Time-Geography and Economic Development: The Changing Structure of Livelihood Positions on Arable Farms in Nineteenth Century Sweden

Abstract

This paper has a threefold aim. Firstly, we discuss briefly the analytical perspective of time-geography, originally developed by Hägerstrand. In particular, we suggest that as it has so far been presented, and notwithstanding the numerous claims for its great potential significance on a social theoretical level, 'his methodology has not yet been elaborated to such a degree that it can incorporate links between the day to day activities of individuals with which it seems to be primarily concerned empirically and the major processes of social and economic determination and change frequently referred to in the more theoretical feces of work. We propose that this inadequacy might be at least partially overcome by incorporating the concept of livelihood Position into the time-geographical system in a full and deliberate way. Only through a development along these or similar lines can time-geography become capable of analysing socio-spatial processes as well as describing the spatial patterns of daily movements that reflect them.Secondly, we show that many important questions about the transformation of Western European peasant societies are concerned with the nature of stations and livelihood positions and their changes. Thirdly this suggested elaboration of time-geography will be exemplified in terms of the development of capitalist farming in an arable area of Sweden in the nineteenth century. In this way we hope both to cast further light on the nature of the process which produced capitalist farming in peasant society and to explore the possibility of extending the analytical capacity of time-geography towards something more nearly correspondent with the claims of its most enthusiastic advocates.