last week's class kept me awake for a few nights. i wasn't quite sure if our conversation had moved us forward. i wondered whether soja had helped us or put up unnecessary roadblocks. i had to wonder why i had included him in our readings - what kind of prior discussion and exploration is necessary to engaging with a spatial trilectic framework?
but it wasn't just that. i read lance's blog posting and i, too, am wondering now about the use of language to describe phenomena, and to what extent languaging is merely a linguistic exercise, and in what ways language and discourse, more broadly, is constitutive of realities in a foucauldian sense. what is the utility of engaging with the spatial dynamics/dimensions/tensions/possibilities of (essentially) "what people are doing in an increasingly digital landscape?"
so far, the usefulness of thinking spatially has been the inclusion of aspects of social interaction and purposes that might go unrecognized from a variety of other approaches to the same phenomena. so a question about "what's going on?" can be approached from a standpoint of "who's involved?" and "who's being represented?" and "for what purposes?" and "using what modalities?" and "what's not being said?" - thus the nature of geography is no longer one of terrestrial constraints but rather a shifting, performable landscape.
...or, perhaps i've just been duped into buying soja's book.
the jury is under healthy deliberation...
Saturday, February 11, 2006
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