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Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference
This book engages with the politics of social and environmental justice, and seeks new ways to think about the future of urbanization in the twenty-first century. It establishes foundational concepts for understanding how space, time, place and nature - the material frames of daily life - are constituted and represented through social practices, not as separate elements but in relation to each other. It describes how geographical differences are produced, and shows how they then become fundamental to the exploration of political, economic and ecological alternatives to contemporary life. The book is divided into four parts. Part I describes the problematic nature of action and analysis at different scales of time and space, and introduces the reader to the modes of dialectical thinking and discourse which are used throughout the remainder of the work. Part II examines how "nature" and "environment" have been understood and valued in relation to processes of social change and seeks, from this basis, to make sense of contemporary environmental issues. Part III, is a wide-ranging discussion of history, geography and culture, explores the meaning of the social "production" of space and time, and clarifies problems related to "otherness" and "difference". The final part of the book deploys the foundational arguments the author has established to consider contemporary problems of social justice that have resulted from recent changes in geographical divisions of labor, in the environment, and in the pace and quality of urbanization. Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference speaks to a wide readership of students of social, cultural and spatial theory and of the dynamics of contemporary life. It is a convincing demonstration that it is both possible and necessary to value difference and to seek a just social order.
480 pages, Paperback
First published January 23, 1997
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518 people want to read
About the author
David Harvey
189 books1,637 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
David Harvey (born 1935) is the Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). A leading social theorist of international standing, he graduated from University of Cambridge with a PhD in Geography in 1961.
He is the world's most cited academic geographer (according to Andrew Bodman, see Transactions of the IBG, 1991,1992), and the author of many books and essays that have been prominent in the development of modern geography as a discipline.
His work has contributed greatly to broad social and political debate, most recently he has been credited with helping to bring back social class and Marxist methods as serious methodological tools in the critique of global capitalism, particularly in its neoliberal form.
David Harvey (born 1935) is the Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). A leading social theorist of international standing, he graduated from University of Cambridge with a PhD in Geography in 1961.
He is the world's most cited academic geographer (according to Andrew Bodman, see Transactions of the IBG, 1991,1992), and the author of many books and essays that have been prominent in the development of modern geography as a discipline.
His work has contributed greatly to broad social and political debate, most recently he has been credited with helping to bring back social class and Marxist methods as serious methodological tools in the critique of global capitalism, particularly in its neoliberal form.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 2, 2020
Este libro es probablemente de los menos conocidos de David Harvey, pero es uno que debe de ser revisado por aquellos interesados en los detalles de sus ideas y conceptos. Esto en especial porque en el mismo hay discusiones a profundidad sobre el tiempo, espacio la naturaleza, el espacio urbano y la justicia. Para ello analiza y crítica distintos autores a lo largo del tiempo en cada uno de los tópicos y se analiza sus implicaciones. Así como va con una visión materialista construyendo sus conceptos. El lenguaje del tipo académico, lo que puede resultar en una barrera para algunos lectores. Sus dos capitulos finales me parece de lo más relevante, en cuanto a la búsqueda de una justicia ambiental para las ciudades, así como la creación de futuros alternos para el desarrollo de ciudades más equitativas y justas.
September 26, 2012
I'm re-reading the later chapters of Justice, Nature etc for a paper I'm writing now which has to do with urbanism, migration and justice. But need no excuse to read David Harvey at any time - he is so brilliantly erudite, subversive, provocative. And cleverly, to his core, a socialist. Always new.
February 28, 2020
En Justicia, naturaleza y geografía de la diferencia, David Harvey se propone integrar el espacio en la teoría marxista, integrar el lugar en el desarrollo de la teoría materialista. El autor considera necesario en este camino, dar cuenta de los dilemas que surgen al vincular lo local con lo global, a la naturaleza con la cultura y a la justicia ambiental con la justicia social.
Para una concepción materialista de la historia, la dialéctica es un instrumento de análisis con el que es posible considerar en toda su complejidad las relaciones que se ponen en juego entre el todo y las partes, entre el cambio y la continuidad, nuevamente, entre lo local y lo global, la naturaleza y la cultura, la justicia ambiental y la justicia social, etc.
Harvey, como punto de partida para sus análisis, establece que las transformaciones son permanentes, que el cambio es la norma y que lo dado y estable deben ser explicados y desnaturalizados, punto de partida que facilita comprender a las pretendidas nociones absolutas de espacio y tiempo, primero, como conceptos e ideas relacionales y, en segundo lugar, comprender, ni más ni menos, que el tiempo y el espacio no son universales, sino que son creaciones sociales individualmente subjetivados.
El desafío que se presenta para el autor está dado por vincular esta perspectiva particularista y relacional del espacio y del tiempo, con políticas superadoras que sean capaces de relativizar la concepción homogénea que el capitalismo impone de ambas categorías.
Es claro que para comprender qué significan el espacio y el tiempo en la era moderna, organizados bajo parámetros capitalistas, es necesario contrastarlos con otras concepciones espacio temporales. El tiempo cronometrado y el espacio cartesiano nos parecen intuitivos, pero ¿cómo se los consideraba en la edad media? y cómo se los consideraba en sociedades precapitalistas, en palabras del autor, "Si el espacio y el tiempo son ambos sociales y objetivos, entonces se deduce que los procesos sociales (a menudo conflictivos) definen su objetivación", significativamente, las diferenciaciones de clase, de género, culturales, religiosas y políticas en las concepciones del tiempo y el espacio frecuentemente se convierten en escenarios de conflicto social. De semejantes luchas pueden surgir nuevas definiciones de lo que es el tiempo y el lugar correcto para todo, así como de las propiedades objetivas correctas del tiempo y del espacio.
En Justicia, naturaleza y geografía de la diferencia, el autor entiende que las relaciones sociedad – naturaleza, se normalizaron con el iluminismo a partir del discurso cartesiano, que consideró a la naturaleza como un objeto separado del hombre. Para Hervey, Iluminismo y liberalismo no son concepciones contrapuestas, ambas consideran, por caso, que la liberación del hombre tiene, entre otros fundamentos, el dominio de la naturaleza. Si bien deconstruir la concepción iluminista y liberal de las relaciones entre naturaleza y sociedad es un paso previo y necesario para invocar otros valores alternativos, fundamentar a continuación cuáles serían los sustentos teóricos y políticos que den lugar a las alternativas es una práctica compleja y ambigua. Aquí el autor considera válido analizar los discursos y propuestas sobre la naturaleza menos en términos de lo que se dice sobre ella que en términos de la propuesta social y política que se desprende de su valorización.
De los 14 capítulos que componen la obra, el capítulo 14 de Justicia… es un capítulo de síntesis, con cierta autonomía, en el que el autor explica el desarrollo urbano en relación con el desarrollo del capitalismo, desarrollo urbano comprendido como proceso y no como una cosa, la ciudad estudiada como palimpsesto y una historia que se presenta primero como tragedia y luego como farsa.
Para una concepción materialista de la historia, la dialéctica es un instrumento de análisis con el que es posible considerar en toda su complejidad las relaciones que se ponen en juego entre el todo y las partes, entre el cambio y la continuidad, nuevamente, entre lo local y lo global, la naturaleza y la cultura, la justicia ambiental y la justicia social, etc.
Harvey, como punto de partida para sus análisis, establece que las transformaciones son permanentes, que el cambio es la norma y que lo dado y estable deben ser explicados y desnaturalizados, punto de partida que facilita comprender a las pretendidas nociones absolutas de espacio y tiempo, primero, como conceptos e ideas relacionales y, en segundo lugar, comprender, ni más ni menos, que el tiempo y el espacio no son universales, sino que son creaciones sociales individualmente subjetivados.
El desafío que se presenta para el autor está dado por vincular esta perspectiva particularista y relacional del espacio y del tiempo, con políticas superadoras que sean capaces de relativizar la concepción homogénea que el capitalismo impone de ambas categorías.
Es claro que para comprender qué significan el espacio y el tiempo en la era moderna, organizados bajo parámetros capitalistas, es necesario contrastarlos con otras concepciones espacio temporales. El tiempo cronometrado y el espacio cartesiano nos parecen intuitivos, pero ¿cómo se los consideraba en la edad media? y cómo se los consideraba en sociedades precapitalistas, en palabras del autor, "Si el espacio y el tiempo son ambos sociales y objetivos, entonces se deduce que los procesos sociales (a menudo conflictivos) definen su objetivación", significativamente, las diferenciaciones de clase, de género, culturales, religiosas y políticas en las concepciones del tiempo y el espacio frecuentemente se convierten en escenarios de conflicto social. De semejantes luchas pueden surgir nuevas definiciones de lo que es el tiempo y el lugar correcto para todo, así como de las propiedades objetivas correctas del tiempo y del espacio.
En Justicia, naturaleza y geografía de la diferencia, el autor entiende que las relaciones sociedad – naturaleza, se normalizaron con el iluminismo a partir del discurso cartesiano, que consideró a la naturaleza como un objeto separado del hombre. Para Hervey, Iluminismo y liberalismo no son concepciones contrapuestas, ambas consideran, por caso, que la liberación del hombre tiene, entre otros fundamentos, el dominio de la naturaleza. Si bien deconstruir la concepción iluminista y liberal de las relaciones entre naturaleza y sociedad es un paso previo y necesario para invocar otros valores alternativos, fundamentar a continuación cuáles serían los sustentos teóricos y políticos que den lugar a las alternativas es una práctica compleja y ambigua. Aquí el autor considera válido analizar los discursos y propuestas sobre la naturaleza menos en términos de lo que se dice sobre ella que en términos de la propuesta social y política que se desprende de su valorización.
De los 14 capítulos que componen la obra, el capítulo 14 de Justicia… es un capítulo de síntesis, con cierta autonomía, en el que el autor explica el desarrollo urbano en relación con el desarrollo del capitalismo, desarrollo urbano comprendido como proceso y no como una cosa, la ciudad estudiada como palimpsesto y una historia que se presenta primero como tragedia y luego como farsa.
May 20, 2024
David Harvey has been one of my intellectual guides since following his brilliant lectures on Capital, Volume 1, a couple of years ago. As always, this book offers some important insights, which many have pointed out in the reviews. However, I struggled with his somehow dismissive attitude towards the ecological crisis and the question of natural limits to capital accumulation.
February 19, 2025
Title is completely wrong.
More literature and philosophy than about environmental justice or geography. I wanted to read about environmental social change and how that connects to geography, not fucking mind body dualism and Leibnizian metaphysics, If I wanted that I would have read something else.
More literature and philosophy than about environmental justice or geography. I wanted to read about environmental social change and how that connects to geography, not fucking mind body dualism and Leibnizian metaphysics, If I wanted that I would have read something else.
October 19, 2022
Harvey never fails. Incredible.
August 22, 2025
400 pages flexing intense understanding of European thinkers with the only conclusion to environmental justice to “focus on the process and materialism”
Makes me want to be a structuralist.
Makes me want to be a structuralist.
January 3, 2008
a beautiful synthesis of ideas, Harvey is quickly becoming a hero of mine. his writing is quite dense, but he carefully situates all of his ideas prior to delving in and parses out foundational work and its problems in order to prevent misunderstanding. i haven't read a lot of Harvey, but am excited to see a lot of Marxist criticisms of Marx which creates a tautological playground for some of us.
February 17, 2011
Read this for a geography class while studying abroad at RHUL in the UK.
Discusses social-environmental justice in urban settings.
Intellectually challenging but easy to read, well-reasoned, somewhat provocative.
Discusses social-environmental justice in urban settings.
Intellectually challenging but easy to read, well-reasoned, somewhat provocative.
March 20, 2011
Interesting and helpful theoretically, but not something I would just sit down and read for fun.
April 22, 2013
not his best work. still david harvey
April 16, 2017
Not a review - notes from the book relating to identity:
Reducing social functions to their characteristics as a flow makes them impotent in the face of material forces and so unable to effect change. Categories of identity, then, if presumed to be in flux.flow/constant change cannot challenge the values that they are based on and are often used to oppress. The dilemma of an oppressed identity is that its struggle for recognition depends on accepting the conditions that created its oppression. Dialectical analysis recognises that the objects of analysis are, properly, processes, constituted of other other processes with inter-related chains of causation, that all analytical objects contain their own contradictions which power change, and that the dialogic enquiry process produces its own permanences and creates potential for challenge and change. While discourse may serve powerful interests, its analysis is not the same as analysing those powerful interests & so its fetishization only serves to entrench the positions of the powerful.
Scientific interpretation and theory are determined by metaphors which are based on literal understandings previously internalised, & themselves based on human interpretation. Genetic explanations, for instance, are derived from the social structure that determined the nature of the enquiry. A dialectical view of humans cannot separate individuals from their relations to systems, just as nature is excluded from history only by man's hubris. Environmental management, then, is intimately involved with social management (e.g. New York is a created ecosystem), and with money. Time & space are socially constructed concepts; Medieval time & space were not resources but powerful mysterious forces which were divided so that "there was a time and space for everything." The dialectical view of man, time and space results in a contingent view of the self. Socially-constructed time & space values productive time (i.e. economic production of value) over reproductive time (i.e. domestic production), which skews power relations, in this case forming the basis of gender inequality in gendered roles. As space-time becomes compressed (e.g. thru faster communications), & we become aware of the great variety of cultures, a common reaction is to cling more strongly to local-national values (generating forms of identity). This compression is a common experience for early 21st century communities as it was for early 20th century. Space-time prevents us from occupying the material identity of another so defines the self in relation to the other. How we use space-time to define & give value is not a neutral choice & exhibits power to define. Academic disciplines provide a good example of this. Space-time seen from a Kantian/Cartesian perspective offers a valued definition that, by presenting a static view of space-time, obscures the value of flow. Difference and identity from a relational and dialectical perspective provide a dynamic understanding of a social system that static Aristotlean definitions can not, eg class is not a category but, as Bourdieu demonstrates, is played out culturally, materially and behaviourally. However a relational view can only offer one perspective, grounded as it is in the viewer, among other possible relational views and so potentially only the powerful anchor points may be used to combine views into a cartography of social systems. Relational and dialectical perspectives reveal that the individual and all identity categories would have significantly different values in a non-capitalist system eg academic depend on print capitalism to extract tribute as economic value from system. Money, with its contradictory power to divide and unite, space-time, the body & values are all entwined in different combinations in a social system, so that any identity is value-laden. We are all implicated in globalised relations of commodification but the contradictory force of 'genius loci', often based in inherited values from religion/custom etc. may come or fell under threat and so may materialise as a place-based form of action that is characterised as an identity. Capitalism employs differences from pre-capitalist societies but revalues them int hierarchies. In dialectical theory, each category of value contains its contradiction, as it is defined in relation to its contradiction. The struggle between those values must be materialised to power political change. Location is but one hierarchical value that enables capital accumulation to create difference. Location and individualism are similarly positioned as defined in relation to their conditions which struggle to chart a dialectical path. The contradictions of an individual are in dialectical struggle such that certain aspects of 'identity' are prioritised to materialise as action. Society depends on difference and otherness to practice exclusion. All individuals are a bundle of heterogeneous impulses, beliefs and loyalties so the prioritisation of any aspect of an identity becomes a question of power, so to remove the identification of difference as a form of exclusion requires one of two solutions: (1) recognise the identity but remove their exclusion; (2) remove the processes of exclusion. For (1) oppression based on an identity requires specific conditions in social processes. The continuation of that identity requires the continuation of the conditions that created the oppression. So, to remove the oppression requires the removal of the identity "the mere pursuit of identity politics as an end in itself ... may serve to perpetuate rather than challenge the persistence of those processes which give rise to those identities in the first place" (304) So (2) is the only viable option
Reducing social functions to their characteristics as a flow makes them impotent in the face of material forces and so unable to effect change. Categories of identity, then, if presumed to be in flux.flow/constant change cannot challenge the values that they are based on and are often used to oppress. The dilemma of an oppressed identity is that its struggle for recognition depends on accepting the conditions that created its oppression. Dialectical analysis recognises that the objects of analysis are, properly, processes, constituted of other other processes with inter-related chains of causation, that all analytical objects contain their own contradictions which power change, and that the dialogic enquiry process produces its own permanences and creates potential for challenge and change. While discourse may serve powerful interests, its analysis is not the same as analysing those powerful interests & so its fetishization only serves to entrench the positions of the powerful.
Scientific interpretation and theory are determined by metaphors which are based on literal understandings previously internalised, & themselves based on human interpretation. Genetic explanations, for instance, are derived from the social structure that determined the nature of the enquiry. A dialectical view of humans cannot separate individuals from their relations to systems, just as nature is excluded from history only by man's hubris. Environmental management, then, is intimately involved with social management (e.g. New York is a created ecosystem), and with money. Time & space are socially constructed concepts; Medieval time & space were not resources but powerful mysterious forces which were divided so that "there was a time and space for everything." The dialectical view of man, time and space results in a contingent view of the self. Socially-constructed time & space values productive time (i.e. economic production of value) over reproductive time (i.e. domestic production), which skews power relations, in this case forming the basis of gender inequality in gendered roles. As space-time becomes compressed (e.g. thru faster communications), & we become aware of the great variety of cultures, a common reaction is to cling more strongly to local-national values (generating forms of identity). This compression is a common experience for early 21st century communities as it was for early 20th century. Space-time prevents us from occupying the material identity of another so defines the self in relation to the other. How we use space-time to define & give value is not a neutral choice & exhibits power to define. Academic disciplines provide a good example of this. Space-time seen from a Kantian/Cartesian perspective offers a valued definition that, by presenting a static view of space-time, obscures the value of flow. Difference and identity from a relational and dialectical perspective provide a dynamic understanding of a social system that static Aristotlean definitions can not, eg class is not a category but, as Bourdieu demonstrates, is played out culturally, materially and behaviourally. However a relational view can only offer one perspective, grounded as it is in the viewer, among other possible relational views and so potentially only the powerful anchor points may be used to combine views into a cartography of social systems. Relational and dialectical perspectives reveal that the individual and all identity categories would have significantly different values in a non-capitalist system eg academic depend on print capitalism to extract tribute as economic value from system. Money, with its contradictory power to divide and unite, space-time, the body & values are all entwined in different combinations in a social system, so that any identity is value-laden. We are all implicated in globalised relations of commodification but the contradictory force of 'genius loci', often based in inherited values from religion/custom etc. may come or fell under threat and so may materialise as a place-based form of action that is characterised as an identity. Capitalism employs differences from pre-capitalist societies but revalues them int hierarchies. In dialectical theory, each category of value contains its contradiction, as it is defined in relation to its contradiction. The struggle between those values must be materialised to power political change. Location is but one hierarchical value that enables capital accumulation to create difference. Location and individualism are similarly positioned as defined in relation to their conditions which struggle to chart a dialectical path. The contradictions of an individual are in dialectical struggle such that certain aspects of 'identity' are prioritised to materialise as action. Society depends on difference and otherness to practice exclusion. All individuals are a bundle of heterogeneous impulses, beliefs and loyalties so the prioritisation of any aspect of an identity becomes a question of power, so to remove the identification of difference as a form of exclusion requires one of two solutions: (1) recognise the identity but remove their exclusion; (2) remove the processes of exclusion. For (1) oppression based on an identity requires specific conditions in social processes. The continuation of that identity requires the continuation of the conditions that created the oppression. So, to remove the oppression requires the removal of the identity "the mere pursuit of identity politics as an end in itself ... may serve to perpetuate rather than challenge the persistence of those processes which give rise to those identities in the first place" (304) So (2) is the only viable option
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