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Theorizing Practice, Visualizing Theory, and Playing by the Rules

This paper is based on the observation that all human action occurs in time and occupies space: an observation that is so obvious yet so obscure. As Henri Lefebvre states, the idea of space is "[c]onspicuous by its absence from supposedly fundamental epistemological studies" notwithstanding "the fact that 'space' is mentioned on every page" (3). Edward Soja also points out an "enduring epistemological presence" of a theoretical historicism so "hegemonic" that it occludes "a practical theoretical consciousness that sees the lifeworld of being creatively located not only in the making of history but also in the construction of human geographies, the social production of space and the restless formation and reformation of geographical landscapes" (11).

While (Hegelian) historicism privileges temporality over space by trying to trace a chronology of events as if they occur regardless of their location or as if location is a by-product of this chronology, cultural geography sees events as over-determined by energy-space-temporality, (i.e., agency-location-time). An "event" here, in Foucault's words, is "not a decision, a treaty, a reign, or a battle," but "the reversal of a relationship of forces, the usurpation of power, the appropriation of a vocabulary turned against those who had once used it, a feeble domination that poisons itself as it grows lax, the entry of a masked 'other'" ("Nietzsche" 155). The other's mask echoes the traditional split of reality versus appearance which does not only hinder making "reality" visible, but also allows "the exploitation of one discourse by another to sustain the imperialism of a particular theory" (Wigley 93).

Transforming the dominant spatial metaphor (reality versus appearance) is a massive project requiring changes on the macro level. Instead, this paper aims at finding ways of dwelling within this theoretical fissure. Reading (social) space as a (social) product (Lefebvre, 1974) will redistribute human agency and formulate new possibilities for resistance. Grandison's account of how the campuses of Historically Black Colleges and Universities negotiated space in the context of establishing black power and Soja's description of the de-centralization of Los Angeles provide two examples of this redistribution of agency in action.

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