Most social theories who consider time or space examine either time or space. Time and space, in other words, are taken to be separable matters, between which only contingent relations exist. Social theory is replete with accounts of either social time or social space that mostly ignore or elide the other phenomenon. In the past two or three decades, however, a variety of theorists have analysed social space-time, including Torsten Hägerstrand (1975), Don Parkes and Nigel Thrift (1980), Anthony Giddens (1984), David Harvey (1996), Tim Ingold (2002) and Henri Lefebvre (2004). Two features characterize their accounts. First, they usually, though not always, treat space-time as an objective phenomenon. Second, they always treat space-time as a conjunction of space and time conceived of as separable phenomena, that is, as phenomena that are not intrinsically related. According to these theorists, space-time is not unified; it exclusively embraces contingent connections between spatial and temporal phenomena or between the spatial and temporal properties of social phenomena.
I have no particular brief against most conceptions of social space-time. Social phenomena do have contingently related objective spatial and temporal properties, and grasping these properties can be important to understanding them. Social life, however, possesses another kind of space-time, or, better, timespace. Although this timespace is less noticeable than objective space and time, it is arguably at least as crucial to the existence of society as are the latter, if not more so. In fact, as indicated, interwoven timespaces are fundamental to human society.
The spatial dimension of timespace is familiar in the philosophy and geography literature, going under the names of ‘phenomenological’, ‘existential’ and ‘lived’ space. I will follow Heidegger and call it ‘spatiality’ (Räumlichkeit) so as to differentiate it from objective space. Spatiality is the world around (an actor) in its pertinence to and involvement in human activity. This world is pertinent to and involved in human activity in providing a platform for, and comprising entities that have places in, human activities. Spatiality, as a result, encompasses arrays of places and paths anchored in material entities. A place is a place to perform a particular activity, whereas a path is an avenue for getting from one place to another. A railing, for instance, can be a place to watch a horse race, whereas a grandstand exit passageway can be a path from the viewing stands to the betting windows, concessions and washrooms.<sup>2</sup> As a person goes through her day, she proceeds through arrays of places and paths that both reflect and determine her and others’ activities; the passageway, for instance, is a path between stands and betting windows because people watch races and bet on them, and people use the passageway when they want to bet because it is such a path. As indicated, moreover, places and paths are anchored at objects: a place to watch the race can be anchored at a metal railing, whereas a path between stands and windows can be anchored at a cement passageway. The physical entity at which a path or place is anchored also yields the location in objective space where the path or place exists. Places and paths, finally, form arrays called ‘settings’. Settings, in turn, form broader locales and regions: for instance, betting area, facilities under the viewing stand, the grandstand, Keeneland race track and the Bluegrass horse region. Which settings, locales and regions exist in a particular geographical area depends on the physical arrangements that exist there and what practices are carried on amid or in relation to those arrangements.
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• Ted Schatzki