The Dictionary of Human Geography

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(3) Third, contrapuntal geographies require

reading from multiple sites and points of

view: not only from the point of view of

the dominantdiscoursebut also from

the perspective of subaltern knowledges

(cf. Featherstone, 2005a: see alsosubal-

tern studies).

Contrapuntal geographies have been invoked

to wire the discourse ofterrorismandsecur-

itymobilized by the USA in its ‘war on terror’

in Afghanistan and Iraq to heightened Israeli

military action in occupied Palestine (Gregory,

2004) and to campaigns by the Hindu Right

against Muslims in India (Oza, 2007): like

Said’s original proposal, both studies revealed

the reactivation of colonial tropes to charac-

terize ‘the common enemy’.

Other projects have been directed towards

similar ends without invoking Said: Gilroy’s

(1993) ‘Black Atlantic’ is one, particularly

prominent example of a transnational spatial

formation composed through an intricate inter-

play of connection anddifference.Saidhim-

self preferred demonstration to theoretical

elaboration, but inhuman geographythere

have been several attempts to develop a more

insistently materialist theorization of these

ideas. Thus Katz (2001a) substituted a carto-

graphic metaphor – acountertopography–for

Said’s musical one:

I want to imagine a politics that maintains

the distinctiveness of a place while recogniz-

ing that it is connected analytically to other

places along contour lines that represent

not elevation but particular relations to a

process (e.g. globalizing capitalist relations

of production). This offers a multifaceted

way of theorizing the connectedness of

vastly different places made artifactually dis-

crete by virtue of history and geography but

which also reproduce themselves differently

amidst the common political-economic and

socio-cultural processes they experience.

This notion oftopographyinvolves a par-

ticular precision and specificity that connects

distant places and in so doing enables

the inference of connection in uncharted

places in between. .. Such connections

are precise analytical relationships not

homogenizations. Not all places affected

by capital’s global ambition are affected

the same way. .. The larger intent is to

produce countertopographies that link

different places analytically and thereby

enhance struggles in the name of common

interests. (Katz, 2001a, pp. 1229–30)

These geographies are in constant and often

disjunctive motion, and Sheppard (2002)

borrowed the concept of a wormhole from

relativity theory to accentuate the complex

topologiesinvolved:

The positionality of two places should

be measured not by the physical distance

separating them, but by the intensity and

nature of their interconnectedness. .. Like

networks, wormholes leapfrog across space,

creating topological connections that reduce

the separation between distant places and

reshape their positionality ... Wormholes

are a structural effect of the long historical

geography of globalization, reflective of how

globalization processes reshape space/time.

The existence of such wormholes may

also have highly asymmetric consequences

for the places that are connected .. .’

(Sheppard, 2002, pp. 323–4)

Whatever vocabulary is preferred, however,

mapping these volatile geographies involves

more than acartography of connections:

the implication of differentials and differences

in time–space is vital (cf.power-geometry).

And Said’s original metaphor conveys an

equally crucial sense of dynamics: of move-

ment, variation and change. dg

conurbation A term coined by Patrick

Geddes (1854–1932) to describe a built-up

area created through the coalescence of two

or more once-separate settlements, probably

initiated throughribbon developmentalong

the main inter-urban routes. With greater

urban sprawl the term has largely been

replaced by terms such asmegalopolis,met-

ropolitan area and metropolitan labour

area, in which the built-up area may be discon-

tinuous. rj

convergence, regional The tendency for

regional incomes or levels of living within a

country to become more equal over time.

That this should be the case is a prediction

derived from neo-classical economics,

which portrays labour,capitaland otherfac-

tors of productionmoving from oneregion

to another seeking the best possible returns

(in the form of wages or profits), until there

is nothing to gain from further movement

because returns are the same in all regions.

Thus a competitive free-market economy

undercapitalismshould tend towards regional

equality, subject to constraints on the spatial

mobility of factors of production.

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_C Final Proof page 114 31.3.2009 9:45pm

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