The Dictionary of Human Geography

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more inherently spatial than the convention-

ally temporally-defined dialectics of Marx or

Hegel’ (p. 10). In contrast todialectics, Soja

identified three moments (not two), each of

which is supposed to contain the others. Soja’s

purpose was to insist on the importance of the

‘third term’ in order ‘to defend against any

binary reductionism or totalization’. This is

more than an exercise in logic, although Soja

develops his argument at a high level ofab-

straction. He proposes two basic trialectics

(see figure).

The first trialectic is primarily concerned

with ontology: Soja (1996b, pp. 71–3)

describes this as thetrialectics of being, and

uses it to diagram the production oftime,

being-in-the-world and space: his argument

turns on the claim that runs throughout his

later writings that the ‘third term’,space,is

characteristically erased in conventionalso-

cial theory(cf. Soja, 1989).

The second trialectic is primarily concerned

withepistemology: Soja (1996b, pp. 73–82)

describes this as thetrialectics of spatiality, and

uses it to diagram three approaches tospati-

ality. These are derived from his reading of

Henri Lefebvre’s account of theproduction

of space. Following Lefebvre, then, Soja ar-

gues that most discourses of spatiality have

been confined to the realms of either:

(1) spatial practices, a space ofobjectivity

and object-ness, of ‘perceived space’,

that Soja callsFirstspace;or

(2) representations of space, a space of signifi-

cation and subject-ness, of ‘conceived

space’, that Soja callsSecondspace.

Here too it is the force of the ‘third term’ that

Soja seeks to release:

(3) spaces of representation, whererepresen-

tationcarries both political and cultural

connotations, and whose animation as

‘lived space’ corresponds to the subver-

sive, radical and even revolutionary po-

tential of what Soja identifies as

Thirdspace(seethird space). dg

Suggested reading

Soja (1996b, pp. 53–82); Merrifield (1996).

tricontinentalism An alternative term to

post-colonialismthat emphasizes thetrans-

national locationsand thepolitical implicationsof

critiques of colonialismandimperialism.

The substitution was proposed by British

literary/critical theorist Robert Young, who

invoked the Tricontinental Conference, the

meeting of the Organization of Solidarity

of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin

America’, in Havana, Cuba in 1966 as, in

effect, ‘the founding moment of postcolonial

theory’ (Young, 2001, p. 5). Most accounts of

post-colonial theory focus on three canonical

figures – Edward Said, Homi Bhabha and

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak – rather than

threecontinents. Young acknowledges the

importance of these academic writings, but

the purpose of Young’s redirection was two-

fold. First, he wanted to transcend theeuro-

centrismof much of what passes for ‘theory’

by drawing attention to the vital importance of

those ‘insurgent knowledges that come from

the subaltern, the dispossessed, and [which]

Being

Spatiality

Sociality

Historicality

(a) (b)

Spatiality

Lived

Conceived

Perceived

trialectics (a) Ontology: ‘trialectics of being’; (b) Epistemology: ‘trialectics of spatiality’

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_T Final Proof page 776 31.3.2009 9:40pm Compositor Name: ARaju

TRICONTINENTALISM