The Dictionary of Human Geography

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knowledge, the politics of location, and the

spatial politics of identity (Yaeger, 1996; see

alsopositionality). In a wide variety of con-

texts, geographical analyses of spatial identity

thereby explore the metaphorical and material

relationships between space, identity and

power.

Post-colonial and feminist theorists have

been particularly influential in theorizing spa-

tial identity. In his classic work,Orientalism,

Edward Said (2003 [1978]) explored the

imaginative geographiesof ‘self’ and ‘other’

through the intensely politicized spaces of the

‘Orient’. Other post-colonial theorists have

explored the spatial identities bound up with

migration, diaspora and the contested

politics ofhybridity,multiculturalismand

cosmopolitanism(including Hall, 1996a). In

feminist theory, a frequently cited essay by

Minnie Bruce Pratt (1984) traces her sense

of identity through multiple spaces of home

andmemory. Other feminist theorists have

theorized the interplay ofgenderand other

identities in place, over space, and in shaping

the production of space and knowledge. In her

analysis of ‘locationalfeminism’, for example,

Susan Stanford Friedman (1998) explores the

critical interplay of space and identity through

different discourses of positionality. As part of

these discourses, ‘situational approaches’ not

only ‘assume that identity resists fixity, but

they particularly stress how it shifts fluidly

from setting to setting’, whereby ‘[e]ach situ-

ation presumes a certain setting as site for

the interplay of different axes of power and

powerlessness’ (p. 23). ab

Suggested reading

Friedman (1998); Hall (1996); Keith and Pile

(1993); Pratt (1984).

spatial interaction Atermpopularizedby

Edward Ullman (1980) to indicate the inter-

dependence between geographical regions,

which he saw as complementary to the more

traditionalemphasisonrelationships(people

and their social context, people and environ-

ment)withineach individual region.flows

of information, money, people and commod-

ities thus lay at the heart of Ullman’s vision,

and he hoped it would provide a unifying

frame forgeography. This has not hap-

pened, and few geographers now refer to

Ullman’s book or his specific ideas.

However, much work in human geography

in the past 30 years has taken up this theme

and many would see ‘spatial interaction’ as

central to geographers’ concerns and

contributions, without being aware of

Ullman’s work. This is true of both quanti-

tative work on modelling spatial movements

and spatial spillovers and qualitative work on

local–global linkages and contexts. lwh

Suggested reading

Ullman (1980).

spatial mismatch The notion that con-

straints on residential choice prevent members

of certain groups from adequate access to

employment (also referred to as the spatial

mismatch hypothesis). Urban economist John

Kain first used the term in the 1960s to

describe the impacts of residentialsegrega-

tionand housing market discrimination on

the employment opportunities and earnings

of black residents of Chicago and Detroit

(Kain, 1968). In a retrospective published

after his death (Kain, 2004), Kain noted that

he later extended the concept to include other

negative impacts, such as those on home

ownership and quality of education, and of

discrimination in the housing market.

Following Kain’s early lead, most research

on spatial mismatch has sought to understand

the extent to which the black–white disparity

in earnings can be explained by blacks’ inferior

spatial accessibility to employment. As

employment, and particularly manufacturing

employment, increasinglysuburbanizedafter

the Second World War, access to such employ-

ment depended on a suburban residential

location; but a variety of discriminatory prac-

tices in the housing market prevented blacks

from moving to the suburbs. As a result,

blacks were confined to inner-city neighbour-

hoods, which were increasingly bereft of

manufacturing jobs.

Until recently, research on spatial mismatch

concentrated on comparing the residential and

employment patterns andcommutingtimes

of black and white men; McLafferty and

Preston (1997) and others have shown the

importance of expanding such studies to other

racialized groups such as Latinos/Latinas, and

to women.

Evidence supporting the spatial mismatch

hypothesis was one factor that led the US

Department of Housing and Urban

Development(HUD)toinitiateanexperimental

programme, ‘Moving to Opportunity’, to help

low-income people from high-povertyneigh-

bourhoods to move to racially integrated,

low-poverty suburban locations. Subsequent

studies have evaluated the extent to which

such residential mobility and the resulting

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SPATIAL MISMATCH