The Dictionary of Human Geography

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As many, particularly feminist, scholars

working in philosophy and science and tech-

nology studies make clear, the importance of

hybridity in these terms is that it insists that

questions ofsocial justicecannot be under-

stood in terms of human relations or reasoning

alone, and invitesethicaland political pro-

jects that re-frame these questions in terms of

the more-than-human company of bodies,

technologies and forces implicated in, and con-

sequential for, the conduct of social life. sw

Suggested reading

Bhabha (1994); Castree and Nash (2004); Har-

away (1991); Latour (1993); Pratt (1992);

Whatmore (2002a).

hyperspace Hyperspace has four or more

dimensions. Geographical tradition privileges

location and three (Euclidean) dimensions: (x,

y,z) or (Easting, Northing and height)(see

euclidean space). Yet, it is rarely justwhere

something happens that is important but also

when, giving a fourth dimension: time. Space–

time is therefore a hyperspace that becomes

more complex (e.g. to visualize) if variables

recordingwhathappened (or what is found)

are treated as further dimensions of the space.

The literary critic Frederic Jameson (1991, pp.

38–44) famously described multi-dimensional

‘hyperspace’ as the characteristicspatialityof

postmodernity that disrupts and exceeds

conventional modes ofrepresentation. rh

Suggested reading

Mlodinow (2001).

hypothesis A provisional idea requiring fur-

ther assessment to test its merit. The etymo-

logical origin is from the Greek meaning ‘to

put under, suppose’. Withingeography, the

formalization of hypotheses was closely asso-

ciated with thequantitative revolution,in

which the ‘supposed’ was a scientific state-

ment capable of empirical testing using formal

statistical techniques (see alsodeduction).

In its early use, however, ‘hypothesis’ meant

an imagined idea, with only a distant connec-

tion to the real. In 1616, Cardinal Bellarmine

(1542–1621) warned Galileo Galilei (1564–

1642) not ‘to hold or defend’ the idea of a

heliocentric solar system, but to treat is as a

‘hypothesis’, not reality. And a similar sense

was given to the term when Sir Isaac Newton

(1643–1727) said about his theory of gravity:

‘I feign no hypotheses’ – that is, his work was

based on observation and experiment, not

speculation. By the nineteenth century, in

contrast, the use of hypotheses was increas-

ingly seen as an integral part of the very prac-

tice of science– not at odds with it, as

Newton implied. Hypotheses were where sci-

ence began; with interesting but as yet unproven

ideas that stemmed from scientifictheoryor

models. Whether hypotheses were accepted

depended upon the criteria applied. Criteria

have included: simplicity (the capacity to min-

imize new explanatory entities); scope (the

power to maximize the domain of application);

fruitfulness (the capability to generate future

hypotheses); fit (the compatibility with other

hypotheses); and, perhaps most important, em-

pirical fidelity (the ability to match the facts).

This last criterion was taken up and formal-

ized within the discipline of statistics from the

late nineteenth century. In the late 1920s, the

statisticians Jerzy Neyman (1894–1981) and

Egon Pearson (1895–1980) set out what was

to become the standard framework for statis-

tical hypothesis testing that proved so influen-

tial in geography. They provided step-by-step

procedures stipulating how to frame a hypoth-

esis and how to assess its empirical merit rig-

orously and precisely. Formulating the null

hypothesiswas step one. Accepting the conser-

vative supposition that it is better to assume

that one is wrong rather than right, the null

hypothesis stated the opposite of what one

believed to be correct. The remaining steps

then defined what was necessary in order ei-

ther to reject or accept the hypothesis for the

specified level of statistical significance.

The first widespread use of the Neyman–

Pearson procedures for statistical hypothesis

testing in geography occurred in the mid-

1950s, at the start of the Quantitative Revolu-

tion. This transformation of the geographical

agenda intospatial sciencewas also associated

with the introduction of formal theory, which

generated a plethora of hypotheses to be tested.

Newman (1973, p. 22) reports that in 1971, at

the height of the Quantitative Revolution, 26

per cent of all papers published in the top three

American geographical journals were con-

cerned with hypothesis testing. That seems im-

pressive, but Newman doubted whether many

of the authors understood what they were

doing, and whether they were doing it correctly.

The point became moot, however, as human

geographers increasingly abandoned formal hy-

pothesis testing, and the very vocabulary of a

hypothesis. But they have never lost sight of the

importance of ‘imagined ideas’. tb

Suggested reading

Harvey (1969, 100–6).

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_H Final Proof page 362 1.4.2009 3:18pm

HYPERSPACE