article
La dialéctica
Autor
Harvey, David
Institución
Resumen
Raymond Williams chose the resource of thinking fictitious ‘possible worlds’ to address the complexity of issues related to place, space and environment. However, could it be that this was a necessary resource, or rather a random strategy of his to deepen the study of the theory of culture? I will start in this chapter by showing that the strategy used by Williams is not necessary at all. I hope I can show that historical materialist inquiry, induced by a dialectical understanding, can integrate the themes of place, space, and environment (nature) into social theory and literary theory. These theories have not taken this project seriously, and this despite the fact that space-time metaphors, linked to place and environment, have been mentioned and resorted to too much (such as: “the continents of knowledge” by Althusser , Jameson's “cognitive cartography”, Foucault's “heterotopia” and a multitude of studies with titles like “the geography of the imagination”, “the space of literature” and the like). It would seem that, as Smith and Katz (1993) observe, there is a world of difference between, on the one hand, invoking space, place, and environment (nature) as convenient metaphors and, on the other, integrating these notions as historical realities. and geographic in social and literary theory. I also hope to show that such a theoretical project not only has a transformative effect on the realm of theory, but also opens up a realm of political possibilities.