POSTMODERNISM AND THE LOCALITIES DEBATE - ONTOLOGICAL QUESTIONS AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

The full epistemological implications of recent postmodernist discours es in geography can only be appreciated through their integration with the parallel, but hitherto largely separate, debate regarding localit ies. In accepting the postmodernist distrust of universal metanarrativ es, this paper argues that there can be no general form of explanation in social science, only geographically unique descriptions. Rejecting the claims of critics such as David Harvey or psuedo-postmodernists s uch as Ed Soja, this paper offers four criteria for a truly postmodern geography: complexity, contextuality, contingency, and criticality. T he argument is then advanced that places are critical not only to what we know about the world, but how we know it as well, i.e., from a pos tmodernist perspective, all knowledge is locally specific.