%0 Generic
%A Griffiths, Sam
%A Quick, Tom
%C Amsterdam, The Netherlands
%D 2005
%E Van Nes, Akkelies
%F discovery:10163496
%I Techne Press
%P 447-458
%T How the individual, society and space become structurally coupled over time
%U https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10163496/
%V 2
%X How are we to understand the ambiguous nature of a space: the simultaneous possibility of standing still, moving around it or moving through it? To answer this question  requires ‘seeing’ the configuration through the eyes of the human subject. Taking the phenomenological formulation of the subjective ‘lifeworld’ and bringing to it our knowledge of  spatial properties identified by space syntax techniques, it becomes possible to conceive of  an individual’s interpretative horizon as possessing an identifiable morphology, developed  historically through situated social practices, which brings forth reality for the embodied  subject.  Space syntax theory rejects the man-environment paradigm, positing instead an emergent socio-spatial configuration that generates the co-presence and movement necessary  for social existence. However, the question of precisely how the human subject engages in  re-embodying the spatial configuration remains opaque. One reason for this is the absence  of a clear understanding of what it is meant by ‘embodiment’ in space. Consequently, the  generative, ‘bottom-up’ nature of the spatial configuration appears absent from analyses  more concerned with its top-down functioning. In effect this privileges the structural and  generic over the historical and contingent aspects of the space-society relation.  This paper reasserts the role of the individual actor embodied in space. We present an  empirically grounded definition of ‘embodiment’ based on information theory and structural coupling to provide a bottom-up account of the emergent congruence between space,  the individual and society.  Embodiment, so defined, implies that human subjects’ relation with their ‘environment’ is multi-faceted; that the emergence of a relational socio-spatial system consists  of agents coupling with the environment and with each other, developing relationships  through the transformation of their internal structures.
%Z This version is the version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.