FROM “AREAL DIFFERENTIATION” TO “SOCIOSPATIAL DIFFERENTIATION”

“OVERVIEW THINKING” IN GEOGRAPHY AS A PROBLEMATIC EPISTEMOLOGICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL TRADITION

Abstract

Geography has been a prisoner of its own epistemological and methodological constraints  and especially of a kind of “overview thinking” which prevents it from approaching the Lebenswelten (lifeworlds) of concrete men and women. In fact, geography’s perspective has been usually similar to that which is typical of the state apparatus, which consists precisely in considering individuals and social groups from the standpoint of an external power institution. Unfortunately and curiously, this “overview thinking” is predominant even in the case of many left-wing scholars, who have build their critical approach to capitalist society and capitalist production of space on the basis of an analysis of the role of the state and of the dynamics of capital, without paying much attention to social movements and concrete Lebenswelten from an insider’s perspective.