Non-representational theory

Non-representational theory is a theory developed in human geography, largely through the work of Nigel Thrift (Warwick University), and his colleagues such as J.D. Dewsbury (University of Bristol) and Derek McCormack (University of Oxford), and later by their respective graduate students. It challenges those using social theory and conducting geographical research to 'go beyond representation' and focus on embodied experience. Thus, Dewsbury describes practices of 'witnessing' that produce 'knowledge without contemplation'. Non-representational theory is a theory developed in human geography, largely through the work of Nigel Thrift (Warwick University), and his colleagues such as J.D. Dewsbury (University of Bristol) and Derek McCormack (University of Oxford), and later by their respective graduate students. It challenges those using social theory and conducting geographical research to 'go beyond representation' and focus on embodied experience. Thus, Dewsbury describes practices of 'witnessing' that produce 'knowledge without contemplation'. Instead of studying and representing social relationships, non-representational theory focuses upon practices – how human and nonhuman formations are enacted or performed – not simply on what is produced. 'First, it valorizes those processes that operate before … conscious, reflective thought … second, it insists on the necessity of not prioritizing representations as the primary epistemological vehicles through which knowledge is extracted from the world'. Recent studies have examined a wide range of activities including dance, musical performance, walking, gardening, rave, listening to music and children's play. This is a post-structuralist theory inspired in part by the ideas of thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Bruno Latour and Michel Serres, and by phenomenonologists such as Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. More recently it considers views from political science (including ideas about radical democracy) and anthropological discussions of the material dimensions of human life. It parallels the conception of 'hybrid geographies' developed by Sarah Whatmore. Critics have suggested that Thrift's use of the term 'non-representational theory' is problematic, and that other non-representational theories could be developed. Richard G. Smith said that Baudrillard's work could be considered a 'non-representational theory', for example, which has fostered some debate. In 2005, Hayden Lorimer (Glasgow University) said that the term 'more-than-representational' was preferable.