Between Geography and Philosophy: What Does It Mean to Be in the Place-World?

Author(s): Edward S. Casey

Source: Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 91, No. 4 (Dec., 2001), pp.
683-693
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Association of American Geographers
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3651229 .
Accessed: 29/05/2014 10:50

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Taylor & Francis, Ltd. and Association of American Geographers are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,
preserve and extend access to Annals of the Association of American Geographers.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 10:50:04 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
FORUM

Between Geography and Philosophy:

What Does It Mean to Be in the Place-World?
Edward S. Casey

Department SUNYat StonyBrook

of Philosophy,

It was to satisfyman'scuriosityconcerning the differences discourages experiential explorations. In the case of ge-
of the worldfromplace to place that geographydeveloped ography, a primary task has been to do justice to the in-
as a subjectof popularinterest. dispensability of place in geographic theory and practice.
-Richard Hartshorne(1939, 15) So much is this the case that Robert David Sack (1997,
34, 30), a more recent proponent of the importance of
The spiritof a place residesin its landscape. place, can claim unhesitatingly that "[in geography] the
-Edward Relph (1976, 30) truly important factor is place and its relationship to
space."1
A new perspectiveis not only beginning to recomposethe In this essay,I will investigateanotherregion of com-
spatial or geographicalimagination, it is entering disrup- mon concern to geographersand philosophers:the na-
tively, if still locatedon the margins,into the wayswe think tureof the humansubjectwho is orientedand situatedin
about historicalityand sociality,demandingan equivalent
place. I shall call this subject"thegeographicalself,"and
empoweringvoice, no morebut no less. I will considerthe bodily basisof this self's inhabitation
-Edward W. Soja (1996, 273) of places in a circumambientlandscape.Throughout, I
shall presume the importance of the distinction between
remarkable convergence between geography and place and space, taking "space" to be the encompassing
philosophy has become increasingly manifest in volumetric void in which things (including human be-
the past two decades. It is as if Strabo's cele- ings) are positioned and "place" to be the immediate en-
brated opening claim in his Geographia had finally be- vironment of my lived body-an arena of action that is
come true two millennia later: "The science of Geogra- at once physical and historical, social and cultural.2
phy, which I now propose to investigate, is, I think, quite Self, body, and landscape address different dimensions
as much as any other science, a concern of the philoso- of place in contrast with space. The self has to do with
pher" (Strabo I, 3). What is new (and not in Strabo) is the agency and identity of the geographical subject; body
the growing conviction that philosophy is the concern of is what links this self to lived place in its sensible and per-
the geographer as well, or more exactly that philosophy ceptible features; and landscape is the presented layout of
and geography now need each other-and profit from a set of places, not their mere accumulation but their
this mutual need. sensuous self-presentation as a whole.
Collaboration between the two fields has been evi- For the most part, Western philosophical theories of
dent ever since concerted attention to place began to human selfhood have tended to tie it to awareness, and
emerge just over twenty years ago in, e.g., EdwardRelph's hence to consciousness. A paradigmatic instance is
Place and Placelessness(1976) and Yi-Fu Tuan's Space and Locke's ([1690] 1975, 449) view that the self's "personal
Place (1976). Because of their emphasis on the experien- identity" is entirely a function of the consciousness of its
tial features of place-its "subjective"or "lived"aspects- own past through memory: "as far as . . . consciousness
such works were natural allies of phenomenology, a form can be extended backwardsto any past action or thought,
of philosophy that attempts to give a direct description of so far reaches the identity of that person; it is the same
first-person experience. Both geography and phenome- self now [as] it was then."3 For Locke, the self's identity is
nology have come to focus on place as experienced by a matter of linking up one's present consciousness with a
human beings, in contrast to space, whose abstractness past consciousness, and has nothing whatever to do with
Annalsof theAssociationof AmericanGeographers,91(4), 2001, pp. 683-693
? 2001 by Association of American Geographers
Publishedby Blackwell Publishers,350 Main Street, Maiden, MA 02148, and 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF,UK.

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 10:50:04 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
684 Forum:Reflectionson Place, Space, Self, and Body

place.Placefiguresonly asa parameterof the sheerphysical given locale is linkedto everyother place in globalspace,
beingof somethingthat lacksconsciousnessaltogether.4 pre-eminentlyby the Internet.8This is the converse of
Thus, the quintessentialmodernistview of the rela- the premodernsituation in which, as Heidegger (1961,
tion betweenplace and self is that thereis no suchrelation. 138) remarks,"Barespace is still veiled over. Space has
Place belongs entirely to the physical world (i.e., the [already] been split up into places."9 Our interest is this:
realm of space, of which place is "but a particular limited what does this partial yet plausible narrative of the move
consideration" (Locke [1690] 1975, 171) and the self to from the premodern to the postmodern tell us about the
the realm of consciousness, and the twain are not sup- relation between place and self?
posed ever to meet. Locke's Essay, published in 1690, At the very least, it tells us that certain habitual pat-
keeps personal identity and place as far apart as are mind terns of relating to places have become attenuated to the
and matter in Descartes's writings fifty years earlier. point of disappearing altogether. I refer to the microprac-
It is a mark of contemporary philosophical thought, tices that tie the geographical subject to his or her place-
especially phenomenology, to contest the dichotomies world, one instance of which is the "work-world"(Werk-
that hold the self apart from body and place. Contra Des- welt) that is Heidegger's focus in a remarkable discussion
cartes, the body is recognized as integral to selfhood, of being ready-to-hand (Zuhandensein)in Beingand Time.10
with the result that we can no longer distinguish neatly For Heidegger, place and the self are intimately inter-
between physical and personal identity. Against Locke, locked in the world of concrete work. Not only are tools
place is regarded as constitutive of one's sense of self.5 literal "instruments" that have a functional purpose of
Places require human agents to become "primaryplaces," their own-e.g., a hammer to drive in nails-but they
in Sack's (1997, passim) nomenclature, and these same create works or products that allude to the person who
agents require places to be the selves they are in the pro- will make use of them: "the work is cut to [the consumer's]
cess of becoming. figure; he 'is' there along with it as the work emerges"
The relationship between self and place is not just one (Heidegger 1962, 100).11 Not just the abstract figure of
of reciprocal influence (that much any ecologically sen- the consumer, however, but the very form of the self is at
sitive account would maintain) but also, more radically, stake in the work-world. When Heidegger (1962, 101)
of constitutive coingredience: each is essential to the be- remarks that "our concernful absorption in whatever
ing of the other. In effect, there is no place withoutself and work-world lies closest to us has a function of discover-
no self withoutplace. What is needed is a model wherein ing," he means that this absorption helps us to discover
the abstract truth of this position-which is that of a our own being-in-the-world and not just the external
number of philosophically minded geographers writing destination-e.g., the market-for what we create in the
today, including Sack-can be given concrete articula- work-place. It helps us to grasp the particular place we
tion without conflating place and self or maintaining the are in as the particular person who we are.12
self as an inner citadel of unimplaced freedom.6Just how, In such a circumstance, place and self are thoroughly
then, is place constitutive of the self? How does it insin- enmeshed, without, however, being fused with each
uate itself into the very heart of personal identity? other in a single monolithic whole. The articulations
Heidegger finds in the situation-including the "towards-
which" of serviceability, the "for-which" of usability, and
I the various "assignments" or references that are part of
the work-world (itself only an exemplification of any
To answer a difficult question such as this, it is best to technological milieu)-indicate that the place/self rela-
begin with what Heidegger calls the "deficient mode" of tion is here as highly ramified as it is intimate.13
any given phenomenon-in this case, the scattered self It would follow that thinned-out places are those in
of postmodern society. Let us grant that this deeply dis- which the densely enmeshed infrastructures of the kind
tracted self is correlated with the disarrayof place. More- Heidegger discerns are missing. Not only do such places
over, as places enter further into disarraythrough experi- not contain strictly, as on Aristotle's model; they do not
ences of diversion and distraction, they verge on an even hold, lacking the rigor and substance of thickly lived
indifferent state that is reminiscent of nothing so much places-in contrast once again with the ethereality of
as space-the very thing that dominated the early mod- pure space, which cannot properly hold anything. Their
ern period from which we are allegedly now escaping. very surface is perforated, open to continual reshaping
Nowadays, emphasizes Sack (1997, 138; emphasis added), and reconnecting with other surfaces. Think of the way
"places become thinned out and mergewith space."7It is a in which programs on television or items on the Web
matter of what has been called "glocalization," whereby a melt away into each other as we switch channels or surf

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 10:50:04 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Casey:Between Geographyand Philosophy 685

at leisure.In such circumstances,there is a notable labil- of constantly changing place, whether in actual or vir-
ityofplacethat correspondsto a fickleself who seeksto be tual space. The ease with which this now happenscom-
entertained:the "aesthetic self," as Kierkegaardmight paredto formertimes does not mean the simpledegreda-
call it. The collapseof the kind of surfacethat is capable tion, much less the loss, of the self that travels.
of keepingsomethingwithinit-e.g., the circumambient At stakehere is what we might call "thecompensatory
surface,the stable"surrounder" (periechon)of the Aristo- logic of loss."All too often, we presumethat a different
telian model of place-correlates with a self of infinite logic is at work when it comes to mattersof place and
distractibilitywhose own surfaceis continually compli- self-the logic of a complemental series, whereby the
cated by new pleasures:in short, a self that has become more of one thing, the less of the other with which it is
(in Deleuze and Guattari's[1983, part 1] term) a "desir- paired.Thus, it might be thought that the strongerthe
ing machine." self becomes-the more autonomous,self-directive,and
Not that all is lost. As Merleau-Ponty(1962, 171) said so on-the less importantplace should be, as we might
trenchantly, "[N]o one is saved and no one is totally inferfromTuan'sclaim. Should not a strongerself be less
lost." The point applies to place as well as to the self. reliant on particularplaces?16And, by the same token,
Places can never become utterly attenuated.They may should not a stronger link to a given place-e.g., a
become increasinglyuniformand unable to engage our hearth-bring with it a weakerself, a self that is so able
concernful absorption,without, for all that, ceasing to to count on the securityof home as to have no "mindof
exist altogetheras placesfor us-places in which we ori- its own," much less be capable of "thinking[in] the re-
ent ourselvesand feel at home. In particular,places will flective, ironic, quizzicalmode"(Tuan 1996, 188)?
not "mergewith,"much less turninto,space.To posit any I believe that, ratherthan a logic of morefromless(and,
such mergeris to confusetwo ordersof being that are, in equally,lessfrommore),what we in fact find in the place-
principle, separate.Place is indeed situated in physical self relationshipis a logic of morewithmore. The more
space,but then so is everythingelse, events as well as ma- places are leveled down, the more-not the less-may
terial things; it has no privileged relationship to that selves be led to seek out thick places in which their own
space,by way of either exemplificationor representation. personalenrichmentcan flourish.Twocontemporaryex-
Nor can it be derivedfrom it by some contrivedgeneal- amplespoint to this logic of unsuspectedabundance.
ogy.To believe in sucha genealogyis to buyinto the mod- 1. The proliferationof movies on video-in itself a
ernistmyth that the lived worldis madeof pureextended
proliferationof virtual space-has not meant the
space, and that anythingless than such space, including end of public movie theaters,but has appearedto
place, followsfromit by derivationor delimitation.14
The same is true of the self, which can certainly be- intensify the desirabilityof such theaters as real
come moresuperficialyet will alwaysretain tracesof per- places with their own sensuousdensity and inter-
sonal identity of the most minimal sort (e.g., the ability personalinterest.
2. The strikingsuccessof Amazon.comin bookselling-
to say "I"or "me")-even under the direst of diremp-
an enterprisethat unabashedlyadvertisesitself as
tions. Leveled-downplacesof the sortwith which we are
"Earth'sbiggest bookstore: 2.5 million books in
surroundedtoday put the self to the test, tempting it to
stock"-has not meant the simple demise of ordi-
mimic their tenuous characterby becoming an indeci-
sive entity incapableof the kind of resoluteaction that is nary bookstores (though certainly many smaller
such stores have suffered). Its rapid growth has
requiredin a determinatelystructuredplace such as a
accompanied and paralleled the equally remark-
workshopor a publicforum. able success of Borders and Barnes and Noble
This is not to say that the self is merelyenfeebled by
nonrobustplaces.It can also makea virtueof the circum- bookstores-i.e., actual places in which to browse
for books. Leaving aside the dubious hegemonic
stance by becoming more responsiveto differencesbe-
tendenciesof these enormousbook chains, the fact
tween places-for example, by venturing beyond one's
is that bookselling-and, hopefully,bookreading-
natal place so as to appreciateand savorother places and
have flourishedin recent times. More has meant
peoples. Such is the ambiguousmoral of Tuan'sCosmos more.Place,actualplace,persists,andis strengthened
and Hearth(1996): the skepticalcosmopolite, for all of
ratherthan diminishedby the challenge posed by
his or her unsettledness,does at least learn about the
virtualspace.
largerworld and may become more sensitive to cultural
diversitythan does the person who refusesto leave the By this compensatorylogic, the self stands to gain as
hearth.15This is not to advocatecosmopolitanism;it is to well. For it is now able to move between virtual space
considera possible virtue in the postmodernnomadism and actualplaces-i.e., a spacethat does not requirefull

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 10:50:04 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
686 Forum:Reflectionson Place, Space, Self, and Body

engagement versus places that do-and with a leeway Theoryof Practice.It is there at the start as the scene of
that, even if not exhibitingthe absolutefreedomdreamed inculcation, the place of instructionthat embodies"the
of in high modernism,neverthelessenjoysthat modicum structuresconstitutive of a particulartype of environ-
of choice which is necessary(if not sufficient)to account ment (e.g., the materialconditions of existence charac-
for the relationshipbetween self and place in any era. teristic of a class condition)" (Bourdieu1977, 72). It is
The compensatorymodel allowsus to imaginethat both present at a later point when a given habitus has been
self and place may paradoxicallyprosper in the very fully formedand is continually re-enactedin similarcir-
desertof the postmodernperiod,the experienceof each cumstances-that is, when durabledispositionsare"last-
being enhanced, ratherthan simplyundermined,in the ingly subjected to the same conditioning, and hence
wastelandof a dried-outlife-world.Despite an affinityfor placedin the same materialconditions of existence"(85;
thick places, the contemporaryself can flourisheven in emphasisadded).19A given habitus is alwaysenacted in
spacesthat aredisembodied,virtualized,andnotablythin. a particularplace and incorporatesthe featuresinherent
in previoussuch places, all of which are linked by a hab-
itudinalbond.
II Habitusis also mediationalin its capacityto bringto-
gether the placialityof its ongoing setting and the tem-
Whether this quasimelioristreading of our present porality of its recurrentre-enactment. Despite Kant's
predicamentwill prove to be right, no one can claim to dogmatic effort to keep time out of geographyand to
know for sure. We can make progressof a more certain confine it to history,20wheneverthe geographicalsubject
sort if we attempt to answer the quite basic question: is at stake, time and history alike have to re-enter geo-
What ties place and self together?What ensures that graphicalconsideration.They do so most effectively in
these termsare genuinelycoconstitutive and not forever the formof habitus,which is as ineluctablytemporalas it
dichotomous?Here we seek a missing term that brings is placial in its formation and consolidation. Thus the
place andself togetherin any circumstance,whetherpre- very idea of habitusleads us to mergewhat Kant wanted
modern, modern,or postmodern.To hold outright that to keep strictly apart:history and geography.This is all
place qua place constitutesself qua self (or vice versa) is the more the case if the schemes operativewithin habi-
only to deepen the mystery,not to clarifyit. To be deeply tudes are placial as well as temporal.21 And they must be
ingressivein each other is to suggestthat place and self if habitusis trulyto mediatebetweenplace (primarilybut
are mediated by a third term common to both, a term not exclusively spatial) and the self (primarilybut not
that bringsand keeps them together.17What, in short, is only temporal).The generativityof habitudinalschemes
the mediatrixof place and self? is at once placialandtemporal,andbecauseof this double-
The most adequateansweris: habitus.I take this term sidedness the geographicalsubject is able to insinuate
fromPierreBourdieuin his Outlineof a Theoryof Practice himself or herself all the more completely into the life-
(1977), where it servesas a figureof the between: above worldof ongoing experience. Were it not so, were habi-
all, between nature and culture, but also between con- tus exclusively one or the other, this subject would be
sciousnessand body,self and other,mechanismand tele- schizoidwithin andalienatedwithout,unableto complete
ology,determinismand freedom,even memoryand imag- the cycle that place and the self continuallyreconstitute
ination. Habitus is not mere routine but something thanksto the habitudinalbasisthey so deeplyshare.22In
improvisationaland open to innovation. It is an "imma- other words,this subjectwouldbe preciselythe self-riven
nent law,lexinsita,laid down in each agent by his earliest early modern subject describedby Descartesand Locke
upbringing"(Bourdieu 1977, 81). A given habitus qua in their tendentiousdescriptionsof human selfhood.
settled dispositionor "habitude"is thus the basisfor ac- A corollaryof this last line of thought is that if places
tion in any given sphere-indeed, in any given place. can become attenuated in certain historical moments
Here I want to proposethat habitus is a middle term such as our own, this can only mean that these places
between place and self-and, in particular,between have begun to lose the habitudinaldensitywherebythey
lived place and the geographicalself. This self is consti- are implicatedwithin the selves who experience them.
tuted by a core of habitudesthat incorporateand con- The thinning-out is primarilyof thehabituslinkingplacesand
tinue, at both psychicaland physicallevels, what one has selves-or more exactly,a replacementof one set of hab-
experienced in particularplaces.18Although Bourdieu itudes(moreaptforlasting,livelyengagementswith robust
doesnot invokeplace specifically,it is everywherepresent places) with another habitudinalset (gearedto leveled-
in his discussionof habitus.Indeed,it lies at both ends of down places or "sites").23 The consequencecan only be a
the quasidiachronicmodel he proposesin Outlineof a desiccationof both selfandplace,the diminishingof both,

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 10:50:04 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Casey:Between Geographyand Philosophy 687

a commonfailureto find"amatrixof perceptions,appreci- tional purview.I also holdit by virtue of being in its am-
ations,and actions[that]makespossiblethe achievement biance:firstin my body as it holds onto the place by var-
of infinitely diversifiedtasks"(Bourdieu 1977, 82-83). ious sensoryand kinesthetic means, then in my memory
This doubly denuded circumstance,this diminution of as I "holdit in mind."This is how the durabilityof habi-
habitudinalthickness, is a situation of less withless, less tus is expressed:by my tenaciousholding onto a place so
place, less self, an inversionof a positively compensatory as to prolongwhat I experiencebeyond the presentmo-
logic of morewithmore,more place, more self. If the at- ment. In this way,place and self actively collude.
tenuation leadsto this inversionitself and is not the pre- In the end, we need to do justice both to the factorof
lude to a significantreinvestmentin place and self, then habitus and to the facticity of habitation. It is a matter
we areleft with the soberingprospectof a redoubledloss: of what Husserlliked to call "activityin passivity"(Hus-
loss of place, loss of self. serl 1973)-of the activity of habitation and the recep-
tivity of habitus. If habitusrepresentsa movement from
the externalityof establishedcustoms and norms to the
III interality of durabledispositions,habitation is a matter
of re-externalization-of taking the habitus that has
Human beings act on the basisof habitus,and action been acquiredand continuallyre-enactingit in the place-
is something that is both lived (i.e., consciouslyexperi- world.Justas there wouldbe no habituswithout the pre-
enced) and intentional (i.e., involves an aim even if this existing places of history and society, so there would be
is not explicitly formulated).The value or virtue of a no habitationwithout the habitudesthat make implace-
given habitusresidesin the actualityof its enactment, its ment possiblefor a given subject.24
skillfulapplication-not in its being a solidifieddeposi- Thus we mustacknowledgethe importanceof a genu-
tion of past actions or a mere disposition to future ac- ine "thirdspace,"to adopt EdwardSoja's(1996) sugges-
tions. Whatever its antecedent history and subsequent tive term for what I have been calling "place-world,"a
fate, a habitus is something we continually put into ac- worldthat is not only perceivedor conceived but also ac-
tion. Moreover,we do so by meansof concrete behaviors tively livedand receptivelyexperienced. Inspiredby Henri
that follow variousplans and projectsof a self who ac- Lefebvre,Soja maintains that such thirdspaceis at once
tively intends to do something in the dense "common- social and historical-and, just as much, spatial. The
sense world,"the life-worldthat is the productof "the spatiality(not merelythe "space,"a termbetter reserved
orchestrationof habitus" (Bourdieu 1977, 80). Given for the cosmic continuum) is a lived and experienced
that this world presentsitself to us as a layout of places, spatiality, which is what Bourdieu neglects and Soja
the activationof habitusexpressesan intentional and in- (1996) celebrates in his "real-and-imagined""journeys
vested commitmentto the place-world.Even if it is the to Los Angeles."25Indeed, in any journey through the
internalizationof social practicesin its origin, in its ac- place-world, we live out our bodily habitudes in rela-
tual performancea given habitus is a reaching out to tion to the changing spatialityof the scenes we succes-
place, a being or becoming in place. sively encounter.
The primaryway in which the geographicalsubject
realizesits active commitment to place is by means of
habitation.I use "habitation"in a sense capaciousenough IV
to includenomadiclife as well as settled dwelling.Either
way,the self relates to the place of habitation by means What, then, is the vehicle of this lived and lively
of concertedbodilymovementsthat arethe activationof thirdspace-this mediatrixbetween place and self-that
habitudinalschemes, their explicitation and exfoliation is neither simplymaterialnor sheerlymental in charac-
in the inhabited place-world.In the word "habitation," ter, a domain that we find and experience both actively
moreover,we hearnot only living somewherein particu- and passively,both through habitation and habitude?
lar and not just the concretizationof habitus but also, The enactive vehicle of being-in-placeis the body.The
more particularly, the verbal root of "habitation" itself: body is indispensablehere not just as a "practicalopera-
namely, habere,Latin for "to have, to hold." Both of these tor"of habitudinalschemesor as the "bodyschema"that
latter verbs are performative and transitive in character is the formator receptacle of such schemes.26Its role is
and thus adumbrate the ongoing engagement that is al- much morebasic. In mattersof place, as Lefebvre(1991,
ways at stake in the place/self cycle, especially in its hab- 194) claims, "the body servesboth as point of departure
itational modes. When I inhabit a place-whether by Buthow can somethingthat is nor-
and as destination."27
moving through it or staying in it-I have it in my ac- mally beneath ournotice be the pivot of the place-world?

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 10:50:04 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
688 Forum:Reflectionson Place, Space, Self, and Body

This happensin at least two ways,which I shall label some kind of object; it is of the whole brute pres-
"outgoing"and "incoming." ence of the place. What lingersmost powerfullyis
this presenceand, moreparticularly,howit felt to be
1. Outgoing.The lived body encounters the place- in thispresence:how it felt to be in the CrazyMoun-
worldby goingout to meetit. It does this in myriad tains that summer,how I sensed the lower East
ways, including highly differentiatedand cultur- Side duringJanuary.Proustpoints out that the es-
ally freightedways,such as racialor classor gender sence of a place can be compressedinto a single
identity,the focusof so much recent writingon the sensation,which, being reawakened,can bringthe
body.It also goes out in one primaryway in which place back to us in its full vivacity.There is an im-
all moreparticularwaysshare:I referto the "spatial
pressionism of placeby which the presenceof a place
framework"28 wherebyit links up most pervasively remainslodged in our body long afterwe have left
with the place-world.By meansof this framework,
it; this presenceis held within the body in a virtual
the three inherent axes of the body, each defined
state, readyto be revivedwhen the appropriateim-
by a binaryopposition (i.e., up/down, front/back, pressionor sensationarises(see Rawlinson 1981).
right/left),lead into the primarydimensionsof any b. Subjection.In contrast with Kant's view that we
given place (i.e., verticality,frontality,and hori- constructspaceby a formaltranscendentalactivity,
zontality) as well as the implicit directionalityof we arenot the mastersof place but preyto it; we are
that place (e.g., upwardor downward,forwardor the subjects of place or, more exactly, subjectto
backward,vergingto the rightor to the left).29It is
not a matterof sheerfit-as if body and place were place.Such subjectionrangesfromdocility(wherein
we are the mere creaturesof a place, at its whim
each, in advance,alreadyfullyformed,with the re- and in its image) to appreciation(by which we en-
sult that they cohere like pieces of a jigsawpuzzle.
Neither bodynor place is a wholly determinateen- joy being in a place,savoringit) to change (whereby
we alter ourselves-our very self-as a function of
tity; each continuallyevolves, preciselyin relation having been in a certain place). In every case, we
to the other. The place-world is energized and arestill, even manyyearslater,in theplacesto which
transformedby the bodies that belong to it, while we are subjectbecause (and to the exact extent
these bodies are in turn guided and influencedby
that) they are in us. They are in us-indeed, are
this world'sinherentstructures.
us-thanks to their incorporationinto us by a pro-
2. Incoming.But the body not only goes out to reach cess of somatizationwhose logic is yet to be discov-
places; it also bearsthe traces of the places it has ered. They constitute us as subjects.To be homo
known. These traces are continually laid down in
geographicus is to be such a subject.To be (a) sub-
the body, sedimenting themselves there and thus
ject to/of place is to be whatwe are as an expression
becomingformativeof its specificsomatography.A of waya placeis. The body is the primaryvehicle
the
body is shaped by the places it has come to know of such expression,preciselyin Leibniz'ssense of a
and that have come to it-come to take up resi-
condensedand often tacit representation:the body
dence in it, by a special kind of placial incorpora-
tion that is just as crucialto the humanself as is the expresses its place-world much as a monad ex-
presses the universe. Such expression is tanta-
interpersonalincorporationso central to classical mount to deep reflection;in its subjectionto place,
psychoanalytictheory.The reverseis alsotrue:places a body "reflectsits region."31
arethemselvesalteredby ourhavingbeen in them.30
It is the formeraction-whereby the body is in effect Thanksto the inscriptivetenacity and expressivesub-
placialized-that I designate as "incoming."Moreover, jection of the body,places come to be embeddedin us;
this comingin of places into the body-their inscription they become partof ourveryself, ourenduringcharacter,
there-is a matterboth of tenacity and subjection. what we enact and carryforward.Neither habitus nor
habitation,for all their importance,capturescompletely
a. Tenacity.Places come into us lastingly;once hav- this factorof persistence
of placein body.Habitusis the so-
ing been in a particularplace for any considerable cially encoded core of our bodily self; habitation is the
time-or even briefly,if our experience there has activist commitment of the same self. To such socialism
been intense-we areforevermarkedby that place, and activismwe need to adda thirdingredient,idiolocal-
which lingers in us indefinitelyand in a thousand ism. Where habitusinternalizesthe collective subjectof
ways,many too subtlefor us to name. The inscrip- customaryand normativestructure,and habitation calls
tion is not of edges or outlines, as if place were for the intentional subjectof concertedaction, idiolocal-

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 10:50:04 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Casey:Between Geographyand Philosophy 689

ity invokes the subjectwho incorporatesand expressesa undertakinghabitation, and expressingthe idiolocality
particularplace, more especiallyits idios,what is "pecu- of place itself.36
liar"in both sensesof this lastword.And the bearerof id- Yet the body is not the last wordwhen it comes to an
iolocality is none other than the lived body, the proper expanded sense of the geographicalself. It does come
subject of place. Only such a subject can be subject to first, and is even first among equals when it comes to
place in its idiosyncrasy;this subjectalone can carrythe philosophical(and specificallyphenomenological)med-
peculiaritiesof place in its veryflesh,keepingthem there itationson geography.Requisiteas well, however,is land-
in a state of Parathaltung, a condition of readinessto re- scape.I want to end with some briefobservationson this
appear at the flash of a mere impression.32 basicterm,the importanceof which has been signaledby
This is not to say that we have to do with three sub- the seminalworkofJ. B. Jackson,W. G. Hoskins,Edward
jects here-any morethan Soja or Lefebvrewouldmain- Relph, Denis Cosgrove,and others.
tain that there are three separatespacesto contend with If it is truethat the geographicalself is deepenedby the
in their trialectic typologies.33There is only one subject body-drawn down into it-then it is equallytrue to say
of place, one body-subject,one embodiedself who expe- that place is broadenedin landscape. As Relph (1976,
riences,expresses,and dealswith place by meansof habi- 123) writes, "Landscapeis both the context for places
tus, habitation, and idiolocalization.Place is sharedout and an attributeof places."In fact, body and landscape
among these three modalities;it is a matter of "the be- are the concretization and exfoliation, respectively,of
tweennessof place,"in Nicholas Entrikin's(1991) strik- the initially indefinite dyad of self and place. For this
ing phrase, which I interpretas referringto the perva- dyad is abstractas it stands, as is the Pythagoreaninde-
sivenessof place, its permeationinto everycrevice of the terminatedyad (aiostosdyas)of same and other, like and
body-subjectin its habitudinal,habitational,and idiolo- unlike, odd and even.37The empty armatureof place-
cal actions. Just as Entrikin (1991, 134) arguesthat we cum-self needs to be fleshed out, in two opposed but
need not make an exclusionarychoice between existen- complementarydirections:downwardinto bodyand out-
tial and naturalisticconceptions of place but should ad- ward into landscape. I say "needs to be" because both
dressboth "froma point in between"that does not ex- body and landscapeare so thoroughlyingredientin the
cludeeither,so I wouldmaintainthat the three aspectsof experience of the human subject as often to pass unno-
the body-in-placethat I have here singled out should be ticed. The presence of the body is "pre-reflective,"as
treated inclusively, without any forced choice having Merleau-Ponty(1962, part 1) liked to say;the surround-
to be madebetweenthem. We owe no less to place and to ing landscape is mostly "invisible," as Erwin Straus
the body that at once bears,preserves,and transformsit. (1963, 318-23) has argued,a matterof "spirit"in Relph's
(1976, 30) word. All the more reason, then, to bring
both factorsinto ourreflectiveawareness-to makeboth
V as focal as possible.To do so is to take a crucial step to-
warda geographythat is responsiveto the materialcon-
To pursuewhat it means to be homogeographicus is to ditions of the place-world.
be led, therefore,to the body in at least three basic mo- Landscapeis a cusp concept. It serves to distinguish
dalities.By the sametoken, it is to be led backto the self. place and space (whose difference I have been taking
The self of the place-selfcycle fromwhich we alwaysbe- mostlyforgranted);38 it is even the point of their most sa-
gin is what Barbara Hooper calls a "body/self."34Only lient difference.There is no landscapeof space, though
such a self can be implaced;there is no subjectof place there is landscapeboth of place and region. It is impor-
except as embodied.Descartesand Locke are here both tant to stressthis difference,since it is easy to think of
undone: personal identity entails body (not just con- landscape as a mere middle term between place and
sciousness) and a body-in-place (rather than an unim- space-as the transitionbetween the two. Phrasessuch
placed self). The bodyis theheftof theself thatis in place, as "wide open spaces" that we apply unthinkingly to
whosevery "extensity"35 callsfor a massiveand thick cor- landscapeonly confuse the issue.However,just as atten-
porealsubject to be equalto the demandingtaskof exist- uated places do not merge into space, so an open land-
ing in the place-world. scape does not fade into space. A landscapemay indeed
Justas there is no implacedself except as a body/self, be vast; it can contain an entire region and thus a very
there is no place either without such a self. There may largeset of places. Yet it will never becomespace, which
well be spaceand location in the absenceof an embodied is somethingof anotherorderaltogether.No matterhow
self, but in the presenceof place there can be no subject capaciousa landscapemay be, it remainsa composition
other than a bodilysubjectcapableof possessinghabitus, of places, their intertangledskein. It may constitute a

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 10:50:04 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
690 Forum: Reflections on Place, Space, Self, and Body

cosmos-that is, a place-world-but never a universum, making up a region arises; it is the matrix of places with-
space as an endless, infinitized totality. out us, hence the antipode of habitus as the matrix of
The intrinsic difference between place and space is schemes within us.
nowhere more evident than in the role of a primary fea- "In a landscape," says Straus (1963, 319), "we always
ture of landscape, its horizon. Every landscape has a hori- get to one place from another place." This echoes the
zon, yet space never does.39The horizon is an arc within first epigraph of this essay: "It was to satisfy man's curios-
which a given landscape comes to an end-an end of vis- ity concerning the differences of the world from place to
ibility, of presence, of availability. A place as such has place that geography developed as a subject of popular
no horizon, only an enclosure or perimeter. Only when interest" (Hartshorne 1939, 15). The curiosity to which
places are concatenated in a landscape is there anything Richard Hartshorne refers is also a curiosity about land-
like a horizon, which is the undelimited limit-or, better, scape, for only in a coherent and continuous landscape
the boundary-for the landscape as a whole. As a bound- can we go from place to place, whether this be on land or
ary, the horizon does not merely close off the landscape; sea or even in the air.44
it opens it up for further exploration, that is, for bodily
ingression and exploration. As Heidegger (1971, 154;
emphasis in original) puts it, "A boundary is not that at
which something stops but, as the Greeks recognized, the
VI
boundary is that from which something beginsits presenc- In short summation: landscape and the body are the ef-
ing."4?The horizon is the boundary that surrounds the fective epicenters of the geographical self. The one wid-
particular places making up a landscape. The outward ens out our vista of the place-world-all the way to the
movement of landcape-a movement out beyond any horizon-while the other literally incorporates this same
particular place and beyond any body in that place- world and acts upon it. Without landscape, we would be
reaches its bounded end in the horizon.
altogether confined to the peculiarities of a particular
Other featuresof landscape include its sensuousdisplay-
place, its insistent idiolocalism; without the body, even
the panoply of features sensed on its surface that make it this one place would pass us by without leaving a mark on
into a variegated scene of perception and action-and its
us, much less inspiring us to act toward it in novel and
atmosphere,the combination of air and light that gives to constructive ways. Because we have a body and are en-
a landscape its special luminescence or radiance.41Ingre- sconced in a landscape, place and self alike are enriched
dient as well are the ground-the subtending layer, which and sustained, enabling us to become enduring denizens
need not be earth but can be sea or even asphalt-on of the place-world to which we so fatefully belong.
which the concrete things of a given landscape repose:
where "things" may be humanly constructed as well as
engendered by nature. I first described these various fac-
tors in a discussion of "wild places," and it is significant Notes
that they hold up as descriptive terms of landscape in
1. In whatfollows,I am takingthis bookas a representativere-
general, whether wild or cultivated.42 But wilderness qua cent contributionto the geographyof place in relationto
"wildscape" remains paradigmatic for the outreach of space.
landscape, its openness, its uncontrollability-even as a 2. For a systematicaccount of the differencebetween place
cityscape is emblematic of its complex historicity, inten- and space, see my two studies, Casey (1993) and Casey
tional order, cultural diversity, and social layeredness. (1997).
3. Also, "asfaras any intelligentbeing can repeatthe idea of
The extensity and power of landscape may be such that
any past action with the same consciousnessit had of it at
all we can do is to glance at it, take parts of it in, and let first,and with the sameconsciousnessit has of any present
the rest of it go.43 action; so far it is the same personalself" (Locke [1690]
A landscape is nothing if not expansive. Where the 1975, 451).
lived body of the geographical self characteristically 4. Not only is place not partof personalidentity,but even in
the realm of the purelyphysical it serves, not to identify
draws in the place-world around it, ingesting it in sche- something,but to distinguishit fromother things that are
matized bodily behavior and lingering body memories, otherwiseentirely alike: "When we see anythingto be in
the landscape drawsout the same place-world, sometimes any place in any instant of time, we are sure (be it what it
to its utmost limit. It is rare, if not impossible, to experi- will) that it is that very thing, and not another,which at
that sametime exists in anotherplace, how like and undis-
ence an entirely isolated place: a place without relation
tinguishablesoever it may be in all other respects;and in
to any other place, without imbrication in a region. Land- this consistsidentity[ofa thing] ... Forwe [are]neverfind-
scape is the scene wherein the assemblage of the places ing, nor conceiving it possible,that two things of the same

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 10:50:04 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Casey: Between Geography and Philosophy 691

kind should exist in the same place at the same time" sage (1976, 5). The reference appears to be to the objective
(Locke [1690] 1975, 439). or "physical"geography advocated by Kant and still regnant
5. Concerning this matter, Sack rejoins the philosophers. He in Germany in the 1920s.
(1997, 132) says emphatically that "place and self help con- 11. Heidegger (1962, 100) adds, "The work produced refers not
struct and activate each other." See also his statement only to the 'towards-which' of its usability and the 'whereof'
(1997, 131) that "the formation of personality [is] directly of which it consists: under simple craft conditions it also has
connected to the formation of place." This is a recurrent an assignment to the person who is to use it or wear it." For
theme in Sack's book: "Places need the actions of people or further discussion, see Pickles (1985, 160-68).
selves to exist and have effect. The opposite is equally true- 12. The notion of "pre-ontological understanding of the world"
selves cannot be formed and sustained or have effect with- occurs in Heidegger (1962, 102): "Does not Dasein have an
out place" (1997, 88; see also 127). understanding of the world-a pre-ontological understand-
6. This forthright proposal avoids two extreme positions. A ing, which indeed can and does get along without explicit
first extreme conflates the self with place, as in certain pre- ontological insights?" A given work-world has for its "for-
modern societies in which the self is nothing but the reflec- the-sake-of-which" (Worum-willen)the Being of Dasein it-
tion of its immediate milieu. (Such is Sack's [1997, 137; see self, i.e., its being-in-the-world (Heidegger 1962, 116-17).
also 136] claim concerning the Bakongo and the Northern 13. Concerning the towards-which of serviceability and the for-
Aranda, both of which involve "the fusing of place and self which of usability, see Heidegger (1962, section 18). On the
through mythical/magical thought.") This is the placial character of reference at stake in the workplace, see Heideg-
equivalent of Freud's theory of personal identity, whereby ger (1962, section 17, "Reference and Signs").
the early human self is the product of primaryidentifications 14. This does not prevent thinned-out places from becoming
with parents, along with later secondary identifications with something similarto space, thanks to taking on certain of the
friends, teachers, lovers, and so on. In any such view, there predicates of space, such as planiformity, isotropism, iso-
is no choice but to be the residualexpressionof such identifica- metrism, homogeneity, and so on. However, this is a far cry
tions, whethertheseare with peopleor with places. from becomingspace.
In contrast with this lies the equally extreme view that 15. Such a situation "can link us both seriously and playfully to
place is only a setting or backdrop for the self, decidedly not the cosmos-to strangers in other places and times; and it
part of its constituent identity. This quasidramatic view al- enables us to accept a human condition that we have always
lows for degrees of influence and identification, and thus a been tempted by fear and anxiety to deny, namely, the im-
measure of choice, in the determination of the self's differ- permanence of our state wherever we are, our ultimate
ential destiny vis-a-vis place. Such a view is set forth vigor- homelessness" (Tuan 1996, 188). Sack (1997, 138) claims,
ously by Sartre, who makes place into one of the major "sit- similarly, that "thinned-out places with permeable bound-
uational" factors in terms of which human freedom (and aries help us see through the veils of culture." He (9) also
thus the self who is the agent of this freedom) must operate: points out that "thinned-out places work well when they do
"[T]here is freedom only in a situation, and there is a situa- not intrude on our consciousness and thus allow us to attend
tion only through freedom" (1966, 599; emphasis in origi- to the things that should take place in the world. This is how
nal). Freedom and situation, self and place, here remain dis- routinization of complex life is constructed." However, the
tinguishable if not entirely separable, entering into uneasy latter is a purely functional point, and the former advantage
alliances. If the firstextreme leaves too little room for choice carrieswith it, by Sack's (138) own admission, this price: "in
and difference, the second, though providing for just this seeing through more clearly, the weight of making sense of
kind of room, fails to capture the full force of place as it im- the world falls on our shoulders, and for many this is too
pinges on personal identity; it fails insofar as place, belonging heavy a burden." Even Heidegger, let it be noted, insisted
to the "in-itself,"remains external to the self as "for-itself." that at the very center of being-at-home is an uncanny
7. On this theme, see also Sack (1997, 9-11). unhomeliness: Unheimlichkeitlurks within Heimlichkeit.See
8. "With the sudden but subtle 'inflation of the present,' of a Heidegger (1962, section 40: "The Basic State-of-Mind of
present globalized by teletechnologies, present time occu- Anxiety as a Distinctive Way in Which Dasein is Disclosed").
pies center stage not only of history (between past and fu- 16. This way of thinking colors Tuan's neo-Kantian model of
ture) but especially of the geography of the globe. So much the cosmpolite, whose freedom to range over many places
so that a new term has recently been coined, glocalization" on earth reflects its greater self-reliance: "Rather than im-
(Virilio 1997, 135, emphasis in original; see also 144). mersion in the locality where we now live, our mind and
Virilio describes in temporal terms what has become true emotion are ever ready to shift to other localities and times
in spatial terms. .. . Having seen something of the splendid spaces, he or she
9. Heidegger is speaking here of the "region" (Gegend) that ... will not want to return, permanently, to the ambiguous
gathers the ready-to-hand implements of our concrete life- safeness of the hearth" (Tuan 1996, 188). Tuan's argument
gathers them in terms of "totalities of significance" that are here is closely affiliated with the view expressed in Tuan
not yet subject to modernist reductions. (1982): namely, that the more differentiated a society comes
10. It is not often noticed that this discussion comes immedi- to be, the more opportunities there are for the development
ately after Heidegger (1962, 100) has compared the geogra- of a deeper reflective self.
pher and the poet: when the natural world is regarded as 17. I am not alone in calling for a mediating term between place
merely present-at-hand, he says, "the Nature which 'stirs and self. The "relational framework" set forth by Sack in
and strives', which assails us and enthralls us as landscape, Homo Geographicus(1997) is one in which there are at least
remains hidden [in modern geography] . . . the 'source' three mediating terms: nature, meaning, and social rela-
which the geographer establishes for a river is not the tions. These overlap in turn and are interconnected by var-
'springhead in the dale."' EdwardRelph cites this same pas- ious loops, thus constituting a matrix of common involve-

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 10:50:04 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
692 Forum: Reflections on Place, Space, Self, and Body

ment for self and place: the mediatoris itself mediated, tions can social structurebecome efficaciousat the level of
thrice over! See especially figures2.1 and 4.1 in Sack the individual.
(1997). 25. Soja (1996, 31; emphasisin original)definesthirdspaceas
18. Notice that habitusis the basisfor"thedistributionof activ- a knowableand unknowable,realand imaginedlifeworld
ities and objects within the internal space of the house" of experiences,emotions, events, and political choices
(Bourdieu1977, 21). In short,a home-placeis the scene of that is existentiallyshapedby the generativeand prob-
the orderlybut open improvisationeffectedby habitus-in lematic interplaybetween centers and peripheries,the
contrastwith, say,agrarianrituals,which are "strictlyregu- abstractandconcrete,the impassionedspacesof the con-
lated by customarynormsand upheldby social sanctions"
ceptual and the lived, markedout materiallyand meta-
(Bourdieu1977,21). LikeHeidegger's work-place,the home- phoricallyin spatialpraxis,the transformation of (spatial)
place allows for innovation within regulation.
19. The full statementreads:"Thehabitusis the productof the knowledgeinto (spatial)action in a fieldof unevenlyde-
veloped (spatial)power.
workof inculcationandappropriation necessaryin orderfor
those productsof collective history,the objectivestructures In this statement, "lifeworld"is best construedas "place-
(e.g., of language,economy,etc.) to succeedin reproducing world"and "spaces"as "places."On thirdspaceas not just
themselvesmore or less completely,in the formof durable perceivedor conceived,see Soja (1996, 10ff).
dispositions,in the organisms(whichone can, if one wishes, 26. For these two notions, see Bourdieu(1977, 116-19 and
call individuals)lastinglysubjectedto the samecondition- 167, respectively).Henri Lefebvrespeakssimilarlyof the
ing, andhence placedin the samematerialconditionsof ex- "practico-sensory body,"as in this statement:"themoment
istence"(Bourdieu1977, 85). the body is envisionedas a practico-sensorytotality,a de-
20. "Descriptionaccordingto time is History,that accordingto centeringand recenteringof knowledgeoccurs"(1991, 62).
spaceis Geography... HistorydiffersfromGeographyonly The idea of bodyschemaderivesfromPaulSchilderin The
in the considerationof time andarea.The formeris a report ImageandAppearance of theHumanBody(1923) andwasde-
of phenomenathat followone anotherandhas referenceto veloped furtherby Merleau-Pontyin his Phenomenology of
time. The latteris a reportof phenomenabesideeach other Perception (1962).
in space"(fromKant'sLectureson PhysicalGeography,as 27. Consideralso Lefebvre's(1991, 40) statementthat "there-
cited in Hartshorne1939, 135). lationshipto spaceof a 'subject'who is a memberof a group
21. Not surprisingly, Bourdieufindsthe innerworkingof habi- or society implieshis relationshipto his own bodyand vice
tus to lie in various"schemes"whereinit condensesits op- versa."Still more succinctly,"the whole of (social) space
erationsandholdsthemreadyforemployment.The heartof proceedsfromthe body"(405).
habitudinalaction is found in "the generativeschemesin- 28. I take this term from the writingsof Nancy Franklinand
corporatedin the bodyschema"(Bourdieu1977, 167). Iron- BarbaraTervsky,e.g., their groundbreaking essay,"Search-
ically,the ideaof schemestemsfromKant'sideaof the "sche- ing ImaginedEnvironments"(1990, 63-77). I have ex-
matismof the understanding," wherebycategoriessuch as ploredthe relevanceof the spatialframeworkto implace-
causalityor substanceor co-existence are given temporal ment in Casey (1993, 102-3, 110).
specificity,e.g., as "succession,"
"permanence," "simultane- 29. As Franklinand Tervskysay,the body'sspatialframework
ity,"and so on. (See Kant[1781] 1965, BookII, chapter1.) thusrenders"certaindirectionsmoreaccessiblethanothers,
If Kant is right, Kant is wrong:if the geographicalsubject dependingon the naturalaxes of the bodyand the position
dependson a repertoireof schematizedhabitudes,then the of the bodywith respectto the perceptualworld"(Franklin
experienceof the geographicworldwill be undeniablytem- and Tversky1990, 74). What the authorscall "thepercep-
poral,hence historical. tual world"I am inclined to call "the place-world."Note
22. Thus we mustamendBourdieu's(1977, 82) claim that "the that Lefebvrehad alreadyenvisionedthe importanceof the
habitus,the productof history,producesindividualand col- spatialframeworkin 1974:"A body so conceived, as pro-
lective practices,and hence history,in accordancewith the ducedand as the productionof a space,is immediatelysub-
schemesengenderedby history"to a formulationmorelike ject to the determinantsof that space:symmetries,interac-
this:the habitus,the productof geographyand history,pro- tions, and reciprocalactions, axes and planes, centers and
ducesindividualand collectivepractices,andhence history peripheries,and concrete (spatio-temporal)oppositions"
andgeography,in accordancewith the placialand temporal (Lefebvre1991, 195;cf. also 199).
schemesengenderedby both. 30. As ElizabethGrosz(cited in Soja 1996, 112) says,"TheCity
23. Forfurtherdiscussionof site as degenerateplace, see Casey is madeandmadeover into the simulacrumof the body,and
(1993, 65, 141, 177-78, 258-60, 267-70) and Casey the body,in its turn,is transformed,'citified',urbanizedas a
(1997, 183-84, 232-34, 299-300, 334, 336). distinctivelymetropolitanbody."
24. However,the place-worldin which this progressends is 31. I take this phrasefrom the title of Wallace Stevens'slate
not the same as the social worldfromwhich it begins. For poem, "A MythologyReflectsIts Region."ForLeibniz'sno-
Bourdieu(1977, 83; emphasisin original), the latter is in- tion of monad,see his Monadology.
eluctablyan "objective eventwhich exerts its action of con- 32. I borrowthe termParathaltung fromRomanIngarden(1973),
ditional stimulation calling for or demandinga determi- who employsit to describethe heteronomyof the literary
nate response."Precisely this collective and historical work,whosevariouslevelsrequirevivificationby the reader.
objectivitycontrastswith the habitusas "a matrixof per- 33. In Lefebvre'scase, I referto his triple distinctionbetween
ceptions, appreciations,and actions" located within the spatialpractices,representationsof space, and representa-
sphereof the individual.But morethan contrastis at stake tional spaces,as developedat length in Lefebvre(1991, 33
here. The objectivityof the one calls for the subjectivityof ff). For Soja, the trialectic is that of perceived/conceived/
the other:only as internalizedas the basisfor habitualac- lived (see 1996, 70-82).

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 10:50:04 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Casey: Between Geography and Philosophy 693

34. "A body/self,a subject,an identity:it is, in sum, a social Deleuze,G., and F Guattari.1983.Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and
space, a complexityinvolving the workingsof power and schizophrenia.Translated R.
by Hurley, M. Seem, and H. R.
knowledgeand the workingsof the body'slived unpredict- Lane.Minneapolis:Universityof MinnesotaPress.
abilities"(Hooper,"Bodies,Cities, Texts:The Case of Citi- Entrikin,J. N. 1991. The betweennessof place:Towardsa geogra-
zen RodneyKing,"her emphasis;cited in Soja 1996, 114). phyof modernity. Baltimore:JohnsHopkins.
Bruce Wilshire (1983) uses the closely analogous term Franklin,N., and B. Tversky.1990. Searchingimaginedenvi-
"body-subject." ronments.Journalof Experimental General119:
Psychology:
35. This is Bergson'stermfor lived space, in contrastwith ho- 63-77.
mogeneous"extension";it is the spatialequivalentof dura- Hartshorne,R. 1939. Thenatureof geography: A criticalsurveyof
tion in the realmof time. See Bergson(1960:chapters2 and currentthoughtin thelightof thepast.Lancaster,PA:Associ-
3), as well as Bergson(1991: chapters3 and 4). ation of AmericanGeographers.
36. It shouldbe addedthat the selfso conceivedis not restricted Heidegger,M. 1962.Beingandtime.TranslatedbyJ. Macquarrie
to the humanself. Animals, perhapseven plants, possess and E. Robinson.New York:Harper& Row.
their own equivalentsof embodimentand implacement. . 1971. Buildingdwellingthinking. In Poetry,language,
Justas we mustresistan exclusivelyindividualisticmodelof thought.Translatedby A. Hofstadter.New York:Harper&
the humansubject,so we mustresista humanocentricpara- Row.
digmof implacement. Husserl,Edwund.1973. Experience andJudgment.Translatedby
37. On the indefinite (to apeiron)as a principle (arche),see J. S. Churchill and K. Ameriks.Evanston:Northwestern
Plato (Philebus23c-26d). On the indeterminatedyad as UniversityPress.
Plato'smaterialprinciple,see Aristotle'scommentaryin his Ingarden,Roman. 1973. The literaryworkof art. Translatedby
Metaphysics (1081a and 1099b). G. Grabowicz. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University
38. I shouldmakeit clearthat by "place"I meansomethingvery Press.
close to what Soja (1985, 91-127) calls "spatiality." Like Kant,I. [1781] 1965. Critiqueof purereason.Translatedby N. K.
spatialityas interpretedby Soja, place is neither physical Smith. New York:St. Martin'sPress.
spacenorthe mentalrepresentationof space(see Soja 1985, Lefebvre,H. 1991. The productionof space. Translatedby D.
93-94). I preferthe languageof "place"becauseof its higher Nicholson Smith. Oxford:Blackwell.
degreeof contrastwith "space,"a contrastI treatat length Locke,J. [1690] 1975. An essayconcerning humanunderstanding.
in Casey (1997, parts 1 and 2). I thank David Delaney of Editedby P.H. Nidditch.Oxford:ClarendonPress.
AmherstCollege for urgingme to clarifythis contrastand Merleau-Ponty,M. 1962. Phenomenology of perception.Trans-
forbringingSoja'sessayto my attention. latedby C. Smith.New York:HumanitiesPress.
39. As Straus (1963, 319) says, tellingly, "In a landscapewe Pickles,J. 1985.Phenomenology, science,andgeography:Spatiality
areenclosedby a horizon;no matterhow farwe go, the ho- andthehumansciences.Cambridge,U.K.: CambridgeUni-
rizonconstantly goes with us. Geographicalspace has no versityPress.
horizon." Rawlinson,M. C. 1981. Proust'ssensationalism.L'espritcreateur
40. Heidigger(1971, 154) adds, "That is why the concept is 24:80-91.
that of horismos,that is, the horizon[as]the boundary." Relph,Edward.1976. Placeandplacelessness. London:Pion.
41. On atmosphere,see Bohme(1998, part1). Sack, R. D. 1997. Homogeographicus: A framework for action,
42. In Casey(1993, 202-22), I give a muchmorecompletede- awareness,andmoralconcern.Baltimore:JohnsHopkins.
scriptionof a somewhatdifferentlist of basicfeatures. Sartre,J.-P.1966. Beingandnothingness: An essayon phenomeno-
43. On cityscapeand the glance,see Casey(1994). logicalontology.Translatedby H. Barnes.New York:Wash-
44. On the anomalous-and revealing-case of travelingin the ington SquarePress.
air,especiallythe upperstratosphere,see Virilio(1997). Schilder,Paul. 1923. Das K6rperschema. Berlin:Springer.
Soja,E. W. 1985.The spatialityof sociallife:Towardsa transfor-
mative retheorization.In Socialrelationsand spatialstruc-
tures,ed. D. Gregoryand J. Urry, 90-127. Basingstoke:
References Macmillan.
. 1996. Thirdspace:
Journeysto LosAngelesandotherreal-
Bergson,Henri. 1960. Timeandfreewill:An essayon theimmedi- and-imagined places.Oxford:Blackwell.
ate dataof consciousness.Translatedby F L. Pogson.New Strabo.1917. Thegeography of Strabo.Translatedby H. L. Jones.
York:Harper. New York:Putnam's.
. 1991.Matterandmemory.Translatedby N. M. Pauland Straus, E. 1963. The primaryworldof senses. Translatedby
W. S. Palmer.New York:Zone. J. Needleman.New York:FreePress.
Bohme,G. 1998.Atmosphdre (Atmosphere).Frankfurt:Suhrkamp. Tuan, Y.-F 1976. Spaceand place. Minneapolis:University of
Bourdieu,P. 1977. Outlineof a theoryof practice.Translatedby MinnesotaPress.
R. Nice. Cambridge,U.K.:CambridgeUniversityPress. . 1982. Segmentedworldsandself:Grouplifeandindividual
Casey,EdwardS. 1993. Gettingbackintoplace:Towarda renewed consciousness.Minneapolis:Universityof MinnesotaPress.
understandingof theplace-world.
Bloomington:IndianaUni- . 1996. Cosmosand hearth:A cosmopolite's viewpoint.
versityPress. Minneapolis:Universityof MinnesotaPress,1996.
1994. Cityscapeand landscape.Unpublished. Virilio,P. 1997. Opensky.TranslatedbyJ. Rose. London:Verso.
. 1997. Thefate of place:A philosophical
history.Berkeley: Wilshire,B. 1983. Role-playing andidentity.Bloomington:Indi-
Universityof CaliforniaPress. ana UniversityPress.

Departmentof Philosophy,SUNY/Stony Brook,Stony Brook,NY 11794, e-mail: [email protected].

Correspondence:

This content downloaded from 129.49.23.145 on Thu, 29 May 2014 10:50:04 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions