The Dictionary of Human Geography

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visible, especially within popular writing,

and it is hard to escape the restrictions of

the progressivist canon and its underlying pre-

sumptions. Academic cartographers continue

to pursue an internalist history, now recon-

figuring it to account for the new directions

being taken by digital technologies (Slocum,

McMaster, Kessler and Howard, 2008).

Intellectually, the future clearly lies with the

new catholic and critical history of cartog-

raphy; its challenge is to turn the older strains

of cartographic historiography to its own

ends, remaining empirically strong but con-

solidating a coherent and interdisciplinary

intellectual presence. mhe

Suggested reading

Edney (2005a); Harley (1987, 2001b); Jacob

(2006). See also http://maphistory.info/

case study The case study epitomizes apro-

cessor complex set of processes in context,

thereby demonstrating how theoretical tools

can be applied to the social world. The idea

of the case study emerged in the 1930s

through attempts to make the human sciences

a parallel enterprise to the biophysical sci-

ences, specifically in trying to see instanti-

ations of sociological theory in the manner of

medical case histories. Urban sociologists,

mainly from thechicago school, saw the

case study as the ideal method to produce

hypotheses. For instance, Whyte’sStreet corner

society(1943) is a classic case study of life,

gangs, work and politics in a working-class

Italian neighbourhood in Boston. By the late

1960s, the sociological approach of Grounded

Theory advocated building theory through

case studies, as a kind of stylized empiricism.

However, sociological thought has paid

much longer attention to what Max Weber

called ‘configurations’ of seemingly objective

regularities or hypothetical laws, which only

become intelligible in specific, concrete situ-

ations (Weber, 1949). Considered as a

Weberian configuration, the case study separ-

ates contingent from necessary causes and

context from structuring process, to show

how both elements come together in concrete

conjunctures. The Weberian approach,

it would seem, provides more durable analyt-

ical tools than some of its successors in urban

sociology.

Contemporary critiques from scholars such

as Dipesh Chakrabarty of the Subaltern

Studies Collective question the underlying pre-

sumption to objectify lived histories in cases

that conceal the translation of local into expert

knowledge (see subaltern studies). This

insight would suggest that as long as disciplin-

ary authority is itself part of the object of analy-

sis, case studies can remain efficacious in

engaging concrete interactions between expert

knowledges and forms of belonging. Such an

interactive conception of the case study is par-

ticularly useful from the perspective of a

human geographythat strives to show how

broader processes work through specific con-

stellations of social space. Through Massey’s

notion of an extroverted sense of place

(Massey, 1994b), one can conceive of ‘case

geographies’ as intersections of dynamic,

mobile, constructed and contested spatial pro-

cesses. Another constructive critique of case

studies emerges from Mary Poovey’s (1998)

interrogation of the boundaries between

descriptive and interpretive evidence in the

making of the modern fact. Poovey’s analysis

contrasts the kind of evidence that makes

for case studies against the seemingly non-

evaluative numerical and statistical indices that

surround such objects of evidence. The useful

insight in thinking of particular geographical

cases is to ask what work the division ofnomo-

theticandidiographicforms of knowledge

accomplishes in maintaining or undermining

the coherence of actual cases. sc

caste An endogamous social hierarchy of

enduring political significance, believed to

have emerged some 3500 years ago around

highly questionable categories of Aryans and

non-Aryans in the Indian subcontinent. The

former – comprisingbrahman,kshatriyaand

vaishya– emerged as dominant occupational

castes of so-called dvija (twice-born). The

shudracaste(s) – regarded as non-Aryan and

‘mixed’ – were occupationally marginalized

and racialized, as was also the case later with

the ‘outcastes’ (Dalit), whose touch was

deemed polluting (Thapar, 1966). This order

was challenged from the sixth centurybce,

but all major religions in India came to bear

the social imprint of caste. Brahman social

dominance was bolstered by a British neo-

Brahmanical rulingideology, and provoked

a backlash (Bose and Jalal, 1997).

Significantly, leaders such as Lohia analytic-

ally separated the high castes from women,

shudra, Dalit, Muslim andadivasi(‘indigen-

ous’) and underscored the political necessity

of marriages betweenshudraanddvija, while

disrupting the rift between manual and brain

work, which contributed to the formation,

rigidification and violence of caste. rn

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_C Final Proof page 72 31.3.2009 9:45pm

CASE STUDY