Place as Historically Contingent Process: Structuration and the Time-Geography of Becoming Places

Abstract This paper presents the theoretical foundation for a different type of place-centered or regional geography. The framework rests upon an integration of time-geography and the emerging theory of structuration. It also builds upon a conceptualization of place as a constantly becoming human product as well as a set of features visible upon the landscape. Place is seen as a process whereby the reproduction of social and cultural forms, the formation of biographies, and the transformation of nature ceaselessly become one another at the same time that time-space specific activities and power relations continuously become one another. It is further contended that the ways in which these phenomena are interwoven in the becoming of place or region are not subject to universal laws but vary with historical circumstances. Three empirical foci that suggest themselves from the framework are briefly discussed. Key Words: time-geographystructurationpower relationssocial reproductionlanguageknowledge