Time Geography

Time geography represents both a theory and method of tracing daily routines as coordinates of time and space. Its origins reside in the pioneering work of Torsten Hägerstrand (1916–2004) and the Lund School, from which questions of time and temporality emerged in the 1970s as neglected [Page 811]dimensions of human geography. Time geography remains influential in urban geography as a means of mapping and measuring location-accessibility problems, but it has lost favor among urban anthropologists who criticize the use of space and time as empty abstractions of distance and duration.

In much the same way that Georg Simmel viewed the spontaneous movements of urban dwellers as webs of social interaction, Hägerstrand sought to capture the “choreography of existence.” He viewed the most mundane projects of daily life, such as chaperoning a young child to school on the way to work, as a function of multiple “pockets of local order,” the path or trajectory of which is governed by three simple but fundamental contextual limitations. The first of these, the capability constraint, concerns physical limits to movement including the inability to be in two places at once. Second, a coupling constraint describes situations that compel people to come together at certain times and locations such as for face-to-face service delivery, family celebrations, medical appointments, and the like. Third, authority constraints exist in the form of legal sanctions and regulations such as those restricting entry to places selling alcohol. The most arresting image associated with this choreography is a three-dimensional prism, mapping an individual's path in space (annotated movements across the x–y axes of a morphological map) and relating this to a time budget (the 24-hour day) recorded on the z-axis.

The prism renders complex situated behavior with a simplicity that is appealing but heavily criticized for the tendency to reduce webs of interaction to quantified nodes or intersections. Sweeping structures appear to displace individual agency and erase the significance of cultural practices and local knowledge. Feminist scholars point out that time is not a gender-neutral, quantity-based resource, which is equally available to everyone as a measure of the calendar or clock. The passage of time and pace of life will vary, just as people's experience of space and place is shaped by subjectivity: power, fear, and physical capability.

Despite this criticism, there are ample examples in contemporary research of the constructive application of time geography to questions of work–life balance. Moreover, it is now possible to redeploy Hägerstrand's principles to combined GIS-ethnography initiatives, with the aid of sophisticated satellite tracking devices. For example, researchers have exploited advanced tracking technologies to study pedestrian spatial behavior in which it is possible to incorporate a log of perceptual experience (fear, discomfort, intimidation, landscape aesthetic, and the like). Future time-geography research calls for a more integrated, materially embedded theory of everyday coordination.