Time Space Compression

If geography is the study of how human beings are stretched over the earth’s surface, a vital part of that process is how we know and feel about space and time. Although space and time appear as "natural" and outside of society, they are in fact social constructions; every society develops different ways of measuring, organizing, and perceiving them. Given steady increases in the volume and velocity of social transactions over space, time and space have steadily "shrunk" via the process of time-space compression. By changing the time-space prisms of daily life – how people use their times and spaces, the opportunities and constraints they face, the meanings they attach to them – time-space compression is simultaneously cultural, social, political, and psychological in nature. This book explores how various social institutions and technologies historically generated enormous improvements in transportation and communications that produced transformative reductions in the time and cost of interactions among places, creating ever-changing geographies of centrality and peripherality. Warf invokes a global perspective on early modern, late modern, and postmodern capitalism. He makes use of data concerning travel times at various historical junctures, maps of distances between places at different historical moments, anecdotal analyses based on published accounts of people’s sense of place, examinations of cultural forms that represented space (e.g., paintings), and quotes about the culture of speed. Warf shows how time-space compression varies under different historical and geographical conditions, indicating that it is not one, single, homogenous process but a complex, contingent, and contested one. This book will be useful book for those studying and researching Geography, History, Sociology, and Political Science, as well as Anthropology, and Philosophy.

A Dictionary of Human Geography is a brand new addition to Oxford's Paperback Reference Series, offering over 2,000 clear and concise entries on human geography terms. From basic terms and concepts to biographical entries, acronyms, organisations, and major periods and schools in the history of human geography, it provides up-to-date, accurate, and accessible information. It also includes entry-level web links that are listed and regularly updated on a dedicated companion website. This dictionary is a reliable reference for students of human geography and ancillary subjects, for researchers and professionals in the field, and for interested generalists.

Timespace undermines the old certainties of time and space by arguing that these dimensions do not exist singly, but only as a hybrid process term. The issue of space has perhaps been over-emphasised and it is essential that processes of everyday existence, such as globalisation and environmental issues and also notions such as gender, race and ethnicity, are looked at with a balanced time-space analysis. The social and cultural consequences of this move are traced through a series of studies which deploy different perspectives - structural, phenomenological and even Buddhist - in order to make things meet up. The contributors provide an overview of the history of time and introduce the concepts of time and space together, across a range of disciplines. The themes discussed are of importance for cultural geography, sociology, anthropology, cultural and media studies, and psychology.

Money and Finance After the Crisis provides a critical multi-disciplinary perspective on the post-crisis financial world in all its complexity, dynamism and unpredictability. Contributions illuminate the diversity of ways in which money and finance continue to shape global political economy and society. A multidisciplinary collection of essays that study the geographies of money and finance that have unfolded in the wake of the financial crisis Contributions discuss a wide range of contemporary social formations, including the complexities of modern debt-driven financial markets Chapters critically explore proliferating forms and spaces of financial power, from the realms of orthodox finance capital to biodiversity conservation Contributions demonstrate the centrality of money and finance to contemporary capitalism and its political and cultural economies

David Harvey’s The Condition of Postmodernity rationalised capitalism’s transformation during an extraordinary year: 1989. It gave theoretical expression to a material and cultural reality that was just then getting properly started – globalisation and postmodernity – whilst highlighting the geo-spatial limits to accumulation imposed by our planet. However this landmark publication, author Robert Hassan argues, did not address the arrival of digital technology, the quantum leap represented by the move from an analogue world to a digital economy and the rapid creation of a global networked society. Considering first the contexts of 1989 and Harvey’s work, then the idea of humans as analogue beings he argues this arising new human condition of digitality leads to alienation not only from technology but also the environment. This condition he suggests, is not an ideology of time and space but a reality stressing that Harvey’s time-space compression takes on new features including those of ‘outward’ and ‘inward’ globalisation and the commodification of all spheres of existence. Lastly the author considers culture’s role drawing on Rahel Jaeggi’s theories to make the case for a post-modern Marxism attuned to the most significant issue of our age. Stimulating and theoretically wide-ranging The Condition of Digitality recognises post-modernity’s radical new form as a reality and the urgent need to assert more democratic control over digitality.

Mobility is fundamental to economic and social activities such as commuting, manufacturing, or supplying energy. Each movement has an origin, a potential set of intermediate locations, a destination, and a nature which is linked with geographical attributes. Transport systems composed of infrastructures, modes and terminals are so embedded in the socio-economic life of individuals, institutions and corporations that they are often invisible to the consumer. This is paradoxical as the perceived invisibility of transportation is derived from its efficiency. Understanding how mobility is linked with geography is main the purpose of this book. The third edition of The Geography of Transport Systems has been revised and updated to provide an overview of the spatial aspects of transportation. This text provides greater discussion of security, energy, green logistics, as well as new and updated case studies, a revised content structure, and new figures. Each chapter covers a specific conceptual dimension including networks, modes, terminals, freight transportation, urban transportation and environmental impacts. A final chapter contains core methodologies linked with transport geography such as accessibility, spatial interactions, graph theory and Geographic Information Systems for transportation (GIS-T). This book provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the field, with a broad overview of its concepts, methods, and areas of application. The accompanying website for this text contains a useful additional material, including digital maps, PowerPoint slides, databases, and links to further reading and websites. The website can be accessed at: http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans This text is an essential resource for undergraduates studying transport geography, as well as those interest in economic and urban geography, transport planning and engineering.

This edited volume focuses on the intersection of time and globalization, as manifested across a variety of economic, political, cultural, and environmental contexts. Since David Harvey’s influential characterization of globalization as "time-space compression", ample research has looked at the spatial aspect of the phenomenon, yet few have focused on globalization’s temporal aspects. Meanwhile, other publications have analysed problems of speed, acceleration, and the commodification of time, but while it often serves as the implicit or explicit backdrop for these studies of time, globalization is not investigated as a problem or a question in its own right. In response, this volume develops these conversations to consider how time shapes globalization, and how globalization affects our experience of time. The interplay between varying aspects of the human experiences of time and globalization requires the type of interdisciplinary approach that this volume takes. The contributors advance an understanding of global time(s) as an arena of contestation, with social, political, ecological, and cultural implications for human and other lives. In considering the diverse valences of time and globalization, they illuminate problems as well as possibilities. Topics covered include emerging infectious diseases, temporal sovereignty, worker exploitation and resistance, chronobiology, energy politics, activism and hope, and literary and cinematic representations of counter-temporalities, offering a rich and varied account of global times. This volume will be of great interest to students and researchers from a range of disciplines, including anthropology, cultural studies, globalization, international relations, literary studies, political science, social theory, and sociology.