POSTMODERNISM AND THE LOCALITIES DEBATE - ONTOLOGICAL QUESTIONS AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

The full epistemological implications of recent postmodernist discourses in geography can only be appreciated through their integration with the parallel, but hitherto largely separate, debate regarding localities. In accepting the postmodernist distrust of universal metanarratives, this paper argues that there can be no general form of explanation in social science, only geographically unique descriptions. Rejecting the claims of critics such as David Harvey or psuedo-postmodernists such as Ed Soja, this paper offers four criteria for a truly postmodern geography: complexity, contextuality, contingency, and criticality. The argument is then advanced that places are critical not only to what we know about the world, but how we know it as well, i.e., from a postmodernist perspective, all knowledge is locally specific.