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Postmodernism, geography, and the social semiotics

of space

A P Lagopoulos
Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Aristotle- University of Ihossaloniki, lho»saloniki 540 06,
Grooco
Rocoivod 16 Juno 1992; in rovisod form 4 January 1993

Abstract. The nucleus of postmodern philosophy and theory is derived primarily from French
neostructuralist writings. The ontological foundation of such literature is the idealist rejection
of the possibility of knowing reality and, as a consequence, the enclosure of the subject within
the signifying universe, which in turn results in the exaltation of the signifying processes as the
only social processes. The same emphasis, but through nonverbal means, is demonstrated
by postmodern architectural and urban design. In geography, however, postmodernism is
interpreted differently. In two recent books (by Soja and by Harvey) the postmodern era in
human geography is related to the heightened importance of space for social reality and
theory. But the split of geography itself between Marxist geography on the one hand, and
behavioural and humanistic geography on the other, shows the pertinence of the signifying
dimension for the field of geography. In this paper, it is argued that the roles of space and
meaning are equally important for geography, and it is proposed that an analysis of the
signifying aspect of space may be achieved through semiotics, currently the most complete
and sophisticated theory of meaning and culture. The main problem for geography, which is
addressed in the final section of this paper, is the integration of a renewed version of the
semiotics of space with an equally renewed Marxist geography, the most powerful explanatory
approach to geography we have at our disposal.

1 Introduction
Recent debate in geography has been marked by the arrival of postmodernism. In
this paper, I attempt to contribute to the debate by reviewing the major postmodern
arguments and by evaluating their impact on human geography. The attraction of
postmodernism for geographers seems to be its concentration on meaning but at
the expense of material reality, a trait also evidenced by postmodern design. In
geography the postmodern tendency has found expression not only in a concern
with geographical phenomena and theory as systems of meaning, but also in a
quest for a new role for space in geography and in the social sciences generally,
as exemplified in recent books by Soja (1989) and Harvey (1989).
I will argue that the signifying aspects of space—the meaning of space for social
subjects—are indeed equally as crucial to geography as the role of space in social
processes. Signifying processes have long been recognised as important for geography
by humanistic and behavioural geographers, but their rather uneasy coexistence with
the study of the material aspects of space within the field of geography has led to
a dichotomy which has not yet been bridged in a satisfactory manner. However,
the neostructuralist and p o s t m o d e r n privileging of meaning at the expense of material
processes is neither epistemologically nor ontologically an adequate solution to this
problem.
I investigate in this paper the possibilities of semiotic theory and the semiotics
of space as an alternative approach to the study of spatial meaning, and I argue
that the semiotics of space should be integrated with Marxist geography.
256 A P Lagopoulos

2 The neostructuralists
Since the early 1970s, the cultural life of the advanced capitalist societies seems to
have shifted away from being based on the premises prevalent during the previous
'modern' era, towards what has been called 'postmodern' culture. For many the
advent of this postmodern culture marks the end of the modern era as well as of
modern culture and thought, a position that, as we shall see, is rather precipitately
reached.
The emergence of modernism as a cultural tendency, built upon the views of the
Enlightenment and its belief in rational thinking, may be traced back to the mid-
19th century; after its 'heroic' phase in the interwar period, it reached its peak, in
the form of high modernism, immediately after World War 2. Postmodern culture
became evident in the early 1970s, but its immediate roots may be sought in the
previous decade. Its character of opposition to modernism may best be understood
as an opposition to the Enlightenment movement and the central assumptions of
that movement. What has been called postmodernism is coextensive with the whole
of the cultural system of the societies in which it emerged. It represents a different
approach to cultural production and a change of direction within philosophy,
epistemology, and the sciences.
In order to understand the nature of this approach, it may be helpful to have
recourse to its founders, the so-called French poststructuralists. At this point, some
clarification is needed. The term 'poststructuralism' should not be understood as
referring to something chronologically later than structuralism and profoundly
different from it. During the 1950s and especially during the 1960s there appeared,
first in France (or rather, in Paris) and then in other European countries (such as
Italy and the former Soviet Union), a set of pronounced, related tendencies in a
series of disciplines. There was Levi-Strauss's anthropological structuralism, which
fast went beyond the limits of social anthropology; the 'classical' semiotics of Barthes's
first period [see his Elements of Semiology (1968)], of Greimas (for example, 1966),
and of Eco (for example, 1972); and, at the same time, appeared the 'poststructuralist'
tendency, represented by writers such as Lacan (for example, 1966), Derrida (for
example, 1967), and Kristeva (for example, 1969). These tendencies, which were
more or less simultaneous, constitute what I understand as European semiotics, to
which I shall return at the end of section 5.(1)
Thus, the 'post' in poststructuralism should not be taken as referring to the
historical origins of the trend indicated by this term; at most it should be understood
as connected to the developments that followed from the 1970s onwards. I would
argue that the 'poststructuralists' in no way went beyond the structuralist paradigm;
they merely formulated their own interpretation of it and, in some cases, led it, as
Derrida does, to its extreme consequences. I thus subscribe to Frank's (1989) view
in referring to them as 'neostructuralists'.
'Neostructuralism' creates a terminological asymmetry with 'postmodernism',
something which I believe is desirable. Postmodernism does not stand in the same
relation to modernism as neostructuralism stands to structuralism. Postmodernism
is both historically later than modernism and altogether different from it; their
relation is established only at the very general level of the opposition of modernism
versus antimodernism, the term antimodernism representing the basic ideological
tendency of postmodernism.

W European semiotics should be understood as being different from North American (Peircean)
semiotics (which extends the sphere of semiotics to include, for example, the study of logic)
and also from the application of the structuralist approach to phenomena outside the cultural
systems of meaning (for example, the biological 'structuralism' of the DNA 'code').
Postmodernism, ciuocjmphy. and tho riocwil somiolics of npnco 257

A final point to be clarified is that not all French neostructuraltsts are the same,
as also not all postmodernism is internally coherent. Witness to that is Morris's
critique of the North American use of deconstruction in literary criticism, a critique
he carried out in the name of Derritla's views (Morris, 1990, pages 139- 140).
A good place to begin a discussion of postmodern epistemology is Lyotard's
(1979) account of the postmodern approach to knowledge in what lie calls the
•postindustrial1 and Informational' societies. According to Lyotard, social pragmatics
is constituted by differentiated classes of language games'—a concept borrowed
from Wittgenstein and indicating different kinds of utterances (such as denotative,
prescriptive, performative, evaluative), which obey their own rules specifying their
own properties and possible uses. Scientific pragmatics is an example of a denotative
game, and it is not independent, for postmodern science, of the prescriptive game
which, by establishing the presuppositions for the scientific game, provides mcta-
prescriptions. Given the divergence of these language games and of their rules,
there cannot be any common metaprcscriptions for them, nor any universal
consensus on them, something partly caused by the impact of new technology on
knowledge; thus, the concept of a sociopolitically legitimating 'grand narrative'—
whether the emancipation of humanity or the dialectics of the 'Spirit'—should be
abandoned. Accordingly, there is no gencralisable metalanguage underlying science
which could draw into its orbit the particular and differing metalanguages. Lyotard
sees this 'heteromorphy' of the language games as positive, on the grounds that it
resists submission to the systemic socioeconomic realities and the operational
demands of the system, and thus to (sociopolitical) terrorism.
Postmodern science is, for Lyotard, conscious of its discontinuity and counter-
proposes a legitimation model based on difference, a model opposed to the closed
system and implying the production of innovations, given that it encourages
proposals for new metaprcscriptions. Consensus is accepted, but not a universal
one, only local consensuses limited in space-time, corresponding to the multiplicity
of equally limited metaprescriptions. In this manner, to the 'grand narrative' it
opposes the 'small narratives' of inventive imagination, also and primarily occurring
in science, with their antimethod and open systematisation (Lyotard, 1979, mainly
sections 10 and 14; see also Frank, 1989, pages 82-85).
Although Lyotard accurately identifies an existing tendency in postmodern
science, the main characteristic of his approach is probably its enclosure within the
semiotic system of language. He may refer to capitalist society and technology, but
his whole argumentation presupposes a textual deployment of science independent
from the referent, that is, reality. This is not accidental, but constitutes the corner-
stone of neostructuralist thought. It constitutes, for example, the epistemological
foundation of Foucault's whole work on history. In fact, for Foucault, discourse
absorbs reality, and thus history, which is a history of ideas, is based on the (minute)
analysis of discursive events. Because, for Foucault, every kind of discourse in a
specific historical period, from the above discursive events to scientific theories,
obeys certain general conditions of knowledge which constitute the epistemological
domain of episteme, historical facts or their scientific analysis must be seen as
taking place within the episteme of their time and cannot be considered as referring
to reality and thus as being objective (Foucault, 1966, pages 1 1 - 1 4 and 384-385;
1971, pages 12, 5 3 - 6 2 , and 78 -79).<2>

(2)
It is my impression that these kinds of relativistic approaches to science are internally
contradictory: although they advocate the textuality of science and thus reject the referential
world and truth judgments, they themselves simultaneously aspire to offer more powerful and
thus more truthful views [for a similar critique of Foucault's views, see Frank (1989, page 97)].
258 A P Lagopoulos

One of the principal proponents of the textuality of science and philosophy is

Derrida. He starts from de Saussure's insight concerning the differential nature of
language and semiotic—that is, cultural—systems generally. For de Saussure the
nature of linguistic entities is differential and relational, a concept corresponding to
his views on the arbitrariness of linguistic entities and the systemic nature of language.
The differential and the systemic nature of these entities both demonstrate the
formal character of the semiotic systems, a character to which Derrida subscribes
and on which he founds his whole philosophical construction [see the critical
edition of de Saussure's Cours de Linguistique Generate (1915), edited by de Mauro
(1972, pages 159-166, 359, and 365-366)].
Thus, the key concept of Derrida's approach is dijferance (or gramme), the
structured movement that produces the differential effects in the semiotic systems,
differences without which there exist, for Derrida, neither signification nor structure.
Because of dijferance, each signification process results in a formal game of differences.
In this manner, given that the linguistic entities are interconnected, each one of them
is constituted by the traces in it of the other entities of the system. No entity is
present by itself, but relates to other elements which are not present. The same is
valid at the macrolevel of whole texts. It is these interconnections that produce
every specific text, which is thus the transformation of other texts. The result is
that there is no signification per se in a text, as it is different from itself before it
is even posed.
On philosophical grounds, Derrida's project is the radical critique, or deconstruction,
of what he considers to be Western metaphysics and, with it, of the central premodern
and modern philosophical concept of the subject, as opposed to the object. The
subject for Derrida (as any other concept) is nothing but a derivative of the movement
of dijferance and, consequently, the system of differences, and there is no such thing
as the presence of a subject in itself outside and before the semiotic movement of
dijferance. Thus, it does not hold that the semiotic codes emanate from the subject,
because in such a case meaning would precede dijferance', on the contrary, the subject
is constructed through the semiotic. Similarly, none of the conceptual oppositions
of metaphysics, such as the opposition of subject versus object, is pertinent,
because their terms imply the actual presence of a present entity.
As with the subject, objectivity also would be an effect of dijferance. Matter
has been identified with objective reality, something presupposing an idealist view
independent from the working of dijferance. Thus, the concept of matter, far from
offering an escape from metaphysics, is itself a metaphysical concept, and the same
is the case with dialectics in the Marxist 'text'. In the same vein, there cannot be a
metalanguage, or more precisely a text, 'transgressing' another text in the direction
of a referent (reality) outside the semiotic. Every aspect of what we consider as
reality, as outside the text (such as history, class struggle, politics, or economy) is
only an effect of the reference of the text (Derrida, 1967, page 227; 1972; see also
Frank, 1989, mainly 4th, 5th, and 13th lectures).
It is not my aim in this paper to comment on Derrida's philosophical position,
but one can wonder if it is not misleading to attempt to transcend idealism, as he
does, by trying to surpass the opposition of idealism versus materialism solely
within the realm of the text, the exclusive domain of idealism, without the acceptance
of any philosophical access to a reality outside the text. However this may be, and
in spite of his apparent levelling out of all kinds of discourses including scientific
discourse, Derrida (1972, note 23) states that he does not want to adopt a discourse
against truth or science and he rejects relativistic empiricism. This rejection of
relativism is consistent with the quintessence of his theory, that is, the death of the
subject. Derrida's position may, in fact, be considered as a 'grand narrative' in
PGOtmodorniom, geography, and tho socio! semiotics o( npneo 259

Lyotard's sense. If Lyotard is right in arguing for the postmodern character of

scientific 'small narratives', then Derrida's theory, which has the character of a
universally valid 'grand narrative*, should not be taken as postmodern. Whereas for
Lyotard difference (between the 'small narratives') remains an empirical observation,
difference is subsumed by Derrida in the overarching principle of diffcrance* But
what is unquestionably postmodern with Derrida is his enclosure within the text,
the same enclosure found with Lyotard and Foueault. This limitation within the
semiotic, dragging with it the exaltation of the processes of semiosis, should in my
view be considered as the actual cornerstone of the postmodern approach.
It is true that this is a controversial position to take, but I believe that this is
the central issue with postmodernism, and we absolutely must clarify our thoughts
concerning it because of its grave philosophical and political consequences. I
would not disagree that the ncostructuralists, as did the structuralists, opened new
perspectives for treating meaning, even in cases where we had not realised that
meaning acts as a mediator. I would not doubt that they offered very original,
concrete analyses. I would even accept that these analyses may also refer or seem
to refer to an external reality. What I have tried to demonstrate, however, in this
brief presentation is that the knowledge of reality has no place in the ontological
presuppositions and the epistemologicat positions of the neostructuralists. To take
the case of Derrida, oral observations on his part, or magnanimous interpretations
(sec Norris, 1990, page 38) of sentences that have or have acquired the ambiguity of
a Delphic oracle (such as "il n'y a pas dc hors-tcxtc"), cannot replace the lack of
reference to reality in the very structuring of his philosophy. Eaglcton (see Boklund-
Lagopoulou, 1991-92), referring to Dcrrida's statement in Positions (1972, page 85),
that his work on Marxism is "yet to come", comments that "it's been a long time
coming". In a way, Derrida's answer to Marxism may be found in the above
divorce. His approach does not allow for any variant of a knowledge of reality, as is
also the case with Kant's 'noumcnal' (that is, nonexperienceable) world. And this is
directly contrary to a Marxist position. The antipodes of Derrida are illustrated by
contemporary philosophers such as Bhaskar, in whose work the knowledge of reality
is central, maybe even too much taken for granted (for example, see Bhaskar, 1989).
This neostructuralist philosophical speculation seems to be a fair introduction to
the recent developments in two different fields concerned with the study of space,
two fields which are rarely discussed together: architectural and urban design on
the one hand, and human geography on the other. They are different in that
architecture, dealing with the production of an object which is simultaneously a use
object and a cultural product, is a technique rather than a science and has a strong
normative character, whereas human geography draws on scientific description and
explanation. My aim is to study the way these fields assimilated postmodernism,
and then to use the conclusions from this comparison in an attempt to introduce
the referent in a structuralist approach; or, to put it inversely, to examine the
possibilities of the semiotic for Marxist (and realist) thought.

3 Architectural postmodernism
The central concept in architectural modernism was that of function, a concept
connected both to the biological conception of the organism and to the new
technological reality of the machine. The organisation of architectural and urban
space starts, for the modern movement, from the location of functions and functional
zones relative to each other, and it is these functional entities that dictate the form
that built space should take. It should be noted that, though these ideas undoubtedly
represent accurately the dominant theoretical functionalist views, in practice the
derivation of form from function was mediated by a very definite modernist aesthetics,
260 A P Lagopoulos

that is, attention to the form for its own sake. It is also interesting to note the
homology between the modernist tendency to functional segregation and the same
phenomenon deriving from the workings of the socioeconomic system (formation of
central business districts, suburbanisation, industrial zones, etc).
Postmodern architectural positions, in spite of their diversity, are nothing more
than systematic oppositions to the modernist views and the modernist international
style. The main line of attack of postmodernism is directed against the primacy of
function, to which it opposes the primacy of form as a meaningful entity or even,
for deconstruction, as a mere morphological entity. The semiotic manipulation of
the form independently from its functional content is the theoretical objective of
postmodern designers; thus, space is seen as a morphological system. To give an
example, Krier adopts the critique, current since the 1960s, of functionalist zoning
and complains about the monofunctionality of urban zones, while pleading for
multifunctionality, again a view held since the 1960s. But Krier goes beyond the
critical climate of the 1960s by focusing on the symbolic dimension of urban
forms, and seeks to counteract the symbolic poverty of existing architecture and
townscape through the achievement of symbolic richness (for a discussion of
Krier's views, see Harvey, 1989, pages 67-68).
We have seen that for Derrida every text is a transformation of other texts.
Thus, every text realises an operation of collage and montage in respect to other
texts. This operation of intertextuality is characteristic of postmodern design. We
do not need to postulate a direct impact of Derrida's ideas on design; though this
actually occurs in certain cases, the parallelism is generally a result of the overarching
nature of postmodern culture. Collage and montage become in architecture the
means for a neo-eclecticism in which inspiration is drawn from historical styles.
The Kantian aesthetic principle of the unity of the aesthetic object is replaced by
the fragmentation, discontinuity, and disorder of the components of the design
product. The result is a design of spectacle and display, without any depth and
transmitting a sense of ephemerality.
Postmodern design aims explicitly at expressing specific localities and their
history and tradition. The emphasis on the idiosyncratic character of locality
reproduces theoretically on the urban scale the fragmentation and heterogeneity
characterising the postmodern architectural work, a heterogeneity emerging from
historical borrowings and eclectic choices among historical styles, which acquire
new meanings by the very fact of their new context. The borrowings from the past
converge with the fragmentation of the architectural work to create a depthless image,
a simulacrum. Thus, postmodern design is, as Jameson (1984, pages 58 and 6 5 - 6 7 )
puts it, pseudo-historical and historicist, operating a "random cannibalization of all
the styles of the past" (pages 65-66), a fact he rightly considers as paralleling the
weakening of historicity and consistent with the poststructuralist view discrediting
the referent—in the case of the past, actual historical reality—in favour of the text.
This use of past styles, which is simultaneous with a tendency to erase style as a
consistent and distinctive set of features, incorporates a certain nostalgia and leads
to a kind of pastiche, revealing, maybe, innovative and unexpected combinations,
but usually devoid of any satirical element. Intertextuality used in this manner
becomes a structural component of postmodern aesthetics. It goes without saying
that all these aspects of postmodern design point to some different conception and
experience of space on the part of its producers, while also calling its consumers
to participate in this new experience (see Jameson, 1984, pages 58 and 64-67).
Postmodernism, (joogrnphy, and tho nodal nomiotica of spoco 261

4 Geographical postmodernism
We see, then, that there arc close similarities between the neostructuralist and post-
modern philosophy and postmodern design, similarities that arc simply different aspects
of the foundational principle of postmodern culture: operation solely within the
realm of meaning, that is, within the semiotie universe. It is interesting now to turn to
human geography and investigate the interpretation of the postmodern in geography,
As happens with the postmodern in other fields, the response of geographers is
not homogeneous. It is not my aim to present a typology of these different responses,
Nevertheless, such a typology could probably be approximated by observing that
the responses follow from a shift of scope, and this shift is twofold; an interrogation
on the kind of theory used, and an orientation of geography toward new or renewed
objects of inquiry, As to the former, the responses range from an awareness of the
importance of culture and symbolism in spatial matters which yet does not abandon
the Marxist 'grand narrative'—a dominant trait of Anglo-Saxon geography since the
1970s—to a greater or lesser suspicion of such holistic theories. Concerning the
object, there has been a pronounced interest in geography as a system of meaning,
either per se or in connection with a wider framework.*3* This tendency opens new
and fertile fields of investigation and sensitises geography as a science to its own
premises and relativity, but it cannot and should not, in my opinion, displace the
major concern of geography, the study of geographical reality. This being said, one
must not think that there is a rigid demarcation between the two tendencies; they
may overlap.
I shall discuss two rather recent books from this growing literature, both of which
revolve around the nature and role of space in contemporary social practices and
their impact on geographical theory. These books are Soja*s Postmodern Geographies:
The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (1989) and Harvey's The Condition
of Postmodemity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (1989). The reason
for this selection is that, in terms of their object, the two authors remain faithful to
what I feel is still the core of geography and that, by so doing, they are closer to
practical and planning considerations that geographers can hardly neglect. As to
their approach, it has the merit, as we shall see, of retaining the right for geography
to deal with the real world, albeit through a (flexible) appeal to a currently (and I
believe provisionally) discredited 'grand narrative', that is, Marxism.
Soja complains that over the last century time has been privileged over space in
social theory and that this has continued to be the prevalent feature of predominantly
anglophone Marxist geography since the 1960s. Space has been seen solely as a
social product, and historical materialism has been used to connect it with social
processes. From the late 1970s a debate began in Marxist geography over the
epistemological status of space, and the opponents of this view argued for a more
dialectical relation between space and society, redressing the nature of geography
as a mere reflection of social processes. Inspired mainly by Lefebvre, Soja argues
that there is a sociospatial dialectic—not implying a resurrection of geographical
determinism—and that the socially produced spatiality of society also conditions
and shapes society. This fact reveals space as an equally important factor with time
in critical social theory and historical materialism. The application of historical
materialism to geographical matters is not sufficient; historical materialism must be
(3) For example, Gregory (1989, page 91) writes "There is a poetics of geography, for geography
is a kind of writing"; Matless (1992, pages 49 and 52) incites geographers to "examine their own
discourse", for "the potential of geography would seem to lie in conducting a genealogy of
itself; Barnes and Curry (1992) study the all-pervading role of metaphors in both modern
and postmodern discourse; and Driver (1992) argues for a critical perspective on geographical
knowledge and focuses on its relationship to politics and culture.
262 A P Lagopoulos

spatialised with the creation of a historical and geographical materialism, a project

undertaken by Marxist geographers of the 1980s and which will lead to the
disassembling and rearrangement of Marxist concepts in geography. Today, it is the
making of geography rather than history that is more revealing theoretically, and
this is the premise of postmodern geographies. Such geographies offer a kaleidoscopic
field emerging from the postmodern crisis condition and are destined to have a
deeply restructuring effect on critical social theory.
Soja differentiates between a (reconstructive and a neoconservative post-
modernism. The latter would use deconstruction to veil the realities of restructuring
and spatialisation and limits history and geography to a meaningless pastiche, while
also equating Marxism with totalitarianism. The former, on the other hand, adopts
the rationality of Western Marxism, but it is not confined within its limits. It reacts
against rigid categorical thinking, combines apparently opposed things, and rejects
totalising 'deep' logics, thus involving a temporary suspension of closed paradigms.
Postmodern critical human geography should be erected on the radical 'deconstruction'
of past 'narratives' and space and should resituate the 'meaning' and 'significance' of
space in historical materialism (Soja, 1989).
Soja makes positive reference to Harvey and includes him among the Marxist
geographers who moved in the 1980s toward historical-geographical materialism.
In fact, Harvey, up to a point, follows a path similar to Soja's. He also observes
that social theories privilege time over space. Progress and the accumulation of
capital demand the annihilation of space through time. This is the reason for the
reduction of space to a contingent category in modernist thought, which emphasises
'becoming' rather than 'being' in place. Harvey, like Soja, treats space as inseparable
from time, but also uses this complex as the epistemological link between material
social conditions and culture. More specifically, he observes that crises of over-
accumulation—the first of which occurred in the mid-19th century—set off the
search for new spatial and temporal resolutions, which in turn led to a strong
sense of time-space compression—that is, the sense of the shrinking of the spatial
world and the shortening of time horizons—expressed with and in important
cultural and aesthetic movements and philosophical insights. The last crisis of
over accumulation, starting in the late 1960s and reaching a peak in 1973, is
associated with postmodernity, which is a historical-geographical condition.
Postmodernity is associated with the (local) transition from Fordist modernity to
flexible accumulation and the emergence of new cultural forms.
Soja, then, is right in pointing out that Harvey, in what could be labelled his
postmodern stage, gives more emphasis to the geographical dimension. Neither
writer renounces the possibility of what Harvey terms 'nonabsolute metatheory'.
This common acceptance brings them both, in my opinion, in direct confrontation
with Derrida's elimination of metalanguage, and this is not intended to be a
negative observation. This flexible modern attitude is combined with the use (and
misuse) of neostructuralist or generally semiotic concepts, a use arising from the
attempt to bring together political economy and culture (a point I shall return to at
the end of this section), and a misuse that should be attributed either to the inaccurate
use of certain concepts, or to the epistemological clash of certain other concepts
with the Marxist paradigm. To give an example, Harvey's references to the 'meaning'
of time, when he wrote about investment time or the rate of return, is an ambiguous
use of the concept of meaning, leading the reader to a confusion between meta-
linguistic (that is, scientific), meaning with its claims to analyse reality, and the
spontaneous, lived experience of time [studied through (connotative) semiotics and
not political economy]. But Harvey is well aware that the approach to postmodernity
as a material historical condition is blocked by postmodern discourse and that we
Postmodorninm, fjoogrophy, and tho oocinl aomiotlcs of apnco 263

arc witnessing the transition from modern interpretations, focused on the material
and political-economic, to the idea of autonomous cultural practices (Harvey, 1989).
The relation found by Harvey between postmodern culture and capitalist
development is in accord with Jameson's thesis that postmodernism represents the
cultural logic of late capitalism. Jameson expresses his agreement with Mandcl that
postmodern society corresponds to a new stage of capitalism and is not a completely
new type of social formation, the alleged 'postindustriai' society. Postmodernism,
for Jameson, is not a clear-cut phenomenon but a 'cultural dominant', which has a
different function in the economic system of late capitalism from the one modern
culture had in the previous phase. Contrary to the postmodernist assumption of the
autonomisation of culture, he argues that it is exactly late capitalism that destroyed
the relative autonomy of culture and that culture has become inseparable from
each and every component of society (Jameson, 1984, pages 55-58 and 87).(4)
This contemporary aspect of culture is also stressed by Harvey, for whom post-
modernism represents the extension of the power of the market over the whole of
cultural production, something already understood by Lefcbvre and evident in
contemporary architectural and urban design. For Harvey, to the degree that spatial
barriers become less important, capital becomes more sensitive to the special
qualities of place. Increasing economic competition in a crisis condition leads to
the use of such qualities as relative locational advantages in a fragmented world,
and flexible accumulation integrates them as internal elements of its logic. The great
cities of the advanced capitalist world are competing, because of dcindustriaiisation
and economic restructuring, in order to attract a highly mobile capital and people, and
a means of doing that is to create spectacular urban spaces conveying what I would
call euphoric connotations. Cities strive to create an ambiance of place and tradition,
as well as a distinctive image, a situation resulting in an insecure and ephemeral
uneven development. But at this point a double contradiction emerges. On the
one hand, although the special qualities of place are emphasised, this is done in
the context of an increasing abstraction of space and homogeneity of international
exchanges. On the other hand, the attempts to differentiate physical space ultimately
produce monotonously similar results; through the search for differences, postmodern
culture reproduces in space the social and symbolic order of capitalism.
We see that for Harvey, as for Soja, space becomes a central issue for social
theory. Soja (1989, pages 161 and 170) defines his 'ontological restructuring',
reasserting space in social theory, as 'posthistoricism', and he clarifies that the
prefix 'post' (not only in this case but also in the case of the two other major
dimensions of spatial restructuring, 'post-Fordism' and 'postmodernism') does not
mean a complete break with the previous condition, which does not cease to persist
in the 'post' era. A similar argument is made by Harvey, but there is a difference
between the two approaches. Whereas Soja seems to imply a succession but
without leaps, Harvey insists on the continuity of the behaviour of capital between
the modern and the postmodern stage and refers to a response which may be new
but which is not destined to replace the previous response wholly. Central to the
behaviour of capital is, for Harvey, the reduction of spatial barriers, the annihilation
of space through time, the reduction of turnover time, and the rationalisation of
spatial organisation. He believes that the postmodern tension between global,
homogeneous, unified space and place and a fragmented world was already present
(4)
We might note that, although this represents a new situation for capitalism and although within
capitalism it takes on a unique historical aspect, it is in fact typical of precapitalist societies. In
these societies [as, for instance, the work of Eliade (for example, 1965) on the history of religions
or Godelier (for example, 1973, part I) on social anthropology show] culture and ideology are
inseparable from everyday practices and from the functioning of the economic system.
264 A P Lagopoulos

in the 1910-14 period. It is probably the continuity of the behaviour of capital

and this postmodern situation in the midst of the modern stage that push Harvey
to conceive of Fordist modernity and flexible postmodernity as two related, though
generally opposed, tendencies within capitalism as a structured whole. Each tendency
constitutes a specific regime of accumulation, with an associated mode of regulation
that also implies cultural habits. The strength of each tendency varies historically
and geographically, depending on its profitability (Harvey, 1989).
Let us return to the typology discussed at the beginning of this section, in respect
to the attitudes of Soja and Harvey towards theory and the issue of acceptance
versus rejection of 'grand narratives'. Both Harvey and Soja move away from a
position of acceptance, but their entrance onto the middle ground is unequal. In
spite of his negative attitude towards postmodernism, Harvey is sensitised to culture
and he faces, in theory—but perhaps not in his analysis—the possibility of a new
form of historical materialism in the postmodern era; on the whole, he is rather
close to the acceptance position (see also Dear, 1991; Gregory, 1989, pages 78
and 90). Soja, however, moves further away, but combines acceptance and rejection
in an additive manner (see also Barnes and Curry, 1992, pages 64 and 66; Dear,
1991). Regarding their attitude with respect to the object of geography, we have
seen that their work relates Marxist geography and theory in the postmodern era
with the centrality of space. They are not alone in this attempt. They are joined
by Gregory (1989, pages 71, 79, and 84), who forecasts that space will radically
transform modern social theory and is critical in postmodern social theory; there
would be a need today for a geographical reconstruction of sociology and of
political economy in the direction of a historical-geographical materialism.
I hope the above discussion has shown that the two dominant themes in
Harvey's and Soja's books are the new status given to space and the refusal to
accept the neostructuralist isolation within the universe of meaning. But, if in fact
the neostructuralist dismissal of reality seems ontologically untenable and politically
suspect, the neostructuralist stress on semiotic, signifying processes (directly inherited
from classical structuralism and semiotics), and therefore on the role of culture (not
only as a theoretical standpoint on geography but also as an object of geography),
poses a central problem for 'postmodern' science. The two authors do not offer us
any systematic solution to this problem (see Dear, 1991, page 544). Soja (1989,
pages 5 and 121-122) observes that there is a connection between postmodernism
and cultural and theoretical restructuring, and also hints at the importance of
cognitive (that is, meaningful) space in the formation of geographical s p a c e -
something only too well understood by postmodern designers—but he does not
offer a way of integrating the signifying processes revolving around space with the
material processes studied by geographers.
Harvey seems more aware of this semiotic factor. We have already encountered
his view on the close connection between culture and economy. He observes, in the
manner of Baudrillard, that images themselves have been transformed to commodities,
but distances himself from Baudrillard's position that Marx's analysis of commodity
production is outdated because of the shift of capitalism from the production of
commodities to the production of signs. Competition in image building between
firms and the creation of positive connotations for their products is vital for their
economic competition, and thus investments in this area of the ephemeral image
become of prime importance. Money and commodities have become the principal
bearers of cultural codes. Harvey concludes that there are today important shifts
in all aspects of society, and one of the areas of greatest theoretical development is
the recognition of the importance of images and of aesthetic and cultural practices
(Harvey, 1989, chapter 17 and page 355).
Postmodernism, (joogrnphy, and tho nooinl nomiotica of npneo 265

5 Objectivism and subjectivism in spulitif studies

The discussion of the triad neostrueturalist philosophy—postmodern design—
postmodern geography has revealed, first, a generalised family resemblance with
respect to a focus on meaning, and* second, a triple focus within geography, One
focus is on meaning, shared with philosophy and design, and the two other focuses,
specific to geography, are on real-world processes and on actual geographical space.
In this manner, the initial empirical triad points to a new triad, but this time an
ontological and epistemoiogicai one; (material) society—(meaningful) culture—
(geographical) space, where the third member of the triad pertains simultaneously
to society, culture, and nature. Soja and Harvey, in discussing the object of
geography, are concerned mainly with the relationship between the first and the
last components of this triad. Hut how might a geographically aware historical
materialism, oriented towards geographical matters, also integrate the cultural
dimension of geographical space? More generally, how is it possible to articulate
culture with historical materialism, both on the level of theory and on the level of
the object of inquiry? These questions now place the signifying processes in the
centre of the discussion, as opposed to the centrality of space, and with them, as
we shall sec at the end of this section, the issue of semiotics. The signifying
processes are placed centrally not to deny the importance of space but to point to
another factor, which is equally crucial on ontological and epistemoiogicai grounds.
The integration of signifying processes in geography was shown to be closely
connected to the restoration of space in geographical and social theory that was
sought by Soja and Harvey. Such an integration cannot cover the whole set of
spatial functions and structures, as it bypasses the material aspects of space, but
nevertheless it allows the systematic analysis of the signifying aspects of space.
This issue is not exactly new in geography, and this is why Soja's (1989,
page 56) concentration on the debate within Marxist geography concerning the
ontological status of space, docs injustice to a more general debate that literally
split the domain as a whole, a debate that offers historical evidence reinforcing, I
believe, my plea for the semiotic aspect of geography. To refer only to postwar
geography, the principal approaches within this context may be classified into two
groups. I would include in the first group new geography and Marxist geography.
The new geographers adopted the positivist principle of pertinence (the principle
which also led to structural linguistics and semiotics and which seems to have been
transformed from an epistemoiogicai stance in deSaussure to an ontological axiom
in Derrida), according to which the constitution of a scientific field presupposes the
exact delimitation and then the isolation of the theoretical object of research.
Space as such was defined by new geographers as the exclusive object of geography,
and their task was to be the formulation of exclusively morphological (that is,
spatial) laws. The positivist search for general laws, and the positivist isolation of
space, both led to the search for spatial laws of universal validity. Never before or
after has space been so important in geography, a fact that should be remembered
by postmodern geographers.(5) The formulation of the process laws of society was
left to workers in the systematic social sciences, who, on their part, did not have
to worry about the geographical manifestation of these laws.
Marxist geography emerged as a reaction to this kind of geography, to remind us
that society matters. As is well known, for Marxists space cannot be autonomised
from society because it is socially and historically produced. Being a social
product, space cannot obey either purely spatial or universal laws, but is shaped
( 5) This observation is not meant to give any merit to the spatial separatism of new geography,
but refers to the fact that space was approached in isolation, without any 'diversion' in the
direction of context, whether social or meaningful.
266 A P Lagopoulos

according to the regularities of the societal processes, which are historically

bounded. In spite, however, of the radical differentiation between Marxist and
new geographers—the first seeking specific regularities that preside over the social
processes shaping geographical space and the second emphasising universal laws
governing spatial structures—there is a crucial common characteristic between the
two: the exclusive concern with the material aspect of society and space, a viewpoint
that I shall call objectivism. In the case of Marxist geography, this is far from being
a natural outcome of Marxist theory, as Marxism offers a theory of ideology
structurally related to its theory of material processes; we have only to remember
Castells (1975, part III) and Lefebvre (1974, pages 42 and 48-57), both of whose
work has been foundational for Marxist geography and neither of whom neglect
semiotic processes and the semiotic aspect of space. Unfortunately, the broadening
of the horizons of geography offered by these authors was not duly exploited in
anglophone Marxist geography.
The second group of postwar approaches in geography consists of what is
usually called humanistic geography and behavioural or cognitive geography.
Proponents of humanistic geography opposed the concept of place to the concept
of space current in geography. Space, for humanistic geographers, was an abstract
and neutral way of conceptually and indirectly analysing geographical entities,
whereas place implied the transformation of space through its direct and intimate
experience in consciousness. This existential recuperation of space, which invests
it with meaning, values, and feelings, would deliver the inner structure of space.
Thus for humanistic geographers it is thoughts and feelings that shape the urban
and architectural environment (Saarinen and Sell, 1980, page 531; Tuan, 1977,
pages 5 and 17).
Contrary to humanistic geography, that takes its inspiration from phenomenology,
behavioural geography is positivistically oriented and draws heavily for its theory
on environmental psychology. Its starting point is the psychological processes of
the human mind, which realise a subjective representation of reality inseparable
from sensation, cognition, values, emotions, and desires. One of these mental
processes that leads to the formation of our image of the world is the cognitive
mapping process, which is connected to environmental information and leads to the
creation of mental or cognitive maps. When spatial choices are faced, the combination
of these maps with decision rules and evaluations causes overt spatial behaviour, which
either coincides with spatial movement or causes changes in the spatial structures
(Golledge and Stimson, 1987, pages 1 1 - 1 3 and 38-39). This psychological
reductionism shows the individualistic premises of behavioural geography.
As was the case with Marxist and new geography, humanistic and behavioural
geographers use different epistemological paradigms from each other, but they may
be grouped together on the basis of their common orientation. This common
orientation is directed not towards material aspects but towards ideology and the
meaningful aspect of space, a viewpoint that may be called subjectivism. I believe
that the opposition between objectivism and subjectivism is a central issue for
geography, equally as central as the issue of space. It is an issue indicating both the
importance of signifying processes in geography and the need for an epistemological
synthesis between the opposed parts, a synthesis bridging the split of social geography.
Subjectivism became more widespread in geography from the mid-1960s, but it
goes further back into the history of geographical thought. We only have to think
of de la Blache's geographie humaine from the turn of this century, or Wright's
'geosophy', the 'study of geographical knowledge', which is related to 'scientific
geography' as historiography is related to history and proposes to study the subjective
conception by people, including geographers themselves, of geographical space
Postmodernism, gooflrnphy, and tho social nomiotica of spaco 207

(Wright, 1947, pages 5 - 7 and 11-12). The roots of this concept of Wright's can
be traced back to 1925. The parallel is worth noting between, on the one hand,
this relativisation of the views of mainstream geography and their comparison with
lay views and, on the other, the neostrueturalist transformation of all phenomena
into semiotic phenomena and the postmodern tendencies in contemporary geography.
The tension between objectivism and subjectivism in spatial studies was presaged
about twenty years before geography in the discipline of sociology, namely in human
ecology. The aim of the first wave of human ecology, classical or orthodox ecology,
was to explain space and, more specifically, urban organisation as a product of society
(•community')—an aim quite parallel to the Marxist project—and to explain society
as a product of bioeeological principles, a form of reductionist)! known as 'social
Darwinism*. For classical ecologists, society consists of two different levels. The
first is the basic 'biotic' level, constituted by the fundamental mechanism operating
in the whole of nature (not only in human societies but also in animal and plant
communities), that is, competition and competitive cooperation between the members
of a group. This is the only level that classical ccologists set as their task to study.
The second level is a dependant 'cultural' level, exercising some influence on the
biotic level, which is shaped by social communication and conventions. The close
resemblance to the orthodox Marxist base—superstructure division is evident.
After the intense criticism of the biologism of classical ecology there appeared
different tendencies within human ecology, most of which were also objectivist.
The only exception has been sociocultural or voluntaristic human ecology, which
replaces the study of the material factors shaping space with those of the meaningful
and experiential aspect of space (for a brief account of human ecology, sec Thcodorson,
1961, pages 3 - 6 , 129, and 132-134). Epistemologically, this subjectivist orientation
of human ecology has never been reconciled with objectivist views.
Neither was the problem of reconciliation of the two directions faced by .the
pilot science for behavioural geography, environmental psychology, but for a
different reason: the exclusive orientation of mainstream psychology towards the
subjective world of the individual subject. A similar situation holds for the
semiotics of space, at least for the great majority of its representatives, because of
the rigid application of the principle of pertinence. Thus, both environmental
psychology and semiotics are subjectivist, and from this point of view they are
related to behavioural geography and socioculturai human ecology. Such human
ecology is obsolete today, but there is a continuous communication between cognitive
psychology and behavioural geography. However, there is a total lack of communication
between this anglophone stream and the francophone semiotics of space. As a
result, a unified and complex approach to geographical space, incorporating both
the material and the signifying, encounter the following major obstacles: the general
split between objectivism and subjectivism; the Marxist orientation solely toward
socioeconomic processes, and the debate in an essentially Marxist context over the
function and importance of space; the lack of cross-fertilisation of subjectivist
geography with the extensive and sophisticated semiotic (—semantic—linguistic)
theories and the semiotics of space; and the absence in subjectivist geography of
any elaborated sociological foundation, something equally absent in semiotics.
As already mentioned, Castells and Lefebvre offer a Marxist spatial framework
for the incorporation of the semiotic aspect into spatial studies. This is an almost
unique attempt at an epistemological articulation between objectivism and subjectivism
with respect to space. On the part of other geographers, there have been only a
few statements of principle, movements of goodwill, or gratuitous assertions of an
alleged achievement of the above articulation. Thus Wright (1947, page 12), although
advocating his geosophy, does not reject 'scientific geography', but his contribution
268 A P Lagopoulos

to the articulation of the two is to suggest that geosophy offers scientific geography
a larger context, helping to understand better the production of scientific geography
from history and culture. Golledge and Stimson (1987, pages 186 and 194-197)
state that spatial behaviour occurs in the midst of constraints related to an individual's
socioeconomic position and is influenced by 'objective variables', but their behavioural
model does not include these variables, which in any case would demand that it be
radically altered. Pickles (1985, pages 7 6 - 7 8 and 169), in his 'phenomenological
geography', acknowledges the importance of Marxist geography and advocates the
synthesis of place and abstract space, but he does not clarify in what way use of
the phenomenological paradigm will enable one to deal with material processes. It
is hard to see why and how humanistic geographers aim for the reconciliation of
'objectivity and subjectivity' and of 'materialism and idealism', as proclaimed by
Ley and Samuels (1978, page 9), when, as Cox (1981, pages 263-269) observes,
humanistic geographers may realise that the spatial environment, as every other
object, is an object for a subject, but miss the point that the object is the condition
for the realisation of the subject. It is this same opposition that Gregory (1978,
page 146) urged geographers to surpass.
The argument put forward here is not only for the need for the integration of
the subjective (or semiotic or ideological or cultural) dimension into geography,
but also the importance of the use of semiotic theory in this task. Things in this
respect are not simple, not only because there is not merely one semiotic theory,
but also because mainstream semiotics is positivist. Also, its articulation with
Marxism and what I still believe to be a powerful Marxist geography presupposes
an unruly synthesis of conflicting paradigms. However, I would still counterpropose
the use of semiotics rather than psychological theories in geography. The reason is
threefold. First, the great majority of psychological theories are founded on
epistemological individualism, a fact posing insurmountable obstacles in a social
geography (and only allowing the constitution of a psychogeography). Second, these
theories are all more or less limited in their approach to the study of meaning, and
their use in geography has impoverished them even further, as in Kelly's (1963)
personal constructs and Osgood's (1952) semantic differential. Finally, the in-depth
analysis of the systems of meaning has blossomed during the last thirty years. I do
not mean with these comments to underestimate the contribution of the mainstream
subjectivist approaches to space, especially when the presence of the semiotics of
space has not yet been strongly felt in spatial studies, but I believe that they can be
subsumed within semiotic theory as a theory of culture.
In fact, in the contemporary development of the study of meaningful systems,
semiotics holds a central position. In section 2 of this paper I delimited schematically
the domain of what I called European semiotics. What unites the different tendencies
within this vast domain is their common foundation in de Saussure's structural
linguistics. I mentioned structural anthropology, in which linguistic theory was
brought into the core of anthropology, and society was studied as a complex set of
systems of communication and signification. The sociosemiotics of social action has
been studied through Greimas's theory of narrativity (for example, 1966), which
extends the work of the prewar Russian formalists. Greimas's semiotic theory also
covers the structuring of the multiple layers of meaning of cultural systems—such as
the cognition of the world, literary and mythological texts, and architectural and urban
space—and integrates a structural semantics, an issue that has also preoccupied Eco.
In spite of his interest in literary texts, Barthes (for example, 1967) met with Eco
(for example, 1972) in the study of nonverbal semiotic systems, with a project in
his early work close to the Ideologiekritik of the Frankfurt School. Eco integrated
part of proxemics in his semiotics of architecture, and gestural semiotics was firmly
Postmodominm. (joocjniphy. aw! tho nocui! nornioticn of npw:o 269

founded. The semiotic project to study every kind of cultural 'text* and finally the
whole culture as a text, is clear with the Tartu-Moscow school, who see culture as
a collective mechanism for the storage and processing of information, The domain
of semiotics is further broadened if we add the Peircean approach (for example,
1931, pages 134*- 173) to semiotics as formal logic and the extensions towards the
nonhuman world, of which Sebeok's (1975) zooscmiotics is an example.
European semiotics has thus acted as a centripetal domain for the study of the
processes of semiosis, informed by the whole range of human sciences, but also
with strong repercussions on these sciences, and has emerged as the domain par
excellence of the systematic study of meaning. (Why, of the tendencies composing
it, the structuralist tendency barely touched the USA, and why 'classical' semiotics
passed more or less unnoticed in that country whereas neostructuralism triumphed,
is a matter for sociological explanation that lies outside the scope of this paper.)
The (politically neutral) term of meaning is coextensive with the sociological term
ideology in its most general sense as worlclview. It is through meaning or ideology
that humans make sense of the world. All cultural systems are vehicles of meaning,
and, inversely, meaning animates all cultural systems. Thus, the study of meaning
implies the study of the structure and function of cultural systems, which are
systems of signification and communication.
The cultural texts that are potential objects of scmiotic analysis include the texts
of the physical and social sciences, and this requires some clarification. I would
not doubt that science is relative, historical, and permeated by culture, a fact that
legitimises the scmiotic analysis of scientific texts as meaningful cultural texts. This
is the neostructuralist proposal and this is the focus of the more pronouncedly post-
modern geographers. It is an enterprise that brings semiotics close to epistemology.
But, if we accept that a referential world exists 'out there', then this kind of operation
does not exhaust all the reality of a scientific (for example, a geographical) text. If
this is so, a scientific text is not only a text, but also a (culturally bounded) bridge
to reality. If semiotics and postmodernism have made us intensely aware of the
issue of meaning, we should not for that reason dispense with this other nature of
science, a nature that is the central concern of Marxism and that also surfaces in
the books by Harvey and Soja discussed in this paper.

6 Semiotics and Marxism

Geography can no longer be seen as an exclusively spatial science, and it is in this
respect that Marxist geography has been especially successful. It is not by chance
that most of the subjectivist geographers who hinted at the issue of the connection
between subjectivism and objectivism were referring to Marxist geography. This is
why it seems reasonable to direct our attention to this tendency when faced with
the issue of the integration of semiotics, in the form of the semiotics of space, into
geography. The prerequisite for such an integration is the more general articulation
between semiotics and Marxism. This issue is not new, but the Marxist tendency
within semiotics is clearly underrepresented, and some of the most notable attempts,
such as those by Godelier (1973; 1978) and Bourdieu (1971), have remained
outside semiotics proper.
The earliest attempt of this kind can perhaps be traced back to the Soviet
Union in the 1920s and was performed by the 'Bakhtin school'. Their Marxist
critique was addressed to the 'formal' approach in literature, an approach quite
comparable with contemporary semiotics. Because this critique seems to me to be
pertinent even today, I shall briefly present its main points, on the basis of the book
by Medvedev and Bakhtin The Formal Method in Literary Scholarship: A Critical
Introduction to Sociological Poetics (1978).
270 A P Lagopoulos

Medvedev and Bakhtin, although acknowledging the contribution of Russian

formalism, are very critical of the isolation of literature from the ideological domain,
as well as from social and historical life. They thus accuse formalism of being
'consistently nonsociologicaP and 'profoundly nonhistoricaP. They do, however,
declare themselves to be in favour of a synthesis of Marxism and formalism.
The authors consider literary scholarship as a branch of the study of ideologies.
They believe that Marxism provides a firm basis for this study, but also that the
detailed study of the specific characteristics of each branch of ideology 'is still in
the embryonic stage', thus implying that Marxist theory is not sufficient by itself
for the study of culture, a point in accordance with their position on the synthesis
of formalism with Marxism. They propose the development, on the basis of
Marxism, of a sociological method adaptable to the specificity of each ideological
structure; this method would constitute a Marxist study of ideologies. With respect
to literature, they state that as a science Marxist literary scholarship will establish
sociological poetics and show the individuality of poetic structures as a particular
form of social structure.
All the products of ideological creation, such as the arts, science, and religious
symbols and rites, have for Medvedev and Bakhtin the specificity of being meaningful,
but this fact does not prevent such products from being material things: organisations
of objects and people; words, actions, and manners; and clothing. They thus
become part of the practical reality surrounding us. The task of the Marxist study
of ideology is twofold: analysis of the features and forms of meaning, on the one
hand, and analysis of the forms of social intercourse that produced them, on the
other. Ideology is produced in the process of social intercourse, but there are
distinctions between separate ideologies, arising not only from their abstract meanings,
but also from the different forms of social intercourse. Ideological spheres have
different functions within the unity of social life. These forms of social intercourse
are constituent of the meaning of the ideological spheres and an essential structural
element of them.
Medvedev and Bakhtin thus remind us that a global theory does not necessarily
imply the neglect of differences. They have recourse to differentiated semiotic
regularities, which they articulate with the regularities of social life. They introduce
two crucial concepts in connection with this articulation: refraction and the ideological
environment. The mediation of specific forms of social intercourse between social
reality and the distinct ideologies explains the differing relations of ideologies to
socioeconomic reality, and thus the different laws of refraction of that reality which
characterise each ideology. The ideological environment, which surrounds us, is the
material and externally expressed social consciousness of a collectivity, which is
determined by its socioeconomic existence and which, in turn, determines individual
consciousness. This environment is a concrete whole which unites science, art,
ethics, and the other ideologies. Each ideological sphere is directly related to the
ideological environment; it is determined by it and also determines it, "while only
obliquely reflecting and refracting socioeconomic and natural existence" (Medvedev
and Bakhtin, 1978, page 14). Thus, each ideological sphere reflects the ideological
environment, which is a refraction of socioeconomic reality. Simultaneously, there is a
return influence of these spheres on reality. We see, then, that it is not only the forms
of social intercourse that mediate between an ideological sphere and reality, but also
the ideological environment as a whole. Medvedev and Bakhtin (1978, chapters 1, 2,
and 3) explain in this way how the semiotic systems are determined by socioeconomic
reality in the last instance but also how these systems have a relative autonomy to
recall Althusser's concepts (Althusser and Balibar, 1968).
Pofttmodornism, <JIX>(jf.iphy. «I'K1 thn soci.il scmiotK.*. of *.|J.U <• 7/1

What makes Medvedev and Bakhtin's (and Althusscr's) contribution relevant to

the analysis of ideology, even today, is, I feci, their effort to formulate a Marxist
theory of culture that will respect the dynamic particularity of different cultural
fields without sacrificing the principle of the production of culture from material
social life. With this approach, the dialectical principle is installed at the heart of
Marxism, and its functioning is demonstrated through a lucid analysis of social and
cultural dynamics. This dialectics operates within a hierarchically structured whole,
allowing for that determination by the last instance which, if forgotten, would
transform Marxism into simple functionalism.(ft)
Not many years ago, direct citations from the founders of Marxism were an
almost necessary point of departure for analysis, but as we enter deeper into the
postmodern era a simple reference to them is seen as suspect dogmatism: am I
here proposing another "grand narrative', just when we thought we had finally
disposed of all those global theories? But, in point of fact, is not a theory of
differences systematically connected and of the universal movement of their production
a global theory? What else is Derrida's theory? And is a theory not an integral
theory of difference if it focuses on the same universal differences everywhere and
in all circumstances, as, for example, some geographers and feminists tend to do
(areal differentiation, women, minorities, and the like)? At this point, we need to
clarify what kind of theory of difference we are talking about. Lyotard's opposition
of small narratives to the 'grand narrative' ends with a theory of small and
differentiated narratives, all situated on the same 'horizontal1 plane. On the
contrary, for Derricla difference is merely a first theoretical step, which is inscribed
in the overarching process of dijjerance that escapes the realm of meaning (Derrida,
1972, pages 56-63). Thus, for Derrida the 'horizontal' differences that are part of
a coherent system are surpassed 'vertically' by a radical and incommensurable
higher difference, which aspires to free itself from the constraints of the systemic.
Doel (1992, pages 171-172 and 175) is aware of this point when he writes that
the binary scheme belongs to modernism, the function of the (exact) concept of
postmodern is to disrupt the function of the modern, and the postmodern is not
accompanied by any truth (for 'truth', read 'positive meaning'). But Pile and Rose
(1992, page 133) distance themselves from both Derrida and Lyotard when they
argue that postmodernism insists on "a radical heterogeneity of incommensurable
differences" and accepts the existence of many truths. They disagree with Derrida
because they transfer incommensurability from the 'vertical' to the 'horizontal'
dimension, and they retain an attachment to the referent through their (quite
legitimate for me!) interest in positive entities and truth. They misunderstand
Lyotard because they equate his language games with truth systems.
Among theories dealing with 'horizontal' differences, recently dear to certain
geographers, there seems to be the impression that there exists a radical separation
between a (totalising) theory of difference and a totalising theory tout court. There
are, in fact, some theories of difference that claim not to start from the premise of
an underlying unity (for example, of social life, or capitalism). This is definitely
not the case with Derrida. In fact, his theory is connected with two assumptions:
first, that ('horizontal') difference cannot be conceived independently from sameness,
a sameness that permeates the very nature of the entities being differentiated,
and, second, that there is a lawful coherence at the plane of the differences,
(6)
This could, in fact, be the case with Soja's sociospatial dialectic, unless the analysis of the
nature and degree of influences in both directions were to reveal hierarchical relations and
unequal influences, the stronger influence being exercised, I would imagine, from the social to
the spatial aspect. The two problems of the articulation of space with society and of the
semiotic systems with society thus pose comparable ontological problems.
272 A P Lagopoulos

that of the system. On the other hand, the Derridean 'vertical' plane of irreducible
alterity is also imbued with sameness, unity, and the universal, as instead of
being governed by the universal laws of, say, capitalism, it is governed by the
universal regularities of the processes of semiosis. These regularities can only
exist on the assumption of the existence of the system of language, a concept
which has the tricky quality of being a positive concept which claims to correspond
to a reality.
It seems to me that grand theories of this kind, coherent and explicit to a greater
or lesser degree according to the case, are both omnipresent and inescapable. I
cannot see how, if the domain of sciences were structured according to postmodern
predictions (that is, through small, local theories), they could, in general, be
constituted independently from grand premises, or how they could avoid resulting
in grand theories. This is not abstract reasoning. It is the very real experience of the
fragmented constitution of the scientific domain by (the inescapably modernist)
positivism: small segregated fields, imperialistically extrapolating from the partial to
the general and producing, for example, exclusively psychological theories of society
or exclusively semiotic theories of its material processes. The conflict would be—and
usually has been—one between grand, not small, theories.
Dear (1988, pages 268-272) observes that what is positive with postmodernism is
that it pushes us to accept theoretical relativism, and he considers that the
proliferation of and conflict between social theories is desirable because it offers
new insights. He rightly opposes the postmodern absolute relativism and instead
advocates a limited relativism, following from the formulation of evaluative criteria
able to justify a specific position and discriminate it from competing views. Dear
also rightly distinguishes this kind of approach from 'a fully-fledged grand theory',
but, if the implication should be that it is independent from a grand theory, we could
use as a counterexample the development of the positive sciences mentioned above.
In fact, it is not accidental that Dear's three major processes structuring society
and space—political, economic, and social—remind us strongly of Althusserian
Marxism. I would, then, propose that the issue is not the rejection of grand theory
or theories, but their nature, the manner of their construction, their openness, and
their flexibility.
Thus, I am advocating a global theory—one as flexible and as open as we can
make it—and this theory has a founding principle, without which we should totally
surrender to the neostructuralist dismissal of reality: the production of ideology
from material reality. This may be an axiomatic ontological thesis, but the same is
true of its opposite thesis. The thesis is stated by Marx and Engels (1975), according
to whom language is practical consciousness and a product of social interaction, and
both consciousness and language appear phylogenetically simultaneously with, and
follow from, social labour. Humans produce themselves as social beings and thus
their individuality is socially founded. This is the point of departure for Medvedev
and Bakhtin, and it is a position of major consequence for semiotics and the study
of culture.
This position recognises a hierarchy between material and signifying practices.
But, given this hierarchy, I would like to stress the following points. First, this
account of the production of meaning does not imply that there is a temporal
interval betwen material practices and signifying practices, quite the opposite.
These two kinds of practices can be distinguished in an analytical view of society
and people, but in empirical reality they are indissolubly related and simultaneous.
Second, there is a material vehicle for all social and cultural practices. There are,
analytically, strictly material practices and there are also other kinds of material
practices, the signifying practices. Signifying practices are not ghostly, but only
f 'o'.tmof ji'rnr.M i (|IMH|I .iphy. '»fl(' ^ " ' '.<'ii.il M'li uotii \ of \ [ ) . i ( r 2 f'\

exist in connection with material practices and a material vehicle, whether sound
waves, graphic traces, behaviour, or the built environment (see Williams, 1977,
pages 3S, 5 3 - 5 4 , and 93 - 9 4 ) . The third point follows from the first and, notably,
from the unity of material and signifying practices. As these two kinds of practices
are interwoven, there is a mutual influence between them, occurring within the
context of their hierarchical relation, which accounts for the relative autonomy of
signifying practices. Each sphere of signifying practices demonstrates its own
regularities of structuring and its own structure. It is noteworthy that, in the same
way as there is not only one set of signifying practices but many organised according
to different spheres, each sphere of signifying practices may be internally differentiated
as a function of the different practices of the social groups that produced it.
Last, the various semiotic systems have, within the whole of society, not only
intcrtextual semiotic functions, but also specific social functions, as is also the case
with the different spheres of material practices. These specific functions, however,
coexist with certain general social functions exercised by all semiotic systems,
which are communication and signification and the securing (or contestation) of a
particular form of social reproduction and thus the exercise of social power.
Godelier (1978, pages 1 7 2 - 173) mentions four general functions of the semiotic
systems, which are directly related to the above: the representation of reality,
which is a part of what I have called signification; interpretation, which is inseparable
from representation; on the basis of these two functions, the organisation of the
relations of people with each other and nature, for the purpose of social reproduction;
and the legitimation or contestation of these relations.
What is at stake in the preceding discussion is the issue of the derivation of
semiotics from Marxism, which should lead to the creation of a mediating
epistemological and theoretical level, founded on a renewed Marxist epistemology,
on the one hand, and defining the main cpistemological and theoretical axes which
could provide a support for an also renewed scmiotic theory, on the other. In this
discussion, I have presented some main concepts belonging to this mediating level.
Certain further concepts will be more profitably introduced below, together with a
discussion on geographical space and architecture.

7 The production-circulation-consumption circuit of space

The semiotic functions of semiotic objects are related exclusively to their meaningful
nature, and the primary functions of material objects are related to their social uses.
These use objects are not beyond the reach of meaning, for, as Barthes (1968, page 41)
points out, "as soon as there is a society, every usage is converted into a sign of
itself1. Barthes calls these signs attached to use systems sign-functions. Spatial signs
are a special case of these signs, as is pointed out by Eco (1972). He differentiates
between material functioning (the central concept of modern design) and signification
(the central concept of postmodern design), and, as does Barthes, founds the latter
on the former.
Starting from this view, one can state that the built form allows, from the
sociological, 'exosemiotic' standpoint, the fulfillment of a material function and
semiotically signifies this function. Thus, built form has two indivisible aspects, the
one material and the other signifying, the one supporting the other. For E c o ,
semiotically, the built form as culturally conceived is transformed into a signifier,
and its perceived (not actual) function is transformed into a signified of denotation;
there are also other kinds of signifieds of denotation beyond those belonging to the
functional code. T h e r e is also a second level of meaning beyond this first level,
the two levels being connected by associative links: this is the level of connotation,
that is, of symbolism (see Eco, 1972, part 3).
274 A P Lagopoulos

Eco's analyses remain within the context of semiotic pertinence, and he is not
concerned with the articulation of the signifying spatial processes with the material
spatial processes. But the concept of sign-function allows the conjunction of these
two kinds of processes. It is clear, I think, that this last interest is nonsensical
from a neostructuralist perspective, but I believe that those tendencies within
semiotics which are not neostructuralist have many things yet to contribute to our
knowledge, even if they are not 'postmodern'. The concept of the sign-function
allows us to have access to space in its internally articulated totality as functioning,
built, denoting, and symbolising, a totality that surpasses the false antithesis between
modern and postmodern movements in architecture.
With the concept of sign-function space is envisaged as a social object and is
thus rather static. But signs are caught up in dynamic signifying processes, just as
social objects partake of dynamic material processes. The fundamental model
presiding over the exchange of signs is generally taken to be the model of
communication: sender (addresser)-message-receiver (addressee). However, Marx
offers another fundamental model, that of the circulation of capital and commodities.
He distinguishes three stages: a circulation process before production, a production
process, and a new circulation process, during which the produced commodities
reach the market and are consumed. We find striking similarities when we compare
these two models, the first referring to signifying processes and the second to
socioeconomic processes. These similarities may be subsumed by the more general
model: production-circulation of the product - consumption. Such similarities are
not fortuitous, but show the deep structural similarities between the life cycles of
all social products in all societies, whether noncommodified products, commodities,
services, or signs and messages.
The internal connection between the model of communication and the model of
political economy has not passed unnoticed. Thus, Bourdieu (1971) founds his cultural
theory on this connection. For him, there have been constituted in European societies
relatively autonomous fields of relations of production, circulation, and consumption
of intellectual and artistic goods, goods integrating commodity and symbolic value.
Various cultural perspectives and values conveyed by symbolic goods and their
functions, as well as by the attached symbolic practices, are differentiated according
to the position they occupy within the symbolic field, and the perspectives and
their position follow from the characteristics of the social position of their agents
in the system of this field. We see that, at this point, Bourdieu introduces into the
cultural circuit the agents of action. The perspectives in the cultural field arise
from the cultural or other interests of groups competing for cultural legitimation.
These groups activate the cultural circuit, which is a circuit of social relations and
strategies, governed by its own logic but founded on the wider context of class
relations. This sociological view of cultural systems (the resemblance of which to
Medvedev and Bakhtin's view is striking) is related to Bourdieu's criticism of the
arbitrariness of formalism—this time modern structuralist formalism, not the prewar
Russian one criticised by Medvedev and Bakhtin—for its exclusive preoccupation
with the domain of meaning at the expense of sociological dynamics.
Although the signs circulating in the cultural fields proper are strictly cultural
signs, spatial signs are, as we have seen, sign-functions, that is, cultural signs
accompanying use objects. Within the general production - circulation - consumption
circuit of space we can distinguish analytically two aspects: a primary material
aspect, deriving its motion from the specific forms taken by the fundamental
socioeconomic processes and the attached political processes when channelled
toward space; and an accompanying cultural aspect, which represents a local
specialisation of the general signifying processes of the cultural domain, themselves
Poatmodummrn, yooyrnphy, unci tho social nomioticn of npnco 276

a product (in the last instance) of the same fundamental socioeconomic processes.
The process of spatial production covers state and private planning as well as the
design process that achieves the physical expression of the planning targets. Space
is thus produced by a particular conjunction of material and signifying processes. If
we accept that spatial organisation and form follow from this conjunction, then we
must conclude that they, as products, are not derived exclusively from the domain
of meaning, and, as a result, subjectivism alone is inadequate to comprehend them.
So is objectivism alone, though to a lesser degree, because the material processes
are the dominant factor in the shaping of space.
Though there is a dialectical relationship between the stages of the above-described
circuit, the stages remain distinct from each other. Each specific instance of space
is produced at a specific moment, and the produced space circulates in a market of
material and symbolic commodities and is also consumed both materially and
symbolically. It is materially consumed by being used, and its semiotic consumption
lies in its more or less active recuperation by social subjects. This recuperation is
not a mere reflection of the objective reality of space, but is founded on a semiotic
labour which reconstitutes reality by selecting, organising, and interpreting spatial
signs. This, in combination with the different positions of the social groups of
consumers, causes, first, an asymmetry between the scmiotic system of production
and the semiotic systems of consumption, and, second, produces divergences within
the sphere of scmiotic consumption; both of these may occur to a greater or lesser
extent and may take different forms according to the type of society. But in spite
of these asymmetries, in contemporary Western societies the semantic horizons of
all these different interpretations of space are bridged and dominated by the over-
arching values of capitalism, its episteme, primarily formed thrugh the cultural
hegemony of the dominant class.
If we look at the elite level of the production of space in the advanced capitalist
world, with its postmodern architectural forms, we may see it as a process of
competition between producers and of strategies adopted by them, social actions
that were analysed by Bourdieu in respect to cultural systems. These strategies are
economic strategies camouflaged as cultural visions, that double aspect of postmodern
urban interventions discussed, as we have seen, by Harvey. The ultimate logic of
the cultural aspect of the products of these interventions is evident: the reproduction
and the legitimation of the existing socioeconomic order. Processes of a socioeconomic
nature are thus being acted out in cultural terms, the understanding of which requires
the semiotic tools of cultural analysis. But the full meaning of these processes will
escape us if we analyse them merely as cultural phenomena, without being aware of
the socioeconomic processes governing them and the strategic role which they play
within these processes.
It should by now be abundantly clear why I firmly believe in the importance of
semiotics, both for Marxism in general and Marxist geography in particular.
Elsewhere, I have called this extension of semiotics toward Marxism materialist
social semiotics and the corresponding extension of the semiotics of space a social
semiotics of space (Lagopoulos and Boklund-Lagopoulou, 1992, page 43; see also
Lagopoulos, 1986). This term describes my own semiotic viewpoint on the articulation
between semiotics and Marxism—which ultimately cannot but have an impact on
Marxism itself. But what about the perspective on this articulation originating from
within the general theory of Marxism? If we were to follow Soja's, or even Harvey's,
example, we should perhaps rename Marxism 'historical - semiotic materialism', as I
do not see on what grounds it could be argued that ideology is less important than
space for social science. We would in this manner surpass in ambition writers such
as Bakhtin, Lukacs, and Gramsci, who did not think that their contributions to a
276 A P Lagopoulos

Marxist theory of ideology were of such an order as to demand the rebaptising of

historical materialism.
There is, in fact, an approach which surpasses even this alleged 'historical -
semiotic materialism'. I am thinking of Baudrillard's political economy of the sign,
which absorbs Marxism into semiotics, another instance of the neostructuralist
expulsion of the referent. For Baudrillard (1972), the sign-function and the functional
nature of objects do not exist; in fact, the existence of objects is a cultural myth.
The separation between signs and reality is literally a science fiction. The primary
nature of objects is not a pragmatic nature to which a sign value is then added,
but, inversely, the reality referred to by the sign is only an effect of signification.
The real object, the referent of the sign, belongs to lived experience, and objectivity
is a matter of consensus between subjects; thus, denotative meaning does not refer
to any reality, but is the most subtle and ideological form of connotation (sic!).
Objects are symbolic and are constituted as commodities by signs; it is meaning as
a system of communication that presides over social exchanges. The theory of these
symbolic exchanges constitutes the political economy of the sign. We see, then,
that the extreme case of 'Marxist' semiotics is a typically postmodern idealist
semiotic 'Marxism', as the extreme case of 'Marxist' geography cannot but be
spatial fetishism.
But, although Soja and Harvey do not want to make claims of this extravagant
scale with their 'historical - geographical materialism', we are entitled to ask whether
geography is really so radical for the constitution of social theory, or whether it
appears so to Soja and Harvey because they are focused on their field of interest,
that is, they see Marxism from the perspective of geography and not the other way
around. I believe that, if this second perspective is adopted, then the renaming of
Marxism should be unnecessary and the term 'historical materialism' may remain as
it is, as the adjective 'historical' in this case would not be contested. As regards
the first perspective, as concrete evidence is lacking, the argument must be made in
terms of the theoretical prerequisites for the relocation of Marxism in the direction
indicated by Soja and Harvey. Here, the essential prerequisite would be the
demonstration that the influence of space on society is equally as crucial as the
(analytically) purely social processes for the constitution of society. From this it
follows logically (but should also be demonstrated ontologically) that the new status
of space upsets the (or most of the) premises of Marxism to such a degree as to
demand its more or less radical transformation. With respect to this (functionalist)
purpose, not only is evidence lacking, but one wonders how it would be possible
for the reverse influence of a social space, that is, of a space already shaped by
society, to be equally constitutive with the initial shaping influence. To use a
mathematical metaphor, if we consider the dialectics between society and space as
a multiplication, the product of (social x social space) is (social)2 space.
Social space is neither static nor undialectical, but it becomes dynamic and
dialectical only through functioning, structuring, motion, change, transformation,
diffusion—concepts and realities that are related to processes and exist only in
connection with historical time. The latter does not represent an abstract concept of
time, but refers to social time, a time constituted by social events and the rhythms
of societies, just as social space is shaped, in time, by the social and cultural processes
referred to above. Thus, a functioning space or a changing space is by definition a
historical space. Politically, the emphasis of Marxism on history does not represent
an abstract interest in some abstract category of time, but an orientation toward
social change and thus social action, and there is no spatial action that is not social
and does not evolve in social-historical time. The downgrading of history risks
becoming a part of postmodern mythology, something which is not the case with
Poatmodorniam, gooc|rnphy, and the social semiotics of epaco 277

the upgrading of the spatial or the semiotic. However; an over-upgrading of space*

together with an overemphasis on the well-established social function of ideology,
would lead us to an awkward 'historical-geographical-semiotic materialism 1 , in which
we would he hard pressed to find any resemblance to the original Marxian version.
'Grand narratives* cannot die, as indeed the totalising tendencies of postmodernism
corroborate; maybe because they are the only way for humans even to start thinking
about themselves and their world. T h e issue is rather their openness, flexibility,
and ability to deal with a rapidly changing world.
Acknowledgements. I would like to express my sincere thanks to the eponymous referee of
this paper, Ed Soja, whose cooly passionate and passionately cool critiquc-cum-ruvicw helped
me to clarify our convergences and divergences, t also thank Michael Dear for his suggestions,
which were helpful in the widening of the context of my discussion in the direction of anglo-
phone postmodernism.

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