Written with Dr Leonard’s radio show “The Human Experience:

Perspectives in Anthropology” in mind.

Space is all around us. Space is a phantasmic orb neither real nor imagined that protects us from and reveals us to those around us. We each feel we have the right to exist in a certain space at all times that is generally free and uncontested by other earthlings. Sometimes that space is shared directly with others and contact is inevitable. At other times we are aware of our solitude in a vast open area that could accommodate hundreds of us. All space is in constant flux depending upon the situation: Our surroundings and the immediate mood contribute to the communicative loop that is the sending and receiving of information by ways of non-verbal transmission. It shrinks and expands whether we are in the company of strangers or friends, whether we are in our homes or in the public sphere, and it is instrumental to our understanding of the minds of those around us. Few of us are taught about these constructions that are as individualized as to reflect personal tastes while at the same time broad enough to be elaborations of culture. Yet we all seem somehow to understand the language of space.

On a city bus for instance, there are close personal and social distances that each of us make use of in order to defend our territories. The bus itself is a social space which exists in a public space. That is, the bus provides social space for human contact and defense where we encounter people that we have never seen before as well as people that we see everyday. The bus itself, its driver, and the riders are all in public space and our use of any particular space is an engagement with other vehicles on the street, with other routes in the city, and with other cities in the country. Sometimes it is without contention that we communicate with others about the personal space that we occupy. Other times the communication fails and auto accidents occur, arguments ensue, or world wars are fought.

Personal as well as cultural communication occurs as each of us exist in space. Arabs have a different concept of close personal space than Americans. Children different than adults. Lovers express their inner feelings when they are together in different ways than do uneasy strangers alone in an elevator. What is your role in the dialogue of proxemics, the study of space? Do you clear your throat or purposely scuff your shoe if you are approaching someone from behind? If you were a blind person for instance, how might you perceive space at any given time? While riding your bicycle on a busy street, are you comfortable with your position in space? How do you interpret the distribution of power through the seating arrangement in a business meeting? How did the space in the back of the bus communicate social dynamics in Alabama in1955?

Space is a language. Each of us have the ability to analyze the various ways that the organization of space identifies individuals and each of us can have a greater awareness of unique behaviors through the study of proximity. If each of us were to more clearly picture space as a form that communicates vast pieces of information about the world, perhaps spaces in this world might not be as contentious as they often are.