The View from Above: The Science of Social Space
224
The View from Above: The Science of Social Space
224eBook
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Overview
In mid-twentieth century France, the term “social space” (l'espace social)—the idea that spatial form and social life are inextricably linked—emerged in a variety of social science disciplines. Taken up by the French New Left, it also came to inform the practice of urban planning. In The View from Above, Jeanne Haffner traces the evolution of the science of social space from the interwar period to the 1970s, illuminating in particular the role of aerial photography in this new way of conceptualizing socio-spatial relations.
As early as the 1930s, the view from above served for Marcel Griaule and other anthropologists as a means of connecting the social and the spatial. Just a few decades later, the Marxist urban sociologist Henri Lefebvre called the perspective enabled by aerial photography—a technique closely associated with the French colonial state and military—“the space of state control.” Lefebvre and others nevertheless used the notion of social space to recast the problem of massive modernist housing projects (grands ensembles) to encompass the modern suburb (banlieue) itself—a critique that has contemporary resonance in light of the banlieue riots of 2005 and 2007. Haffner shows how such “views” permitted new ways of conceptualizing the old problem of housing to emerge. She also points to broader issues, including the influence of the colonies on the metropole, the application of sociological expertise to the study of the built environment, and the development of a spatially oriented critique of capitalism.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780262312653 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | MIT Press |
| Publication date: | 03/22/2013 |
| Series: | The MIT Press |
| Sold by: | Penguin Random House Publisher Services |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 224 |
| File size: | 14 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Peter Galison is Pellegrino University Professor of the History of Science and of Physics at Harvard University. He is the author of Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps: Empires of Time, How Experiments End, and Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics, among other books, and coeditor (with Emily Thompson) of The Architecture of Science (MIT Press, 1999).
Table of Contents
Foreword Peter Galison ix
Preface xiii
Introduction: The Science of Social Space 1
1 From Enthusiasm to Expertise: Aerial Vision from Before the Airplane to the Aftermath of World War I 7
2 The Politics of Spatial Form: Aerial Photography in Social-Scientific Research, Architecture, and Urban Planning in the 1920s and the 1930s 19
3 The Opportunity of War 55
4 Modeling the Social and the Spatial: "Social Space" in Postwar French Social-Scientific Research 81
5 From Distanced Observation to Active Participation: Social Space and Participatory Planning in 1960s France 109
Conclusion: The Need for a Vue D'ensemble 137
Notes 143
Bibliography 173
Index 199
What People are Saying About This
The sociologist Chombart de Lauwe and the aerial photograph as an ethnographic window dominate Jeanne Haffner's very French The View from Above. Emphasizing the vue d'ensemble, Haffner offers an effective antidote to a romanticized view from below, while leading us to new insights into Lefebvre, Ledrut, and the socio-spatial dialectic.
The View from Above is a compelling genealogy of the emergence and evolution of the concept of 'social space.' Jeanne Haffner offers a fascinating—and ironic—story of how a mode of seeing most recently used to critique state power had its origins in the power of the state itself. With careful attention to the personal biographies of major figures in French social science and urban planning, this tightly focused and well-argued account casts social space and the many figures who participated in its elaboration in a new and original light.
Like all the very best histories, Jeanne Haffner's The View from Above brings unprecedented insights to bear on the here and now. By showing how the perspective of aerial photography became absolutely central to ideas of nationalism, ethnography, human geography, architecture, and urban planning in the second half of the twentieth century, Haffner excavates the crucial genealogies of our own societies, in which technologies like GPS, Google Maps, and Google Earth have come to mediate every aspect of contemporary life.
The View from Above is a compelling genealogy of the emergence and evolution of the concept of 'social space.' Jeanne Haffner offers a fascinating—and ironic—story of how a mode of seeing most recently used to critique state power had its origins in the power of the state itself. With careful attention to the personal biographies of major figures in French social science and urban planning, this tightly focused and well-argued account casts social space and the many figures who participated in its elaboration in a new and original light.
—Jennifer S. Light, Professor of Communication Studies, History, and Sociology, and Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University
The sociologist Chombart de Lauwe and the aerial photograph as an ethnographic window dominate Jeanne Haffner's very French The View from Above. Emphasizing the vue d'ensemble, Haffner offers an effective antidote to a romanticized view from below, while leading us to new insights into Lefebvre, Ledrut, and the socio-spatial dialectic.
—Edward Soja, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning, UCLA Luskin School of Public AffairsLike all the very best histories, Jeanne Haffner's The View from Above brings unprecedented insights to bear on the here and now. By showing how the perspective of aerial photography became absolutely central to ideas of nationalism, ethnography, human geography, architecture, and urban planning in the second half of the twentieth century, Haffner excavates the crucial genealogies of our own societies, in which technologies like GPS, Google Maps, and Google Earth have come to mediate every aspect of contemporary life.
—Stephen Graham, Professor of Cities and Society, Newcastle UniversityThe View from Above is a compelling genealogy of the emergence and evolution of the concept of 'social space.' Jeanne Haffner offers a fascinating—and ironic—story of how a mode of seeing most recently used to critique state power had its origins in the power of the state itself. With careful attention to the personal biographies of major figures in French social science and urban planning, this tightly focused and well-argued account casts social space and the many figures who participated in its elaboration in a new and original light.
—Jennifer S. Light, Professor of Communication Studies, History, and Sociology, and Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University