The Dictionary of Human Geography

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Massey (1993, p. 63) emphasized the politics of

mobilitythatderivedirectlyfromdifferentposi-

tionalities within a particular power-

geometry: ‘We need to ask whether our relative

mobility and power over mobility and commu-

nication entrenches the spatial imprisonment of

othergroups’.ForHyndman(1997,p.151),this

remainsapromissorynote,andMasseydoesnot

delve far enough into the economies of power

thatregulate, facilitate and disrupt transnational

movement. Although her argumentation-

sketches are often impressionistic and usually

operate at a high level of abstraction,

Massey’s later writings are nonetheless directed

towards the elaboration of what she calls ‘a

global sense of place’. For her, places are open,

porous and hybrid – literally, ‘meeting places’ in

which trajectories of all kinds (people, ideas,

commodities) collide – and to represent them

as containers, building blocks or objects (cf.

regional geography) is to foreclose the possi-

bilities of an intrinsically spatial politics. This

openness is not a peculiarity of modernglobal-

izationand cannot be reduced to the choreog-

raphyofcontemporarycapitalism.Overthelong

term, she proposes, different places have been

drawn into engagement with one another in ‘a

power-geometry of intersecting trajectories’

(Massey, 2005, p. 64), but there is no single,

plenary narrative withinwhich these can becon-

vened (p. 82); the outcomes of these intersec-

tionshavealwaysbeenopen-ended(thoughnot,

of course, unconstrained) because the spatial is

‘the realm of the juxtaposition of dissonant nar-

ratives’,anditisoutofthis‘throwntogetherness’

thatnewnarrativesaregeneratedandnegotiated

(pp. 140–2). Seen thus, power-geometries not

only shape and constrain mobility: they are

themselves in constant if irregular motion, so

that their analysis is necessarily both historical

andgeographical(cf.contrapuntal geograph-

ies). Place can then be recognized as ‘woven

together out of ongoing stories, as a moment

withinpower-geometries,asaparticularconstel-

lation within the widertopographiesof space’

(Massey, 2005, p. 131). dg

Suggested reading

Massey (1993); Sheppard (2002).

pragmatism An American tradition ofphil-

osophythat emerged in the late nineteenth

century associated with John Dewey (1859–

1952), William James (1842–1910), George

Herbert Mead (1863–1931) and Charles

Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) (see Barnes,

2008a). The movement is best known for the

idea that what counts as knowledge is

determined by its usefulness. As James

(1987, p. 578) wrote, ‘the true is the name of

whatever proves itself to be good in the way of

belief’. Pragmatism is thus a philosophy of

practical achievement. Ideas are labelled true

when they enable humans to get things done,

to cope with the world. After enjoying wide-

spread popularity in the first half of the twen-

tieth century, pragmatism fell out of favour

after the Second World War following the

ascendancy of empirical social science and

analytical philosophy, a narrowly conceived,

often technically abstruse form of reasoning

concerned with assessing the coherence, con-

sistency and precise meaning of an argument.

The publication of Richard Rorty’sPhilosophy

and the mirror of nature(1979) revived pragma-

tism’s fortunes, however. As an ex-analytical

philosopher, Rorty diagnosed with forensic

precision the pathology of modern philosophy,

prescribing as cure a large dose of American

pragmatism. Now found in a range ofhuman-

itiesand social sciences, the rehabilitation of

pragmatism is also a consequence of the wider

interest inpost-structuralismandpostmod-

ernism, movements with which it shares com-

mon interests.

James coined the name pragmatism in 1898

to describe the movement, but there were

always strong differences among its propon-

ents. At one point, for example, Peirce minted

his own neologism, ‘pragmaticism’, to mark

off what he was doing from his colleagues,

and sufficiently ‘ugly to be safe from kidnap-

pers’ (Bernstein, 1992a, p. 813). Bernstein

(1992b, appendix) usefully characterizes prag-

matism by five features:

(1) Anti-foundationalism, the belief that

there are no secure anchors either in the

world or in the mind that holds and guar-

antees the permanency of true know-

ledge.

(2) Fallibilism, the belief that no truth is ever

final, and that knowledge should always

be subject to further investigation, crit-

ical scrutiny, and questioning.

(3) Communal enquiry, the notion that

scholarship takes place within a wider

community involvingtrust,conversation,

and shared norms and responsibilities.

(4) Radical contingency, the belief, stem-

ming partly from Darwin’s theory of evo-

lution, that change is propelled by

chance and accident, that the only cer-

tainty is uncertainty (and for this reason

humans must always be ready to expect

the unexpected) (cf.darwinism). Peirce

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_P Final Proof page 577 1.4.2009 3:20pm

PRAGMATISM