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Cresswell himself clearly has considerablesympathy for the humanistic tradition – thededication to Tuan signifies this – but his ownwork sits neatly alongside that of the critics ofthe foundational theorists, for it acknowledgespower differentials within place and the norm-defining (repressive?) political uses to whichappeals to ‘place’ can be made. The ‘everydayuses’ of the word, ‘place’, ‘link hierarchies insociety with spatial location and arrangement.Someone can be “put in her place” or is supposedto “know his place” … Such uses of the termsuggest a tight connection between geographicalplace and assumptions about normative behavior’(pp. 102–103). But one of Cresswell’s achieve-ments is that he deals so fairly with all who havecontributed to the tapestry of place theory as wehave it today, that, in the absence of the cluesprovided by the inclusion of his own work, itwould have been impossible for a reader whoknew nothing of Cresswell to know where, withinthese several crosscurrents, he stands. The criticsof the humanistic/phenomenological traditionare given their say in the third chapter, ‘Reading“A Global Sense of Place”’, and are treated withthe same lively even-handedness that character-ised his consideration of Relph

et al

. Cresswelltakes David Harvey and Doreen Massey asrepresentative of (or the central contributors to)the dissenting paradigms, and this discussion,too, is expertly realised.

Using the work of Jon May, Cresswell con-cludes this chapter by suggesting that thebifurcation within place theory between thehumanistic/phenomenological mode of con-structing place and the differences-privilegingpositions of Harvey and Massey may be morecomplex than is generally appreciated. My ownposition is slightly similar, but takes issue withCresswell in one crucial way. Cresswell is adamantthat phenomenologies of place are essentialist,and that there is no space within which this mightbe qualified (p. 23). I disagree, and have writtenelsewhere: ‘some place phenomenology

does

homogenize place, but most see the constructionof place meaning as arising from a perpetualdialogue between the physicality of place and theinteractions of people with it, and there is nothingintrinsic to this process that mandates one“essential” place meaning’ (Hay, 2006, 33). Thereis, I think, more potential compatibility betweentheoretical perspectives that are usually assumedto be irreconcilable than Cresswell recognises.

Of course, a minor point of disagreementbetween an author and a reviewer does not

diminish the author’s achievement: in this casethat achievement is considerable, and I wouldnot want it diminished. But I do have otherminor quibbles. First, Cresswell draws much toosharp a distinction between Relph as Heidegge-rian and Seamon as disciple of Merleau-Ponty.Seamon draws at least as heavily on Heideggeras he does on Merleau-Ponty, having, in the1980s, published several still-important papersthat draw extensively upon Heidegger’s contri-bution to place phenomenology. Second, thefinal chapter in the book is a survey of print andelectronic contributions to understandings ofplace. This is extremely useful, and the onlywork of substance that is absent but to my mindmerited inclusion is Daniel Kemmis’s important1990 book,

Community and the Politics of Place

.It is no fault of Cresswell’s of course, but placetheory is currently experiencing such dynamismthat his list of place sources will soon requireaugmentation – indeed, this is an observationthat could apply to the book as a whole, andundeservedly limit its shelf life. For the present,though, Cresswell has given us a near-perfectundergraduate introductory text on a centralgeographical concept.

REFERENCEHay, P., 2006: A phenomenology of islands.

Island StudiesJournal

1, 19–42.

Pete Hay

University of TasmaniaAustralia

June 2007452

For Space

Doreen Massey, Sage Publications, London,2005, 222 pp, ISBN 1 4129 03610 (hardback)£60, ISBN 1 4129 0362 9 (paperback) £19.99.

Books written by geographers don’t often reachlarge audiences beyond the discipline. Thosethat do tend to fall into certain types: theoretico-political polemics like David Harvey’s

The Con-dition of Postmodernity

, mega-selling textbookslike Peter Dicken’s

Global Shift

, or, more rarely,topical interventions like Derek Gregory’s

TheColonial Present

. This book, although, likethose I’ve just mentioned, destined to be widelyread by many who are not geographers is, I’msure, also very unlike those others. Althoughlikely to be referred to as a standard text in thefuture, it’s hardly a textbook. Although theoretic-ally informed, it elaborates no very specific

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theoretical programme, as did Harvey. Andalthough concerned with politics through andthrough, it never quite gets around to identifyingthe enemy. These are differences rather thanproblematic absences, however. For what thebook does have is a sense of passionate andsometimes idiosyncratic engagement with thequestion of geographical imaginations; a clearargument about how space should be thought;and an analytic constantly alert to the contextualityof political action. This makes it pretty unique:and, in a publishing market currently so drivenby what publishers think students will read, itslack of fit into established genres is hugelyrefreshing. Its writing style is also very attractive.

The book is divided into five parts. The firstis very brief, and simply argues for the import-ance of how space is thought. Massey swiftlyand neatly makes the point that geographicalimaginations matter because they have conse-quences in the world, and then lays out the basicelements of her own understanding of space.This has three components: space is the productof interrelations; it is the sphere of coexistingheterogeneity and multiplicity; and that it isalways under construction and never, therefore,closed. Moving swiftly on, the second part ofthe book explores the ways in which space hasbeen theorised otherwise, most notably by Berg-son, Derrida, de Certeau and Laclau. Masseycritiques these thinkers for the way in whichthey assume that space is static and immobile(often, as Massey notes, by associating it withrepresentation). Part Three then turns to someaccounts of space grounded less in theory andphilosophy and more in current discourses ofglobalisation. Both these sections stronglyadvocate the need to think carefully about space(and its intersection with time, a point Masseyinsists on). I did wonder in passing here aboutthe fairly sweeping comments Massey makes incharacterising these conceptualisations of space.I wanted a little more specificity in her sources:why choose Bergson? Was Bergson really soinfluential in his views of space? On whom, andhow? In terms of poststructural social theory,surely Foucault would be a better candidate todiscuss the source of taken-for-granted notionsof space than Derrida? And is globalisationreally so frequently characterised in the waysthat Massey suggests, as inevitable, and asassuming a linear developmental trajectory?While some might still believe in Rostow, formany he was discredited years ago, and thedebates about global development – even in the

mass media of the North – are surely somewhatmore nuanced now. Clearly, these characterisa-tions stand more as means to allow Massey tobegin to elaborate her own position than asthorough overviews of philosophical accounts ofspace or popular accounts of globalisation.

Parts Four and Five of the book turn fromcritique to more positive accounts of how tothink space. Part Four elaborates Massey’s ownposition, drawing occasionally on theory butmore often on other forms of knowledge, suchas her own experiences of learning about thegeology of England’s Lake District. And finally,in Part Five, Massey turns more explicitly toexplore what she calls ‘a relational politics ofthe spatial’.

This is a great book to read in terms of itshead-on engagement with the spatial. (Next timesomeone from another discipline asks me whatto read on ‘space’, I know what I’ll suggest,although the book actually makes surprisinglylittle reference to much of the work done byother geographers relevant to its argument.) Andits clarity of purpose and argument, of course,also invite some questions. I had three mainones, all of which might be substituted by arequest for ‘more please!’ – a bit more elabora-tion, explanation, contextualisation.

Firstly, I wanted more about this thing called‘relationality’. Massey doesn’t spend much timespelling out exactly what this might be. Welearn that it might be global or intimate; that itmight make connections or break or refusethem; that it might consist of ‘happenstance juxta-position’ as well as viciously exploitive insti-tutional structures. But, given it is such a coreterm to Massey’s argument, I did want more dis-cussion about it. This was especially so because,particularly in her last chapter, I felt that theunderstanding of relationality was actually givingMassey a rather limited descriptive vocabulary,consisting mainly of variations on ‘interconnected’,‘open’ and ‘closed’. Moreover, in claiming thatspace is constituted by relationality, other sortsof space consistently get characterised byMassey as being mistaken in some way. And thisleads to my second question, which is about thestatus of Massey’s characterisation of space. Itcertainly sounds, on my reading, to be a prettyprescriptive characterisation. And it wasn’t clearto me whether this was because Massey reallythinks that space is actually and really like that(so that other geographical imaginations are atsome level unreal or wrong), or whether hers ismore of a political, strategic characterisation

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intent on challenging other accounts of spacethat work to various oppressive ends. This latterpossibility seems unlikely though, given Mas-sey’s own argument that no spatial configurationcarries with it any determining effects. I won-dered if foreclosing on other spatialities mighttherefore also prove (politically as well as theo-retically) limited. Finally, given that the bookends so strongly on the political consequencesof spatial thinking and the need to interpret suchthinking contextually in each and every situa-tion, I wondered what criteria Massey would usefor such interpretive work. If the ‘local’ is notnecessarily better than the ‘global’, if we are notnecessarily more responsible for what happens‘close’ than for what happens ‘far away’ – howdo we begin to make judgements about thebetter and about responsibility? What are thecriteria we might deploy?

So I ended the book with several questionsfor Doreen. Her book is certainly written in atone which seems to invite such engagements;as well as this, though, knowing Doreen as acolleague as I do, I also know that she wouldlove nothing more than to discuss such ques-tions with her readers with the same verve,enthusiasm, wit and rigour that are the hall-marks of this book.

Gillian Rose

The Open University UK

June 2007452

Australia’s Water Resources: from Use toManagement

John Pigram, CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood,Victoria, Australia, 2006, xii + 226 pp, ISBN978 0 643093 37 9 (hardback) A$89.95.

This is a highly appropriate yet equally chal-lenging time for a wide-ranging book on waterresource management in Australia. Few are betterplaced than John Pigram to take on such a task.Pigram has extensive academic and policy expe-rience, in particular through his work with theCentre for Water Policy Research at the Univer-sity of New England and with the InternationalWater Resources Association. The focus of theCentre on institutional reform, ecological eco-nomics and work with the agricultural/irrigationsector in Australia, provides a solid if at timesselective backdrop for the key aim of this book– to address the reorientation of attitudes andpolicy to water use. Pigram clearly supportsongoing reforms but equally has major concerns

about what he sees as the associated risks of‘ecological determinism’ replacing ‘economicdeterminism’. This makes the book valuableboth as a source of information and as a polemic,raising important issues for debate.

The broad structure of the book hinges upon anexamination (and in some cases a re-examination)of the range of water uses and users. It is thebroadening and consequent need to balancethese uses, that is a central theme and givescoherence to the diverse material. The chapterson this topic are introduced through an exami-nation of the biophysical environment as highlyvariable – ‘wet and dry’ – and a history of waterresource use before and after Federation. Thedistinctive path taken in Australia towards waterlegislation and policy is generally not wellknown or understood, and this section providesa useful overview and counter to the institu-tional amnesia that besets reform in this area. Itis very valuable to have these various aspectscontained in one book, and the balance betweenrural and urban issues is welcome for those con-cerned about the intellectual and policy dividebetween the city and the bush.

The book then proceeds to discuss in turnurban supply, industry, mining and power gener-ation, irrigated agriculture, environment andrecreation, the latter including intangible ‘water-enhanced’ activities. Each chapter provides anoverview of recent developments and key dis-cussion themes illustrated with a wide range ofAustralian examples, although the author’s owngrounding in northern New South Wales makecase studies of this region the most detailed andinformative. The strongest sections are those oninstitutional history, the agricultural sector andurban supply, which explain how a developmen-talist ethic and strong but compliant governmentinvolvement resulted in the over-allocation ofwater in many regions. Pigram analyses keyparts of the reform agenda, such as the movetowards market mechanisms, corporatisationand technical efficiencies, clearly and coherently.The chapter on recreation and tourism raisesimportant issues of cultural appraisal and equityof access, arguing for fresh policy initiativesbased on a land-use ethic and the recognition ofwater (and land) as communal resources.

A long-time proponent of integrated catchmentmanagement, Pigram identifies the potential ofholistic approaches, whilst providing an importantcaveat against the risk of resultant loss of focuson water resources

per se

, marking one of thetrickiest challenges of holistic, landscape-based