Scale - A Companion to Environmental Geography - page 105

others, understands scale as inherently hierarchical, but this refl ects his own failure
to distinguish scale as level from scale as relation. The former does entail hierarchy
(or some such principle of ordering); the latter does not. Furthermore, there is
nothing inherently hierarchical (or 'vertical') about emergent properties, complex
interactions, or thresholds of nonlinear change. Other frameworks that have been
proposed in recent years, such as networks (Leitner, 2004; Taylor, 2004) and heter-
archy (Crumley, 2005), confi rm that one can critique hierarchy theory yet retain a
strong emphasis on scale. Leitner (2004, p. 246) notes that 'networks are themselves
scaled', and that '[n]etwork scales are emergent properties of sociospatial processes
operating inside and beyond networks'. It is precisely by rescaling processes that
networks have the potential to bypass or subvert conventional hierarchies of
power.

Conclusion: Towards an Integrated Conceptual Framework
A remarkable and apparently unwitting convergence has occurred in ecological and
geographical conceptions of scale in the past two or three decades. From very dif-
ferent starting points, drawing on ideas and insights from across the social and
natural sciences, scholars in both fi elds have moved from scale as size and level to
scale as relation. The common interests and ideas include emergent properties, hier-
archies and networks, non-equilibrium, thresholds of change, spatio-temporality,
path dependence and self-organisation. The challenges and opportunities for inte-
grative work and collaboration are growing in number and importance.
How to integrate ecological and geographical scale for purposes of environmental
geography? The following six principles can be derived from the preceding analysis
of geographical and ecological scale:

1. Scale is relational . Its scientifi c value lies not in absolute or discrete measure-
ments of a phenomenon in terms of size, duration, or magnitude, but rather in
exploring relations among phenomena so measured.
2. The focus of theorising about scale must therefore fall on processes rather than
on scale per se, because it is through processes that relations among phenomena
are manifest.
3. Processes are simultaneously spatial and temporal; while many uses of
scale are implicitly spatial, the concept as developed here is intrinsically
spatio-temporal.
4. There is no single 'correct' scale for studying or understanding societies, eco-
systems, or their interactions; any given process may, however, have an appro-
priate or best scale for research.
5. Scales are produced, whether by human-social, geophysical or biological pro-
cesses. They have an ontological moment, insofar as they are integral to the
constitution of material processes; they have an epistemological moment, insofar
as one's scale of observation determines the patterns (or lack thereof) that one
observes. The two moments are dialectically related.

6. A major topic for further research and theorising on scale concerns thresholds

of non-linear or qualitative change across scales (for any given process) and
between processes of different scales. It is at these points that scaling effects,
mismatches of scale or rescaling are manifest, and where critical issues of social-
ecological change and sustainability may be engaged most fruitfully.