Space & Society: the question of scale

Reading Valentine Ch 1 esp. pp. 7-11

Valentine’s Book Built around different scales –The Body –The Home –The Community, Street –The City –The Nation –(The Globe?)

Peter Haggett and scale Famous geography text begins with a couple on the beach –discusses larger scales –discusses smaller scales –puts scales in geography in the middle

“ A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.” - Joseph Stalin

Scale Is it just a matter of size? (Haggett) –Politically neutral, objective Or does scale change the social & cultural meaning of things? (Valentine)

Scale is the difference between different kinds of places --Neil Smith

Cartesian Dualism “I think therefore I am” (Rene Descartes) –Body and mind are separate body takes up space mind occupies no space –Justifies other dualisms: People vs Nature Culture vs Nature Mind vs Body –Plain wrong

“I am plagued by doubts. What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.” --- Woody Allen in Without Feathers, p. 10.

Feminist contribution The body as an important scale in social relations Connection between bodies and society Critique of dualism: –men/mind/culture vs women/bodies/nature –bodies, minds, society, the universe are all integrated

Social relations cut across scales

Elora ON, Canada Day 2002

Geographical scales are not fixed The City: –14th Century Florence: 100,000 people 20 minutes to walk across it –21st century Toronto 5 million people 2 hours to drive across it Cities have changed their scales

Geographical scales are not fixed Scales which have vanished –the rural school section in Ontario –townships in Chatham-Kent –old-style political wards in Toronto –300+ micro-states in pre-unification Germany –Canada as a sovereign tariff area within North America

Scale is produced through social relations Industrial revolution: –created vast cities, global economic system –created the nuclear family –created modern imperialism 1940s US Sociology –created the Census Tract –created community planning

Scale and Computers "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, : Computers only available to big government 2002: Computers universal at the personal scale

Connected scales: Imperialism

Local scale: the imperial centre

Local scale: colonial periphery

Imperialism: National Imagination

Scale can be Political: The powerful contain the weak by controlling scale –confine to restricted spaces Imprisonment, South African “pass laws” –suppress local identity Abolition of French provinces Conscription into French Army

Scale can be Political: Conflict of different scales –Toronto vs Queen’s Park “The Harris government is hurting families” “Ontario should not be run by special-interest groups”

Maggie T and scale

Britain in the 1980s Thatcher had clear majority in parliament –No effective opposition at national level –Weakened the labour unions

Britain in the 1980s Only real opposition: large metropolitan urban governments –Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Greater London etc., –Thatcher abolishes them 1985 Example of scale being politicised

Nuclear Power in France So you want to build a Nuclear station? –National anti-nuke protestors will oppose the scheme Pick a small, poor, rural community Spend $100 million in it Get the plant approved via the local planning process –planners can rule out-of-town protesters ineligible to speak

Michel Foucault Interested in relationship between power and place How power shapes different kinds of space –prison cell, asylum, hospital

A future inmate?

Michel Foucault How space shapes different kinds of power –where experts speak from Doctors, scientists: from clinics, labs and from scientific observation Teachers, professors: from libraries, the podium, ivory towers Clergy: from pulpits Revolutionaries: from the barricades –scale is a factor

Scale Can be treated as a matter of size –look at place from different scales –pretend it is neutral and objective Can recognize scale as –socially constructive –socially constructed Scale matters either way