Pred Allan - Place as Historically Contingent Process _AAAG_1984

Place as Historically Contingent Process: Structuration and the Time-Geography of Becoming Places Allan Pred

Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720

Abstract. This paper presents the theoretical foundation for a different type of place-centered or regional geography. The framework rests upon an integration of time-geography and the emerging theory of structuration. It also builds upon a conceptualization of place as a constantly becoming human product as well as a set of features visible upon the landscape. Place is seen as a process whereby the reproduction of social and cultural forms, the formation of biographies, and the transformation of nature ceaselessly become one another at the same time that time-space specific activities and power relations continuously become one another. It is further contended that the ways in which these phenomena are interwoven in the becoming of place or region are not subject to universal laws but vary with historical circumstances. Three empirical foci that suggest themselves from the framework are briefly discussed.

Key Words: time-geography, structuration, power relations, social reproduction, language, knowledge.

Modern geography is the scientific study of places. -Paul Vidal de la Blache

History [is not] comprehensible except as the outcome of human projects.

-Anthony Giddens

S ETTLED places and regions, however ar- bitrarily delimited, are the essence of

human geographic inquiry. Until recently, places and regions have usually been treated in ways that emphasize certain measurable or visible attributes of an area during some arbitrary period of observation. Thus, whether presented as elements of a spatial distribution, as unique assemblages of physical facts and human artifacts, or as localized spatial forms, places and regions have been por- trayed as little more than frozen scenes for human activity. Even the "new humanist" geographers, who see place as an object for a subject, as a center of individually felt values and meanings, or as a locality of emotional attachment and felt significance, in essence

conceive of place as an inert, experienced scene.' This paper takes a somewhat different view of places and regions.

The assemblage of buildings, land-use pat- terns, and arteries of communication that constitute place as a visible scene cannot emerge fully formed out of nothingness and stop, grow rigid, indelibly etched in the once- natural landscape. Whether place refers to a village or a metropolis, an agricultural area or an urban-industrial complex, i t always rep- resents a human product. Place, in other words, always involves an appropriation and transformation of space and nature that is inseparable from the reproduction and transformation of society in time and space.' As such, place is not only what is fleetingly ob- served on the landscape, a locale, or setting for activity and social interaction (Giddens 1979, 206-7; Giddens 1981, 39, 45). It also is what takes place ceaselessly, what contributes to history in a specific context through the creation and utilization of a physical setting.

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pp. 279-297

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Using this conceptualization of place (and region) as a point of departure, I shall present a theory of place as historically contingent process that emphasizes institutional and individual practices as well as the structural features with which those practices are interwoven. The theory in question rests upon an integration of the theory of "structuration" and the discipline-transcending language of time-geography. It also indirectly owes much to the Vidalian tradition of la geographie humaine, ..*~ih its emphasis on local practical life and its conceptualization of genre de vie as a creative adoption to natural environment based upon the traditional attitudes, values, ideas, beliefs, and psychology of a popula- tiom3

Because place is conceptualized partly in terms of the unbroken flow of local event^,^ the proposed theory attempts to take into account the material cont inui ty both of the people who participate in that process and of any natural and humanly made objects employed in time-space specific practices. Thus, the participating individuals, without whom there is no place as process, are not treated in the thingified, fragmented, and atomized manner characteristic of conventional human geography and social science. They are not regarded in one instance solely as producers, in another as residents, in another as members of an age or racial group, in another as consumers, in yet another as perceivers of the environment, and so on. Instead, process part ic ipants are regarded as integrated human beings who are objects and subjects at once. They are regarded as people whose thoughts, actions, experiences, and ascrip- tions of meaning are constantly becoming through their involvement in the workings of society and its structural properties.

Because the theory of place as historically contingent process rests upon an integration of structuration theory and time-geography, its presentation must begin with a brief re- statement of the fundamentals of each framework and the key interconnection between the two.

Material Continuity and the Time-Space Flow of the Structuration Process

Over the past fifteen years or so there has

been a remarkable convergence of thought among a growing number of European social theorists and social philosophers regarding the interwoven relationships between individual and society, between practice and structure, between agency and structure, between socialization and social reproduction. These scholars usually depict the coupled categories as dialectically reproducing and transforming one another in historically specific expressions of the uninterrupted process of "structuration." Giddens, Bourdieu, Bhaskar, and others identif iable with the structuration school of thought sometimes differ considerably in their selection of foci and categories. However, they al l regard practices and structures as equally "real," while denying that human beings are nothing more than the mechanical bearers of structure. For the most part they also share other views that may be summarized in the following manner.5

(1) For any given area, social reproduction is an ongoing process that is inseparable from the everyday performance of institutional activities (including those mundane practices associated with the inst i tut ion of the family). More precisely, performance of such activities results in the perpetuation or modification of the institutions themselves, of the knowledge necessary to repeat or create activities (cf. Thrift 1979), and of already exist ing structural relationships.

(2) Through socialization, rules of behavior are absorbed and become taken for granted, and the skil ls appropriate to given social contexts are acquired and reinforced. Socialization occurs through participating in institutional activities and persists through adult- hood.

(3) In the simultaneous unfolding of socialization and social reproduction the individual and her or his consciousness are shaped by society, while society is unintentionally and intentionally shaped by the individual and her or his consciousness. That is, socializa- t ion and social reproduct ion (and transformation) always become one another.

Place as Historically Contingent Process 281

(4) To deal with the dialectical relationships between individual and society, the constant becoming of both, one must really deal with material continuity and the dialectics of practice and structure, which are synonymous with the process of structuration.

(5 ) As structuration unfolds, the structural properties of any social system express themselves through the operation of everyday practices at the same t ime that everyday practices generate and reproduce the micro- and macro-level structural propert ies of that social system.

Lest any unnecessary confusion arise in reading the argument that follows, it is necessary to provide a brief def ini t ion of the properties of "social structures" and any economic or political structures subsumed under that term. Social structure is comprised of those generative rules and power relations- including the control over material, symbolic or authoritative resources-that are already built into a specific historical and human geographical situation, or into an historically and geographically specific social system. The rules and power relations of social structure do not only constrain and enable human agency and practice. They also emerge out of human agency and practice. A social structure's component rules may be formal or informal, stated or unstated, written or un- written, explicit or implicit. Whatever their nature, these learned and humanly produced rules form the underlying grammar of activity and behavior in part icular contexts. The power relations of a social structure may exist among different individuals, among different groups or classes, among different institutions, and among individuals or groups on the one hand, and institutions on the other. Insofar as power relations may differ in their geographical extent, structuration processes may simultaneously occur at multiple spatial levels, interpenetrating with one another through the practices associated with me- diating institutions or individuals.

Giddens, Bourdieu, Bhaskar, and others associated with the structuration school are sensitive to the fact that all social activities take the form of concrete interactions in time- space. Thus, "the structuration of every so-

cial system, however small or large, occurs in time and space" (Giddens 1981, 91). Yet, no- body identifiable with the structuration perspective really has succeeded in conceptual- iz ing the means by which the everyday shaping and reproduction of self and society come to be expressed as specific structure- influenced and structure-influencing practices occurring at particular locations in time and space. Structuration proponents are not precise as to how any given time-space specific practice can simultaneously be rooted in past time-space situations and serve as the potential roots of future time-space situations. They fail to inform us exactly how the functioning and reproduction of particular cultural, economic, and political institutions in time and space are continuously bound up with the temporally and spatially specific actions, knowledge build-up, and biographies of particular individuals. Alternatively, they do not capture the uninterrupted time-space flow of the structuration p r o ~ e s s . ~

It has been contended elsewhere that these l imitations of structuration theory can be overcome by integrating that body of thought with certain elements of t ime-geography (Pred 1981b, 1981d, 1983). Such an integra- t ion rests on the concepts of "path" and "project," the two fundamental bu i ld ing blocks of the time-geographic language. Ac- cording to the path concept, each of the actions and events consecutively making up the existence of an individual has both temporal and spatial attributes. Consequently, the biography of a person can be conceptualized as a continuous path through time-space, subject to various types of constraint. The "biographies" of other living creatures, natural phenomena, and humanly made objects can also be conceptualized in the same manner. A project consists of the entire series of tasks necessary to complete any intention- inspired or goal-oriented behavior. Each of the sequential tasks in a short- or long-term project is synonymous with the coupling together in time and space of the paths of two or more people or of those persons and tan- gible resources, such as buildings, furniture, machinery, and raw materials.'

The integration of time-geography with the theory of structuration becomes possible when it is recognized that each of society's component institutions does not exist apart

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from the everyday and longer-term produc- t ion, consumption, or other projects for which i t is responsible. If a l l of society 's formal and informal institutions are project- bound, and if a l l projects require some human participation, then the following prop- osition may be stated: The detailed situations and material continuity of structuration are perpetually spelled out by the intersection of individual paths with institutional projects occurring at specific temporal and spatial locations. If this be the case, then place as historically contingent process-the becoming of place, all the humanly made elements of place, and all that takes place within a given area-is inseparable from the everyday unfolding of the structurat ion process in place(s).

Place is therefore a process whereby the reproduction of social and cultural forms, the formation of biographies, and the transformation of nature ceaselessly become one another at the same time that time-space specif ic activities and power relations ceaselessly become one another (Figure 1). The components of the theory are universal in the sense that they are inextricably interwoven with one another in the becoming of every place or region. However, the ways in which they are interwoven are not subject to universal laws, but vary with historical circumstances. The proposed theory of place, after all, is historically contingent. It is not a theory

that lends itself to formal testing, but a theory that is meant to inform the questions posed by researchers inquiring into real situations in actual places or regions.

Components of Place as Historically Contingent Process

Production and Distribution Projects as Social Forms: The Spatial and Social Division of Labor Within Becoming Places

Within any given place certain institutional projects are dominant in terms of the demands they make upon the limited time resources of the resident population and the influence they therefore exert upon what is doable and knowable. Or, certain institutional projects are dominant in terms of the impact they have on the daily paths and life paths of specific people and, therefore, upon the details of individual consciousness development and socialization. Such dominant projects usually structure daily paths by taking time-allocation and scheduling precedence over both other institutional projects and projects undertaken alone outside of any institutional context. Moreover, dominant projects do not simply influence the sequence and pace of the other projects that participants find possible to include within their daily paths. In addition, once a person has

INTERSECTION OF

INDIVIDUAL PATHS AND INSTITUTIONAL PROJECTS (PRACTICE)

REPRODUCTION AND TRANSFORMATION OF POWER RELATIONS (STRUCTURE)

GENRES DE VIE AND SOCIAL REPRODUCTION

Spatial and social division of labor (produclion and dislribulion)

Sedimentation of other

f

BIOGRAPHY FORMATION AND

SOCIALIZATION Language acquisition

Personality development Development of

consciousness

TRANSFORMATION OF NATURE

Occur simultaneously

Figure 1. Components of place (and region) as historically contingent process. Repeated reference to this figure may facilitate following the remainder of the text.


made a commitment to partake in any project at a given time and site several constraints take affect. I t becomes impossible to do something else simultaneously elsewhere. It becomes impossible to join any spatially separate, earlier-starting activity whose termina- tion occurs subsequent to the start of the project in question. It becomes impossible to join any spatially separate, later-finishing activity whose beginning occurs prior to the finish of the project in question. It becomes impossible to join any other spatially separate project that presents no simultaneity conflicts but is beyond reach because of travel-time requirements8

By definition, dominant institutional projects account for the most noteworthy path- project intersections in place-bound structuration processes. They also are the outcome and source of the most significant structural properties, or social relations, within a place. In most places and times, dominant institutional projects have been identical with local material production and distribution or with the operation of a locally dominant mode of production. However, other cultural and social forms, especially the projects of religious, ceremonial, and political institutions, have been dominant in many instances. Though material production is a necessary condition for social life, "it is not always ultimately determining of the rest of social life" (Bhaskar 1978, 19; see also Sahlins 1974), nor does it necessarily play "a determinant role in historical change as a whole" (Giddens 1981, 54).

All institutional production and distribution projects involve a spatial division of labor, to the extent that they are not undertaken ubiq- uitously, and they also entail a social division of labor because some people participate in different ways while others do not participate at all. The production and distribution projects contributing to the becoming of a place at any given time, and their attendant spatial and social division of labor, are themselves a consequence of the time-space flow of the structuration process.

In some circumstances, especially within traditional agricultural settlements, the spatial and social division of labor is largely or completely local. Consider, for example, the local element of labor division that is created or reproduced every time a given parcel of land serves as the scene for a p lowing,

sowing, or harvesting project, or when the paths of certain individuals and implements are coupled together in a certain location. Such a local division of labor is not possible without allocative and role-assignment decisions being made by a patriarch, a council of village or tribal elders, or some other power- holding individual or group within the institution that controls the particular piece of land. Those decisions, moreover, are not entirely spontaneous. They are based on the practical knowledge, situation-specific information, and the ideology (values, beliefs, and ideas) or cosmology held by the decision- makers as a result of their uniquely accumulated path histories. In other words, the decisions are the result of their makers' past intersections with institutional projects and consequent socialization and development of consciousness, or the temporal and spatial details of their own past involvement in the process of structuration.

Moreover, the social division of labor that is manifested and reproduced in the spatial division of labor is not likely to be accidental. Instead, it is likely rooted in gender-, age-, and group- or class-based differences in op- portunity, which depend upon the way in which the dialectics between practice and social structure have been played out within that place. In addition, the very carrying out of production and distribution projects is not feasible without the practical knowledge, physical skills, or reflexive reasoning developed by participants through their previous engagement in structure- inf luenced and structure-influencing institutional projects.

In industrialized countries the spatial and social division of labor occurs at a macro- level within a system of placesg while re- taining a local component. Thus, especially in capitalist countries, but also in command- economy countries, the production and distribution projects occurring within a local area are directly or indirectly connected to the dialectics of more macro-level structuration processes. The most critical practices in these processes are the locational decisions knowingly and unknowingly made by job-pro- viding institutions in conjunction with investment, purchasing, and subcontracting activity.lOThese decisions are conditioned by economic structure and contribute to economic structure. (These decisions are also di-

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alectically involved with spatial structure. De- cisions made during one period of investment not only contribute to a spatial division of performed labor but also contribute to the uneven spatial distribution of skills, input sources, and markets. This unevenness, in turn, influences locational decisions made in subsequent rounds of investment, each of which is characterized by different production-process and labor-performance requirements.'' In other words, as successive rounds of investment are superimposed upon one another, locational decisions are transformed into distributions and distributions are transformed into locational decisions.)

Put otherwise, the mix of production and distribution projects occurring within a specific place will be a result of both the historical succession of investment made there as a part of wider national and international di- visions of labor (cf. Massey 1978, 235), and the sequence of economic structural conditions that have affected the survival and scale of those local placements of capital.

The decisions leading to locally placed in- vestments (whether or not locally arrived at) must also derive from the practical knowledge, situation-specific information, and mo- tivating ideology possessed by the decision- makers because of their previous singular record of participation in the structuration process or their uniquely accumulated sequence of path-project intersections. Like- wise, day-to-day variations in the details of long-standing local production and distribution projects may be seen both as a response to macro-level expressions of the structuration process, such as altered market conditions, and the peculiar path history of each factory manager or other responsible deci- sionmaker.

Whether the spatial and social division of labor occur almost entirely on a local basis or both locally and between places, there is always the possibility of inflexible limits on the numbers of people who may partake in the production and distribution projects occurring within a given area. Or, there may be a poor match between the "total spectrum of livelihood positions" (Hagerstrand 1978, 143) existing within a place and the total daily time resources of the resident population. Such an imbalance usually either helps force some people to migrate and contribute to what

takes place elsewhere or helps attract new inhabitants who become involved in the local becoming of place.'*

The Sedimentation of Other Cultural and Social Forms

Owing to the tremendous associative and creative capabil i t ies of the human brain (Young 1978; Cooper 1980), there are, in theory, immense possibilities for what can take place within any area. Thus, even under the homogenizing influences of modern ad- vertising and mass communications, significant contrasts are evident among different places in the same country. However, only a limited number of production and distribution activities and other cultural and social forms are found in any area. This is because the mix of everyday practices that take place locally is constrained-but also enabled-in usually unseen ways by the ongoing dialectic between those practices and local and more encompassing structural properties. In other words, whether or not production and distribution projects are dominant within a place, the comparatively narrow variety of other institutionally and individually centered activities carried out among its inhabitants are to be regarded as a complex sedimentation of the structuration process. They are not to be viewed as behavior historically dictated either by a superorganic (or ontologically independent, individual-transcending, conflict-free, and self-determining) culture13 or by the autonomous "needs" (or "functional exigen- cies") of a social system.14

The historically nuanced and dynamically interrelated means by which the structuration process constrains (and enables) the residual, prevalent, and emergent cultural and social forms expressed within a place are manifold.15 One important set of constraints stems from the finite temporal resources of both the individuals and the population of a place. Once time and space have been allo- cated for physiologically necessary activities and dominant institutional projects, only so many other types of social interaction and culturally arbitrary practices can be individually or collectively accommodated and mas- tered by residents on a daily or periodic basis (cf. Hagerstrand 1977). Therefore, one of two


general situations will emerge when the dialectics of practice and structure lead, via conflict, contradiction, or innovative deci- sionmaking, to the creation, redefinition, or elimination of institutional projects. There will be either an increased demand on time (and space) resources, resulting in a modification or total pushing aside of some existing activities, or a freeing up of time (and space) resources, permitting the expansion or ap- pearance of other project^.'^ How the altered time-space demands of institutional projects will affect what may occur in a given area often depends on the extent to which production projects are centered in the family or other household units or the extent to which work and residence are spatially and func- tionally separated.

Language-itself an arbi t rary cul tural form-is another crucial constraint and enabling condition affecting the assortment of cultural and social practices that can occur in a given area. Language is fundamental to the bringing off of path-project intersections because i t provides a foundat ion for de- scribing, grouping, and differentiating things, events, and experiences and because it can be equated with intention-affecting ideology and the sustenance of social domination (cf. Geertz 1964; Foucault 1970, 1972; Barthes 1972; Gouldner 1976; Coward and Ellis 1977; Giddens 1979; Olsson 1980a). It is fundamental, furthermore, because it is the me- dium through which the component tasks of institutional projects are routinely or cre- atively defined, made mutually understood, and subsequently recounted. Yet, language, or any other locally present system of signs, is not only a prerequisite to what takes place, its acquisit ion is a consequence of t ime- space specific circumstances of project participation. Thus, as the details of everyday life and social reproduction unfold locally, the limits of a population's language mean the limits of their place (or the projects they can define and participate in) at the same time that the limits of their place mean the limits of their language (or the words and other lin- guistic elements they can acquire)." Lan- guage, however, does not exercise a static constraint on what can take place, just as what takes place does not exercise a static constraint on language. The words, variable meanings, pronunciation, and grammar of a

language are always becoming-along with the becoming of individual, society, and place-primarily through institutional projects. Language is always becoming in the sense that its components are either very gradually and unintentionally altered through daily use in stable and recurrent institutional projects, or incrementally and sometimes radically changed through the introduction, abandonment, or modification of institutional projects and their associated path-coupling requirements.

The previously sedimented array of cultural and social practices within a place at a given time also will limit and facilitate the practical skills and other knowledge that are available and usable and, therefore, the activities that may arise. Because doing and knowing are dialectically intertwined, the character of unknowing in a place constrains the cultural and social projects that eventually may occur there. As Thrift (1979; 1983, 45) has suggested, at least five interrelated types of unknowing can simultaneously exist in a place.

(1) The "unknown, and not possible to know, in terms of being totally unknown" to all or some local inhabitants.

(2) The "not understood" in terms of "not being within the frame of meaning" of all or certain local inhabitants.

(3) The "hidden in terms of being hidden from certain" local inhabitants.

(4) The "undiscussed, in terms of being taken for granted as 'true' or 'natural' " by all or some local groups.

(5) The "distorted, in terms of being known only in a distorted fashion" by all or certain members of the local population.

The detailed attr ibutes of knowledge and unknowing in a place will, of course, depend on the extent to which local institutions are either nonlocally controlled or engage in nonlocal interaction^.'^

Finally, the social or economic position of every resident helps determine what can take place insofar as economic or social resources, applied within a context of specific rules and norms, enable or prohibit participation in institutional projects outside of the realm of product ion and distribution. The constraints on participation in specific cultural and social forms dictated by economic or social position are from one vantage point

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dialectically inseparable from the other constraints on what takes place. For, as biographies are formed, social and economic position become translated into specific dominant institutional commitments, language, and knowledge at the same time that specific dominant institutional commitments, language, and knowledge reinforce or transform social and economic position. Even more essential, to speak of place-specific constraints and enabling conditions that are based on resources, rules, and norms is to speak of constraints and enabling condit ions that are based on geographically and historically specif ic power relations between individuals, collectivities, and institutions. As will be subsequently reemphasized, such relations, which are at the heart of social structure, are practice influencing and practice influenced.

The Formation of Biographies

The material continuity of the structuration process, and thereby of place as historically contingent process, is perhaps most readily apparent at the level of individual biography formation where language is acquired, personality is developed, an ideology evolves, and consciousness develops.

The formation of individual biographies brings continuity to the structuration process because in tracing out an unbroken path a person neither encounters separate institutional projects nor "independently" undertakes separate projects outside of an institutional context in a disjointed or unconnected manner. Instead, an individual's incessant progress through time-space from project to project, from one detailed here and now to another, is characterized by a complex "external-internal" dialectic, by a repeated dialectical interplay between corporeal actions and mental activities and intentions, between what one does and what one knows, thinks, and dreams.

External physical action-or any steering of an individual's path through specific temporal and spatial locations in order to participate in, or get to and f rom, a project- cannot occur without resulting in internal mental activity. External physical action always involves confrontation with specific en- vironmental elements, personal contacts, in-

fluences, or information in general, as well as emotions and feelings that otherwise would not have been experienced. Yet, the addition of external physical actions to an individual's path requires internal mental activity-self- reflection, the recognition of meaningful object-embedded codes (cf. Burke 1969; Harre 1978), the performance of pract ical reasoning, the formation of intentions or unconscious goals, the imaginative creation of new project possibilities, or the making of choices between new or already existing project al- ternatives that do not violate basic time-geographic constraints. Such mental activity is itself based on the experience and knowledge acquired by that individual through previous participation in temporally and spatially specific projects. The external-internal dialectic operates even when a person undertakes a self-defined project outside the workings of any institution, for one cannot escape the mental imprint left by the previous intersection of her or his path with particular institutional projects. There are always culturally arbitrary dispositions or elements of practical knowledge associated with the creation and definition of "independent" projects that can be acquired only via socialization, or path intersections with institutional projects.

Individual-level continuity in the becoming of place can also be linked to another dialectical relationship akin to the external-internal dialectic. The "life path-daily path" dialectic is central to the local and wider reproduction of group, class, and gender differences. It involves the interplay between long-term commitment and everyday practice; between, on the one hand, an individual 's previous succession of long-term institutional roles and resultant record of everyday project participation and, on the other hand, the objec- tive long-term opportunit ies open to that person. Through the operation of this di- alect ic the long-term inst i tut ional roles among which an adult person may realisti- cally choose at any point are, in essence, both walled off and thrown open by the manner in which one's previous institutional role commitments have affected specific daily paths (cf. Bourdieu 1977; Bourdieu and Passeron 1977). Every time a person's life path is com- mitted to a given family role or to a special- ized role within some other institution that person's daily path wi l l be intermit tent ly


steered to activities linked with specific routine or nonroutine projects. But, when participating in those activities at precise local sites and more or less fixed temporal locations, and thus having participation in other activities and projects constrained, the individual daily undergoes experiences, interacts with other people, acquires or reinforces compe- tencies, and encounters symbolically laden inanimate objects, ideas, and information that otherwise would not have been con- fronted in the same form. These daily-path experiences, interactions, and encounters occasionally result in the discovery of other long-term institutional role possibilities that, depending on the basis of a person's biographical history and competition from other individuals, one may or may not have a real- istic chance of entering into. Moreover, these daily-path encounters help one to define and redefine oneself, to renew and ini t iate strengths and weaknesses (Erikson 1975), and to form intentions. They thereby underlie one's consciously or unconsciously moti- vated choices about which other long-term institutional roles, if any, to seek or define. Of course, once new long-term institutional role choices have been willingly or grudgingly made, the activity bundles of new projects must be occasionally incorporated into the individual's daily path and new experiences, interactions, and encounters will ensue.

The joint operation of these two dialectics means that each of an individual's actions in a given setting, each detailed increment to his or her biography, cannot be attributed in an idealistic manner to that person's independently existing personality and consciousness. Instead, the singular personality and consciousness attributes that bring a person to make certain project-participation choices and to act in a given way in situations defined by others should be seen as resulting from a unique accumulation of everyday experiences, impressions, and memories that have been defined or influenced by specific already-existing institution^.'^ In short, personality and consciousness do not exist independently, but are the complex by-products of past path-project intersections and the power relations underlying those intersection^.^^ No matter how constrained or "free" and spontaneous self-expression in the creation and use of landscape may be, it always emerges

from biographical and place-specific historical and social contexts at the same time that it contributes to the uninterrupted becoming of biography and place.21

The material continuity of biography formation also is vital to the unbroken quality of the structuration process in place because it contributes to the continuity of local institutions. The continuity of any local institution cannot rest merely on the physical persistence of facilities under its control or on the formal rules, norms, and regulations that it perpetuates. In some measure, the continuity of a place's institutions depends upon the memory traces, practical knowledge, unfor- malized rules and norms, and complex skills employed by individuals when they "recon- stitute the practices 'layered' into [those] institutions in deep time-space" (Giddens 1981, 165). In other words, the intergenerational perpetuation of institutions in place requires a "flow of [human] conduct" (Shotter 1983). It requires a succession of path-project intersections whereby individuals, acting within a context of largely unacknowledged power relations, unintentionally reproduce conditions or connect the momentary event with the inst i tut ional duree, while simultaneously forming their own biographies. Because individual socialization (or biography formation) and institutional (or social) reproduction are dialectically intertwined in the process of structuration, each constantly becoming the other, the material continuity and time-space f low of the two in place cannot be rent asunder.

The Transformation of Nature

As place-specific biographies are formed through social reproduction, and as place- specific social reproduction occurs through the formation of biographies, the physical environment is perpetually transformed. The transformation of the physical world is inseparable from the becoming of place.

Obviously, nature is modified when a field is cleared, plowed, sown, and harvested; when a dwelling or manufacturing facility is erected; when a tree is felled for fuel or construction; when water is diverted for drinking or irrigation; when a mound is prepared for burial. However, the role of human beings in

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intentionally and unintentionally changing the face of the earth through place-bound ideology, knowledge application, and action is not confined to production projects and the construct ion and land-use projects that create visible elements of place. The transformation of outer nature also is indirectly abetted by the use of humanly made or natural objects in just about every institutional and "independently" defined project. Thus, in undertaking the project of reading this ar- ticle you are subtly contributing to the transformation of outer nature by using the pages on which it is printed, the chair under you and the desk or table at which you are sitting, the clothes on your back, and perhaps, a pen and paper for note taking. In a consumption-oriented society the link between what locally takes place and the transformation of outer nature is opaque, or not consciously perceived by most individual^.^^ The extent to which the employment of humanly altered or natural objects in place-bound projects brings about a local rather than nonlocal transformation of nature is, of course, depen- dent upon the historically specific division of labor between places.

The bodies of human beings are biologi- cally constituted and therefore a part of nature. Hence, through engaging themselves in the becoming of place people are not only internally transformed by social and other experiences, but their physical nature also is altered as their paths wind inexorably from birth to death. Try as we may, we cannot deny that "human beings as well as stones [are] irresistably part of the [natural] flow of emergence and disappearance" (Hagerstrand 1976b, 3).

The corporeal t ransformation and the transformation of outer nature that always ac- company the structuration process in place can also be expressed in terms of a path convergence-path divergence, creation-destruction, or presence-absence dialectic that is firmly rooted in the time-geographic perspec- t ive (c f . Pred 1981a, 244-45).23 Because human beings are unable to defy gravity, it is not possible for them to steer their own paths through an unbroken sequence of institutional and "independently" defined projects without being in constant touch with the time-space paths traced out either by elements of the natural environment or by hu-

manly made objects that are derived from outer nature. Hence, no activity can come about via the convergence of paths, or the creation of a joint presence, without necessitating the divergence of previously coupled paths, or the destruction of a prior joint presence and the formation of an absence. Like- wise, no activity can terminate via the divergence of paths, thereby resulting in an absence, without necessitating the convergence of paths in new activity combinations, or the creation of another joint presence. More simply and poetically (Eliot 1942),

to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.

In other words, the web of individual move- ments through time-space that help constitute social conduct, organization, and interaction can be seen as synonymous with "processes, of 'presencinglabsencing,"' as sequentially "structured difference^,"^^ that always contribute to the very gradual or more noticeable transformation of outer nature through unintended touch or calculated usage.

Sensitivity to the path convergence-path divergence dialectic forces one to recognize that all humanly shaped landscape elements as well as all humanly made objects are not lifeless, not without biographies of their own that are part of the never-ending transformation of nature. Instead, their existence and state of newness or decrepitude, their active use or abandonment (as well as their symbolic meanings [cf. Lowenthal 1975]), are always to be seen as the outcome of previous projects, of previous path convergences and path divergences involving people, humanly made objects, and natural phenomena (cf. Hagerstrand 1974a).

As nature is transformed in to humanly made elements of place and as local space is structured and given new meaning by the ceaseless dialectic between socialization and social reproduction, what can further take place is constrained as well as enabled. More precisely, as local outer nature is transformed, as interdependent land uses, buildings, and communications links appear upon the landscape, certain events and projects, including further modification of the physical environment, are inhibited or prohibited by the scarcity of space, the limited packing ca-


pacity of areal units, and by the time invest- ments required for moving from one fixed (and transformed) site to another. Normally, new projects cannot be accommodated locally unless the spatial and temporal coordi- nation of their component tasks is possible within the existing framework of transformed nature and the project demands made by dominant and associated institutions (cf. Hagerstrand 1974a, 276; 1976a).

Because the transformation of nature is inseparable from the local expression of structuration, from the historically contingent becoming of place, it cannot be understood unless the prevailing power relations at the core of local social structure are identified. Histor- ically specific power relations between individuals, collectivities, and institutions in great measure determine:

(1 ) which nature-transforming projects are permitted, hindered, or forbidden;

(2) which way scarce local or nonlocal natural resources are modified directly by labor and indirectly by other means; and

(3) which humanly created elements of place flourish, merely survive, fall into disrepair, or are demolished.

Whether nature is transformed for the pur- pose of family subsistence, group survival, mutual community benefit, or individual or corporate profit, power relations are present insofar as any resource control and any rules and norms of behavior are brought into play.

The Establishment, Reproduction, and Transformation of Power Relations

It has been suggested that power relations are the invisible structural cement holding individual, society, and nature together in the time-space specific practices by which places continuously become. But how can the phys- ically ungraspable attributes of power as a social relation be conceptualized and linked to the becoming of places?

Despite their seeming differences, a common thread runs through virtually the entire myriad of conceptualizations of power as a social re la t i~n . '~ Power and power relations are usually institutionally embedded and always involve one or more acting individuals, groups, or classes, and actually performed or

potentially executable behaviors. Thus, whatever power relationships are, however elusive they may be, and whether they exist at the micro- or macro-level, they cannot be separated from the realm of action and everyday practices (cf. Giddens 1976, 1979), or from the direct or indirect control of who does what, when, and where. Power relations can be more explicitly viewed, therefore, as the capacity either to more or less precisely define the content of a specific project involving others or to supervise, administer, coordi- nate, delegate, or otherwise control the component tasks of a particular project involving others. Likewise, power relations can be seen as the capacity to prohibit or prevent the participation of others in a particular project. This may come about, for example, through (1) the application of rules, formal laws, neg- ative sanctions, and economic barriers; (2) the making of prior claims on limited time resources; or (3) the actual or threatened utilization of force. The very nature of the structuration process in place is such that the power relations underlying routine and nonroutine local practices are themselves estab- lished, reproduced, and transformed by everyday and nonroutine practices.

The establishment and reproduction of power relations is, first, equatable with the establishment and repeated implementation of project definitions and explicit or unstated rules. (Such rules may pertain either to project admission or to the control, coordi- nation and disciplining of project execution.)'= Second, the establishment and reproduction of specific institutionally embedded power relations normally also rest on the accumulation of meaning-filled resources either by the concerned institutional unit as a whole or by i ts present or past power wielders. Without acquisition of either the material resources necessary to project enactment or other socially recognized resources such as wealth, symbolic capital, status, and special- ized knowledge, certain institutional role holders cannot be in a position to arrive at project definitions or rules that will have an impact on others. Third, except where force is employed, the establishment and reproduction of specific power relations depends on a more general predisposition of particular power subjects-who may be power holders in other institutional situations-to

290 Pred

accept, wil l ingly or grudgingly, the loose, flexible, or rigid project definitions and rules confronting them.

Each of these three attributes of power-relation establishment and reproduction is inseparable from previous path-project inter- sectons or time-space specif ic practices. After all, the goals and decisions of institutional power holders that are translated into project definitions and rules must in some way be based on the practical knowledge, situation-specific information, and elements of ideology in their possession owing to the unique unfolding of their own biographies. Moreover, power resources are most likely to be accrued either through economic and other types of competition, expressed in routine and nonroutine activities, or through life path-daily path dialectics that make the se- curement of resources easier for individuals socialized in certain backgrounds rather than in others (cf. Bourdieu 1977; Bourdieu and Passeron 1977; Giddens 1973). Furthermore, the conscious or unconscious predisposition to accept project definitions or rules cannot be divorced from socialization and personality development, or biography formation. However, if the attributes of power-relation establishment and reproduction are inseparable from previous time-space specific practices, then those same previous practices are themselves inseparable from previous power relations. Thus, yet again, the eternal dialectical spiral of the structuration process as it unfolds in place: practice and social structure are both the outcome and source of one another.

The local transformation of institutionally embedded power relations may be precipi- tated by a variety of historically peculiar conditions associated with time-space specific projects. Frequently the transformation of power relations is brought about through a response to purely local or more widely spread conflicts. (Conflict latently or openly exists between the individual power wielders and power subjects of most institutions. Con- flicts may arise among institutions when their projects bring them into economic, political, or social competition with one another or when there is disagreement over time-allocation and scheduling priorities. Macro-level conflicts may arise between different groups,

classes, and institutions because of differences in resource possession and usage.) In addition, the transformation of power relations sometimes results from contradiction or counterfinality, whereby project implementation by a number of institutional units of the same type yields consequences or crisis situations that are contrary to the goals underlying project definition or rule formation (cf. Elster 1978; Giddens 1979; Olsson 1982, 230).

Though they are perhaps the most important, conflict and contradiction (or structural disjuncture) are not the only practice-linked means by which power relations may be t r a n s f ~ r m e d . ~ ' Whatever the source of change, however, i t is vital to recognize that, as here defined, power relations cannot be transformed without either the modification of already-employed project definitions and rules or the total elimination of a project and its associated content definition and rules.

The most potent aspect of power relations in the becoming of place is situated at the underside of directly or indirectly controlling what people do. It lies in directly or indirectly affecting what people know (and are able to say) and how they perceive and think. When individuals submit to the power of others in an institutional project by joining activities at specific times and places, they cannot (owing to their indivisibility) directly know of events occurring elsewhere at the same time. Nor, because of their finite time resources and the t ime demands of travel, can they come to know directly of later happenings placed outside their time-space reach by virtue of commitment to a project. Moreover, the frame of meaning provided by project-based language acquisition may place certain knowledge or understanding of events and information beyond mental access (cf. Bernstein 1975).

More importantly, the habitual use of language and rules in the execution of institutional projects often obscures the previous social activity embodied in the things and events facil i tating those projects. Conse- quently, individuals come to think of the detailed situations and social order character- izing their project participation as natural rather than as humanly created and culturally arbitrary. To the extent that the institutional control mechanisms, objects, and events confronting men and women in any project


become taken for granted, unmentioned, or unexamined and regarded as undeniable facts that are apart from themselves and in- capable of being otherwise, power subjects are blind to the ultimate power being exer- cised over them.28 Furthermore, individual ac- ceptance as natural of all that is part of an institutional project usually goes hook in eye with an unwitting (or witting) absorption of the views held by the inst i tu t ion 's power holders with respect to what, under given circumstances, is unnatural, abnormal, unrea- sonable, unthinkable, illogical, illegitimate, improper, irresponsible, or out of bounds both in action and discourse (cf. Foucault 1970, 1972). And, as Lacan (1968) and others have argued in building upon Freud, the rigid categories of language employed in the everyday practices of the family and other institutions are at the root of the repression that forms the unconscious, at the root of the "perverse," "decadent," and taboo laden, at the root of subdued desire, "self-discipline," and that which is absolutely forbidden to take place or become a part of the individual's path (cf. Olsson 1980b).

Finally, it must be emphasized that the historically specific manner in which the establishment, reproduction, and transformation of power relations contributes to the becoming of place is contingent upon the in- terconnections existing between micro-level, or person-to-person, and macro-level, or inter-institutional, expressions of those relations. The precise way in which the establishment, reproduction, and transformation of power relations is interwoven with the becoming of place depends upon the extent to which local institutions and their symbol systems are based upon nonlocal control and transactions, or upon the extent to which local face-to-face social interactions are or are not synonymous with the integration of a local social system. Currently, for example, it is the role of nonlocally based economic and state institutions in penetrating the details of everyday projects that,,in combination with the historical sedimentation of locally specific practices and power relations, imparts a distinctive complexity and heterogeneity to the becoming of each place in countr ies touched by either capitalism or command- economy socialism.29

Theory-Based Research Projects

What is to happen when one goes beyond this high level of generalization, when one goes beyond conceptualizing all that is seen as place and all that takes place within a given area in terms of time-geography and the daily unfolding of the structuration process? What is to happen when it is realized that theoretical elaboration, modification, and refinement can be carried only so far, that the conceptual categories employed will never stop playing dialectical hide and seek, repeatedly appearing beside one another, crossing invisible boundaries and disap- pearing wi th in one another? What is to happen when one attempts to examine specific places and times, where certain components of the process are universally present but where there are no universal laws? What, in short, is to be the empirical content of a place-centered or regional geography based upon a theory of place as historically contingent process? Like any theory of an interconnected social total i ty, th is theory cannot be verified empirically for any given set of historical circumstances. Like any such theory it can serve as a framework through which piece-meal inquiries into actual places in real historical situations can be informed, or given direction, and acquire wider and deeper meaning.

For example, in a recent study I examined the impact of so-called enskifte (consolida- tion) enclosures upon villages in parts of the Swedish province of Skane during the early nineteenth century (Pred 1984, 1985). The study treats the villages as becoming places and, on the basis of the theory presented here, poses the following questions. What were some of the basic daily-path components followed by landed-peasant household members during the decades immediately preceding enskifte enclosures on the plains of Sk ine? What were some of the general characteristics of the path-project intersections that went into biography formation and the village-level unfolding of the structuration process? What were the power relations underlying daily paths? What characteristic~ of practice-based consciousness predisposed some landed peasants to initiate enclosure proceedings? How were daily paths and

292 Pred

power relations altered as a consequence of enskifte enclosures?

More generally, at least three empirical foci suggest themselves from the theory of place as historically contingent process. First, there are dominant inst i tut ional projects-the place-specific impact they have on the daily paths and life paths of participants, their imprint upon the landscape, and the power relations out of which they come and to which they contr ibute. At least three previous studies have examined the impact of altered dominant projects upon the daily paths and life paths of involved individuals (Pred 1 9 8 1 ~ ; Christopherson 1982; Miller 1983).

Second, there is the formation of particular biographies as a reflection of elements of the structuration process in place.30 Such a focus is in keeping with the renewed interest expressed in other disciplines regarding the links between individual life histories, macro- level social phenomena, and social change.31 Hagerstrand's (1982) recent analysis of his own ch i ldhood provides an excellent example of the pdssibi l i t ies of such an approach.

Finally, there is sense of place, not as something that stands on its own, but as a phenomenon that is part of the becoming of individual consciousness and thereby inseparable from biography formation and the becoming of place. When juxtaposed with both t ime-geography and structurat ion theory, even single books can occasionally convey a great deal about some of the underlying elements of sense of place in a specific place over a given period of time.32

In the pursu i t of any of these research themes the use of time-geographic diagrams should be central. The paths and projects that go into the becoming of a place always involve material continuity, the occurrence of many things at once, and the elimination of possibilities- basic aspects of reality that can be captured by the notation of time-geography but can easily escape conventional linear language (cf. Olsson 1980a).

Commonplace Conclusions

What is the common place? It is the ever-becoming place. It is the ever

becoming of what is scene as place and what

takes place under historically specific circumstances where some institutional projects, and not others, are dominant.

It is power (be)coming into play(ce). It is a process whereby an endless dialectic

between practice and social structure ex- presses itself locally.

It is a process whereby the reproduction of social and cultural forms, the formation of biographies, and the transformation of nature ceaselessly become one another, at the same time that time-space specific path-project intersections and power relations continuously become one another.

Notes

1. For crit ical comments on the way in which place and sense of place are treated by Relph, Buttimer, Tuan, and other new humanistic geographers see Cosgrove (1978), Hudson (1979), Sayer (1979), Ley (1981), and Pred (1 983).

2. For other recent comments on places, regions, and spatial organization as a social process see Soja (1980), Urry (1981), Gregory (1981, 1982), and Thrift (1983).

3. For English-language discussions of the Vidalian tradition and its implications for contemporary human geography see Buttimer (1971, 1978), Ley (1977), Berdoulay (1978), and Gregory (1 981).

4. In fact, any "object" of interest in the social sciences ought to be seen as the passing man- ifestation of a complex process. Cf. Shotter (1983), who comments on the parallels between such a viewpoint and arguments emerging in the physical sciences about flow and "static" geometrical structure, especially as expressed by Prigogine (1 980).

5. Not all of the people identif iable with the school of thought I am referring to actually em- ploy the term "structuration." Although a con- siderable number of authors may be directly or indirectly linked to the theory of structuration, I have the following set of works most particularly in mind when making my distillation of views: Berger and Luckmann (1967); Giddens (1976, 1979, 1981); Kosik (1976); Bourdieu (1977, 1979); Touraine (1977); Williams (1977); Bhaskar (1978, 1979); Abrams (1983); and Shotter (1983). Some would also associate certain works of Jiirgen Habermas with the theory of structuration.

6. This is not the only criticism that can be di- rected against structuration theorists. The writings of specific proponents of structuration, and especially Giddens, have been criticized for assigning "far too many" degrees of freedom to human action, not being historically specific enough, ignoring the existence


of different levels of relatively autonomous structures whose interconnection is historically contingent, and contending that structural properties are ephemeral, existing only in their "instantiation" rather than being precon- stituted (Carlstein 1981a; Layder 1981; Thrift 1983). Some of these criticisms appear at least partly unwarranted in light of Giddens's most recent book (1981), and others would not hold up against the writings of other structuration theorists (particularly on the issue of the pre- constituted nature of structures).

7. For works that elaborate upon and diagram- matically represent these concepts see Hagerstrand (1 970, 1974b), Pred (1 973, 1978, 1981a), Parkes and Thrift (1980), and Carlstein (1981 b).

8. Another project would be beyond the reach of dominant project participants if the length of time required to move between the two sites exceeded the period separating the termina- tion and commencement of the two different activities. See diagrams contained in the references of footnote 7 and also Lenntorp (1 976) and Martensson (1979).

9. This has become ever more so in recent decades because of the mounting importance of multilocational organizations, the internation- alization of capital, and the increasing complexity of industrial input-output linkages.

10. Such locational decisions may be either explicit or implicit. Explicit locational decisions refer to those land-use and facility-location decisions normally emphasized in the literature. Implicit locational decisions occur whenever a business or government unit decides to pur- chase goods or services, to award a contract or subcontract, or to make some miscella- neous allocation of capital. Although such decisions are not usually regarded as locational by those who undertake them, they are locational because they involve some places rather than others.

11. For related and often more elaborate arguments pertaining to this line of reasoning see Massey (1978), Walker and Storper (1981), Storper (1981, 1982), and Clark (1981).

12. For related comments on the matching of activity and population systems see Hagerstrand (1972, 1978), E l leg i rd , Hagerstrand, and Lenntorp (1977), and Pred (1977).

13. For a penetrating critique of the superorganic view of culture as developed by anthropolo- gists Alfred Kroeber and Robert Lowie and as employed by the Sauerian school of cultural geography see Duncan (1980).

14. This is in keeping with the criticism often di- rected against the "functionalist" writings of Talcott Parsons, some Marxists, and others. Giddens (1981, la) , in particular, has argued that "not even the most deeply sedimented institutional features of societies [and their component places] come about, persist, or disap- pear, because those societies need them to do so. They come about historically, as a result of concrete conditions that have in every case to

be directly analyzed; the same holds for their persistence or their dissolution." Cf. Williams (1977, 121-27) on residual, dominant, and emergent forms of culture. Time resources can be freed up by reducing or eliminating inter-project travel as well as by shortening or discontinuing the projects themselves. This, of course, is a play on Wittgenstein's oft- cited dictum (1922, paragraph 5.6) that "the l imi ts of my language mean the l imits of world." It is a major theme of Wittgenstein's later writings that "language is first of all publ ic and firmly rooted in what we do together" (Hacking 1982, 42). Cf. Giddens's (1981) distinction between localized situations where there is a fusion of social (face-to-face) integration and system integration and those where there is a disjuncture between social and systems integration. The former situations are characterized by "high presence-availability" and "low time-space distanciation," whereas the latter are not. Thus, the external-internal and life path-daily path dialectics bring a time-space specificity to the following quotation often invoked by non- Marxists and Marxists alike: "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please, they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past" (Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte). Cf, the contextual and materialist theory of personality development presented by Seve (1975, 1978). Also note comments and reservations of Seve in Thrift (1983) and Shames (1981). See comments on the "authorship" of landscape in Samuels (1979). Although making some concessions to social context, Samuels presents a virtually institutionless world where "even in the most socially l imiting circumstances of birth, race, wealth, education or position, individuals ceaselessly emerge to mold and create their own landscapes" (p. 79). Also note remarks on "man" [sic] as a geographic agent in Duncan (1980). This opaqueness occurs partly because most objects and natural resources are of nonlocal origin. It also occurs partly because people's own paid and unpaid labors usually involve both already-processed goods (or an indirect rather than a direct modification of the physical world) and technology that is clearly of human origin. As many Marxists would insist, it also occurs because the essential "natural qualities" of goods are "extinguished" once they are commoditized and differentiated from one another in terms of their monetary exchange values (cf. Sayer 1979). For a related but somewhat different viewpoint see Berman's (1982) discussion of the dialectic of creat ion and destruct ion that pervades modern existence. Giddens (1981,37,33). The use of the concepts of presence, absence, and difference in Gid-

294 Pred

dens's most recent theoretical writings rests heavily on Heidegger and Derrida. He does, however, take issue with Heidegger on some points, including the latter's supposedly inad- equate emphasis on the body as the focus of presence. Noteworthily, in his employment of these concepts Giddens is seldom explicit about the natural environment or humanly made objects.

25. The literature of social theory and social philosophy contains an often-disorienting thicket of interpretations of power as a social relation (of. Lukes 1978; Wrong 1979). Recent conceptualizations, much in f luenced by Russell (1938), have emphasized that "power is the capacity of some persons to produce intended and foreseen effects on others" (Wrong 1979, 2). Or, as a "relation of autonomy and dependence [occurr ing] i n social interact ion" (Giddens 1979, 91 -3), it is the capacity of some persons to get others to act in a way they otherwise would not have. Following Max Weber (1968), many have equated this capacity with the ability actually to impose, or believeably to threaten to impose, penalties, punishments, or deprivations of a physical or psychological nature. Thus, power relations have been linked with the ability to use force or coercion; with the abil ity to implement sanctions; with the wi thhold ing (or presentat ion) of material, sexual, or other rewards; and with domination. Consequently, power relations also have been equated with actual or potential resistance, the contestation and resolution of role prescrip- tions, and the conflict of goals and interests existing between those who are power holders and those who are power subjects. Others have chosen to portray power relations in terms either of the exercise of persuasion or the more subtle resort to manipulation. Yet others have stressed "authority," or that form of power by which compliant behavior is obtained through the issuance of commands. In particular, authority has been depicted as a bond-often forged by emotions or legitimation-between the socially strong and the socially weak, the high-status and the low-status, the resource- controlling and the resource-deficient, the one who is perceived to have certain qualities and the other who perceives those qualities as un- attainable (Sennett 1980). Political power, in turn, is generally depicted as assuming the form of either coercive or legitimate authority. And, like other manifestations of authority, it has been connected conceptually with discipline; control; recognized norms, rules, and constraints; l imits; dependence; deference; subordination; repression; and fear.

26. Cf. Foucault (1979) on discipline as the more or less detailed and overt management or sur- veillance of others' behavior in time and space and Olsson (1982) on modern forms of "social imprisonment."

27. Power relations also may be transformed either by the emergence of consensus or by external

disruption, both of which may occur in combination with conflict or contradiction.

28. Cf. Kosik (1976) and Berger and Luckmann (1967). Giddens (1981, 65) argues that because calculative or manipulative attitudes toward taken-for-granted norms sometimes appear under certain condit ions, the "taken-for- granted cannot inevitably be equated with the accepted-as-legitimate."

29. In making his related arguments about "time- space distanciation" on the one hand and social integration and system integration on the other, Giddens (1981) differentiates conditions along a spectrum that runs from tribal societies to advanced capitalist societies (cf. note 18, above). Also compare and contrast with observations made in Lefebvre (1971).

30. Cf. suggestions made in Thrift (1980, 1983). 31. See, for example, Bertaux (1981). Also note

Sartre's monumental work on Flaubert (Sartre 1981 ; Barnes 1981).

32. As a case in point see Pred (1983) for brief rein- terpretat ions of Hareven and Langenbach (1978) and Helias (1978).

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Documents

Pred Allan - Place as Historically Contingent Process _AAAG_1984