Introduction - Time-Space Compression: Historical Geographies - page 3

consciousness, it is central to how human beings construct and experience
time and space. Psychological time is a function of our sensations and per-
ceptions, which in turn produce a succession of mental states that we conceive
as “time”; the same can be said about space. We never sense time and space
directly, we can only experience phenomena located in time and space
through chains of causes and e ects. To view time as having an arrow, for

example, is to perceive causation through time. In the same vein, spatial
perception is a complex biological and cultural process that varies historically
and geographically (Hat

ff

cance of distance, of near and
far, accessibility and inaccessibility, inside and outside, all of these are cultur-
ally speci

fi eld 1991); the signi fi

c terms for making sense of spatiality. Time and space as social
constructions rely upon discursive textual, and artistic representations of
people's experiences, among other things. An adequate understanding, there-
fore, must take into account the psychology of spatial sensation, perception,
and cognition, a topic well explored by behavioral geographers (e.g., Couclelis
and Golledge 1983).
Simultaneously, perceptions of time and space are intimately linked to
prevailing relations of power: as Harvey (1989a) notes, the measurement of,
and thus the command over, space and time are essential instruments of
political control. The spaces of the earth have, of course, been viewed in
widely dissimilar ways by various cultures throughout history. Thus, as Crang
(2005:203) writes, “The di

fi

erent epochs is not just
a story about accuracy of measurement, it is about di

ff ering sense of space of di ff

ering societies' rela-
tionship to space.” Many cultures feel themselves to be living at the center
of all time and space. Louis Mumford (1934:16) captured this idea well in
stating that “Each culture believes that every other space and time is an
approximation to or perversion of the real space and time in which it lives.”
Since time and space do not exist as “objective” processes independent of
how people interpret, make sense, and feel about them, it is imperative for a
theory of how time and space are constructed to address issues such as the
sociology and psychology of time. Individual and social perceptions of time
and space are therefore heavily contingent on how they are measured, which
is itself a highly

ff

c phenomenon.
To note that time and space can never be divorced, however, is not to claim
that they are identical. Space and time are di

fl fluid and culturally speci fi

erent, and simply combining
them into one space-time does not acknowledge their variations: we measure
them dif-

ff

erently, and give meaning to them dif-
ferently. One can avoid moving in space simply by staying still; that person
cannot help but move in time. The existence of a space-time notwithstanding,
time exhibits properties that space never can: existence and movement in
time are always irreversible, for example. As Reichenbach (1958:109) notes,
“Time has generally been considered as an ordering schema similar to, but
simpler than, that of space, simpler because it has only one dimension.”
Unlike space, time is characterized by a single direction, an arrow that
fl

ff erently, experience them dif- ff

flows irreversibly from past to future; as Hawking (1988) asks, why can we