The Dictionary of Human Geography

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and borrows from various forms of micro-soci-

ology, a critical difference is that practices tend

to be conceptualized as processually emergent

compositions of human and non-human

materialities (Whatmore, 2002a). From

within this context, practices are understood

as always embodied and composed of a set of

modalities – includingaffect and emotion

(seeemotional geography) – that do not

have to cross over a threshold of signification

to achieve political effects (see Harrison,

2000). One forceful response to this has been

to claim that non-representational theory

cleaves the non-representational from the rep-

resentational and installs a dualism between

the two by attending to the former and ignor-

ing the varied effects of the latter. But Dews-

bury, Harrison, Rose and Wylie (2002) take

care to stress that non-representational theor-

ies are not anti-representation (cf. Jones,

2008) but, rather, conceptualize representa-

tions as ‘presentations’. That is, representa-

tions are not understood as masks or veils

that express somea priorisystem of transcend-

ent categorizations, but are instead encoun-

tered as constitutive elements within

practices (although this has raised questions

about how to develop conceptual vocabularies

for describing the a-signifying effects of differ-

ent forms of ‘presentations’ that do not repro-

duce a naive psychologism or a cause/effect

model). Non-representational theory, then,

enacts a break with the version ofcultureas

structuralizing/signifying that defined the

‘new’ cultural geography. Such a move is

seen as a necessary response to a contempor-

ary political moment in which various non-

representational modalities – including affect

• are caught up in the emergence of new forms
  ofsovereign powerandbiopower(Thrift,
  2008; but see Barnett, 2008).
  Second, non-representational theory ex-
  presses the promise of encountering a now
  expanded social as a practical achievement –
  anorderingrather than an order – emergent
  from multiple spatially and temporally distan-
  ciated relations. The result has been an atten-
  tion to how more or less durable, differentially
  extensive, orderings are composed from rela-
  tions between human and non-human actors –
  or perhaps more properlyactants(seeactor-
  network theory).societythen becomes a
  set of partially connectednetworksorassem-
  blagesin which embodied, expressive prac-
  tices act as the ongoing basis for coherence
  and change (Rose, 2002b). Recent work has
  moved to address early criticisms that such a
  focus on the non-representational reproduces
  or even celebrates a figure of the undifferenti-
  ated human (Nash, 2000) by exploring how

NORTH

AMERICA

1860

Mead

Husserl

Bergson

Goffman

Blumer

Garfinkel

Bachelard

Wittgenstein

Heidegger

Benjamin

Merleau-Ponty

de CerteauDeleuzeFoucaultIrigarayBourdieu

Giddeas

Bakhtin

Vygotsky

1870

1880

1890

1900

1910

1920

Shotter

Haraway Butler Game Grosz Latour Law

1980s

1960s

1940 s

1930

1940

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

CONTINENTAL EUROPE

RUSSIA

AND

EASTERN

EUROPE

non-representational theory The life-time-lines of non-representational theory(from Thrift, 1999)

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_N Final Proof page 504 31.3.2009 3:13pm Compositor Name: ARaju

NON-REPRESENTATIONAL THEORY