Richard Howitt (School of Earth Sciences, Macquarie University~Sydney, NSW 2109)

(A revised version of this paper was published in Area vol 30(1): 49-58, 1998)

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The concept of geographical scale, despite being one of geography’s foundational concepts, has been under-theorised compared to other core concepts such as environment, space and place. Two aspects of the concept of geographical scale (size and level) are relatively well-recognised. A third aspect (scale as relation), is not. In this exploratory paper, the implications of the metaphors conventionally used to think and write about scale are considered, and some musical metaphors of geographical scale are used to sketch out the importance of scale as a relation.

The rise of postmodernism in the social sciences has drawn critical attention to the importance of metaphor in representing, analysing and interpreting social and material realities. In particular we have seen wide adoption and adaptation of spatial metaphors beyond the discipline of geography. Despite its importance, for example in influential metaphors of globalisation, geographical scale has remained under-theorised. Since the late-1980s, there have been consistent calls to better theorise scale (e.g. Smith 1988; Herod 1991; Jonas1994), and scale is certainly on the agenda for discussion (e.g the recent special issue of Political Geography, see Delaney and Leitner 1997; Agnew 1997; Leitner 1997; Herod 1997; Miller 1997; Brenner 1997). This exploratory paper considers how employing new metaphors of geographical scale might lead to new insights into the nature of geographical scale, and its utility as an analytical and conceptual tool in constructing applied peoples' geography (Harvey 1984; Howitt 1993a). Specifically, the paper considers some musical metaphors of geographical scale in order to throw some light on a facet of scale which remains undeveloped in discussions of scale - its constitution not just as a matter of size and level, but also as a relation. Musical scales provide a useful metaphor for understanding the ways in which geographical scale involves complex relations between elements of complex and dynamic geographical totalities.

Metaphors shape the way we think about and interact with both the material world and the world of ideas. If we consider the way in which key new metaphors (or new uses of existing metaphors) shape the way we think, speak and teach about aspects of complex and dynamic geographies, we can glimpse the power of metaphor to illuminate the issues with which we work. Consider, for example, how Doreen Massey's brilliant ‘layers of investment’ metaphor (e.g. Massey 1984: 118) has influenced the way geographers think, speak and teach about historical transformation of industrial localities; or the way in which the musical metaphor of 'polyphony' (e.g. McDowell 1994, inter alia) has changed how geographers and others deal with issues of representation, difference and diversity.

At some level, all writing, indeed all thinking, relies on metaphors and abstractions to communicate (Ollman 1993). Our representations, even of simple things, can never be the thing itself. When it comes to our representations of complex things - dynamic, multifaceted, complex geographical totalities, for example - our reliance on metaphor to establish, clarify and analyse connections, comparisons and meaning is even greater. It seems, however, that it is easy to lose sight of the metaphorical element in some representations.

The increased importance of spatial metaphors in the social sciences has been noted by several observers (e.g. Soja 1989; Barnes and Duncan 1992; Massey 1993; Smith and Katz 1993; Demeritt 1994; Price-Chalita 1994; Gibson-Graham 1995; Silber 1995). Despite this, we rarely find thorough deconstruction of these metaphors, or careful exploration of the genealogies of the terms used, or the content of the concepts involved. We also find some confusion between abstractions and metaphors in ways which, as Jonas observes, conflate the application of analytical abstractions and metaphorical generalisations (Jonas 1994). In geography, of course, spatial metaphors have long been naturalised as invisible 'master metaphors':

The naturalisation of metaphors leads to them all but losing their metaphorical value. Metaphors such as 'system', 'market', 'machine', 'organism', 'body', 'field', 'boundary', 'text', 'centre', 'margin' and 'development', for example, have all become naturalised to the point of invisibility as metaphors. Indeed, many of the metaphorical terms used to talk about geographical scale (e.g. local, regional, national, global etc) have become naturalised as categorical givens and are no longer deliberately constructed for a specific analytical or political purpose - if indeed they ever were (Howitt 1993b). They have lost their identity as analytical abstractions and have come to be seen as things in themselves to be dealt with categorically.

Our ability to ‘see’, and consequently our ability to analyse the ways in which such naturalised terms are themselves constructed socially and subsequently constrain and construct knowledge, is increasingly restricted. The subtle shift from metaphorical generalisations or abstractions to unthinking applications of naturalised scale labels, disguises a shift to a rather naive and simplistic objectivism, even in those parts of the discipline ostensibly committed to a more 'cultural' or 'humanistic' turn.

If we take Harvey’s notion of an applied peoples' geography (1984) as a reference point for evaluating geographers’ efforts to understand and intervene in the world, the categories and concepts we use to describe, analyse and affect material, social and cultural realities should be empowering and provide a basis for social action. Following Ollman’s suggestion, that we should refuse to "take the boundaries that organise our world as given and natural" (Ollman 1993: 38), an applied peoples’ geography would aim construct concepts and abstractions which cast new light on the relationships and processes that produce unjust, unsustainable, and inequitable realities in which diversity and difference are subsumed by privileged discourses of power and meaning (e.g. Howitt 1995; also Rushdie 1991; Morrison 1992). In this task, challenging dominant metaphors and exploring new ones is an important part of geographers’ conceptual toolkits. Doing this in relation to the currently rather chaotic concept of scale is long overdue. It is to be hoped that such work might help to unsettle the currently dominant binaries and master narratives that constrain the way in which geographical ‘problems’ are understood, and may open up new spaces for understanding and action. In terms of the agenda implied in Harvey’s manifesto for the discipline, there is an urgent need for an empowering spatialised politics of scale in the context of globalisation in all its diverse forms.

Music has previously been alluded to a source of metaphor for work on geographical scale (eg Bird’s use of ‘scale modulation’, 1993: 42). The serendipitous homonym for both geographical and musical scales provides a starting point, but there is, as yet, no thorough discussion of how musical metaphors might provide new insights into geographical scale.

Scale has played a pivotal role in the development of geography as an academic discipline, and it is appropriate to consider it as one of geography’s foundational concepts. Harvey (1996: 7) identifies space, time and nature as foundational concepts, but acknowledges (e.g. 1996: 41) that spatial scale has been a source of central confusion for the discipline of geography. Horvath, in contrast, suggests environment, place, space and scale (Horvath 1996). While the completeness of this list might be debated, it provides a useful reference point for discussing how the discipline has dealt with scale. Following Horvath, we could characterise the emergence of descriptive regional geography as a shift from emphasis on 'environment' to an emphasis on 'place', and the subsequent positivist quantitative revolution as a shift in emphasis from 'place' and 'space'. To some extent, elements of the Marxist, relevance, cultural and environmental turns in the discipline in the 1970s and 1980s could be seen as efforts to re-emphasise 'place' and 'environment'. What is notable in this reading of the development of geography is that 'scale' is treated as a derivative or implicit element in the discipline's intellectual trajectory. In this we can see at work what might be labelled a ‘handmaiden’ theory of scale. Scale is seen not as an independent concept in its own right, but as limited to playing a role as handmaiden to the more important concepts of place, space and environment.

In terms of complex and dynamic geographical totalities, however, it is the interaction of environment, space and place (and scale) that is fundamental in creating the geographies we study. This ‘handmaiden’ theory of scale risks misunderstanding not only scale, but also the relationships between the nature of geographical totalities and the core concepts we use to understand, examine and respond to them. Because these relationships involve dialectical linkages, none of the 'core' concepts can reasonably be understood as a handmaiden in the sense of being inferior to the others, because each is a handmaiden of the others - each is necessarily implied within the others. Without place, scale and environment, we risk reducing space to the rather sterile metaphor of mathematical relations of distance; without space, scale and environment, place risks becoming an idealised notion which misses many key material facets of 'real world' geographies.

In arguing that scale is a foundational concept for geography, I am not suggesting it should be given either conceptual primacy or conceptual independence. Rather, I seek to assert the importance of scale in a web of relationships between dialectically intertwined foundational concepts of co-equal importance. And I further want to suggest that thinking about scale itself as more than just 'size' and 'level', will help lead us towards useful insights into both the nature of scale and the specifics of its role(s) in this web of relationships.

In this brief discussion of scale as having aspects of size, level and relation, only the latter will be considered in depth.

Dealing with scale as an analogue of size has been one of the principal metaphors used in dealing with geographical scale. The genealogy of this approach is outlined by Haggett (1965: e.g. 263-265). While this approach has proved productive in tackling issues of description, representation and analysis, it risks a reductionist problem when the metaphorical element and partial nature of size as an analogue of scale is naturalised. The summary table (Table 1), for example, provides a useful reminder of the powerful influence of reductionist metaphors such as map scale, which reduce geographical scale to an issue of size and a hierarchy of size-specific labels.

Previous approaches to scale have also emphasised scale as level. This has often referred to a level of complexity, or more simply to a level in a hierarchy. One of the more interesting recent efforts to deal with scale as level, is in Edwards' recent paper on environmental security (Edwards 1996), which explores a geometric metaphor of scale using pyramids in which a multi-faceted web of relations between various systems of security - military systems, economic systems, political systems, societal systems and environmental systems - constructs a distinct set of issues, processes and relationships, which Edwards represents as a pyramid, at specific scales. While this geometric metaphor does provide valuable insights into the relationship(s) between environmental security and other aspects of security at various scales, the reliance on an implicit nested hierarchy ultimately restricts the efficacy of the metaphor, in which inter-scalar links are difficult to represent or analyse, and in which the ‘individual’ scale nesting beneath the last of the Russian doll-style pyramids is an inadequate representation of the multiple individuals who in fact provide a source for developing these systems. Reliance on such nested hierarchies to represent the complexity of inter-scalar relations has been considered elsewhere and does not need to be revisited here (e.g. Howitt 1993b: 38-39).

Building on the assertion (Howitt 1993b: 38) that scale is better understood dialectically rather than hierarchically, it is argued here that, in addition to aspects of size and level, we should think of geographical scale as also having an important facet of relation. While this paper explores musical metaphors to illustrate this point, let me first spell out what is meant in more conventional terms.

When we talk about the 'national' as a geographical scale, it is clear that there is no simple or necessary correspondence between the scale label and elements of either size or level of the geographical totality being referred to. In terms of spatial size, for example, both Singapore and Russia collect and report information at the 'national' scale. For the entire 20th century, Hong Kong has been a 'national' scale space - yet it has now disappeared into the territory of the Chinese national space. In addition to the issue of spatial size, other aspects of size (eg population, economic production, military expenditure etc) also need to be acknowledged. So, despite the efforts of some to quantify scale in terms of relatively simple issues of size, there is clearly something else going on. Although the conventional use of such a label is more likely to be used to emphasis scale as level, rather than scale as size, the 'national scale' can also be seen to encompass a wide range of organisational arrangements - unitary states, federal states, republics, monarchies, authoritarian governments, democracies and so on. So, clearly, there is no simple or necessary correspondence between the metaphorical label ‘national’ and level, any more than there was in relation to size. So, when we refer to issues involving the 'national scale' - what is being implied?

By thinking about aspects of scale as relation, we may begin to fill in some of the gaps left by a too narrow focus on size and level as metaphorical facets of scale. Clearly, when dealing with complex national geographies (geographical totalities analysed at a national scale), we need to consider a number of relations between geopolitics, territory, structure, culture, history, economy, environment, society and so on. Explaining just what makes the term 'national' an appropriate scale label in a particular circumstance, therefore, requires us to address precisely these relations. That is, it is these relational, dialectical webs that make the word 'national' a sensible metaphorical label for examining certain sorts of geographical totalities. In post-Cold War Europe, for example, the label ‘national’ has intruded to unsettle many aspects of the hegemony of nation states as the locus of ‘national’ issues.

I became interested in exploring musical metaphors for geographical issues when I began to recognise the powerful links between particular musics and particular places (or at least particular musical cultures that we so often closely linked to particular places). In terms of scales, for example, one can hear an Indian, Javanese or Arabic scale, even played on a western keyboard, and recognise its origins. Not only is there the serendipitous homonym for both musical and geographical scales, but there is also parallel between what I have come to think of as geographical totalities and musical totalities. In music, analytically discrete elements such as scale, tempo, timbre, rhythm, pitch, melody and harmony construct musical totalities that are greater than the sum of their component parts, in much the same way as I suggested earlier the foundational conceptual elements of environment, space, place and scale underpin geographical totalities that are greater than the sum of these component parts. Some of these parallels can be seen in the history of relations between music, science, nature and cosmological order (e.g. James 1994).

So, what is it about musical scale that might lead us to a better understanding of 'scale as relation' in our discipline? First, let us consider what a scale is in music. Fundamentally, it is a sequence of tones in a specified relationship to each other. The term is derived from the Latin scala (=ladder). In Greek, the preferred term is dromo (=road). Regardless of the starting point (in terms of pitch), a musical scale provides a predictable sequence of notes. In composing a musical totality, a composer or performer can use a specified scale to limit the range of tones to be included in a composition. A scale by itself, however, does not constitute what a layperson (a non-musicologist) would understand as a composition or musical totality. Rather, it is one of the blocks from which musical totalities, whether composition or performance, can be built. Composers and performers draw on skills in many other areas to build musical totalities. But, and this can be seen from the effort that many performers put into mastering their scales, facility with scales is fundamental to realisation of musical vision - the enabling of one’s musical imagination.

Since about 1600 the most prominent scales in mainstream western musical traditions have been diatonic scales (containing two halftone steps in an octave). For example, in a major scale, the sequence goes:

In the case of the major scale starting at the note C, this produces the following sequence:

Of course, a whole range of other relationships (other scales) can be constructed - some more 'musical' (useful) than others; and some meaning more within some specific musical tradition than others. Medieval Church music, for example, used a system of modes (arbitrarily, but interestingly, named after territorial entities from Ancient Greece) which developed as the foundation of the musical scales which provide the foundations of diatonic tonal music (Karolyi 1965: 39-41). For example, the Dorian mode was produced by starting the sequence of notes used in a C-major scale at D rather than C. That is, the same elements were used, but assembled in a different relationship to produce a different scale:

In contrast to the familiar 8 tone diatonic scales of western musical traditions, Asian traditions often rely on a pentatonic or five tone arrangement (equivalent to the black keys on a piano). Arabic music is characterised by a seventeen tone scale. Indian classical traditions are dominated by scales whose sequence of notes are linked to specific moods, times of the day and ceremonial functions. In the blues a blend of major scale harmonies and modified minor scale melodies (using the ‘blue’ notes of the root scale) is common. In the first half of the twentieth century, 'classical' tonal music was challenged by many composers. The 'breakdown of traditional tonality' (Salzman 1967: 7), a shift away from diatonic tonality, can be seen in the music of Debussy, Schoenberg, Stavinsky and others. The adoption of 'twelve-tone' and 'whole tone' scales signalled a shift from an approach in which the tonal centre becomes the 'global' reference point for framing the resolution of a composition, towards manipulation of simultaneous tonalities, and a more local contextualisation of sounds within a composition. In the case of Stravinsky, for example, Salzman suggests that:

At the time, the radical shifts in tonality, the rethinking of how scale relationships within a composition might be constructed were seen by musical conservatives as pushing the boundaries of musicality:

The censorious response to the innovations of twentieth century composers has been repeated many times in the political history of music. Indeed, in many times and places, certain scales, instruments, compositions and styles have been outlawed as threats to social order (ie threats to patterns of privilege and injustice). The profane Dorian mode was outlawed by Church authorities in medieval Europe, and popular cultural expressions criminalised. In the process, many popular tunes were reconfigured in standardised scales. During English colonisation of Ireland, the Irish bagpipe was banned, as was the bouzouki and baglama and rembetika music in Greece earlier this century. During the reign of the Colonels in Greece in the 1960s, the popular songs and tunes of Mikis Theodorakis were outlawed. Similarly, authorities in the USA have condemned various musical forms, particularly jazz and rock, in various times. It would not be difficult to draw a parallel between this privileging of certain musical traditions as sacred, authorised and desirable, and the criminalising of others, and the hegemonic dominance and authorisation of certain approaches to geographical analyses (eg the hegemony of positivist analyses in the late 1960s, or certain sorts of Marxism in economic geography in the 1970s, or the current hegemony of globalisation in various discourses). In many ways, hegemonic forces have sought to authorise limits on the range of expression of both the musical and the geographical imaginations.

In most musical forms, it is rare to find a single tonal centre used throughout a composition without alteration. Composers manipulate both scale (the relationship between notes) and key (the specific notes included in a particular scale). Melodies might emphasise notes that are outside the root scale of a composition - as in the use of blue notes in blues, jazz and rock; or the use of complex bends and glissandos in Indian classical music. It is also common to find use of a harmonic sequence, or development of scales related to the original tonality (scale and key). For example, a composition might ‘modulate’ the keys and scales it uses between a small number of related structures. For example, a composition might modulate between a major scale and its relative minor scale (e.g. between C-major and A-minor), retaining almost all the same notes, but changing the focal point of the music to a new tonic note (from C to A):

Alternatively, a composition may maintain the scale relationship (eg a diatonic major) but modulate the key to its relative fifth (a major scale built on the fifth of the tonic in the original scale). For example, a composition in C-major may modulate to G-major, producing a change in the tonal focus (from the note C as tonic, to the note of G as tonic), while changing only one tone within the scale (F natural to F sharp):

In terms of thinking about geographical scale, we can begin to see something very interesting here. In the major scale in the key of C, we find the following notes: C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C’. The same notes are to be found in the descending melodic minor scale in the key of A-minor: A'-G-F-E-D-C-B-A and most of them are also in the major scale in the key of G: G-A-B-C-D-E-F^#-G’. In these new scales, however, the role played by any particular note in the sequence - its relationship to the starting point, or tonic note - is quite different to its role in the original scale sequence. In other words, the change of scale has not changed the nature of the notes (their tonality), but has instead changed the relationships between them - it has changed the relationship between the elements being brought together into a musical totality.

If we shift back to the geographical totalities, the musical metaphor allows us to see that in a geographical totality, many elements will remain consistent in a geographical analysis that spans across different geographical scales. What changes in such analysis is not the elements themselves (the features on a landscape, the sites involved in a production process, the ecological processes affecting a social formation; the cultural practices performed by people), but the relationships that we perceive between them and the ways that we might emphasise specific elements for analytical attention. What we emphasise at one scale may not be what we emphasise at another. For example, I have been involved at various time in researching various aspects of aluminium production and its implications at various scales (see e.g. Howitt 1992, 1993a, 1993b, 1993c, 1994, 1995; Howitt and Crough 1996):

• Aboriginal rights and interests in resources of the Weipa area (local scale)
• the economic and social geography of the Weipa locality (local scale)
• the corporate strategies and cultures of Comalco/CRA/RTZ and their investments in various parts of Australia (regional and national scales) and the world (international scale)
• the Australian aluminium industry (national scale)
• the international aluminium industry (global scale)

In each of these studies, the Comalco Ltd bauxite mine at Weipa on the west coast of Australia’s Cape York Peninsula is an important element. Its relationship to the particular totality under examination in each case is quite different, in a way which is similar to the way in which we might find a C note in several scales, playing quite different roles in the musical totality even though neither the C note nor the Weipa mine changes as a material phenomenon in these different scale contexts. In other words, what is ‘significant’ about the Weipa mine depends on the scale context in which it is placed - it has a different significance if one is considering its role in producing social, cultural and environmental change within the Weipa locality, than if one is considering its role within the corporate strategies of CRA-RTZ Ltd, or the international geopolitics of either bauxite or aluminium production. None of the possible representations of this mine in these various scale contexts can be treated as more ‘real’ than the others. In terms of the criteria established by an applied peoples’ geography approach, the strategic demands of working towards Aboriginal empowerment at Weipa, it may be (and indeed has been) necessary to undertake analyses at all these scales simultaneously, and to consider the strategic implications of findings about relations and processes at each scale of analysis for Aboriginal rights and priorities at Weipa. It would certainly be inappropriate to assert an automatic primacy of one scale of analysis (e.g. local impacts or globalised production issues). The geographical imagination would be unnecessarily fettered by such action.

Adopting a musical metaphor to consider how these various sorts of and scales of analysis might intersect and inform each other facilitates a shift in understanding of scale from an (over-) emphasis on scale as size and/or scale as level, to include aspects of scale as relation. This allows us to consider not just the sorts of connections (relations) that help to constitute particular geographical scales, but also to begin to see geographical scale as what Bertell Ollman calls a 'big-R' Relation - a factor in itself, a structure, system or unit which can be abstracted from geographical totalities as having some relatively autonomous (though never independent) causal efficacy (Ollman 1976). In other words, this approach may provide a way for us to better talk about why scale is a co-equal concept with better theorised notions such as environment, place and space.

Recognising scale as a Relation - a factor in the construction and dynamics of geographical totalities - rather than simply itself a product of geographical relations ( a handmaiden to ‘real’ causal factors) or as simply a matter of size and level, is a first step to recognising how geographical analysis which is more scale-literate might provide more powerful insights into the nature and dynamic of complex geographical totalities, and a stronger foundation for delivering applied peoples’ geography.

Jonas’ insight confirms that reduction of complex geography to a single dimension such as space is inadequate. In the real world of geopolitics (at all geographical scales) where the geographical imagination makes it possible to envision more just, equitable, sustainable and diverse futures, scale is a foundational element. It is not an element of geographical totalities to be derived from concepts such as space, time, environment (or nature), or place, but is a co-equal (co-dependent) concept at the root of the geographical imagination. In fact, we can find many real world examples of the scale politics of spatiality, where governments, corporations and non-government organisations simultaneously construct different identities at different scales using precisely the same elements (note the parallel here with the musical example of a major scale and its relative minor). In Australia, for example, transnational corporations such as BHP, Arnotts, Holden and Comalco have all represented themselves as having a 'local' (i.e. national) identity, at the same time as constructing a powerful 'global' identity from the same corporate elements in order to secure global funds, markets, expertise and resources.

In terms of applied peoples' geographies, re-visioning (and subsequently revising) the nature and role of geographical scale in this way provides a way of rethinking the relationship between geographical research and social action. In the context of increased policy emphasis on the global arena as the location of opportunity, accountability and pressure, social action at scales other than the global risk being misunderstood or marginalised. A better understanding of the politics of scale (including a better understanding of the political implications of scale as relation), provides one way of framing more effective strategic responses to ostensibly ‘global’ pressures. It seems increasingly clear that applied peoples’ geography must urgently tackle the crucial questions of how to act at multiple scales simultaneously; how to think globally and act locally at the same time as thinking locally and acting globally (and at other scales simultaneously).

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