Torsten Hägerstrand and Christiaan van Paassen's Neighbourly Path, Project and Diorama

Abstract

This paper examines the influence of Christiaan van Paassen's (1917–1996) thinking on the development of time geography. It does so by examining van Paassen's and Torsten Hägerstrand's intertwined lives and friendship through a time-geographic lens. By understanding their neighbourly path through time–space, their shared project to develop a modern geographical discipline becomes visible. Their shared diorama refers to van Paassen's insistence, adopted by Hägerstrand, that such a project would need to be premised on existentialist principles that accommodate meaning-making and context.