GeoJournal 48: 155–158, 1999.© 2000Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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Time-geography – at the end of its beginning

Bo LenntorpDepartment of Human Geography, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

Received September 1999; accepted in revised form 17 December 1999

Key words:time-geography, concepts, history

Introduction

Let me start by presenting a short ‘definition’ of the mainsubject of this essay.

Time-geography constitutes a foundation for a generalgeographical perspective. It represents a new structureof thought under development, which attempts to con-solidate the spatial and temporal perspectives of differentdisciplines on a more solid basis than has thus far takenplace. Time-geography is not a subject area per se, ora theory in its narrow sense, but rather an attempt toconstruct a broad structure of thought which may forma framework capable of fulfilling two tasks. The first isto receive and bring into contact knowledge from highlydistinct scientific areas and from everyday praxis. Thesecond is to reveal relations, the nature of which escaperesearchers as soon as the object of research is separatedfrom its given milieu in order to study it in isolation,experimentally or in some other way distilled.

This is a very unofficial and condensed version of the defin-ition given by Torsten Hägerstrand many years ago. It is notvery easy to grasp. But to me, it is an excellent and compactversion of what time-geography really is.

As a backdrop, I will use a ‘map’ as a frame of ref-erence. I will use a straightforward metaphor – life as adrama. Though simple, this is a rather useful starting point.Every drama has three elements – namely actors, roles (ex-pressed by behaviors, activities), and the scene. (In fact, lifeis a drama without any spectators: we are all taking part inthe play and cannot analyze the course of events from thecomfort of a seat in the audience.)

I will not dwell on this metaphor but will move aheadto make some short (and perhaps obvious) remarks. The hu-man actors – without them, there will be no play – can beobserved physically and portrayed by a trajectory in a time-geographic notation as they move around saying and doingthings. Their thoughts, their experiences, expectations, aims,etc., are not directly observable, however. What they aredoing, their activities, derives from the various roles theytry to play. Most of the social sciences are concerned withthese roles and how they are created and developed. Roughlyspeaking, their development is a matter of common culture –values, rules, institutional frameworks, power structures, etc.In short, roles express what is called the underlying structure(or structures).

The scene is the sum of all physical objects – like naturalphenomena, lakes, mountains, minerals – and all that humanbeings and societies make out of raw materials transformingthem into buildings, roads, machines, tools, etc. To completethe scene, we must add the actors themselves, who are partof the physical scene. This is a brief and rough rendition ofPopper and Eccles’ division of our world into three parts: thephysical world (the scene), our inner worlds (actors’ images)and the cultural heritage (role-creating), which has been es-tablished in our physical world or perhaps just in our minds.(Actually, I prefer the drama metaphor, because it capturesthe dynamics in human lives and societies).

The name of the game is integration. The point is to dealwith all worlds together, because the triad is something thatwe have superimposed on reality to make it easier to tackle.Time-geography, as a foundation for a general (geographi-cal) perspective, tries to bring all these worlds together intoa common framework. Or to put it the other way around,time-geography tries to separate the three worlds as little aspossible in the analytic process.

In this essay, I will briefly characterize the main areasthat time-geographic thought has penetrated over the years. Iwill use the metaphor ‘life as a drama’ and Popper’s tripartiteworld as a frame to reference to describe the shifts in em-phasis over time and how time-geography has been acceptedor rejected. In the same vein, I will sketch the contours ofthe critique of the time-geographic approach. Finally, I willtry to outline the prospects of current developments for thefuture.

To understand how time-geography has been compre-hended, I believe a short history of how it all got started andgrew during the first years could be useful.

Retrospect

Some historical remarks will highlight some characteristicsof how time-geography has developed and especially why ithas stressed certain areas or phenomena over time.

Time-geography is intimately connected to the world-view of Torsten Hägerstrand. I myself, along with otherscholars of Hägerstrand, have merely elaborated upon hisapproach in various applications. In principle, however, wehave followed the basic thoughts of his original work.

The contours of Hägerstrand’s world-picture, along time-geographic traits, were already visible in his very early

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studies of the population of a small parish in Sweden. Hemapped the life-histories of around 10,000 individuals in or-der to get a deeper understanding of migration patterns. Hisgathered such an enormous and detailed body of empiricalmaterial because he found it hard to quantify and generalizewithout taking into account the individuals’ settings in spaceand time. This rationale became even more evident when heanalyzed diffusion processes and formed his ‘mean infor-mation field’, which is an instrument for establishing spatialcontacts between persons in his model (Hägerstrand, 1953).

These works (thoughts) were the building blocks of time-geographic thinking. It was in the middle of the 1960s thatHägerstrand embarked on a path to a more formal presen-tation of his thoughts. He developed the basics of the time-geographic notation in order to have means to keep trackof both the spatial and the temporal dimensions simultane-ously. (See, e.g., one of Hägerstrand’s most frequently citedarticles,What about People in Regional Science(1970).)

I think it is extremely important to emphasize thatthe well-known – and to a certain degree spectacular –time-geographic notation is mainly the fruit of ideas or aworld-picture/world-view and not the other way around. Thenotation system is a very useful tool, but it is a rather poorreflection of a rich world-view. In many cases, the nota-tion apparatus has been the hallmark of time-geography.However, the underlying ontology is the most importantfeature.

In the very beginning, it was the notation apparatus thatto us, his disciples at that time, was most challenging to ex-plore and develop. It was truly brand new. We made studiesof small villages, service facilities, households, etc., to findout how life could be captured in a time-geographic notation.That is one reason why the visible – the directly observable,perhaps – was over emphasized in the early days.

Another reason was our involvement in Swedish plan-ning. It was a uniquely Swedish trait that social scientistswere involved to a great extent in governmental commis-sions to provide evidence in support of political standpoints.We belonged to a research group (with a name rather typ-ical of the times: Research Group for Process and SystemAnalysis in Human Geography) that studied living condi-tions in cities of various sizes and in rural areas as well. Theplanning ideology at that time was strongly oriented towardsarranging the scene. This was mainly planning the supply offacilities in the public sector (which at that time in Swedenwas not only big but was also expanding rapidly).

We were also engaged in studies of how to improvepublic transport. In that connection, our approach waswell suited and also well received among planners and re-searchers alike. I think it is fair to say that our approachhelped to lay the basis for an interesting development in thesphere of transportation models.

This period of frequent application of time-geography tovery practical and concrete issues also implied developmentsin the notation system, along with some important conceptsintimately linked to time-geography. The research tasks weperformed were also reflected in the concepts we frequentlyused. Most of them were in fact ‘scene oriented’: e.g., path,

Figure 1. Entries inThe Dictionary of Human Geography; first edition,1981, where time-geography is explicitly mentioned.

trajectory, prism, weave, station, bundle, corporeality, anddiorama.

Time of recognition

The 1970s

During the 1970s time-geography started to diffuse through-out the social sciences, not least due to Hägerstrand’s prolificpublication in a broad spectrum of journals. But the researchprofile presented above was reflected in others’ views ontime-geography. To give you a taste of this critique, let uslook at the first edition ofThe Dictionary of Human Geog-raphy (Johnston et al., 1981), reflecting opinions from the1970s.

Time-geography has one entry of modest size. The pic-ture of time-geography given in this source is very muchthe same as I have tried to outline – individuals, projects,and constraints are the main concepts presented here. Time-geography is also explicitly referenced in connection withsix other entries (see Figure 1).

Time-geography could be a remedy for an overly ag-gregated and too generalized description, as mentioned inthe entry for location theory. In connection with macro-geography, the authors emphasize the importance of under-standing time and space regularities. They point out thattime-geography can enrich some models; with respect tospatial structure, time-geography is highlighted as a meansto a deeper understanding of human action. In close contactwith Anne Buttimer’s research on phenomenology, time-geography could be used to link the phenomenologicalconstitution of a ‘project’ to its realization in time and space.Under the heading of transport geography, it is mentionedthat time-geography, with its emphasis on household space-time budgets, has presented an alternative, disaggregateapproach. Under the heading of project, it is stated that theterm is firmly incorporated in time-geography. There, theformation of projects (their duration, sequence structures,and frequency) is seen as a fundamental organizing principlein time spacing.

Overall or in general, one could conclude that it is arather positive but not very deep view of time-geographythat was presented at that time. This is in accordance withopinions found in articles and books from the very sameperiod.

There were also some critical remarks in the entries. Thetime-geographic approach was accused of being too physi-cal, mechanistic, and an exponent of social engineering. To

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Figure 2. The conceptual landscape of time-geography. 52 important andfrequently used concepts.

many, the approach placed too much stress on the scene (thephysical world) and the individual as an object and not athinking, experiencing person with feelings and expectationsfor the future.

Looking back, I would agree with some of the criticism.In our studies, we had overly emphasized things that werefeasible to depict graphically. To us, it was obvious thatour notation of paths, prisms, bundles etc. was reflecting adeeper world-view. Some criticism was directed towards ourweakly developed understanding of how roles are formedand performed in our society.

But it is important to note, that we (and Hägerstrand)had tried to establish a world-view, an approach, where timeand space would not be looked upon as a composition of thetwo dimensions but as a frame for analysis. Among otherthings, that framework forces the analyst to tackle the issuesof nearness and neighborhood relations. This world-viewhas clearly affected all studies in which we were involved,but it was obviously not stated clearly enough.

The 1980s and 1990s

During the 1980s, new concepts were highlighted in theDictionary. These were not so scene-oriented as the con-cepts mentioned above. The ‘conceptual landscape’ of time-geography grew and was enriched by concepts of moreintegrative character. All of these concepts aimed to amalga-mate actors, roles (activities), and the scene – that is, matterand minds. The landscape was almost fully developed duringthe 1980s and could be portrayed as shown in Figure 2.

The international diffusion of time-geographic thoughtis also to a great extent the achievement of non-Swedishresearchers like Allan Pred and Nigel Thrift. AnthonyGiddens’ presentation of his structuration theory and histhoughts on time-space made time-geography known toa wider circle of researchers. Giddens acknowledged inan interview the strength of the approach, which can beexemplified by this citation:

‘ . . . coming from a back-ground in sociology, I am justnot used to thinking in terms of concrete aspects ofcontext. I’ve come to believe that contextuality of time-

Figure 3. Entries inThe Dictionary of Human Geography; the third edition1994, where time-geography is explicitly mentioned. Crossed-out entrieshave either disappeared or make no longer any reference to time-geography.

space, and especially the connections between time-space location and physical milieux of action, are justnot uninteresting boundaries of social life, but inherentlyinvolved in its constitution, or reproduction’ (Gregory,1984, pp. 126–127).

The view on time-geography has widened and deepenedover time. In the third edition ofThe Dictionary of Hu-man Geographyfrom 1994, the presentation is four timesas extensive as in the earliest edition (from around 2800 to10,000 words). Time-geography is also explicitly pointedout in more entries.

In connection toanthropogeography, it is pointed outthat there are important continuities between Ratzel’sLeben-sraum, Vidal de la Blache’sgenre de vie, and the concept ofrum (‘room’) developed in Hägerstrand’s time-geography.

Underareal differentiation, the author states that therehave been attempts in sociology and human geography tocreate contextual theory. In contextual theory, a place orregion is viewed as geographically mediating the interpo-lation of human agency and social structure. Various ver-sions of structuration theory and time-geography have beenespecially influential in defining this direction.

The entriesmacro-geographyand transport geographyhave the same text as in previous editions of the dictionary.Under symbolic interactionism, the entry states that someformulations of Berger and Luckmann regarding routines,repetitive social conduct, and institutionalization could bereworked to incorporate the time-space paths traced out intime-geography.

The entry forcompositional theory, states that in mod-ern geography this notion is derived from Hägerstrand, whoused it to accentuate the theoretical implications of suchan approach. He particularly wanted to distinguish betweenapproaches of this kind, which he supposed to be charac-teristic of mainstream natural and social sciences, and hisown time-geography, which he represented as a contextualtheory.

The entry forcontextual theorydeserves special atten-tion, as the core of time-geography is presented here. Häger-strand’s ideas of collateral processes mean that the worldcan be seen as pockets with mixed assortments of beings

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and processes that share a common existence in space andin time. In short, time-geography – in Hägerstrand’s ownwords, when he accentuates how modern science ignoresthe ways in which phenomena are locally connected – “leadsto structural patterns and outcomes of processes which canseldom be derived from the laws of science as these areformulated today”.

The future

Time-geography is now more widely accepted as an ap-proach integrating the three pillars of the drama than it wasten years ago. The view of time-geography as a mechanisticdevice for social engineering has almost disappeared. Butthe criticism remains that time-geography ignores the im-portance and the capacity of human agency and gives noanswers to a lot of questions on how and why. This can beexemplified by a quotation from Harvey:

“Hägerstrand’s scheme is a useful descriptor of how thedaily life of individuals unfolds in space and time. Butit tells us nothing about how ‘stations’ and ‘domains’are produced, in the way it palpably does. It also leavesaside the question of how and why certain social projectsand their characteristic ‘coupling constraints’ becomehegemonic,. . . and it makes no attempt to understandwhy certain social relations dominate others, or howmeaning gets assigned to places, spaces, history, andtime” (Harvey, 1989, pp. 211–212).

Harvey’s point is of great relevance. But in my opinion,to answer these questions and to explore the realms of,e.g., dominating social relations, would be crossing into theborderlands of the time-geographic approach and enteringdomains of social theory. In my opinion, time-geographyshould be seen as a foundation for theory-building; as such,it is not captured by certain theories. Embedded in this foun-dation is time-geography’s recognition of the importance ofthe physical world. The approach has a conceptual capabilityand a powerful notation system which together could forma valuable basis for rephrasing old theories and formulatingnew ones. It is a basic approach, and every researcher canconnect it to theoretical considerations in her or his own way.

There are numerous research fields in many disciplinesthat could be strengthened by the time-geographic approach.

The biographic perspective has been recognized as interest-ing in psychology, ethnology, and social anthropology, forinstance. In many cases, we only observe isolated activi-ties or tiny fragments of individual’s life-stories and therebylose sight of the intricate and inseparable processes of act-ing, feeling, thinking etc. Not least in connection withthe growing interest in dynamic micro-simulation models,the approach could be valuable in pointing out the rich-ness of the interdependence between individuals and theirenvironments.

Time-geography also offers many valuable ways to an-chor biographies in reality. The conceptpocket of local order(Hägerstrand, 1985) has that merit. When using it, one isconstrained to take into account all parts of the drama, notleast the territorial order and physical world.

To me, time-geography seems to have matured. For a lotof researchers, it is now an established way of thinking orapproach, and the diffusion process goes on. That’s why Iconsider time-geography to be at the end of its beginning andI can anticipate a promising future for this field. Just changethe word geography to time-geography in the following cita-tion fromThe Economist, published some time ago, and youhave my prognosis for time-geography in the future:

“The weight on mankind of time and space, of physicalsurroundings and history – in short, of geography – isbigger than any earthbound technology is ever likely tolift” (1995, No. 7874, p. 12).

References

Gregory D., 1984: Space, time and politics in social theory: an interviewwith Anthony Giddens.Environment and Planning D: Society and Space2 (2): 123–132.

Harvey D., 1989:The Condition of Postmodernity, Blackwell, Oxford.Hägerstrand T., 1953: Innovationsförloppet ur korologisk synpunkt.Medd.

från Lunds Universitets Geografiska Institutioner25. In English (1967):Innovation Diffusion as a Spatial Process. C.W.K. Gleerup, Lund andUniversity of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Hägerstrand T., 1970: What about people in regional science.RegionalScience Association PapersXXIV : 7–21.

Hägerstrand T., 1985: Time-geography: focus on the corporeality of man,society, and environment.The Science and Praxis of Complexity, TheUnited Nations University, pp. 193–216.

Johnston R. J. et al. (eds), 1981, 1994:Dictionary of Human Geography,1st edn. 1981, 3rd edn. 1994. Blackwell, Oxford.