Rethinking social relations

8/13/2019 Rethinking social relations

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Rethinking social relations: towards a different phenomenology ofplaces

Stephen Read

Abstract:

So-called phenomenological approaches to the understanding of social andspatial relations usually deal with these in terms of mental space, existentialspace, social spaceand so on. These modes of space are regarded assubjectie, soft and short on the hard mathematical, geometric or objectieproperties that gie spatial analysis a rigorous analytical capability. ! arguehere that this misrepresents and misunderstands a central principle ofphenomenology and oerloo"s phenomenologys potential to objectivelymapus in our world. !n its essence phenomenology is founded on the relation of

intentionality,. !tis not necessarily about an interior mentality at all but aboutan intentionalsubject-object relation in the world. The model that says there isan interior subjectie or imaginatie realm on the one hand and an exteriorobjectie, physical or real one on the other, between which relations must beestablished for human "nowledge or action to be produced, is replaced byone in which a perfectly real subject at one end of an intentional relation isconnected to a perfectly real object at the other. # different phenomenology ofplaceswould be about how these relations between subjects and objects arestructured and intentional "nowledge and action mediated in the world. !twould be about the environmentalrelation where the notion of enironment iscaptured in the relationsbetween intentional subjectsand the objects of thosesubjectsattention and intention. ! argue that this is eentually about how weorder and construct human worldstechnologically and spatiallysothat wemay effectiely inhabit and use them. These worlds exist as whole networ"sof subjects and objects, in part-whole, mutually constitutie, relations withworlds. The translation of the intentional relation into geography andurbanism inoles us in an historical process of the construction ofmetageographicalstructures through which subjects establish and order their"nowledge of and practices in the world. $nclosures, diisions andconnections madeby usin the world hae shaped these structuresandestablished the geographical and urban frames of our lies. This re%uires us

to understand the human world as an historical construction, ananthroposphere, of regions and places, as equipmentfor framing our"nowledge of the world and our local and translocal actions in it.! start byloo"ing critically at social relations as these are imagined today, finding theirorigins in an $nlightenment metaphysics which bifurcates nature into mentaland corporeal realms, and suggest an alternatie founded in thisreassessment of phenomenology. This alternatie centres our attention on theanthroposphere as a construction, and a topological structure of places,organised as a layering of places and infrastructural grids into a set ofnormatie leels which hae a metageographical, intelligibility-giing andpractice-defining, character. Structures of places, grids and leels are

perfectly objectie and mappable and are proposed as the foundation of anew phenomenological urban and geographical model.


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Approaching relations anew

The technical disciplines which map human or social relations generallyformalise these as models and in terms of the spaces these modelsincorporate. !t is this "ind of mapping and these "inds of mappers ! am

addressing. &henomenology has most often been associated here with a softsubjectiity and with the perspectie of indiidual experience.&henomenological mappings are therefore often ofindiidual and subjectieperceptionsofan objectie world. 'ith this emphasis on the indiidualsubject,theperspectie extends also into indiidual choice approacheswhere, in time geography()*gerstrand +/, for example, structureisproduced byindiiduals with personal time budgets ma"ing indiidualchoices about moement and other behaiours.#t the same time, cognitieapproaches, li"e that of mental mapping (0ynch +12/,see the indiidualperceiing subject producingmental maps representedin the indiidualinterior mind. &henomenology has indeed shared the belief that humans are

cognitie subjects (3arela +1/, internally processing representations of theworld, rather than being simply situated in-the-world, and although mostphenomenologists after )usserl hae understood the subject as being in adirect relation with a material enironment, the multiplicity and ariability ofindiidual and subjectie spaces has still for the most part been assumed tobe an effect of the error-prone nature of subjectie perception andrepresentation when faced with a definite singular objectiity. This 4artesiandoubt has also been behind %uestions about the reliability ofphenomenological descriptions and interpretations (Seamon 5222/. Theassumption has been that the mind is a rather inexact, een faulty, computer,and the basisof this assumption is an $nlightenment model of mindincorporating a diision between apersonal anderror-prone subjectiity andperception and an objectie reality and certainty.

6oth the association of subjectiity with the indiidual and the interiority ofsubjectie processes will be treated here as problematic. The %uestion of themediationof perception and intention should be treated in reality and in theworld,and not collapsed, as ! will outline, to one of crossing a gap betweensubjectiity and objectiity or mind and world. The map itself also needs to bereconsidered. 7ormally considered in orthographic projection (in timegeography with a time axis added/, the map has been associated with the

objectie side of the subjectiity-objectiity diision and has embeddedproblematic assumptions about the nature of our perspectie on and our"nowledge of the world. !t has also been associated with an absolute space ofcartographic or geodesic coordinates and a $uclidian geometry and distancethat apply uniersally. The map ! will propose can be representedorthographically for isualisation and analytical purposes, but will containobjects, subjects and places organised in their own humanly-constructedspaces that embed normatie geographical characters and scales. Thecoordinate geometry and distances of the map itself are not assumed to beobjectie in relation to these spaces and are not determining of thesespaces.


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! will begin by reiewing and criti%uing social relations as we most often thin"of them today. This will necessitate following a discussion and criti%ue of$nlightenment metaphysics, in terms of the relations between subject andobject, and mind and world, before building a proposal that our human-worldrelations are an objectie factor of the world itself understood in terms of

these relations. ! will be addressing the %uestion of an alternatie to thediision of existence into mind and world,firstly by reiewingphenomenologys well-"nown role in a criti%ue of artificial intelligence andthen by way of a reinterpretation of phenomenology in non-subjectie terms,and in relation to technology ande%uipment,that was highlighted in anhermeneutical philosophy of science. The alternatie phenomenological iew !will present is one that emerges first by restatingthe foundation ofphenomenology in the intentional relation and by posingsubject and object asthe two objectie poles of this relation, and then by situatingthis relation in theworld and finding mediation in the way this relation is reliably enacted in theworld. This reliable enaction is throughthe e%uipment and artefacts we

surround ourseles with. ! will restate this iew also in terms of an urbanmodel consisting of patternsof objects, places and networ" infrastructuresconstructed in the world. Thesepatternswill incorporate astructure of placestogether with the infrastructure technologies that support these.

This alternatie non-mentalist, non-subjectiist+phenomenology of places willproblematise our conentional iew of subjectiity and mind, and reeal theroles of objects,technologies and construction, and our own nature asemplaced creatures, enabled and constrained by this emplacement. !n shortthen, ! aim to rematerialise and complexify social relations, bringing thembac" into the world. !n doing this ! hope at the same time to say somethingabout techni%ue and construction as %ualities and characters of the humanand the social. 'e should again be able to map human and social things in anobjectie way, but in a way which also finds subjectpositionsand social-technicalconditions and constructions bac" in our objectie mappings.

Taking the world out of social relations

#s researchers and builders of models and theories,our intuitions arepowerfully formed by the unstated philosophies and metaphysics we wor"

with. This is not something we can circument8 such philosophical ormetaphysical bac"grounds are a condition of our wor"ing effectiely incommunities of li"e-thin"ers, but they arealso a constraint on what may bepossible or allowable to thin" in these communities. Thomas 9uhn was oneof the first to highlight thissocial andpractice dimension to "nowledge (9uhn+15/. This means our intuitions are not always the best guide as we goforward and insightsfrom outside the community can reeal what isun%uestioned in the community and open new ways to progress. !n what is

+&atric" )eelan, who ! will refer to later, used the word non-objectie. Thepoint is that the subjectie-objectie dichotomy is rendered superfluous in aposition which understands us as actors and constructors of a sociotechnicalworld rather than subjects reflecting from an interior subjectiity onan exteriorobjectie world.


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for many the most intuitie way of modelling social relations, ties of interactionbetween humans as social agents, and the structural effects of these areanalysed. Social networ" theory('asserman and :aust +;8 Scott 5222/ta"es social networ"s to consist of social agents and the ties between themand not much more than this. Starting fromthis parsimonious set up social

networ" theorists can begin to thin" how indiiduals can come together tocreate enduring, functioning societies. 2-+>=/. $mile ?ur"heim had argued that human societies are madeup of interrelated indiiduals and that the reasons for social regularities are tobe found in the structure of social enironments rather than in the indiiduals(?ur"heim +=+/. @ne of social networ" theorys founding fathers enisionedit as a "ind of physics, complete with its own social atoms and laws of socialgraitation (Aoreno +>;/ and social networ"s proided a way of ma"ingtangible the sorts of structure Simmel and ?ur"heim conceied.

The basic structure created in social networ"s is the group or community, sothat a structural scaling is achieedand agency may transfer from the socialagent to higher-order structures which may then "now and act in their turnas sorts of super-indiiduals. )oweer,the social networ" idea has failed toaccount for some of the things we might expect to learn from relations. !nparticular, while thetheoryaccounts for some non-local structural effects oflocal ties, ithas difficulties with understanding higher-order structure orglobalityas an actie contextual dimension,or indeed any actie relationsbeyond the direct relations of indiiduals or groups (:riedman 5228Robertson +>8 4hapman 522;/.5 Social networ" theory has been criticisedfor its abstraction, itsreificationof strong ties, and its mechanicalunderstanding of the indiidual and of social accretion. )ow higher-ordercommunities are durably maintained along with their moral orders (0atour+5/ remains an open %uestion and ! will return to this later.

The extent of the abstraction is eident from the fact that no material worldappears as a releant constituent or een bac"ground to these relations.Society is a relational abstraction consisting of nothing more than the matrixof social relations. The social world or social enironment issimply thisabstraction, and we are not as"ed to consider how it may be possible to

imagine relations at all without the mediation of a material world. # tacitassumption concerning the autonomous actie nature of the subject issupported and maintained, while what is objectis assumed to be eitherirreleant or subject to thetransparentinfluence or control of its actieopposite. !n fact the assumption is that we may abstract the social world awayfrom its material supports as easily as we separate mental and corporealrealms. 'e imagine social relations inhabiting an autonomous immaterial

5The influence of globality, or the world, on our eeryday sense of order orsense of coherence is not captured in the aggregatie social networ"s modelB which needs the larger material framewor"s ! will be suggesting here toconincingly stabilise social relations.!n the schematic ! will propose placesand objects are always parts which exist in mutually constitutie relationswith wholes. )ere globality profoundly affects what things and places are.


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domain analogous to the mental, and social networ"s thoroughly internalisethe assumption of the diision of existence into actie mental and passiecorporealrealmsand reproduce this metaphysics as a social model.

To see how this wor"s we couldreisit the foundations of our modern system

of thought as this was formulated by )ume, 0oc"e and ?escartes. )oweer,these metaphysics haealready ta"en an interesting contemporary turn inartificial intelligence. )ume and 0oc"e had conceied mind as a symbol-manipulating machine and#! researchers had simply applied this model asthe digital computer became aailable to them, to build $nlightenmentmetaphysics into the computer, andembed, or so they thought, mindintocomputing machines. Cnderpinning #! therefore was the classic diision ofnature into res extensaB corporeal substance B and res cogitansB mentalsubstance or consciousness. #! formalised relations between the poles of thisdiision by way of a representational-computational model. This model hadminded-beings interiorising an immaterialrepresentation of an exterior

material world which was then processed in order to produce "nowledgeabout and action in the world (:odor ++8 &ylyshyn +2/. &erceptual inputwas internalised as manipulable symbols which could then be computed toproduce output in the form of abstract "nowledge about or action in theworld. !n this scheme intelligent minds"nowaboutor act upon dumb matter,and mind isthe actie polarity while exterior reality remains acted upon.#sthe )eideggerian philosopher )ubert ?reyfus suggested, #! was Dhard atwor" turning rationalist philosophy into a research programmeE (?reyfus522F5;/.

and putting mind in the network

Guestions about the abstraction of social networ"s hae,howeer,also gienrise to elaborations of this basic idea. !n the +12s Aelin 'ebber warnedagainst Dsome deep-seated doctrine that see"s order in simple mappablepatternsE ('ebber +1>F=;/.)e suggested our communities were becomingdisentangled from the constraints of the models we used (including those ofstrong ties, place and distance/ and highlighted other associational andinstitutional ties formed in modern social organisations and diisions of labour.)is urban realms were groups of people in community with one another

across geographical space and without being spatially delimited. )e thoughtof these as cultural rather than territorial communities sharing actiities and"nowledge without propin%uityH ('ebber +1>/. 'ebber pointed at the sametime to the ways new technologies were freeing the constraintsof proximateface-to-face relations and creating Dnon-place urban realmsE ('ebber +1;/.

'ebbers social relations began to incorporate some of the new structuresand constructions of modern society, but were no less immaterial andabstract. Aeanwhile space was corporeal and becoming steadily lessreleant and more threatened asembodied proximity and face-to-facerelations (6oden and Aolotch +;/.#t the same time,a new factor,

networ"sBunderstood in terms of new communications technologies andhigh-speed mobilityBwas emerging. 4ities were redrawn in these terms as


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dense clusters of no longer ery releant space,consisting ofproximatesocial lin"s,on the one hand,and networ"s, comprising abstract and irtualbusiness, economic, cultural, associational and social lin"s, on the other. Thespatial disintegration or explosion ('right and Stewart +58 'ebber +1>/of the cities of the CS# after the middle of the twentieth century, followed

rapidly by those in $urope and other regions, was attributed to these newnetwor"s. The networ"sgae structure to 'ebbers non-place urban realmand community without propin%uityHby mediating thesethrough technologicaland especially microelectronic networ"s. !t was in these terms thattechnology entered social networ"s as a mediumthrough which human andsocial relations of networ"ed indiidualism ('ellman 522+/ and a networ"society (4astells 5222a/ became possible.

This was hailed as no less than a reolution in social organisation andrelations as, according to this iew, technology established new structures ofsocial relations and ushered in an !nformation #ge (4astells5222a8 522;8

5222b/. The networ"s were seen as the armature of contemporary businessand industrial production and of globalisation. They were also seen as thearmature of a contemporary networ" society Dwhose social structure is madeof networ"s powered by microelectronics-based information andcommunication technologiesE (4astells +/.This is the foundation of thedistinction made today between spaces of places and spaces of flows(4astells +/ in which a dynamic contemporary business and society ismediated through an electronic space of flows, leaing an older space ofplaces of place-bound and embodied communities in a state of stasis anddecline. # worldof sorts has entered the relational abstraction with thenetwor" technologies,but the basic metaphysics remains intact, withmachines and networ"s facilitating actie but disembodiedrelations in airtual electronic realm.:or 'ebber and many others, urban society hasescaped the place-bound city and Dthe concept of urbanism and the conceptof city are no longer coterminousE ('ebber +1/. The pressing urbanproblem becomes the mediation between a irtuality of a space of flowsand a reality of a space of places.

Dismantling the metaphysics of virtuality

The contemporary diision of networ" irtuality and place reality is acorollary of a system of thought that has its origin in the seenteenth century.The continuing power and persistence of this system may owe as muchthough to its being embedded in influential research and deelopmentprogrammes as it does to the innate persuasieness of the philosophies of)ume, 0oc"e and ?escartes. These research programmes hae succeededin building this system of thought not just into popular discourse and academicliteratures and debates but also into the machines and networ"s throughwhich we conduct a large part of our lies. # product of this is thenaturalness of the idea of a networ" society as a irtual relationalabstraction shaped in high-tech information networ"s today (4astells 5222a/.


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The products and contents of informational networ"s are seen as aweightless, frictionless "nowledge or information (see Read 522/. Thismaintains"nowledge as immaterialand placelessly aailable,and seems tonegate worldly mediation. !n fact the mediation between autonomous mentaland corporeal domains re-emerges in this model as a mediation between a

non-place, dynamic and frictionless domain of a networ" society (a space offlows/ and a static, conseratie and threatened domain of real places (aspace of places/ (4astells +/. !n the space of flows and in our relationwith machines, "nowledge is not intrinsically or necessarily situatedbut existsin a placeless connected networ" realm. 'henthis "nowledge issituated, itis usually presented to usin orthographic projection. The relation of"nowledge to situation is made problematic again as the "nowledge of theobserer from orthographic perspectie is conflated with "nowledge on theground. &hilip #gre has noted how we see this clearly in computer gameswhere the "nowledge of the player is conflated with the "nowledge of theagent on the screen (#gre+/.

)oweer #! was not simply a channel through which $nlightenmentmetaphysics inaded our technics and artefacts8 it was also the forum for anextended and continuing debate about the hidden metaphysics of this modeland the search for an alternatie. !n this debate, ?reyfus started bysuggesting that mind and world (or social actor and enironment/ are notseparated in the first place and dont need to communicate across any mind-reality gap at all. :or him "nowledge and action should not be credited to theinternally-"nowing subject but rather to the situation of the subject in the worldand the relation between subject and world. The "ey for )eidegger and for?reyfus was that in bringing things to our "nowledge or imagination, weincorporate them with our situated seles (Dasein/ and begin relating to themdirectly. Things are in a ery important sense inthe way we form a relationwith them and ta"e them into our lies and actiities. 'orldly things aredisclosedto us in our relation to them and in the way they become somethingfor us.

'e dont relate,in other words,across a gap between us and a world, we aresimply in it. Reality here is not accessed through interior representation but ispractical, situated and thereto us. ?reyfus criti%ue was to some extentproo"ed, and the argument fuelled and sustained, by a lac" of progress in

formalising intelligence within the preailing paradigm. ?reyfus %uestioned thepresumption that processes of mind inoled the manipulation of abstractsymbols according to sets of formal rules (?reyfus +1=/. )e %uestionedalsowhether reality consists of atomic facts and things, and whether "nowledge iseen in principle formalisable in terms of uniersally applicable rules or laws.)is alternatie was a radical contextualism, shifting thin"ing away from anidealisation and internalisation of order and intelligence in mind or machine,and towards an in-the-world basis to order and reality. 4ognition, understoodas an indiidual andprivate, internal process, becomes redundant when thereasons for "nowledge and action are situated externally andpublicly in-the-world (Read 5228 Read 52+>/.


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?reyfus interention proo"ed some prominent #! researchers to participatein open-ended research in Dpsychology by reerse engineeringE ()augeland+/. Rodney 6roo"s for example based his robotics on the idea that theworld sered as the sufficient representation of itself in the domain of reality(6roo"s+/ and his machines were set off to simply learn on the go. Terry

'inograd recognised that the sharing of coherent and meaningful "nowledgeor information depended on sharing a common context or frame of referencefor that meaning. The representation-computation model had allocatedmeaning and significance to things through representation and language,but'inograd recognisedwe dont so much exchange information incommunication as call to attention some aspect of the world thecommunicators already share('inograd +5/. &art of that context ofagreement is of course the world of eeryday stuff we surround ourseleswith.

?reyfus emphasised the embodimentof action and being in the world and

the situatedness of "nowledge. !ts not us (or intelligent machines/ who learnsomething about the world, but us and world who come together in significantconjunctures of "nowledge oraction and in a continuous process of relationand mutual adjustment. 'hat ?reyfus interention in fact highlighted was ourrelationswith respect to a world of things and both our and their integrationwith and dependence on this context or world for practical being or"nowledge to emerge. #s ?on !hde points out this is less a matter ofembodimentandmore a shift of the location of the subject from a bodilyinterior to a directed relation with the world and with things (and people/ inthat world (!hde 52+2/. :rom this point on the emphasis will be on the natureof that world, and in particular on its adjustment and preparedness for us andfor our intentional "nowledge and action.

Redefining obect!ivity

This suggests that materialthings hae meaningful existences in relation to usand our actiities,and beyond our mental images and language, and thatbeing out there in the world and amongst things is what issignificant forsubjectiity and social organisation. @thers, including philosophers li"e)annah #rendt, anthropologists li"e #ndrI 0eroi-


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the reintegration of other polarities, li"e those of people and things and societyand technology, andwe could start thin"ing of these human-nonhumanarrangements as sociotechnical systems ()ughes +/.

These networ"s and systems aredifferent to the ones we saw in networ"

societies in which adanced technology ends up appropriating the dynamic,creatie role mind ta"es in the classic mind-world bifurcation. 0atoursexamples of objects and technologiesB li"e that of the door-closer B testify toan actieintegration of humans and nonhumans that goes far beyondmicroelectronics. This suggestsa ery different metaphysics and wecanbegin to get a sense of what this metaphysics means from hermeneuticalphenomenologists of science li"e &atric" )eelan, who loo"ed at the hands-onpractice of experimental science. )eelan pointed to the way the ostensiblysubjectie factor of the intentional human experimenteris hermeneuticallyshifted in experimental practice into the ostensibly objectie e%uipment ofexperiment. The obserer is, according to )eelan, not outside the experiment,

ma"ing notes from his or her subjectie position about what is objectielygoing on. $%uipment is not a passie container of the experiment. !nsteadthe e%uipment is designed and is being minutely manipulated, adjusted andmaintained by the obserer and other operaties, so that it becomes alignedwith the intentionality of the obserer and ends upproducingthe resultsintended ()eelan +/. This is also the character of 0atours negotiationsbetween human and nonhuman factorsF nonhuman material acts withthehuman actor in an actor-networ"(0atour 522=/. 'e could say thatsubjectiity, objectiity and practice are distributedin a closed networ" thathas the character of the world ! will discuss later. ?on !hde calls this amaterial or extended hermeneutics B a directed negotiationwith things andprocesses until they end up doing what we re%uire of them (!hde522/.

!n this so-called technoscience perspectie acting and "nowing escape thebounds of the subject as this is customarily defined,and creep out into thee%uipment,which is to some greater or lesser extent alreadypreparedto dowhat is expected of it. Aediation here is by way of a subjectiity escapedfrom the bounds of the subject and into worldly material, already prepared byengineers, builders and technicians. Aediation wor"s throughsubject, object,practice in a networ"edand systematised way. !nstead of imagining a societymediated in high-tech electronic spaces, and then imagining this high-tech as

a corollary of an immaterial irtual mind, we should start from the positionthat human relations with the world hae long been mediated technologically,with technology understood here in a broad sense. &aul $dwards alerts us tothe fact that the ubi%uity and low-tech nature of most of the technologies thatsurround us hides from us their central roles in human "nowledge and action($dwards 522>/. This suggests also that if networ"s and technologies haealways defined what our subjectiities and societies are capable of, the high-tech networ"s and technologies of today may bejust the latest telling of thesame story. # more historical ta"e on this mayshowalsohow the networ"s oftoday are by necessity tied to processes of technological innoation andsubstitution which sees mulesand camel trains replaced by railways and

trans-continental highways, horse-borne messengers replaced by postal


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systems and email and electronic messaging systems, and the carvelreplaced by the container ship.

# material hermeneutical or actor-networ" iew would represent asubstantial shift away from the dualist and mentalist position of understanding

order and intelligence as subsisting in either a mental or electronicinformational realm. )ere the power of "nowledge and action would inhere innetwor"s of organised human and nonhuman, or social and technical, factors.!t would also re%uire a substantial shift in our methods of mapping, away fromthe orthographic representation as a priileged objectiity, and towards thereealing of a structure of sociotechnical networ"s or systems through whichpeople order their "nowledge of the world.

"utting world back into relations

?reyfus has proposed reality is relatie to us. This relatie to us refers to theintentionality captured in the subject-object relation. This relation is no longermediated between autonomous realms of mind and corporeality.)eelan hasshown how the intentional relation becomes conditional on and mediatedthrough the e%uipment we manipulate and through which results in the form ofobjects and "nowledge are produced. The situations in which we "now and dothings are specific instances of this technicallymediated intentional relation.This ma"es situations technically specific and multiple. They become pre-prepared in-the-world networ"s or spaces for actingand "nowing, andartefacts in themseles. This testifies to the locally strategic nature oforganised e%uipment and artefacts and to the spaces of "nowledge, shared incommunities, they contribute to defining and maintaining. 7ot all of these willbe high-tech though most of them probably were high-tech at some time in thepast.

#ccording to )eidegger, De%uipment ... always is in terms ofits belonging toother e%uipmentE ()eidegger +15F /. There is always a totalityof objectsand practices, a practical and e%uipmental whole, in which objects andpractices define each other in their relations. This fitting of object or subjectinto a context is called inolement ()eidegger +15/. !t is a fitting into anintelligible world where world refers not to the simple totality of physical

objects, but to the nexus of functionality and intelligibility organised by oure%uipment on the one hand and practices on the other. @ur enironments arerealised as an in-the-world relationality of meaningful objects. This is a iewwhich emphasises the oerwhelmingly artefactual nature of the world in whichwe "now and do things (Aitcham+=/>and then understands agency asdistributed between agent and enironment through the entrainmentof theobjects ma"ing up the enironment with human actiity (4lar" +8 4lar"and4halmers +8 )utchins +=/.

>4arl Aitcham is only one of the more recent theorists who has argued welie in a world of our own ma"ing and that the things we encounter in thatworld are artefacts.)oweer Aitcham also sees this as a new thing whereas !am suggesting, along with others li"e #rendt and 0eroi-


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These situated collectie understandings underpin the intrinsic sociality of theobjects themseles that 0atour insists on8 the objectie world around us is aworld of objectsentrained with and in relation to us. #bstract distinctionsbetween the subjectie and the objectie are not coherent in this iew. Rather

what is significant is the organised relations of objects with subjects in settingsembedding "nowledge and the possibilities of action. #lthough peopleconnect with artefacts and e%uipment indiidually, the meanings and functionsof things are commonlyunderstood in settings andwithin the communitiesofpractice (9uhn +15/ that use them. 'orlds of common understanding aresocial and normatie,but it is through our indiidual emplacements in relationto things that our "nowledge of them and their possibilities emerges. Thesesituations aretotalworlds that eniron us because they are already preparedfor inolement and action by being organised around subject-object relations.!nolement in them may also be restricted,howeer,to those who hae thecredentials and the s"ills to access, understand and use them.

)umans hae managed to create multiple situations, multiple worlds, andmultiple forms of life and the way they hae done this is by forming multipleworlds and spaces,technologically, within which objects,subjects andactions (things, "nowledge and practices/ are internally enabled andregulated.

@n the basis of the technoscience perspectie,an alternatie relationalphenomenology of placeis possibleF one in which emplacedobjects constitutea material organisation through which our "nowledge and action are mediatedin situ. This alternatie relational iew would aoid any necessity of aninteriorityof imagination8 subjectiity is exteriorised and captured in theperfectly real relations between subjects and objects mediated through socio-technical networ"s. The significance of this is that we can now tal" of a humanworld consisting of real things (and their spaces and places/ that can bemapped and analysed. These objects participate in action chains andse%uencesBparticipation implying neither a subject-centred nor an object-centred perspectie on action but one where the subject-object, actor-enironment relationstands at the centre of the analysis.

#etageographies

Thecharacter of these sociotechnicalworlds may begin to be Dconeyed insuch expressions as the world of the parent, the runners world, or theworld of the treesitterE (Thomson 5221F;;/, but because our lies areemplaced, these worlds will also be integrated with and constrained bystructure inherent in territories and places. #s we become urban citiJens andneighbours, as we create national societies, and as we become a globalmultitude, the territorial dimensions of these communities and social identitieswill also be constructed. !n fact all the worlds we inhabit will be geographicalin the sense that eerything we do will hae a situation and be emplaced.

There is a structure to this geography,howeer,that relates to an historicalformation and normatie formalisation of the planet into what 0ewis and


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'igen hae called metageographies. These are Dthe set of spatial structuresthrough which people order their "nowledge of the worldE (0ewisand'igen+F ix/.

#s we can by now expect, these spatial structures will relate to objects

entrained with the practices and ways of life ofterritories and places. Theseterritories and places would be technically structured in such a way as tosupport the normatie practices associated with them. The technics wouldmediatewhat the territories and places were and regulate and regularisetheway they were enacted. Thisworldly mediation would consist of an organisedand strategic integration of technological, intentional and practice dimensions.The best way to understand this is by way of an exampleF we can get a senseof how these territorial spaces are formed and what they mean if we beginwith )eideggers carpenters wor"bench and then extend our point of iewoutward. The wor"bench is a place constructed to emplace the tools andsupport the practice of carpentry. !n this place there are a set of objects(the

tools/,a place or setting (the wor"bench/, a s"illed subject (the carpenter/ anda practice (carpentry/ which, whenta"en together,form a world within whichthe carpenters attention and intentions are captured, and within which hewor"sand produces things. Tools and other objects ta"e their meanings fromthisworld,anda nail and hammer are entrained8they areto-handand canbe swept up in the moement of ma"ing a chair.

!n this situation the e%uipment and space of the wor"bench disappear into thebac"ground B becoming to all intents and purposes not presentto thecarpenter B as his attention goes to the object of the action, the chair. Thingsare to-hand where their practical meanings and the actions they participate incoincide. #t the same time the wor"bench can become an object of attentionitself B and becomepresentB when the carpenter is preparing it for wor"ing.#lso, the nail,dis-placed by a few meters,will lose its entrainment andbecome present as an object that needs to pic"ed up off the floor and re-placedtowhere it belongs. !n a human world to-handedness wor"s next topresentness and relies on presentness to prepare and maintain places foraction.;#n object that is to-hand exists in what )eidegger calls a region.Regions organise the things we are inoled with in relation to practice. Theregion is a framing and referencing of objects, and a settingprepared foraction. 'e see the region as we prepare or tidy up or otherwise get ready for

action, but the character of the region is as a bac"groundto action andattention. 'e are capable of being inoled in that world as we are capableof stepping out of it in order to fix, prepare or tidy up.

6ut different settings and different worlds also exist in relation to oneanother. 'orlds may be nested in relation to one another so thatthe nail ison the wor"bench8 the wor"bench is in the wor"shop8 the wor"shop is in thetown ()eidegger +15F/.#nail may slip from being to-hand in one world tobeing present in another as easily as slipping off the wor"bench B so there is

;)eidegger used the terms zuhandenand vorhandenfor these differentconditions of objects being respectiely engaged with the subject as part ofthe action, and present to attention as an obstruction or in the course ofpreparation or maintenance of settings for action()eidegger +15F+>=-+;/.


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no necessary,literal boundarybetween these worlds. # nesting of worlds orsettings, is as organised and prepared in their relations to one another aseach setting is indiidually. The nesting also allows us to %uic"ly increasepossible scales and scopes of action, ta"ing us beyond the reach of ourhands and our immediate lines of sight. The carpenter uses the setting of the

street grid of the town in order to connect his wor"shop with the post office.The postal serice is organised as a region of post offices such that a lettermay pass from the post office in the street grid of one town to the post office ina street grid of anotherB and through that street grid to the letters recipient.The postal serice maintains and uses a system of pathways and roads tointerconnect the towns in the county.

The wor"bench and tools, the wor"shop and its interior spaces, the urbanstreet grid distributing the diision of labour of an urban community, are eachorganisationsof objects, subjects and practices that wor" together in stableand repeatable ways. $ach region constitutes a way of lifeand a world.

$ach gies a concrete measure of a scale of wor"ing associated with its ownobjects. 6ut each region limits us to doing things in one framing and at onemeasure or scale, while differentsettings are connected to one another inways that allow them to be negotiated se%uentially in chains of actions thatspan multiple regions. These regions are articulated so we may moeoutwards, and ertically through leels, beyond the reach of hands andision. The whole structure of placesis a tight fit of territorial units of differentscales matched with communities of practice that "now how to use them. #llthis facilitates a flexible cross-scalar coordination of social and economicactiity,ultimately across ast distances. !t is through this relatiely low-tech(certainly in its original forms/ topology, or structure of places, rather thanthrough contemporary high-tech communication and mobility technologiesthat space as distanceis and has always been annihilated ()arey +/.

4ommunities of practice already "now how to locate themseles and dothingsin the appropriate networ"s. 7ewcomers learn these things and joincommunities of rush-hour commuters or tourist shoppers or creatie-regionentrepreneurs. This is not by reference to a set of cartographic or geodeticcoordinates but by a topological frame of referencing of objects and placesalongside, inside or outside specific settings. These alongsides, insides andoutsides relate to the networ"s and not to territorial boundings. They are

organised in networ"ed metageographical leels and scalar types. The nail ison the wor"bench in alongside relations with the hammer and chisel8 thebench is in the wor"shop in alongside relations with the office and wood store.The wor"shop is in the town in an alongside relationsto home, the post officeand the inn the carpenter isits. Rather than dealing with uniersals of spaceand scale we are dealing with particular, located, scaledand delimitedorganisational networ"s, and the e%uipment and "now-how toenableintentions and actions.

#t the urban leel the street grid is normally considered to bea medium foraccessibility between objects already defined. 'hat we see in the account !

hae just gien is something differentF the grid is the pre-condition for thedefinition of the objects concerned. !n a space of flows,the nodes are


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ontologically transparent objects that define places and proide the datum8here the grid itself is the datum,specifying scale,producingthe nodes anddefiningthe elements of the town.= !t is by being framed in the grid that thecarpenter, ba"er and blac"smith are identified and defined as constituents ofan urban world B as urban parts of an urban whole.#t the same time, other

grids at different leels and scales identify tools as parts of a wor"bench,furniture and stores as parts of a wor"shop, and a networ" of towns as partsof a postal region. The networ" positiely organises rather than passielyconnecting and its space is not a surface across which flows are traced,ratherit is a topology and networ"ed world of meaningful relations that underwriteseffectie places and practices.

An alternative phenomenology of places

Aetageographical structures construct scale alongside place. So all places

come integral with their scales. 'e could start by imaginingnetwor"s of smallthings and places, medium siJed things and places, large and extra largethings and places (&rytherch 522/. )oweer, its not the siJes of the thingsbut the scopes of the wholes they are part of that defines the scales ofmetageographies. These scopes, and the metageographies themseles, arenormatie and historically constructed. They are cities, regions, nations, andcentres,suburbs and neighbourhoods, but expressed not as objects inisolation but in networ"s of parts that ma"e up wholes.'e thin" of them asautonomous things that hae always been there, but they are historicallyconstructed and naturalised rather than natural. 'e use these both to accessand to order our actiities in networ"s and also to relate to other placesthrough their part-whole relationships with other networ"s at other scales andscopes. The best studied examples of such networ"s are world-city networ"s(:riedmann +1, +=8 6eaerstoc" et al. +/. )ere world and cityareco-constitutie and interdependent, whole and part, mutually constructed inthe networ". 'orld is itself a metageographical construction comprising anetwor" of citiesand city deries its meaning from its relations in the networ".

These are not the only part-whole structures defining territorial entities8 asmaller-scaled but formally analogouscity-neighbourhoodnetwor"isaregular feature of $uropean industrial cities. )ere again,part and whole

(neighbourhoodand city/ are mutually constructed in the networ" (see Readforthcoming/. #t smaller scales still, streets or houses, would be the partsma"ing up the whole of the neighbourhood, while rooms are the parts ma"ingup the house. These structures hae been imagined as bounded territories,and some hae borders that are Jealously defined and guarded, but all ofthem are constructed and gien practical reality for their users in the networ"sthrough which they are enacted and used. 'orlds, empires and tradingleagues are historical constructions, formed in networ"s of cities8 counties and

='hat the flat ontologies of 0atour and others li"e Aarston et al. ( 522= / misswith their networ"s freely connecting heterogeneous subjects and objectsacross scale leels, is the dependency of the objects (and subjects/themseles on scaled networ"s of objects (and subjects/ for their definition asexistent things.


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principalities hae appropriated and organised territories at smaller scales asnetwor"s of towns8 nation states are a relatiely recent inention andconstruction intended to stabilise shifting political authorities and allegiances,again constructed and organised around a networ" of urban centres8 inner cityneighbourhoods were constructed as parts of the industrial city, and out-of-

town centres and suburbs were inented and constructed as parts of the post-industrial metropolitan city-region.

The neighbourhood is in the city and the city in the metropolitan region, nationand world and these places exist in ertically structured nested relations withone another while neighbourhoods and cities relate horiJontally with otherneighbourhoods and cities. $ach one of these metageographies is a networ"in itself and each is part of a larger-scaled networ" and contains smaller-scaled networ"s. This is topologically a stac"ing of layers so that each ofthese metageographies exists in organised relations with others. 6ut this is alayering of different networ" spaces rather than of territorial units bounded in

a uniersal space and in Russian doll relations with each other. There are nonecessary boundaries between the layers and one may slip out of the partand into the whole as easily as passing from a neighbourhood bac" street intoa city main street.#t the same time it is not possible to confuse the street withthe neighbourhood or the neighbourhood with the city,or the city with theworld for that matter, because the part-whole structure is at the same time a"nowledge structure and a structure constructed and realised in the world. !t isone of those concrete abstractions that exist simultaneously in "nowledgeand reality and gie the lie to the $nlightenment bifurcation of nature.

#n alternatie phenomenology of places would deal with regions and placesas sociotechnical networ"s which include emplaced objects, the technicalgrids that connect them and the communities of practices who "now anduse them. !t would deal at the same time with the ways technical grids,networ"s of places, communities and practices are articulated with oneanother oer scale differences. #different phenomenology of places wouldfocus onplaces in networ"ed regions and the ways they support practice andobject worlds as sociotechnical systems. 'e lie enironed bysuch worldsand systems. 9arin 9norr-4etina has in a research project which has spannedtwo decades inestigated the networ"s and cultures of global financial trading.#world is created in a high-tech construction inoling optical cables and

satellite lin"s, along with a lot of expensie computing hardware and software,to present the objects of the global financial mar"et real-time to traderswhereer they hae access to a terminal (9norr-4etinaand 6ruegger, 5225/.:inancial traders do and see things in a technical system that goes far beyondtechnics to be acutely tuned to their indiidual perceptions and conceptions,and to a culture and practice of trading that spans the globe. !ntention andmeaning hae been shifted into e%uipment and into what 9norr-4etina callssynthetic situations (9norr-4etina 522/in offices and on trading floors.There is a world created in this sociotechnics that seems to annihilate spaceand time. This annihilation is, ! hae argued before (Read 522/, not morethan a highly designed and maintained effect of the technics, and this world

doesnt exist in isolation8 it is lin"ed to other spaces so that the world ofglobal trading may be exited and the trader can use the office,or can exit the


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building to use the street networ" to find the metroand go home. $ach ofthese steps in a chain of actiities is a transition from one situation, settingand world into another. The space of global tradingre%uiresboth access andsecurity through portals with the spaces of offices, buildings, streets, publictransportation systems, and so on, and each of these portals will be as

technicallyand socially designed and effectie as the spaces themseles.

The networ" of global trading is undoubtedly a powerful technology, butwhether technologies li"e these imply anything about a society any morefundamentally new than mercantile or industrial societies were is a matter fordebate. &articular worlds, een contemporary global ones, may be lessinfluential on their own than they are in their topological relations with otherworlds. They may define their power more in the ways access is regulatedthrough portals with other networ"s than through their own particular technicaland social operations and scopes. The contemporary distinction betweenspaces of flows and spaces of places falls away as global networ"s become

articulated with other ery eeryday networ"s and places.

@ne of the functions of moement infrastructures li"e road, rail, metro andairline systems will be to define places and coordinate metageographies intheir scales and scopes. :or a 0ondon Cnderground user, 0ondon isthefamous underground map realised. The infrastructure is inested with adiagramatic topology and realises a specific place-structure. This structurefoundsa world through a particular technics and culture of trael byunderground,which includes access, tic"eting, information and securityprocedures. 6ut it connects also to significant places that sere as portals tomore global spaces, and responds to an oerground networ", a pre-existingstructure of places to which the underground adds structure and emphasis.

!t connectsto the street grids of the neighbourhoods centred by undergroundstations, and it regulates profoundly the ways these differentmetageographies and cultures are articulated with each other. The e%uipmenthere may not be as high-tech as in 9norr-4etinas example, but is noinconsiderable matter. 6eside the transportation systems themseles andtheir signalling, scheduling and other support systems, there are publicfacilities, shops, offices and housing built in a systematic relation totransportation systems, business and industry to which employees, suppliers

and clients need to be connected, and all manner of other technical andsupport systems, including street and line maintenance, energy, water anddrainage systems, stairs and lifts, street and passenger signage that need tobe incorporated.#ll of this is maintained in a high state of efficiency and order,reflecting the strategic role of this regulating and regularising infrastructure.

4ities, regions, nations, worlds and their partsare articulated, consolidatedand stabilised in airline, underground, road, railand other technical moementgrids, but whatis real is not just the materialbut also thecoherence-giing,sense-ma"ing structuresof part, whole and scale. The effect is that today thewhole is loc"ed into synopticsterritorial users understand, with well-"nown

places made isible and presentlocally and trans-locally. 0ondon is indiisiblyand seeral times oer, percept, concept, techni%ue, object, networ", culture


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and practice, a patch of integrated and strategic territorial order historicallyconstructed and realised. The structures that ma"e it up differ from andprecede the cartographic map. They order the world according to a differentorder of precepts than the distances, geometries and boundings of the map.Theseconstructionshae their ownremar"able leelsof stability and

persistence as place-structures, andas coordinated diersitiesof cultures andpractices. ?ifferent indiiduals and differentcultures and practices share,before all else, these structuresof placesas common "nowledge. Ta"entogether,these structures are apractical objectiity which informs eerymoement and eery action B as well as eery further interention B in ourhuman world.

This reassessment of phenomenology centres our attention on the historicalconstruction of our anthroposphere, which includes a topological structure ofplaces organised by a layering of infrastructural grids into a set of normatieleels which hae a metageographical, intelligibility-giing and community of

practice defining, character. Structure of places, grids and leels areperfectly objectie and mappable and are proposed as the foundation of adifferent phenomenological urban and geographical model. :urthercontributions will set out these structures in real examples in order to assesstheir potential as an urban and geographical model.

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