The Dictionary of Human Geography

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recoup some of the radical anti-rationalist

possibilities of Kuhn’s work through inter-

pretations of the discipline’s history (Barnes,

2004b). But while Kuhn’s book might have

been on theTimes Literary Supplement’s list of

top 100 most influential books since the

Second World War, it was never on geogra-

phy’s top 100 list. Even so, ‘paradigm’ is no

longer an obscure term, and is now widely

used to mean ‘exemplar’ or, in a much looser

sense than Kuhn intended, to describe a more

or less systematic way of thinking about or

doing something. tb

Suggested reading

Kuhn 1970 [1962]; Mair (1986).

Pareto optimality A situation in which it is

impossible to make some people better off

without making others worse off. This criter-

ion of ‘economic efficiency’ was devised by the

economist and sociologist V.F.D. Pareto

(1848–1923), and is an important element in

neo-classical economics. The Pareto criter-

ion may be applied to efficiency ofresource

allocation, optimality being achieved when it is

impossible to reallocate resources to produce

an outcome that would increase the satisfac-

tion of some people without reducing the sat-

isfaction of others.

The attainment of Pareto optimality is illus-

trated in the figure. Resources are available to

generate a certain amount of income distrib-

uted among A and B – these could be individ-

uals, groups of people or even the inhabitants

of two different territories. The line AB indi-

cates the possible distributions of the max-

imum total income available, ranging from all

going to A and none to B (at point A) to all

going to B (at B). Point X is a position of

Pareto optimality, where any redistribution in

the direction of either A or B (along the line)

will make the other party worse off. In fact,

any starting position on the line is Pareto-

optimal. It would be impossible to increase

A’s share from X to Z (thus leaving B in the

same position) because this conflicts with

the resource constraint. However, point Y

inside the triangle ABO is sub-optimal by the

Pareto criterion because available resources

are not fully utilized and it is possible to

increase A’s income to X, for example, without

taking anything away from B. Such a move

would be a ‘Pareto improvement’.

The Pareto criterion figures prominently in

traditional welfare economics, where it is

argued that acceptance of Pareto optimality

as a rule for allocative efficiency or distributive

equity involves minimal ethical content.

However, adoption of the Pareto criterion car-

ries some important implications that tend to

strengthen the status quo. Once society has

reached the limit of production possibilities –

that is, there is no more growth – then the poor

cannot be made better off without conflicting

with the Pareto criterion, for any such move

would be at the expense of others (the rich).

Thus however badly off the poor may be, they

can be made better off only if more income (or

whatever) is produced. In practice, the appli-

cation of the Pareto criterion in a no-growth

economy would prevent redistribution in

the direction of the poor, no matter how

unequal the existing distribution (cf.welfare

geography). dms

participant observation A research

method in which the researcher aims to par-

ticipate in the process under study so as to

gain intimate knowledge of subjects and their

habits, which insiders to a realm of practice

might not otherwise reveal – or be able to

reveal – in contrived situations such as inter-

views. Participant observation was a valued -

technique for the ethnographies of the

Chicago School of urban sociology, as well as

for the social anthropologists Bronislaw

Malinowsky and E. Evans-Pritchard, and the

cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead. As

Malinowsky famously put it, participant

observation provides a means ‘to grasp the

native’s point of view, his relation to life, to

realizehisvision ofhisworld’ (1961, p. 25),

which would then have to be analysed in

broader institutional terms through intellec-

tual resources that the anthropologist consid-

ered to be ‘far surpassing the natives’. This

gendered and colonial defence of expertise

Pareto optimality

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PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION