The Dictionary of Human Geography

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organization. But these caricatures have

largely disappeared, not least through the cri-

tique of classical spatial science, the emer-

gence of post-positivist geographies and the

reformulation of regional geography. As

Phillips (2004, p. 40) concluded, ‘the debates

over idiographic/regional interpretive geog-

raphy versus nomothetic/quantitative/scientific

geography have come and (mostly) gone; con-

temporary critiques emphasizingcontextual-

ityand contingency are with us now’. dg

non-place A term coined by French anthro-

pologist Marc Auge ́to describe certain qual-

ities of airports, highways, theme parks,

motels, department stores and shopping

centres, tourist sites and so on. These sites

have in common gatherings of individuals

and groups of people who temporarily

come together at the same site, but who have

no particular bond to each other. Rather

than a social bond determining the nature

of these collective gatherings, it is typically

signs and texts that guide people’s movements

within these spaces or that direct them to

other spaces. In that latter capacity, the

non-place is a conduit, a potential that struc-

tures the gaze to some other site. Some inter-

preters take non-place to be a negation of

place (cf. placelessness) but in Auge ́’s

terms ‘place’ works dialectically with ‘non-

place’: ‘the first is never completely erased,

the second never totally completed; they

are like palimpsests on which the scrambled

game of identity and relations is ceaselessly

rewritten’ (Auge ́, 1995, pp. 78–9). But for

some critics, Auge ́has not been clear about

the dialectics of place and non-place,

and one gets the impression that a timeless

passenger/commuter subject is the sole inhab-

itant of the non-place. Against this view is one

that recognizes that those who, for example,

work in these spaces have a much richer and

more complicated relation to them and to

one another, so that it becomes necessary to

think of multiple ‘placings’ (of diverse

people, plans, histories, blueprints) as the sub-

stantive content of ‘non-places’ (Merriman,

2004). ghe

non-representational theory A style of en-

gagement with the world that aims to attend to

and intervene in the taking-place of practices.

Non-representational theory – a term first

coined inhuman geographyby Thrift (1996)

• emerged from a caution and a concern about
  the overvaluation of the ‘representational–
  referential’ dimensions of life following the

discipline’scultural turn. It responds to two

questions:

(1) How to disclose and attend to life as a

differential, expressive process of becom-

ing, where much happens before and

after conscious reflexive thought?

(2) How to foster types of description or

presentation that attempt to co-produce

new events by engaging with and inter-

vening in the practices that compose life?

Non-representational theory is not a new

paradigmthat would eliminate or supersede

others, nor does it offer a set of rules and

conventions that could form one of a number

of holistic conceptions of the world; rather,

it names a differentiated set of ways of learning

to address these two questions. Non-represen-

tational theory is consequently composed of

a multiplicity of perspectives and takes its

inspiration from a range of sources, including

Heideggerian theories of practice, post-

phenomenology, various micro-sociologies,

actor-network theory, Deleuze and

Guattari’s heterodox version of post-

structuralismand corporeal feminism (see

figure). The plural – ‘non-representational theor-

ies’ – perhaps conveys a better sense of the com-

plicated genealogy of these theories and the

constantly shifting, contestable foundations of

non-representational theory in human geography

[compare Thrift (2008) with Thrift (1996)].

Whilst non-representational theory is, irre-

deemably plural, it is held together by two

broad starting points – one an imperative, the

other a promise – and both of which have been

subject to criticisms.

First, non-representational theory affirms

animperativeto expand the foci of (‘new’)

cultural geographybeyond either a focus

on a sphere ofrepresentationor a human

subjectwho relates to the world by represent-

ing aspects of the world through an act of

interpretation (by, for example, undertaking

active ‘readings’ of dominant or residual mea-

nings). Each mirrors the other in that they

both assume that the primary relation between

an (individual or collective) subject and the

world is at the level of signification. In con-

trast, non-representational theories are theor-

ies ofpracticein that their focus is on what

humans and/or non-humansdo, and how the

reproduction and revision of practices under-

pin the genesis and maintenance of interpret-

ation and thus meaning. Whilst this move

resonates with the attention to practical logics

of thebodyin somehumanistic geographies

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_N Final Proof page 503 31.3.2009 3:13pm Compositor Name: ARaju

NON-REPRESENTATIONAL THEORY