Naming and Claiming Discourse

This is a paper about concepts, classification and the ordering of knowledge. Conceptualising the world consists of labelling knowledge by another name — we employ suitable concepts using our worldly experiences and knowledges. Withers (1996: 275) claims that “classification is intrinsic to knowledge”, hence, “we label knowledge as an inevitable consequence of ordering the world”. the relationship between concepts and categories and the world is thus dialectical — concepts and categories “are contexts and subjects of geographical experiences” (Relph 1985: 21). Therefore, there is a need to always “be sensitive to the reciprocal relationships between geographical ‘texts’ and the epistemological contexts of their production and use” (Withers 1996: 275). Consequently, the dialectics of language (i.e. its concepts and classifications) and their relationship to the world provide meaning and direction to the world. Even more importantly, dialectics of language annex the world.