Deconstructing human geography's binaries To survive in the world we simplify it. This strategy is adopted by both individuals and collectives – although the distinction between the two is blurred because one cannot exist without the other, and so even the first sentence of this introductory chapter involves binary thinking! Our simplifications do not have to be binary, of course: binary divisions are a particular case of the wider activity of classification and categorization. But using too many categories denies the goal of simplification