The material to follow in this
chapter fulfills key tasks of the larger project presented by this
document. First, it defines the city as
a spatial form. Second, it defines
globalization in relation to the definition of the city. Finally, it relates the city and
globalization to class, preparatory to a consideration of class structural
heterogeneity in chapter 3.
In order to
achieve the first of these tasks, I will address the basic problem of space in
reference to the Althusserian overdeterminist ontology asserted in chapter
1. The intention of this explanation is
not to rewrite overdeterminist ontology in reference to space but to develop
separate imageries of space on both the holistic, closed, determinate field of
the structured totality of material processes and the partial, open, and
contingent field of theory. The imagery
advanced in regard to the ontological field of theory will be that of the network,
constituted as a piece-wise, partial assemblage of space. It will be the purpose of the first section
of this chapter to outline this dual ontological imagery of space and,
especially, to define how networks will be understood in this project,
comparing and contrasting this definition of networks to that of Actor
Network Theory (ANT). Proceeding
beyond the basic effort to define the network, the second section will define
the city as a spatial form constituted by networks and the third section will
argue that globalization, as a constellation of processes defining distinct
networks across space, is articulated through the space of cities.
The remaining
sections of this chapter will seek to elaborate further the distinctiveness of
the city, as the urban spatial form, relative to non-urban forms. The point, in this respect, is that the city
is unique as a space for articulation of networked linkages between processes
with globally extensive effects. Moving
beyond this particular uniqueness, however, the interrelations of processes in
the city, within its hinterlands, and across globally extensive networks
produce a particular developmental dynamic that I intend to label incubation. In development and utilization of this
concept, I mean to argue that the profusion of effects from processes internal
and external to the city generate a dynamic of continuous economic
redevelopment, in the sense described by Jacobs (1970: 125-129) in her
conception of a supply-export reciprocating system and the creation of
“new work” by cities more generally.
Asserting incubation in relation to the networked-defined spatial form
of cities as the basis for development of new production processes in cities,
the next two sections will articulate the consequences of incubation to class
processes. The intention, in this
regard, will be to argue, on the one hand, that class processes articulate networks
over diverse geographic ranges and, on the other hand, that the existence of
geographically localized class processes in a given city incubates ranges of
other production processes, extending class networks to other nodes internal to
the city. This consideration of the
effects of incubation on class processes will constitute the starting point for
elaboration of the principal hypothesis of this project that cities incubate
heterogeneous class structures, in chapter 3.
Concluding this
brief introduction, the material contained in this chapter attempts to move
from a high level of theoretic abstraction, from the field of structured
totality, to successively higher levels of theoretically reconstructed
concreteness evident in a definition of the city, as an assemblage of networked
processes, including class processes. I
make no apologies for the level of abstraction advanced at the outset. Rather, such a process follows, in part,
Marx’s “method,” advanced in the introduction to A Contribution to the
Critique of Political Economy (1993: 100-108). That is to say, the methodology followed in this chapter, first,
asserts the irreducible complexity of material existence, patterned
theoretically by the concept of structured totality, with its own irreducibly
complex spatio-temporality (universal space-time). Beyond this irreducibility of structured
totality, I seek to define a basic theoretic concept in the disconnected
process with a disconnected spatio-temporality. Finally, the approach reconstructs the connectedness of processes
and the implications of connectedness in space-time (networked space-time). In my view, the absence of such a theoretic
process, linking Althusserian ontological concepts to spatio-temporality, would
compromise the ability of this project to conceptualize either the network or
the city by depriving these concepts of a solid connection to the
Marxist/Althusserian ontology appropriated by this project as its basic
theoretic framework. For this reason, I
regard the material contained here as constituting a critical stage in the
larger conception of this project.
Theorizing Space: Sites, Networks, and Nodes
The primary objectives of this
section are to integrate space, or, more properly, spatio-temporality, into an
overdeterminist Marxist/Althusserian ontology, and, with regard to the field of
theory, to develop a conception of networks emanating from overdeterminist
ontology. In securing these objectives,
I will, first, describe space-time on the field of structured totality, approaching
spatio-temporality in reference to the concept of the site. I will, then, describe spatio-temporality on
the field of theory by pursuing the theoretic dislocation of the site from its
context in structured totality. The
intention of this dislocation is to achieve the transformation of the site into
a node, constituting the basic unit of a network. The closing arguments of this section
will advance a comparison of this approach to that of Actor Network Theory
in order to more thoroughly illuminate the specific theoretic content of my approach
to the network in relation to this more developed body of theory.
Spatio-Temporality of Structured
Totality: Sites
As outlined in chapter 1,
structured totality constitutes the fundamental ontological concept in
Althusserian ontology, describing the collection of all material processes,
connected across multiple, hierarchical structures in which every process
exists as a loci for determination by every other process, both internally and
externally in relation to a given process.
To proceed further
in describing this overdetermination of processes, at each locus processual
determinations from past and contemporaneous effects combine to produce a
specific, determinate transformation of material existence. I mean to construe the concept of “effect”
utilized, in this regard, in the broadest possible terms, to include the
particular transformations of material objects and those of contexts in which
individual agents act or other processes otherwise occur. Thus, the manifestations of use values emerging
from a particular production processes in which raw materials, equipment, and
labor power have been combined to produce something new may be construed as
effects of the production process.
Additionally, emissions of chemical substances, incidental to the same
production process, may also be viewed as effects of the production process,
which, in turn, shape particular ecological processes through their
transmission. Lastly, the production
process may impact myriad other political, economic, cultural, ecological,
physical, chemical, biological, etc. processes in particular ways by means of
other unspecified effects on the contexts in which these processes occur.
Every
combination of effects is specific, because each combines a unique set of
determinations from different, unique sets of overdeterminants. Some of these overdeterminants may arise
from the explosive diffusion of effects of processes in the immediate
past. Others may arise from the
accumulated effects of processes in a more distant past over an extended length
of time. Still others may be the
effects of a process in the very distant past whose positive effects on the
process awaited the appropriate combination of other, more recent effects to
achieve the conjunctural realization of some particular outcome.
These
reflections begin to establish an understanding of the temporal dimension of
processes in an overdetermined totality.
Time, in these terms, is relational. As suggested briefly in chapter 1, my use of this terminology
follows, in some degree, its use by theorists like Harvey, Massey, Amin, and
other who identify the dimensionality of processes and/or things within
material existence as a relationship to other such processes and/or
things. Harvey’s specification of the
relational concept in regard to spatiality provides the clearest example of
what I have in mind here. Harvey
characterizes relational space as a Leibnizian concept defining the
dimensionality “contained in objects in the sense that an object can be said to
exist only insofar as it contains and represents within itself relationships to
other objects” (Harvey, 1973: 13). More
succinctly:
(T)he relational
view of space holds there is no such thing as space or time outside of the
processes that define them…Processes do not occur in space but define
their own spatial frame. The concept of
space is embedded in or internal to process (Harvey, 2006B: 123).
The same sort of understanding of
the relational concept can be applied with respect to the temporal dimension of
processes within overdeterminist ontology.
Time exists as a set of relationships connecting a process to its
internal and external overdeterminants, expressing a difference between
processes occurring simultaneously and others occurring at successively farther
distances into the past. In this
manner, time can only be gauged as a temporal distance between the
manifestation of a process and some other process whose effects have
overdetermined the first process. The
temporality of a process expresses its simultaneity or non-simultaneity with
other processes that effect it as an outcome of overdetermination. Thus, time is a dimension specific to each
process, expressing the trajectory of a process in relation to all other
processes.[1]
Spatiality
constitutes the second set of dimensions unique to each process. Defined again in relational terms at least
partly consistent with those of Harvey, spatiality describes the collocated or
non-collocated existence of a process with its internal and external
overdeterminants, in the limit, in simultaneity. By extension of this relational logic, the notion of spatial
dispersion or distance between processes can be defined in reference to the
relative proximity of multiple processes, through which a process may be
relatively closer to certain overdeterminants at a temporal instance than it is
to others.
By this
understanding, temporal/historical ranges and spatial/geographic scales both
exist as relational articulations, internalized to individual processes at
specific loci. Some overdeterminants of
a process are collocated with and simultaneous to the process, while others are
non-collocated (either internally contained or external, overlapping or
entirely distinct and separated) but simultaneous to the process, still others
are non-simultaneous but collocated, and still others are neither coextensive
nor simultaneous. The possibilities
advanced here map the objective geography and history of a process in
relation to its overdeterminants, objective in the sense that they
conceptually situate the position of a particular process, at a point/moment in
its trajectory, relative to every other process in structured totality. The notion of such an objective geographic
and historical position describes the concept of a site.[2]
Sites have a
geometry and a temporal instance/moment, encompassing all that is internal or
organic to the process, including processes constituting the relative
boundedness of the site itself. For
example, the class process of surplus labor production has a site, defined by
the productive consumption of labor power, the spatial dimensions containing
this transformation and the temporal moment in which the transformation occurs
or does not occur. This site is consistent
with the notion of the “industrial site,” containing the simultaneous and
collocated processes of surplus production and appropriation, as described by
Ruccio et al (1991). The site has
boundaries, however tangible or intangible, that delimit the spatial dimensions
of the process relative to what is external to it at each temporal
instance/moment. Internal to those
boundaries, the class process of production contains certain overdeterminate
processes, involving biological, physical, and chemical transformations (e.g.
composites of chemically transformative processes changing raw materials into
new use values) and mental, emotional, political, cultural, and economic
processes whose outcomes effect the productive consumption of labor power.
The site of the
surplus production process contains the sites of many of its overdeterminants,
but containment of these sites may be transitory. Other processes may invade or escape the site of production at
different moments, and the effects of these processes on the production process
may change in relation to their containment or externalization. For example, the sites of particular
non-class social processes, involving workers engaged in a surplus production
process and overdetermining the process, may be contained by the space of the
production process at certain times and spill over or transport themselves to
other sites at other times, with changes in location having effects on the
production process.
Extending this
understanding of the site to encompass the aggregate, the spatio-temporality of
structured totality, as the assemblage of all mutually constituted/mutually
constitutive material processes, constitutes a seamless, universal,
objective space-time, as the assemblage of all processual sites. Such a universal space-time is decentered
and devoid of any temporal baseline, because it constitutes an irreducibly
complex aggregation of processes, each with its own relational centeredness (as
individual loci), temporal baseline, and trajectory, defined by its
relationship to all other processes. In
this sense, universal space-time can only be mapped in reference to individual
processual sites – the spatio-temporality of structured totality, per se,
cannot be mapped.
More
practically, this project asserts that the irreducible complexity implied by
overdetermination precludes any objective mapping on the ontological field of
structured totality. To conceptualize
such a mapping of individual processes would amount to the tracing of
connections, in the transmission of effects, between processual sites across
both infinitely expansive spatial and temporal dimensions. Again, by asserting the unapproachable
conditions for objective spatio-temporality, this project seeks to reinforce
the performative character of geographic and historical theorization and
analysis. Mappings of space-time
relationships between processes can only be partial in their articulation, and
the purpose for engaging in such theorizations and analyses can only be to
shape the way the reality of space-time is understood and, hence, lived. Performative mappings do not belong to the
objective and unapproachable background of totality but to the field of
theory.
Spatio-Temporality of Theory:
Networks and Nodes
Abstracting from the irreducible
complexity of structured totality and, thus, from the universal space-time it
constitutes, the Marxian method implies that a theoretic ontology must isolate
a simplified processual unit – a single locus for overdetermination stripped of
its connections to processual overdeterminants – and reconstruct its
constitutive linkages to other processes.[3] In regard to space-time, the site, as a
universally connected position of a given process in mutually constitutive
relation to its overdeterminants, must be emptied of its spatio-temporality in
order to reconstruct, in a piece-wise manner, the spatio-temporality of its
connections to other processual sites.
In
a spaceless-timeless ontology, the theoretic reconstruction of processual
connections constitutes the articulation of structures, as series of
processes defined by a particular, theoretically identified relationship
between processes (e.g. the class structure).
In reference to space-time, reconstruction of the spatio-temporality of
structures defines a spatio-temporal relationship between processes that I will
label the network. Networks, as
they will be understood in this project, are fully theoretic constructs. They arise from the theoretic abstraction of
sites from structured totality and the subsequent (partial) reassembly of sites
and their processes to articulate a particular geography and a particular
temporal sequence or simultaneity, reflecting a structural relationship between
the processes and processual sites contained by the network. In this sense, the conception of networks
used here remains at a relatively abstract, ontological level, encompassing any
articulated spatio-temporal connection between material processes, not simply
relationships defined by the presence of intervening physical infrastructures
(e.g. an electrical grid or a mass transit system).[4] The spatio-temporal connections between
separate but functionally related chemically transformative processes in a
photosynthesizing plant, thus, constitutes a network in the same way that the
spatio-temporal connections between separate but interrelated financial
processes involving multiple firms constitutes a different kind of network,
constructed by a different theoretic process.
In order to
emphasize the theoretic transformation of relations between sites in the articulation
of the network relative to relations in structured totality, I will apply the
concept of the node to describe particular sites contained by the
network. Nodes contain within their
dimensions processes that are organic to the network as the spatio-temporal
analog of a structure. Nodes may also
contain the sites of processes that are not connected theoretically to the
processual structure defining the network.
For example, a production node in a network defined by a class structure
(i.e. the site of production in a class structure articulated spatio-temporally
as a network) contains a wide range of physical and social processual sites
that do not define the class structure, even though these processes are
overdeterminants of the class process of production. The larger point, in this respect, is that the articulation of
networks through the linking of nodes does not proceed from a general
assumption of overdetermination between all processes (as on the field of
structured totality), but necessitates the theoretic specification of linkages
between processes and their spatio-temporal dimensions. Networks may connect spatially dispersed
nodes configured as archipelagos of processual sites, interspersed by
processual sites wholly disconnected from the network as it is theoretically
articulated in abstraction from the infinity of processual overdeterminants by
which it is constituted.
With
specific regard to the spatiality of networks and their respective nodes, some
nodes will be relatively stationary over given periods of time while others are
relatively mobile.[5] Considered, again, strictly with respect to
the spatial dimension, this must be the case if the processes defining the
network are not spatially collocated.
The spatial dispersion of network processes implies that some processes,
internal to the network, must connect relatively stationary and spatially
separated processes. A type of mobile
node must exist to facilitate the transmission of effects between stationary
nodes, a node defined by its processual role in the transmission of
effects. Extending this logic to the
temporal dimensions of a network, if processes in a network are collocated but
not simultaneous or sequential (i.e. separated by extended temporal ranges),
then the network requires a node defined by its processual role in the
transmission of effects between separated temporal instances. The point is the same for networks defined
strictly in reference to spatiality, strictly in reference to temporality, or
in reference to some complex relationship of space and time: stationary nodes
in a dispersed processual relationship require a vehicle for the transmission
of specified effects across spaces or times not otherwise articulated within
the network.
A
relatively simple relationship between a set of processes may illustrate the
understanding that I mean to convey about relatively stationary and relatively
mobile nodes. Visual observation of
objects by a human observer involves an integrated set of processes,
characterized by spatial and temporal dispersion, constituting a network. In spatial terms, the process involves two
relatively stationary nodes: the object (constituted by a set of internal and
external physical and social processes that overdetermine its existence as an
object in continuous material transformation) and the human observer
(constituted by a set of internal and external physical and social processes
that overdetermine its existence as a human individual in continuous material
transformation). The spatial distance
between the two relatively stationary nodes constitutes a pathway for
the transmission of effects, but this pathway is constituted by processes (e.g.
chemical transformation of molecules in air) incidental to the theoretically
defined structure of processes in visual observation. What is needed is a processual vehicle to connect the object to
the observer. This processual vehicle
arises from the reflection of visible light waves off the surface of the
object. The process of visible light
radiation, capturing the effects of processes constituting the object, thus,
constitutes a transmission process between the relatively stationary nodes in
the network. The spatio-temporality of
light particle transmission from the object, varying in accordance with the
speed of light waves in continuous reaction with the physical and chemical
processes of the pathway, exists as a mobile node in the network, carrying
effects between stationary points. A
simple articulation of the network, abstracting from the complexities involved
in optical processes or interpretation of visually accumulated information, is
completed in the absorption of visible light waves by the observer’s eye.
In order to
further explain the meaning of the network in relation to the particular kinds
of processes with which this project and Marxian theory, as a whole, are
especially concerned, the class structure defined in chapter 1 provides an
important example. Again, the
understanding of class structures followed within this project involves the
integration of a particular set of class processes (the production,
appropriation, distribution, and receiving of surplus labor) and the
connections to non-class processes securing conditions of existence for the
production and appropriation of surplus labor.
Class processes contained by a given class structure may take place at a
variety of spatial locations and temporal instances. The spatio-temporal relationships between these organic,
relatively stationary processes, connected by mobile transmission processes,
define a particular network, the class network.
To present an
example, a particular commodity-producing firm, defined by a class structure,
produces commodities at a given spatial location over a particular period in
time. The production process involves
the physical transformation of certain raw material use values into a different
set of use values, but it additionally involves the production of surplus value
through the exploitation of labor power to produce an additional realizable value
embodied in finished commodities exceeding the exchange value of the tools,
equipment, raw materials, and labor power utilized in production. Again, following Ruccio et al (1991), this
site is simultaneously the site at which the firm appropriates surplus values,
contained as values congealed in a mass of finished use values. The realization of these surplus values in a
monetary form occurs through market exchange.
It is conceivable that this realization process occurs at the same site
as the site of production/appropriation, but I will assume, for my purposes,
that the commodities must be relocated to a different site for market
exchange. Upon realizing the surplus
values contained by the commodities through exchange, the
appropriator/distributors of the firm receive the realized surplus values,
perhaps with a deduction reflecting a surplus distribution to secure the
realization process (e.g. to a retailer).
This receipt of surplus value may, again, occur at any site, but I will
assume that it occurs at a site that is distinct either from the site of
production/appropriation or the site of market exchange/realization,
necessitating some forms of financial transmission to the site of initial
receipt and distribution.
The combination of these
processes conveys a particular temporal sequence of events
(production/appropriation – realization – receiving) and a particular geography
(site of production/appropriation - site of realization – site of initial
receiving). It also involves
transmission processes with relatively mobile sites (e.g. site of physical
commodity transportation from the production/appropriation site to the site of
realization; site of electronic transmission of financial information from the
site of realization to the site of receiving).
By articulating all of these processes as an integrated structure of
processes (i.e. a class structure) and applying a set of spatio-temporal
relations (simultaneity, sequence, collocation, proximity, dispersion) between
the sites of these processes, I articulate the structure as a network and
redefine the sites as nodes within the network.
Elaborating, I can
further extend the network by adding other conditions of existence for the
production and appropriation of surplus value (i.e. other than market
realization).[6] Such processes as the provision of financing
to undertake the production process may, for example, involve processes (e.g.
lending by financial institutions) wholly separated from the sites of
production/appropriation, realization, and initial receiving of surplus value
by the appropriator/distributors. The
financial process is connected, structurally, to the class structure through
the distribution and receiving of surplus value in the form of interest
payments. The distribution and receiving
of these payments may have their own spatio-temporalities, separated spatially
and/or temporally from the appropriation of surplus value, and the receiving of
surplus values in the form of interest payments by financial institutions may
be spatially and/or temporally separated from other processes involved in
financial lending to secure the financial conditions of existence for the firm
to undertake production.
Elaborating still
further, the transmission processes within the network may connect to
myriad other processes, otherwise disconnected from the network, if these
transmission processes result in certain metaphorical leaks. That is to say, if the transmission process
between stationary nodes results in non-negligible effects to the pathways
along which transmissions take place, then the class processes in the network
will be affected in ways that can be explicitly theorized. To provide a very tangible example, if
commodity transportation processes between a production/appropriation node and
an exchange node by means of a waterborne freight process results in ecological
damage (e.g. contamination of water from an actual fuel leak), then the class
network will be shaped by the interaction of economic, political, and cultural
processes resulting from such an event.
Every process connected to the network as a result of the event
possesses its own spatio-temporality, implying that for every such event, new
stationary and mobile transmission nodes must be connected to the network.
In specifying the
spatio-temporal relationships contained by this class network, the
spatio-temporality of all stationary nodes has to be specified and mobile nodes
for the transmission of effects along pathways must also be specified in order
to theoretically articulate a definitive relationship between these processes
that is performative of the reality that Marxian theory means to convey. For every new processual connection
specified, a new, stationary node is added to the network, connected by some
transmission node. In this manner, the
construction of the class network is piecewise. It does not saturate geographies with explosively diffusive
connections, but reconstructs spatio-temporal relationships between particular
processes one connection at a time.
To summarize,
the network concept, as I have presented it, describes a theoretic articulation
of sites, extracted from structured totality, containing processes whose
integration defines a structure. The
theoretic repositioning of sites in this articulation transforms each site into
a node. Spatial and/or temporal
dispersion of processes within networks necessitates that some nodes will be
relatively stationary while other will be relatively mobile, facilitating
connections across spatial or temporal pathways between the stationary nodes of
the network. This understanding seeks
to preserve the processual understanding of material existence advanced by
Marxian theory and the definition of space-time as the dimensions of
processes. If all space-time exists as a
dimension of processes and structurally integrated processes exist in a
spatially dispersed organization, with intervening spaces constituted by
processes unrelated in theory, then the connections between structurally
related processes must require some means to facilitate the transmission of
effects between sites/nodes.
[1] This
understanding of time, as a dimension of process in an overdeterminist
ontology, corresponds to Althusser’s assertion of heterogeneous specificities
of the historical temporality of different “levels” within a Marxist totality
(Althusser and Balibar, 2009: 110-111).
[2] This concept of the site corresponds, in
part, to the site concept advanced by Resnick and Wolff (1987: 231-232),
defined as “a location or grouping of specific relationships that each comprise
a particular subset of social and natural processes.” The definition advanced by this project, on the other hand, seeks
to advance a more specific spatio-temporal definition of the site arising from
a relational logic of space-time. In
this manner, the site concept introduced here is read as a geographically and
historically specified and bounded location defined by the spatio-temporality
of processes both internal and external to a set of boundaries defined by the
process.
[3] Such a locus
might be characterized, as in Resnick and Wolff (1987: 25-30), as an entry
point, in contrast to an ontologically prioritized causal essence.
[4] This level
of theoretic abstraction, further, contrasts with the use of the network
concept by Castells (2000A:163-215), who uses it describe information flows in
globally extensive capitalist firms, and by Hardt and Negri, who variously
employ the concept in the same manner as Castells (Hardt and Negri, 2001:
294-300), to describe the expansiveness of the U.S. imperial sovereignty (Ibid,
164-167), and to describe the organizational styles of al-Qaeda, the
Zapatistas, and the “movement of movements” against capitalist globalization
(2004: 54-57, 79-91).
[5] The
stationary property of certain network nodes is only “relative” because the
geometry and geographic positioning of processual space is continuously
relational (i.e. the space of every process is continuously defined by its
changing position relative to other processes). In this sense, the network presupposes the capacity of theory to
freeze a temporal moment or a sequence of moments in order to articulate the
spatiality of a set of relations between a specified set of processes in a
structure.
[6] Resnick and
Wolff (1987: 174-180) elaborate a list of such subsumed class processes,
involving the distribution of surplus values to non-productive agents (i.e.
those not producing realizable surplus values but performing other necessary
work) inside and outside of a firm.
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