The Dictionary of Human Geography

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Just asprisonsrestrict the mobility ofindivid-

uals inside their walls, they are central to the

regulation of movement of people across

boundaries, particularly given concerns about

security in this age of panic aboutterrorism.

The most obvious example here is the USA,

which operates a separate set of prisons for

those accused of immigration violations.

These detention centres are run by the execu-

tive branch of the federal government, and thus

lie largely outside judicial review. Detentions

can be indefinite, and detainees left bereft of

legal representation. Such detention centres

reportedly house many suspected of plotting

terrorist acts (Dow, 2004). Beyond its own ter-

ritory, the USA operatescampsand so-called

‘black sites’, part of a global war prison where

practices of torture and otherwise inhumane

detention take place outside the constraints of

internationallaw(Gregory, 2007).

Incarceration thus becomes implicated in

wider processes of citizenship, migration

and nationalsecurity. Borders become hea-

vily policed (Nevins, 2002) and those arrested

crossing illicitly are subject to indefinite deten-

tion and possible deportation. Those who

do manage to cross illegally come to inhabit

‘spaces of non-existence’ (Coutin, 2003),

invisible to legal and other authorities, and

thus deprived of the benefits of formal recog-

nition. Full citizenship, however, hardly leaves

one outside of places that are heavily moni-

tored and tightly controlled: in a world

of increasing surveillance and security con-

sciousness, the scope of carceral geographies

promises to widen. skh

Suggested reading

Foucault (1995 [1975]); Nevins (2002).

carrying capacity A concept developed

mainly in population biology andecologythat

commonly refers to the maximum number of a

given species that a given environment can

support indefinitely. Developed with respect

to animal populations that grow quickly and

then crash precipitously when they exceed their

environment’s carrying capacity, it has been

widely but controversially applied to human–

environment relations (e.g. efforts to quantify

the maximum number of park visitors compat-

ible with conservation, or the maximum

human population that the Earth can support).

Such applications frequently neglect more rele-

vant questions regarding the complex social

dynamics ofresourceuse, particularly issues

of distributive justice and technological change.

jm

Suggested reading

Harvey (1974a); Meadows, Meadows and Rand-

ers (1992).

Cartesianism In order to provide a firm and

permanent structure for the sciences, the

philosopher Rene ́Descartes (1596–1650) out-

lined a method of enquiry based on certain and

indubitable knowledge. The kind of knowing

learned from hearsay, teachers and parents

was seen to be suspect, marked by the uncer-

tainties of opinion (doxa). Only knowledge

derived from reason and method (episteme)

provided adequate foundations for scientific

knowledge, and clear and explicit criteria for

demarcating scientific from non-scientific

claims (Bernstein, 1983, p. 23). Forlogical

empiricism and logical positivism, such

methods were seen to offer the possibility of

developing a universal sciencethat would

share common foundations and principles.

Such Cartesian science was to be disinterested,

objective, value-free, universal and abstract,

and it was based on a firm belief that science

representednaturein a direct manner, serving

• as Rorty (1979) suggested – as ‘the mirror of
  nature’(cf.mimesis).Bernstein(1983)referred
  to this history of scientific efforts to found basic
  statements in direct observation of an external
  reality as theCartesian Anxiety, a term that
  Gregory (1994, pp. 71–3) extended to the
  cartographical and geographical project (see
  cartographic reason).
  In the 1960s, the growing power and reach of
  universalscience,hypothetico-deductivemeth-
  odologies and mathematicalabstractionin
  the natural and social sciences led to a
  seriesofdisciplinarymethodenstreiten(‘struggles
  over method’). The ‘Positivist dispute in
  German sociology’ (see Adorno, 1976) was
  particularly influential in this struggle, bringing
  together the views of a broad group of philo-
  sophers of science, including Thomas Kuhn,
  Karl Popper, Imre Lakatos, Paul Feyerabend,
  Ju ̈rgen Habermas and Theodor Adorno, on the
  limitsofdisinterested, value-free and universal-
  ist understandings of science. Inhuman geog-
  raphy, a critique of Cartesianism, and the
  clearestreflection ofthis broadermethodenstreit,
  was provided by Gregory (1978a), who argued
  against positivism and spatial analytic claims to
  a privileged form of knowledge production.
  Instead, geographical science was never
  disinterested or innocent, but always a social
  activity framed by determinate interests.
  Habermas (1987a [1968]) had argued that
  knowledge claims must be understood in terms
  of such interests (see alsophenomenology),

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_C Final Proof page 65 31.3.2009 9:45pm

CARTESIANISM