Writing history - Writing geography. On the relationship between time and space in history and geography

In philosophy and the social sciences, space and time are often regarded as the two basic categories of human insight. They are not primarily relevant as objective patterns of "chronology" and "chorology" but as social constructions. In this respect the historical and geographical imaginations of society can be seen as discourses which shape the dominant narratives of space and time. In the course of the "spatial turn" within cultural studies, spatial representations and imaginations have played a growing role in understanding the structure and differentiation of society. In the way that Modernity was the period in which historical conceptions dominated social and cultural theories as a kind of meta-narrative, social scientists are now beginning to examine concepts of space, spatiality and the geographical imagination more seriously. This development is relevant not only with regard to scientific concepts but also to new modes of politicizing space and place in order to reinforce key concepts such as diversity, difference and coexistence in a Post-Modern society.