‘metatheory’ of the kind attempted in this chapter:
the examination of possibilities, limitations and
contradictions within, as well as between, various
epistemological propositions (Bordo, 1998).
This chapter has sought to present the plural-
ity of ‘spaces of knowledge’ as a logical outcome
of epistemological debates within the human
sciences. The concept of ‘culture’ attaches to
these spaces – in fact, it becomes largely
synonymous with these spaces – because unlike
many other general concepts, ‘culture’ does not
resist the reductions in claims to knowledge that
is one of the main characteristics of contem-
porary knowledge in the human sciences. To my
mind, this accounts for some of the attraction of
‘cultural’ forms of knowledge. As such, ‘cul-
tural’ geography (or other ‘culturally’ sensitive
approaches to the production of knowledge)
offers a practical solution to the problem of
circularity with which this chapter began; as
solutions go, this one does not make the original
problem disappear, but it has the advantage of
dissolving into a form of practice what otherwise
would remain hidden from view. The resulting
‘denaturalization’ of, amongst others, common-
sense, taken-for-granted customs and methodo-
logical assumptions clearly is a benefit of the
cultural reconsiderations of past decades.
There is, however, a danger that needs to be
spelled out just as urgently. We speak of
‘culture’ in a global manner, thus subsuming
what could – and often should – just as sensibly
be analysed under the rubric of ‘the economy’,
‘politics’ or individual psychological categories.
If experience and epistemological rigour invite
us to these too, as tied into the workings of
‘culture’, we arguably stand to lose as much as
we can expect to gain. At the very least, anyone
interested in the cultural ways of knowledge
should acknowledge that ‘culture’, too, can and
must be subjected to the same localization that
has previously produced so many unexpected
insights. This last step would represent a
genuine and much welcome addition to the ‘spaces
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