The Dictionary of Human Geography

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modern world in which ‘all that is solid

melts into air’, and where a dizzying spiral

of accelerating change sustains the ‘ver-

tigo of the modern’ as a cultural domin-

ant. For Giddens also emphasized the

importance of archives, record-keeping

andsurveillanceto the conduct of social

life, so that (in principle, at least) time–

space distanciation connects more dir-

ectly the roles ofgovernmentalityand

memoryin latemodernitythan either of

the other two concepts.

(2) Giddens offered an outline sketch of the

historical trajectory of time–space distan-

ciation that was also intended to be an

analytical map of different types of soci-

ety. In contrast, discussions of time–space

compression have largely been limited to

its role within contemporarycapitalism,

while time–space convergence is a purely

formal concept concerned with calibrat-

ing convergence rather than examining its

constitution within different societies.

Giddens claimed thattribal societiesare char-

acterized by low levels of time–space distancia-

tion – the capacity for social memory is limited

and most interactions are localized – and by

little substantive distinction between ‘political’

and ‘economic’ power. With the emergence of

class-divided societiessuch as those of European

feudalism, the level of time–space distancia-

tion increases, largely through the political

powers extended to and through thestate.

The transition to theclass societiesofcapitalism

is achieved through the greater prominence of

economic power, especially throughindustri-

alization, and is marked by much higher levels

of time–space distanciation. In his early texts,

Giddens (1984, 1985) emphasized the mobil-

ization of systems of writing, recording and

surveillance (modalities of ‘political power’)

and systems of monetization and commodifi-

cation (modalities of ‘economic power’), but in

his later texts he became much more interested

in the constitution of contemporary or ‘high’

modernity. There, Giddens (1990, 1991) dis-

tinguished between:

 expert systems, which ‘bracket time and

space through deploying modes of tech-

nical knowledge which have validity inde-

pendent of the practitioners and clients

who make use of them’; and

 symbolic tokens, which are ‘media of ex-

change which have standard value and thus

are interchangeable across a plurality of

contexts’.

Together, these constituted abstract systems

which, so Giddens argued, penetrate all as-

pects ofeveryday lifeand in so doing under-

mine local practices andlocal knowledges;

they dissolve the ties that once held the con-

ditions of daily life inplaceand recombine

them across much larger expanses ofspace

(cf.globalization).

Giddens’ argumentation-sketch has been

subject to several criticisms. The most common

objection is that it lacks sufficient historical

and geographical specificity (cf. Harris,

1991). In treating space as a gap to be over-

come, it represents space as a barrier to inter-

action – as a void to be transcended,

incorporated and subjugated – and in doing

so activates conventional conceptions ofplace

andspace(cf.contrapuntal geographies)

and repeats the characteristic movement of

Western master-narratives more generally to

recover what eludes them as lacunae, margins,

‘blank spaces’ on the map. This intersects with

sustained objections to theeurocentrismof

Giddens’ formulations. The trajectory of

time–space distanciation traces a move away

from the immediate and the intimate, but this

is an implausible view of non-modern societies

and, as Giddens subsequently conceded, it

also fails to recognize the continued import-

ance of face-to-face interaction and intimacy

in late modernity. Finally, time–space distan-

ciation, like structuration theory more gener-

ally, privileges modalities of political and

economic power and fails to explore the sig-

nificance of theculturalformationsthat have

beencentrally involved in processes of global-

ization and the constitution of modernity. dg

Suggested reading

Giddens (1984, chs 4 and 5); Harris (1991).

time^space expansion A concept proposed

as (1) the corollary and (2) the dual of

time__space compression.

(1) Dodgshon (1998) proposed time–space

expansion as thecorollaryof time–space

compression. The modern world may be

one of intensifying change and volatility,

as Harvey’s (1989b) original account of

time–space compression suggests, but

this entails more than an emphasis on the

transient, the fleeting, the ‘now’: for the

modernsciencethatpowersmanyofthose

transformations has also produced a

heightened awareness of the immensity

of time and of human history. For the

privileged, the modern world may be

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_T Final Proof page 760 31.3.2009 9:40pm Compositor Name: ARaju

TIME–SPACE EXPANSION