TY - JOUR
T1 - For a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious scientific geography
AU - Dixon, D. P.
AU - Jones, J. P.III
PY - 1996
Y1 - 1996
N2 - Contemporary geographic thought finds scientific approaches triangulated by critiques launched by various political economy, feminist, and poststructuralist positions. In aiming their conceptual arsenal at fixed understandings of scientific geography, however, such critiques run the danger of essentializing their intended target. Moreover, in the consequent stabilization of the trajectories taken by those critiques, the process of criticism itself becomes unreflexive exercise. In this paper we deploy the resources of poststructuralism to achieve an antiessentialist reading of scientific geography that moves beyond mere repudiation and seeks instead to identify a redemptive moment within this constellation of ideas and practices. To do so, we draw upon a modern-day parable - Mary Poppins - whose film version we read as offering a panorama on theoretical division in geography. Though ostensibly a story about an all-too-perfect nanny, the film's key protagonists serve as allegorical figures animating our analysis. Fortunately for all concerned, the banker/patriarch comes to the realization that he too can counntermand rather than reproduce the fixed spaces of everyday life.
AB - Contemporary geographic thought finds scientific approaches triangulated by critiques launched by various political economy, feminist, and poststructuralist positions. In aiming their conceptual arsenal at fixed understandings of scientific geography, however, such critiques run the danger of essentializing their intended target. Moreover, in the consequent stabilization of the trajectories taken by those critiques, the process of criticism itself becomes unreflexive exercise. In this paper we deploy the resources of poststructuralism to achieve an antiessentialist reading of scientific geography that moves beyond mere repudiation and seeks instead to identify a redemptive moment within this constellation of ideas and practices. To do so, we draw upon a modern-day parable - Mary Poppins - whose film version we read as offering a panorama on theoretical division in geography. Though ostensibly a story about an all-too-perfect nanny, the film's key protagonists serve as allegorical figures animating our analysis. Fortunately for all concerned, the banker/patriarch comes to the realization that he too can counntermand rather than reproduce the fixed spaces of everyday life.
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U2 - 10.1111/j.1467-8306.1996.tb01776.x
DO - 10.1111/j.1467-8306.1996.tb01776.x
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0030433761
SN - 2469-4452
VL - 86
SP - 767
EP - 779
JO - Annals of the American Association of Geographers
JF - Annals of the American Association of Geographers
IS - 4
ER -