Power Relations and Staffroom Spaces

Abstract

We have had so many 'turns' in the social sciences in recent years that one can come to feel quite dizzy.The spatial turn is one of them.And as in all such cases the theoretical movement can be taken up in a variety of ways of differing potential and usefulness.For some, the spatial turn has meant primarily the basic recognition that things vary from place to place.For others, it has meant really integrating an understanding of spatiality into the very processes and practices under investigation.This is a very much more demanding move, but its potential for innovation and for making novel contributions is correspondingly greater.It is into this second category that the present collection falls.The nature of this contribution is threefold, at least.First, as Jane McGregor argues in her Editorial, thinking spatially means recognising the integral spatiality of things and processes and recognising too the difference that spatiality may make.If space is a product and a precondition of all our practices and engagements, then it is integral to the construction of the relations between us, to the blossoming, or not, of identities and to the potential for new futures that we are constantly laying down.In that sense, I believe, the sphere of the spatial also brings with it responsibilities, and the present collection points importantly to some of these.Second, I have always believed that theory is best developed, tested, moulded, through real practical engagement in the range of situations over which its claims extend.Bringing an approach, a theoretical framework, into a new field should not be a matter simply of application, as though one were laying down a template.It is an occasion for new thinking and enrichment.And third, the particular arena into which this collection takes the recent thinking around spatiality is one of crucial social importance.The intersections here, moreover, between what are called 'theory' and 'practice' could not be more real.The wide diversity of engagements presented in this collection represents a significant addition to thinking about space and I greatly welcome its appearance.

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