The Dictionary of Human Geography

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displaced theseethnocentrismsand allowed

for a heightened sense of global division and

distinction.

In English, the word ‘continent’ was not

used to denote major divisions of theglobe

until the early seventeenth century. In the

course of the eighteenth and nineteenth

centuries, those differences were calcified by

doctrines ofenvironmental determinism:

the continents were distinguished by the

supposedly intimate, and even causal, connec-

tions between their physical and human geog-

raphies. The categories of the emergent

‘continental system’ were thus naturalized,

‘coming to be regarded not as products of

a fallible human imagination but as real entities

that had been ‘‘discovered’’ through empirical

inquiry’ (Lewis and Wigen, 1977, p. 30).

The arbitrary nature of the continental schema

is revealed by the different systems

in contemporary use (see table), but while

these have little or no scientific merit they

nonetheless often retain considerable popular

and geopolitical significance. (See alsometa-

geography.) dg

contrapuntal geographies Thenetworks

through which people and events in different

places around the world are connected in

a complex, dynamic and uneven web that

bothmaintains their specificityandmobilizes

their interactions. Contrapuntal geographies

thus reject two conventional prejudices: the

uniqueness ofplaceand the universality of

space. Places are not closed and self-sufficient,

but neither is (global) space open and increas-

ingly self-similar. The term derives from the

work of Edward Said (1935–2003), a literary

critic with a livelygeographical imagination.

He regarded ‘contrapuntal reading’ as an

indispensable part of cultural critique, and

particularly of the critique ofcolonialism.

Said argued thateurope– and the ‘west’ more

generally – relied on a myth of auto-genesis

(self-production) that representedmodernity

as the unique product of the actions of

Europeans, who then had both the right and

the responsibility to reach out to bring to

others the fruits of progress that would other-

wise be beyond their grasp. He objected to this

not only for its narcissism but also for its

essentialism: in his view, all cultures are

hybrids, ‘contrapuntal ensembles’. This was

partly a matter of material fact – networks of

commodity exchange, ofmigrationand the

like – and partly a matter of cultural construc-

tion: ‘Noidentitycan ever exist by itself and

without an array of opposites, negatives, oppo-

sitions’ (Said, 1993, p. 58: see alsoimagina-

tive geographies). It was therefore essential

to bring these ‘overlapping territories [and]

intertwined histories’ together.

Said was an accomplished musician and

his rootmetaphorwas a musical one: ‘In the

counterpoint of Western classical music, vari-

ous themes play off one another, with only

a provisional privilege being given to any par-

ticular one; yet in the resulting polyphony

there is concert and order, an organized inter-

play that derives from the themes, not from a

rigorous melodic or formal principle outside

the work. In the same way, I believe, we

can read and interpret English novels .. .’

(Said, 1993, p. 51). There are three crucial

points about such a project as it spirals beyond

literary criticism:

(1) Contrapuntal geographies are rarely trans-

parent and their disclosure requires both

theoretical and analytical acuity. Another

literary critic, Frederic Jameson, regarded

contrapuntal reading as vital to the inter-

pretation of the colonial world by virtue of

‘the systematic occultation of colony from

metropolis’butarguedthatglobalization

hasproducedan‘epistemologicaltranspar-

ency’. This is precisely the universality

rejected by Said’s conception (cf. Gregory,

2004b, pp. 11–12).

(2) Contrapuntal geographies may disclose

‘concert and order’, but this must not

be mistaken for harmony or equilibrium:

their movements are orchestrated

through differential relations ofpower

(see also transculturation). Said’s

(1993, p. 279) own account focused on

a particular modality of power, by seeing

‘Western and non-Western experiences

as belonging together because they are

connected by imperialism’.

Modern continental systems

Antarctica Australia South

America

North

America

Europe Asia Africa

Antarctica Australia South

America

North

America

Eurasia Africa

Antarctica Australia America Eurasia Africa

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_C Final Proof page 113 31.3.2009 9:45pm

CONTRAPUNTAL GEOGRAPHIES