Constructive comments on D Massey - 'Space-time, "science" and the relationship between physical geography and human geography'

This paper provides a discussion of Massey's (1999) account of the role of space-time in human and physical geography. Recognizing the relative (but n ot absolute) paucity of comment from physical geographers on questions of a pproach and method, the paper seeks to demonstrate three things. First, it casts a history of a narrow part of geomorphology in a similar vein to a pa rt of human geography to demonstrate that it is possible to find strong sha red characteristics in the ways in which the two subjects are being approac hed. This emphasizes the importance of analyses that recognize both space a nd time in seeking explanation in physical geography and which has importan t implications for: (i) the nature of laws and processes in geomorphology; and hence (ii) the interpretation of specific landforms and their histories . Second, the paper argues that much of what Massey addresses relates to th e closure required to make things amenable to study, something that is char acteristic of almost every type of research. This has long been acknowledge d in science in general and in physical geography in particular, but is oft en forgotten. Third, the paper uses this consideration of closure to addres s the issue of the relational nature of different sorts of space-time model s. Following Massey's argument that the sort of space-time model that we ad opt needs to be informed by the entities that we study, the paper concludes that some of the space-time models that Massey critiques (e.g. classical N ewtonian mechanics) may still be fundamental to what we do, and in no sense necessarily ahistorical.