Why do we study ‘space’ in geography?
This essay strives to justify the geographical scholarship of ‘space’ as a concept, by illustrating its utility to academia, to social justice and to other aspects of society.
The concept of space and its social construction are fundamental to geographical knowledge (Wardenga, 2013). This “high frequency of reference to the spatial aspect” highlights how this concept is a “basic prerequisite” for geography’s foothold as a scientific discipline (Mazúr and Urbánek, 1983: 139), making the concept worthy of geographical focus, study and discourse. Similar to how all phenomena that exist in time have a history, all phenomena that exist in space have a geography (New Relevance for Science and Society, 1997). Consequently, one of the lenses through which geographers view the world would be examining spatial relationships, variations and correlations. Variations across space manifest in the concepts of environmental justice and anthromes, which will be discussed in this essay. This essay also discusses how the annihilation of space is a nod to the possible irrelevance of the concept in today’s globalised world.
Most pertinent to geographical scholarship would be relational space, which purports that being intertwined with other geographical concepts inculcates space with meaning. Space and elements within are dialectically related; interactions between spaces and elements, and within each confer further meaning to the space. This essay will focus primarily on relational space, which can be fundamentally construed by the meaning engendered by the entirety of its landscape elements.
Spatial justice: the environmental aspect
Spatial variations are of critical relevance to geography, especially when these manifest in unjustified inequality that hinders development. Spatial justice strives to interpret social justice as a “struggle over geography”, critically engaging with how injustice is produced in space through “systematic exclusion, domination and oppression” (Dikeç, 2001: 1793). After all, space is not just an “outcome of past actions”; social space is also what “allows fresh actions to occur” (Lefebvre, 1991: 73). It is therefore beneficial to focus on the processes that produce space, and the simultaneous injustices that are engendered.
Environmental injustice arises from environmental risks that are unevenly distributed within and between societies. As such, environmental impacts on populations experience spatial variations accordingly, even to a “structurally disproportionate” extent (Ranco and Saugee, 2007). The spatiality of environmental injustice transcends linear distance, given the spatio-temporal complexity of impacts and of the distribution of demographic vulnerabilities (Holifield et. al, 2009).
Throughout history, environmental injustices produced negative externalities — which concentrate unequally in certain spaces (Martinez-Alier, 2002) — due to the spatial distribution of environmental hazards. Locally, environmental injustice manifests in the spatial distribution of waste management: disposal locations correlate with the spatial distribution of certain minority demographics. A 1983 study illustrated how toxic landfills were predominantly sited within African American communities, disproportionate to how they constituted only 20% of the population (General Accounting Office, 1983), which is still observed today in Washington, DC (Fig 1). Globally, there exists toxic colonialism: 90% of hazardous waste is produced by developed countries and thereafter transported to developing countries for disposal (King and McCarthy, 2005). Intra-local policies and practices also engender climatic impacts transcending political boundaries. In Barcelona, policies to promote environmental sustainability “displaces environmental…injustices” to beyond the city (Holifield et al, 2009: 5), and is further exacerbated by the spatial issue of urban sprawl (Martinez-Alier, 2002). The manifestation of these cases within and across space reveal how environmental injustices are spatially produced, inseparable from institutionalised “racial projects and attitudes” and “historical-geographical dynamics of colonialism” (Holifield et al, 2009: 4).
The spatial perspective alters the perception of natural environments, and, hence, should be utilised to identify environmental issues (Harvey, 1996). Concepts within absolute space, such as latitude and longitude coordinates, are leveraged upon to evaluate these environmental risks against an objective frame of reference (Bowen, 2001). Spatial datasets, such as the frequent use of spatial data matrices to surface correlation, are quintessential in environmental justice research. Similarly, spatial dependence and clustering is a critical analytical point in environmental justice research (Anselin, 1988). By showing how “spatial dependence is common in respect to disproportionate distributions” (Bowen, 2001: 103), the hypothesis of environmental injustice occurring can then be supported. Geographical scholarship of space in environmental justice therefore adds the tangible dimension, and highlights the fact that this discrimination exists beyond environmental racism: these issues are spatial inequalities, with physically differentiated communities. To exemplify this, a major externality includes pollutants encroaching upon spaces, with drawbacks on quality of life, as exemplified by how single-point pollution sources provoke larger social reactions than diffuse pollution (Martinez-Alier, 2002) because of the visible nature of its spatiality. Since “critical geography spatializes environmental justice” (Mysak, 2010: 254), understanding how these inequalities are produced in space is an impetus towards a concerted effort in devising solutions.
Additionally, environmental injustice involves not only unequal impacts transcending space, but also the distributional patterns of space-specific policies. As such, in combating environmental inequity, political power must be leveraged upon alongside ground-up measures. In striving to cultivate constructive socio-environmental relations, the space must be altered positively. By fostering spatial transformation, there is simultaneous change of “cultural practices, social relations, political-economic processes, and socio-ecological flows that produce and sustain that environment” (Mysak, 2010: 209). Space is therefore a recurring theme in understanding the frameworks and mechanisms of environmental injustice, and is critical in the pursuit of environmental justice on the basis of a distributive, fair paradigm.
Anthropogenic transformation of biomes
With our “unrivalled capacity for ecosystem engineering” (Ellis, 2011: 1028), humanity has borne a tremendous impact on the planet, entailing a geologically recent yet consequential influence on the physical landscape (Steffen et al, 2015). This includes transforming ecosystem patterns across most of the terrestrial biosphere (Harris, 2012) through intensification of land-use. Landscape alterations are largely engendered by settlements and agriculture (Ellis and Ramankutty, 2008), which then create “novel anthropogenic patterns” through connecting manmade infrastructures with nature (Ellis, 2011: 1016).
The anthrome, short for anthropogenic biomes, is a neologism devised to characterise the range of ecological land cover patterns from human activity and land-use, while also accounting for biotic influences (Martin et al, 2014). Fig 2 reveals the widespread distribution of anthromes, that covers over 75% of the planet’s ice-free land (Ellis and Ramankutty, 2008), illustrative of the pervasive, far-reaching impact of humanity on landscapes.
The impacts of these anthromes are far-reaching to beyond just these spaces, through altering biogeochemical processes, such as the anthropogenic creation of reactive nitrogen and other greenhouse gases at a rate far outstripping all other terrestrial processes combined (Galloway, 2005). The environmental risks engendered by anthromes are aligned with the First Law of Geography, where it is postulated that ‘everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things’ (Tobler, 1970). Demarcating spaces as anthromes equips geographers, ecologists, policymakers and other relevant stakeholders with this analytical framework for the distribution of conservation practices (Martin et al, 2014), aiding in a concerted effort towards future conservation planning of the anthromes and the spaces in close proximity to said anthromes. An awareness of the widespread spatial distribution of anthromes also pressurises, and calls for stewardship of the biosphere (Perring and Ellis, 2013) to mitigate the environmental risks. The general global patterns that arise from mapping spatial distributions can then be employed to identify critical conservation areas.
The annihilation of space
With accelerating communications and the invention of transport networks that have altered “the scale of earth itself” (Solnit, 2003: 6), distance that was once profundity has now been annihilated. The interconnections between once-distinct spaces are now much more tightly interwoven, jeopardising the vastness of space (Fig 3).
Driving factors are two-pronged: firstly, capitalism strives to destroy spatial barriers to its market (Harvey, 1989). The annihilation of space with time reduces time spent in motion, maximising profit margins. Secondly, globalisation causes the world to “speed-up” and “spread out” (Sheppard, 2002: 309) with the merging of cultures and communities, engendering time-space compression. The annihilation of space has led to the homogenisation of places, where local culture, idiosyncrasies and traits may not be preserved (Emerson, 1844), which in a way “sacrificed the near to gain the far” (Solnit, 2003: 18). Time-space compression is reducing the pertinence of space as a standalone concept, as space is now oft-purported to be a function of time. Consequently, space appears to be dwindling in its significance to today’s society and its relevance to geography.
Conclusion
Spaces are imbued with meaning through their constituent elements, which include geographical activity. By conceiving space with respect to the totality of its elements; in a synergic, intertwined system with other spaces; and acknowledging space as a “vitally important part of the new spatial consciousness” (Soja, 2000: 19), humanity is then granted the power of chang to mitigate negative socio-environmental consequences, and to initiate ripple effects across space. After all, our everyday actions undeniably have the capacity to bear impacts across space, which reveals the critical relevance of space to geography and solving geographical issues.
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