The Dictionary of Human Geography

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monopoly rent, to raise rents artificially above

levels they would otherwise attain. Harvey ini-

tially applied the idea of monopoly rent to the

city, but it has been Smith who has systemat-

ically worked through a Marxist analysis of

urban rent. Key for him is the idea of therent

gap, which represents the difference between

the actual rent charged for a given plot of land,

and the potential rent that could be charged if

that plot was developed according to its best

use. For Smith, the rent gap is a result of the

inherentlyuneven developmentof capital-

ism. Only when the rent gap is significantly

large will it be filled by landowners and capit-

alists colluding in a process of redevelopment,

and producing maximum potential rents. Rent

levels are not the consequence of unfettered

market forces, but the deliberative power of

social classes to intervene and manipulate for

their utmost gain. tjb

Suggested reading

Sheppard and Barnes (1990).

rent gap The gap between the currentrent

on a piece of land (the ‘capitalized ground

rent’) and its potential rent under another

use (the ‘potential ground rent’). Developed

by Smith (1979c) and emphasizing capital

flows in the production of residential space,

rent gap theory is a crucial element of the

analysis ofgentrification. It suggests that

disinvestment in inner-cityneighbourhoods

reduces capitalized ground rent. When this

rent is sufficiently lower than potential ground

rent, opportunities for profit-making through

reinvestment occur, leading to residential

change. The theory has been criticized, how-

ever, for downplaying the role of individual

gentrifiers’ choices in shaping inner-city

neighbourhoods (Hamnett, 1991). em

Suggested reading

Clark (1995); Smith (1996).

representation A complex concept not only

because of the intricate disputes inartand

literature to which its traditional usage

refers, but also because of the variety of its

applications in modern and postmodern cri-

tiques of Westernepistemology(seemodern-

ism; postmodernism). At its minimum,

representation is conventionally defined as a

symbol or image, or as the process of

rendering something (an object, event, idea or

perception) intelligible and identifiable. Bring-

ing together the achievements of Renaissance

art (the ‘discovery’ of perspective) and

enlightenment language (scientific objec-

tivity, classificatory order), this ‘naturalist’

or ‘realist’ theory of representation is charac-

terized by the relationship between two

assumed metaphysical constants: the artist/

viewer (or universal, visual experience) on the

one hand, andnature(or the objects of exter-

nal reality) on the other. From this perspective,

the history of representation is the study of

constant mutations reflecting the increasing

sophistication of artistic execution in relation

to the changing appearances of the world.

However, morphology and advancing technical

expertise are not by themselves history: indeed,

‘history is the dimension [this understanding

of representation] exactly negates’ (Bryson,

1983). Recognizing this, representation is

analogous to what Edmund Husserl (1859–

1938) calls the ‘natural attitude’, a perspective

whose increasingly fidelity to a reality ‘out

there’ is as much a scientific and aesthetic

practice as it is an epistemological premise.

‘It is the aim of the sciences issuing from the

natural attitude to attain a knowledge of the

world more comprehensive, more reliable,

and in every respect more perfect than that

offered by the information received by experi-

ence’ (Husserl, in Heath, 1972). It is Husserl’s

student, Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), how-

ever, who most decisively equates representa-

tion with science/knowledge and posits it as

the foundation – and fateful flaw – of Western

philosophy. Manifest in what Heidegger

called the modern ‘age of the world picture’,

the representational model depends on the

construal of truth as ‘correspondence’ or

‘accordance’ (Heidegger, 1962 [1927]). Re-

presentation or ‘En-framing’ (Ge-stell) thus

not only assumes that the world is purely

‘present-at-hand’ (vorhanden), an object to be

submitted to our pitiless and possessive gaze,

but turns it into a ‘standing reserve’ for our

technical domination and habitual instrumen-

talization. What such an attitude forgets,

however, is that the ‘world is never [that] which

stands before us and can be seen’ (Heidegger,

1962 [1927]). Rather, true experience for Hei-

degger is a matter of ‘uncovering’ the hidden,

of revealing what might be concealed rather

than accurately and anonymously representing

what appears to be.

But if Heidegger’s indictment of representa-

tion suggests a phenomenological critique (see

phenomenology), other analyses insist on the

historical specificity of representation and its

implication in the production of knowledge.

For Michel Foucault (1926–84), representa-

tion not only has a history but a precise

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REPRESENTATION