Looking through Hägerstrand’s dual vistas: towards a unifying framework for time geography

The publication of Hägerstrand’s seminal paper on the conceptual framework of classic time geography in 1970 has inspired a steady stream of research in multiple fields related to transportation, planning, geography, ecology, environmental science, and public health. Just like most other scholarly work, Hägerstrand’s time geography has also received its fair share of criticism from scholars of different philosophical persuasions. In response to these criticisms, Torsten Hägerstrand himself made significant efforts to extend his original framework on time geography to move beyond paths, constraints, prisms, and projects during the last 30 years of his life. Yet these diverse later efforts by Hägerstrand are still scattered in the literature and have not exerted as much influence on time geography research as Hägerstrand’s (1970) original paper. The goal of this paper is to take stock of the major extensions Hägerstrand made for time geography between 1970 and 2004. By linking Hägerstrand’s shifting views on time geography to the ancient Greek conceptualization of space and time, a unifying framework based upon the Greek manifolds of space and time is proposed for time geography. The new framework not only restores the multiple dimensions of time geography as Hägerstrand envisioned later in his life, but also links the diverse ongoing time geography research efforts to themes derived from the framework. Future research challenges in time geography are also discussed.

► This paper reassesses Hägerstrand’s view on space and time.
► A unifying framework for time geography is proposed.
► Future research directions for time geography are discussed.