20%]. This is an open-ended project but one example might be reading a

transcript, either one that you have done or one that either Karen or Trevor have

made available, in light of critical debates about interview methodologies, some of

which you will have been introduced to in class. We expect that your reading in the

area of methodology will go beyond that addressed in class. Due November 20.

3. An essay modelled on a Progress in Human Geography Progress Report in which

you survey the recent geographical literature in a particular area (3,000 words)

[40%]. Note that these are the Progress Reports and not the longer substantive

papers that also appear in Progress in Human Geography . Trevor will leave in the GIC

examples of the Progress Reports that he did for the journal in the mid-1990s on

political economy, but you should also look at more recent issues to see how other

people do them. By reading them you will get a sense of the style and approach of

this particular genre of writing. They are meant to survey the literature, to intervene

critically, and also to make a contribution through the very form of the review.

Remember the essay is not merely a literature review; you will be expected to

comment critically on a particular body of literature, analyze its strengths and

weaknesses, and exhibit understanding of the broader conceptual context. The essay

needs to have a point, a wider argument on which the specific items you review hang

together. Due December 14.

4. Participation: Reflections, panel presentation and class discussion

20% of the final mark is based upon your participation in the seminar both for general

discussion and for in-class presentation, broken down as follows:

Presentation (10%)

Class group presentations will occur on the following weeks: September 18 th; September 25th;October 2nd; October 16th; October 30th. You will work in groups of 2 or 3 to present anoverview of the readings and questions to facilitate class discussion. The presentations will be



relatively informal. You will be each expected to speak for between 5 and 10 minutes, andcover the following points:

• Background on author• Context on the publications (e.g. relationship to specific sub-fields)• Main arguments of readings• Your criticisms• Questions for group discussion

You should meet with your co-presenters and divide up the readings to avoid overlap. So,each of you should take different articles, or separate parts or chapters of the book assignedfor a given week. Presentations will be individually marked, but the mark will likely improve if there is coherence and complementarities among the presentations.

Reflections (5%)

You will hand in five ‘Reflection’ assignments during term. No longer than one page (single-spaced), the ‘reflection’ should explore your thoughts on and/or reactions to the readings, andalso include at least one question raised by the readings for class discussion. We will not bedoing Reflections for the weeks in which guest professors visit the class or the last week.Accordingly, you will be handing in Reflections for the following weeks (the same weeks forwhich students will be doing panel presentations): September 18th; September 25th; October

2nd; October 16th; October 30th.

Each reflection is due Monday morning prior to class by 9 am, and should be handed in at theGIC with your name and the class number clearly indicated. Trevor asks that students alsoemail their reflections to him again by 9 am on Monday prior to class. The reflections will notbe graded; you will be given 5% towards your final term mark if all of the reflections arehanded in, on time. (The reflections will be used in class discussion exercises, so please beprepared to bring your reflection to class and, in some cases, to exchange reflections withother students).

Class participation (5%)

Seminars are only as productive as the contributions of all participants. You are encouraged to

provide your opinions, to ask questions (particularly when you do not understand something,as many other students will likely be feeling the same way), and to actively participate in class

discussion. We ask that students be respectful of different viewpoints, and make efforts to

create a positive environment for discussion in which all of your fellow students feel

comfortable participating.

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