Theorise!

While ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ are ordinarily opposed, causing unnecessary confusion and considerable trouble, the imperative Theorise! ruins this opposition in advance. Theorise! It must be done . The chapter works through this ruination wrought by the exercise of a theoretical practice and challenges many misconceptions that have accompanied both theory and practice in cultural geography. The most pernicious of these misconceptions is not the well-known theory-ladenness of everything from experience and observation to understanding and explanation, but rather the erroneous assumption that theory aspires to take us out of this world and from its feigned position of otherworldliness seeks to police thinking and legislate practice with its abstract concepts and baggy ideas. Theory does not dictate from on high. By grounding theory in the fabric of the world, as a theoretical practice, we return to the original sense of ‘theory’ as enacted by the ancient Greeks: as an exercise of ‘sight-seeing’ at work in the world. Not the sight-seeing of a passive spectator but the sight-seeing of an engaged transformer. Theorise! is not an invitation to look and reflect. It is an imperative to intervene and elaborate. Some might find this all rather threatening: Theorise, or else! But the die is always already cast: Theorise, it must be done!