The problem directing Bonta’s study.

Bonta is attracted to Deleuze’s philosophy after rejecting many of the methods used by geographers to understand and analyse the complex world around us. In his collaboration with the philosopher, John Protevi, Bonta discusses and rejects three existing approaches to spatial analysis. Each of these approaches, they note, share a common focus on ‘the ideal of description and explanation’ (Bonta and Protevi, 2004: 200). Bonta and Protevi’s critique is poorly supported with examples from comparative studies undertaken in the Honduras. To rectify this shortcoming I will discuss and, where possible, illustrate these three approaches by identifying and using land-use studies undertaken in and around Bonta’s study area.

‘Molar’ analysis’.

In the first analytical approach, an area is studied in reference to one or several broad categories. There have been a number of studies undertaken over the last twenty years that might reflect this ‘molar’ approach to analysis. Such examples might include attempts to relate deforestation to factors such as foreign debt (Gullison and Losos, 1993), tenure security and the leisure preferences of local residents (Godoy et al, 1998); time spent in early, formal education (Godoy et al, 1998a); population and the Human Development Index (HDI) (Jha and Bawa, 1999); population density (Pfeffer et al, 2005); and the interaction between different types of land use (Ruf and Schroth, 2004). These examples from land-use literature help us appreciate Bonta and Protevi’s argument that,

…far too many researchers … have burdened us with the ‘molar’ rain forest, biome, life zone, frontier, town, city, campesino. These are indeed molarising – normalising – processes at work that ensure we will

56 encounter similarity and linkages wherever we go… (Bonta and Protevi,

2004: 42).

This quotation captures two criticisms against this approach to analysis. Firstly, it questions the validity of findings drawn from studies that relate one type of land use to one or several influential factors. Secondly, it suggests that these kinds of studies have negative effects on the way these spaces operate. It does this, Bonta and Protevi suggest, by fixing our understanding of entities found in these spaces and the relationships between them.

Analytical modelling.

In many ways, these problems are overcome in attempts to model a range of different factors. Rather than focus on one or several factors, these attempts consider the joint contribution of social, economic and environmental factors in changing land-use.

This modelling approach has gained a great deal of attention over the last 15 years. Many of the models related to Honduras have focused on deforestation. National Forest Monitoring and Assessment (NFMA) and the Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA), for example, both map forest types and model their changes over time (Food and Agriculture Organisation, 2010). Other integrated models, like the LUCC models have taken a broader view. These integrated models look at a combination of influential factors affecting different kinds of land use change in different parts of the world (Pauleit et al, 2005).

Despite their growing popularity, Bonta and Protevi argue that this second area of analysis is problematic for two reasons. The first concerns the impossibility of modelling the complexity seen in complex social systems,

…we are still far away from being able to model social systems successfully. The biggest problem… is (that such models are not) very useful for those committed to a realist attempt to capture features of the world rather than merely modelling phenomena. (Bonta and Protevi, 2004: 33)

57 Modelling, they suggest, typically identifies phenomenon but fails to explain how this phenomenon comes into being. This argument is supported by others working in the field of land-use planning (Nagendra et al, 2004; Monroe and Muller, 2007).

For Bonta and Protevi, the second problem with these models relates to their use in practice. For Bonta and Protevi,

The problem comes when people write about (neoliberal) economics as if they were only a matter of assumptions and models rather than prods for concerted efforts to produce a social reality conforming to the model’s assumptions (Bonta and Protevi, 2004: 199).

As with their critique of ‘molar analysis’, Bonta and Protevi believe that the models used to explain complexity fail to capture many of the subtle changes and relationships within practice. These models, they argue, become blueprints for our understanding and subsequent efforts to engage with the complex world around us.

This argument against modelling draws links to my own research agenda. In Chapter 2, I outlined attempts to model abstract concepts like the ‘sustainable home’. And like Bonta and Protevi, I questioned the idea that such ‘modelled concepts’ should be used to change the way urban and building designers understand and engage in complex spatial problems.

Thick description.

Geertz’s ‘thick descriptive’ methods have had a strong influence in ethnographic research over the last forty years (Geertz, 1973). In the region of Honduras in particular, Dean offers us a thick descriptive account of family life in Northern Honduras (Dean, 1988). More recently, Pine offers a highly descriptive account of one Honduras citizen and his movements across different spaces (Pine, 2008). For Bonta and Protevi ‘thick descriptions’ do not account for the,

…irreducibility of distributed spatiotemporal networks of embodied artisans in ‘resolving’ complex problems by real life operations…

58 For Bonta and Protevi, therefore, these three forms of analysis fail to understand and explain the complex factors operating in these spaces. Taking this further, they also fail to explain how the things we see around us came into being through ‘real life operations’ (Bonta, 2001; Bonta and Protevi, 2004).

Of course, these three approaches criticised by Bonta and Protevi are not unique to geography. Planning literature includes numerous studies that Bonta and Protevi might term ‘molar explanations’ such as the attempts made to explain changes in the economic growth of a region or country through developing ICT infrastructure (Roller and Waverman, 2001; Sridhar and Sridhar, 2007, Czernich et al, 2011). Planning literature also outlines numerous attempts to model a range of complex, inter-related factors (Batty, 1996; Batty, 2011; 2011a; 2011b) as well as efforts to understand complexity through thick description (Flyvjberg, 2001; Maginn, 2007). This suggests that Bonta and Protevi’s arguments might be used to challenge studies undertaken in other spatial disciplines. In terms of this thesis, Bonta’s critique of these methods and of molar analysis in particular, shares some of my concerns with the limited approach to assessment seen in formal, essentialist assessments like the Code for Sustainable Homes (Chapter 1).