Skip to main content
Log in

Rethinking space: an outsider’s view of the spatial turn

GeoJournal Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Geographical concerns with space and place have escaped the confines of the discipline of geography. Many humanities scholars now invoke such conceptions as a means to integrate diverse sources of information and to understand how broad social processes play out unevenly in different locations. The social production of spatiality thus offers a rich opportunity to facilitate interdisciplinary dialogues between different schools of critical theory. Following a brief assessment of the spatial turn in history, history of science, and political philosophy, this paper explores its implications for literary and cultural studies. It invokes a detailed case study of late 18th century Lima, Peru to explicate the dynamics of colonialism, the construction of racial identities, and different power/knowledge configurations within a particular locale. Space in this example appears as both matter and meaning, i.e., as simultaneously tangible and intangible, as a set of social circumstances and physical landscapes and as a constellation of discourses that simultaneously reflected, constituted, and at times undermined, the hegemonic social order. The intent is to demonstrate how multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary scholarship can be facilitated by paying attention to the unique of circumstances that define places within given historical moments. As seen in this example from literary colonial studies, other disciplines, therefore, can both draw from and contribute to poststructuralist interpretations of space as a negotiated set of situated practices.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Notes

  1. As defined by Soja (1985) rethinking Lefebvre’s The Production of Space (1991), spatiality connotes “socially produced space, the created forms and relationships of a broadly defined human geography.”.

  2. An important contribution about geography’s vital role in the human and social sciences is Benko and Strohmayer’s Space and Social Theory: Interpreting Modernity and Postmodernity (1997) which frames its essays around the spatial contributions of theorists such as Foucault, Lacan, Hegel and Lefebvre who have contributed to the understanding of spatial aspects of postmodernism.

  3. Excellent overviews by Finnegan (2008) and Naylor (2005) point to the diversity of approaches and challenges presented by the concern on the spaces of science.

  4. Examples of this type of multidisciplinary approach from my own field of colonial literary studies in the works of José Rabasa (1993, 2000), Ralph Bauer (2003), Mariselle Meléndez (1999), Gustavo Verdesio (2001), Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel (2008), Carlos A. Jáuregui (2008), among many others.

  5. Tapadas limeñas refers to the covered women during the colonial period who wore a shroud wrapped around part of the body, face, and head. Women could only show one eye. The mistureras describe flower venders, mostly black or Indian women; and Mestizas are the mixed blood women of Spanish and indigenous heritage.

  6. Geographical narratives and cartography of the period legitimated an imperial vision; however, it also contributed to the emergence of dissident Creole voices. We cannot forget that Creole representations and narratives that captured a sense of place also utilized indigenous knowledge about the land. One of the best examples is the Carta de la Audiencia de Quito by the Creole from Riobamba, Pedro Vicente Maldonado. See Safier’s discussions on Maldonado (2008).

  7. The cabinet was abandoned with the crisis of the French invasion of 1808, until 1844 when it was revived. Its collection is kept at the National Library in Madrid. See López Gómez and Manso Porto 2006, 189.

  8. He became member of key scientific societies in Spain such as the Real Academia de San Fernando (1764), Real Sociedad Bascongada de los Amigos del País, and the Real Academia de la Historia (1776).

  9. The idea that Spain remained at the margins of the seventeenth century scientific revolution is much debated (see Portuondo (2009), Nieto-Galán (1999), Cañizares-Esguerra (2002); García Camarero (1970); and Elliot (1989). In terms of their cartographic needs, the mapmakers and engravers from the low countries, then still under Spanish domination, filled the need for accurate mapping. On the other hand, the decline of natural science was justified by the religious intolerance that permeated much of this period because of the Spanish Inquisition’s rejection of scientific endeavors (Feijoo 1986). María Portuondo (2009, 15) focuses on the role of the Black Legend, the tradition of self critique among Spanish intellectuals, and the fact that many of the scientific projects under Phillip II were considered state secrets, which most be considered when elucidating the gap between Renaissance science and the Enlightenment.

  10. D. Cenón de Somodevilla, Marqués de la Ensenada, exemplified this need in his treatise Puntos de gobierno: “no basta que se formen y levanten cartas; es necesario que haya en el reino quien las sepa abrir, haciendo venir de fuera grabadores de esta profesión, ó enviando a París artistas mozos que la aprendan.” (quoted in Patier 1992, 13). See Capel’s (1982) discussion on the lack of Spanish cartographers and the measures taken by the government in the second half of the eighteenth century.

  11. Echave’s representation was based on the 1685’s Koninick plan (Kagan 2000, 171).

  12. The published translation in English of Miguel Costanso’s History Journal of the expeditions by sea and land to the north of California in 1763-70 used the map of the California coast engraved by López (Winsor 1889, 212). Another interesting reference that points towards his recognition in England is the reference made by Justin Windsor, who points to the work of Tomás López when he describes the advances of the mapping of Mexico City in the eighteenth century (1889, 200).

  13. Felicidad Patier’s published the inventory of López’s library in order to establish it among the most important Spanish collections in the eighteenth century.

References

  • Baker, A. R. H. (2003). Geography and history: bridging the divide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauer, R. (2003). The cultural geography of colonial American literatures: Empire, travel, modernity. Cambridge studies in American literature and culture, [136]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Benko, G., & Strohmayer, U. (1997). Space and social theory: interpreting modernity and postmodernity. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cañizares-Esguerra, J. (2002). How to write the history of the New World: histories, epistemologies, and identities in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Capel Sáez, H. (1982). Geografía y matemáticas en la España del siglo XVIII. Barcelona: Oikos-Tau.

    Google Scholar 

  • Casey, E. S. (1993). Getting back into place: toward a renewed understanding of the place-world. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Casey, E. S. (2002). Representing place: landscape painting and maps. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Casey, E. S. (2005). Earth-mapping: artists reshaping landscape. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chang-Rodríguez, R. (2008). “Aquí, ninfas del sur, venid ligeras”: voces poéticas virreinales. Madrid: Iberoamericana.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coleman, M., & Agnew, J. A. (2007). The problem with empire. In J. W. Crampton & S. Elden (Eds.), Space, knowledge and power: Foucault and geography (pp. 317–339). Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd.

    Google Scholar 

  • Corrigan, J. (2008). Spatiality and religion. In B. Warf & S. Arias (Eds.), The spatial turn: interdisciplinary perspectives (pp. 157–172). London: Routledge.

  • Cosgrove, D. E. (2008). Geography and vision: seeing, imagining and representing the world. London: I.B. Tauris.

    Google Scholar 

  • Echave y Assu, F.d. (1688). La estrella de Lima convertida en sol. Antwerp: Juan Baptissa Verdussen.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elliott, J. H. (1989). Spain and its world, 1500–1700: selected essays. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ethington, P. J. (2007). Placing the past: ‘groundwork’ for a spatial theory of history. Rethinking History, 11(4), 465–493.

    Google Scholar 

  • Falkheimer, J., & Jansson, A. (2006). Geographies of communication: the spatial turn in media studies. Goteborg: Nordicom.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feijoo, B. J., & Stiffoni, G. (1986). Teatro crítico universal, o, Discursos varios en todo género de materias, para desengaño de errores comunes. Clásicos Castalia, 147. Madrid: Castalia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Finnegan, D. A. (2008). The spatial turn: geographical approaches in the history of science. Journal of the History of Biology, 41(2), 369–388.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1984). The order of discourse. In M. Shapiro (Ed.), Language and politics (pp. 108–138). Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • García Camarero, E. (1970). La polémica de la ciencia española. Madrid: Aguilar.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gieryn, T. F. (2000). A space for place in sociology. Annual Review of Sociology, 26(1), 463–496.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gulson, K. N., & Symes, C. (Eds.). (2007). Spatial theories of education: policy and geography matters. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harley, J. B. (1988). Maps, knowledge and power. In D. Cosgrove & S. Daniels (Eds.), The iconography of landscape (pp. 277–312). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harley, J. B. (1997). Power and legitimation in the English geographical atlases of the eighteenth century. In J. A. Wolter & R. E. Grim (Eds.), Images of the world: the atlas through history (pp. 161–204). New York: McGraw-Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hill, R. (2005). Hierarchy, commerce and fraud in Bourbon Spanish America: a postal inspector’s exposé. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacob, C. (2006). The sovereign map: theoretical approaches in cartography throughout history. Translated by T. Conley & edited by E. H. Dahl. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jáuregui, C. A. (2008). Canibalia: Canibalismo, calibanismo, antropofagia cultural y consumo en América Latina. Madrid: Iberoamericana.

  • Kagan, R. L., & Marías, F. (2000). Urban images of the Hispanic world, 1493–1793. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Keith, M., & Pile, S. (1993). Introduction: the place of politics. In M. Keith & S. Pile (Eds.), Place and the politics of identity (pp. 22–40). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space. Translated by D. Nicholson-Smith. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Livingstone, D. N. (1995). The spaces of knowledge: contributions towards a historical geography of science. Environment and Planning D, 13(1), 5–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Livingstone, D. N. (2003). Putting science in its place: geographies of scientific knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • López de Vargas Machuca, T. (1758). Atlas geográfico de la América septentrional y meridional. Madrid: Se hallarà en casa de Antonio Sanz.

    Google Scholar 

  • López Gómez, A., & Manso Porto, C. (2006). Cartografía del siglo XVIII: Tomás López en la real academia de la historia. Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Low, S. M., & Lawrence-Zúñiga, D. (2003). The anthropology of space and place: locating culture. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Malpas, J. E. (1999). Place and experience: a philosophical topography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Martínez-San Miguel, Y. (2008). From lack to excess: “minor” readings of Latin American colonial discourse. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press.

  • Massey, D. (2005). For space. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meléndez, M. (1999). Raza, género e hibridez en el Lazarillo de ciegos caminantes. North Carolina studies in the Romance languages and literatures, no. 264. Chapel Hill: U.N.C. Dept. of Romance Languages.

  • Moraña, M., Dussel, E. D. & Jauregui, C. A. (2008). Colonialism and its replicants. In M. Moraña, E. Dussel & C. Jauregui (Eds.), Colonialism at Large: Latin America and the postcolonial debate (pp. 1–20). Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.

  • Murdoch, J. (2006). Post-structuralist geography: a guide to relational space. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Naylor, S. (2005). Introduction: historical geographies of science–places, contexts, cartographies. The British Journal for the History of Science, 38(1), 1–12.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nieto-Galán, A. (1999). The images of science in modern Spain. In K. Gavroglu (Ed.), The sciences in the European periphery during the Enlightenment (pp. 73–92). Dordrecht: Kluber Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Patier, F. (1992). La biblioteca de Tomás López: seguida de la relación de los mapas impresos, con sus cobres, y de los libros del caudal de venta que quedaron a su fallecimiento en Madrid en 1802. Madrid: El Museo Universal.

    Google Scholar 

  • Portuondo, M. M. (2009). Secret science: Spanish cosmography and the New World. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rabasa, J. (1993). Inventing America Spanish historiography and the formation of Eurocentrism Oklahoma project for discourse and theory (Vol. 11). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

  • Rabasa, J. (2000). Writing violence on the northern frontier: The historiography of sixteenth century New Mexico and Florida and the legacy of conquest . Latin America otherwise. Durham: Duke University Press.

  • Rabinow, P. (2003). Ordinance, discipline, regulation: some reflections on urbanism. In S. M. Low & D. Lawrence-Zúñiga (Eds.), The anthropology of space and place (pp. 353–362). Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Safier, N. (2008). Measuring the New World: enlightenment science and South America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Soja, E. W. (1989). Postmodern geographies: the reassertion of space in critical social theory. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Terralla y Landa, E. (1798). Lima por dentro y fuera. Madrid: Imprenta del Villalpando.

    Google Scholar 

  • Verdesio, G. (2001). Forgotten conquests: Rereading New World history from the margins. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

  • Warf, B., & Arias, S. (Eds.). (2008). The spatial turn: interdisciplinary perspectives. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winsor, J. (1889). Narrative and critical history of America. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Withers, C. W. J. (2002). The geography of scientific knowledge. In N. Rupke (Ed.), Göttingen and the development of the natural sciences (pp. 9–18). Göttingen: Wallstein.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Santa Arias.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Arias, S. Rethinking space: an outsider’s view of the spatial turn. GeoJournal 75, 29–41 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-010-9339-9

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-010-9339-9

Keywords

Navigation