Relational Geography

Networked Space:

Which two cities are closer together - London and Blackpool or London and New York? From a strictly metric geographic sense, we would answer that London and Blackpool are closer, and for a long time that would be how geographers would respond. But in recent decades geographers have become increasingly interested in how places are constituted not so much according to fixed, metric qualities, but in terms of how different kinds of flows tie spaces together. These spaces might be quite far from one another in a geographic sense, but quite close together in terms of how they relate: hence relational geography.

Looking at these three cities from a relational perspective, we would consider the kinds of flows that move between them - flows that might be constituted of people, ideas, money, resources, etc. From this perspective, we could reasonably argue that London and New York have far greater intensities of flows, drawing them closer together than the Blackpool counterpart situated in the the UK.

Relational geography is thus interested both in the kinds of Networks that exist between places, as well as the Driving Flows that these networks carry. Rather than seeing places as being primary and the relations between places being as a secondary outcome of these primary "things", relational geography flips this relationship on its head: arguing that we need to look at the relational flows first with particular places then being constituted by the nature of how these flows come to be grounded or moored in particular settings (see for example the work of John Urry).  It employs Network theory to help think about how the dynamics of agent interactions - the flows moving between them -  affect the performance  of complex geographical systems.

Complexity and Relational Geography

Given these interests, it is stands to reason that geographers interested in understanding how to think through this orientation would notice  similarities to complexity theory. Relational geographers, thus began to draw inspiration from complexity dynamics, particularly as it pertains to such phenomena as Emergence, Non-Linearity, and Driving Flows. Relational geographers are not particularly engaged with the nature of self-similar or nested orders in complex systems, and if focused on individual agents, then these are most often thought of not at the scale of humans in cities, but as cities themselves as agents in a global network.  

Relational Geography, attunes in particular to how network structure may have an effect on the kinds of urbanization patterns that emerge; how present day patterns of habitation are not necessarily 'natural' outgrowths of previous patterns in a clear, logical chain, but instead how History Matters and Contingency plays a key role. They may employ the language of complexity, using terms like Bifurcations to try to capture the contingent, non-linear dynamics at play.

Thus, what makes a "world class" city, vs a local city, and what are the driving forces at play that weave this city into global versus local networks of influence. How can cities who may be at the fringes move to steer more driving flows of resources and people into their sphere or influence? What geographical regions are left behind? For example, how does the location of a particular rail line, and its stations, change the dynamics of proximity in ways that may privilege certain regions, while marginalizing others that are left with poorer access to these flows of mobility?

These kinds of questions slide up alongside many of the terms and concepts used in complexity thinking.

map of global airline routes - Wikimedia commons

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