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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Serie: RGS-IBG Book Series
- Sprache: Englisch
THEORY AND EXPLANATION IN GEOGRAPHY "With this book Henry Yeung puts Geography back into the driver's seat of new theory development. Foregrounding mid-range theories and mechanism-based explanations, he offers a pragmatic approach that has the capacity to shape the wider social sciences for years to come. The timing of this intervention is pitch-perfect, as scholars search for ways to understand and intervene in an increasingly distrustful and polarized world." --KATHARYNE MITCHELL, Distinguished Professor, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA "In Theory and Explanation in Geography Yeung presents us with a rare thing - an argument for geographical theory with forms of causal explanation at its heart. The book is both modest and ambitious. Modest in its insistence on mid-level theory without a call for some new "turn" or advocacy for any particular approach. Ambitious in its insistence that existing theoretical traditions are inadequate or incomplete insofar as they lack causal explanatory power. Geographers will be inspired and/or infuriated by Yeung's arguments in this provocative and cogently argued call to theoretical arms for many years to come." --Tim Cresswell, Ogilvie Professor of Geography, University of Edinburgh, UK "Critical human geography possesses a distinctive theory culture--pluralist, creative, distributed, restless, contested--prone to "turning," wary of orthodoxies and fixed positions. In this original and provocative contribution, the leading economic geographer Henry Yeung steps out beyond his home turf to engage styles and practices of theorizing across this diverse field, carving out a new remit and rubric for middle-range theorizing." --JAMIE PECK, Canadian Research Chair and Distinguished University Scholar, University of British Columbia, Canada Grounded in a generous reading of a multitude of critical approaches in human geography and their diverse conceptions of theory, Theory and Explanation in Geography draws upon cutting-edge debates on the mechanism-based approach to theory and explanation in analytical sociology, political science, and the philosophy of social sciences to inform current and future geographical thinking on theory. This consolidated conceptual work represents an extension and much further development of the author's well-cited works on relational geography, critical realism and causal explanation, process-based methodology, globalization and the theory of global production networks, and "theorizing back" and situated knowledges that were published in leading journals in Geography. The work has several chapters that identify new directions for Geography's current and future engagement with the wider social sciences and relevant research agendas in geographical thought. Its main chapters provide the necessary conceptual toolkits for mobilizing such an expanding research program in the 2020s and beyond. Compared to typical texts on geographical thought, this book is less retrospective and historical and more prospective in nature. Detailing why and how mid-range explanatory theories can be better developed through causal mechanisms and relational thinking that have been revitalized in the social sciences, Theory and Explanation in Geography is an essential read for academics, geographers, and scholars seeking unique perspective on an important facet of the field.
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Theory and Explanation in Geography
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This edition first published 2024
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For Li Mui Sheung, my late mother
Contents
Cover
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
List of Tables
List of Figures
Preface and Acknowledgement
1. Critical Human Geography Today: A Multitude of Approaches and Concepts?
Main Argument and Approach
Important Caveats: What This Book Is Not About
Key Considerations: Of/For Theory and Explanation
Chapter Outlines
Notes
2. Contemporary Geographical Thought: Theory and Explanation
Theory in Marxism
Theories in Poststructuralism and Post-Phenomenology/Posthumanism
Actor-Network Theory
Non-Representational Theory
Assemblage Theory
Post-Phenomenology and Posthumanism
Theories in Feminism and Postcolonialism
Feminist Theory
Postcolonial Theory
Notes
3. What Kind of Theory for What Kind of Human Geography?
Analytical Geographies: Theory and Explanation in Geography
From Concepts to Theories
From Theory to Explanation in Geography
Mid-Range Theories: Critical Realism, Causal Mechanisms, and Relational Thinking
What Realism – Critical and/or Speculative?
Causal Mechanisms and Relational Thinking in Mid-Range Theories
Notes
4. Relational Theory
Relationality and Relational Thought in Contemporary Human Geography
Relationality in Marxian and Institutional Geographies
Relational Thought in Poststructuralist, Feminist, and Postcolonial Geographies
Making Things Happen: Towards a Relational Theory
Rethinking Relational Thought: Relationality and Power
Causal Powers and Relationality in Relational Geometries
Notes
5. Mechanism and Process in Causal Explanation
Theorizing Mechanism in Causal Explanation
Reconceptualizing Mechanism, Process, and Context
Causal Theory and Actors
Processual Thought in Geography
From Process to Mechanism: Explanatory Theory/Theorizing in Geography
Why Neoliberalization?
Neoliberalization: What’s in a Process and What Can Go Wrong?
Explaining Neoliberalism ‘with Chinese Characteristics’: How Might the Process-Mechanism Distinction Work?
Notes
6. Theorizing Globalization: Explanatory Theory, Situated Knowledges, and ‘Theorizing Back’
Globalization as Geographical Processes
A Causal Theory of Global Production Networks: Explaining Globalization and Its Socio-Spatial Outcomes
Beyond Situated Knowledges: ‘Theorizing Back’ and Making Theory Work
Are Situated Knowledges Good Enough?
Theorizing Back: Strategic Coupling and Global Economic Geographies
Making Theory Work: The Trouble with Global Production Networks
Notes
7. What Kind of Geography for What Kind of Social Science?
Towards Analytical Geographies: Mid-Range Geographical Theories for Social Science
Beyond ‘Academic Esotericism’: Analytical Geographies for Public Engagement and Policy
Notes
References
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
CHAPTER 02
Table 2.1 Contemporary geographical thought...
CHAPTER 03
Table 3.1 Concepts and theories...
Table 3.2 Realist thought in...
Table 3.3 Types of assemblages...
CHAPTER 04
Table 4.1 Relational frameworks in...
Table 4.2 Relational thought in...
Table 4.3 Modalities and techniques...
CHAPTER 05
Table 5.1 Definitions of mechanism...
Table 5.2 Examples of social...
List of Illustrations
CHAPTER 03
Figure 3.1 Critical realism, assemblage...
CHAPTER 04
Figure 4.1 The nature of...
CHAPTER 05
Figure 5.1 A theory of...
CHAPTER 06
Figure 6.1 GPN 2.0 theory and...
Figure 6.2 Global production networks...
Figure 6.3 Theorizing back: embedded...
CHAPTER 07
Figure 7.1 Interdisciplinary knowledge production...
Guide
Cover
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of Tables
List of Figures
Preface and Acknowledgement
Begin Reading
References
Index
End User License Agreement
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List of Tables
Table 2.1 Contemporary geographical thought on theory and explanation
Table 3.1 Concepts and theories in analytical geographies
Table 3.2 Realist thought in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities
Table 3.3 Types of assemblages and realist thought
Table 4.1 Relational frameworks in institutional geographies and their antecedents
Table 4.2 Relational thought in poststructuralist geographies and their antecedents
Table 4.3 Modalities and techniques of power and their spatiality and economic effects
Table 5.1 Definitions of mechanism in the philosophy of science, philosophy of social science, and social science disciplines
Table 5.2 Examples of social mechanisms and mid-range concepts
List of Figures
Figure 3.1 Critical realism, assemblage theory, and analytical sociology
Figure 4.1 The nature of relationality in human geography
Figure 5.1 A theory of mechanism and process in causal explanation
Figure 6.1 GPN 2.0 theory and the causal mechanisms of uneven development
Figure 6.2 Global production networks: integrating national worlds of production
Figure 6.3 Theorizing back: embedded autonomy, developmental state, and global production networks
Figure 7.1 Interdisciplinary knowledge production in social science
Preface and Acknowledgement
With a deep sense of us surviving the vicissitudes in life, let me state that this is emphatically a COVID-19 book – conceived, written, and published during the 2020–2023 pandemic. You might be able to gauge it from my Squid Game-symbolled cover. In light of good hygiene habits learnt during and thereafter the pandemic, let me preface the book with some ‘health warnings’ before saying something more personal and acknowledging several unrepayable intellectual debts and causal powers.
To begin, the book was conceived during my usual afternoon nap on 29 May 2020 – never underestimate the incredible power of power naps, my well-known little secret for research productivity! I felt strongly about something ‘happening’ in Geography that kept me awake. I just couldn’t sleep over it – how can Geography contribute better to the understanding and explanation of all those life-changing disruptions (lockdowns everywhere), shortages (masks and toilet papers then), and everyday life and death occurring in the midst of this terrible COVID-19 pandemic? Can we do so by offering more reading ‘against the grain’ and incessant critiques from the perspectives of the various so-called critical ‘theory’? Are these critical theories really theory as their names so pompously suggest? If so, in what sense and can it be explanatory? And so what? These were the unforgettable questions that I kept pondering over in that fateful hot afternoon (as often the case in tropical Singapore), and the rest is what you are reading, albeit with a fairly long delay over three years (blame it too on the pandemic and, as I’ve been saying to many old and new friends worldwide lately, TIE [see full spelling at the end])!
But what is this work for in terms of its audience, approach, and purpose/positionality? I hope the book is akin to some medication that presumably treats common symptoms and perhaps serious underlying conditions. On audience, this is an academic book written as a research monograph and thus comes with its highest scholarly intent and purpose. So it’s not for the faint-hearted readers and don’t bother to read it as an undergraduate text because it would be harder to survive my text than in Squid Game (only one out of 456 players emerged alive). To my best knowledge (and I’ve rechecked this with my dear colleague James Sidaway, himself a shrewd historian of our discipline), there is no recent authored academic book in Geography that goes into this kind of epistemological debates on theory and method. My favourite one though would be Derek Gregory’s Ideology, Science and Human Geography published quite some decades ago. And yet such a statement beyond a typical textbook on contemporary geographical thought needs to be made to reinvigorate our collective sensibility on theory and explanation in Geography. I believe this monograph will provoke such serious reflections and (mis)givings among many practicing geographers and advanced students interested in the development of our collective thought and normative vision for society and space.
To ensure the book’s performativity as a full-blown monograph, I have taken an open-ended approach of engaging with the original works of a strategic selection of critical theorists and (continental) philosophers and their well-known interlocutors in human geography. Nevertheless, I really don’t like the arcane writing style of some of them and I want to spare you, my dear readers, from a similar agony of reading this work. I have therefore opted for an extensive engagement approach in my narratives and a writing style of citing some of them in the main text and putting in each chapter’s endnotes the most tedious quotations, comprehensive literature grounding/long citations, and further elaborations on important debates. To me, this is a pragmatic and straightforward style of writing and theorizing – not too philosophical nor too convoluted. To the discerning readers, this is not quite like poststructuralist philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s ‘hallucinatory experiences’ of writing in their A Thousand Plateaus, nor feminist philosopher Rosi Braidotti’s nomadic habits of narration allowing for reading at random in her Nomadic Theory (note: only non-geographers like them are given ‘titles’ by way of introduction, a writing habit I have used throughout this book). Readers are thus advised to consider skipping these endnotes on the first pass and, if sufficiently impressed thereafter, to revisit them together with the main text on subsequent nomadic (re)readings and passes.
Still, the book is meant to be well grounded in the relevant literature, i.e. thorough enough by combining formative and contemporary work, and committed enough to following through such debates over theory with care and patience. In a reversal of critical urban scholar Ananya Roy’s complaint about ‘citationary alibis’ in her field, I actually provide such alibis for critical theorists and their geographer interlocutors in my text. Nonetheless, instead of indemnifying them from any intellectual liabilities and granting any conceptual carte blanche to their theories, I do hope the book can be read as a rigorous interrogation of their key theories and concepts in geographical writing that comes with an acute awareness of the limits of these allegedly ‘grand theories’ in theory and practice. To render my approach more ‘approachable’, I also offer some personal reflections along the way to help readers contextualize different events and happenings in Geography at various times and places and my own theory development journey.
But why bother to write this book in the first place? In the larger scheme of things, losing an afternoon nap is really not a big deal. My purpose here, however, is indeed quite simple. Just like one very kind reviewer of my full manuscript has alluded, I too wished I had seen and perhaps read such a book during my Manchester PhD in the early 1990s (even though I did benefit much from reading and appreciating Gregory’s Ideology in my undergraduate days just before going to England). I think my book is useful in making a clear(er) case for explanatory mid-range theory in Geography that might complement diverse accounts of ‘weak theory’ and other calls for grounded theory, dirty theory, minor theory, modest theory, and so on. Indeed, theory should be explanatory and geographical explanation should be grounded in theory. As you will find out from reading this book though, it is not a standard nor an authoritarian prescription for all theoretical efforts in Geography – doing so would likely shut down, rather than open up, possible avenues for new and meaningful theory work (my sincere thanks to Colin McFarlane for his persuasive reminder of this important point over a recent dinner in Singapore)! To borrow from Doreen Massey’s For Space, my book is in itself a dynamic simultaneous multiplicity of (hopeful) becomings that must be open for a reimaginable and changeable future.
Let me clarify further my positionality. Despite my long-time training and practice in the subfield of economic geography and urban and regional studies, this book is not written for economic geographers per se, but rather for the entire discipline of Geography as a global knowledge enterprise. Since my PhD days (some details in Chapter 6), I have had a longstanding interest in, and quite some publications on, philosophical and epistemological debates in (economic) Geography. The book thus offers a broad engagement with various critical theories and approaches in social and cultural geography, feminist and postcolonial geographies, critical geopolitics, environmental studies, urban geography, economic geography, and so on. I hope readers from these and other subfields will take some cues from my approach here to reflect on their ‘favourite’ theories and explanations in all domains of geographical knowledge. While some of the key ideas in this book have been brewing and germinating for quite some time now, I have only been able to concretize and even materialize them in this form after a decade-long interregnum of producing several social science-oriented monographs on global production networks, developmental states in East Asia, and the interconnected worlds of electronics production! So, it’s better late than never…
Ultimately, my goal is to stimulate more and better theorizing and explanatory work in our discipline and for the wider social sciences. If you get that message in this book, it will really make me happy, much like the late Doreen Massey in her personal note to me about her own happiness in reading my review of her World City (reproduced in my Chapter 4 endnotes). At the end of the day, that’s what makes our scholarly work worth its salt.
——-
On the more personal front, there were two life and death ‘events’ during the writing of this book – one real and another metaphorical – and I want to make sure these events and their influences are fully acknowledged here. First, I was caring for my late mother, who had moved to our home not too long after that sleepless afternoon nap, till her eventual passing at home in end June 2022 due to geriatric illness. This tragic event took place a couple of months after I had completed this book’s first full draft (an experience similar to my dad’s passing two years earlier just before I finished writing about 3 nanometre semiconductor chip-making in my previous book Interconnected Worlds). Her embodied presence always reminded me of the formidable bravery, fortitude, and strength of a ‘golden tigress’ in the Chinese zodiac. So, in loving memory, I dedicate this hopefully brave enough work to her.
Second, writing this book in the midst of living through a once-in-a-generation pandemic is quite a life and death experience. Many of us in academia are rather privileged to be able to get through it relatively unscathed. In particular, I feel very blessed with the opportunity to ‘Think, Read, Write’ almost on a daily basis during the pandemic. And yet one can also get rather bored doing it, though it might not be the kind of (political) boredom so well critiqued in Ben Anderson’s work. Here, I thank various affective and eventful K-dramas, such as Squid Game launched in September 2021, for eventualizing life and death in such a dramatic and metaphorical way that kept me well focused in my own writing. Watching them during the pandemic and the book’s writing could be both entertaining in a work-life balance sense and intriguing in an intensely intellectual manner. This is why I have chosen the three symbols in the melodrama to express my affect in/towards theory and explanation – a tricky balancing act of theory (triangle) and explanation (square) much needed but also well supported in Geography (represented by the earth-shaded circle symbol!). I know very well that this choice might not convey the kind of aesthetic and scholarly sophistication expressed in the (famous) abstract artworks gracing the book covers of leading geographical treatises nor, as well guessed by my dear new colleague Dariusz Wójcik, in philosopher John McDowell’s seesaw metaphor in his Mind and World. Nevertheless, I sincerely hope it does represent the kind of academic realism and intellectual honesty in my approach and purpose here.
Looking back, being able to write and express one’s thought in this highly contested and geopoliticized world and feminist theorist Donna Haraway’s Chthulucene is very much a privilege and luxury bestowed upon a few lucky authors. Located and at home in postcolonial Singapore, I feel even more lucky than these few counterparts. Having studied Geography ever since my early secondary school days in colonial Hong Kong during the 1980s and despite not getting distinction in the subject for my pre-university examination (I got C actually, and so did some very prominent British geographers whom I heard from!), I never thought I would be privileged enough to write a theoretical book of this nature for Geography – that reminds me of the late Doreen Massey’s For Space. This book is therefore written with much gratitude and gratification. My gratitude comes from the affective feelings of both engagement with and acceptance in my scholarly community/communities. I don’t take this privilege lightly but instead with a heavy dose of optimism, cruel or otherwise. Two anonymous reviewers, apparently senior figures in the discipline and non-economic geographers, have been most generous and constructive with their in-depth and spot-on comments that reaffirm my gratitude and provide key pointers for relatively minor revisions to make the book even better. Meanwhile, the studious act of writing this book also offers enormous gratification so much more than what I can ever hope for. After all, it is not often one gets to write and talk about one’s own intellectual journey in such an unfettered and even playful manner (including this Preface!). Again, my sincere thanks to all parties for making this book happen.
Whereas the above paragraphs have elaborated on the context or conjuncture of this book’s eventualizing, I now provide the concatenation of ‘causal mechanisms’ that complete my own explanation for this book’s eventual becoming. Thanks to various journals and publishers for publishing my earlier conceptual work on critical realism and epistemological debates in (economic) Geography – these generative ideas underpin the origin of and my continual interest in this book’s main tenets. While much of the actual writing in this monograph is new, some sections in later Chapters 4–6 have drawn on these earlier publications that are explicitly specified and acknowledged in relevant chapter endnotes. Several copyrighted figures are reproduced in this book and I acknowledge the kind permission granted by Cornell University Press, Oxford University Press, and Taylor and Francis.
Speaking of causality, I must acknowledge my university for the generous annual research grant support under my Distinguished Professorship (E-109-00-0008-01) that funds the acquisition of several hundred books necessary for this book’s thinking, reading, and writing and many of my travel trips presenting some aspects of it to diverse audiences worldwide. Ideas in Chapter 6 were first presented in a session I co-organized with Kean Fan Lim at the RGS-IBG annual international conference in Newcastle in September 2022 and various in-person Geography seminars hosted by my alma mater, the University of Manchester, in November 2022, my good friend Jinn-yuh Hsu at the National Taiwan University in February 2023, my much-admired department at the University of British Columbia in March 2023, and more to come in Uppsala University and Melbourne University in May 2023, and so on.
I am most grateful for the wonderful comments and challenging questions from Kean Fan, James Sidaway, and Michael Webber (via Zoom) in Newcastle, Erik Swyngedouw and Jamie Doucette in Manchester, Crison Chien, Christopher Huang, Kuang-Chi Hung, Po-Yi Hung, and Regan Koch in Taipei, Rafi Arefin, Trevor Barnes, Juliet Lu, Priti Narayan, Jamie Peck, and Geraldine Pratt in Vancouver, and Anders Malmberg, Don Mitchell, and Gunnar Olsson in Uppsala. The relational theory chapter was earlier presented via Zoom to our department’s Politics, Economies And Space (PEAS) research group in March 2022. Helpful comments were received from Dylan Brady, Neil Coe, Nathan Green, Avinash Gupta, Elaine Ho, Shaun Lin, Eugene McCann, Shaun Teo, Teo Yee Chin, and Josh Watkins. In end August 2023, an Author-Meets-Critics session for my book will be held at the annual international conference of the Royal Geographical Society in London. I am very thankful to Tim Cresswell, Colin McFarlane (again!), and Deborah Dixon for graciously serving as my book’s critics. The endorsements from Tim Cresswell, Katharyne Mitchell, and Jamie Peck are much appreciated. Of course, the usual disclaimer applies and all errors and misreading in this book are mine.
Last but not certainly least, the causal powers for making this book happen must be given to (and derived from) the RGS-IBG Book Series’ academic co-editors Ruth Cragg (for her superb handling of the entire editorial process) and my colleague Chih Yuan Woon (for his excellent advice and guidance along the way) and, at Wiley, Jacqueline Scott (former editor for Social Sciences and Humanities), Grace Ong (Publisher), and Radhika Sharma (Managing Editor) for their outstanding publisher support and editorial efficiency. Without all of your grit and unwavering commitment to this project, I won’t get to write this Preface. So thank you very much indeed.
An equifinal causal condition of kinship must also be acknowledged before I end. Peter Dicken’s fatherly advice and encouragement from a distance in Manchester are absolutely pivotal in bringing me and this book’s writing into action. Back at home, my wife Weiyu has been most supportive throughout this difficult pandemic period and her steadfast care provides the crucial underlying mechanism to enable my thinking, reading, and writing. Kay and Lucas, our no-longer-young children, are never too tired of hearing me talking about ‘process and mechanism’ and ‘theory and explanation’. And Kay is going to find her own T-cell mechanisms through PhD in immunology. I can never write a decent book without their familial interest. More importantly, their enthusiasm for Squid Game has clearly made it to my book cover!
On that closing note and before our parting (however temporary), I wish you well in reading this work and don’t forget your TIE – Take It Easy, as life is too fragile and short…
Henry Wai-chung Yeung
Singapore
13 July 2023
Chapter One Critical Human Geography Today: A Multitude of Approaches and Concepts?
Just over half a century ago, David Harvey (1969: p. 486) ended his Explanation in Geography with the grand statement that ‘By our theories you shall know us’. As of the mid-2020s, it is not an exaggeration to claim that Geography is characterized by a multitude of (critical) approaches and concepts, but perhaps too few substantive theories explaining diverse geographical phenomena that can be and/or have been well adopted in the wider social and natural sciences. In critical human geography today, we are now better known for our nuanced interpretations and trenchant deconstructions of representations in all sorts of past and present discourses, texts, and images, our sophisticated understandings and accounts of diverse embodiment, intersectionality, practices, and encounters in everyday life, and our highly contextualized and place-based critiques of unequal and oppressive capitalist relations in society and space. In most of these critical geographical approaches well informed by different social theories and continental philosophies, however, it remains unclear what theory really means and if explanatory efficacy is important for theory and the theorizing process.
Indeed, the term ‘theory’ is often a misnomer or a ‘placeholder’ in these critical approaches grounded in specific social theories. For example, leading geographical proponents of poststructuralism (actor-network theory in Murdoch, 2006), postcolonialism (postcolonial theory in Jazeel, 2019), and new materialism (non-representational theory in Simpson, 2021) in Geography1 have made clear that these approaches are not theory per se, but perhaps should be conceived more as methodology (or a ‘method to describe’ in Latour, 1996, 2005; and a ‘style’ of theorizing in Thrift, 1996, 2007; Anderson and Harrison, 2010a). To Jazeel (2019: pp. 14–15, 227; original italics), ‘postcolonialism is best conceived not as a theory per se, but instead as methodology. If postcolonialism is opposed to information command, if much of its promise is in its persistent effort to unsettle the contours of power, it is indeed a contradictory exercise to map or survey postcolonialism as something as settled and authoritative as a “body of theory”’. While Nigel Thrift (1996: p. 30) describes in Spatial Formations his non-representational framework as a ‘modest theory’ and ‘a theoretical synthesis… with a lighter touch’, Simpson’s (2021: p. 7) recent review of diverse geographical thoughts in non-representational theory notes that ‘at the outset, much of the reference here was in the plural and was about “thinking” rather than a “theory.” “NRT” really acts as an umbrella term for a wide range of ideas, concepts, theories, and approaches largely originating beyond the confines of geography which have in common concerns for practice’.
Despite Harvey’s (1969) passionate call for ‘our theories’ emanating from Geography, there are now seemingly many different conceptions of what theory means in these critical approaches and/or ‘isms’ – universalistic, predictive, interpretive, explanatory, representational, non-representational, discursive, nomadic, and so on. If actor-network theory (and its variant in assemblage theory), postcolonial theory, non-representational theory, feminist theory, and the likes are not necessarily theory per se as their names suggest, what then is theory and how does it matter in Geography and beyond? How do we know a theory when we read or see someone’s ‘theoretical’ thinking in words and textual representations? What might constitute the basic tenet(s) of theory and how might we go about practising theory development (i.e. the theorizing process)? What are the key considerations for such theorizing?
I believe these are important questions and reflexive issues for academic geographers, graduate students, and like-minded social scientists for/to whom this monograph is primarily written and speaks. But given the extensive theoretical and philosophical literature underpinning this work, the book is inevitably pitched at a fairly high scholarly level of abstraction that might not be suitable for undergraduate teaching. Instead, it represents a provocative effort in geographical scholarship to interrogate and complement the diverse calls in critical social science for grounded theory, weak theory, modest theory, dirty theory, minor theory, mid-range theory, and so on. To me, all these epistemological efforts necessitate a clearer sense of what theory (and explanation) actually means in our scholarly pursuit. Overall then, this monograph seeks to examine the nature of theory and explanation in contemporary geographical enquiry and to provide a potential focal point for rethinking theorizing in Geography. Its initial four chapters are grounded in a critically generous reading of different approaches in human geography and their diverse conceptions of theory (and explanation). In this sense, the book is written more for human geographers than peers and colleagues in physical geography, GIS, and remote sensing. This latter ‘half’ of Geography, however, can still benefit from reading this work in order to gauge a sense of critical theory development and broaden their epistemological apparatuses for causal theorizing that will go well beyond the conventional scientific approach to knowledge production.
Echoing the early Harvey, I maintain that theory is what defines an academic discipline and, in the grand scheme of things within academia, ‘our theories’ in Geography are currently perhaps still rather limited in number, scope, and impact. But this book’s similarity with Harvey (1969) actually ends there. We now know Harvey’s theories then were positivist explanations based on objective laws and empirical regularities – space and time were fixed, absolute, and independent of human conceptions. Contrary to this positivist Humean law-based approach (and those by other ‘space cadets’ of spatial science during the 1960s well described in Barnes, 2001, 2011), I have no intention at all to prescribe a common standard or model (i.e. what all geographical theories should be), nor a common explanatory framework (i.e. a specific geographical theory of some-thing/event in space and place). This seemingly ‘authoritarian’ goal is unrealistic and virtually impossible precisely because of the actually existing multitude of approaches and concepts in critical human geography today (to be discussed in depth in Chapter 2).
Since the 1970s, human geography has undergone many rounds of ontological and epistemological ‘turns’ so much so that theory and explanation mean rather different things to different geographers – even the concept ‘difference’ is still highly contentious today (Cockayne et al., 2017)! Despite these ‘turns’ (to be addressed in this book), the positivist norms of scientific approach remain fairly enduring in human geography and mostly dominant in physical geography, GIS, and remote sensing today. In certain subfields of human geography, research funding institutions often favour the quantitative testing of, and experimental approaches (e.g. randomized control trials) to, measurable variables as the proper ‘scientific’ explanations of socio-spatial outcomes. On the brighter side though, critical human geography is quite unique and exceptional in the wider social sciences wherein many larger disciplines, such as Economics, Political Science, and Sociology, have devoted specific subfields, faculty hiring, and even journals to specializing in ‘theory development’, i.e. economic theory (Journal of Economic Theory), political theory (Political Theory), and sociological theory (Sociological Theory). In Geography as a whole, we do not have such a ghettoized subfield, hiring practices, and journals known as ‘Geographical Theory’, except perhaps a few self-proclaimed theory books such as this one (and Harvey, 1969; Gregory, 1978). I believe this geographical exceptionalism is a good thing because it allows us to integrate theory and theory development into our everyday geographical research, scholarship, and practice.2
Still in these highly contested and sometimes overlapping turns in critical human geography, there is often a direct relationship between ontology (theorizing the nature of reality and existence in philosophy and metaphysics) and epistemology (our theory and knowledge of actually existing empirical worlds). Theory can exist in both domains of knowledges, though ontology tends to be much more philosophical and abstract. At this moment in the mid-2020s, ‘What theory?’ has ironically become a rather difficult question to answer. Geographers have engaged in all sorts of theorization, from ontological objects such as human subjectivity, mind and the body, political-economic structures, and more-than-human things and matter in general, to social constructions through representations and discourses, and experiential encounters and sensuous apprehension (e.g. affect, emotion, feelings, and so on). Amongst these many ‘isms’ representing different approaches to theorization in human geography, why and how do theory and explanation matter and/or work? This is the central focus of this book that advocates two things: first, theory and explanation as the raisond’être of human geography; and second, explanatory theories, one of the several possible kinds of theorizing, as its normative, context-specific, and practically adequate contributions to the social sciences.
More specifically, this book (re)examines why an explanatory theory might be useful in certain kind of geographical enquiry and how it can be better developed (i.e. theorizing) through mechanism-based thinking informed by critical realist and relational thought within Geography that has been recently revitalized in the broader social sciences. Avoiding what Jazeel (2019: p. 210; original italics) terms ‘authoritarian theorization’, my approach to theory and explanation – not as ‘some-thing in which to specialize’ but as a normative practice – might allow for more epistemological possibilities for crossing what Cox (2014: p. vii) describes as ‘a highly fragmented field’ in Geography characterized by ‘a division by theory and method’. If well executed in the book, this approach can focus our attention on rethinking how we might better theorize and explain geographical realities. Defending sociologist Anthony Giddens’ insistence on the importance of doing social theory in a particular way, Thrift (1996: p. 61) makes this point clearly by recognizing that ‘theory is quite simply a way of clarifying one’s ideas for emancipatory purposes. In other words, theory is limited, but it is still important’.
While many geographers tend to describe (and/or blame on!) different critical approaches and epistemologies as ‘social theories’, this book takes a more modest and specific conception of theory (and explanation). It does not seek or advocate social theory as such – these theories have much broader historical reach and societal coverage, from capitalism in Marxism to human-nature relations in poststructuralism (e.g. actor-network theory) and unequal power relations in feminist and postcolonial theories. While engaging with these approaches and their epistemologies, I focus on the explanatory nature of theory and develop a causal mechanism-based approach to theory and explanation in/for Geography, with the prospective view that it might enable our discipline’s explanatory mission to be better accomplished in the next one to two decades. I believe this epistemological task is imperative and timely in the present turbulent world in which radical intellectual critiques seem to have lost some of their public appeal and trust in many democracies. Revisiting theory and explanation in Geography can be one way forward to rebuild better the analytical rigour and public relevance of our discipline. It can offer a strong(er) defence of the importance of critical scholarship in engendering the common good and our collective well-being against the sort of anti-intellectualism so eloquently critiqued in feminist historian Joan Scott’s (2019) Knowledge, Power, and Academic Freedom.
While grounded more specifically in some of these critical approaches – relational thinking and realist philosophies,3 this book does not seek to ‘spatialize’ these approaches by focusing on their conceptions of space and place. Instead, I draw upon these critical approaches to reorientate our attention to rethinking theory and explanation in/for Geography. Part of my purpose here is also driven by the lack of dedicated work on ‘theory’ and/or ‘explanation’ in recent human geography handbooks (e.g. Agnew and Livingstone, 2011; Lee et al., 2014; Aitkin and Valentine, 2015a). This lacuna is somewhat surprising since there are some relevant chapters in earlier collections for undergraduate teaching prior to 2010, e.g. ‘theorizing’ in Hubbard et al. (2002: ch. 1) and ‘explaining’ in Cloke et al. (2004: ch. 9).
Main Argument and Approach
Before I delve more deeply into the book’s key caveats and considerations in this chapter and contemporary geographical thought in Chapter 2, let me state my arguments more explicitly for the kind of theory and explanation to be pursued in this book. When we study a particular geographical phenomenon (e.g. place-based subject experience, inner-city decline, social movements, regional restructuring, or geopolitical conflicts), we can go about describing it in great detail and accuracy. In the more recent forms of geographical enquiry inspired by critical social theories since the late 1970s, we witness theory as uncovering social structures determining human action in structural Marxism and their trenchant critiques in the forms of poststructuralism, postmodernism, postcolonialism, and other thoughts (e.g. feminism, post-phenomenology, and posthumanism). In these critical ‘post-’ thoughts, theory is often abstract, discursive, and situated – spaces of social relations are discursively (de)constructed and contingently (re)framed through specific historical-geographical interrogations. Causal relations in these critical theories tend to be vague and indeterminant due to their ‘flat ontologies’ (Marston et al., 2005; Jones et al., 2007; Ash, 2020a) and/or commitment to heterogeneous associations and assemblages (Murdoch, 2006; Anderson et al., 2012a; Kinkaid, 2020).
Whatever one’s epistemological position though, I believe a theory is likely built on existing or new concepts that necessarily abstract from material realities and/or social formations to form a set of meaningful and comprehensible statements. These theoretical statements can be interpretive, explanatory, or even normative. In a nutshell, all theories are an abstraction of the empirical world, but not all theories are explanatory of this actually existing world and even fewer are causal in their explanations. Just because a ‘theory’ – with the word ‘theory’ in its title – appears to be highly abstract and discursive does not necessarily mean it is an explanatory theory, and this is quite a commonly misunderstood syndrome in many critical approaches. While some of the above-named critical thoughts in human geography prefer a more open-ended and discursive approach to theorizing, this book argues for an explanatory kind of theory and theorizing. Here, I adopt sociologist Richard Swedberg’s (2014: p. 17; emphasis omitted) simple definition of theory as ‘a statement about the explanation of a phenomenon’ and his view that ‘[a]n explanation represents the natural goal of theorizing and completes the process of building out the theory’ (p. 98; see also Elster, 2015: p. 8). Theory, in short, is more than ‘organized and patterned sets of ideas’ (Cresswell, 2013: p. 7) and/or ‘ways of knowing and being’ (Aitken and Valentine, 2015b: p. 8); and explanation should go beyond interpreting, understanding, accounting, experiencing, making sense, critiquing, interrogating, (re)thinking, contextualizing, and so on of events, practices, and processes to uncover their causes that really make things happen in society and space.
The art of this explanatory theorizing, however, is a much more complicated and variegated thought process and practice. This book gestures towards a non-deterministic and yet mechanism-based approach to theory development and causal explanation in Geography. This kind of causal theory should be explanatory in nature, and its explanatory power depends on the identification and specification of mechanisms connecting cause and outcome within particular historical-geographical contexts. These causal mechanisms can be related to material processes, but also discursive practices or, as described in Jazeel (2019: p. 17), ‘representational mechanics’ – they clearly go beyond the primary idea of deterministic ‘underlying structures’ in the earlier Marxian thought that has been much critiqued and eschewed in poststructuralist and postcolonial approaches. In this sense, the book is as much an epistemological project as a normative one (see later section on ‘key considerations’). In fact, I will argue that all epistemological debates and positions, whether in their empiricist, positivist, realist, poststructuralist, or feminist persuasions, are normative because they seek to justify or even normalize the importance, and sometimes the dominance, of a particular approach to situated knowledges and theory production (see also Agnew and Livingstone, 2011; Cox, 2014; Johnston and Sidaway, 2016).
In writing this book, I am fully aware that this mechanism-based conception of causal theory represents only one particular view of what (geographical) theory can be in an epistemological sense. I certainly do not pretend that this explanatory kind of theory represents the universe of all possible theories. Nor does the book provide a comprehensive ontology of the open-ended socio-spatial world for which this kind of theory can be developed. Nevertheless, I ground my argument for causal theory in relational thinking, critical realism and its more recent revitalization in speculative realism, and mechanism-based thought in the wider social sciences.4 Engaging with these influential thoughts on mid-range theorizing and social mechanisms, this book aims to offer a clearer conception of causal mechanisms in order to speak to the kind of ‘processual’ or process-based theorization in the existing geographical literature and the wider social sciences.
Taken together, this book focuses on the relevance and usefulness of mid-range theories in geographical research and the importance of mechanism-based explanations in such causal theories. While the days of developing grand (social) theories for such complex geographies ranging from uneven global development to situated practices and embodied experiences in everyday life are perhaps over, we certainly still need less macro/planetary and more ‘ordinary’ theories that straddle capitalism’s continuous reconfigurations and the changing dynamics of our everyday life and practices. These mid-range theories can focus on the more specific dimensions and unfoldings of these uneven developmental trajectories and embodied social practices such that they can be less ‘essentialist’ and ‘reductionist’. Mid-range theories might also be a more productive way to theorize socio-spatial changes in an intellectual world of multiple and, often, conflicting approaches and in the post-pandemic world of far greater complexity and unpredictability. These theories can be helpful in uncovering causal mechanisms without the methodological commitment to theorizing the deep, deterministic, and totalizing structures of social relations, as manifested in certain extreme versions of geographical historical materialism.
While pushing for explanatory goals, these mid-range theories can also avoid the overzealous universalistic generalizations and acritical claims in positivism that, as argued by Cox (2014: p. 28), became the Achilles heel of the ‘quantitative revolution’ in human geography. Last but not least, mid-range theories might be more ‘transferrable’ across different social science disciplines due to their explanatory concern with specific domains of, and events/episodes in, society and space. This in turn provides new directions for Geography’s future engagement with the wider social sciences and the development of relevant research agendas in geographical thought. Ultimately then, this book’s examination of theory and explanation emphasizes the analytical significance of mid-range theories, contextualized explanations, and causal mechanisms in their variegated forms – from historical-material processes to discursive formations and social practices.
Before I pursue further this kind of mid-range theories and mechanism-based explanations in later chapters, this opening chapter, together with the next chapter on contemporary geographical thought, makes the case for revisiting theory and explanation in Geography by tracing its changing intellectual backdrop and context since Harvey (1969) and providing the necessary epistemological grounding in different critical approaches in human geography today. My primary focus in these two initial chapters is on critical human geography and its multitude of approaches and concepts since the 1990s in order to be more contemporary and to presage the kind of analytical geographies to be developed in later chapters. Taken together, both chapters situate the conceptions of theory and explanation in different epistemological approaches, such as structuralist, poststructuralist, posthumanist, feminist, and postcolonial geographies, and discuss the possible limitations of these approaches in relation to causal explanations and geographical theorizing. At the risk of caricaturing such diverse bodies of work and approaches within very limited space – some accounts here (e.g. feminist theory and postcolonial theory) are likely to be too thin and reductionist in the eyes of specialists and practitioners of these ‘isms’ and I ask for forbearance, these two chapters also serve as a framing template for later chapters that will revisit and identify the distinctive role of explanatory theories in Geography.5
To ‘cramp’ the enormous literature on these different approaches into the two opening chapters, I do not intend to go back too much to the original philosophers and critical theorists. Instead, I focus on their contemporary adoption in critical human geography.6 This meta-narrative approach should serve the primary purpose of this book – engaging with existing approaches in human geography and yet highlighting possible gaps in their explanatory intentions and capabilities. This ‘less philosophical’ approach is similar to Simpson’s (2021: p. 5; my emphasis) recent book on non-presentational theory in which he notes that ‘“NRT” is often felt to be difficult to grasp given the way that it mixes conceptual vocabularies, complex social theories, and references to seemingly esoteric continental philosophy; involves potentially unusual styles of research and writing; and, as there is often either a surprising empirical focus or as there isn’t a clear empirical object of study at all’.
My narrative approach of relying on secondary texts on these critical social theorists and philosophers (except for critical realism, actor-network theory, assemblage theory, and feminist theory where key theorists and philosophers will be evoked) also reflects the fact that there are excellent texts and chapters written by geographers (for geographers) on each of these approaches that draw freely and sometimes very extensively on the original material – repeating such lengthy quotes might not be too productive for an audience in the 2020s and beyond.7 Ironically, many of these original theorists and philosophers have less to say about theory and explanation per se, and much more about their conceptions of knowledge, language, mind, body, society, politics, space, time, and so on. This book thus focuses more on the contemporary work in the discipline on theory and explanation and its potential for future development. In this sense, the book is more an introspective piece about the discipline and its future, rather than one that covers the entire spectrum of critical social theories and philosophical traditions.8
As such, the first two chapters offer a critical examination of explanatory theorizing within the context of ongoing debates in diverse epistemologies in/for Geography. Drawing upon an ‘old’ theme of theory and explanation in human geography since Harvey (1969), I survey briefly how theory and explanation have been treated in various critical approaches and ‘turns’ and move swiftly across some of them to develop a more synthetic view of theory and explanation for future geographical enquiry. Overall then, the main text in this opening chapter and the ensuring book is meant to be more readable, less jargon-laden, and lightly referenced. Insofar as possible, I relegate relevant lengthy quotes, contextual material, and personal reflections to endnotes for advanced readers and paraphrase/weave their core messages into my narrative. Throughout the book’s main text, only the most essential quotes are incorporated sparingly. I hope this different style of academic writing offers a more amenable level of abstraction – not too abstract beyond comprehension by the less well informed, and yet intellectually challenging enough to the experts.9
The remaining of this opening chapter is organized into three sections. In the next section, I elaborate on two important caveats on what the book is not about – neither the championing of a particular approach and/or an actual theory of the socio-spatial world, nor a philosophy in/for Geography and/or a new ‘turn’. I then examine three key considerations of, and for, theory and explanation in Geography in terms of normative concerns in the politics of theorizing, the importance of socio-spatial contexts, and the yardstick of practical adequacy. The final section reiterates this book’s synthetic approach that allows for greater epistemological possibilities for rethinking theory and explanation in geographical research. It also introduces the book’s overall narrative, organization, and the ensuring chapters.
Important Caveats: What This Book Is Not About
I start with two disclaimers to alleviate at the outset some possible concerns and/or expectations from readers. These caveats require some elaboration beyond a simple statement, an important lesson from my close reading and reflecting on earlier influential works in human geography. Opening her Hybrid Geographies with a concise disclaimer of its non-philosophical tract and situated knowledge, Sarah Whatmore’s (2002: p. 6) modest claim was subsequently critiqued by sympathetic reviewers as ‘inconsistent or even hypocritical’ and ‘false modesty’. In response, Whatmore (2005: p. 843) conceded that she might have chosen her words ‘too carefully in retrospect’.10 In what follows, I reflect more openly on my book’s positionality in relation to various critical approaches and philosophical/ontological ‘turns’.
First and foremost, this book does not advocate a particular critical approach nor an actual theory of the world and being. This non-deterministic gesture is perhaps more befitting in an intellectual world of Geography characterized by its leading historians (Cresswell, 2013; Cox, 2014; Johnston and Sidaway, 2016) as a fractured plurality of critical approaches and relatively peaceful co-existence of substantially fragmented communities – the idea of geographical exceptionalism in theory and practice noted at the beginning. I take a more catholic view towards integrating constructive ideas from across different approaches insofar as they are consistent with my key considerations of/for theory and explanation in Geography (see next section). While I have previously written about critical realism and, more recently, its relevance for distinguishing mechanism from process thinking in human geography (Yeung, 1997, 2019a), readers of this work will notice my discussion of theory and explanation may depart quite significantly from most critical realist thinkers and philosophers in terms of my epistemological claims and emphasis on mid-range theories, contextualized explanation, causal mechanisms in variegated ‘material’ forms – from narratives and representations (e.g. ‘discursive formations’ and ‘affective atmospheres’ in poststructuralist thought and ‘representational mechanics’ in postcolonialism) to material practices and assemblages (e.g. actor-network theory and assemblage thinking) and situated knowledges (feminist and postcolonial thought). In this sense, the book embraces both realist and social constructionist thought in its engaged-pluralistic epistemological orientation (cf. Hacking, 1999; Barad, 2007; Elder-Vass, 2012; Gabriel, 2015).11
More significantly, even realist thinking has substantially evolved from its more restrictive forms of transcendental realism in the 1970s (after Roy Bhaskar, 1975, 1979) and critical realism in the 1980s (Sayer, 1981, 1984; Allen, 1983, 1987; Bhaskar, 1986, 1989). It is now not exaggerating to claim that since the late 2000s, realist thinking has made a major return via the expanded and diversified work of critical realists, such as the late Roy Bhaskar and his followers (including their institutionalization of critical realism with its own journal, book series, country networks, and regular conferences; see Chapter 3 endnote 28), and another group of ‘speculative’ philosophers advocating ‘the rise of realism’ (DeLanda and Harman, 2017; see also Rutzou, 2017; Rutzou and Elder-Vass, 2019; Elder-Vass, 2022).12 Where relevant, I will introduce this revitalized realist thinking in greater length in later chapters (2 to 4). Suffice to say here that in both critical realism and speculative realism, material objects exist and are not socially constructed, but social structures are because they depend for their existence on how we think about them and act in relation to their potential (but not deterministic) and conjunctural structuring effects.
Following this non-deterministic orientation towards critical approaches, mechanism in social science explanation cannot and should not be conceived as a machine-like mechanical or technical sequence of physical things, like some critics of mechanism-based realist thought have argued and some dismissive readings of this work as too macho-mechanical-technical might think. In actor-network theory terminology, such mechanism is not made up of non-humans or material things. Mechanism refers to the different but necessary steps for a ‘social’ cause in its broadest sense to produce empirical effect within specific contexts. Some of these steps can be recursive and thus a causal mechanism needs not be sequential in its action and practice. In social science explanation, a causal mechanism often refers to a discrete process embedded in social relations, rather than machines, matters, and things per se, as will be further conceptualized in later chapters (3 to 5).
Despite my epistemological claims of mid-range theories and causal explanations in context, this book does not offer an actual theory of the world/empirical reality/space/subjectivity-humanism. It does not develop a spatial theory of capitalism, the materiality of social relations, the meanings or conceptions of space and place, the spatiality of social life, nor a theory of geographical knowledge or key concepts in Geography per se. There is a fairly large and substantial literature in human geography on these theories and their analytical subjects.13 Still, the search for an all-encompassing theory of space and spatiality remains elusive and perhaps impossible. As well recognized over a decade ago by humanistic geographer Yi-Fu Tuan in his 2010 panel discussion at the annual meeting of the American Association of Geographers,
is a theory of space and spatiality possible? My answer is that I have my doubts, for space, to me, is a cultural and experiential construct, the meaning of which can vary widely from people to people, and from individual to individual… Isn’t it strange that this should be the case when few of us fully grasp what our own theorists say about space and spatiality, even though they speak in prose and strive, as scholars of a scientific or philosophical bent, for maximum clarity? Suppose one theorist does come up with a theory or framework that grips the imagination and commands the respect of many. Can it be that its power lies not, as the theorist himself [sic] may believe, in its compelling logic, but rather in its hidden metaphors – its poetry? (Merriman et al., 2012: pp. 12–13).
