For Space

By Doreen Massey

Book Overview

"The reason for my enthusiasm for this book is that Doreen Massey manages to describe a certain way of perceiving movement in space which I have been - and still am - working with on different levels in my work: i.e. the idea that space is not something static and neutral, a frozen entity, but is something intertwined with time and thus ever changing - also when we are not occupying it. Doreen′s descriptions of her journey through England for example are clear and precise accounts of this idea, and she very sharply characterizes the attempts not to recognize this idea as utopian and nostalgic."
- Olafur Eliasson

In this book, Doreen Massey makes an impassioned argument for revitalising our imagination of space. She takes on some well-established assumptions from philosophy, and some familiar ways of characterising the twenty-first century world, and shows how they restrain our understanding of both the challenge and the potential of space.

The way we think about space matters. It inflects our understandings of the world, our attitudes to others, our politics. It affects, for instance, the way we understand globalisation, the way we approach cities, the way we develop, and practice, a sense of place. If time is the dimension of change then space is the dimension of the social: the contemporaneous co-existence of others. That is its challenge, and one that has been persistently evaded. For Space pursues its argument through philosophical and theoretical engagement, and through telling personal and political reflection. Doreen Massey asks questions such as how best to characterise these so-called spatial times, how it is that implicit spatial assumptions inflect our politics, and how we might develop a responsibility for place beyond place.

This book is "for space" in that it argues for a reinvigoration of the spatiality of our implicit cosmologies. For Space is essential reading for anyone interested in space and the spatial turn in the social sciences and humanities. Serious, and sometimes irreverent, it is a compelling manifesto: for re-imagining spaces for these times and facing up to their challenge.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1412903629
• ISBN13: 9781412903622
• Release Date: March 2005
• Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 0.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.8" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

A beautiful work of critical theory

While this is a critical theory book, it should be fairly accessible for any curious mind. Dr. Massey weaves stories from her locale (London and the surrounding countryside) into her "deep" theoretical claims, making it more accessible than many other philosophy and theory books. She makes claims such as, "Space is a process...an ongoing product of interconnections" (p.107), and then, unlike other critical theory books I've read, actually backs-up her claim with poignant examples that are easy to grasp. The entire book is a good, soild read--not just for geographers, but for anyone interested in critical theory. I can see it being used in an upper-division university course, though to get the most out of it, a graduate level course might be more appropriate. I find myself opened to another level of thought and awareness of my world around me because fo this book. And not many books I've read have done that! My favorite sections include "Travelling Imaginations" and "Elusiveness of Space".