5. Time±Space, Dynamic Cartographic
Visualization, and the Humanist Challenge One of the issues that hinders broad application of time±space perspectives in the social and behavioral
sciences is the difficulty inherent in representing the underlying complexity in the human organization of space through time. This is both an issue regarding the nature of the tools at the disposal of researchers and of how questions in empirical research are linked within alternative theoretical frameworks. The integration of space-time analyses and modeling within the frameworks of dynamic mapping, cartographic visualization, and Geographic Information Systems (see Dynamic Mapping in Geography; Geographic Information Systems: Critical Approaches) holds promise that research tools ®nally are catching up with needs of social and behavioral scientists for assessing alternative theoretical constructs. The transfer of these technologies to the interactive realm of the Internet
offers the potential for incorporating simultaneous representation of processes through space and time. Both real-time and simulated processes are possible. Driving the interest in such developments are the
needs for planners, policy makers, and scholars to understand the dynamic time±space transformations that are occurring among places and regions as a consequence of continuing advances in information and communication technologies. However, these transformations pose fundamental challenges to how social and behavioral scientists interpret the meaning of place in everyday life and to how they integrate these interpretations within theoretical and decisionmaking frameworks (see Place in Geography; Space and Social Theory in Geography). Do the meanings of space and the meanings of time mean anything aside from their relationship to one another as time±space? The theoretical grounding of answers to this question rest, in part, on the ability of
researchers to use the emerging tools of analytical representation in their descriptions and analyses. At the same time, answers rest fundamentally on being able to recognize humanist qualities in the nature of time±space (e.g., temporality and spatiality, as discussed in Kellerman (1989)). The humanization of time±space acknowledges its relativity to different value systems, recognizes its manifold possible metrics, and is able to relate these to human thought processes and experiences. Casting time±space in this manner draws on past formulations and opens the realm of possible investigations to include analytical time±space prediction as well as research formulations grounded in the approaches of critical science and postmodernism.