This paper provides a discussion of Massey's (1999) account of the role
of space-time in human and physical geography. Recognizing the relative
(but not absolute) paucity of comment from physical geographers on
questions of approach and method, the paper seeks to demonstrate three
things. First, it casts a history of a narrow part of geomorphology in
a similar vein to a part of human geography to demonstrate that it is
possible to find strong shared characteristics in the ways in which the
two subjects are being approached. This emphasizes the importance of
analyses that recognize both space and time in seeking explanation in
physical geography and which has important implications for: (i) the
nature of laws and processes in geomorphology; and hence (ii) the
interpretation of specific landforms and their histories. Second, the
paper argues that much of what Massey addresses relates to the closure
required to make things amenable to study, something that is
characteristic of almost every type of research. This has long been
acknowledged in science in general and in physical geography in
particular, but is often forgotten. Third, the paper uses this
consideration of closure to address the issue of the relational nature
of different sorts of space-time models. Following Massey's argument
that the sort of space-time model that we adopt needs to be informed by
the entities that we study, the paper concludes that some of the
space-time models that Massey critiques (e.g. classical Newtonian
mechanics) may still be fundamental to what we do, and in no sense
necessarily ahistorical.