Space (social sciences) - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Explanation

Evolution of the Concept of space in social sciences

If hard sciences (physics, mathematics) built clear definitions of the concept of “space”, a precise definition of the space studied such as it is studied by social sciences, in particular the Géographie spent time to be formulated.

The epistemological reflection on the concept of space in social sciences starts in the Années 1960 and 1970, although she does not arrive, at the time, with maturity. Indeed, the geographical schools reflecting on the direction of the concept of space had managed to see space only in the shape of a substrate, secondary, supporting other processes: realities sociological, economic, historical, representations… It was to say that the economic, sociological and historical processes took form in space and that space was an absolute “place” where the company was carried out. The reflection thus took the form of a tautology, since the definition of space was that of a space where social reality developed. A space, that it is that of the economic exchanges or that of the class struggle, is well a space. Nothing of nine were known as in connection with space itself and space remained impensé .

Four manners of thinking space in geography can be released:

the geography physicist sees space like an absolute reality: conditions géo-climatic are seen as stable (there exists an intertropical space climatic which cannot change), the areas exist as such (America is America and will remain America);
the geography culturalist sees the space positioning of the cultures like absolute realities: there are for example a definite space of Western civilization and a definite space of Moslem civilization;
a relativistic geography sees space reality as the fruit of a set of forces within the framework of a system, making that each element of the system is located spatially according to the other elements. For example, it is possible to study the localization of the job offers compared to the applicants for work; but each element is seen an absolute atomic reality: one neglects the diversity of the choices of the human actors;
the geography of the beginning of the 21e century keeps the systems design but sees the elements like fluctuating and free realities of them (“geographical actors”), making that the relationship between elements never is really predetermined.

Psychology with anthropology while passing by the geography and town planning, the concept of space emerges more and more within the social sciences. We can initially speak about spaces in political sciences of the city and all that joined contemporary town planning. There exists initially the functionalist concept developed by Le Corbusier in France in the years 1970, which proposes to create districts which would be genuine machines to be lived. All would be conceived to live comfortably, near to nature, without car. But it misses with this concept a crucial point: communication networks able to create and ensure a minimum of social link which could perennialize these spaces. It is on this point that the thinkers of space, of the anthropologists or social psychologists, mobilize ideas on the relationship between space as a material support, as tallies, and as a human volume of activity.

Space and interactionnism

The concepts of space, places and proxemy come us from a tendency to be interested in the social sciences starting from the individual and from the interactions which it has with the other individuals. G. Simmel was one of the principal instigators. For him space is seen like a mediation with an exclusive character. It is the place of the reciprocal actions of the individuals governed by rules and standards. The tradition saw space like material support, like container nongiven by the contents. But another appeared tradition which sees space depend on the contents: “Space it is the order of coexistent”. Simmel will take again this tradition which comes us from the philosopher Leibniz to see in space a third voice: relativism and interactionnism. Space is a system of positions and relation of positions. What shows in what space with a bond with the interactions of the individuals, the reciprocal relations.

This third voice, E. Goffman brings its stone to it to the building. Indeed, near to the Simmeliennes theories, Goffman shows in what it is important in social sciences to be interested in the individual interactions. It shows that the individual actions in a given space are only one theatrical metaphor. Each individual would be an actor who plays a part precise in conformity with space in which it is and in conformity with waitings of the other involved people. This play makes it possible not to lose the face and not to make it lose with the others. That makes it possible to avoid faintnesses and the conflicts.

When one only finds oneself in a private place, one does not play any more a part to return in the slides where one slackens. According to Goffman, one can play several different parts according to the people and of attended spaces. There would thus not be one “me” but several “me” for each individual. Space would be thus not only one framework material but also carrying significances for the individuals who are there in interaction.

Isaac Joseph, tries to include/understand the city compared to the interactions of the individuals and by the process of appropriation of public space. For him public space is accessible when several worlds the division. One there acts only or together by the means of individual meetings, the experiment of each one and the relation between them. The individual for him is determined by the structure of the city and it adapts to it by sociability and the visibility. Like Goffman, he explains why each individual done a work of figuration. Moreover, it shows that there exist the ritual ones with each space. In public spaces there exists a common language in the exposure to the others, for and by the others. It also connects the intimacy and public space, with the others. It shows that one of these ritual, that of the avoidance is frequent in order not to violate the intimacy of others: public space and intimacy are thus not incompatible.

A social psychology of space

For K. Lynch which is interested in town planning by space and the identity, the difficulty of a positive definition of the urban identity comes mainly owing to the fact that the concept of identity is resulting from the field of psychology and applied initially to the individual. The idea of " the identity urbaine" becomes operational as from the moment when one regards an urban community as a social actor. Thus, the urban identity can be defined as the process of fitting and structuring of the whole of the representations that the various internal and external social groups of a city are made of it, of its past, its present and its future, and this at a given time of the history. It thus conceives space through the identity, the structures and the significances.

Jean Remy wants to give to space a theoretical statute by giving him an isolated explanatory statute but in connection with other social determinants. For him space can influence the formation of networks of interaction but also the representation of oneself and his report/ratio to the others. He will speak then about the analysis of the stress fields and possible that space contributes to constitute.

G.N. Fisher in “social psychology of space” recall the relationship between space and human activity by specifying that our behaviors are influenced according to “the material environment given”, that they are formed by the space but which they form themselves space. For Fisher the relationship between the Man and space is a mediator of the communication, “Man-environment-Man”. Fisher specifies that space is regarded as an entity external with the individual but who works out significances that each one interprets according to its culture, his education etc the techniques employed of appropriation of space will be then different according to these factors; the significances that this same space will return us in will be reorganized. G.N. Fisher wants to then show the relationship between the space and the various types of freedoms: principal, marginal and interstitial, worked out by A. Moles. They are dependant on the space in which we are. Certain spaces have more constraints and lock up the freedom of the Man in a delimited field - the material limits of the space in which the Man is can symbolize this delimitation of freedom. Other spaces make it possible to extend the limits like a rubber band, without breaking them. Finally last spaces make it possible to pass in the natural cracks which these limits have.

Like A. Moles, Fisher thinks space as a representation and meaning for the Man: “Space exists only by what fills”. First of all it shows us the difference between space and the place: a place is different from space in that which it has an identity, a human appropriation by representations. The place is then a space which with a particular significance for the Man. According to A.S. Bailly each individual with his own representation of the space in which it is. This author who has a more cognitive approach, precise that our representations are founded on the appearance of the object and not on the object itself. We can see the material reality of a place, only since the point of view from where one is, according to our personal experiences, our identity and our culture. The appropriation of a space can be done only by taking into account this concept of representation of this one.

Fisher and Moles also speak about micro the mediums which are at “the base of the structures of the behavior”: “what is close for me (here, now) is more important than what is remote (formerly, elsewhere)”. They want to thus show the dialectical one between the environment social and geographical of the Man and the human activity, his representations, its cultures and its values.

Space and anthropology

A. Moles however has an anthropological approach more . When he speaks about Proxémie, he approaches the anthropological concepts of H.T. Hall. This last explains why each space has a character at the same time sociofuge and sociopète: it supports the contact while knowing to limit the distances between individuals. Thanks to a demonstration which leaves the ethology, it shows in “the hidden dimension” which there exist four types of existing space distances in each culture: the distance intimates, the personal distance, the social distance and the distance public. Each one varies according to the people, the companies and the places in which we are. The proxemy explains then how the space and organized in the human society according to the cultural factors. It enables us to include/understand how we adapt ourselves space, and how this one encourages us to be organized of such or such manner according to the representations that one has some and according to the standards and rules in strengths. E.T.Hall shows us that to it bubble outdistances which separates us from the others is different according to the cultures. Conflicts can be generated because of these misunderstandings. This difference of personal sphere which surrounds us and which protects us from the others, influence our manner of organizing space and of practicing it. E.T. Hall gives in example Japan, Europe and the United States of America: the style of urban development and domestic of the habitat of each one of these places geographical is disagreement according to their manner of practicing space.

By including/understanding the practices of space and by leaving to side a geographical and functionalist mink of space, the thinkers of the proxemy opened new ways in research on space and the urban social link.

Current approach of the concept of space in social sciences

This philosophical of space, relational new approach (since she considers that the points find their reality according to their relations) and relativist (since she does not regard space as a reality in oneself ), makes possible a “dimensional” approach: space is one of dimensions of reality. Thus, if a company can be studied according to its economic relations, of its social relations, of its history, it can be studied according to the dimension of its space.

space is real: it has consequences on all the objects, as much as the economy, the history or sociology.
space is relational: the positions of the objects do not exist in oneself, but depend on the distance between the elements.
space is not étudiable in oneself: space is a dimension of apprehension and not a étudiable object. Same manner that the history is the study of time in the economic relations, the social relations, the representation or the individuals, and that to study time, in itself, does not have a direction in social sciences, it is impossible to study space in itself . This position is the spatialism , shared by certain geographers, who study space like a thing in oneself and the common direction, which most of the time does not regard space as a functional dimension of human reality.

Three epistemological consequences of the new approach of space

the opposition between a place (specific) and a surface (extent spatially) is not any more setting. The place becomes one of the forms of space, conceived in a specific way and in which the bond with what surrounds evolves/moves between enclavement (infinite distance) and ubiquity (null distance). The techniques of reduction of the distances are: the Co-presence, mobility, telecommunication.
the company forms a very systemic , subject of research social science. The all is not delimited in juxtaposed parts (company, economy, space, time…) some would be more powerful than others (like the epistemological imperialism of the historicists, the economists or the sociologists wants it). The all comprises various dimensions: economy, sociology, history, space, political, individuality,… and it space is one of dimensions of the company: all the social elements are characterized by a certain distance compared to the others and all the strategies, policies, acts, ideologies, technologies, knowledge of the social actors necessarily take into account (even unconsciously) the dimension of the distance. All the company is with space dimension and all space is with social dimension. But the company is not only space. Any study of the company, from a space point of view, must take into account the whole of the economic, historical and sociological characteristics. Thus, the concept of “socio-space” is a pleonasm, since the researcher must always take into account the whole of dimensions sociétale in his scientific approach.
space can be studied at the same time in its material component (distance between the elements), in its idéelle component (designs that the elements are made of the distance), and in its immaterial component (use of telecommunications to reduce the distance, without reducing it “materially”).

A space

Social object defined by its space dimension.

A space is characterized by three fundamental attributes: Metric scale (size of space), (manner of measuring space), Substance (nonspace dimension of the space objects).

A minimal space is a Chorotype. Compositions of chorotype is a Géotype. The three types of relations between spaces are: Interface, Cospatialité, Fitment.

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