In his 1970 article "Social processes and spatial form: An analysis of the conceptual problems of urban planning", (from book: Social Justice and the City) David Harvey discusses the two lens (sociology and geography) for analyzing city problems, arguing that the gap has not been bridged between them. Essentially, accusing urban analyses to resort either to "space-less social science" or "space-centered geography".
Is this still true? If not, what leading frameworks can I seek to explore the bridging of this gap between the said theoretical perspectives of the urban?
I believe that when the text were written, this situation was a reality, but nowadays the discussion has changed. The geographers are reading and trying to bring to the spatial and urban discussions, elements that think the city in her dynamicity and also elements from sociology.
But I feel until now we have difficulties to finish with this gap between this two lens, sociology and geography.
Beginning in the 1990s, the social sciences experienced a so called spatial turn (influenced by the French theory like from Foucault or Lefebvre). Also critical geographers tried to bridge the gap you mention… You can try with David Harvey itself (2008: The Right to the City); Don Mitchell (2003: The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space), or Clive Barnett (2014: What Do Cities Have to Do with Democracy?), among others…
Hi Ali,
According to my point of view, and in order to complete the such interresting answer of Fernando, many geographers have succed, up to now, to bridged this gap, specially human geographers and cultural geographers too, as example the works of Jacques Levy ( i.e. Le tournant géographique. Penser l’espace pour lire le monde
Paris, Belin, Collection Mappemonde, 1999) or Michel Lussault (Michel Lussault, De la lutte des classes à la lutte des places, Paris, Grasset, 2009) in France (also J. Levy and M. Lussault, 2003, Dictionnaire de la géographie et de l’espace des sociétés, Paris, Belin. Link below and Levy J., Lussault J. (dir.), 2000, Logiques de l´espace, esprit des lieux. Paris, Belin) or the recent David Harvey (2008) and Edward Soja (Writing the city spatially1, in, City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action, Volume 7, Issue 3, 2003).
At least, you could have a look on the bibliographies and also, even the two french geographers have written some articles in english.
Best regards,
Christophe Gibout
http://www.espacestemps.net/articles/dictionnaire-de-la-geographie-et-de-lespace-des-societes/
The social sciences not only have taken a spatial turn but also cultural turns. This also changed the relation between socoilogy and human geography. You should check "New cultural geography", for instance. New cultural geographers employ poststructuralist theories, theories of practice, systems theory (Luhmann) and many other mostly constructivist theories. Consequently, they develop spatial thinking with Foucault, Bourdieu, Latour, Luhmann and others. This obviously has close links to sociological work that also draws on these theorists.
Social and geographical imaginations are nicely drawn together in the book "For Space" by Doreen Massey.
Thank you to everyone who responded. These insights and reading recommendations are immensely valuable as I pursue this topic further.
Marilia: I agree and feel that the difficulties do remain, particularly when dealing with research areas where the two imaginations collude to generate operational barriers to action recommendations. For instance, energy research which sits across these domains, particularly now when energy geographies are so pertinent to climate change adaptation research.
Fernando: Yes, I knew the others but Clive Barnet was a new name. I will be sure to check him out.
Christophe: Those are good recommendations. Thankfully I have a friend from France in my cohort who can help me with translations of the works you suggested.
Moritz:I happen to be interested in Bourdieu's work from among those you've suggested. Its interesting that you mention him because a recent conference of American geographers devoted a whole session to discuss the relevance of his work to geography.
Tarmo: I have "For Space" sitting on my bookshelf and I am pleased you pointed this out...need to start reading now!
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