Rose (in R. Johnston et al., eds 2000) writes that hybrids ‘transgress and displace boundaries between binary divisions and in so doing produce something ontologically new’, a notion picked up by Kwan (2004, AAAG 94, 4) who recognizes two major divisions within geography: the partition between physical and human geography—of nature and society; and the separation of spatial-analytical geographies which attempt to create ‘a mode of disembodied geographical analysis’ from social, cultural, and political geographies. Kwan suggests that geographies based on thematic networks would ameliorate ‘the polarizing tendency within the discipline’.

S. Whatmore (2002) agrees, arguing that ‘it is both more interesting and more pressing to engage in a politics of hybridity…in which the stakes are thoroughly and promiscuously distributed through the messy attachments, skills and intensities of differently embodied lives whose everyday conduct exceeds and perverts the designs of parliament, corporations and labour’. Sui and DeLyser PHG 36, 1, 111 provide a progress report on this topic.