Society, action and space: an alternative human geography: Benno Werlen, 249 pp., 1993, Routledge, Andover, £12.99

Abstract

Structurationist geography is the result of translating mainly Anthony Giddens' structuration theory into a theoretical framework for human, or more precisely, social geography. As demonstrated in the article ‘structuration theory’, there are different elaborations of the core ideas of structuration to a broad theoretical perspective for social and geographic investigations. This core idea finds its expression in the basic principle that the relation of structure and social practice is dual, meaning that social practices refer to social structures and that social structures are the result of previously performed practices and social actions.Historically, two main lines transposing Giddens' structuration theory to a new geographical research perspective can be distinguished. The first systematic reference can be seen in attempts to reformulate a conceptual framework for a theoretically informed regional geography in the early 1980s. These theoretical efforts produced the basis for an extensive debate on a ‘new regional geography’. The works of Derek Gregory, Alan Pred, Nigel Thrift, and Anssi Paasi search for a new theoretical orientation on the basis of three early main works in structuration theory by Anthony Giddens: Central Problems in Social Theory, Critique of Historical Materialism, and especially, The Constitution of Society. This debate is best documented in the work Social Relations and Spatial Structures. The second reference to structuration theory is linked to the reorientation of Scandinavian and German social geography from a focus on space to an action-centered analysis of everyday processes of regionalization, as characterized by Anssi Paasi and Benno Werlen. Besides a critical exploration of the conceptional context of structuration theory, this theoretical project also includes the consideration of the political dimension in the production and regions as institutional realities and of late-modern ontological conditions so as to study geography-making under globalized conditions. For that reason, the spatial concepts of structuration theory – especially ‘region’ and processes of ‘regionalization’ – are critically examined and systematically revised in the latter.