Spatial Causalities in Geographies of Scientific Knowledge

Abstract

This paper tries to discuss the efforts of geographers of science to put science in its geographical contexts. Geographers of science have studied the socio-spatial settings in which scientific knowledge has been generated, displayed, and legitimated. For them, science is socially constructed in “spatialities” and “temporalities”. The major question of this study is how “spatialities” construct scientific knowledge via its “causalities”. The fundamental idea is that geography of science does not only deal with places, locations, and regions where scientific knowledge is produced or distributed; it also deals with a variety set of spatial causalities through which scientific knowledge can be formed and transformed. This means that the development of innovative knowledge and ideas take place not only within a spatial context but also occur due to the spatial causalities associated with the myriad interlinkages and interdependencies among places. These imperatives of spatial significance operate across many spatial scales from body/local to the planet/global. Hence, in our increasingly globalized world, we must seek knowledge in spatial encounters and in-between places, not merely within spaces and places. In addition, when we are living in an unprecedented transformation period which transfers the terrestrial spatial causalities to the virtual spatial causalities via intelligent and digital technologies, we should be more aware of the difference that new algorithms make in our daily life through hacking virtual spatial causalities.