is unabashedly empiricist, averring that
scientific theories and hypotheses are
verifiable only against the gold standard
of empirical data; that is, data observed
though the senses. Nothing else counts.
During the 1960s, this version of the scientific
method and its concomitant empiricist
philosophy was explicitly introduced into
geography as part of the quantitative
revolution (Harvey, 1969). Ironically,
though, what was so novel about ‘the revolu-
tion’ was the introduction of rationally derived
theory, exactly the kind of pursuit most
anathema to empiricism. This eventually
clarified a crucial distinction betweenempiricist
enquiry, which assumes that ‘the facts’ (obser-
vations) somehow speak for themselves and
are independent of theory, and empirical
enquiry, a substantive study that may be (and
usually is) sensitive to the interdependence of
theory and observation. tb
empowerment Defined by alternative
developmentthinkers (Friedmann, 1992) as
a process by whichhouseholdsand their
members wield greater socio-political and psy-
chological power (e.g. knowledge, skills,
voice, collective action, self-confidence) to
reshape the actions affecting their own lives,
empowerment has come to mean different
things for different players. While mainstream
development agencies regard empowerment
as a tool to improve efficiency, more alterna-
tive agencies claim it as a metaphor for funda-
mental social transformation. Still,
‘empowerment as praxis’ retains its localized,
personal emphasis as a phenomenon that
necessitates individuals and collectives to
struggle towards new consciousness and
actions (Parpart, 2002) (see alsopost-devel-
opmentandanti-development). rn
enclave A small piece ofterritorythat is
culturally distinct and politically separate from
another territory within which it is located.
‘Enclave’ originally referred to a territory situ-
ated within astatebut outside its political
jurisdiction, such as the Vatican City in Italy.
The term is also used to denote areas in which
a minority population that identifies with one
state is located in the territory of a neighbour-
ing state, such as Ngorno Kharabach, which is
an enclave within Azerbaijan but has an
Armenian population. The term is increas-
ingly used to refer to a cityneighbourhood
displaying distinctive economic, social and
cultural attributes from its surroundings. (See
alsoexclave.) cf
Suggested reading
Aalto (2002); Parks (2004).enclosure In historical geography,
enclosure refers to the extinction of ‘common
rights’ and the replacement of open or com-
mon fields, pastures and meadows with
‘enclosed’ fields free of such rights. Across
large swathes of medieval and early modern
europe, much agricultural land wascommon
landthat was subject to various forms of use by
all individuals holding ‘common-rights’ (De
Moor, Shaw-Taylor and Ward, 2002). These
included rights to grazeanimalson common
pasture and sometimes the right to gather fuel;
rights over common fields, where individual
cultivators might own a large number of
scattered strips of arable land that alternated
seasonally between private cultivation of the
strips and communal grazing by those with
common rights; and rights over common
woodlands. Such common rights were not
available to everyone, and were regulated by
institutions such as manor or village courts.
Enclosure replaced common land with fully
private landthat in some regions was physically
‘enclosed’ by a hedge, wall or ditch – within its
boundaries, the owner or tenant normally has
exclusive rights to use that land.
In England, the parliamentary enclosures of
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are
the best known, but enclosure began in the
Middle Ages. It become an important process
during the fifteenth century and probably
peaked during the seventeenth century.
Elsewhere in Europe, enclosure tended to
come much later, principally during the nine-
teenth and twentieth centuries (as in the
Soviet Union), though some common land
still survives. In England, much medieval
enclosure may have taken place by seigniorial
edict, and is often associated with the conver-
sion of arable to pasture and the destruction
of villages (there are over 3,000 deserted
medieval village sites known to archaeolo-
gists), but certainly by the early seventeenth
century, and probably by the early sixteenth
century, tenurial security had improved to
the point at which it was legally necessary to
secure the written consent of all proprietors,
giving even the smallest owner an effective
veto. Such enclosures by agreement became
increasingly difficult to secure and during
the eighteenth century, particularly after
1750, enclosure by agreement generally gave
way toparliamentary enclosure. This required
an Act of Parliament that allowed the larger
landowners to override the vetoes of smallGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_E Final Proof page 191 1.4.2009 3:17pmENCLOSURE