space

The extent of an area, usually expressed in terms of the earth's surface. From this meaning derives the term spatial; and spatial relationships are at the heart of geography. It is important to distinguish between absolute space, which refers to clearly distinct, real, and objective space, and relative space, which is space as perceived by a person or society and concerns the relationship between events and between aspects of events. Space cannot be held in permanent, fixed, and measured intervals, or in regular geometries.

It may be that all human beings have the same perception of space at the biological level of perception, but certainly every society uses its space differently, both artistically and technologically. The first widely acknowledged suggestion that the perception of space might be culturally determined arises in the work of E. Sapir and B. Whorf (1956), who argued that perception of space is determined by culture, and particularly by language; ‘Europeans have a notion of time and space that is generally assumed by them to be universal. This gratuitous assumption is naive, arrogant and wrong’ (F. Hopgood 1993 3).

H. Lefebvre (1974, English pub. 1991) argued that space is socially created—‘every society produces a space, which can be seen and understood as its own space’—creating formal structures from enumeration districts to nation-states, and informal formations from Marshallian industrial areas to neighbourhoods. Lefebvre's ideas have been extensively criticized (T. Unwin, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 25 18-27), but both D. Harvey (1990, esp. ch. 13, 1996; E. Soja 1996, esp. ch. 10; See also thirdspace) have incorporated his arguments into their own work.

Spaces are constantly being made (whether produced or constructed is debatable), by order or by accident; they are open and dynamic. And space and time are not dualisms; D. Massey (Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 24 271) writes of the habit of ‘modernist’ social scientists of ‘convening space in temporal terms. When…we use terms like…“developed” and “developing”, we are effectively imagining spatial differences…as temporal…arranging differences between places into historical sequence…places are not essentially different, just “behind”.’ She argues (in S. Pile and M. Keith 1993 141-61) that human geography must abandon the concept of autonomous space and adopt a concept of space-time.

The question of the difference between ‘space’ and ‘place’ remains problematic. Lefebvre on occasions uses the word ‘place’ to refer to ‘bounded space’, or to refer to the everyday, the ‘lived’, and Tuan (Space and Place 54) writes that ‘Space lies open…it is like a blank sheet on which meaning may be imposed. Enclosed and humanized space is place.’ T. Unwin (Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 25 27) writes that human actions ‘take place and find their expressions in particular places and societies create through space-time…whereas we cannot change space-time, we do have the means to influence place.’