Undoing metaphysics: the spatial metaphor debate revisited

The spatial turn that was observed towards the end of the last century was accompanied by a controversy surrounding the use or abuse of spatial language in, for example, the proliferation of spatial metaphors (‘subject position’, ‘cognitive mapping’, ‘displacement’). This controversy can with hindsight be seen as one skirmish within a wider disagreement between dialectical and deconstructive orientations. In the present paper I revisit the spatial metaphor debate to consider what it tells us about the relationship between dialectics and deconstruction, and about their intersection in the recent history of social science. I begin by reviewing the roots of the debate, and by arguing that these roots can be traced back to the philosophies of Hegel and Nietzsche. I then describe the contours of the debate, and its evolution through positions that were set out by its main protagonists (Foucault, Lefebvre, Smith, Rose). The writings of Derrida have been decisive for the development of contemporary deconstructionism, and they provide a sophisticated commentary on the concept of metaphor. These writings were, however, ignored during the spatial metaphor debate, and so the paper concludes by sketching a Derridean supplement to this debate.