Can space teach? : theorising pedagogies of social order

Space, and it various permutations, affects bodies but to what extent does it teach? This paper explores the pedagogic dimensions of space. Engaging critically with phenomenological accounts of body/space relations, it examines how certain aspects of space - what here are termed non-human didactics - equip the body with skills that have application in terms of a broad notion of social order requisite for cohabitation and the sharing of social space. As Theodore Schatzki (2002, 1) points out, 'Order is a basic dimension of any domain of entities'. He foregrounds the notion of Zusammenhang or 'hanging together' as a crucial element of social life. Such 'hanging together', however, does not just happen; it involves individuals acquiring certain ways of being, to navigate social space and to operate as part of a larger whole. Importantly, this process of acquisition is not just a matter of learning, it also involves teaching but understood in broad terms as pertaining to the many ways in which, as Raymond Williams (1966, 15) explains, 'the whole environment, its institutions and relationships, actively and profoundly teaches'. This paper explores these processes. It focuses on the neglect of pedagogy within theorisations of space and draws on examples from within the institutional space of the school to exemplify their role in the spatial formation of social order.