Proverbs for Paranoids: Writing Geography on Hollowed Ground

Abstract

In response to the recent moves by a number of writers to begin the process of deconstructing and postmodernizing contemporary human geography, the paper seeks to caution against the fatal seduction radiated by the twin pillars of interpretation: hermeneutics and dialectics. Drawing upon the work of Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida and Felix Guattari, the paper argues that the current fascination with the quadratic nightmare of relativism, textualism, nihilism and perspectivism derives from a confused analysis of narration and signification. The root of this confusion lies in the persistent inability of human geographers to grasp, write and perform the movement of difference. Rather than decompose things, subjects and events into differential fragments, the paper suggests that writing must strive to immerse itself in a myriad of heterogeneous flows. Several consequences erupt from this immersion: first, writing must flatten the feigned separation of world and text by emphasizing its materiality (anti-representation); secondly, writing must hollow the apparently solid and stable ground upon which it rests through the proliferation of fractal and colloidal concepts (anti-hermeneutic); and thirdly, writing must eschew the herding of events into signs through an interminable interruption of narration and signification (antidialectical). As a general principle, the paper attempts to disrupt the rule of representational thought through a performative decompression, deconstruction and provocation of a paranoid called geography.'