Mosaic and tapestry: Metaphors as geographical concept generators
Nelson, Garrett Dash
Mosaic and tapestry: Metaphors as geographical concept generators - Sage, 2019. - Vol 43, issue 5, 2019 : (853-870 p.).
This paper examines the use of the metaphorical terms ‘mosaic’ and ‘tapestry’ in conceptualizing the structure of spatial organization over more than a century of geographic thought. The duality between a mosaic-like, discrete geography and a tapestry-like, indiscrete geography is one of the fundamental paradoxes in spatial ontology; this paper explores how this duality has configured the commitments of geography and continues to play a role in the more recent debate between ‘territorial’ and ‘relational’ spatial metaphors. It argues for a reconciliation of incompatible metaphors, since the complexity of the phenomenal world exceeds resolution into any single descriptive system.
history of geographic thought,
landscape,
metaphors,
mosaic,
networks,
regions,
territory
Mosaic and tapestry: Metaphors as geographical concept generators - Sage, 2019. - Vol 43, issue 5, 2019 : (853-870 p.).
This paper examines the use of the metaphorical terms ‘mosaic’ and ‘tapestry’ in conceptualizing the structure of spatial organization over more than a century of geographic thought. The duality between a mosaic-like, discrete geography and a tapestry-like, indiscrete geography is one of the fundamental paradoxes in spatial ontology; this paper explores how this duality has configured the commitments of geography and continues to play a role in the more recent debate between ‘territorial’ and ‘relational’ spatial metaphors. It argues for a reconciliation of incompatible metaphors, since the complexity of the phenomenal world exceeds resolution into any single descriptive system.
history of geographic thought,
landscape,
metaphors,
mosaic,
networks,
regions,
territory