The Dictionary of Human Geography

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Suggested reading

Haraway (1991, ch. 9).

situationists/situationism The Situationist

International (SI) was a group of revolutionar-

ies based in Westerneuropebetween 1957 and

1972, committed to transforming dominant

social and spatial relations. Their critiques of

capitalistas well as actually existingsocialist

statesowed much to Marx as well as earlier

avant-gardes such as Dada and surrealism. The

group launched an uncompromising attack on

the forces upholding what they believed were

the alienating conditions of ‘the society of the

spectacle’, characterized by the increasing

colonization of social life by the commodity.

They sought to encourage existing revolts

against hierarchical power by theoretically and

practically articulating forms of revolutionary

contestation. At the same time, they experi-

mented with means of criticizing and freely

constructing daily life. Geography was central

to this endeavour, as they understood cities in

particular as both key sites in the reproduction

of social relations of domination, and potential

realms of freedom and possibility. The situ-

ationist Guy Debord thus argued that the ‘pro-

letarian revolution is thatcritique of human

geographywhereby individuals and communi-

ties must construct places and events commen-

surate with the appropriation, no longer just of

their labour, but of their total history’ (Debord,

1994 [1967], thesis 178).

The SI remained small, with a total mem-

bership of 70, from 16 different countries.

Developing their positions through a range of

texts and artistic, cultural and political activ-

ities, the situationists were highly critical of the

orthodox Left, and referred to undermining

rather than contributing to specialist arenas

ofartand academia. They therefore rejected

the term ‘situationism’, claiming that it was a

meaningless invention by opponents who were

seeking to reduce their activities to a fixed

dogma. The influence of the situationists has

nevertheless been considerable and, after years

of marginalization, has been increasingly rec-

ognized and reassessed. Interest has focused

on their critique of the spectacle, and their

associated critiques of urbanism and everyday

life. Also influential have been practices of

psychogeographyas means of exploring and

seeking ways to transform cities, and tech-

niques ofde ́tournement, involving the hijacking

of materials to create new meanings and

effects (McDonough, 2002).

Situationist practices were utopian in their

attempts to transform space and society

through the ‘construction of situations’ and

the production of a ‘unitary urbanism’, which

found its most vivid expression in projects by

the Dutch artist Constant for a nomadic and

ludic New Babylon, and in their later concern

with political–theoretical critique in the name

of realizing what was hidden yet possible in

modern life. Returning to the SI’s utopianism

and its critiques ofurbanism, is not only of

historical interest, it has been argued, but can

also serve to challenge how urban spaces are

imagined and constructed, and to encourage

struggles for alternatives (Pinder, 2005c; see

utopia).Resonances between situationist prac-

tices and contemporary political actions, espe-

cially over the production and contestation of

space and in opposition to spectacular power,

further demonstrate that, despite the ‘strange

respectability’ that aspects of their project have

recently accrued (Swyngedouw, 2002), they

remain politically highly charged. dp

Suggested reading

Pinder (2005c). See also Situationist International

Online, at http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/.

Sjoberg model Amodelof social and spa-

tial order of thepre-industrial city, first

expressed in Gideon Sjoberg’s book of the

same title (1960). Sjoberg’s model arises from

his desire to provide a critique of, and alterna-

tive to, the concentriczonal modelof the city

offered by Ernest Burgess and, more generally,

ofhuman ecologyas applied by prominent

members of thechicago school. As such,

Sjoberg’s work was part of a larger project,

initiated by Walter Firey (1947), to replace

human ecology withstructural functional-

ismas the centralparadigmof urban sociology

(p. 12). The major factors used to explain

urbanmorphologyin Sjoberg’s model are

social structure and technology.

Sjoberg begins by differentiating between

non-urban,feudaland industrial societies.

He is concerned with the second of these:

societies that utilize animate sources of energy,

and are literate and urbanized, including all

worldcivilizationsprior to theindustrial

revolution as well as non-industrialized

contemporary societies. He argues that feudal,

or pre-industrial, societies everywhere, and

through time, are characterized by similar

technological achievements and a three-tiered

classstructure that includes a small ruling

class, a large lower class and outcast groups.

The ruling class, comprised of those in reli-

gious and administrative authority, establishes

a social order that reproduces its control

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SJOBERG MODEL