Introduction to the Forum: Revisiting Torsten Hägerstrand's Diorama, Path and Project

Abstract

In this TESG Forum, we revisit Torsten Hägerstrand's 1982 Diorama, Path and Project, a paper that significantly expanded Hägerstrand's time-geographical conceptual vocabulary in the international geographical literature. The paper was the crystallization of a process where Hägerstrand tried to bridge regional science ideas with humanistic ones. The ‘diorama’ was introduced to discuss how imaginations emerge from the togetherness of objects and memories in localized space and initially formulated to help geography overcome the disciplinary fragmentation and paradigmatic rows that had splintered geography in the 1970s. ‘Path’ is Hägerstrand's well-known concept describing people's spatial pattern of activities. Finally, the concept of ‘project’ tried to capture a broader conception of agency that was able to accommodate people's paths as the result of goal-intended and value-inspired actions. In this introductory essay, we contextualize the paper in the development of Hägerstrand's work and introduce the separate contributions to the Forum.