Sociology of Space - Postcolonial Theories of Space

Postcolonial Theories of Space

Theories of space that are inspired by the post-colonialism discourse focus on the heterogeneity of spaces. According to Doreen Massey, calling a country in Africa a “developing country” is not appropriate, since this expression implies that spatial difference is temporal difference (Massey 1999b). This logic treats such a country not as different but merely as an early version of countries in the “developed” world, a view she condemns as "Eurocentrism." In this vein, Helmuth Berking criticises theories that postulate the increasing homogenisation of the world through globalisation as “globocentrism.” He confronts this with the distinctiveness and importance of local knowledge resources for the production of (different and specific) places. He claims that local contexts form a sort of framework or filter through which global processes and globally circulating images and symbols are appropriated, thus attaining meaning. For instance, the film character Conan the Barbarian is a different figure in radical rightwing circles in Germany than in the black ghettoes of the Chicago Southside, just as McDonald’s means something different in Moscow than in Paris.